3 | My Teacherpreneur Journey: Beyond TPT

In October 2020, I decided it was time to expand my horizons and explore the teacherpreneur world beyond TPT. Here’s a look into my journey as a course creator and service provider.

My TPT store is full of math resources and I’m very passionate about building Social Emotional Learning into math. I love fostering a positive math mindset in my littles and decided to create a course to help other teachers foster the same love of mather in their students.

But if I’m being honest, I hated creating the course.

In retrospect, I was making the course for all the wrong reasons. People said it was the thing to do. Everyone seems to be making them these days and I was just jumping on the bandwagon. When you do something for the wrong reason, it never seems to go well.

However, I’m really thankful I did it because creating the course lead me to Facebook ads and I fell in love immediately. In November 2020, after a few months of me playing with ads and helping some of my friends run ads, I accidentally got my first client. At that time, I didn’t even know you could get paid to run Facebook ads…

It truly is amazing how life takes unexpected turns and how the wrong doors (like creating a course was for me) can end up leading us to exactly where we’re meant to be.

Episode Transcript

Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. A podcast created for ambitious entrepreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money with weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers. Just like you. My goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams. Okay, before we get started, I'm really excited because I created a free quiz just for you. You can head to marketscalegrow.com/quiz to find out if Facebook ads are right for you and your business. This two-minute quiz has a couple of questions that you can answer to find out if Facebook ads or something else is the next marketing strategy that you should be implementing in your business. So head to marketscalegrow.com/quiz to find out today.

Welcome to today's episode. It is the second part of my teacherpreneur journey. We left off in episode one in about October of 2020. When I decided to put my TeachersPayTeachers store on the back-burner to expand my horizons. And I decided to focus on course creation. I had been really enjoying talking about and helping others with math and math resiliency, specifically the social-emotional learning piece that goes with math. So I decided to create a course that would help other math teachers develop resiliency in their students. And despite being a teacher and loving teaching, I did not enjoy the course creation process. Looking back, I think a big part of me not enjoying it was that I was trying to force a course into my business. I didn't let the course find me. And I think that a really important piece often is making a course that people want, not making a course and then forcing it into people's lives.

And so I did things a little bit backwards and I didn't enjoy the process at all. I was very stressed out and it kind of all came crashing down, but that's okay because as part of creating a course, I decided to try Facebook ads. I wanted to grow my email list. I'd heard that that is a really important asset in your business. And despite having been on TT since 2013, I had never created an email list. It was never on my radar. I didn't think that it would be important or valuable. And so, yeah, I just didn't have one. When I started the course creation process, I decided, okay, it's time for me to get an email list, it's time to do this properly. And so I created a lead magnet and I put it out there on Pinterest and Instagram and was doing all the things with it.

But I also decided that I wanted to put a little bit of money behind it and get some paid traffic, getting their eyes on my lead magnet. And so I started to play around with Facebook ads, which I absolutely loved, I had so much fun in those first couple of weeks, just playing with Facebook ads. And I am a self-proclaimed data nerd. I love numbers and I love spreadsheets. And so looking at the dashboard and understanding the numbers and the metrics was totally, totally my thing. And it's probably crazy. I know a lot of people's eyes just glaze over when they're looking at numbers like that, but yeah, it was enjoyable for me. And so I started talking to a couple of my teacherpreneur friends about how I'd been trying out and the big successes I'd had. And somebody was like, Hey, can you help me with them?

And so I was like, yeah, sure, no problem. So I started helping my friend and then another friend asked me to help. And then I guess the word got out that I was helping people with Facebook ads and somebody came to me and said, "Hey, can I pay you to do this? "And I was like, "I'm sorry, you want to pay me to do this? Okay." It had never really even crossed my mind that Facebook ad management was a service people provided. I kind of assumed that people just ran their own Facebook ads as I had been doing. And so that's how my service-based business kind of came to be, was completely by accident. I was loving running Facebook ads for myself and helping my friends and I jumped on the opportunity to get paid for it. So then I kind of tiptoed a little bit forward and reached out to some people, got my name out there a little bit saying, yeah, I was doing that, but I was still really shy and I was still hiding behind other pieces of my business.

I wasn't ready to let go of this math course that I had poured so much time and energy into. It had been about three or four months at this point that I've been working on that math course. And it was safe being a math teacher, it was my safety net. It's something that I've been doing for many years and that I love. And I felt very confident in versus the Facebook ad management at that point, right at the very beginning, like I said, I didn't even know that this was a thing that people did to get paid for.

So then I started to look more into it and reached out and got some mentors and dove in a little bit, I guess d would open is the wrong word. I, I tiptoed in and quietly stopped everything to do with the math course and the math piece of my business. And it was a little bit, it felt really awkward of a time for me, especially on social media. I didn't know what to post because I knew I was wrapping up that piece of my business that brought me no joy. And I was wanting to jump into this piece of my business that brought me tons of joy, but I was terrified of the judgment that I was going to get from people. And I was terrified that people were going to tell me I can't do this and that I'm overstepping my boundaries and that I should just stay being a teacher who teaches people about math because that's all I am. So it took a few weeks of almost complete silence on my Instagram and my Facebook accounts for me to build up the courage. And I changed my bio and my name and my user handle on Instagram and on Facebook. And I changed my profile picture. And then I did one post about Facebook ads. And then I did another one

And I slowly, slowly, slowly, like let it takes

Over. I was still trying to email my list about math resiliency. And I still did a soft launch to my email list of my math course. And I still was holding onto those pieces. I didn't want to let them go. Even though by this point, mid-January, I had a couple of clients on retainers. I had done some strategy calls. I had really pivoted my business except I wasn't really ready to acknowledge it. And I got on a call with a business coach. I left that call knowing that it was time to let my podcast go and that it was time to let the math course go for now. And to let that part of my business go because it wasn't bringing me joy, it was stressful. And I think that that is a huge, huge lesson for anyone who's dealing with a transition in their business.

If something isn't bringing you joy, then it's not good for you or for your business. And there's a couple of things you can do. You can hire for that piece. That's not bringing you joy and find somebody who it is their zone of genius that will find joy from it. Or you can let it go and just be at peace and let it go. And I know that if I ever want to go back to my math course and go back to that part of my business, it's still there. I didn't destroy it. I didn't delete it and erase it from the internet. It's still there, but it's kind of in hibernation right now. And I don't envision myself going back because like I've said, it just doesn't bring me joy and it's not what I want, but it's still there. And so that's a really important lesson that I learned.

And once I was able to let that part of my business go, there was so much time and energy that was freed up for me to focus on this new part of my business. And for me to really grow into being a Facebook ad strategist. So I was able to take two more courses and I was able to join a mastermind. And I was able to really lean into this piece of my business and start to help my customers and help friends who were reaching out for support. And I was just happier and I wanted to do my work again. I had noticed when I was working on the course, I'd stopped wanting to do my work and now I want to work again. It's so freeing. And so I just really encourage anyone. Who's kind of going through that transition again, to take a step back and really evaluate, and then either tiptoe like I did into it, or just dive straight in because yeah, it's definitely hard but exciting at the same time.

So that's where my business is now. I am a Facebook ad strategist and love what I do, and I love the data and I love the numbers and figuring out the marketing strategy with my clients. I can't wait to see where my business goes in the coming months and years and how it continues to grow and flourish. Yeah. So that is the second part of my journey. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget to take a screenshot and share it on Instagram so that more people can find this podcast and always tag me. I'm @heyitsjenzaa, thank you for listening to this. Week's inspiring story. If you'd like to share your story with us, then head to marketscalegrow.com/Journey and complete the quick application form then head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community. So you can join our group of inspiring teacherpreneurs who are working on growing and scaling their businesses too! See you soon.