5 Steps to Increasing Your Revenue During the Teacher Business Summer Slump

Hello CEO teachers and welcome back to the CEO teacher podcast. Whether you're listening to us on your car stereo or you're watching us on YouTube, thank you so much for being here each and every week. It is truly the greatest gift of all to know that you guys are tuning in and listening or watching. If you haven't already seen us on YouTube, you can check us out by just going to Casey Morris on YouTube. You'll be able to see some of those old videos back from years and years ago, but also every single week we're going to be uploading these videos for you. So thank you for your support there. And today we're going to talk about five steps to increasing your revenue during what we like to call the teacher business summer slump. I'll tell you a little bit about what my life used to look like during those summer months while I was still a teacher trying to make extra income on the side. And we will get into the five steps that will help you this summer increase your revenue just in time for your summer break when you're ready to start getting busy making more income as a teacher. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in today's show. Hey teachers, welcome to your home away from the classroom. Whether you are a full-time educator just getting started and thinking about the possibilities to advance past your current pay scale or you're a seasoned CEO teacher looking for extra strategies to make money online you're in the right place. No impressive tech skills or marketing experience necessary. Just the passion and desire to transform your life by doing what you love leaning into your unique teaching magic. I'm Casey Morris a former eighth grade ELA teacher myself, mom at a five teacher marketing expert and while I am the visionary behind the CEO teacher movement this amazing community is continually being built by you one beautiful dream at a time. Coming your way every Wednesday as an extra credit bonus exclusively for teachers welcome to the CEO teacher podcast. The most successful teachers looking to make extra money online all have a few things in common a solid foundation a community that supports them and a proven plan to follow. The teacher income challenge was made just for you an educational rock star who is looking to turn their passion into profit online. If you're ready to finally make your worth and go from teacher on a state pay scale to creator of your own future the teacher income challenge is for you and it starts right now. The world's only proven pathway for success made for teachers by a teacher. The tardy bell is ringing so grab your seat and head on to the front of the class by going to caseymorris.com slash challenge that's k-a-y-s-e-m-o-r-r-i-s dot com slash challenge. If I've learned anything about life lately it's been that hard work pays off. You don't have to be the smartest you just have to be the most consistent period. So that should feel really good. For me I have two brothers that have I kid you not a photographic memory. They can read something once tell you what page it was on it's remarkable. I don't have that gift and so I had to work really hard my whole life on being consistent and I am living proof that consistency will always win when it comes to anything in life from your health to your business and I hope that that's refreshing for you is that if you can make that commitment if you can find that discipline to be consistent you can have anything that your heart desires whether that's a couple of hundred dollars each month or thousands of dollars every month or millions of dollars a year it has absolutely nothing to do with how much you know right now and everything to do with how much you're willing to give in the future because if you can be consistent I can help you get there. Everything good and everything magical happens between the months of June and August and that is a quote by Ginny Hire and I think that that's really true for a lot of things in life. I love the cycle of school. I really get like nerdy about this but I love new beginnings that's why I also love the new year but with school we get that every single year and the time between June and August is really magical on a way that you get to reset energetically you have a lot going on and your children especially in that month of May suck the life out of you and I know this because I've lived it but also because my husband is currently living it as a principal it is exhausting. My teacher friends are checked out and so I want you to take a week or two off get your life back together. Enjoy your family recharge those batteries because if you can be consistent in June and July it's going to pay you tenfold in August. I once had a summer month where I thought I was going to do really really well and in the month of May I made 88 dollars and I was used to making thousands of dollars a month on TPT at that time. I made 88 dollars. You talk about a reality check. I didn't have any end of the year activities. I had prepared to use that money for vacations with my family and instead I didn't do a good job of putting money back that we had earned because at that time we were just starting to make money. It's really hard to save money when you're not used to making money and I am a firm believer in team fun times all the time so when you first start making money people are always like you need to save it you need to do this and while that is great advice I think that allowing yourself to enjoy it in the moment because we're only promised today is also just as much as a motivator as saving it. I stopped carrying that mentality of money is just going to come and it's going to go but instead I remember hearing about Ronald Dahl talking about money is made every single day and there are new opportunities for you to chase it every single day and I stopped worrying so much about did I put everything back that I needed to but then there's a situation where that didn't really add up I made 88 bucks it wasn't enough to pay for a hotel room for my kids and I my husband to go to the beach because that's what I like to do and so I made it my mission that summer to put my nose to the grindstone and say I'm going to work really hard this summer and I hope that it pays off and so I made a couple hundred bucks in June and July but I was really like is this even going to be worth it and then all aboard the CEO teacher train coming by in August because I had worked so hard and so strategically I made over $20,000 on teachers pay teachers a little that was it for me y'all that was when I knew no matter what I was going to be okay and I needed to figure out now how to work less and still be able to do that but figure out what was working what wasn't working and so that's what we're going to share with you in today's show is the five steps that I created to increase your revenue during those teacher business summer slump months for June and July but also the fact that this is a compounding interest effect if you're not familiar with that term it deals with investing but when you compound interest you just put little bits at a time you put little bits at a time into an account that is growing over time and it is remarkable what that will look like a year two years three years from now my company has been in creation for nearly a decade and I live and breathe compound interest every single day the blog post that I wrote 10 years ago the youtube videos that I created in 2015 those things are still being seen and being found and so hopefully what I'm going to give you today is a way that you can compound interest for years and years to come and you can send me a message on instagram and say kacie I remember that episode when you allowed me to see the vision of small itty bitty steps towards a bigger goal are going to leave a lasting legacy 90% of people trust their peers on social media and only 15 to 18% trust big brands that's by danny brown and that's a really really good quote for you to stay motivated is that you don't have to be a big influencer you don't have to be a big brand you just need to be a peer 90% of the people trust their peers online sales can drop about 30% in the month of july and also in november and december depending on how well you do at making time sensitive materials 58% of us retail sales will occur online by the end of 2023 smartphones do play a very large role in this and 90% of all digitally influenced sales will be purchased from their phone your website your landing pages your check out pages the whole customer experience it must be optimized for mobile we used to do mobile optimization as an afterthought we would create all the landing pages and hope they looked beautiful now before anything goes live or before we even make any final adjustments we're on the mobile end of things to see how that looks and you can do that in a lot of different ways depending on what platform you use but if you hear nothing that i tell you today is that make sure the mobile experience is good what's great about selling on websites like etzi and on tpt is that they control the mobile experience for you there's not any extra work that you'll need to do there ecommerce is having a banner year in 2023 and sales are projected to rise an additional 10 to 12% by the end of the year when i say ecommerce that means anything online but specifically physical products personalized shopping experiences and frictionless shopping which means rather than having to wait customers can purchase things immediately are really booming which is why we have shifted our economy i guess to more of an evergreen model for this year now moving into the five steps that will help you increase your revenue during the teacher business summer slump i want you to remember that summer can be a time to grow your business while it seems as if the whole world is on vacation because what is so specific about what we do in the marketing space is that we are teachers and teachers get the summer off but that's only in the united states okay that's not everywhere not not only in the united states it's a lot of places but there are people in other parts of the world that you may have forgotten about in australia their years go from january to december and summertime is not until the end of the year so think about that as you're thinking oh no one's going to buy my stuff there are people still in school all over the world so here are the systems that we have in place that are going to help you use this as a time to get all of your systems in place for the fall systems that are going to help you create new products with ease systems that are going to help you spark creativity and get those resources out so here are the five ways to use the summer to your advantage my first one and i kind of already went on a soapbox about it is stay consistent a lot of businesses go on break during the summer especially teacher businesses which makes me excited i love when people aren't working because that means i can work and get ahead so i love that kind of competition i don't go everyone else is on vacation i'll just take a vacation too instead i go everyone else is sleeping i'm going to be awake and getting things going so a lot of teachers take a hiatus from things like podcasting blogging and vlogging so starting a podcast could be the thing that sets you ahead of the curve above everyone else when school starts back so when everyone else is taking a break from theirs the exciting thing is is that you can start and you can become a voice that people turn to in the summer because no matter what teachers say about they take the whole summer off we are always looking for new innovative ways to be a better version of ourselves in the classroom remember only half of the world is on summer break anyways the rest of the world still needs you to show up and if you are learning how to start a podcast and figure out what education needs you'll be able to get the kinks out learn about creating your own script how to upload it do all the work that you normally wouldn't have time to in the summer so think about that use your time wisely start making connections with other people and you could add them as guest on your podcast or even as guest blog experts interview people for your show maybe like as an interview style because other teachers will have time off too and what that can do is take the pressure off of you for products creation and other things but it's going to allow you to show up consistently number two on our steps to increasing your revenue during the teacher business summer slump is plan plan plan begin to shift your focus away from sales here we are to growing your email list to nurturing your audience and to plan resources and offers for the busy back-to-school season it's time now for you to plan to launch that website launch that podcast start your youtube channel introducing new marketing tools can help you create hype in your business when others are quiet or they are relaxing i remember my anxiety used to go through the roof when i would watch insta stories back in the summertime because i wasn't doing what i needed to do those first couple of years but i knew the people that were and i was obsessed with them and i watched everything that they did did it make me feel less than yes do i encourage that no but instead just be them so then you don't feel less than okay next up number three on the list is connect with your already established audience you can reach your customers while they are on vacation you can send emails that land in their inbox we really practice this in our business we want you to help them land in the inbox versus the promotions folder and make sure that you're watching for any spammy language you don't overdo links that you send them you cut down on any image heavy content within an email and make sure that your email is verified with your service provider those things in itself make a significant difference we track our email data like it's going out of style and if something doesn't land in the inbox our copywriter is on it she's like sweating it out she gets high fives and high kicks every time she gets one in the primary inbox so we love that and we're making sure we're doing that and those were just some steps in order to do that set up a fun engaging summer challenge on social media summertime is our busiest time of the year because our ideal customers are on summer break we sell to teachers so if you're selling to teachers this could mean the same for you bundle some already created offers i love this idea work smarter not harder and put them together in a summer flash sale you could add value other than cutting prices curate specific bundles for your audience and streamline the check out process finally you could also when you're connecting with your established audience launch a beta version of a new idea and then get feedback so maybe you have a new idea that you don't know it's going to work it's a great idea to test that first to see if people will actually buy it make it easy for teachers to join and make it easy for them to see what the final product will look like before you ever create it number four on five steps to increasing your revenue during the teacher business summer slump is go ahead and set those goals for q4 which stands for quarter four which is the last three months of the year and potentially your biggest money makers get your holiday sales plan ready to set on autopilot we live for quarter four we are writing the emails we are creating the captions we are thinking about what the images and promotions will look like what new exciting offers can you prep for back to school for the fall and for the holidays august in september if you are selling on tpt alone are going to be your best months no matter who you are because teachers are inside of tpt begging for help because school is starting back plus tpt does a back to school statewide sale and usually another sale back to back after that right emails for your fall ideas get ahead on scheduling out your Pinterest pins make sure you're creating blog images in advance and get some podcast scripts ready to go if you're interested in batch recording we have podcast scripts written for the next couple of weeks but i don't like to batch record i'm just going to show up on a monday whether i'm at the beach or i'm here at the office or i'm moving i just i like to show up on a monday it feels good so but we do prep those ahead of time and then finally my last and favorite step of the five steps to increase your revenue during the teacher business summer slump is take time to up level your own learning mmm give me a book and a highlighter and a pin and a i have a really cute little notebook right now that i got from hobby lobby that looks very eclectic and it has some old school pages in it i am buying i've bought a few courses i've gotten a few new ebooks i'm listening to podcast i'm taking all the notes i live to be a lifelong learner i love it and i kind of had gotten away from it during 75 hard because i had all my focus and attention on the things that i needed to do there but what it did is it created a lot of really good habits in me and now i'm going to be studying every day which should make people worried because when i get in this mode like i just it's amazing how all the stars align the last time this happened it was dangerous so i'm really really excited about the future of the ceo teacher and we have so much good coming your way okay okay let me get back to it okay so first read yeah yeah the more you read the more you know the more you know the more places that you go even though we don't support dr sous we do agree with that statement so what are your favorite go-to books you guys know my top three you know i'm always going to talk about the seven habits of highly effective people by dr steven covey i'm always going to talk about think and grow rich by napoleon hill oh and my third favorite one and this one is just entered into the top three i loved this book and i love this human is take the stairs by rory vaden it's so good like i read it in a couple hours it's so i listened to it in a couple hours but if you want to check out our favorite books for this year go to kacie morris.com slash books and you'll get an entire list and you can see all of our favorite books as a community but there's so many books that are step by step i love listening to podcast to get some new and innovative ideas but i also buy all the courses and when i buy a course or i join a membership i go all in i print it all out i color coordinate everything so our new students that are coming inside of the ceo teacher membership i live for when you tag me on instagram with your color coordinated mind maps because for me i know that those students are going to be the ones that find success did you know a little known fact about me i've shared this before on the show but it's been a while is that i also if i buy a course or join a membership that i believe is life-changing that i believe is going to be the next thing for me i send the person that created it a personal email i dig through the weeds and try to find their personal email and i send them an email that introduces myself in one or two sentences and then i say i just want you to know i'm going to be your biggest success story and two of the people i've sent that to have kept those emails and as our business has grown will send me a check in and just say i still remember the day that you told me that and so that's the cheesy thing i don't know why i just told you that story but it really helps me stay motivated so dive into your lessons if you are inside of the ceo teacher membership if you aren't you can join us by going to caseymorris.com slash challenge to get registered and get inside of the ceo teacher membership today you can also learn a new skill and add that to your teacher business if you ever wanted to learn about podcasting i'm just saying and then finally set up some funnels for your business i live for nerdy funnel talk so if you want to talk nerdy to me send me a message on instagram i chat funnels inside of our membership and i teach them but i believe that all roads lead back to a really good funnel when it comes to being an online marketer and then finally i'm going to give you a quick little bonus relax recharge find what makes you happy again i think you should set your systems up now so that you can relax by the pool too don't be anxious about anything but in all things know that you are going to be who you want to be you just have to be consistent and i'm going to be here every Wednesday so make that commitment to yourself to show up here or on youtube every Wednesday so that you can be the ceo teacher of your dreams thank you so much for listening this community is being built by you one teacher at a time i could never ever do this without the help of our team and the help of the thousands of teachers that have trusted me as their coach and as their guide i am eternally grateful and as always remember the best is yet to come friends i'll see you right here next week the most successful teachers looking to make extra money online all have a few things in common a solid foundation a community that supports them and a proven plan to follow the teacher income challenge was made just for you an educational rock star who is looking to turn their passion into profit online if you're ready to finally make your worth and go from teacher on a state pay scale to creator of your own future the teacher income challenge is for you and it starts right now the world's only proven pathway for success made for teachers by a teacher the tardy bell is ringing so grab your seat and head on to the front of the class by going to kaciemoris.com slash challenge that's k-a-y-s-e-m-o-r-r-i-s dot com slash challenge .