Believe it or not, I wasn't always intending on also starting a service-based business in addition to having a TPT store. It just kind of happened that way (and it's turned out to be a great asset to my business overall!

This episode is perfect if you want to know the story - both the good and the bad - of what it was like to start a service-based business. If you're interested in also helping TPT sellers (or if you're curious to see what it's like behind the scenes), this is a great episode to listen to!

In this episode, you will learn about:

• How I got into the service-based business sphere
• My current feelings about being a service provider
• Tips on starting a service-based business (if you also want to help TPT sellers!) 
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Resources and Links

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Let's connect!

• TPT Store: The Southern Teach
• Website: thesouthernteachdesigns.com⁠
• Instagram: @thesouthernteach.designs
• Facebook: The Southern Teach Design and Branding
• Blog: The Southern Teach Blog
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Mentioned in this episode:

FREE TPT Store Audit for Teacher Sellers!

Have you checked out the free self-guided TPT store audit? Use this free tool to help you self-assess your TPT store! This audit will help you see what’s working well for you on TPT- and what can be improved. Take the brief quiz with questions to ask yourself in 5 key areas, analyze and reflect on your results, and get clarity on your next steps to improving your TPT store!

Download the free TPT Store Audit!

Branding and Product Listing TPT Templates!

Done-for-you templates that are completely editable for TPT sellers and teacherpreneurs to make their own? Say no more! I have ready-to-use Canva and PPT templates that are designed in a way that make it EASY to plug in screenshots, photos, or square images, type what you need, change the colors, fonts, and more!

Learn more about TPT Templates!

Kirsten 0:01

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Happy Monday TPT sellers. Welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. This episode is from the heart, I have no notes in front of me. And I'm just gonna just talk a little bit about, you know how I went from just well, how I went from not working on TPT at all just leaving my business very idle and leaving my resources up there for years to starting into TPT and updating my resources and being a TPT seller to transitioning to service based business model. This is something that not many people do, there are very few TPT sellers who also work for or provide services for other TPT sellers. It's definitely you know, growing, the numbers growing. And I wanted to share with you kind of how I got into this service based business and my feelings on it if I like it or not.

And my tip for you if you want to get started in it, as well, two years ago, around this time, actually, so around two years ago, I as a TPT seller was looking for ways to kind of expand my niche in a different way, I guess I know, you would think that like being a TPT seller is enough. But I also had this passion for helping other TPT sellers and their branding. My idea was, you know, maybe not everybody their strength is branding, maybe not everybody's strengths are updating their product listings, they don't like doing that stuff. But that stuff is so fun for me just like I don't like social media as much, or creating the products, I would much rather design stuff and create product listing. So I felt that it would be you know, really helpful for not only myself to help others, but also helpful and and you know, help impact others and help refresh your branding and all of that stuff. And just not only give tips for branding and product listings, but also help do that for TPT sellers. And so that is when I joined the Facebook group TPT virtual assistant finder. And of course, I was so excited because I could you know, the opportunity of being able to design for other TPT Sellers was like, I was like, Oh, this is gonna be a reality like I can get some, you know, people are posting I can get some jobs out there. So that's kind of how it started. And how I started was a little bit different than what I'm doing now.

I kind of my first post I did my initial introduction post and I talked about how I offer graphic design and branding for resources and Pinterest pins and social media graphics and product listings and, and I do your logo and all of that kind of stuff. So I was kind of like a jack of all trades in graphic design and branding, even though I was still you know learning the ropes myself. I I was taking classes, there were a couple of graphic design classes and branding classes that I was taking that was not related to TPT at all, it was outside getting that information outside and learning the process of how to work with a client, on their brand. And so I was getting a lot of information on that. And initially, I accepted pretty much anybody who wanted something revised. So maybe it was social media graphics, maybe it was a brand board, maybe it was they needed help with their Pinterest templates, I did it all, I accepted it all. And I was just really excited. So that's kind of where it started. And eventually it evolved. I will talk about these people later.

But it eventually evolved with the help of a couple of people, a couple of you know, people that I've come to know, also, in addition to, you know, learning more about what I do best, I started to niche down even more. So instead of doing, you know, things that I didn't enjoy, like creating social media graphics, I decided to kind of shift to specifically branding, for TPT, and product, listing templates for TPT. So less of things outside of TPT. And more things inside of TPT. I felt like that was really where I shown through. And if you see my store, you might see what I'm talking about. But I am you know, I feel I'm honestly I don't feel like I'm that great at social media templates, and all that kind of stuff. It's more fun for me to design, product listing product, cover templates, preview templates, all that kind of stuff, that's more fun. For me, it's enjoyable for me. So I kind of switched specifically to the platform of TPT.

And in the same year, I believe, well, let's backtrack. I also did, you know, post custom logos and banners, that was something I had posted around the same time where I started doing service work for clients. And, you know, I would get some clients here and there. And eventually, it kind of expanded a little bit more and more people were hearing about it. And so I would have more clients purchase that off of TPT. In addition, I added some type of full custom brand that's also on TPT with the banners and the templates and quote box and all of that kind of stuff. So just kind of having a couple of offers there. So that's kind of where I started to take away things that I didn't like doing and focus more on things that I did like doing. So basically like recapping up until the the turning point, I should say is that I started narrowing down what I wanted to do just because, you know, I felt like I was better in certain aspects of branding and certain aspects of graphic design. And so that's what I kind of started to focus on.

That's part of why I switched to the VIP day model where you work on something for a concentrated period of time, such as, you know, four hours or a day. And for me it got really overwhelming to like have to work on things a little bit at a time going back and forth over a certain amount of work. makes the VIP day model really helps me, you know, we set a day we schedule a day. And that's the day that they're available by email, and I can get it done, knock it out, and it's done. And they have their deliverables at the end of that day or week. So that's something that was a roadblock is just having too much on my plate and having to do the whole back and forth dance of getting things approved.

And moving on to the next step was a big struggle of mine, another had to do with, you know, sometimes not everybody is a good fit for your services, and you don't find that out until it's too late. And, you know, it's just, it just doesn't end up well. Very rarely does this happen, where people are just like, not happy with what they are offering. And at that point, even though it's pretty much a case of they just whatever you do, they will not be satisfied, and there's nothing I could do about it, there's nothing they could you know, it's just, that's just how it is. And you just kind of move on from that. That luckily, does not happen very often at all. Because I have done a better job of kind of really scanning who I think this is right for it. And I'm honest with those people, if this is a good fit for them, or if it's not, I have some sensors that come off based on my experiences on if I think my what I offer is a good fit for them, or if it's something that they really need. So that's just like a not so fun thing I've learned about being a service provider.

So I want to share some tips, maybe you're thinking about, you know, you have something you're really good at. And you want to offer that as well to other TPT sellers. And I wanted to share some tips with you. My first tip is to not try to be the jack of all trades. It's not something that is necessary for you to have the ability to do this. And this and this. And this, we all are, you know great at a lot of things. But there needs to be something that you're really good at that you can really, really focus on and hone in on that other people would benefit from one person that comes to mind blowing tasks off. She is awesome at video previews. And that's like her baby. That's her thing making video previews for TPT. And I guess also for social media. I think that's really great. I know that Kristen Doyle is really awesome at website design. So in addition to what she offers, she also has a really great eye for websites, and WordPress, and SEO and all of that. So that's definitely something that she's honed in on. And then another example would be Katie brockmeyer, and Melanie Ramos, with product photography, I love their mock ups, I love their product photography, they do a really great job at focusing on what they love to do, I'm assuming and what they're really good at. So that's my tip is just to niche down into something, maybe find a hole or find something that maybe something somebody has a market for something that I'm probably never going to do. But I thought was a really cool thing if somebody could do it is I know somebody was posting in a local teacher's group where I live, if there's some kind of service where somebody could come in and decorate their classroom, that would be the coolest thing to be able to do is to offer a service where you go around to your local schools are, you know, that kind of thing and offer some type of service where you set up their classroom or you help design their classroom, so they don't have to worry about it. I thought that would be super cool to do that would take a lot of planning. And I don't think I'm going to start on that. So that's just like one idea. And that's totally different than what you might think of, but not even just like designing going in and designing a classroom but just having some type of theme for them that you curate, and you you know, send to them digitally or something like that. There's one idea I just put out there maybe somebody can manifest that and make that their thing.

The second tip I have for you get a good platform that is specifically for service providers. I utilize HoneyBook and yeah, I'm never going back on that. The only reason I knew about honey book is because you know when I booked my wedding photographer and my makeup and all of that for my wedding, I remember the service providers were using honey book for contract Like signings, and payments, and invoices and all that kind of stuff, it is absolutely perfect to use. If you are doing a virtual service provider business. It's so easy. You can add projects, you can add email addresses have clients, they have pretty much templates for everything, contract templates, they've got invoice templates, proposals, so you can kind of have everything in a nice package. And it looks professional. So I totally recommend honey book, if you're actually looking to get serious in, you know, managing your sales and all of that in one place, and also managing so you don't have to send you know, PayPal emails or Venmo emails back and forth and not be able to keep track of it. It's all in one place. So it's super easy to use user friendly, I am never going to leave honey book pretty much. So yeah, honey book is a really great asset.

Another thing is to not be afraid of how you price it. This is a huge topic of discussion in several Facebook groups, is how service providers charge, especially when they're just starting out, it seems like it's super overpriced. There's a couple things to consider. And one of that would be, you know, this, we're in a recession, there's a lot of inflation going on. There's another thing to consider as far as value, though, value, what are you? What services do you provide? And how much time and effort does that service provide? If you do, you know, choose to price your services lower. That's great if you want to do that. But realize that you know, is that value, however, you're however much you're pricing it worth the time and effort that you are putting out there for it. So if you're just like turning it out and super easy for you, then that's great. But I do think pricing makes a difference. Because it not only gets serious quality clients that really need your service or really like what you're doing, it makes the difference between that and having, you know, just a bunch of little tasks, people who like are just doing it because it's the cheapest, which one would you probably prefer, I personally would prefer clients that are, you know, taking this seriously, and they want something that they know they're going to get great quality from it. So in order to price your, you know, services at a certain price point, however, you do have to have some type of experience.

And showcasing that experience with your portfolio on your website, or, you know, being very clear that what you have to offer like they can see that what you have in your portfolio is going to be the same result, it's going to help people be more inclined to purchase your services. So that's something to keep in mind is, don't be afraid to raise the price. Don't undersell yourself, but also don't make it overpriced if you don't have the knowledge or experience with it.

The fourth step would be to be open with change and criticism at the same time. Usually you can ask your clients to leave a review and have them be honest like what is there something that you can improve on? Is there something that you can really focus on for future clients recurring client or something like that, just see what you can do to improve. I have learned valuable lessons and each client that I've worked with, and it's helped me just get even better and better and better at what I do, even if it's the ones that are just saying, This is great. This is all great, great job, you know, I really love getting specific feedback. It helps me a lot. Sometimes it's also not what they say it's what they don't say, and that kind of maybe it's the over analytical me, you know, whatever. But it just kind of helps me reflect on how I feel I did and I can answer myself honestly in that way. Being open to change is also important. Just because it's not only helpful for you know, your future clients, but it's also helpful and for yourself. I think the best change I made in my VIP days was really really narrowing down the amount of work I did. I felt super stressed at the very beginning when I launched my VIP days. And I felt like the quality of work wasn't just didn't produce as well. But now that I've kind of really honed in on the type of you know what I offer that has helped tremendously and I feel more creative If I feel I look forward to the VIP day, so it's something that has really helped is just making those little tweaks, not being afraid to shift to things are going south.

All right. Well, that's the end of this episode. Thanks for tuning in. And I hope I can see you again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.