644: $2k a Month in Semi-Passive Income on the Side

0:00:01 (upbeat music)
0:00:03 Two grand a month in this college semi-passive income
0:00:04 on the side.
0:00:05 Oh, what’s up, what’s up, Nick.
0:00:06 Oh, Loper here.
0:00:07 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show
0:00:09 where we’re breaking down legit ways
0:00:11 to make extra money outside of your day job.
0:00:14 Cool example of somebody doing just that this week.
0:00:16 He’s got a digital products business
0:00:18 that doesn’t rely on having an audience of his own
0:00:20 and it’s been growing 40% a year,
0:00:23 lately earning around $2,000 a month.
0:00:26 He’s a high school math and personal finance teacher
0:00:28 from PhiEducator.com.
0:00:31 Rob Phelan, welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:32 – Hey, Nick, thank you so much for having me
0:00:33 and looking forward to it.
0:00:34 – Me as well.
0:00:36 Stick around, we’re covering how to come up
0:00:39 with popular slash profitable product ideas,
0:00:40 how to tap into a marketplace
0:00:43 of millions of potential buyers and lots more.
0:00:47 Now the marketplace in question here is teachers pay teachers,
0:00:48 which I know all the teachers in the audience
0:00:49 will be familiar with,
0:00:52 but fun fact, you don’t need to be a teacher
0:00:53 to sell on there.
0:00:55 So I wanna talk through some of the digital assets,
0:00:58 some of the products that you’ve created
0:01:00 and how you’ve grown that business.
0:01:01 ‘Cause I think it’s a really cool example
0:01:03 we talk a lot about digital products on Etsy,
0:01:05 but hey, that’s not the only game in town.
0:01:07 So curious to dive into this platform.
0:01:08 And maybe we start off with,
0:01:11 I imagine there’s an 80/20 to product sales
0:01:13 with everything that you’ve created.
0:01:14 Like what are some of the best sellers here?
0:01:16 What have you seen perform well?
0:01:18 – I mean, I’m still always refining what that 80/20 is.
0:01:20 And I think we’re always trying to figure out like,
0:01:22 well, what is that 20 that’s gonna account
0:01:24 for all the 80% of everything that we make?
0:01:27 But what I’m finding is that teachers don’t want shallow.
0:01:29 They want deep, they want quality.
0:01:30 They want something that’s gonna be
0:01:31 this amazing exchange of value.
0:01:33 And we know that that’s like a core thing
0:01:35 when it comes to creating any product
0:01:37 or for any business is that the customer has to feel like,
0:01:39 yes, that was an amazing exchange of value
0:01:40 and use the seller have to feel like
0:01:42 that was really worth my time as well.
0:01:44 So I find with my store,
0:01:47 I create personal finance education products for teachers.
0:01:48 So that is my niche.
0:01:51 I’m very much focused on financial educators,
0:01:52 mostly in the high school space.
0:01:54 And what I’m finding is that
0:01:55 I don’t wanna create an entire curriculum for them.
0:01:58 What I want is for them to have their own curriculum in place.
0:01:59 And then they’re coming to me
0:02:01 when they want something extra, something better.
0:02:03 They’ve identified a part of their curriculum
0:02:04 that doesn’t really feel great.
0:02:05 Students are bored.
0:02:06 They wish it was better.
0:02:08 They wish it was more exciting or engaging.
0:02:09 And that’s when they come find my store.
0:02:11 And that’s what I try to serve is
0:02:14 I want products that are going to get students
0:02:16 talking to each other, engage with the materials
0:02:18 and using personal finance in a practical way.
0:02:21 So they end up learning a much deeper lesson from that
0:02:23 than just a teacher lecturing in the front of the room.
0:02:25 – Okay, so rather than creating something
0:02:28 for social studies and something for English writing
0:02:30 and something for math, it’s like, no, no, no.
0:02:34 My niche here is the personal finance space.
0:02:36 Do you think that’s important to build some level
0:02:38 of credibility or like niche down
0:02:40 to a certain topic inside of your store?
0:02:41 – I do.
0:02:44 I don’t think TPT is a throw your net wide
0:02:46 and you’ll end up coming out ahead kind of thing.
0:02:48 I think the more niche down you are,
0:02:50 the better you’re actually going to do it,
0:02:51 even though you do make your audience smaller,
0:02:53 which does seem counterintuitive.
0:02:55 I love the idea of like the 1000 true fans,
0:02:56 like finding that group of 1000 people
0:02:58 who would want to buy your product
0:02:59 and then really making sure you serve those.
0:03:01 For me, that was financial educators.
0:03:04 I was in the space myself, didn’t really like what was out
0:03:07 there in terms of major product offerings.
0:03:10 So from Dave Ramsey or Jumpstart or Junior Achievement.
0:03:13 And I started creating resources for my own classroom.
0:03:16 So I still teach full time in public high school education.
0:03:19 And I just was like, okay, like I use this.
0:03:20 I think it’s good.
0:03:22 Let me throw it out there and see what other teachers think.
0:03:24 And I found that if I kept creating
0:03:26 personal finance resources, teachers were excited.
0:03:27 They were coming back.
0:03:28 I ventured into math a little bit
0:03:30 because that’s also my certification.
0:03:31 And it was a very crowded space.
0:03:34 And like high school math is such a general idea
0:03:37 that it’s hard to win that market share
0:03:38 as easily as it would be to say like, no,
0:03:40 I am high school, personal finance,
0:03:43 small individual resources that are going to enhance
0:03:44 what you’re already doing.
0:03:45 – Yeah, I love this example of,
0:03:47 hey, this is something that I was creating
0:03:49 for my own class, for my own use.
0:03:51 And then maybe there’s a way to sell that sawdust,
0:03:53 to sell that, you know, to reach a wider audience.
0:03:55 I think there’s so many examples of files
0:03:57 and templates and things that we’ve built
0:03:59 in our own businesses that, you know,
0:04:01 maybe you could license that out to somebody else.
0:04:03 Maybe it’s a way to get paid over and over again
0:04:04 from that work that you did once,
0:04:06 kind of like a behind the scenes type of product.
0:04:08 I think that’s really cool.
0:04:10 The other thing that might be interesting here
0:04:14 is there was some semi-recent legislation
0:04:16 where personal finance education
0:04:19 is becoming a graduation requirement
0:04:22 in more and more states where it’s like, you know, math.
0:04:24 People have been teaching math for hundreds of years
0:04:28 in high school, but you know, this is a newer sub,
0:04:30 like the personal finance focus, maybe a newer subject
0:04:32 where maybe it’s a bluer ocean to go
0:04:33 and try and compete in.
0:04:35 – Yeah, and I think when you try and think
0:04:37 of a new business idea, thinking about what is trending
0:04:39 currently or what’s coming down the road
0:04:42 that you can maybe hop on and be an early adopter on
0:04:43 or an early creator on, personal finance
0:04:44 is sort of that thing.
0:04:45 And that was just by luck for me.
0:04:46 Like that’s what I’m passionate about.
0:04:48 That’s what I work in.
0:04:50 And it just happens to be a very growing industry
0:04:53 in terms of education because more and more states
0:04:54 are mandating it.
0:04:55 And then the problem teachers have is
0:04:56 they’re not trained in it.
0:04:58 So they often get tossed this class like,
0:05:01 “Hey, you, you’re gonna teach about money next year.”
0:05:02 And they’re a social studies teacher.
0:05:04 They’re a math teacher.
0:05:05 They’re maybe a business teacher,
0:05:07 but they’ve never taught personal finance before.
0:05:10 So there’s a huge demand for how do I do this?
0:05:13 And I need resources that really, really walk me through
0:05:15 this very simply because I don’t really know what I’m doing.
0:05:17 I’m not an expert yet at this content area
0:05:18 and I need support.
0:05:20 – Oh, and it’s such a broad topic.
0:05:23 And remember, like my math teacher in high school,
0:05:25 like, you know, he had to teach us exponents anyway.
0:05:27 So Blessus already took it upon himself
0:05:29 to teach us about, you know, dollar cost averaging
0:05:32 and index funds and, you know, going down this road.
0:05:33 And he’s like, well, in 40 years,
0:05:35 you’re gonna have, you know, $3 million or something.
0:05:37 But you’re like, as a high school student,
0:05:39 you’re like, yeah, but that’s in 40 years, right?
0:05:40 It’s like, how do you bring this home
0:05:43 and make it compelling and interesting and relatable
0:05:44 to someone’s like, well, you know,
0:05:47 that’s not the time horizon that I’ve even been thinking about.
0:05:49 – And I think you’ve done a good job with that.
0:05:51 It looks like now I’m on the teachers pay teachers store.
0:05:54 You can find it at fieducator.store.
0:05:55 If you want to check out some of his listings,
0:05:59 a lot of them look like they’re almost like gameplay based
0:06:01 where it’s maybe a multi-week unit
0:06:02 where people can kind of track their,
0:06:04 or students can track their progress.
0:06:05 Is that kind of how some of these are set up?
0:06:07 – Yeah, I mean, you start in the beginnings,
0:06:09 figuring yourself out,
0:06:10 especially if you’ve created digital products before,
0:06:11 like you have to figure out
0:06:14 like what your theme is gonna be, your niche,
0:06:15 the way you want to run things.
0:06:17 What are people gonna know you for?
0:06:20 And I found that I wanted to create things
0:06:23 that were three E’s, exciting, engaging and educational.
0:06:25 And that’s almost my mission for my business
0:06:27 and everything I create has to come back to that.
0:06:30 If it doesn’t meet those standards, I don’t publish it
0:06:32 because I don’t want anything subpar quality
0:06:32 that teachers are gonna be like,
0:06:34 oh, well, that wasn’t great.
0:06:35 Like I’m not gonna come back again.
0:06:37 So you’ll notice yet, when you look through my products,
0:06:39 like there are things that are going to get students
0:06:41 either out of their seats or talking to each other
0:06:43 in meaningful ways.
0:06:44 They’re gonna practice skills.
0:06:45 They’re gonna play games.
0:06:46 They’re gonna do activities.
0:06:47 They’re gonna do big projects
0:06:48 where the learning is almost a byproduct
0:06:49 of what they’re doing.
0:06:51 They don’t even realize they’re learning half the time,
0:06:52 which is why I think so many teachers
0:06:54 enjoy using the resources I create.
0:06:56 – Yeah, if you can sneak it in there somehow,
0:06:57 like, hey, we’re gonna play this, you know,
0:06:59 crossword puzzle game and never, never mind
0:07:00 that you’re actually learning some spelling.
0:07:01 Well, we’re doing this.
0:07:03 But, you know, if you can make it fun.
0:07:07 Was there any on Etsy or even like YouTube or vlogging,
0:07:08 there’s like this level of keyword research
0:07:11 where I want to go where there’s some level
0:07:13 of existing demand rather than trying to create demand
0:07:14 from scratch.
0:07:16 Is there any sort of keyword research,
0:07:19 you know, volume estimates, competitive estimates
0:07:21 that exist for teachers, pay teachers specifically
0:07:24 or anything like that that went into the thought process
0:07:26 before creating extra products?
0:07:29 – There’s no really useful tool like you might find
0:07:31 for Google or like when you’re writing a blog
0:07:34 and you can just like feed your article into a plugin
0:07:36 and it tells you like, oh, you’re perfect for SEO
0:07:37 or no, you should change these things.
0:07:39 It doesn’t quite exist for TPT.
0:07:41 There is a program called Your Data Playbook,
0:07:42 which I don’t personally use yet.
0:07:43 It’s one of those things that I think
0:07:45 as you grow your store, you level up to the point
0:07:47 where you will start using these sorts of tools
0:07:48 ’cause if they are quite expensive,
0:07:51 but that will give you some ideas of like products
0:07:53 that you could be doing better on if you change keywords.
0:07:55 It doesn’t really suggest the keywords for you.
0:07:57 It just kind of tells you like, hey, you could be doing better.
0:08:00 Really, it comes down to using the search function,
0:08:01 like you would for Google.
0:08:02 It’s a search engine at the end of the day
0:08:04 that leads you to products.
0:08:08 So going into the search bar and typing in like similar phrases
0:08:10 to what your product is, seeing what pops up,
0:08:11 what are the most popular resources there
0:08:14 and then building your keyword bang from that
0:08:15 and making sure that’s in your title
0:08:16 and your product descriptions.
0:08:17 – Is it a matter of looking at like,
0:08:19 well, here’s what I had in mind
0:08:21 or this is what I was thinking about creating
0:08:25 and the top results only have three reviews.
0:08:27 So they must not be selling a huge volume.
0:08:29 So maybe there’s room for me to compete there
0:08:32 versus, oh, if I see just pages and pages of results
0:08:34 that seem to have been there for years
0:08:35 and they’ve sold tons.
0:08:37 It’s like, well, how am I gonna break in as a new seller?
0:08:39 – I should be doing more of that.
0:08:39 I don’t.
0:08:41 I look at it as what do I need to enhance
0:08:42 what I’m doing in my own classroom.
0:08:44 So like every time I teach this subject,
0:08:47 I’m like, where are the weak points and what needs more?
0:08:48 And I’ll have a quick look to see
0:08:49 does anything else exist out there,
0:08:52 but I’m not even really looking at TPD that closely
0:08:54 to see what the top ranking things are.
0:08:58 I think as I start to kind of fill out my product offerings
0:08:59 and I feel like, okay, I’ve done a good job
0:09:00 at meeting the market need
0:09:02 that I will start refining what I’m doing,
0:09:04 really focusing more heavily on SEO
0:09:06 and trying to rank higher on those pages.
0:09:08 But no, for right now, it’s really a case
0:09:10 of building what I know I need
0:09:12 and what I know my audience needs
0:09:15 based on social media feedback, newsletter, feedback,
0:09:16 that sort of thing.
0:09:18 – And it seems like most things on here
0:09:22 are priced between five and $30 they’re about.
0:09:24 So it’s very much a volume type of game
0:09:26 if I’m understanding that correctly.
0:09:27 – In my case, yes.
0:09:28 If you browse through other stores,
0:09:31 you will see some teachers who go for an entire curriculum.
0:09:33 So this would be what a teacher would use
0:09:35 from start to finish to run an entire class.
0:09:37 So curriculum, if you’re not familiar with the word,
0:09:39 start to finish everything that you would need.
0:09:40 And those you can find priced
0:09:42 from like 500 to 2,500.
0:09:45 Yeah, like there’s very high ticket items in TPT.
0:09:47 I don’t have those offered yet.
0:09:48 For me, it’s always coming back to that idea
0:09:50 of I’m a teacher myself.
0:09:53 My target market is teachers who are usually the buyers
0:09:56 in I would say 70 to 80% of the case.
0:09:58 So they’re digging into their own pocket to buy this stuff.
0:10:01 And my target market’s not the most flush with cash.
0:10:03 So I always want to make sure that I’m providing,
0:10:05 you know, very one-sided value.
0:10:07 What they’re getting in terms of product
0:10:10 is way more than the five or $20 or $30
0:10:12 that they’re paying for it in terms of the time
0:10:14 that it’s gonna save them, the stress that it’s gonna save them,
0:10:16 the improvement in their classroom management
0:10:17 that they’re gonna see,
0:10:19 and also the performance of the students.
0:10:21 So on all those metrics, I want teachers to feel like,
0:10:23 you know what, that was an amazing exchange of value for me.
0:10:25 Yeah, and at that price point,
0:10:27 it’s low friction versus trying to deal with the red tape.
0:10:29 Obviously, I mean, the dollars may be there
0:10:32 to try and start selling at the district level
0:10:34 or the state level, like, hey, this is mandated
0:10:36 by your state government.
0:10:39 Now you need to teach personal finance in schools.
0:10:42 Like, hey, we’ve got the proven out system of how to do this.
0:10:43 I’ve been a teacher myself for years and years.
0:10:44 Here’s what works.
0:10:46 We could build out that whole curriculum for you
0:10:49 and license it across however many different students
0:10:50 or schools.
0:10:52 Like, I could see how that would be a much higher ticket
0:10:54 than a $6 one-time thing.
0:10:57 But also, it’s like, well, you know, if this is passive,
0:10:58 people are just, you know,
0:10:59 coming out of this website and ordering my stuff.
0:11:00 And it’s like, well, yeah,
0:11:03 this is a longer-term sales cycle,
0:11:04 much longer-term game to play.
0:11:06 – I did the other side of it.
0:11:07 I worked with Choose a Five Foundation.
0:11:10 We created a pre-K through 12, entire curriculum,
0:11:11 and we tried to get schools to adopt it.
0:11:12 Like, it’s free.
0:11:14 Just take it, use it.
0:11:15 It’s great.
0:11:18 And even then, it was such a pain to work with schools
0:11:21 because schools are very restricted in what they can do.
0:11:24 Every district is basically its own little islands.
0:11:26 It’s hard to get like a rubber stamp
0:11:27 that works across the entire country
0:11:29 or even the entire state.
0:11:30 So, yeah, it’s a big challenge
0:11:32 versus like teachers are very much allowed
0:11:34 to kind of flex within their curriculum
0:11:35 and bring in additional resources.
0:11:37 So, it’s sort of like a backdoor in.
0:11:38 And maybe eventually,
0:11:40 I will grow to offer my own curriculum.
0:11:41 And at that point,
0:11:42 I will have had so many teacher adopters
0:11:44 that on the, at least the ground level,
0:11:46 there will be some support for trying to get something bigger
0:11:49 into their school or their district or the state.
0:11:51 – Yeah, down the road, that may be coming.
0:11:53 I definitely see that as an opportunity
0:11:56 for some of the assets and content that you’re creating.
0:11:56 – I also have competitors
0:12:00 who are people like NextGen Personal Finance or NGPAP.
0:12:01 So, like, if you’re a financial educator
0:12:03 or a teacher or a parent who wants to support this,
0:12:06 like that is an amazing free curriculum that exists
0:12:08 because it’s backed by a billionaire founder
0:12:10 who wants it to be free,
0:12:12 is able to pay staff to create amazing resources,
0:12:13 teacher professional development.
0:12:15 So, like, I don’t want to compete directly with them
0:12:17 because I love what they do
0:12:19 and it’s very hard to compete
0:12:20 with people who offer free things.
0:12:23 So, being able to enhance what they do
0:12:24 or enhance any other curriculum
0:12:26 is kind of a nice way to stay in my niche
0:12:28 and be valuable to customers.
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0:14:49 What feed does the platform take in this case?
0:14:50 – So, TPT has two tiers for sellers.
0:14:51 You’ve got the free version.
0:14:53 So, unlike Etsy, where they charge a listing fee
0:14:55 to put your first product up or whatever it is,
0:14:57 TPT does not charge a listing fee
0:14:59 so anybody can create an account
0:15:01 and you can start listing products for no cost.
0:15:05 The split on a sale is 50/50 at that basic tier.
0:15:07 So, at the free tier, 50/50 split,
0:15:09 you sell something for $10, they keep five, you get five.
0:15:11 And then they’re also handling sales tax
0:15:14 if you’re in a state that does need to charge sales tax.
0:15:17 And then if you upgrade to the premium seller,
0:15:20 which I think is $60 for the year,
0:15:22 it now becomes an 80/20 split.
0:15:24 So, you keep 80, they keep 20.
0:15:26 And there’s no higher tier available.
0:15:28 There’s no way to keep more of it.
0:15:30 That’s kind of the deal if you’re gonna use
0:15:32 the marketplace platform that they offer.
0:15:34 – Right, and you have to look at that as,
0:15:36 well, that’s my marketing expense, basically.
0:15:39 I get access to these audience of 7 million teachers
0:15:42 who are proactively looking for the stuff
0:15:44 that hopefully I’m selling versus the 50/50.
0:15:46 It’s like, it’s cool that there’s no listing fee,
0:15:47 but man, I think it’s expensive fast.
0:15:49 And then it’s like, that’s when you start to be like,
0:15:50 well, if I’m moving a certain volume,
0:15:52 then yeah, it’s a no-brainer to go to upgrade
0:15:56 to this $60 paid tier and then improve that ratio,
0:15:57 improve that split.
0:15:59 – I think I upgraded within like the first few months
0:16:00 of being a seller.
0:16:02 Like I was like, I’m going to eventually make enough money
0:16:04 to make this worth it, like 60 bucks,
0:16:06 like I can take a shot on that for a year
0:16:07 and see what happens,
0:16:08 but I was like, if I’m gonna make stuff,
0:16:09 I wanna keep more of it for me.
0:16:14 – Yeah, is there a play to get people off platform,
0:16:15 if you have other product,
0:16:18 like do you get access to the email list of customers?
0:16:20 Is there a way to drive your own traffic
0:16:22 to your own digital storefront?
0:16:24 Just trying to think of,
0:16:27 is this purely a marketplace type of play for you right now?
0:16:29 – So TPT, yeah, the marketplace gives you
0:16:31 very little information about individual buyers.
0:16:33 You can get a little bit of like demographics about them
0:16:35 or location by state,
0:16:37 but you don’t get an email address when someone buys from you,
0:16:40 which is different to maybe what you would get from an Etsy.
0:16:43 So when it comes to assembling your own email list,
0:16:44 you have to think like, okay,
0:16:46 what can I embed in the product
0:16:48 that would convince someone to give me an email?
0:16:51 So a lot of times there’s a freebie inside of a product
0:16:54 or one of my best lead magnets is like,
0:16:56 I have my entire 90 day curriculum pacing guide.
0:16:58 So if you wanna see how this resource fits into
0:17:00 what I do in my classroom,
0:17:01 you can follow along with me
0:17:03 and just give me an email and it gets sent out to you.
0:17:05 So trying to find ways to get people to convert
0:17:10 from being a TPT buyer to also on my newsletter is a big one.
0:17:11 I do go to social media a lot
0:17:13 to try and harvest people from my newsletter too.
0:17:15 So giving them freebies, looking for product testers,
0:17:19 free team people and they all just kinda slowly trickle in
0:17:20 and build up that newsletter,
0:17:22 which is much more valuable than the TPT search
0:17:24 or the social media platforms can be.
0:17:26 – Yeah, hopefully they like the product
0:17:28 and now you have a way to get back in touch with them
0:17:30 when you’re launching something new.
0:17:33 Otherwise it’s like, well, I made a one-off $7 sale
0:17:36 and now I can’t get in touch with that customer again.
0:17:38 So it’s like, well, how do we improve the lifetime value?
0:17:41 And it sounds like that’s one way that you’re going about it.
0:17:43 – Yeah, and making sure that in the products,
0:17:45 like you have those calls to action to come back
0:17:47 and leave your reviews or send me an email,
0:17:48 let me know what you think.
0:17:50 And just any of those touch points
0:17:52 are enough to get me an email address
0:17:54 and then let me add them to my newsletter
0:17:57 where it does become much more of a return customer scenario.
0:17:59 I think once they know, like and trust you,
0:18:00 they’re much more likely to come back,
0:18:02 especially when a teacher’s stressed,
0:18:04 they’re short on time, they need something.
0:18:06 The marketplace is reputable.
0:18:09 So that’s a great plus and part of that 20% loss of sale
0:18:11 is for the fact that teachers pay teachers
0:18:13 is considered a reputable place to buy something
0:18:15 and that they will, they’ll make it right
0:18:17 if the product you buy is total crap
0:18:19 or it’s a dud or it’s a scam of some sort.
0:18:22 Versus like buying something off of maybe eBay or an Etsy,
0:18:23 I don’t know how good the customer service
0:18:24 would be on that side.
0:18:25 – Oh, for sure.
0:18:27 – And then each individual store
0:18:28 has to build their own reputation.
0:18:32 Reviews is gold in terms of trying to get people
0:18:35 to like first time to your store to know, like and trust you,
0:18:37 but after you’ve made that first sale
0:18:38 and making sure that you kind of nurture that customer
0:18:41 to come back again and again is huge.
0:18:42 When you were first launching,
0:18:46 did you do anything proactive to try and drive traffic,
0:18:49 drive those initial reviews to just kind of,
0:18:51 this is what we’ve seen on platform after platform.
0:18:52 It’s like, if I can give that algorithm
0:18:53 a little bit of a nudge,
0:18:57 then it starts to work in my favor a little bit more.
0:19:00 And sometimes it’s harder to get those first sales
0:19:01 than it is to get the next 10.
0:19:05 Where it’s like, if I can just, you know, seed my store
0:19:08 with a few, you know, warm, happy customers,
0:19:11 then the rest starts to work more automatically.
0:19:13 – I mean, in the beginning, like launching my store now,
0:19:16 it was like walking in the dark and spinning around
0:19:18 and just hoping that something landed.
0:19:21 Like now, for example, I just launched a product last week.
0:19:24 It’s going to be a $5 product, like a $497 price point.
0:19:25 It’s free right now.
0:19:28 So what I did was on social media, I was like,
0:19:29 “Hey, I’m launching something new.
0:19:31 I’m looking for early adopters.
0:19:32 Leave me your email in the comments
0:19:37 or send me via DM and I will send you like the resource.
0:19:38 Really what I’m going to do is I’m going to send them to TPT
0:19:40 where they can download it for free.
0:19:43 Reason I don’t have a lead page is that I want the comments
0:19:45 coming in in this Facebook group.
0:19:47 So by people leaving their email in a comment
0:19:50 or sending me a DM, it drives it to the top of this group.
0:19:51 The group’s not mine.
0:19:53 It’s a group that I am very active in.
0:19:55 And there’s actually, there’s no admin really in it.
0:19:58 It’s like a ghost admin who doesn’t really do anything in it.
0:20:01 So trying to get people to comment and engage on the post
0:20:04 so that more people see it and then we’ll send them to it.
0:20:06 And then once they buy the product,
0:20:08 I have like a whole, you know, nurture part inside of it
0:20:10 where I’m like, Oh, you know, I hope you really enjoyed this.
0:20:11 Please come back and leave a review.
0:20:14 Once you’ve had a chance to use it, if you loved it,
0:20:16 can you post a picture of your students enjoying it
0:20:19 on social media or in these particular groups?
0:20:20 And that’s for the first week.
0:20:23 So anyone who is a follower of mine who, you know,
0:20:24 gets my stuff regularly on social media.
0:20:26 So they’ve been an engaged person.
0:20:28 So it does pop up top of their news feed
0:20:29 or they’re on my newsletter.
0:20:31 They’re going to get it for free this time around.
0:20:33 And the play is that I’m going to build the reviews.
0:20:36 I’m going to get that product out there.
0:20:38 And that’s in the long term,
0:20:40 it’s going to be much more valuable to my store.
0:20:42 So if I can get 50 to 100 reviews from this,
0:20:44 like that would be huge because at the moment,
0:20:45 I’m only just hitting about 400.
0:20:48 So I’m really looking to, yeah, drive up the friendliness
0:20:49 of the algorithm to my store.
0:20:50 – Yeah, I like that.
0:20:52 That’s similar to like a free Kindle launch strategy
0:20:54 where it’s like, if I can throw some downloads
0:20:55 towards that book on Amazon
0:20:57 and collect a critical mass of reviews
0:21:00 before I switch it over to being a paid product.
0:21:03 And yeah, absolutely that can help boost it up, I imagine.
0:21:04 And there’s no cost.
0:21:06 Like yes, I’m losing out on potential sales,
0:21:09 but if I’m at like 400 free downloads now,
0:21:12 so how many of those would have been paid customers
0:21:14 if I just started at a price point of 4.97?
0:21:17 Probably like 50, that would be typical for a product launch.
0:21:19 So I’m trying something totally different to see,
0:21:21 does it yield those reviews that I really, really need?
0:21:24 And then yeah, does it yield much more sales down the road?
0:21:26 Because now it’s such a highly reviewed product
0:21:28 that new teachers can be like, oh, let me check this out.
0:21:29 Let me try that.
0:21:31 – Are you using AI at all for ideation
0:21:34 or to help fill in the blanks on some of these products?
0:21:37 – Sometimes, I mean, I love playing with AI.
0:21:40 I love ChatGBT as like just a sounding board
0:21:41 for anything and everything.
0:21:44 So usually if I’m thinking of, say I was doing insurance,
0:21:46 I did a product on insurance recently
0:21:48 where students are creating an insurance plan
0:21:49 for their cell phones in the classroom.
0:21:53 I would like use ChatGBT, like what are the main considerations
0:21:55 when someone is building an insurance plan?
0:21:58 So it’s a really quick way to do a bit of basic research
0:22:00 and then I can build a product from that.
0:22:03 So I’m not letting AI write anything for me.
0:22:08 And I don’t know if TPT is yet spotting AI generated content
0:22:10 in their results and marking them down or not.
0:22:13 But I don’t want, again, I don’t want to jeopardize
0:22:15 the reputation of my business by saying like,
0:22:17 oh, someone’s saying that this was created by AI.
0:22:20 Like you created this in 10 seconds
0:22:22 and you’re charging whatever number of dollars for it.
0:22:23 I could have done that myself.
0:22:23 I don’t want to do that.
0:22:26 So if it can assist me in some way, absolutely.
0:22:28 But it won’t ever take over what I do.
0:22:30 – All right, anything else on the marketing front
0:22:34 to try and drive sales if I’m a new shop owner?
0:22:36 – So new shop owner, big thing is making sure
0:22:38 that your thumbnails are as good as they can be,
0:22:40 experimenting with those, trying out different things
0:22:42 to see what is going to look really well for you,
0:22:44 having previews.
0:22:45 So like with previews, you want to make sure
0:22:47 that you have one first of all.
0:22:49 So products that have previews will sell way better
0:22:50 than ones that do not.
0:22:52 And then also thinking like video previews,
0:22:54 it’s worth the time doing it.
0:22:57 I find a lot of new sellers will create really cool products.
0:22:58 And then when it comes to the addressing it up
0:23:01 with the thumbnails, the previews right in the description,
0:23:03 they kind of lose steam at that point.
0:23:05 And they end up putting up a sub part listing,
0:23:07 which just doesn’t sell, even though the product itself
0:23:08 might be really good.
0:23:11 And that’s where I had to go back as a more experienced seller
0:23:13 and review some of my initial stuff and be like,
0:23:16 okay, this needs better thumbnails, better description,
0:23:19 more stuff in the preview, like changing the shape
0:23:20 of the preview from portrait to landscape,
0:23:21 that sort of thing.
0:23:25 – Right, give me, yeah, I want to know,
0:23:26 put myself in the user’s shoes here,
0:23:28 like how is this going to work for me?
0:23:30 – One thing that I’m noticing on the store too
0:23:33 is what looks like a, you know, crossed out list price
0:23:34 and then a sales price.
0:23:37 And maybe this is just for bundled content
0:23:39 where it’s like, you know, here are several products
0:23:41 all in one to increase that average order value
0:23:43 and that value for the customer.
0:23:44 – Yeah, so you have the option of taking
0:23:46 your individual products and bundling them together
0:23:47 if you have common themed ones.
0:23:49 And usually, yeah, there’s a discount on the price.
0:23:51 So when teachers are coming in,
0:23:52 they see what the price would be to buy each item
0:23:55 individually and then what the discounted price is.
0:23:57 So like I have a business project on there,
0:23:59 which has 13 products in it.
0:24:01 And I think if you added all the products together,
0:24:03 it would be like $66.
0:24:06 I have it marked down to 30, something like 32,
0:24:08 because for me, like that’s a good price
0:24:09 for what I would sell the bundle for.
0:24:11 Like very few people would have bought all 13
0:24:12 of the individual ones anyway,
0:24:13 if they were picking and choosing.
0:24:15 So I feel like that was a good price point
0:24:18 to get people in and be like, okay, I want to buy this bundle.
0:24:19 – Got it, I love a bundle deal.
0:24:20 Yeah, it makes sense.
0:24:21 – Yeah, who doesn’t?
0:24:24 – So do you remember your first, you know,
0:24:27 a few months of sale, like I’m trying to get a sense of,
0:24:29 you know, was it crickets early on?
0:24:31 How long before you’re like, you know what?
0:24:34 I can see how, you know, it might take a few years,
0:24:36 but I could see how this is going to be a thing.
0:24:38 It’s going to start to be a significant source of income.
0:24:40 – I should send you my like sales graphics.
0:24:42 You can see the chart because it was like,
0:24:45 it was a flat line for months.
0:24:47 And then I think in like September of 2019,
0:24:49 there was a little blip of 52 cents.
0:24:52 Like that was my first sales, like 52 cents.
0:24:54 And that to me was just like, that’s 52 cents
0:24:56 I did not have before.
0:24:58 And that product was put up months ago.
0:24:59 So it was cool to get that email to be like,
0:25:01 hey, you made a sale.
0:25:02 And I think that was one of the things
0:25:04 that kind of jumpstarted me going back into it
0:25:05 and creating more.
0:25:06 It was like, okay, like I find,
0:25:08 if someone finally convinced me
0:25:09 that they will buy something that I created
0:25:11 if I put, you know, the effort in
0:25:12 and keep putting myself out there.
0:25:15 And so I really came back, started creating more,
0:25:16 found that personal finance niche,
0:25:17 which really starts to take off.
0:25:19 And then you start seeing that exponential growth curve
0:25:21 that you want to see in a business.
0:25:23 And I haven’t looked back since
0:25:27 it’s definitely been a really energizing business so far.
0:25:29 We’re like every month seems better than the previous one
0:25:31 or comparing to the same point last year,
0:25:32 which is what I recommend.
0:25:33 If you’re going to sell on TP2,
0:25:35 you compare it to the same month,
0:25:38 the previous year versus the previous month
0:25:40 because teachers go through cycles
0:25:42 in terms of when they buy things.
0:25:45 So like August, September will be the best selling months
0:25:48 for most stores when it’s back to school.
0:25:51 Summer will be super quiet, getting around the holidays.
0:25:53 If you have like holiday themed things, it will go up.
0:25:55 If you don’t, it might go down.
0:25:56 – Yeah, a lot of seasonality for sure.
0:25:59 – So comparing to the same month, the previous year
0:26:00 is your best bet when you’re trying to figure out like,
0:26:02 well, how is my store actually doing?
0:26:04 – I love that motivation of that first 52 cents.
0:26:07 Yeah, I think there are so many stories of that
0:26:09 where it’s like, it was, you know, there was nothing.
0:26:12 And then someone clicked on an ad and it was 11 cents
0:26:14 or you know, somebody bought my thing,
0:26:16 a stranger on the internet bought my thing.
0:26:18 And there’s like that motivation to keep going
0:26:19 and keep putting stuff out there.
0:26:23 – Looks like you’re at around 120 products in the store now
0:26:24 and continuing to add more?
0:26:27 Are you kind of like, am I tapped out on ideas?
0:26:29 – No, I have like a notebook full of ideas
0:26:31 and it’s just fun and the time to work on them.
0:26:32 But I always have to remind myself,
0:26:35 TPT was something that was created as a side hustle
0:26:38 and it was a very intentional choice
0:26:39 of business to venture into.
0:26:41 Like I’ve done things like tutoring
0:26:43 where I’ve traded my time, you know,
0:26:45 hour for dollar kind of thing.
0:26:47 And that wasn’t very sustainable,
0:26:49 especially when my wife and I had a kid.
0:26:52 So we had that pivot point that stimulated a change
0:26:54 in what we do, which I think is also a very common thing
0:26:55 with business owners.
0:26:57 And so I was like, okay, I need to create something
0:26:59 that I can work on when I want to work on it.
0:27:01 And it’s going to be mostly passive.
0:27:03 So that once it’s made, it’s going to just keep
0:27:05 generating money and teachers pay teachers
0:27:07 just look like the most obvious solution.
0:27:09 I’ve doubled in courses too, didn’t do the same.
0:27:11 And so I was like, okay, teach me teachers
0:27:12 where it’s going to be at.
0:27:14 And yeah, I haven’t looked back since, it’s been awesome.
0:27:17 – And do you find that the products from years ago
0:27:19 still continue to sell?
0:27:23 Or is there a freshness angle to the algorithm?
0:27:24 – Maybe not to the algorithm, but certainly,
0:27:26 I think the quality of what I’m creating more recently
0:27:28 is better than what I created in the past.
0:27:30 There are still, like my best seller
0:27:31 is one of the first products I created.
0:27:33 It was called Space Quest.
0:27:35 It’s a game where students are imagining
0:27:37 they’re traveling to an unexplored planet
0:27:38 and they’ve decided what they’re taking
0:27:39 with them on the spaceship.
0:27:41 They have a bunch of items to choose from
0:27:44 and they go into debates about what stays, what doesn’t.
0:27:45 And then you tell them there’s budget cuts
0:27:47 and they now have to remove some of the items
0:27:49 that they’ve already just managed to negotiate
0:27:50 with each other to bring.
0:27:52 And that continues to be one of my best sellers
0:27:55 and that was probably my first 20 products I created.
0:27:56 – I like it.
0:27:59 It’s like, you know, organ trail, but for space.
0:28:01 – It’s funny, like, yeah, like there’s so many
0:28:03 like inspiring games from my childhood.
0:28:04 I’m like, oh, this kind of drives that idea.
0:28:06 Yeah, we went camping over the summer
0:28:08 and I was like, this gives me an idea for a resource.
0:28:10 So I made a resource about going camping
0:28:11 and friends all chipping in money
0:28:13 and now you have to divide that money
0:28:15 amongst the different items in a store.
0:28:16 So like there’s high quality, low quality,
0:28:18 high price, low price stuff and the teams again
0:28:20 have to figure out how they’re going to spend their money.
0:28:22 – Yeah, this is, this is all really cool.
0:28:25 Those were some of my favorite activities as a student
0:28:28 where it was, you know, kind of it was structured as a game
0:28:29 where like, okay, you’re, you know,
0:28:33 part of the, you know, new world colonizers
0:28:35 and you’ve got to figure out, you know,
0:28:36 how are you going to allocate your resources
0:28:39 on farming versus hunting versus, you know,
0:28:41 and all this stuff is like, oh, this is, this is kind of cool.
0:28:44 So really, really fun, what you got built over there
0:28:47 and how it will continue to grow
0:28:50 by virtue of continuing to adding new, adding new products
0:28:53 and just the, you know, maturity of the platform
0:28:54 as more and more people jump on there.
0:28:57 So really appreciate you sharing the insights
0:28:58 on how all that works.
0:29:00 And we’ve got more with Rob coming right up
0:29:04 including donate a business idea right after this.
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0:30:20 All right, we’re back with Rob from phyeducator.com
0:30:21 for round two.
0:30:23 And this is the donate a business idea around.
0:30:25 This is something that you might start yourself
0:30:26 if you had more time.
0:30:28 This is something that you think the listeners
0:30:30 could take and run with a pain point,
0:30:32 something missing in the marketplace.
0:30:34 We’ll tee it up like that and let you go.
0:30:35 – So this is one that has always been like
0:30:37 in the back of my mind like, oh, I’d love to start this.
0:30:40 And that is, I am a big soccer fan.
0:30:41 I love playing soccer.
0:30:44 I’ve played competitively, basically my entire life
0:30:46 up until like kind of a couple of years.
0:30:48 Well, COVID really is what shut it down.
0:30:49 It was playing competitively till COVID
0:30:50 and then everything stopped and then everyone back.
0:30:54 But one of the reasons I miss it is I love being part
0:30:55 of that team.
0:30:57 I love being part of that kind of group environment.
0:30:59 And the fitness part was always great too.
0:31:01 So I’m always like, I would love to start
0:31:02 like soccer fitness classes.
0:31:05 Like very much themed towards adults who used to play soccer
0:31:06 and it’s going to have a fitness component to it
0:31:09 much like going to practice would have.
0:31:12 But with a, you know, a high fitness level focus
0:31:13 and then, you know, a little bit of play as well
0:31:15 but the ball would always be involved.
0:31:16 So it’s not quite a team.
0:31:19 You’re not playing in leagues, which might be beyond
0:31:22 a lot of adults at this point, but you are getting
0:31:24 that team feeling that seems to be missing now
0:31:26 as an adult when I’m maybe playing a little bit
0:31:27 of rack and pickup.
0:31:30 And it’s not the same as like going to a group fitness class
0:31:30 at a gym kind of thing.
0:31:31 – Okay, I like it.
0:31:35 Maybe the angle is, you know, aimed at these former players,
0:31:38 you know, soccer themed fitness.
0:31:41 The reason I bring it up is we see at the gym,
0:31:43 you see like, you know, get in shape for ski season,
0:31:46 like these almost sport specific classes and drills
0:31:47 and workshops.
0:31:49 It’s like, I absolutely think something like that can work.
0:31:51 – Yeah, I like, I couldn’t see the absolute, like, you know,
0:31:52 do you miss being part of a team
0:31:55 but you don’t want to be on a team anymore
0:31:57 and just get that kind of mentality
0:32:00 that cohesive group feeling going again.
0:32:02 – What would you do first to market it
0:32:04 or get off the ground or proof of concept here?
0:32:07 – I mean, it would be so low cost and so simple.
0:32:09 Like find a park that you can use,
0:32:12 go either have everyone bring their own ball
0:32:15 or buy 20 cones and 20 balls and get yourself started.
0:32:18 But just some basic like kind of hit workout exercise
0:32:21 that are adapted to have a soccer ball involved as well,
0:32:24 market it on some of those local soccer pickup pages.
0:32:28 And just, yeah, say like, if you’re a former soccer player
0:32:30 and you want to find that team feeling again,
0:32:31 you want to get fit,
0:32:32 you want to do something with a ball,
0:32:34 this is going to be our thing.
0:32:37 So it’s going to be $10 a session, meet at this park,
0:32:40 bring your own ball and just go from there
0:32:41 and see what happens.
0:32:42 – Yeah, you get 10 people to show up for an hour.
0:32:45 Now you get a hundred bucks an hour side business
0:32:47 and who knows what comes down the road from that.
0:32:49 Maybe they decide they do want to join a league
0:32:51 and if nothing exists,
0:32:54 then you can be the spearhead of the organizer
0:32:55 for something like that.
0:32:56 – Or it looks like your kids leagues
0:32:58 where, you know, if you have a young kid
0:32:59 and you start playing soccer, they just go
0:33:01 and do like a practice and then they play a game
0:33:03 at the end of it and like, it could look like that
0:33:05 where you’ve got 60 adults come in
0:33:07 and then you divide up and play small sided tournaments
0:33:08 at the end, it can be really fun.
0:33:10 – Yeah, some level of scrimmage.
0:33:12 I think this could be a fun one
0:33:14 and anybody who’s listening could take this
0:33:16 and run with this in any number of different sports.
0:33:18 Well, what did you use to play?
0:33:19 Oh, you used to be a tennis player.
0:33:20 Oh, you used to be a baseball player.
0:33:23 Could you host classes and clinics and fitness,
0:33:25 you know, geared toward that sport for grownups
0:33:27 or could you turn around and offer that for kids?
0:33:30 I’ll give your kids swim lessons or tennis lessons
0:33:33 or, you know, basketball drills or, you know,
0:33:36 friend of ours, you know, played catcher,
0:33:38 you know, for his whole life.
0:33:39 And so he’s like, you know, here’s the catchers clinic
0:33:41 coming back to my hometown and the way to make money
0:33:43 during the off season and stuff like that.
0:33:45 So I think there’s definitely something there.
0:33:47 – Yeah, and if you do it in Maryland,
0:33:48 please let me know.
0:33:49 I would love to join.
0:33:52 – Yeah, and on top of that, I’m sure Facebook already knows,
0:33:54 you know, these people who used to be soccer players,
0:33:56 they could help target everybody
0:33:57 in that demographic for you.
0:34:00 All right, that is round to donate a business idea
0:34:02 that was adult fitness classes,
0:34:06 sport specific fitness classes for grownups.
0:34:08 But of course you can pivot that, do it with kids,
0:34:10 do it with whatever group, whatever sport that you like.
0:34:11 I think that’s a cool one.
0:34:12 Let’s go to round three.
0:34:13 This is the triple threat.
0:34:15 We’re gonna start off with a marketing tactic
0:34:17 that’s working for you right now.
0:34:19 Could be related to fly educator,
0:34:21 could be related to teachers pay teachers,
0:34:23 could be something that your students
0:34:25 can teach an entrepreneurship in class,
0:34:26 something that’s working for them.
0:34:27 – So big one that’s working for me right now
0:34:29 is when I launch a new product
0:34:30 or I wanna refresh your product,
0:34:32 I will go into a social media group and I’ll say,
0:34:35 I’m looking for 10 people to try this out for me
0:34:36 and give me feedback.
0:34:38 So be an early adopter and again,
0:34:40 leave your email in the comment section
0:34:43 if you want to be entered into the draw
0:34:45 to be one of those 10 people to try it out for me.
0:34:47 And really I don’t care that much
0:34:48 about getting the feedback from them.
0:34:50 What I really want is to have an excuse
0:34:52 to kind of put my product out there
0:34:55 and again, get the engagement on the comment section.
0:34:57 So it comes up in front of a bunch of people.
0:34:59 I get to measure who’s actually really interested in this.
0:35:01 So the ones who really want it for free,
0:35:02 I’m gonna give it away to 10 people,
0:35:04 but then I’ve got suddenly a list of people
0:35:05 who are really interested in it
0:35:06 and I can send them a nurture sequence
0:35:09 about getting the product and paying for it.
0:35:10 So that’s been working really well
0:35:11 and it’s just kind of a rinse of feet
0:35:13 over and over again every time I have a new product.
0:35:15 – And you’re looking specifically
0:35:18 in groups of teachers in this case?
0:35:19 – Yeah, Facebook groups,
0:35:22 I find the most effective place to sell.
0:35:26 Instagram is I think great for kind of just building trust
0:35:27 and maybe a little bit of awareness of who you are
0:35:28 and your brand.
0:35:30 I don’t find that people click over from Instagram
0:35:31 very often to buy something,
0:35:34 but Facebook groups, specifically teacher groups
0:35:36 and even more again, niche groups for those teachers.
0:35:38 So like for me, it’s the business educators group
0:35:40 or group called Fanatics.
0:35:42 So financial literacy fanatics,
0:35:46 those two groups are amazing for getting volunteers
0:35:48 to try stuff out and then also being very interested
0:35:49 in what I am selling.
0:35:51 And I’ll find that I’ll get a lot of clicks
0:35:52 from Facebook going to TBT
0:35:54 and I’m sure it’s coming from those two groups.
0:35:55 – Yeah, I like this one.
0:35:58 It’s going where your target customers already are.
0:36:00 It is offering something of value.
0:36:02 It is being a member of that community.
0:36:05 Like it checks a lot of smart boxes here.
0:36:06 So I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:36:09 And you can find a group for just about any target audience
0:36:10 that you want to serve.
0:36:11 And you know, of course,
0:36:13 play nice by the rules and the moderators
0:36:15 and everything else and be of service first.
0:36:17 Can’t come in and just spam up the place,
0:36:19 but it sounds like this one is leading with value.
0:36:20 Like, hey, I created this thing.
0:36:21 I think it’ll help you out.
0:36:23 If you want to be among the first to test it,
0:36:26 let me know, I’m looking for some early users.
0:36:27 – It goes down a lot better, I feel like,
0:36:30 with teachers than the buy my stuff posts.
0:36:30 – Yeah.
0:36:31 – Especially like, you know,
0:36:34 marketing materials to teachers can feel hard sometimes
0:36:36 and teachers kind of have this almost ingrained culture
0:36:39 of freely sharing and that we’re all in this
0:36:41 for the service aspect and the higher calling
0:36:44 and we’re not doing this to be paid a lot
0:36:45 or to make money from it.
0:36:48 And that’s almost like a toxic culture within teachers.
0:36:49 So you can get a lot of pushback
0:36:51 when you start trying to market products to teachers
0:36:52 and it’s not free.
0:36:55 They’re like, well, why aren’t you giving away
0:36:57 your best ideas for free and just sharing
0:36:58 and being a part of the community?
0:37:00 And I always have to look at it like, well,
0:37:03 I can give you the free stuff that I create for myself
0:37:05 and it won’t be very high quality.
0:37:06 It works well for me,
0:37:07 but if you want me to put the hours in
0:37:11 to make a turnkey for you and amazing for your students,
0:37:13 I think that’s something that I do get to charge for
0:37:15 and it will be worth your time and your money.
0:37:16 – And that’s something else
0:37:18 because if somebody is in a Facebook group,
0:37:21 they’re not necessarily expecting to be sold to,
0:37:23 but if they’re browsing on teachers, pay teachers
0:37:24 or they’re browsing on some of their marketplace,
0:37:27 they’re going in there with the expectation to spend money.
0:37:29 And so it’s like a natural fit for that audience.
0:37:31 That is the marketing tactic.
0:37:33 The second part of the triple threat is a new
0:37:36 or new to you tool that you’re loving right now.
0:37:39 – I think for me, it is a tool from AppSumo,
0:37:41 which I’m sure you are familiar with.
0:37:43 And it’s called VideoTap.
0:37:45 And it’s one where I’ve been able to take a lot
0:37:47 of my videos that I’ve recorded.
0:37:49 So I do a lot of recording guest speakers from my classroom
0:37:50 and sending that out to other teachers
0:37:51 and letting them use it for free.
0:37:54 But it lets me break that up into small,
0:37:57 bite-sized social media clips using an AI tool within it,
0:38:01 produces a caption, produces the closed captioning for it.
0:38:02 And it’s an amazing tool.
0:38:03 Like I love it.
0:38:04 It’s just perfect for taking a video,
0:38:05 breaking it up in chunks.
0:38:08 And then it’s only easy to post it as small videos
0:38:10 or a blog post or whatever it is.
0:38:11 – A very cool video tap.
0:38:14 We will link that up in the show notes currently sold out
0:38:17 on AppSumo, but you never know when it’s gonna be back
0:38:20 in stock and we can absolutely link that up.
0:38:21 Cool resource.
0:38:22 Thanks for sharing.
0:38:23 That’s new to me.
0:38:26 All right, and the last segment of round three
0:38:27 of the triple threat is your favorite book
0:38:28 from the last 12 months.
0:38:30 – My favorite book from the last 12 months
0:38:32 has to be Never Split the Difference.
0:38:35 Really good book about negotiation from a former,
0:38:38 I think FBI agent or Secret Service agents
0:38:39 who would do hostage negotiation
0:38:42 and just the overlap of how that works with business.
0:38:43 I feel like I’ve read the book twice
0:38:45 and I just, I want to keep going back to it.
0:38:46 Every time I read it, there’s something new
0:38:49 and exciting in there that I can apply to my business.
0:38:52 – Do you find yourself in a lot of negotiation scenarios
0:38:54 with students or with customers here?
0:38:56 – Every day’s a negotiation, yes.
0:38:58 – How so?
0:38:59 – You’re always trying to convince students
0:39:02 that to buy what you’re selling in terms of the information
0:39:05 and to give your attention or to give their attention
0:39:09 to you, we’ll talk about being responsible consumers
0:39:11 and haggling or the example the other day
0:39:14 was when you go in for a job application
0:39:17 and they ask you what do you want your compensation to be
0:39:19 or what are you expecting a compensation?
0:39:22 Just the human psychology aspect of give them a range
0:39:25 and make your ideal number the low end of the range
0:39:26 so that they anchor to the high number
0:39:28 and everyone’s gonna feel like they win.
0:39:29 They feel like they’ve negotiated you down
0:39:31 to your lowest amount and you feel like,
0:39:33 well, that’s what I wanted anyway.
0:39:35 So just a tactic like that
0:39:38 that I would have been unaware of until I read that book.
0:39:40 – Interesting, I’ve always seen this title pop up
0:39:42 in Amazon search results.
0:39:45 I always assumed it was just kind of a negotiation book
0:39:48 and it sounds like there may be parallels to parenting
0:39:50 and other aspects of the business.
0:39:53 It’s not always negotiating dollars and cents
0:39:55 and meeting in the middle, but maybe you’re negotiating
0:39:58 attention and chores and tasks and other things too.
0:40:01 – It’s applied to my job, it’s applied with my kid,
0:40:02 it’s applied with my wife.
0:40:05 Yeah, it’s very much about relationships
0:40:06 and money comes into it a little bit,
0:40:09 but just negotiating conflict,
0:40:11 avoiding conflict in the first place,
0:40:13 making sure everyone feels like they’ve won
0:40:14 when it comes to a negotiation.
0:40:16 Yeah, it’s got a lot of applications
0:40:18 across a broad range of things.
0:40:20 – All right, well, you convinced me, you sold me,
0:40:21 I’m gonna add it to the reading list here.
0:40:23 Never split the difference.
0:40:25 We’ll link that up in the show notes along
0:40:27 with links to all of Rob’s resources
0:40:31 like phyeducator.com, phyeducator.store.
0:40:33 We’ll get you over to the teachers pay teachers page
0:40:36 so you can check out some of his listings there.
0:40:38 If you’re wondering what to listen to next,
0:40:40 if you like this digital product business,
0:40:42 I like it, if you create something once,
0:40:44 sell it over and over again, no fulfillment costs,
0:40:44 fantastic.
0:40:47 I’ve got another couple episode recommendations for you.
0:40:49 Most recently, I sat down with Debbie Gartner,
0:40:51 she shared how she was earning around a thousand bucks a week
0:40:55 from her Etsy Printables business in episode 637.
0:40:58 Don’t have to scroll too far down in the podcast app
0:40:59 to find that one.
0:41:00 And then we had a really popular interview
0:41:04 with Becky Beach in episode 582 from late last year
0:41:06 on how she was building out this whole suite
0:41:09 of digital products and bundles and using AI
0:41:11 to help generate ideas and some of the content.
0:41:12 It was really cool.
0:41:14 And if digital products aren’t your jammed,
0:41:15 that, yeah, that’s okay too.
0:41:16 And in that case, I want to invite you
0:41:19 to generate your own personalized side hustle show
0:41:21 playlist at hustle.show.
0:41:23 Just answer a few short multiple choice questions
0:41:24 about your interests and goals
0:41:27 and it’ll recommend eight to 10 episodes to start with
0:41:29 based on your answers.
0:41:30 Again, that’s at hustle.show.
0:41:32 Big thanks to Rob for sharing his insight.
0:41:33 Big thanks to our sponsors
0:41:35 for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:41:38 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
0:41:41 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:41:42 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:41:43 that support the show.
0:41:44 Really does make a difference.
0:41:45 That is it for me.
0:41:46 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:41:48 If you find in value in the show,
0:41:50 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:41:53 So fire off that text message to that teacher friend of yours
0:41:55 and say, hey, you should totally check this out.
0:41:56 Until next time, let’s go out there
0:41:57 and make something happen.
0:41:59 And I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:42:00 of the Side Hustle Show.