Market, Scale, Grow: Facebook Ad Marketing Strategy for Teacherpreneurs

200 | The Balancing Act: Back to Teaching & Running My Business

• Jenzaia

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In this very real and vulnerable episode, I share how I've transitioned from running my business full-time to balancing it with my return to classroom teaching, and why I believe your business should work for you, not the other way around.

After many different renditions of my business, I hope the insights into how my business is working for me right now can support you!  Remember, it's okay for your business to change as your life evolves. You're in control and can adjust your business model to fit your current season.


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Speaker 1:

Hello, welcome to this strategy session. My name is Jinzea, I'm your host and let's jump into a not so much marketing related one. Not so much marketing related one. I don't really know exactly what the title is going to be, but today we're going to talk about how I'm no longer working full time in my business and the reality of that pros, cons, solutions that I've had to come up with and all of my feelings surrounding that. This is not a new thing, but it's definitely something I've been avoiding talking about because I have so many feelings about it. I also have, like, dropped so many balls. I don't know, like, if you're a regular listener, but the last three episodes were all about summits and summit ads, and all of that because I wanted to run a workshop on getting summit ads up and going and how you could plan that out and do it all, and I wanted to maybe even like not a course, but just like some live workshop, one hour long session, kind of things that people could kind of like a course that I would walk through, getting all these things set up and I just like my brain can't right now. There's too much. So the most important thing of all of this, what I hope you walk away from is knowing that you're running your business and this business needs to work for you. One of the big reasons we have businesses, we have online presences, why we start these things, is so that we can take some freedom back into our own lives and we can have the flexibility that we need, and my business has provided that for me for the last five years six years now. My son just turned six and that was a really big turning point for me and my business.

Speaker 1:

If you've been around a while or you go back and listen to the first couple episodes where I share my story, I started my TPT store back in 2013. I was living in Taiwan and I started posting resources I made because why not? I didn't really have any monetary goals. I was not very intentional about it, I just was like I'm making these things. They can go up. I refer back to that era of my life as post and coast. I would just like be really thankful for the money I got while I was living in Taiwan. I used it to buy audio books. Eventually, I moved home and it bought our bridesmaids their dresses. We were able to to gift them their dresses instead of them having to pay out of pocket. For a while it was our grocery money every month. It has helped pay our mortgage. Like TPT has done a lot for me all in like post and coast era where I wasn't really doing any work besides posting what I was making because I was using it anyway.

Speaker 1:

After my son was born, I was really really struggling. Turns out I was already pregnant and I was dealing with hormones postpartum hormones and pregnancy hormones which for me was not a happy mix, especially before I knew what I was dealing with. So somebody was like get some time back for yourself, maybe you know, like focus a little bit on your TPT store. And I really dove in. Like it became my nap time hustle after my son went to bed. I really like worked on it a lot and it grew and it grew and it grew.

Speaker 1:

And then our daughter was born and I knew, even before the pandemic hit, I knew I was going to be extending my maternity leave. She was born in May, late May. I was not interested in going back to work for June of a school year, so my plan was always because in Canada we get 12 months so my plan was take the normal maternity leave from, like, let's just say, june 1st all the way to June 1st, so that's the 12 months, but then also take June, july, august off of the that year and go back when my daughter was 15 months old, in September, and so I knew I needed to be able to cover my income in those three months because I wouldn't be getting any maternity leave pay anymore, I wouldn't be getting any income of any sort and our family needed both incomes. So I knew that my business kind of had to fill in that gap. And that was the first time that the business really really did something for me, that I was able to make a decision so that I could be home with my kiddos.

Speaker 1:

And then the pandemic happened and things kind of got a little crazy and my business grew and I was able to actually stay home for over three years with them, so extended my maternity leave. The school board that I worked at is pretty flexible and we're able to take like extend your leave at any kind of percentage that you want. So I actually went back to work for a couple days a week and then eventually dropped down to just one day a week and that really worked for us and for our family. Before my son went to school, before my daughter went to school, I was home with them four days a week. It alleviated some child care needs. My husband does have a great schedule for child care as well, but there was some. There would have definitely been some time that we needed child care support. Child care support, um.

Speaker 1:

And then a pretty traumatic situation happened at the school where I work and I stepped in to cover for that situation. That was back in in November 2023 and that was like wild. My business was in full swing at that time. I was presenting live at two conferences, I had eight ongoing clients plus some projects. Working full-time and running a full-time business was absolutely wild, and so I don't ever want to go back to that time of my life again. I am a thousand percent sure I dropped balls for clients. I dropped family balls. I dropped work like teaching also like crazy.

Speaker 1:

So between that experience and then where we are now, I have scaled up my business to allow me to be teaching again, to have increased my time back in the classroom, and I feel really, really fortunate for that time that my business gave me. But my heart has also been really, really full, having returned full time to teaching and the classroom is my happy place. It's always been my happy place. I've when I was working just one day a week I would look forward to that day to the students, to the energy that being in the school brought me. I don't know where, like, life is going to take me and I'm also very thankful, like I still have my business. I I still have the ability to you know, scale that back up and take on more clients, um, but my business has changed dramatically multiple times and, um, I just want to, you know, give that to you of like that's what your business is for.

Speaker 1:

My business helps with our groceries and help with our mortgage and help with pay for our wedding, and then it helped me find myself with my son and it helped me extend my maternity leave with my daughter, and it has helped us to buy a bigger house so that we can expand as a family and grow more. It's helping me put gardens into our backyard right now. It's allowed my kids to go to outdoor school. There's just like. It's given me so much freedom and flexibility. I've met some amazing, amazing people, but now, having increased my teaching hours, being back in the classroom and also running my business.

Speaker 1:

There has been some reality checks that have happened, and so let's just talk about some of the pros and cons. I'm actually going to start with cons because, like, let's get the negative garbage out of the way first and then we'll go into some pros and then also like where, what solutions I have, and again, I just hope you can take something from this of like what your business can give you at different times, right? So the first con and this one's really really hard for me, it's the one I've struggled the most with is my consistency. I am less consistent and I know how important consistency is to a stable, long-term business. So I've really really struggled of figuring out my priorities, figuring out my timing and figuring out how I can work when my brain feels like mush.

Speaker 1:

So if I've just taught a full day and then I come home and I am a mom from like 4 pm until 8 pm when my kids go to bed, finding the brain power and this has always been a struggle for me, even when I was was teaching just one day a week finding that brain power on my teaching day was non-existent, but when it was only one day a week I didn't have power on my teaching day was non-existent. But when it was only one day a week, I didn't have to. I could just, you know, let everything go that night, chill with my husband on the couch and then the next day put 100% into my business when I had those working hours in the morning. And so now it's a little bit harder when I don't have as many days off. I don't have as many days when my brain doesn't feel like mush after 8 pm and having to really really prioritize, like what's important and what's not, and looking at the bigger picture. My podcast is definitely something I've tried to prioritize. My emails are something that I've tried to prioritize, and just making sure that those go out as consistently as possible and as regularly as possible has been a huge challenge that I'm still working on.

Speaker 1:

Another con is that I previously had a six-figure business multiple years in a row and then I've had to scale back, and so that's been really hard, even though it's been intentional, even though I've definitely made the choice. Um, I haven't had a 10k month in over a year. I, my business, is down and like. It's a con, but it's one that I want and it's one that I'm okay with and one that I've done intentionally. My profit margins are actually up, though, because I've cut my expenses down so much, and so now the majority of my money either goes to paying me or to taxes. My expenses have just been trimmed so so low that though those are my only two expenses basically is me and taxes, which is really really nice. Um, money is something people don't talk about, especially when it's quote-unquote, going the wrong direction, but, um, as hard as it's been for me to see that, it also has been like a really good reality check of you know how much work you put into something is how much you get out of it, and having scaled back my client load and having scaled back my appearances, like in other people's summits and on other people's podcasts, and my own podcast episodes and my own emails like scaling all of that back, of course I'm going to take a hit in income and profitability. Well, not profitability, like I said, my profit margins margins are actually up, so that's been kind of nice.

Speaker 1:

Last con and this one I actually think is just funny, but it's definitely a con is that some people don't like the hours I work, and I know that that just means I'm not the ad strategist for them, but I have intentionally I switched, officially, switched my hours to Pacific time because I hate working mornings. First of all so that and then second of all, for the days that I am in the classroom teaching, I'm available afterwards anyway, and so I have availability. But in Eastern time that availability is like 5 pm, 6 pm, 7 pm, but in Pacific time that availability is like 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, but in Pacific time that availability is like 1pm, 3pm. Those are still very much working hours in Pacific time and so I've made that switch. People still don't like it and I again, I just know that they're not the right client for me. If our hours don't match and if they need it to be within their working hours, then they need to find someone who meets that criteria. I totally understand. But I did get one email that was like really angry at me for not having availability within the hours that they wanted. So again, feel like a dodged bullet there, someone who's getting really angry at me before we've even ever worked together. It just doesn't feel like a good fit.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so some of the pros. The first one is actually that same thing that I've switched my working hours. So I now have hours that actually work for me and my body and my brain. I'm not a morning person. I've never been a morning person. I'm definitely a stay up late work kind of person and recently I added into my signature like I think it says FYI my working hours may not reflect your working hours. Please read, read, respond and act if necessary, to emails at a time that works for you, because even no matter what time zone I'm working in, if this isn't your working time, then you shouldn't be. Oh yeah, it says I work a flexible work schedule across many time zones, but I don't expect you to drop everything if you're having dinner with your family or if you're asleep.

Speaker 1:

I don't, I don want that. I have almost all notifications turned off on my, my phone, on my computer. I don't have my email open. That's a lie. I do have my email open, but it's just like a little pinned tab. I don't actually have it where I'm looking at it. I have very specific times that I look at my email and I make sure I respond very intentional about that and that's felt really, really good, good. I also already talked about this.

Speaker 1:

I have fewer clients now, but the clients that I have. I have more project-based clients, which I love, and I prefer in a lot of cases, projects to the ongoing. Now I have a couple of long-term, amazing ongoing clients. Shout out to them. They're, they're fantastic. If you're listening, I love you. I'm making a heart symbol right now and I have really great working relationships with all of my ongoing clients. They've been with me for I don't even know one of them.

Speaker 1:

She was one of my first clients. I think she was ongoing client number like four or something, and she's still with me. So she goes back all the way to early 2021, which is like wild to me that she's been around so long. So this would be like we're going on four years. And others have been with me for 12 months. Some of them it's like on and off. We work together for like six months and take a three month break and then six months.

Speaker 1:

So I love these clients. Don't get me wrong. But there's just something really exciting for me about project based, where I get to go in, do something really cool, work with new people, learn about their businesses and see the inner workings of their marketing systems and learn something new, and then I get to be like here's your awesome ad campaign go off and rock this world. I love it. It a little bit reminds me of when I worked at the restaurant. I was a server all throughout university and I loved how I got to talk to all kinds of new people up to their table, find out about their day, find out about what they were doing, what was going on, have these really cool conversations and never see them again. Not that I don't want to, not that I want to like never see my clients again. I do, like when I interact with them again. I see them at summits or I, you know, pop, they pop up on my Instagram feed or like whatever it is, but I don't. It's just something about my personality, like the freshness of it. So that has really been nice.

Speaker 1:

I also am able to schedule projects and take clients based on the ebb and flow of my life. Obviously, when I increase my teaching hours, I also increase, like, report card load or interview time. So there's specific times of the year where I just like can't take on as much and with projects, I'm able to, you know, say yes or no based on the flow of our lives, flow of my kids lives, activities, stuff like that. So that's been cool too. Also, with fewer clients, I've been able to have more family time, more personal time, especially when that brain is mushy. Okay, so some of the solutions that I am implementing. Number one is being okay with what I'm doing and specifically the inconsistency. I'm really just having to accept that it is what it is, trying to come up with plans and get them in place so that I can be more consistent, specifically with recording my podcast and getting that out every single week.

Speaker 1:

I would love if I had a dedicated time each week that I could record it, and I'm working on that. But again, my brain just feels like mush, and so I used to. When, like these are in like the beginning, beginning days of my podcast, I've always had a Saturday podcast. Used to be Friday nights. I would sit down, record, edit and publish. Now my brain is just like mushy, mushy, mushy on Friday nights and so. But I have time Saturday afternoons when I do it. But then recently we've had like stuff going on and this and that, and I just haven't sat down and so, like today it's Sunday and I'm sitting down, I'm recording, I'm still getting it out and I'm like giving myself grace on that, but trying to find, you know, like on a Tuesday or Wednesday night where I can sit down and record the podcast, so that I'm not waiting till Friday when I know my brain's gonna be mush, mush, mush, mush I'm having fun saying that word um, so that is the first one recognizing where the problems are and trying to find solutions with the time, energy and consistency abilities that you have.

Speaker 1:

Prioritizing, prioritizing, prioritizing prioritizing Social media is not my priority, it's never been my priority, but with the less amount of time that I have now, it really has gone the wayside of just letting it completely go. And then my podcast comes before my emails and I just have to be okay with that. The problem is I have it's easier for me to sit down and pump out an email than it is for the podcast, so then that becomes like a hard situation a little bit, because I have more time to do the email, but I don't like to do the email without the podcast, and so just getting stuck, but I don't like to do the email without the podcast, and so just getting stuck. Anyway, find the inconsistencies, find where the problems are, identify what the problem is, talk through it, potentially with an audience that you can't even see, like on a podcast, like I'm doing right now, and find a solution. So knowing that I need to record my podcast on Tuesday or Wednesday night, when my brain has a little bit more ability, and then ensuring that it does get out for those.

Speaker 1:

The Saturday Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. And then this one I use a lot. I've always liked to block my time and have time blocks, like when my kids were little, little little, it used to be awake time, nap time, and I'd have something like in that nap time and then eating, play time, nap time, like what I was doing in each of those nap time periods. I also had, um, and I would block in like 15 minute chunks, like what can I get done in 15 minutes? Because if you know anything about babies, they might sleep for 15 minutes and they might sleep for an hour and 15 minutes, and so I would try and prioritize things in like 15 minute blocks of like okay, if I get one, this is what I do, if I get two, then that's number two, three, four, like all the way kind of thing. And so now I think that that got me into the habit of just being like what can I do in 20 minutes. What can I do in 20 minutes? So when I get up in the morning I try to do something before the kids get up, before I have to do anything else, I just like what can I do in these 20 minutes?

Speaker 1:

And I remember in university I used to use the like just work for five minutes strategy when I was procrastinating on an essay or studying for an exam. Like, just do it for five minutes and then you can reevaluate. And typically once you get started, it's easier to keep going. And so I use those two things combined. What can I get done in 20 minutes? And just do five minutes? And you can like if it's really still not working after five minutes, let it go and pick something out. And usually I can get whatever I need to done.

Speaker 1:

And actually that reminded me of another thing that I do often is time myself doing things. Most recently I did this with folding a basket of laundry. I like to procrastinate folding laundry. Um, the crazy thing is we don't really fold a lot of laundry in this house. Almost all of my stuff is either hanging up or just in the right drawer both of my kids same thing it either hanging up or just in the right drawer. Both of my kids same thing. It either gets hung up or in the right drawer. We do fold my son's shirts so that he can see his long shirts versus his short sleeve shirts. My daughters get hung up, but pants, shorts, underwear, socks we do match, but we just kind of throw them. Otherwise pajamas just go into a drawer.

Speaker 1:

So I procrastinate folding laundry, and so this tip helped me to see it differently a little bit, and that was timing how long it took. I didn't even actually time folding the basket of laundry. We were listening to Imagine Dragons songs. My kids are obsessed right now because of Minecraft videos that have been done, with the Imagine Dragons songs playing to them, anyway. So we were listening to. My one kiddo was in the tub, my husband was dealing with her, I was playing Imagine Dragons songs, the other kid was running around and I was folding laundry. While it was happening, we got through three Imagine Dragons songs which are three to four minutes each, and I fold the whole basket of laundry. So let's just say all of them were four minutes. That's 12 minutes for me to sort, organize on backwards, upside down, inside out all of the clothes and get them all away. It took me 12 minutes. I was like, why am I procrastinating 12 minutes?

Speaker 1:

And I find that a lot, also with like client reports. I did this a while ago. When I do my client reports, I do it every single day or every other day in some circumstances, like weekends kind of thing. Even when I do it every other day, one client typically takes me less than three minutes to complete the daily check-in. Then I do a weekly one that takes a little bit longer, can take up to half an hour depending on the client and all the things that I need to pull for them. But like on a daily, day-to-day basis, it takes me let's just like err on the side of doubling it five minutes.

Speaker 1:

Five minutes to go in, grab the information data that I need, upload it into the spreadsheet, look at the spreadsheet, decide what it means and take the notes about what, if anything, I'm going to do Now. If I need to do something pretty significant like order new images or add copy or anything like that, that of course that's going to take longer than that five minutes. But knowing it's probably only going to take me five minutes to do it makes it so much easier to get things done and I think often we overestimate how long some of these things are going to take. And so, in your head, if you're like, oh, it's going to take me half an hour to deal with this laundry, I don't want to do it. But if you're like, okay, 10 minutes and it's done and I don't have to stare at this basket of laundry for the rest of the week, that makes it a lot easier to do. Um, so yeah, those are some of my solutions.

Speaker 1:

Now that I'm like short, pressed on time, I'm just going to quickly go through them again, being okay with inconsistency, but also identifying where is what's sticking you up and coming up with a solution so you can be more consistent in the places you really want to be. Be okay with letting things go, like I've let social media go, prioritizing, so you know which things you need to figure out a solution to and which ones you can just let go of the 20-minute pockets. What can I do in 20 minutes? Let go of the 20 minute pockets. What can I do in 20 minutes? Five minutes, just get started and then give yourself, like you have to work out of her five minutes, permission to end and move on to the next thing or whatever you need to do after five minutes. Usually you're going to keep working and then the last one is time.

Speaker 1:

These tasks know how long it takes, and then you can have a bit of a better idea in your brain, a bit of a better sense of how long it takes, and then you can have a bit of a better idea in your brain, a bit of a better sense of how long it's really going to take. So I know this business is here for me and I know your business is there for you and it's so, so nice that we know our businesses ebb and flow. Also, when it is time for me to kick the business back into high gear and I'm in a phase of life where I want to be running a six-figure business and I want to be working on it again, then I can. I am not the type of person who wants to be working and teaching and increasing those hours and also running my business full-time. I don't know if it's just the structure of my business or my personality or whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

I know that life isn't for me in this season, this phase, but it might be for you, especially if your goal is to get out of your full-time job, you might have that drive and that energy to push, push, push for your business, knowing that it's going to be for a short time, so that you can get out of that full-time job that you're hating. I love my daily job, like I love teaching. My goal is not to get out of the classroom, and so my goal is to find a way that I can sustainably continue teaching long term and also continue running this business, because I absolutely love it. So, again, I really hope you're able to take something from this and, if not, just see inside of my little brain for half an hour or whatever it's been, and next week I will be back, hopefully, with another strategy session or maybe insights into a CEO's brain. Until then, have a wonderful, wonderful week.