The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
#1 Mistake TPT Sellers Make in January 2026
Stop setting random goals that look good on paper and build a plan that actually grows your TPT store. We dig into the quiet reason January resolutions fail for sellers: a lopsided focus on traffic while ignoring conversion and customer retention. Views matter, but without a store that converts and a system that brings buyers back, more clicks just multiply frustration. We break the cycle with a simple, repeatable framework you can use to shape your 2026 profit plan.
First, we unpack traffic the right way—seasonal keyword research, standards language teachers actually search, and resource ideas that match real classroom timing. Then we turn to conversion, where the biggest wins often hide: mobile-friendly covers, a thumbnail story that sells outcomes, previews that answer objections in seconds, and pricing that reflects value in your niche. Finally, we show how retention multiplies every effort: thoughtful post-purchase emails, bundle pathways, product ecosystems that build trust, and updates that keep customers engaged across the school year.
You’ll hear how to read your data to pick a starting point, map tasks to each revenue driver, and avoid the trap of busywork disguised as growth. If you’ve ever asked why more views aren’t leading to more sales, this conversation gives you a practical path forward and a way to plan an entire year with clarity and confidence. Ready to trade guesswork for a blueprint? Join our TPT Profit Plan workshop to build your personalized roadmap for 2026, then come back next week to keep the momentum going.
If this helped you, follow the show, share with a TPT friend, and leave a quick review—what revenue driver are you focusing on first?
Sign Up for the TPT Profit Plan Workshop: https://rebrandedteacher.kartra.com/page/hun253
Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L-wcnfZiuGw
Check Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/
My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch
Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115
Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher author and seller on Teachers by Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Let's talk about the number one mistake that TPT sellers make in January every single year and how you can bypass that mistake and what you should do instead. If you're new here, hi I'm Lauren Fulton. I have been selling on Teachers Pay Teachers for over nine years, and I'm consistently in the top 1% of sellers on TPT. In addition to this, I also sell my resources independently through a membership and through my own website. And I'm able to stay at home full time with my kids and live the life that I love just selling resources that I've created. It's incredible. And I am on a mission to help other teachers and moms experience the exact same things in their TPT business. And today we're going to be talking about some of the common mistakes that I see TPT sellers make every January 1st when it comes to creating their New Year's resolutions for their business or goal setting for their business. Let's dive in and let's get started. When it comes to some of the most common mistakes that I see TPT sellers make all the time with goal setting and with New Year's resolutions, I see a lot of the same mistakes happen over and over again. Where TPT sellers will set this goal of like, I'm gonna create X number of resources, or I want to make$500 a month before we get to the month of May, or I'm going to search engine optimize all of these products. And they start creating and setting all of these goals. And a lot of them are really good goals. But I think over and over again, what I see are TPT sellers setting goals or making resolutions without truly understanding what it is that they need in order to grow their business substantially on TPT within the next year. So for example, like they know that search engine optimization is a good thing. They know it can get them more views, which can lead to more sales. So they'll set a goal for search engine optimizing some resources, or maybe they'll set a goal for like updating some products or creating a certain number of resources within the new school year, which is great. Like all of these things are great and these are things that you should be thinking about and should be doing. But if I'm not careful, I can create a plan that is not comprehensive, it's lopsided. And what I mean by that is I can create a plan that's very heavy on views, like getting more traffic to my TPT store. And so when we're setting goals for our TPT business, we really want to make sure that we are leveraging all three revenue drivers in our business, which is traffic, conversion, and customer retention. And a lot of times what I see is I see TPT sellers who are choosing a lot of goals that are really heavy on focusing on increasing traffic. I'm gonna grow my email list, I'm going to add so many new resources to my store, I'm gonna search engine optimize resources, I'm gonna update covers, I'm gonna do all of these things. And they're missing these other two pieces, which are conversion and customer retention. And while increasing your traffic is a phenomenal thing and can absolutely help your business, if I'm missing these other two pieces, I am missing out on both short-term and long-term growth for my business. And I could potentially be shooting myself in the foot. But if I focus on really just increasing views or increasing traffic or things that are going to increase traffic in my store, but I'm not thinking about my conversion rate or even know what to do to improve my conversion rate or know whether or not my conversion rate is good, bad, or what have you. If I don't know what to do about conversion rate or I don't know what to do to improve customer attention, then by sending increased traffic to a store that is not converting optimally, then I am sabotaging my own success because I'm not going to get the results that I want out of the amount of work that I'm putting into my business. And so really understanding that you have three revenue drivers, not just one. You have three: traffic, conversion, and retention. And you need to be utilizing all three of those. Your January 2026 plan needs to include strategies for increasing your traffic, increasing your conversion rate, and increasing your customer retention. And you need to know exactly which tasks correlate with each of those three revenue drivers so that you can build a comprehensive plan for your business. And if you're wondering, well, Lauren, tell me, tell me all of those things. Well, I do. We do that inside the TPT Profit Plan. And I promise you, we do not have enough time in a YouTube video for us to do this together. We are gonna be doing it together in a workshop. We're gonna sit down together, we're gonna talk about traffic, conversion, retention, what they are in your business and what specific business tasks will help you improve your traffic, improve your conversion rate, and improve your customer retention. And we're gonna look at how to pull your numbers and how to look at your data to decide where you need to focus the most in your business so that you can set personalized goals and walk away with a comprehensive profit plan for 2026. The workshop is called the TPT Profit Plan, and we're gonna be building the business of your dreams in 2026. You will walk away from this workshop with not only a ton of knowledge, but you're gonna walk away with the confidence and knowing that you have a strategy, you have a plan that is perfectly tailored to your business and to your business's needs. And you're gonna have the confidence and knowing that when you go to implement that plan, it is going to have the success that you want it to have. And you won't just be walking away with a bunch of random goals that you hope will help you get to the business of your dreams. You're gonna have the actual blueprint for everything that you need to do in 2026 to get you where you want to be. So I've been talking about it for a while. So if you haven't signed up yet, you want to go sign up right now before you forget. Trust me, every single year when this is over, I have people trying to sign up on January 2nd. We have people trying to sign up in June. We have people trying to sign up all the time and they're like, when are you gonna do this again? So if you want to get in on this and you want to spend one evening mapping out your 2026 goals and knowing that you're doing it right, then come join us. We usually have hundreds of sellers there. This year I have a little goal of maybe making it close to a thousand TPT sellers. I would love to see that in the TPT profit plan this year. But I for sure want to see you there because I want to help you get to where you want to be in your business. Because I want that dream that you've had of taking your family to Disneyland this summer, or that goal that you've had to stay at home with your littles, or maybe that business that you've been dreaming of that allows you to have the flexibility and room in your budget to spend more time with your family without stressing over how you're gonna pay bills and how you're going to make ends meet in the coming months. Whatever your goals are for your TPT business, I want to help you get there. And so make sure you sign up for that workshop down below. And I will see you there. And I'm gonna see you guys right back here next week.