Finding Students Without Feeling “Salesy”

In this episode, Rachel Cicioni shares practical strategies for private practice teachers to find and attract their ideal students through targeted marketing, networking, and authentic online presence. Learn how to identify your ideal client, craft compelling messages, and leverage local and online spaces effectively.

Chapters
00:00 Understanding Your Ideal Client
06:44 Crafting Your Marketing Message
13:39 Visibility and Networking Strategies
21:33 Building Your Teaching Business Online
24:25 Old School Marketing Strategies
26:14 Email Outreach to Schools
28:12 Collaborating with Schools
32:00 Networking with Professionals
35:38 Creating Community Connections
40:42 Leveraging Social Media for Growth

Resources
PPT Teacher Directory
Email Template Bundle 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Teacher to Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Siccioni, former classroom teacher turned entrepreneur and mentor to educators building their own unique teacher businesses. This is a space for teachers who are curious about alternatives to the classroom, exploring private practice and other multifaceted work, and for those who want to know what success can look like beyond the classroom. I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into today's conversation. Alright, so first of all, I want to thank everyone who responded to my poll about what I should talk about for this episode. I am not terribly surprised by the one that won. How do I find students? And it's a hard one to answer in a broad general way because it honestly depends on who your ideal client is. But I'm going to do my best to give you some general rules and ideas that can help you get started. Because even though every private practice teaching business is different, there are some foundational pieces that apply to almost everyone. And the first one is this before you go looking for students, you need to know exactly who it is that you're trying to reach. If you remember from the last episode, we talked about figuring out your teacher's superpower, what you love to teach, and the problem you're especially good at solving. And all of that matters a lot because finding students is not just about putting yourself out there everywhere and hoping someone notices you. That's not a marketing strategy. That's throwing spaghetti at the wall and quietly panicking. And we don't need to do that. We know who we want to talk to. And if possible, I want you to base your ideal client on someone you already know. Maybe it's a student that you've worked with in the past or family that you have worked with that you really worked well with and loved showing up for. Or maybe it's the kind of learner that just lights you up because your skills, your experience, your personality, and your style of teaching are such a good fit for what they need. If this is an imaginary person, then I want you to make them as real as possible. Really flesh out all of the details. Like, are they dog or cat people or both? What are the parents' hobbies? What socioeconomic status are they in? Make them as real as humanly possible, which is why if you can base them off of someone you already know, that's even better. Or maybe you can sort of mix the qualities of people that you know and people that you don't. But you really want to know like as much about these people as possible. You want to know like about what their hobbies and interests are, you want to know where they'd like to go on vacation. You really want to know as much as possible about these people because that's how you're gonna reach them. That's how you're gonna be able to cut through the noise and you're gonna know the places that they hang out. So this is who I want you to imagine you're talking to in all of your marketing. Because one of the big rules of marketing is that if you send too broad of a message, if you cast too large of a net, you don't usually catch anyone's attention. But if you really narrow down into just this one person that you can call out almost by name, then you are going to get the attention of anybody who shares characteristics with that person. So we really do need to be as specific as possible. For example, if your ideal client is a mom whose child is struggling with reading, then you need to talk to her. If your ideal client is an adult who wants to have conversational foreign language skills before they take a trip, then you need to talk to them. So just really get to know them. I can't stress that enough. Know who it is that you're talking to and what their problem is, because I know I've said it so many times, not just even in preparing for this episode, but you really do need to like almost call them out by name. Hey, you person, I see you struggling with this problem. Let me help you. I'm amazing at it, and really feel comfortable and confident in saying all of those things. Also, when you are talking to a specific person, you won't get as nervous and your message will be much clearer. So, for example, when whenever I do anything for the private practice teacher, I always imagine that I'm talking to my teacher bestie, Desiree. So I don't feel nervous talking to her. I mean, you've probably heard me mention her already. If you've been listening to me for any length of time, I'm always talking to Desiree. And I don't get nervous, and I understand her situation. She's a busy mom of four. She's running her kids to all of these different activities. She's even had to leave school because of her kids being sick and having to go home from school. And then she has to sort of like on the fly come up with something for her students for the rest of the day because she's had to leave immediately because her husband's out of town and she doesn't have family nearby. So, like, that's the level that you want to know your ideal client. So that way you can talk to them and really make them feel seen because you know all of these things about what they struggle with on a daily basis. Hopefully, you're not dealing with a sick kid on a daily basis. I apologize if my voice is a little odd at this time. I ended up having to wake up super early in the morning so that way I could get this recorded for Mary in time because we lost electricity. I'm out on the East Coast and there were a lot of storms and we ended up losing electricity for like nine hours. So I wanted to make sure that I got this recorded in time for Mary to do what she needs to do and get it out to you by Monday, and also have plenty of time to get ready and leave for her trip. So if my voice is a little unusual, or if you're watching this online and you see me sitting here with my coffee and it's dark outside, I'm probably getting lighter as I'm going. That's why. All right, sorry for the little aside there. Another possible ideal client you might have could be a homeschool parent who is looking for a teacher to help them provide some structure, accountability, and targeted instruction. So if that is your ideal client, then talk to them. But not everyone. That was a mistake that I made. Now you still can, I mean, I still got some clients when I was talking about myself instead of them. When I was just saying, you know, teacher for hire, anybody who wants to learn this, you know, reach out to me. I got a couple of referrals. I got, but not nearly what I got when I focused on the person that I wanted to be talking to, it was a lot easier to get their attention. So that's what I'm trying to teach you to do. And in this episode, give you some strategies for different ways that you can do that. Because when you are talking to one specific person, and remember, anybody who shares characteristics with that person will also hear your message. People will recognize themselves in what you're saying, and that's what we want. That's what's gonna help them feel seen and help to build that no like and trust. The other part of this is that your message needs to be really simple. So in the last episode, I gave you a simple marketing formula that sounds like, hey, ideal client, I see you struggling with this problem. I can help. Here's how I help students or learners or families just like you. Here's how you can contact me, and that's it. Short, sweet, direct. We're teachers and so we love explaining things, and we're really proud of what we create and we should be. But a lot of times our ideal clients can get lost in that. We can tell them all of that stuff later. We can have places where they can find that stuff. But in the beginning of our marketing, in the beginning of finding our students, we just want to get their attention and we want to invite them to come and look deeper, look more closely at us and the solutions that we can provide for them. So you want to have that information available where they can find it when they start looking, but you don't want that to be part of your initial hey you messaging. Okay. The hey you messaging is to get their attention, pique their interest, and get them to want to come into our online space and look around. So right now we're just trying to get them in the door. We're just trying to get them to come into the store. Okay. This is not the place where we're going to be talking about our educational philosophy or all of our credentials. There is a place for that. And you will absolutely share that information. But first, people need to know number one, can you help me? Number two, can you help my child? Number three, do you understand what we're struggling with? And number four, do you have a clear way for me to take the next step? So when you're calling them out and you're inviting them in, you need to be able to tell them what to do next. For me, it's come to my website and check it out, schedule a free consultation so we can talk. Or sometimes it's send me a DM if you want to talk about this. The easier you can make this step, the better. And remember, it's kind of like dating. So you don't want to ask them to marry you right away. Sometimes scheduling a free consultation and having like a face-to-face conversation with you feels a little bit too forward. So inviting them to a place where they can learn more or where they can message with you first, like in the DMs or via email, feels a little bit safer than meeting face-to-face. Or inviting them to a place where they can learn more about you, like your website, where they can look around and see what you have to offer and see a little bit more about who you are and what your experience is before they take that leap to scheduling a conversation. Again, all of this comes down to really knowing your ideal client and how they function, and then inviting them to do the next logical thing of what's going to be most comfortable for them and the step that they're most likely going to take next. But at some point, I do highly, highly recommend getting them on a Zoom call so that way you can have a face-to-face and really sit down and talk about what your expectations of each other are going to be moving forward. So once you have that figured out, then we can start thinking about where we need to show up. And here's where I want you to think very practically. If your ideal student is a child or a teen, then the person making the decision is often going to be the parent or caregiver. And typically, not always, but very often, that is going to be the mom who is going to be in charge of scheduling activities, noticing school struggles, coordinating support, and getting the child to wherever they need to be. So I want you to think about where that mom is already. Where does she go where she might have the time and energy and awareness to notice you and your messaging? So, for example, does she go to the gym, then put a flyer there if they allow it. Does she go to a local coffee shop or Starbucks? If you can put a small flyer or a postcard on a community board, if you find small businesses that are happy to support other small businesses because that's what you are, you're a small business, then go ahead and put a flyer up. Remember, we're keeping that message super simple. Hey, you, I see you struggling. Here's how I can help. Here's how you can reach me. And for me, I use a QR code. So I have a lot of that information all on a Linktree of where they can schedule, if that's what they want to do, if they want to schedule that consultation, they can look at my website, they can find me on my different socials. All of those links are on my Linktree. I have an online store on Gumroad. So if they even want to look at some of the resources that you have first before contacting you, they can have that. And Linktree will even make a little QR code for you that you can use to, they can just scan their phone with it. So if you're old enough to remember when we used to be able to put flyers up in grocery stores, and then you would have all these little pull tabs at the bottom where you would have your phone number that they could call you. You can now just use a QR code. They can scan it with their phone, and then they have all of your information already with them on their phone. I do recommend going back and following up because occasionally people will take your little flyer or your little postcard and they'll take that with them. It's not necessarily been taken down for any reason. It's just they didn't recognize that they could just scan the QR code and have everything they needed. And so they just took it like they used to take those little pool tab phone numbers. So just check in with your flyers, don't just put them up there and then forget about them, check in with them because somebody may have taken it by accident. Um, think about all the places that she might go. Does she take her kid to the library? And if there's a an online community board, like an online newsletter, you can try and get your information in there. If there's a mom's group, if there's next door, the app next door, you can put it out there. You can use even Facebook Marketplace has a space for you to share your services. So think about all of those places, your church, martial arts studios, rec centers. Really just think about all the places where they may already be going. Those would be places that you can let them know that you are available, that you're an option for them. When marketing your business, because that's what you're doing, when you're finding students, is part of its marketing and part of its networking. So I'll talk about networking a little bit later. We need to do what I call brand awareness marketing. We just need to let people know that you are available to help. And the other piece of it is if we want people to talk about us, we want them to know what we want to tell them what to say. If we want people to talk about us, then we need to tell them what to say or what we want them to be saying about us. Because remember, not just your ideal client is gonna see this, people who share characteristics with your ideal client. So maybe the mom whose attention it gets, her child is doing fine with reading, but a friend of hers kid is really struggling. And so she's gonna have this information and tell her friend, hey, you know what? I saw this flyer at our local rec center. And maybe that would be an option when this mom friend is talking about how she notices her child is struggling. Now the one who saw the flyer knows what to say because you've told her in the flyer who you help. And so she can recognize that you might be somebody who can help her friend's child. I hope that this is all clear. Like I said, this is really early in the morning for me. So I'm calling this episode finding students, but really what we're talking about is putting yourself in a places where your students and families can find you because they can't find you if they don't know that you exist. So that really is the first job of all of your marketing is we just need to let people know that you exist. And then we need to let them know what to say about you or what you want them to know about you. And that's visibility. And we like to work with people. So I understand if you're not comfortable being seen, if you don't want to show up online, and right now I'm just talking about on flyers, but we have had so much AI, AI generated images, complete social media accounts that for people that don't even exist. And when we're talking about building a relationship with somebody and they're going to share their child and their money and their time with us, they really want to know that we're a real person and that we genuinely care about what we're doing. And so you need to show up as a real person. You don't want your online persona to be too perfect because that almost screams AI in this day and age. I mean, right now I'm showing up kind of in my PJs, holding my coffee, talking to you. But it's much better to show up imperfectly than to not show up at all. And those imperfections help people to trust that you are an actual real person and that you're going to show up no matter what. Because showing up and helping is more important than what you might look like on any given day. So when you think about everything you're doing as being for their benefit and as a way of serving them, I think it makes it a lot easier to show up without makeup on or to show up in an imperfect way. But I absolutely understand for the first couple of years, I never posted a picture of myself where I didn't have makeup on. I never got online without having, you know, like a curated face and my hair done and, you know, an outfit, or I love looking back at some of my old and earlier marketing pieces, which now we call marketing assets. So pieces of content that I put out there and seeing kind of how far I've come in shifting everything that I do and say to from being more centered on me and what I wanted to be projecting via my image and my persona versus being about you and helping the people that I want to serve that has really sort of been a shift. I want you to know that I understand where you're maybe coming from in wanting to make sure that all of your copy is perfect and wanting to make sure that everything that you put out there is perfect. As teachers, we're so accustomed to being judged by everything. I mean, there's even a rubric on how to judge us. So I definitely get where you might be hesitant to put yourself out there. Plus, especially when we're talking about like being in the online space, people can be really mean. So even some of those, I have a middle schooler right now, some of those mean girl fears are genuine. My daughter is dealing with some mean girl issues right now. And people can be mean. And sometimes people are just miserable and they're just mean because they're miserable. It really can have nothing to do with you. And remember, even if it feels like a personal attack, it really says much more about them than it has to, than it says about you. And I know I talked about that in a previous episode. When you're putting yourself out there and you're making yourself visible, you are opening yourself up for critique. And that's another place where I think it's really helpful to know exactly who it is you're talking to. And this is somebody that you care about. This is somebody that you want to show up for. This is somebody that you want to help. And so when you focus on just talking to this one person that you really care about and really want to show up for and making it be about them and making it be about helping them solve their problem. And that's what you're focusing on, I think it makes it a lot easier to show up. Like I would not hesitate to sit here in the morning drinking my coffee, talking to my teacher Bestie. And so because I would be completely comfortable doing this with Desiree, then that is what allows me to be comfortable showing up for you, even though we haven't met or haven't met yet. Some of you I have met. So if as you are putting together your marketing and your messaging and you're beginning to show up in online spaces and you're beginning to have like a social media content strategy, I would say think about those parents that you have worked with in the past and that you've worked really well with and be talking to them. Imagine that everything that you're doing is you're putting together for them and just trusting that it's going to be well well received and it's going to be understood because these are people that you know. That's another reason that it's so important to know your ideal client or have created such a full character for them that you can feel like you know them as you're talking to them. Now, before I get into social media, I want to talk about networking. Told you I would. And this is why I keep an outline because my ADHD medicine has not kicked in yet. And because this should be top of the list, lean into the networks that you already have. And that is almost how Barb completely filled her student schedule was by leaning into the networks that she already had as an established kindergarten teacher in her town for 17 years. She knew a lot of families, and you probably do too. If you sit back and think about all of the people that you have worked with and all of the students that you've helped throughout your years in the classroom, I mean, you already have testimonials, whether you know it or not. You have families that have loved working with you. And so reach out to them, let them know what you're doing. Ask them if they could put together a brief, you know, just two, three-sentence blurb about their experience working with you. If you're unclear about what your teacher's superpower is, start asking for some of those testimonials because they will happily tell you how much they enjoyed working with you and how much you helped their child. And that can help you to see your teacher's superpower. Go back and look through your SMILE file. Go back and look through that box of thank you notes and cards that students have given you and families have given you from your years of teaching, because that will help you to see who it is that you're talking to and what you want to be talking to them about. Also tell everybody what you're doing, not just your former students and not just your mom or the people that you're closest to. I want you to tell everyone. And yes, this goes back to being seen. And yes, this goes back to opening yourself up to the naysayers, to the people who, you know, genuinely care about you and they have what they believe to be your best interests at heart. So I would say wait until you're ready for them to question your judgment in starting your own teaching business. But don't wait too long. Get ready for that. Understand that they're coming from a place that's not able to see the whole picture and that more often than not, it's coming from a place of just their own fears, a reflection of their own ability to do this thing that you've decided you wanted to do. And they don't have all the information that you have. I don't want you to wait too long, but I do want you to wait till you are strong enough in your belief in yourself and your conviction in doing this that you can withstand any rattling to your self-doubt because they they will say something. But you know, you can just assure them. And when you're assuring them and you're you are also assuring yourself, you can even acknowledge, yeah, this is a little scary. This is kind of hard. This is definitely new, but I'm really excited about it. And usually that will help them to sort of wish you the best and try to help you. Now they know that you're doing something and they can send, share your. Name with them or send some information or say, you know what? I know somebody who can help with this. One of the simplest ways to do this is to create a Facebook business page for your teaching business and invite everyone, all of your Facebook friends to like your business page. Keep your messaging really simple on your business page so that way they can discern very quickly what you're about, what your business is about, and who it is that you are trying to reach and who it is that you help. And then invite every single person, even your neighbors, cousins, uncles, friend, even the people that you only accepted their friend request because they have a mutual friend or a mutual of a mutual friend. I have made thousands just from that alone. So it's absolutely worth it. It's worth getting over the awkwardness. And in the very beginning, remember, it doesn't have to be polished. It doesn't have to be super cute, and it doesn't have to be clever. When I first started, it was really very basically French teacher for hire. If you want tutoring or lessons, I'm here. And that did help me get a few of my first students. And it got me people asking questions about my business that helped me to clarify my message. It helped me to know, okay, these are questions that people are having. Ultimately, all of that ended up helping me to clarify my menu of services. So somebody would say, Hey, can you help me with test prep? Sure, I can help with test prep. I never thought about adding test prep to my menu of services, but I can definitely do that. And so that started helping me to brainstorm the types of things that I could be offering as part of my menu of services for my business. I also had another person who was a mutual friend of a friend reach out to me. I have still to this day, six years later, never met this person. And they just sent me a DM and said, Hey, Rachel, I have a friend who wants to learn French. I'd like to introduce the two of you. And it was like a group Facebook message of me and this other person, Sarah, who has now been my student for three years. And then this summer, she is bringing in another friend who wants to learn French. So I will be teaching the both of them together over the summer. And all of that came from someone that I to this day have never met. So it is absolutely worth it to show up in perfectly, as long as you are showing up authentically and in good faith with a good heart. You need to be there so that way they can find you and you have to get their attention. Now I want to talk about what I refer to as old school marketing. I already talked about the flyers, communities, message boards, and even conversations. This is another reason that I love having a QR code. So that flyer that I created, that little postcard size flyer, I used to put up business cards. And even Erica, who you're going to get to meet soon, pointed out that having a small like flyer is better than putting up your business cards because I always had my bus my QR code on the back of my business card. And the little flyer lets you just put up one piece instead of the front of your business card and the back of your business card, which is what I was doing. So it was actually Erica's idea. I want to give credit where credit's due to do this little flyer situation where the QR code is there. But we created on Canva. I took the QR code from LinkedIn, created it on Canva, saved it as an image to my phone. And now when I'm out and about, like taking my own daughters to lessons or to their extracurricular activities, and I'm just chatting casually with the other parents that are there, I can pull up my flyer and let them scan my QR code so that way they have the information about my business because maybe they or a friend of theirs or someone else that they know is interested in taking lessons or has always wanted to take lessons. I've even had people buy like a package of lessons for their mom because their mom was going to be going on a trip to France and wanted to brush up on her French and loved French and had a family member that was a teacher, a French teacher, and that's why they loved French. And so I did like mother-daughter, a package of mother-daughter lessons because for an upcoming trip to Paris. And that was super fun. It was just like an idea that they had. And it all came about because I was just sitting there chatting with a mom at one of my kiddos after school activities. And luckily I had that information right there that I could share. Now, this way is a little bit different, this next way, but it's again absolutely worth it. And what I'm talking about now is email outreach. So for this one, you're not actually talking directly to your ideal client. You're going to be talking about your ideal client. Because what I'm recommending you do is email schools to let them know that you exist. So that way they can be a source of referrals. And I do have some templates available in my online store. And I will give that URL to Mary so that way she can link it below in the show notes for you. If you're interested, it's just to help you get started. So with this strategy, it's kind of a two-part strategy. The first one is I want you to contact any and all schools. And if you are online, remember your the schools that you're reaching out to can be anywhere. So start locally and then let your reach go a little bit further out from there. And you're going to email four different people. I want you to email the principal. I want you to email the school counselor. I want you to email the content teacher. And then I also want you to email the high the homeschool coordinator if they have one. If it's a private school, these titles might be a little bit different. So you'll want to look at their websites and see exactly who would be the best person to be to reach out to. But those are generally the roles that you should be looking for to reach out. And your messaging is going to be super simple. It's hi, I'm so and so. I do this. If you have students struggling with X, please consider sharing my information with them. I'm here to help. And then provide a link to wherever your information is held online. So if you have a website, great, put the link to that. If you have a honestly, I think a website is really the best, but you can also share a social media profile if that's where you keep it. I do prefer a website. I think that it does work the best, but it doesn't have to be like a big, beautiful, multi-page, awesome website. You can create a simple website on Canva with card, C A R D D, Wix. There are several different options online where you can, even for free, create just one page online presence, just a one-page website where you can put some links and buttons and information about who you help. Remember, we're talking about them first. So who you help, how you help, who you are. Another way that you can use email, and I have seen this work very well too, is look at private schools and charter schools, look through their course catalogs. Now you can send them that introduction. I'm here to help if you have students in this content area. Absolutely send that. But another thing that you can do with those schools, because they have less red tape and less hoops they have to jump through, is look at their course catalogs and see where you can add value. For example, I have worked with two private schools that had students that wanted to learn French, but not enough for them to seek out faculty and hire somebody to teach French. So I basically worked with them or alongside them as an independent contractor. And there's two different ways that you can do this. You can do, like Amy, for example, in Florida, she is an independent contractor with the micro school that she's working with. So they pay her as a 1099 employee. So she's still self-employed. She still sets the terms of her employment, how often she shows up for students and in what way they negotiated that and set terms for that and a pay schedule for that. So she only sees those students twice a week in person. And then she creates activities for them to work on with another faculty member on the other three days a week. Very student-centered activities. So that way the other faculty member doesn't have to have any content knowledge around what Amy's teaching, but they can still help the students stay on task and answer questions because Amy has provided them with information, provided that faculty member with some instructions, kind of like a sub plan, but not quite so detailed. And that was something she's paid by the school. And that's something that she has worked out with that school. The other way to do it, which is the way I have been doing it, is I pay, or sorry, the parents pay me separately. So they pay their school tuition and then they also pay me. But the school gives them time in their school schedule to meet with me. If it's a local school, I do like to show up in person, not all the time. If I have a kiddo who's sick, then I can just send a message and say, we're online today. And the kids are like, okay. Or if it's an out-of-state school, I'm always online. And so that's fine too. But they give them time in their schedule and they give them credit for the course that they take with me. Even if it's an out-of-state school, they're able to do that because I have still have my teaching credentials and I have all of my degrees. That has never been an issue for us. If it was a public school, that could be different. A lot of times they like to work with companies that offer every content area, and then they only have one thing to like approve, and then they get all of this other stuff rather than approving a bunch a bunch of independent teachers and creating criteria in order to approve each independent teacher. So those are two different ways that you can go about using email marketing with schools to build your business. And for me, this was really important, and Amy too, because our kids are in after-school activities and we want to be present for those. I mean, a huge reason, huge part about why I left the classroom was because I wanted to be able to be more present and participate more fully in my children's lives. And so I'm really have very little after-school availability, which means I needed to find a way to work with students during the day. Another group that I work with during the day happens to be retirees and adult learners who can meet with me once a week during their lunch break. And we meet online and they're having lunch and we're still having a lesson together. So marketing to adults, I know a lot of teachers are a little hesitant because it's not a population they've worked with before, but really enjoy working with my adult students a lot more than I mentioned, than I expected to. So that's just something to sort of keep in the back of your mind if you're open to it. It can be a lot of fun. And you still get teacher gifts. So not that that's why we do it, of course. But when you're emailing these schools, really keep it, you want to be respectful of their time. These are really busy people who have very full inboxes. Keep the text super short, sweet, make it so that way it's easily digestible because when we're reading online, we're not reading the same way that we read text in print. So give it some good space so that way the text can breathe. Let them digest it really quickly, have that link, thank them for their time and move on. Also, check out schools that have tutor lists. So for me, I really don't love tutoring, but remember, I've talked before in previous episodes about how that can be a bread and butter service. It's what people are already expecting from you. So as you are getting your business started, you need to be generating some income. This can be one of your main income generators and even lead generators. So sometimes those tutoring students turn into lesson students. Not always, but they can. Once they've started working with you and like, wow, I really respond better to the way you teach than to maybe the way my classroom teacher teaches. So they might want to up the level of support that they're getting from you from tutoring to full lessons. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Some schools have tutor lists that they update either in, I think most of them, at least where I am, they update them in August. So as you're doing research on these different schools, if they have a tutor list, they usually have a contact and a way to go about getting on that tutor list. But that's absolutely worth looking into and just getting yourself there. So you're already on a list that they share with parents. And speaking of those tutoring lists, I also have a list that I have been building. This has been a dream of mine for a few years now. I am building a directory of private practice teachers, and I am keeping it free for the first 50 teachers because I want to build it up and have enough different content area teachers on there for parents to choose from before I start investing significant marketing dollars into it. So what I'm trying to create is something like Angie's list, but for private teachers. And I have, I will make sure that Mary has that link to share in the show notes too. I think I'm at 28 teachers at the moment. So for the next, sorry, it's too early for me to do math, but I'm thinking around 50 teachers before I start at putting ad spend behind it. But if you want to be one of those original founding teachers and get on this directory for free, it will be free for life. And I do recommend having some sort of web page. It doesn't have to be a paid-for web page with a custom domain. It doesn't have to be beautiful. Remember, it can just be that simple thing. Or even a Facebook business page, which I know I talked about earlier in this episode, a way for them to contact you online. I have a Google form you can fill out and I will give you some feedback on it. If I am able to list you and your business, I will share the listing with you. If there's something that needs to be tweaked or I'm not able to share about you and your business, then I will give you some feedback on that as well. But I do have this directory. I want you to know when I do start investing some ad spend into it, I am going to share that cost with you. And if you happen to be after those first 50, I promise those first 50, they would be free forever. So I'm not gonna, I meant what I said. I stay by my word. But if you happen to be over and above those first 50 and I'm investing some ad spend, I am going to share that with you. It should just be a few dollars, maybe a month. So I really want this to stay as a resource for us to get to know other teachers, but also really for parents to be able to find the teachers or students, adult students to be able to find the teachers that are right for them, have really been working this idea of teacher choice. And I want to get that out there and have a place for all of it to live. So that way we can be noticed and have some community as well. Just looking through my notes to see if there's anything else I wanted to share with you about this. Another, and again, so I'm going back to Erica. You're gonna meet her soon. Um, I just need we need to set up a time, but she is going to be one of my next, probably my next interview. So she is a literacy and dyslexia specialist. And I thought she came up with a really great strategy. And hers is to connect with other professionals who serve this the ideal client, but in a different way. So as a dyslexia specialist, she reached out to psychologists, psychiatrists, testing facilities, and other professionals who may be evaluating or diagnosing students with dyslexia. And her messaging was basically, hi, I'm Erica. This is my business. If you have students who need dyslexia intervention, please consider sharing my information with their families. And she received a tremendous response from that. And she has also built some reciprocal relationships where the professionals would say, Thank you for reaching out. I know my own pediatrician, for example, had a whole list of, I asked for a list of recommendations when I wanted my kiddos to be seeing different specialists, or if I needed occupational therapy, for example, for one of my kiddos, I asked for a list. I'm like, okay, where do I go and get that? So these professionals, when they diagnose a kiddo with dyslexia, parents could very easily be asking, okay, where do I go to get that? Or do you have any recommendations? And so she was able to set up this reciprocal relationship where they said, absolutely, thank you for reaching out. I'm really glad to meet you. Conversely, if you have any literacy students that you think would benefit from being tested or you suspect have dyslexia, please feel free to share my information with those parents. And so now she has a reciprocal relationship with those professionals. And you just keep it respectful. It doesn't have to be salesy, it doesn't have to be spammy or pushy in any sort of way. This is just thoughtful networking. And I hope that you don't feel any of this is salesy or spammy. It really is all coming from a place of just building awareness and serving your ideal client, helping them with something that they need help with. It doesn't have to be salesy. We can be in this space of service and still reach out to the people that we need to reach. Another example would be Beth, who is a Spanish teacher who teaches high school, middle school, and adults and has been working with universities for years. But she, because she wants to work with adults, has been connecting with travel agencies and travel bloggers because one of the services she wants to provide is Spanish for travelers. And so that makes perfect sense that she would be reaching out. Again, all of this comes from really knowing your ideal client and knowing what is in their environment, what's in their sphere, who are they already contacting, who are they already following? Another creative community idea that I love comes from Barb. And one of the things that she does, she's the owner of the Reading Cube. She helps, she's a retired kindergarten teacher who teaches just reading to students pre-K through grade five. And her business has even been voted best preschool in her town two years in a row. But her husband is a volunteer firefighter. And so he got to ride in a fire truck during a parade. And she threw little like bracelets that had her business name and email for uh, no, it was her business name and URL for her business website, and she threw them out of the truck at the parade. And so that was one of the ways she got her name out into her community. And we have also put together um like trick-or-treat bags, which Halloween is a great time because it's right at the end of the first marking period. So it's the things that kids are struggling with are already on parents' radar and top of mind at that time. And you can just put a little business card or a little flyer, or if you even want to run some sort of promotion, you can put it in a little trick-or-treat bag and then hand it out either at a trunk or treat, or if they're coming right to your house for trick or treat, that's another way to do it. And then this one I love. I really, really love. So my elementary school does like a spring fling and they also do a fall fest. And they're always asking for donations to make gift baskets, and then they will raffle those as a fundraiser while she put together a gift basket for her business and put her business flyer in there and donated it to the school for a raffle. And so you can do this for, you know, if churches are doing raffles, you can do this for schools. And she was able to write the whole thing off because it was part of marketing for her business. And I thought that was a great way. You're generating goodwill, you're helping out in your community, you are creating that brand awareness. And the person who's looking for that basket is probably somebody who cares about reading and children's reading, either for their child or their grandchild. So I thought that was just a brilliant strategy. Now, finally, let's talk about social media. I kind of hinted about it, but I didn't really talk about it very much. I mentioned a few things. I do recommend having a Facebook page and an Instagram account for your business. So, one of the reasons that I really haven't talked much about social media is because it's a long game. It's not something that works really super quickly. Whereas some of these other more direct marketing, like the email and the gift basket and the networking, that works much more quickly than social media does. And I really do recommend in the world of AI, using your actual human face. Remember, we have to build no like and trust with people. They need to feel like they know us, they need to know enough about us that they can decide whether or not they like us, and they need to like us enough and feel like they know us enough to trust us with their child and their money and their time. And while, yes, I want you to look professional, you also need to look human. If you don't need to be too airbrushed, you don't need to be too perfect. In fact, that can even hurt you, like I said earlier. And a Barb does this really well with the reading cube, but with social media, you do have to be consistent. So that's why I say start with Facebook and Instagram because they talk to each other. What Barb does is she posts on Facebook and then it automatically will post to Instagram. And every day that she works with students, which is only three days a week, she posts a picture of all the students she worked with that day. And that's really kind of it. Like, here, you know, here are this, the people learning with the reading cube today. They did such a great job. And just like a little teeny tiny blurb, you can absolutely look her up on those places and see the type of marketing that she did. Another thing that she did that really helped was doing read alouds, like she did with her classes in like storytime on the carpet, but she put them on YouTube so that way people could experience having her read to their kids. And that was um big lead generator for her when she first started her business. I don't think she's done that in a while. I always ask the teachers that I've worked with to share their marketing with me so that way I can also promote it and put it out there and cross-post it and help it to get a little more um reach and pull in the algorithm. But I don't think she has needed to do that in a while. But the key thing that she does is she shows up consistently. And you don't see her face a whole lot, but you do know that she's a real person. Another thing that one of my students, or not my students, one of my clients has done, Sue, is posted something that was really helpful about how she helps her students differentiate between a lowercase B and a lowercase D. So that's another thing that you can do. Remember, you want to have that hey you message. I see you struggling, I can help. But you also need to be posting multiple times a week. So if you can commit to three, do three. Once that gets easy, go for do to go for four. Once that gets easy, go to five. You get the idea. Don't be also So with social media, the only way you get good at it is by doing it. But don't be too caught up in having, you know, a really great online social media presence in the beginning, because the it takes six to eight weeks really for the algorithm to learn who you are, who's going to be interested in what you do, and to really push your content out there. So for those first six to eight weeks, you're kind of posting to crickets. You're not going to get a whole lot of notice and reach. So let that be your training time, let that be your practicing time, the finding your voice and figuring out what you like to do. The main key in those first few weeks is to learn how you like to post and what you like to post. Be consistent enough that the algorithm can pick you up. And think of it as stocking your shelves. That's what my very first coach told me when I started my first business or my second business was think of it as stocking your shelves, right? Before you invite people into the store, before people come into the store, you need to have things on the shelves. So that's really what you're doing in the beginning stages of building your online social media presence is you're stocking your shelves. You're letting the algorithm get to know you. The only people that are really going to see that stuff, remember, you are going to invite people, all of your friends and family, right? They're going to see you do it. But as far as strangers seeing it, they're not really going to see it unless they go down a rabbit hole of your content. So by the time they start to see your content, you've already gotten pretty good at it. And it's kind of fun to go back and see where some of our favorite creators got started and some of their beginning work, I think, is kind of fun. And so that's how your ideal clients are going to feel too when they find you there. And the other thing that you're building when you do that is depth of presence. We're helping them to know that you're a real person, you're not a scammer, you're not one of those like hey cutie types that's rolling into their DMs, trying to take advantage of them, who, you know, only has eight posts and they're like perfectly curated and they all happened within the last 48 hours, right? You're building some depth of presence. You're letting them know that you've been here for a while. This isn't, this is something that happens over time. This is already getting much longer than I usually like. So I'm going to wrap it up here. We can talk about this more. If you have any specific questions, absolutely let me know. I'm going to have a place for questions because I'm starting to get more of them and more engagement, which is really exciting. That's what I want. So I can help you better. If this episode gave you an idea for finding students, I would love to hear it. And if you have been out here building your own private practice teaching business for a while and have found creative ways to find your students, please share them with me. Or let me know if you want to get on the teaching directory. That link, it will also be there for you. And next week, um, I'm going to take a break from this particular topic and talk a little bit about recovering from the classroom and not just over summer break, but also if you're leaving the classroom for possibly good because you're going all in on your business, I know that it can be a really pretty complex mix of emotions that we face. It took me a good year to really start to feel recovered from leaving the classroom. I had to go through, you know, the full cycle of the classroom. And so I would have like the school year before I started to feel recovered. And that's what I want to talk to you about next week. Until then, I hope you have a great week. Thank you for listening. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or leave a review. This helps the conversation reach other teachers who may need it. You can learn more about what I do and how to work with me at theprivatepracticeteacher.org. Best wishes always.