← The CEO Teacher Podcast
The CEO Teacher Podcast
The Teacher Business Success Stories You Need to Hear
00:25:49
This one is for the teacher business owners (even if you haven't started) who need a little pep talk! It’s not every day I wake up and say “Today is the day I explicitly share my teacher business story.” To be honest, my journey, my story...
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- [00:00]
Kasey Morris
Hey teachers and welcome back to the show. We are so excited today to announce that the CEO Teacher Membership is now officially open for enrollment. If you go to Casey morris.com join. You can join us inside of our membership. We've helped thousands of teachers get started or expand their online teacher businesses from selling lesson plans to so much more. And now, between now and Friday, it's your time to join us. Go to Casey morris.com join or calling all current or former teachers. I want you to grab your favorite highlighter and get ready to dig in. You know all those lesson plans that are on your desk or in the depths of your computer? They are full of gold and we are about to use them to take the guesswork out of turning your teaching skills, resources and other things into a profitable online business. Whether you have no idea where to start, zero tech skills, or a serious allergy to marketing itself, you're in the right place. Let's face it, you're ready to make 2025 a whole lot sweeter than its younger sibling. And I've got just the thing. Get your hands on the free guide to start or expand your online teacher business in 2025 by going to Casey morris.com start that's K-A-Y-S E M O R-R-I S.com start inside you'll find my best tips, shortcuts, mindset shifts and hard won lessons for turning your teaching magic into income, flexibility and influence both within and beyond the four walls of your classroom. Strategies like turning your lesson plans into a thriving teacher business without adding hours to your already hectic work week. The difference between teacher businesses that make consistent sales and those that result in crickets. Hint. Yes, there's more to your success than just creating a resource. And I'll show you exactly what's missing. All while helping more students. Because that's really what matters most. Am I right? You've already got what it takes to build a successful teacher business. You don't need all the answers, you just need to put one foot in front of the other. Come download this guide by going to Casey morris.com start and I'll see you on the other side. In today's lesson, we're going to talk all about the five fears that most teachers have when before they decide to start their business or truly grow their business. I think sometimes that these fears lead us to procrastination, stagnation. I think that we sometimes believe that we aren't worthy of living a life of more freedom or building our own future we see people on social media doing it, and we think to ourselves, wow, I wish I was that lucky. I wish I could do that. But I just went to school to be a teacher, and I want you to know that you're in the right place, because being just a teacher is our specialty. So let's jump right in to the five fears, and then we have a special treat for you at the end of today's show. We're going to be sharing with you our hall of fame CEO teachers, some of our most amazing students who have done some remarkable things. We're going to be sharing all of them with you at the end of today's show. So let's jump right into those fears. Fear number one, you're worried that there are already too many teachers out there selling their resources, and you're not sure how your lesson plans will stand out from the rest of them. And let me be honest with you. I hear you. I used to feel exactly the same way. And I used to think about other teachers as competition, and it scared me. But then I realized that there is room for all of us on the playground, that no one is in competition with anyone except for yourself. So until I found mentors that helped me shift my mindset from competitive to collaborative, I was kind of stuck in this wheel of he said, she said, or this looks better than mine, or I don't think I'll ever be this successful. And it really kept me stuck because the truth is, is that there are way more teachers in the world than there are resource sellers, and there are way more students in the world than there are teachers. Not to mention, teaching styles are a lot like fingerprints. Every single one of us teaches and learns in a much different way. You know that you could tell me your favorite teacher of all time off the top of your head, and that's because they left a lasting impression on you. It's not about who was teaching. It was truly about how they taught. And your unique perspective, your skills, your talents are perfectly suited for the millions of people out there who need your help. Yes, I know there's probably a hundred interactive notebooks on TPT about reading. I also have one. But the world has never seen your interactive notebook or the way that you do flipbooks or task cards or digital resources about reading. And because I decided to share my journey with interactive notebooks, it became one of my best sellers. There have never been more people out there who need your help right now to learn. I believe with every cell in my body that there is room for everyone on the playground. The solution to help you get over this fear is just to find a mentor who's been there before. I want to help you see your gifts and I want you to own them. We've personally helped thousands of teachers step past their limiting beliefs and into their power as CEO teachers, and I have zero doubts that I could help you do the exact same. All right. Fear number two that we hear a lot is you don't believe that you have the skills or talent to create high quality or sellable teaching resources. Because like I said before, you're just a teacher. And I just. I just want to hit you with some cold hard truth. A nobody born with perfect PowerPoint skills, my friend. Ain't nobody able to just wake up and figure this all out. In fact, we believe that CEO teachers are made, they're not born. I certainly wasn't. In fact, when I first started selling my teaching resources on tpt, I was still trying to make everything in Microsoft Word, which is way more complex and complicated than it ever has to be. I spent thousands of hours scouring YouTube and blogs teaching myself how to create those cute and useful resources that sell so well. And I definitely failed a lot over and over again. But then I started to create immense success. I'm going to make it easier and faster for you to do the same. It took me about three years to make over a hundred thousand dollars, but it took me that long. So it doesn't have to take you that long with step by step tutorials that teach you everything from the do's and the don'ts of clip art to understanding graphic design, installing and using fonts, and creating digital resources that you can sell before the bell rings. So instead of sitting at your computer struggling to even format your resources properly, you'll be comfortable focusing your attention on making them fun, eye catching and eminently sellable. Carrie Grogan said, Last month we went to Los Angeles for a trip and I was actually sitting on Venice beach thinking that I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't join the CEO teacher because I would still be stuck in school. I wouldn't have the freedom to travel and do all of these things. Fear number three is you don't think you have enough time to create resources. Hello rocking teacher with students to support and responsibilities, the shoulder. Not to mention you have your own family and your own life. I know it is 100% true that you are trying to balance it all right now. You may try to keep the attention of kids and those kids have zero attention span, you are probably stressed out. Waking up to go to school every day and just get your daily to dos in the state of the world is probably also stressing you out to the point that you're having trouble concentrating and being productive because same and the truth of the matter is you'll always be busy, but you will always have the power to prioritize what matters most to you. The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is that you've already done half of the work. You are already creating resources for your own students. All you have to do now is polish em up, put a pretty book cover on them and let's get them online where they can help more teachers deliver knowledge to even more students. Consistent effort, even if it's just 30 minutes a day, can pay off in a really big way. Here's my promise to you. I understand what it's like to be a time strapped teacher with a life and family to juggle and that's part of why I created this membership. If building an online teacher business were a four lane highway, friends, this is the fast lane. Fear number four is you've never used social media to sell anything and you're kind of scared of putting yourself out there. I want to also say that I feel you and I know you may be thinking, kasey, you're lying. I've been to your social media and you're always out there and I have changed a lot in the last couple of years. It's hard. It's hard to put yourself out there. Maybe you don't even want to showcase your personality and that's totally okay. I can think of tons of people who who are leveraging social media as teachers without posting pictures of their smiles or their kids. I mean, just go look at how many followers bored teachers has on their Instagram, right? So what do you need? You just have to master the ins and outs of social media so that you can start to grow your audience and sell your resources easily from an organic place. You need to learn the best practices of what to post, where to post what, when to post. You gotta figure out how to make sure that your posts stay on brand and how to convince people to follow your social media to your TPT store or website. I'll show you all of this and more so that when you choose to post on social media, you'll always get a polo in response to your Marco. AKA you'll really learn how to go from social media feeling like it's just one other thing that you have to do to really building a loyal community and increasing your sales. And fear number five is you hardly understand what search engine engine optimization is. Maybe you've never heard of it, let alone how to use it to make sure that your resources get on the very front pages of Google and tpt. Learning how to blog and understanding search engine optimization were two major game changers in my online business. They're what took me from making a few hundred a month on TPT to earning tens of thousands per month, selling my resources and helping other teachers grow their own incomes. In fact, content creation and search engine optimization are the differences between your resources getting lost in Internet obscurity and making sure that teachers who need you find you quickly and easily. All you need is a complete breakdown of how to master SEO from the ground up so that you'll know how to rank on Google, TPT and more. Remember, this is the key to building a sustainable business. Make it easy for people to find you and you will be successful. I want to share with you some of our favorite success stories. We like to call these our CEO Teacher hall of Famers where we had a fun chat with some of these students. We call them round tables and I got to interview them and talk to them about their journeys. It truly lights me up inside and I can't wait to share it with you. Don't forget that the cart is closing to our membership on Friday, February 28th at 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. If you go to Casey morris.com join you can get in right now. That's K A Y S E M O r r I s.com join and I'll see you on the roundtable interviews.
- [12:26]
Carrie Grogan
I think I've had a lot of success because of your framework. I feel like I can run any business. I feel like if, if teaching went away tomorrow I could go and run a salon. I will go get my hair done and I kid you not, they will ask me about marketing and they'll ask me about funnels and they'll ask me about an email list and I go get massages and she will ask me about an opt in because like I love talking about it so much and I've literally learned all of that in your membership and it's funny because like it continues to serve over and over and over again. So not just with tpt. I've found tons of success on tpt. It's changed my life. But you always want to continue to grow and so I, I'm just released the membership actually like two days ago. Not to the masses yet but if you're on my Instagram or my email list, you'll probably be seeing it tomorrow. But I was able to go back to the membership and kind of take everything back in again. Things that I listened to and I watched before, but they weren't very meaningful to me then because I wasn't there yet. But. And there's more in there that I haven't even like been able to use yet because I just haven't needed it yet. So it just continues to serve. And I truly believe that I could run any business because of this.
- [13:44]
Desiree
Look, I think my favourite part of the membership has been coming to the coaching calls and not only learning from you, but from all of the other business owners as well and other teachers. And that's something that we've really tried to then replicate with our own members in having just building that sense of community and that sense of family. Because, you know, teachers aren't just another number to us. They're a really important part of why we do what we do. And, you know, we're wanting to make a difference in their lives. And that's what I've sort of felt from your membership as well, is that you come to those calls and you feel like, okay, like I'm in the right place, people are. I'm learning from everyone and we've all got each other's backs.
- [14:26]
Unknown
TPT kind of launched me into making connections with other people as well, as did joining programs as far as financially. So I've been able to put my daughter in Christian school and pay for her private school tuition and just, you know, write the check. And that was something I never thought I would have been able to do before I was able to, you know, your air conditioner goes out and you're just like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? And just some little blessings that after the fact, you realize that was all because now I have this additional income, additional freedom. I'm not working at the nursing home on nights and weekends and holidays. Sometimes I am working on TPT stuff, but that's okay. I'm at home and I'm able to spend more time with my family. I'm able to present. I never thought I would have gone and presented at national conventions, speaking in front of people. I could have never dreamed of that. I've started a course. We were able to do the toolkit together with 10 other SLPs, four or five of which were CEO teachers. Also. I can't even count all the blessings that have that have happened just from connecting with Other TPT sellers, connecting with CEO teachers and just learning more about business because obviously I had no business training to begin with. So I was trying to think of all the ways that we've been blessed and I just can't even list them all. My store was hopefully to make like $50 a month so I could buy some toys for my speech room. That was my goal. And now I'm able to not only do that, but provide for other SLPs who are in a similar situation that I was in many years ago.
- [16:05]
Desiree
So the first part. Let me talk about the community of the CEO teacher. The one thing that I love about the community is how kind the members are. They are literally some of the kindest people that I met. If you ask a question in the group, there are so many people willing to ask you what worked for them, what didn't work. Have you tried this? Someone even sent me like videos of them recording how to do something and sent it to me so that I can always refer back to it. So that kind of kindness goes so far and I truly appreciate the group for that. As far as my business, I really wanted to create things, like I said, that spark joy for teachers. You know, teachers have this reputation of being frumpy and I didn't like that. And so I wanted to create T shirts that were stylish and had a powerful message on them for teachers to wear. Growth that it has, from this time last year it has increased 1000%. Literally. That's what Etsy tells me, that my business has increased 1,000% and social media 4,500%. And that is from the things that I have learned from the membership and the connections that I made through it.
- [17:15]
Unknown
When I was trying to explain to people, the course people who are not in education and don't really understand teachers, pay teachers or even the academy. And I'm trying to explain to them my goals and my dreams and my aspirations. And you know, you leave the classroom and you. I feel like there's a little bit of a, you know, what do you really know now about education? And it's like you're so passionate. That didn't stop. It just like transformed in a different direction. And I just felt like I had something to prove. And my husband is like not a spender at all. And so I even like wanted to kind of prove to him how much this course is going to help. And just, you know, in the, in two months my sales increased by 375% in the views and he was like, what? And it Paid for the course in two months. I mean, I was, like, hoping I'd pay for the course in a year. And then it just keep going, you know, and it's just. I mean, it's like blessings upon blessings. And I feel empowered to do and go after what I want. That I didn't need to stay in the classroom necessarily to go after those things. I don't know. It's just been a dream come true.
- [18:21]
I feel like the CEO teacher school has made me realize that I am limitless. And when I say that, I mean that so long. I thought I just wanted to be a teacher, and I wanted to be a really good teacher. And I was working towards that. I got the accolades teacher of the year, and my students had great scores. But I started to realize that there's so much more to teaching that I had not expected. And I've always said that adults are not really my thing. I'm very much meant to work with children, but this is still my way to help other teachers and share what I do in my classroom with other teachers. And it's something that I enjoy doing. I enjoy creating these things for my students. I try to focus on making things that I know I'm going to use anyway, so it's a natural fit for me. But it is nice to be able to share that and able to make money for myself. And I know, like, not everything's about money, but for me, my family was really concerned that I was going to be teachers, that it would limit me, I would never make over, blah, blah, blah. And I now see that there literally is no ceiling to what I could do even while I'm still a teacher. And so just knowing that I'm limitless is a very exciting and liberating feeling.
- [19:32]
For me. I jumped in and I was completely clueless. I mean, I guess I could kind of try making some stuff for TPT maybe, and just, you know, what else am I going to do during COVID I need. I needed kind of like a hobby, right? But I just started loving it and soaking it up and realizing that it was. It was tweaking something really deep inside of me that I told people. Looking back at the experiences that I'd had over the course of my life, things like enjoying art class or being in theater in high school, or just my past teaching experiences, my mission trips to Latin America, all these different things all of a sudden were suddenly coming together into what was becoming this vision of a way that I could share all of it. And it was so much bigger than just making some things on tpt. And it took me joining the course and seeing what was possible to realize, oh my goodness, this could be become an actual business. I have so much more to offer than I even realized. I went from completely clueless, like, let's just check this out, to a couple of years later having so much clarity on how I'm serving, who I'm serving, what I want to do. And it's been so exciting. I think it's not just like, oh, you buy, you know, buy this course and then you watch all the videos and then you're done. This is a journey. And one of the things that you've said in the past that's really stuck with me is like, keep the long game in mind. Like, this is a long game. When that clicked for me, this became way more than just like a course I'm watching. It was like, oh, these are my people. This is my, my team. I'm walking with them. This could be years that I'm, you know, building this business from the ground up. When I chose to stay connected, to stay integrated, like you said, you know, staying active in the community, it was that sense of, oh, all these other people are working on their things too. You build on that energy, you feed off of that energy, and it kind of propels you forward and keeps you motivated.
- [21:35]
Kasey Morris
I would say how my mindset has.
- [21:38]
Unknown
Shifted is when I was in the classroom, I was making a set salary, right? And that was my cap. And I wasn't going to make any more than that unless I went back to school or did additional jobs and things like that. And so I did, I went back to school, I got my master's degree, thought that was going to help did summer school. I mean, I did all the things to make additional income. So I thought that's what I had to do. I thought that's what my life was going to be like. I was just going to work all these additional jobs and hope that I'll have the life I was hoping for. But then when I came into the co teacher programs, I realized I could have more than that and that I can have the type of life where I can use my passions and not be capped with a salary and have multiple streams of income coming in as well and work less hours at the same time, which is crazy to me. That's how my mindset shifted.
- [22:29]
So, Casey, you talk a lot about having an abundance mindset and you recommend a lot of different books. And so listening to those audiobooks and really believing in that abundance Mindset, there is enough money and goodness out there for each and every one of us. It's not a competition between any of us or between any of the people in the same niche as us. Like, we all bring our special flavor and perspective. And so having that abundance mindset kind of changed everything for me. And before I go into a launch or something, I literally will sit and say, I say I want to serve my people and there is abundance and there's enough out there for everybody. And I guess being constrained, like you said, Desiree, to like a teacher salary, like you can literally look ahead and see when I'm 49 years old, I'm going to be making this much. Maybe it'll be a little more when they negotiate a new contract, but there you're bound. And now I my love for travel and stuff. I don't have to worry if I want to go to Arizona with girlfriends and if I want to go meet my adult daughter somewhere. I'm like, I am treating you, girl. And just the experiences that having some more financial freedom has brought and not having that paycheck to paycheck worry. And it doesn't matter if it's at the beginning. My first goal of $250 a month like that at the time brought financial freedom. And now I'm like, I don't even have words for like, the I made in February is so absurd. It would be like half of a new teacher salary. It's not anything I ever would have could have imagined for my life. And I think that just keeps the fire lit. And also hearing from people about how your resources or products are impacting people around the country, around the world, like that fuels the fire even more than the financial aspect.
- [24:32]
I continually come back to this community in different ways because it has served me in different ways. In the beginning, when I was just starting out, it gave me the tools that I needed, the tactics that I needed to dip my feet into everything. But more importantly, it showed me that teachers are very, very well equipped and capable to be business owners. The mindset that I got from this program in my very, very early days was something completely unique and that I would have really missed out on if I had skipped until the next round because that propelled me forward in innumerable ways. Just having the confidence to do pretty big scary things, reach out to people that I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to do. The unique mindset that you'll get from this program more than any others is that very fine tuned like you were meant to do.
- [25:28]
Kasey Morris
This.
- [25:28]
Unknown
You are a business owner and a teacher, and they both coexist. And the community. The community is priceless. Don't miss out. Don't miss out. There's a lot of great things that.
- [25:38]
Kasey Morris
You'Ll get from it.