Recording Zoom 20: Sat, Jul 8, 2023 8 AM (ET)

Mike F (00:00:08):
Test. Oh, yes. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. And test. Let’s go. I dunno where I’m was. Oh wow. Hey Enrica, I’m not blurry. What happens? Hello, how are you doing? Hello.

Enrica (00:01:47):
How are you? I’m

Mike F (00:01:49):
Good. I’m excited to see you.

Enrica (00:01:52):
Yeah, me too.

Mike F (00:01:54):
How is life going for you?

Enrica (00:01:58):
It’s fine. Everything is fine. Yeah.

Mike F (00:02:01):
Some

Enrica (00:02:01):
Are, some rest, some, it’s great.

Mike F (00:02:06):
When do you go back to school?

Enrica (00:02:10):
I have to go back the end of August for staff meetings and things like that. And then I’ll be back the 14th of September with the kids.

Mike F (00:02:23):
With the kids. And is that

Enrica (00:02:24):
Paid?

Mike F (00:02:25):
Our staff paid for those two weeks of meetings.

Enrica (00:02:30):
So we are paid all year round. We, our stipend is not so high

Mike F (00:02:40):
Because

Enrica (00:02:40):
Somehow we stretched along the 12 months, but we are paid every month.

Mike F (00:02:46):
Are staff required? Are teachers required to be there for two weeks or is there

Enrica (00:02:52):
Yeah. Oh,

Mike F (00:02:53):
For the, it’s mandatory. Okay.

Enrica (00:02:55):
Have to be there. You don’t go to work every day? I’m going to be there I think in the mornings or stuff. Okay. Something like that. Not all day, but you have to be there.

Mike F (00:03:10):
Okay, gotcha. I, so I think I mentioned that I’m doing a video editor to get the pay for a video editing service that’s $700 a month.

Enrica (00:03:22):
So

Mike F (00:03:23):
I like it because there’s a process. It’s the hardest part about on Fiverr is that just because they’re not big, they’re independent contractors, so sometimes they come and they go, whereas this person, I think he’s American and then he just found a bunch of really good quality video ed editors in the Philippines.

Enrica (00:03:47):
And

Mike F (00:03:48):
So the people in the Philippines are working on my videos at night because they’re nine hours across. Hey Kim. So I like it because there’s a streamlined process for me to give revision and feedback and things like that. But it’s just I’m at the stage now where, because we’re just starting and they don’t know my style yet, sometimes I think, oh would just be quicker if I did it myself,

Enrica (00:04:13):
But I

Mike F (00:04:13):
Don’t have time to do it. But yeah. So the video of us I have in the work queue and they’re working on it because I was watching us talk this morning on my phone as I was going through the draft and I’m thinking, and in the video I say, oh, if you’re going to TPT forward, let me know in the comments. But that video won’t be published until after TPT forward. So just highlight. So it’ll be funny.

Enrica (00:04:40):
Yeah. I followed your advice actually. And I have my son doing video reviews for me. Just started and I had the same feeling. I would be faster doing it myself. Yes, he’s better than me in video editing, but it’s a start. He is doing something in a way now. He started it did something, now I edit it. I saw what is missing and now it will be back at it. And he likes the idea. I like it too.

Mike F (00:05:19):
Okay. Kim? When I was in Italy, I sort of shared about how I paid my kid to do some VA work for me. And basically usually, so she, she’s 13 and she’s kicking and screaming sometimes. But now that she’s getting older, she’s more excited and I pay a certain amount and then I pay a bonus if her attitude is positive. And so now

Enrica (00:05:48):
I copy that. Yeah,

Mike F (00:05:49):
Yeah. Right. If you’re very enthusiastic about it, then I’ll be this amount bonus that I pay by the hour so they get the money right away so they can see it. So my question for you, honor, because is your son excited to help you or is it more of a chore for them right now?

Enrica (00:06:12):
Oh, he is excited because he always knows what he wants to do with the money that he is earning. So he wanted earphones

Mike F (00:06:27):
And

Enrica (00:06:27):
They did the video and they got the phone. So he is happy, but he is kind of lazy. Wait, ok. So that’s interesting because

Mike F (00:06:39):
He has a financial goal.

Enrica (00:06:41):
Yeah, always. Yeah.

Mike F (00:06:43):
Whereas my daughter didn’t have that drive. Yeah. Last year when she was working, she was working to pay off for her plane ticket to go to Paris with us and she made it, but the drive wasn’t intrinsic. It was external at that point. But it’s interesting because you’re saying that your son’s drive, it sounds more internal to the way that he’s thinking,

Enrica (00:07:06):
Yay. Wants to buy in computer programs and stuff. So

Mike F (00:07:12):
Nice.

Enrica (00:07:13):
That’s why I’m going to, I said to him that I’m not going to buy anything unless you earn it.

Mike F (00:07:21):
That’s brilliant.

Enrica (00:07:23):
I’m not sure.

Mike F (00:07:25):
Yeah, it might backfire, but it sounds good. I find the hardest part is capacity building because I know I’m building skills and at the beginning it’s just easier for me to do it myself.

Enrica (00:07:38):
But

Mike F (00:07:38):
Eventually they’ll get faster and faster and I’m already seeing that with my kid. But that’s the hardest part of getting help. Right. Kim? Kim, how was your week? How are you doing?

Kim T (00:07:51):
Hey. Doing good. Interesting hearing you guys.

Mike F (00:07:55):
Yeah, it’s funny. And I also realize that a lot of members, people listen to the videos afterwards if they don’t come and they listen to it while they’re doing other things, which I find pretty cool. So actually Kim, I’m super excited to see you here consistently because on days, not today, but on other days when I’m feeling sluggish, I’m like, no, Kim’s going to be there so I can’t let her down.

Kim T (00:08:20):
So

Mike F (00:08:21):
Thank you for that accountability piece just by showing up. You’re making me be more accountable. Hey Andrea, same with you like Andrea. Cause I know that you and Kim are going to be here. Not today. This day I was excited even though my dog was afraid to go down the stairs and kept me up way too late last night. But I’m excited because part of it’s the accountability piece. So I love that Kim and Andrea, you’re here and I know that other people, Reka thrilled to have you here, but I know it’s the middle of the day, so it’s tougher for the timing is tough. Yeah. Andrea, how are you? Welcome back. Are you able to hear us? No, she’s connecting. Okay. So the icebreaker for today, new question because it ties into the mini lesson later on. The question is, where in the world would you like to go? If you could go tomorrow, if money wasn’t an issue, if responsibility wasn’t an issue, where in the world would you go? And it could be a place that you’ve been before or a place that you haven’t been, but you always want to go. I don’t know if anyone wants to start.

Kim T (00:09:31):
I definitely would want to go anywhere in Europe.

Enrica (00:09:35):
Ok. I know that’s not very specific.

Mike F (00:09:39):
It doesn’t have to be. Why, but why Europe?

Kim T (00:09:44):
I don’t know. I went to Bulgaria for a while and I absolutely loved it, but I want to see other parts of Europe as well. Okay.

Mike F (00:09:53):
Wait, let’s unpack that because Bulgaria is not a typical first place

Kim T (00:09:58):
Or Yeah, it’s not.

Mike F (00:10:00):
Are you able to share some of that backstory, how you got why about Bulgaria or,

Kim T (00:10:04):
Yeah, a little bit. So I did an internship there.

Mike F (00:10:09):
That’s Crazy.

Kim T (00:10:10):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:10:11):
Yeah. And was it fun in the end? Cause I imagine it’s got to be scary, but in the end, did it turn out to be a rewarding experience?

Kim T (00:10:20):
Yeah, it really was.

Mike F (00:10:21):
Yeah. That’s fascinating. Or Andrea, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you like to go?

Enrica (00:10:30):
I’m already in Europe, so this is not my first choice. Even if there are places that I really love the Netherlands, like Norway and London, et cetera. But I think if I could live tomorrow, I would go to Canada.

Mike F (00:10:48):
Oh yeah. Nice. Where in Canada? Yeah,

Kim T (00:10:51):
You should come to Ottawa.

Enrica (00:10:53):
Yeah. I saw a lot of pictures about lakes and mountains and so amazing places. I love nature. I really love to see it and to go there.

Mike F (00:11:08):
See and I love, so when I visit Europe, it’s because all the countries are so close together, it’s easy to hop on a train and go through several countries. Whereas in Canada, US it takes, if you were to hop on a train, it takes

Kim T (00:11:23):
Days

Mike F (00:11:24):
To cross the

Enrica (00:11:24):
Entire country.

Mike F (00:11:26):
There’s just so much. And a lot of that’s through the boring trial.

Enrica (00:11:32):
Last week I traveled through Italy from the north where I live to the bottom of it, to the south for a vacation. And I did it in 12 hours

Mike F (00:11:43):
And

Enrica (00:11:44):
That’s It. Yeah, I did that. Oh we, That’s

Mike F (00:11:48):
Fantastic.

Enrica (00:11:49):
We don’t have space. That’s

Mike F (00:11:53):
Andrea, if you could go anywhere in the world, I don’t know if your microphone’s working, but if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you like to go and why?

Andrea S (00:12:05):
I think I would go to Machu Picchu. Ooh. It just looks really interesting and I think it’s would be a lot more easy to do and enjoyable while I’m young. I don’t want to go, oh, I’ll travel after I retire and then not be able to do all the things I want to do. Cause I’m an need of a hit replacement or something. Yeah, I think that’s where I’d like to go next.

Mike F (00:12:32):
A book, the Four Hour Workweek that I listened to, that I read where he points out that fact about rather than going on retirement at the end, plan out like mini retirements, like you work and then you do your mini retirement and then you work the end and then you do your mini retirement and then you’re constantly just, you’re enjoying your life kind of thing as opposed to just trying to save to the end and then when you’re too old or whatever. But my Machu Picchu is awesome, my thin, but the altitude is, it took me a little while to get used to just because it’s a little bit higher in the mountain range there, but it’s a good choice.

Andrea S (00:13:14):
Okay.

Mike F (00:13:16):
So check in. Andrea, did you have a fantastic vacation? Were you able to completely disconnect from TPT?

Andrea S (00:13:27):
That was a good choice, I think.

Mike F (00:13:30):
Yeah,

Andrea S (00:13:30):
Just to kind of recalibrate for the rest of the year. That’s

Mike F (00:13:34):
Good. That’s fantastic by the way. And I just saw your post I think, or you hit 40 and I think you said your goal was 50. When is your one year milestone on TPT?

Andrea S (00:13:46):
I think it’s the end of November.

Mike F (00:13:49):
Okay. Oh yeah, you’ll totally hit that milestone. Yeah, you’ll hit 50 by that for sure. So Kim or Enrica, I don’t know who wants to go next. Something that you’re working on, a success story obstacle and something you notice or wondered about in the TPT world?

Kim T (00:14:08):
Yeah, I had actually a pretty good week. I got a lot done, so I got a new bundle up and the back to school tracing sheets app and then up updated one other bundle. So

Mike F (00:14:26):
Nice. Yeah, I was going to follow up on the back to school tracing. So it went as planned. You were able to publish it and you got it the way that you wanted it. Yeah. Fantastic. Was there an obstacle that slowed you down this week? I

Kim T (00:14:40):
Feel like I say time every week, but that’s literally, Yeah,

Mike F (00:14:45):
I think it is. And I think one day in five years and we’re looking back and we’ll like, hey, once we master this idea about priorities and delegating, we’ll look back and say, remember what? We used to be so stressed out of all time. But that’s the piece that I listened to or that I walk away with when I listen to some of the auto books is that idea about time or money. Either at some point you get to the point where you do have to outsource or outsource the small routine stuff because your time is more valuable spent somewhere else. Right. The hard question is when are we at that stage?

Kim T (00:15:22):
Yeah. Yeah,

Enrica (00:15:23):
It’s

Mike F (00:15:23):
A learning curve for sure. Anything that you noticed or wondered about in TPT?

Kim T (00:15:29):
Yeah, I was kind of thinking about the categories, I guess this week. I guess maybe I don’t understand them fully or how they help with the ranking of a product.

Mike F (00:15:42):
You’re talking about not custom categories, but people

Kim T (00:15:45):
Yeah, regular TPT categories.

Mike F (00:15:47):
Yeah, I don’t know if anyone wants to jump in that. I just assumed it’s not even showing up here. Am I in the wrong spot? These categories? I don’t know. Hey, I just figured that people, it showed up in search if people were filtering by categories. So if you’re, so then rather than thinking that I’m competing with a million resources, if I have fraction activities for decimals, right, there’s 45,000 results, but if I narrow it down to grade five or whatever, then I just assumed it was to help narrow the scope. But Andrea or Enrique, do you have thoughts on categories how that plays into the TPT search rank?

Enrica (00:16:40):
No, I have no idea. I chose it, but I have no idea how they would,

Mike F (00:16:47):
Yeah,

Andrea S (00:16:48):
I haven’t Really thought much about it.

Mike F (00:16:51):
I thought about it in the sense that I wish I knew which category people, I wish I knew which page they were on before they bought my product because I’ve had some products where every now and then I’ll change the subjects to see if that makes a difference. And I know for sure if I put back to school in my back to school for this time of the year, my sales will go up because I think people get to it and then they see the subject and they see back to school and they think, oh yeah, this is a back to school resource. That makes sense. And they’ll buy it.

Mike F (00:17:25):
But yeah, that maybe, okay, I’m going to make a list categories cause I’m going to buy TPT forward and I, I’m excited because you’ll be a group of TPT sellers and what we all have in common is we’re willing to pay for the ticket or a lot more for travel. So you have to have it. That’s the qualifying criteria. So yeah, I’m curious to know if categories, how they choose, how they choose or how it affects rank. That’s interesting. And then I realize I don’t actually have to make notes because I could watch the video, but actually it’ll be quicker to just make notes. Okay. Yeah, that’s a great question. Kim, how was your week homework success story, obstacles?

Enrica (00:18:16):
My week was good Success story. I joined hashtag sale and I saw 400 resources in two days in July. That is

Mike F (00:18:32):
Congratulations.

Enrica (00:18:33):
And more than that, the first hashtag sale that I joined, I sold. I was so excited that I perfectly remember. I sold the 17 resources and then every year that I joined the sale, I sell something more. And I’m excited because I think my product will rank higher. It should be in first page right now for quite common math topic. So I’m happy about that. So I hoping it will do well in the fall. And I’m working on my website as well as you well know. And I have some resources that were end of year but could be arranged for back to school. So I’m working on the covers and previous to make them a back to school resource and open and the VR one.

Mike F (00:19:42):
Was there anything that you noticed or wondered about with TPT or your store?

Enrica (00:19:48):
No, I don’t think so. It is quiet, but I think with the 4th of July and school closed and everything is just normal.

Mike F (00:20:03):
So you and I have chatted a lot and I know your hashtag approach, but we haven’t had a chance. I do want to have you on a YouTube video where we talk about your approach. Yeah. But would you be comfortable sharing your screen and talking us a little bit about what you do and

Enrica (00:20:20):
How that works? Yes. Can I? Okay.

Mike F (00:20:25):
I think you can.

Enrica (00:20:26):
So I’m sharing my screen. I’m trying as soon. Okay, here it is. Okay. Can you see it? There we

Mike F (00:20:37):
Go. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah,

Enrica (00:20:39):
Actually it’s quite easy because you go with your product listing. That’s what I do. And then you choose a resource, you add your ASH hashtag in the title, and then discount price, you put $1 and that’s it. That’s everything that you have to do. If you look at the most common search, the one that I joined, and it was two day three third and 4th of July is still ranking like most common search. And there are more than 8,000 resources there.

Mike F (00:21:23):
So right there I can see some of these resources are still reduced to $1.

Enrica (00:21:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody follows the rules. And

Mike F (00:21:33):
That’s part of a Facebook group that you’re a part of, right?

Enrica (00:21:35):
Yes, it’s Shelly Reese Facebook group for people who joined her course. I did it. I did her course. I’m not sure I learned a lot from it because maybe I joined it. I joined it a little too late and I already knew most of the stuff. But if only for the Aash sale, it’s worth it. She does two twice a year, the 4th of July and the 1st of January. And it’s great. It’s great. It’s a best sale ever. Always. And it’s a way a lot of people think that you undervalue your work. I think it’s a cheap way to advertise your work. You still learn something and you get the chance to have it spread around. A lot of people who wouldn’t buy it, they do because it’s cheap and then they like it and they come back for more. So there is no point when you pay for an advertisement like on TPT, I did what I did, I did enough thing. And I want to show you, I choose to promote one of my products both, I think actually, yeah,

Mike F (00:23:04):
ONT

Enrica (00:23:05):
P the 4th of July. And you can see that my order operation activity sold 207 time only the 4th of July. So it’s worth it.

Mike F (00:23:19):
Can I dig in and sorry.

Enrica (00:23:22):
Yeah, yeah, of course. I wasn’t

Mike F (00:23:23):
Sure if someone jumped in there. So you have three products there for July 4th? Yeah. Were They

Enrica (00:23:31):
Only two? This one order of operation in solving one step operation. Where on stage the other operation with traction.

Mike F (00:23:46):
Okay. So, okay, so that’s fascinating. So the one that wasn’t, okay, so the one that wasn’t have the sales and the Didn’t

Enrica (00:23:57):
Have the,

Mike F (00:23:58):
Yeah. So just a note for other people who are watching this video. So the $166 17 cents, some of that might be because people clicked on the ad. And some of that might be because people searched on the hashtag. Because when I, I’ve had sales where I bought the product myself, even though it was running an ad. And then when I go into the TPT ad section here, it counts the product that I bought myself going directly without clicking an ad as part of the ad revenue. So there, that ad dashboard that we just looked at, it doesn’t differentiate between what’s purely an ad click from an ad click and what’s from a different source.

Enrica (00:24:41):
Yeah. But

Mike F (00:24:42):
Yeah, that’s okay. Are you able to show us the product stats for the orders for the, I guess it’s the orders of operations activity. Yeah. How

Enrica (00:24:51):
Can I,

Mike F (00:24:53):
Your search? No, it’s in your dashboard or if you go into the, to the

Kim T (00:24:58):
Store

Mike F (00:24:58):
Icon. It’s

Kim T (00:24:59):
Store icon.

Mike F (00:25:00):
Yeah. At the very top.

Enrica (00:25:02):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:25:03):
And the Dashboard.

Enrica (00:25:06):
This one.

Mike F (00:25:08):
Oh

Enrica (00:25:09):
Nos. Product statistics. Okay. Kim Done. Yep.

Mike F (00:25:18):
Product in Italy. Internet is like that. You have to be patient.

Enrica (00:25:24):
Okay. Okay. So search or the,

Mike F (00:25:28):
I had no idea that was a search button.

Enrica (00:25:32):
Yes.

Mike F (00:25:35):
I’ve never used that.

Kim T (00:25:36):
I think They just added it, didn’t they?

Mike F (00:25:38):
Yeah. No, no,

Enrica (00:25:39):
No, it’s not.

Mike F (00:25:40):
It’s been For a while.

Enrica (00:25:41):
I swear it’s not this one. Okay. Here,

Mike F (00:25:51):
This

Enrica (00:25:51):
Is my, yeah, You. Are you able to sort it by page views?

Mike F (00:25:57):
If you click on the orange? Oh

Enrica (00:26:01):
No I can’t. You can sort it by post product previews, which listed and downloads. Not

Mike F (00:26:10):
Funny that way. Can you by

Enrica (00:26:11):
Page, can you do it by pro? Can

Mike F (00:26:13):
You do it by product previews then? Because that’ll, it’ll have a lot of previous to you.

Enrica (00:26:20):
Okay. Just wait cause it time. Ok.

Mike F (00:26:27):
Oh, there we go. Ok. Ok. That’s it here. So I like Aika and I have chatted about this, but so because in the past I like around New Year’s or whatever, you were saying that you did the hashtag sale, you jumped up to the first page or you jumped up high. And then even though after the hashtag was done, you still kept the position ranking,

Enrica (00:26:49):
Right?

Mike F (00:26:49):
That’s correct. Right. Yeah.

Enrica (00:26:51):
I have a product about fraction fractions that I didn’t join an hashtag sale with in I think more than six months. But if you search operations with fractions or fractions operation, that is quite a common search format is still in the first page.

Mike F (00:27:12):
Yeah. So my theory, my understanding based on what I’ve seen with my ChatGPT PT stuff is that page views is actually a huge ranking factor. And the fact that you got so many sales on this as well, but the page views, because the page views are always high. So even if people didn’t buy a lot on that hashtag sale, because you’re getting those page views, I think it’ll stay up there as well. Can you click on sales? The sales tab of course. Just so

Enrica (00:27:43):
We can

Mike F (00:27:43):
See the sales information, right? Yeah. Oh, and your conversion rate. Huge. That’s fantastic. That’s crazy.

Enrica (00:27:50):
That’s the ASH hashtag.

Mike F (00:27:51):
Yeah. So yeah, probably, yeah, It was before the ASH hashtag, it was around 24%.

Enrica (00:27:58):
So I decided to raise the price because I thought, okay, this is the product that deserves it. But it went really?

Mike F (00:28:11):
Yeah. And I would be curious, in your experience, do the people who buy on a hashtag sale, do they leave comments? Are you able to get them to Leave reviews?

Enrica (00:28:21):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Mike F (00:28:21):
Yeah.

Enrica (00:28:22):
Which then all helps.

Mike F (00:28:25):
So Kim or Andrew, because Enrique’s not always on here, did you have any questions about the hashtag sale that you wanted to ask?

Andrea S (00:28:36):
Does anyone else besides Shelly do hashtag sales?

Enrica (00:28:41):
Yes, there are going to be two right now, and I will join both of them. I have notes cause I don’t remember, just wait a minute. There is going to be a one that is, will have the hashtag Christmas in July from the 24th to the 26th of July. And it’s run by, the group is called TPT AAG sales. It has 4,000

Enrica (00:29:13):
People inside on Facebook. And then Alexandra Baxter in our group. I don’t remember TPT something the 15 and 16th of August. There are a lot of other groups who run hashtag sale. But in my experience, I’ve been doing this for two years. So I can say I have a little of experience. In my experience only the big ones work. You have to join. If you have products, nobody will ever see it. So it’s useless. You have to join the big groups to be successful with ATA sale. And you have to choose at least one popular product so that people will find it and we’ll see, oh, she’s having an ATA sale, let’s try another one. Let’s try another product. That’s what I do. I always put one of my bestseller sale. And then the other one, a newish one. So it will rank higher in the product, in the TPT search.

Mike F (00:30:32):
And

Andrea S (00:30:32):
Can I

Mike F (00:30:34):
Ask people about this? So who uses hashtags to search? Are these TPT sellers or are these DO teachers who are, aren’t TPT sellers know about hashtags?

Enrica (00:30:45):
No, they know about hashtags. When you join an hashtag sale, you kind of commit it to write about it on your Facebook groups and email list and everywhere you can so that the VR target becomes common known and people can search for it.

Mike F (00:31:15):
So I guess my question would be, and sorry Kim or Andrea, if you have a question, jump in because I like to talk, but how do they prevent people from hijacking a hashtag sale? I Can

Enrica (00:31:30):
Hijacking?

Mike F (00:31:32):
Yeah. So if I just click on that TPT search and I notice that there’s this weird acronym, whatever it is, I know it’s going to be a hashtag. So then why can’t I just click on it? Oh, people are reducing to a dollar and then I’ll reduce one of my top selling products like to a dollar.

Enrica (00:31:51):
They are called jumpers. Oh, okay. And there will always be jumpers because there is no way to prevent it. But I run an azda sale twice a year in my group, and it’s not really successful because I’m still growing. And what I say is, don’t worry about jumpers. There are, and there will always be. But the more the mayor, the more people join the A stock sale, the more successful the sale is. So there is no point in worrying about that.

Mike F (00:32:31):
Is that a common attitude in the bigger Facebook groups or do they get like, no, This kind of Yeah, kind of. People just accept it and

Enrica (00:32:39):
Yeah, Shell was really, really upset because one jumper put like a hundred product down to a dollar and that is not really what, correct. If you have ars, again, you say two product, if someone has three, it’s the same. If someone keeps it a day more, it’s the same. But if you put a hundred products down to a dollar, then you are hurt hurting the sellers.

Mike F (00:33:13):
But They couldn’t stop that though.

Enrica (00:33:16):
But no, she found her and she asked her to stop. She had her reason to do it. Yeah, wants to do it. And she apologized and that’s it.

Mike F (00:33:27):
Oh,

Enrica (00:33:28):
There you go. That’s kind of cool. Kim or

Mike F (00:33:30):
Andrea, did you have any questions before we jump forward or

Andrea S (00:33:35):
No questions?

Mike F (00:33:38):
Awesome. Okay, so, oh me, I’m going to keep mine really short. I was going to update my back to school stuff. I didn’t, but I created my standard operating procedures to have a fiber a VA do it. And then I sort of set up the systems to be able to do that because that’s my big push right now is a TPG off just to create the systems and the infrastructure so that I can just say, okay, let’s change it at the back to school. Or I can say, okay, let’s turn off back to school and change it to September, whatever. So hopefully that pays out. And I have an awesome VA that I’m working with and they think they might be able to do it this weekend before I go on the road on Monday, which would be ideal. So that’s kind of cool. And so I wonder, I noticed that, I feel it’s frustrating because I’m not working on the store myself, but I know that in the long run, this is what everyone says in the business world, that you have to be able to build systems.

Mike F (00:34:40):
You can’t build an empire as a single person. So that’s where I’m at right now, but I’ll share my screen. So my question for you today is if you were going to TPT forward, which is this week, who would you see? And so I’m looking for feedback from you because I don’t hang out in the TPT seller verse, but I know that you guys do, and I would love to hear feedback. Oh, you should definitely see this person, if you can with the caveat. So I’m going to go to the event website in a second with a reminder that this Zoom meeting is recorded and eventually it might be seen by the presenter, their friends, TPT, I ixl your mom, your friend’s dog, your friend’s best friend. So just to keep in mind that, just to keep the feedback positive because positive, it’s good. So here’s the event website, and then next week on Saturday, I’ll be back in Ottawa and then I’ll sort of report back how things went. So I don’t know any of these names. I know the job, but from these names that you see here, is there anyone that jumps out, you think like, oh, Mike, you should definitely check out this person. Or I’ve heard of this person. Do you recognize these names?

Kim T (00:36:08):
I know Carrie Brown, her,

Mike F (00:36:10):
She’s a

Kim T (00:36:11):
Kindergarten.

Mike F (00:36:13):
How do you know Carrie Brown? Just From resources. I bought her resources before. I was like a T TPT author. And how were they?

Kim T (00:36:22):
I loved them. So Yeah.

Mike F (00:36:24):
Okay, that’s good to know.

Enrica (00:36:26):
Anyway. And Shelly Reeve,

Mike F (00:36:28):
Where’s Shelly? Oh, we were just talking about, oh, that’s fascinating. So

Enrica (00:36:36):
Definitely she has the most known curse for TPT seller. And

Mike F (00:36:43):
She’s the one that you were just talking about with the hashtag Sales?

Enrica (00:36:46):
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Mike F (00:36:47):
Okay, that’s fascinating. Any other name? I know mine’s in Blooms only because I don’t know where I know this name from. I feel like maybe they’re two people. I feel like maybe I’ve seen them when I’ve been doing product research. And then of course the jump. And then I think these people are local Boston people, so I don’t know that they’re in their big names. I had a question. Is this are Beth and Jarret, the people behind your data playbook?

Enrica (00:37:36):
I have no idea. Cause

Mike F (00:37:38):
I feel like some of these, it’s, it’s funny how after a while some of the names are like, oh, maybe I’ve seen them before. Or maybe I think I’m going to go, I think these are all the same names here.

Kim T (00:37:55):
I seen Kristen Hammond before she talked at another, the Spring Fling conference

Mike F (00:38:03):
In, wait, what’s the spring fling conference now?

Kim T (00:38:07):
It was the big thing where they had sellers talk, basically just trying to advertise their services for other TPT sellers. But

Mike F (00:38:18):
It,

Kim T (00:38:18):
It’s like a free conference. It’s in in April every year, I think March. Was it a virtual or

Mike F (00:38:23):
Was it in person? It

Kim T (00:38:25):
Was virtual.

Mike F (00:38:27):
And how did you like it?

Kim T (00:38:29):
I liked it because, I mean, it’s so weekend full of free TPT tips

Mike F (00:38:36):
And free is good. Yeah,

Kim T (00:38:37):
I’ve recognized chocolate apples. I’ve seen,

Mike F (00:38:40):
I feel like I’ve seen their resources.

Enrica (00:38:43):
Misty Miller, she is another big seller. Oh, Misty Miller is huge. Yeah. Yeah. She is huge. And she is great. I actually love it.

Mike F (00:38:54):
Love

Enrica (00:38:54):
It. She’s, and I joined some of her accountability groups or stuff like that, and there is always substance in what she does. She doesn’t tell you that you need to have high quality resources. Yeah, she tells you something more. So I think I would listen to Her.

Mike F (00:39:22):
She has not just having a good product, but she has tips on how to sell the product,

Enrica (00:39:30):
How to sell the product, how to update the products, how to look at data or should you actually in a week, how to divide your time by

Mike F (00:39:42):
Updating

Enrica (00:39:42):
And creating,

Mike F (00:39:48):
So this name I recognize Rebecca Davis.

Kim T (00:39:50):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:39:53):
So actually normally don’t, the way I work is I’m very tunnel fission and every day is the same. And that’s probably a tribute to just the way that my mental health is. I like it now with consistency. So I don’t actually look for, I haven’t thought about TPT forward at all until now. And now I’m starting to get excited. But yeah, I know she’s in the TPT in the YouTube seller verse, but I don’t actually watch a lot of her content. I only know a little bit about her. Does anyone know her backstory? Yeah.

Kim T (00:40:31):
Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Andrea S (00:40:32):
She’s She’s big on blogging. Yeah, she had a blog for a year before she started TPT.

Mike F (00:40:41):
Yeah.

Andrea S (00:40:42):
And she said that really helped us. So she’s really blogging and having an email list and long form content, I think.

Mike F (00:40:51):
Yeah, if I’m Remembering

Andrea S (00:40:52):
That right.

Mike F (00:40:53):
Does anyone else want to jump on that or can you sharing what you know about her presence online?

Kim T (00:41:01):
Yeah, basically she started with that and Becca’s Bible classroom or room or something else that, yeah, so she has two different main stores, but she started with blogging and then went into TPT And

Mike F (00:41:16):
Does she have, do the seller course thing and TPT

Kim T (00:41:20):
The Facebook

Mike F (00:41:21):
Groups and kind of thing. That’s where she’s at now, the

Kim T (00:41:23):
Coaching

Mike F (00:41:23):
Stuff. And I think she’s written

Andrea S (00:41:27):
A book or two as well.

Mike F (00:41:29):
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I think Kim talked about that in the past. If my memory or someone I’ve talked about, someone else has shared with me about that book, it’s funny because it all just blurs in my head. And then this is Shelly. I think that we just talked about her. Okay. So that’s fascinating. And then the last one that I wanted to get your feedback on, I’m not going to go through. So where was it? Nope, that’s not it. No, nope. There we go. So I, what’s the name is Paul Kin, the C E o I should know this.

Enrica (00:42:14):
Yeah, he is new,

Mike F (00:42:17):
The

Enrica (00:42:17):
New one. Is he new? Is

Mike F (00:42:18):
He new Paul? And then there’s old Paul. Is that, Yeah.

Kim T (00:42:21):
Okay. Yeah.

Mike F (00:42:23):
Any feedback, thoughts? I don’t know any I, because I don’t go into TPT forms, but someone else had shared a comment that he stepped in about, he had comments about personal search and he said like, oh yeah, we wouldn’t have done it this way if this is what if we had known. But do people know what the general sentiment is about I X L? I

Kim T (00:42:52):
Think I love I X L. Yeah. I use it for my tutoring stuff and they market the heck out of like, because I see it everywhere, so I don’t know if I need to get another ad blocker or something. But yeah. Oh, I’m excited for that.

Mike F (00:43:09):
As when you visit other websites, you see the Google Ads, S A I xl, is that what you’re saying?

Kim T (00:43:16):
Yep.

Mike F (00:43:16):
Yes. Yeah. Okay. So that’s just because of the visit, the websites that you visit and the tracking that you have, but you’re targeting you, but so don’t, I’ve never used I X L as a teacher, but can you tell me a little bit about it? What It’s like? Yeah, so

Kim T (00:43:33):
They just basically have the different standards broken down in the US or in different topics, and they’re able to answer the question. And if they’re not able to answer it correctly, they have it. It’s actually an example to go over it. And they have games and stuff like that. And assessments.

Mike F (00:43:54):
Is the IXL stuff for teachers or is it for students?

Kim T (00:43:59):
It’s for students. So there’s two for different ways. You can log in as the teacher, or you can log in as the students, and they have it set up for different classrooms. So you can assign each class like a student a different, Gotcha. Yeah. So

Mike F (00:44:15):
It’s basically it’s providing a lesson and as a teacher you can assign it and then you can, it is sort of Google classroom, but with content.

Kim T (00:44:24):
Yeah. Is it?

Mike F (00:44:24):
Yeah. Okay. So I’m so out the loop. Cause I imagine, I only know from the emails that they sent forward about, oh, here’s whatever answering. But are people generally receptive in the TPT seller world about the transition? Or is there, I guess it’s hard to say.

Andrea S (00:44:55):
I think there was apprehension initially, but I think at the moment the general vibe is kind of positive to neutral.

Mike F (00:45:04):
Okay. Okay. Fascinating. Yeah, so I’m looking forward to hearing straight from the top. And then I imagine they’ll have the returning keynote like, Hey, transition. And that’s why they’re having a deanna to jump in other people sort of with that transition. Jamie Sears, I didn’t know, but I looked at her thing and she says that she has 200,000 people in her mailing list and a seven figure business. So I wasn’t going to go to this one, but I am now because of that bio. But if you were at this event based purely on the title of the course or the name, what would you go to and why? Or what would you go to?

Kim T (00:45:58):
I would kind of look at the email list for me right now. The

Mike F (00:46:02):
Two 15?

Kim T (00:46:04):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:46:05):
Yeah. I don’t have, I know I haven’t gone there, but maybe that’s where I need with email lists. I don’t know that, oh, this is Beth and, sorry, I’m just going to Google this. Yeah, your data playbook. There we go. Oh

Enrica (00:46:33):
Yeah,

Mike F (00:46:34):
Yeah, that’s them, I think. Yeah, I will say hi. I’m curious. Yeah, see that? Yeah, there we go. Okay, cool. They seem like nice people. Okay. See, I’m not teaching TPT, so that’s not where my head is. I don’t know that I recognize Harry Brown. Sounds familiar, but

Kim T (00:47:09):
What is the UP conference or on? Oh, on concert. Nevermind.

Mike F (00:47:12):
Unconference. Oh,

Kim T (00:47:13):
It says nevermind.

Mike F (00:47:15):
Yeah, I can

Kim T (00:47:16):
Read

Mike F (00:47:19):
Time saving template.

Kim T (00:47:21):
Yeah, definitely that.

Mike F (00:47:23):
Are you guys on, is TikTok on your radar?

Andrea S (00:47:27):
No.

Enrica (00:47:28):
No.

Mike F (00:47:29):
So that was a no from Andrea. Kim was a, yeah. And Enrika. Is TikTok on your radar? No.

Enrica (00:47:35):
Nope. Kim,

Mike F (00:47:38):
Why is TikTok on your radar out of curiosity?

Kim T (00:47:42):
Because I just see a lot of other teachers on TikTok. Most of my coworkers are on TikTok, and they’re like, oh, there’s some teaching tips on there. So I mean, I guess going forward with that and then, yeah. Cause I feel like they’ll eventually replace Instagram.

Mike F (00:48:04):
Okay. And question about that. And just talking in decades, would you say most of your friends in are in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties?

Kim T (00:48:13):
My friends are in the twenties. In

Mike F (00:48:15):
The twenties. Okay, cool. Yeah. And then Andrea and Enrika, why would you say TikTok is not on your radar?

Enrica (00:48:22):
Because it’s for younger people.

Mike F (00:48:26):
Okay.

Enrica (00:48:27):
For that.

Mike F (00:48:29):
And would you say that most of your friends are in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties?

Enrica (00:48:36):
Think they,

Mike F (00:48:38):
Okay. Yeah. And Andrea, are you, I’m

Andrea S (00:48:43):
Just not a social media person in general.

Mike F (00:48:46):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. So TikTok is not on my radar only because for me, it’s a shiny object because I’ve just decided to go with the blogging route. But I wonder if there’s value in first mover getting onto TikTok before all the other teachers and sort of building up that, so that’s not, wow, that’s fascinating. Yeah. And the reason why I say that’s fascinating is, sorry, my brain works in different, I get excited because I have, I’m experimenting with a service that does my video editing, but they can also chop up my content into short form content. So it would be easy for me to ask them, Hey, can you chop up this YouTube video into a bunch of TikTok short form content stuff, and then just have a VA post it on TikTok for me? Not that I understand anything about TikTok, but I wonder if I could outsource that completely. But see, this is the problem because now I think, oh yeah, that’s a really good idea. And it’s a shiny object. Yeah. That’s where I get stuck. Do you see how I

Kim T (00:49:51):
Go

Mike F (00:49:52):
Around? The one piece that my coach suggested to me was, okay, well, I said, what if I just think about, revisit these ideas quarterly once every three months? And then just, so I won’t think about it now, but I will think about it at the start of next quarter, which is I guess September. So, okay, I’m going to write that down. That’s a good idea. Okay. So yeah, see, burnt out text messaging I think is a fascinating idea. I don’t have it because they don’t have the email listing skills, but this is the idea that there’s a higher conversion rate with sending text messages. I don’t know that I would go breakthrough with branding, badass branding, small international seller. Yeah, I don’t, Yeah, I’ve

Andrea S (00:50:51):
Heard of that

Mike F (00:50:53):
As an international seller.

Andrea S (00:50:55):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:50:56):
Yeah. Is why would you go to that? Out of curiosity, Andrea, are you comfortable sharing

Andrea S (00:51:06):
Just because the people on TPT aren’t from Australia? Yeah.

Mike F (00:51:13):
So

Andrea S (00:51:15):
Phil and this one’s from, so I guess it would help me understand my customers and audience better,

Mike F (00:51:23):
I

Andrea S (00:51:23):
Think. Okay.

Mike F (00:51:25):
So I have a question about that. I think it would be interesting to chat with this person because they’re ahead of the game just to hear about their experiences as an international seller. But I wonder maybe for them to explain what the difference they found between American buyers and their community or what they’re used to. But I look at the store, it’s not any different from what I see on our stores. It has a nice cover. They have the right files. The only, I mean if it didn’t say, sorry, go ahead.

Andrea S (00:52:13):
Was the talk about sellers who aren’t in the US or selling to people who aren’t in the us?

Mike F (00:52:20):
Oh, that’s a good question. That’s a good question. How would that make a difference for you? Oh, it’s for sure. Oh no. Which one would you prefer? If you had a magic wand, you’d go, I wish there was a talk about this.

Andrea S (00:52:46):
Probably about selling to us audience. Although I think the other option would be more interesting

Mike F (00:52:55):
About how to sell to non-us.

Andrea S (00:52:58):
Yeah.

Mike F (00:52:59):
Yeah. I, for people who aren’t in North America, why do you think TPT is not as big in your part of the world?

Andrea S (00:53:21):
I smaller population size for a starters.

Mike F (00:53:26):
Yeah,

Andrea S (00:53:31):
There is an awareness of TPT because it was brought up during my university training.

Mike F (00:53:41):
And how was someone just sort of shared, Hey, have you guys heard about TPT? Or I felt like, was it that kind of a population,

Andrea S (00:53:49):
The lecturers recommended looking for resources and ideas there.

Mike F (00:53:55):
Okay. So thinking back to that conversation, but does it make a difference if you’re an Australian teacher and it’s an American resource? Yeah, because the

Andrea S (00:54:14):
Curriculum’s different. Ok.

Mike F (00:54:20):
It’ll,

Andrea S (00:54:21):
Some topics will be covered in different years or not covered, or the emphasis will be different.

Mike F (00:54:31):
But the spelling, is the spelling a turnoff? If it’s American English, American spelling versus British spelling, I think you, you’re like Canada, you use colors C O L O U R as opposed to C O L O R. Is that right?

Andrea S (00:54:53):
It’s, it’s a turnoff, but it would never be enough to tip the scales in my classroom because I’m not an English teacher. Being in Australia, we’re not on use to being exposed to American text due to the amount of time we all spent on the internet.

Mike F (00:55:14):
And I think I remember that you sell more towards middle school and high school. Do you think elementary and kindergarten teachers would feel the same or would they be like, no, that’s going to confuse my kids?

Andrea S (00:55:31):
I think primary school teachers would be more concerned.

Mike F (00:55:35):
Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah, I would, yeah. Okay. Maybe I’ll ask about that. The spelling. I mean, it’s a non-issue for me because I’m middle school and high school. And I think you’re right. I think at that stage of the game, you’re just, the American influence is so large that It

Andrea S (00:55:56):
There. Yeah. For me,

Mike F (00:55:58):
For me, the moment when

Andrea S (00:56:00):
It comes to thinking about the American audiences, when is it worth my while making a product to fit us letter size paper rather than an A four

Mike F (00:56:17):
That’s paper size. Fascinating. I remember that. Okay. So wait, do you make your resources for a four or do you make it for letter size?

Andrea S (00:56:25):
I make it for a four, and I’ve converted, I’ve offered two versions with some of my products.

Mike F (00:56:33):
And do you notice a difference

Andrea S (00:56:37):
In what way?

Mike F (00:56:39):
Yeah, I guess you would. I was going to ask, do you notice if the ones with American sizing would appeal more? But it would, I guess that would be hard to say. It’s not like, oh my gosh, I just added letter size to this product and all of a sudden the conversion rate increased and I’m starting to make more sales. It’s not as obvious like that. Right?

Andrea S (00:57:03):
No, I haven’t noticed any of the ones that I’ve updated. Okay.

Mike F (00:57:08):
And Kim, can I ask you a question to speak on behalf of all Americans? No. Yeah, of

Kim T (00:57:12):
Course. Yeah.

Mike F (00:57:16):
But, okay. For you personally, would that be a turnoff if the letter formatting, if you got a resource and because the A four is slightly different, then it changes the size when you print it. Would that affect you? Does that even come into consideration?

Kim T (00:57:32):
It wouldn’t, me personally, but I could see my coworkers being affected by that Would,

Mike F (00:57:40):
But they wouldn’t know until they got it, would they? Or would they? I’m trying to think, because I can’t think of a time when I’ve printed a four resource on my computer here in Canada. But that, would the turnoff be that it’s an a four resource, or would the turnoff be that, oh, it’s not from what would would slow down your colleagues if you were to?

Kim T (00:58:10):
I think just because it would be a different size, to be honest with you.

Mike F (00:58:14):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny because when I create my resources, I think about American spelling and I have Grammarly set to American, which constantly corrects my English spelling. But yeah, that’s fascinating. What size of paper do you use in Italy?

Enrica (00:58:31):
In Italy we have only a four, but I create everything on Lego sides.

Mike F (00:58:36):
You make everything in letters. And that’s cause of the American audience?

Enrica (00:58:38):
Yeah, also, cause I don’t sell in Italy, we don’t speak English in.

Mike F (00:58:43):
There’s

Enrica (00:58:43):
No point in selling much stuff in English here.

Mike F (00:58:46):
No. Yeah. And would there, is English a second language a thing in Italy?

Enrica (00:58:51):
Yes, it is.

Mike F (00:58:53):
And would those people ever use TPT resources?

Enrica (00:58:57):
No, because in Italy we have the textbooks that are mandatory. So yeah.

Kim T (00:59:03):
And

Enrica (00:59:04):
English books are in Italian. It’s kind of confusing. I know. But this is one of the reasons why you don’t learn English. And it’s called in Italy. Yeah.

Mike F (00:59:17):
Yeah. You

Enrica (00:59:17):
Study it, but you don’t learn it. You might study Shakespeare as a great poet in Italian

Mike F (00:59:27):
And

Enrica (00:59:27):
That’s it. And you did your English lesson about Shakespeare in Italian and there is no point. Okay.

Mike F (00:59:35):
You

Enrica (00:59:35):
Are able to do simple sentences, name the colors, probably

Mike F (00:59:43):
If we’re we’re at the tail end of the meeting, if you were to come up with homework, what will you do between today and next class? And the thought that I’m going to add to this is if the goal is to make sales and to think about page views leading to sales, what will you do to whatever you were planning to do, what can you do? So that has a chance to increase page sales somehow, or just tell me what your homework’s going to be. For accountability,

Kim T (01:00:24):
I’m not going to give myself much homework because I need to work on client stuff. So I hopefully will get another one of the, I’m doing a boho classroom decor kind of thing. And so I already have two products up with that and I just wanted to add another finish out, one of the other products with it so I can make a bundle, I guess.

Mike F (01:00:51):
Nice. And have you finished your four products for back to school that you were talking

Kim T (01:00:56):
About or? I have one more I need to finish with back to school,

Mike F (01:01:00):
But that’s separate from the classroom decor one.

Kim T (01:01:03):
I was kind of trying to link it in just because one is numbers and then I wanted to say, oh, well I’ll have a printable if you want to use this with those. Yeah, That’s

Mike F (01:01:13):
Smart. Quick question, how many products would you say you make in a month?

Kim T (01:01:21):
My goal is to make four, but it’s normally about three or two.

Mike F (01:01:26):
So the goal is for one per week, but that’s in the way. Gotcha. Ok,

Kim T (01:01:30):
Cool.

Mike F (01:01:32):
What would you say is your homework?

Enrica (01:01:35):
My homework is update my stuff for back to school seasons to be ready for it. And then I will try to, I’ve got a new product that I think I will publish today. I will try to make it free for a while. I don’t know how many days, but it will be free for a while to see if it gets downloads and if it ranks higher in the search engine and see what happens. Just an experiment. And

Mike F (01:02:08):
I think I remember you saying in the discussion form that you’re going to promote it in all of your channels.

Enrica (01:02:15):
Yeah, that’ll

Mike F (01:02:15):
Be free. Yeah.

Enrica (01:02:16):
Yeah. I’ll put it on Facebook, Instagram, and everywhere I can. Yeah. And my email list or something like that.

Mike F (01:02:24):
I think that the free plus, so the page views plus the downloads will give you that boost to go as opposed to just page views alone.

Enrica (01:02:34):
No, it’s also a high school products. I normally do middle school, but I heard that high school has less competition in math, so I’m going to try it.

Mike F (01:02:45):
And sorry, are when you say you’re posting in Facebook groups, that means going into the math groups that you’ve had success in

Enrica (01:02:50):
Before? Yeah, yeah,

Mike F (01:02:51):
Yeah,

Enrica (01:02:52):
Yeah, yeah.

Mike F (01:02:53):
I’m curious to hear about that. Andrea, do you have any homework that you’re thinking about?

Andrea S (01:03:00):
I’ll keep it pretty light this week, but I think I’ll continue making previews for my bundles. Nice.

Mike F (01:03:08):
And when you say previews for your bundles, what does that mean?

Andrea S (01:03:13):
Well, at the moment some of them have nothing.

Mike F (01:03:16):
Okay.

Andrea S (01:03:16):
No preview at all. So

Mike F (01:03:19):
Then any preview is better than no preview because you’re at that stage of the game. Gotcha. Nice. And I think for me, my homework is going to be get my back to my sixties with back to school stuff. But if that goes well, then I’m going to ask my VA to do, okay. Can you update my reading products? Because back to school is a great time to do reading strategy refreshers, so I’m going to write that down back to school and then reading comprehension. Awesome. Thank you all. Thank you everyone for coming up because it’s nice to chat with people. It’s nice. I love when you come in. So I love Kim and Andrea because you’re here and you make me accountable. And I love seeing faces when they pop in, just when they can because that’s always exciting too. And then to Angelique and to SAT and other people listening to this. Thanks for listening. You’re welcome to join. You’re welcome to listen as well and welcome to Jump in the Forum. Any last words from anyone or we’re good to go? We are good to wrap up. Have a fantastic weekend everyone, and we’ll see you next week.

Kim T (01:04:29):
Bye guys. Bye

Enrica (01:04:30):
Bye.