Episode 184: The 5 Stages of Starting an Education Business
If you've been thinking about starting an education business, it can feel really overwhelming knowing how to start. Most people really only see businesses when they're polished and successful. And it can feel intimidating, because we see these really well put-together businesses that feel streamlined, and we don't see the messiness that goes into creating them. So today, I want to normalize the messiness… That's how we learn. In this episode, we dive into the 5 stages of starting an education business, practical tips, and more!
Topics Discussed:
The need for spark to start
Why you shouldn’t doubt your expertise
The need to experiment
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
If you've been thinking about starting an education business, it can feel really overwhelming knowing how to start, and most people really only see businesses when they're polished and successful. And it can feel intimidating, because we see these really well put together businesses that feel streamlined, and we don't see the messiness that goes into creating them. And so today I want to normalize the messiness that's how we learn. And behind every successful business, there are stages of growth, experimentation and learning. And we're going to explore the five stages that education businesses go through, so that you can really take some action to get started testing your ideas. So the first stage is spark. This is when you have an idea, you're like, maybe I could start a business around coaching new teachers, around classroom management, or maybe I can create a math curriculum business, or whatever it is for you, just the spark of an idea, the very first part that feels exciting to you. And this could be an idea for a course or a workshop or a program. You don't have to have it all figured out at this stage, especially. But really at any stage, the way you get it figured out is by moving through the stages. When you have the spark, you probably are doing something else, right? Maybe you're teaching, maybe you're working another job, and you have an idea of something that could be your own. So pay attention to this spark so they're really what will propel you forward. Doesn't mean that every idea you have will be actionable or something you want to follow all the way through, but pay attention to what really feels exciting to you in this stage of a spark of figuring out what do you want to do, some of these challenges that come up might be choosing the right niche, not knowing exactly who you want to serve or what you want your products or services to be. You might also be doubting your expertise and wondering if you can turn your expertise into a program, confronting imposter syndrome, which happens to all of us, and having some fear, recognizing that these are all normal feelings. These feelings of fear or imposter syndrome do not mean that you shouldn't go forward. It means that we should acknowledge these feelings and keep moving forward and testing out our ideas. Which leads me to stage two, which is the experiment. This is when you get to test out your ideas. This could be leading your first workshop or running a pilot program. Seeing these as testing out your ideas can be so freeing, it doesn't mean that this program that you create is going to be the program you sell for a decade. Probably not in the first form you create it, right? But we're going to learn through running these things, through putting these products or services out there in the world. In the experiment stage, you're going to get your first students or clients. You might try different formats. You might be like, Oh, I think I want to run this as an asynchronous course or an in person workshop. And really the goal here is, what learning, what resonates. The challenges in this phase have to do with getting enough students or enough people interested in your idea. You are just at the beginning of building a business, and people are learning about you, and you're learning how to sell what you're creating, and so really moving through trying to find a few people you know can be super helpful and can become a repeatable process for finding students for your programs or customers for your products. Some challenges in this space also include not really knowing what to charge or how to sell things, or how to be clear on your messaging. It's the first time that you've sold these things, and so it's no wonder that you feel a little unclear about how to sell them. So again, the way we get clearer on anything, including messaging, is by doing it by testing out different ways to talk about your offerings and seeing what resonates and really in this experiment stage, the focus should be on validation over perfection. We're trying to validate our ideas. We're trying to see what resonates with our ideal customers. And then after the experiment stage comes stage three. Momentum. In this stage, you're thinking, wow, this might actually work. You've run some programs, you've sold some products, and you're starting to get people in the door consistently. You're growing your audience. You're putting in systems that help you bring the right people to your business, and you're seeing some consistent sales come in the door, you may also be refining your offer. So like I said, in the experiment stage, you're likely putting out a first idea. You're getting a lot of feedback, and then in this momentum stage, you're integrating the feedback and refining your offer. Some common issues in the momentum stage are.
Burnout. And so just like teaching, unfortunately, running a business can feel so passion fueled and so exciting, and with that comes a real risk of burnout. So getting all this feedback and then implementing it, and then selling again, and getting more students, all of that is exciting, and also can be unsustainable. And so really starting to build in some systems at this stage to support you and help your business grow sustainably in the momentum stage too. You may have figured out some messaging, but be struggling a little bit with some inconsistent marketing. How do I reliably get people in the door and reliably talk about my offerings in a way that resonates with others, and it can just be a little overwhelming, like hard to keep everything organized in this phase. So focus on structure and clarity, which will take us to stage four, which is about systems. In the systems phase, we need structure. You're having more people in your programs, you're selling more products. You need structure or in order to be able to scale your business. So that means getting defined programs, what are you offering and to who, or defined products, what are you offering and to who, some repeatable processes at this stage, your business becomes a little bit boring, because you figured out what works, and now you need to put in systems to help these things work repeatedly. In this stage too, some of these systems will be reliably collecting data, so you can see, as things change, what adjustments you might need to make, along with that means creating marketing systems. How do we tell people about our business, and then how do we bring those people in as customers? And this stage may also involve team members, people that you can delegate work to, people who can help you grow your business, because you are one person, and systems and processes are going to make it possible for your business to grow beyond just you.
Some issues with this come the complexity of delegating work. It can feel really exciting to bring in team members, and also completely overwhelming. How do you maintain quality as you scale a product or service and so again, going back to systems, but also thinking about, what do you do? How have you done these things in a way that works, and how can you teach others to do those things? Now this also involves scaling your marketing, getting in front of a larger audience, and doing some strategic planning about how you're going to get the right people in the door, buying your products or services. A helpful shift in this stage can be moving from doing everything to actually implementing the systems that you've put into place, building the systems, but implementing them. And the whole point of the system is that you don't have to do everything anymore. You have systems and people and processes to help you do all the things so that you can serve a bigger audience. Which brings us to stage five, scaling. At this stage, you're thinking, how do we grow bigger? You've gotten the systems going. You have some repeatable processes. Now it's thinking about, how do we kind of blow that up and make it even bigger? So this could mean larger cohorts or communities, a larger number of customers. Maybe you're looking into partnerships, getting in front of other people's audiences, growing your audience of people who are interested in your business. Maybe you're bringing in another offer or two, having multiple offers for different people or the same person at different stages of their growth, and also beefing up your team. Maybe you're bringing on more people. Maybe you're tightening up the processes that your team members are working through. Some common issues at this stage can be managing teams. That's a skill, right? So you're probably going to be moving out of actually being the person running the day to day of your business to being the person who's managing the teams who are running running the day to day of your business. Along with that comes maintaining culture and quality. You want your business to feel the same and have the same outcomes, even if you're not the one touching every single part of your business. So that means you're moving into your CEO hat. You know, you're becoming this manager of your business, so you're making strategic decisions about how you can expand impact, and your focus really becomes leadership and vision. So I want you to think about what stage you're in right now, Spark experiment, momentum systems or scale, and really think about what's an action you can take to move yourself forward in that stage.
Sure, some common mistakes I see people make as they move through these stages. Are trying to solve a certain stage, stages problems with a another, stages strategies. So for example, maybe trying to solve a stage two problem, an experiment problem with a stage five scaling strategy. So maybe you're creating complex sales funnels too early. Doesn't need to be super complex at the beginning. Maybe you're building big teams too soon, or putting so much content in these courses that you're creating all of these things are maybe solutions for Stage Five, when you're scaling, building a bigger team, building out your offerings, but at stage two, at experimenting, you really want to focus on prototyping. So instead, focus on the next step, not the final step. And as you move through all stages, successful education businesses focus on some certain things. One is understanding their audience, deeply, paying attention to what their audience says, what resonates with their audience, trying to really empathize with the people you're serving. Number two is testing and learning along the way, having this experimentation mindset and then building repeatable offers, things you can sell again and again and again. Number four is creating systems over time. You don't have to have all the systems out at the beginning. Remember, that is a poll stage all about systems. Stage four out of five. So don't get in the weeds of that before you actually start creating your business. And the last thing I see successful education business focuses on, focus on is learning from others. There are other people who have done these things. Learn from them. We can learn so much, just like teaching from collaboration. And if you're just thinking about starting an education business, remember that your business exists to make an impact on other people. Successful businesses solve pressing problems. So start by thinking about what problems do you want to solve, and then allow yourself to take action. To move through each stage of starting an education business. If you're interested in support, we have limited spots in our vision to action accelerator, which is a small group program all about taking imperfect action and using learning science to grow a profitable business that you love because anything you don't know how to do, you can learn. If you're interested in joining, you can apply at educator forever, comm slash business, dash accelerator, and we will put the link in the show notes as well. So.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai