How Jamie Helps Teachers Feel Confident And Excited About Teaching

Shelli Varela: They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. But what happens when the student is actually the teacher?

 

Stu McLaren: There is a big trend brewing that’s revolutionizing the way business is being done. Big companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are jumping on this too but so are thousands of others in all kinds of markets like photography and calligraphy, fitness, finance, meal planning, lesson planning, dog training, and so many more, and they’re doing it by shifting to a recurring revenue model. Hi. My name is Stu McLaren and for more than a decade I’ve been helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs generate recurring revenue through membership sites. Join our host, Shelli Varela, as she takes you behind-the-scenes to see how these companies are building a thriving tribe that spends with them every single month. Now, let’s get to today’s episode.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Shelli Varela: Jamie Sears, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing Podcast. How are you?

 

Jamie Sears: I am super excited to be here. Thank you.

 

Shelli Varela: I’m super excited to have you for a series of reasons and we had a really cool pre-chat about your incredible background and how you became this person who’s helping kids learn in a whole new way. And the phrase, “What if it were just easy?” kept coming to my head as I was reading your backstory. So, I’m wondering if you would share with our amazing listeners your story, your backstory, and how you got to be the person running this incredibly successful membership site.

 

Jamie Sears: Well, sure. I really think that it all goes back to being this child playing school with my cousin, Jennifer. We were up in the attic of my grandmother’s house and she had an old fashioned desk, and I was always the student and Jennifer was the teacher. And that’s how I wanted it to be. I never wanted to be a teacher. And she did. She went on to become a middle school math teacher. It is a hard life and she loves it. She was meant to do that. But I was dead set. I don’t want to be a teacher. So, I went to college and majored in political science, much to my parents’ dismay, because that doesn’t sound like it’s going to lead to a great career. I bounced between jobs and ended up with this job that I thought was my dream job as a lobbyist for the Arizona Supreme Court. I thought it was my dream job. I loved it. I wore suits and heels and I was having the time of my life. And then I had kids, and everything changed, including the voice in my head. It started to say, “But what if you could have a job where you didn’t work so many hours? What if you could see your kids more? What if you can be a present mom? What if you could spend your whole day hanging out with kids instead of adults? Maybe you should be a teacher?”

 

And I fought it. I can’t say that like I listened to it and it was just this great idea and I jumped on board because I fought it. No, I don’t want to be a teacher. I don’t care if they get summers off. I don’t want to be a teacher. And so, I jumped between job-to-job trying to find that thing that made me happy until I had to do it. I went back to school. And going back to school was really hard on my family. We struggled because we had four young children and we were paying college tuition again. I wasn’t bringing in a paycheck. I was actually just costing money. I eventually went on to get a third-grade teaching job just one week prior to school starting. And it was, quite frankly, the scariest thing I have ever done, way scarier than an appropriations meeting of the State Senate for sure.

 

Shelli Varela: That’s hilarious. That says a lot when you’re lobbying and instead, you’re faced in the front of a class with a bunch of third graders and you’re like ro-ro.

 

Jamie Sears: That’s exactly what I felt. I stood in front of them and I was literally the worst teacher in the whole wide world. They’re just sweet little eight-year-olds staring up at me in their brand new school clothes and I’m all like reading them this huge list of rules like we spent the whole day reading this list of rules. That’s what I did on my very first day of teaching. It was awful. Like, I think they were near tears. I question whether or not I made a good decision, I mean, I felt like I was the teacher I would never want to have, would never want my children to have for sure. I was boring, uninspired but I’m just not the type of person that’s going to settle for being crummy. And I realized when you stink at something, there’s really nowhere to go, but up. I mean, I wasn’t going to become a worse teacher. So, I just started to learn and I went to blog posts, I read books, I went to conferences, and I tried all kinds of new things with my students. And gradually, things got better.

 

Slowly but surely, I started to feel like a teacher for once. I think it took me three years before I actually felt like I was a teacher. And when I did, I realized like this is exactly what I wanted to do with my life. There was all that questioning up until that point, but when I realized I’m in front of the classroom and I’m laughing with these kids, and I’m having aha moments with them, and they’re saying, “I love you,” and I would read a book and they wanted to read another book. When that started to happen, I became a lot more joyful in my life and I became a better mother and wife because of that.

 

Shelli Varela: So, let me ask you this, what is it that you learned when you became a teacher that you started seeing unfolding? Because clearly, you’re doing it different than many do. What do you think it was from your unconventional background or your unrelated background that you brought to teaching that you feel like helped you in a different way?

 

Jamie Sears: You know, at first, I started off by standing in front of them and talking. And I realized that that didn’t work. It wasn’t working at all. And when I saw this huge turnaround was when I started to involve them and treat them like they were just as important in the classroom as I was. Instead of trying to be the boss of the classroom, I was simply being the leader and the coach and I was allowing them to talk, to get excited, to participate instead of trying to control them and keep them in their seats, doing their worksheet. It was kind of scary at first because I thought these little eight-year-olds there’s a lot more of them than me. And I mean, that was a little bit scary but I really saw the need to actually collaborate with my class instead of just being seen as the person in charge.

 

Shelli Varela: I have some questions because I’m really actually interested in your background and your unique story and your unique path. The theme that I kept noticing from you is you were always sort of becoming. You have a degree and you’re working in political science and lobbying and then the legal system and then you’re always sort of recreating yourself based on where your heart pulls you to go. And it’s not lost on the either that when you told that opening story about you and Jennifer, you’ve always felt like the student. I feel like one of the biggest gifts you give your students is you’re right, you’re maybe not the teacher. You are the student a couple of steps ahead and you know what the student needs so you’re really facilitating the journey of a student in a way that they can digest and learn, and maybe innovate in a way that perhaps other teachers aren’t so that they can be excited about learning and absorb what you’re teaching.

 

And the fact that you always facilitate becoming of something both by example, but also enabling those students to become something else by unlocking something because you see something from a vantage point that perhaps is an easier way for them to learn, to engage, to be inspired, and to be lit up. Can you tell us how that transitioned into your membership site?

 

Jamie Sears: Of course. So, I had no plans to be an entrepreneur. I mean, I had just changed careers and I had no plans to change again. But my first year of teaching, I realized that the materials that I had were not engaging to my students. They were boring and so I decided I would create a couple of fun things for my students to do. And so, I had a little scrapbooking experience and I used that skill to create a few activities for my students. And then I got this idea. Well, if I created these things for my students and then I sold them to other teachers, I would now make a little bit of money so I could buy more resources for my students. These resources are maybe more and more challenging. I didn’t know how to create yet and so that’s how it began. I started by creating a math activity to help my students area and perimeter, and then I created this fun activity about multiple meaning words. And then I started selling them online. My first month I made $11. I was stoked like this was huge because $11 could buy a really cool resource for my students to use next month. I wasn’t thinking like an entrepreneur. This is a hobby. It really wasn’t that I was trying to make a whole bunch of money. I thought I just need to make a little bit so that I can help my students more. But it snowballed because I wasn’t the only teacher looking for an engaging activity for their students to do. And within six months, I realized that I had just started a business and I was…

 

Shelli Varela: The accidental business.

 

Jamie Sears: Absolutely. I didn’t know how to run a business. I knew nothing about like all the legal stuff and taxes or any of that. I know I messed all that up at the beginning but I did realize within six months I have a business and that got me really excited because, in my classroom, I had 25 students. So, each year I could impact 25 students, which is huge but if I make a resource and I sell it to 100 teachers who have 25 students, my impact has increased dramatically. And that got me pumped which made me make more and more resources. So, I spent all my breaks, all my nights making resources.

 

[ANNOUNCEMENT]

 

Stu McLaren: So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. This isn’t luck. This is a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and if thousands of others can do it, you can too. To find out what type of membership site would be right for your business, visit GetTRIBEGuide.com. Go to GetTRIBEGuide.com and download it today. You’re awesome!

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Jamie Sears: I also started a Facebook group after a couple of years because a friend told me I ought to. I had no idea what that was going to entail but I did it. And in my Facebook groups, I let my husband convince me to do some video. Which was terrifying because I had to like do my hair and my makeup and you have to have the right lighting and, I mean, my sound was terrible. Everything was terrible. I just did it and nobody ever complained about any of the lighting or the backdrop, nobody complained. So, I let myself worry about that. But I got on video and I started telling them about how I taught right, and I just every day got on and told them another strategy I use in my writing instruction. And from these videos, I started to get tons of questions, tons of questions. They wanted more. So, I just kept getting on video and I kept telling them more and more and I started creating more resources and I wrote a blog post. And before I knew it, I talked about writing a lot. I think I found a niche that I didn’t know that I had, and to be real honest with you, writing wasn’t even my favorite thing to teach, but it was hard and I knew other teachers found it hard. And so, I just kept talking about it.

 

And one day, it just came to me that they wanted more. I should offer them professional development course. So, I start this course. I’ve mapped it all out. It is 11 modules with 96 lessons. I have it on like post-it notes on my wall and I thought I would feel really excited when I saw that but I actually had this moment of like realization that that would completely overwhelm these teachers. They’re already overwhelmed. They’re already trying to do amazing things. I’m going to throw 96 videos out there like I wouldn’t want that. Why would they? And I thought I have all this good content, but it’s not a good idea. I removed four modules from the course and it was painful to me because I knew they needed it. But I went on and I did release the course. It was wildly successful for us. Our launch blew our minds and I kept thinking the back of my mind about those four modules that I had to eliminate. And I thought I taught them how to teach writing but there’s so much more to it. There’s all these little lessons. When they get started, they’re going to need me.

 

And I happened to be flipping through my Facebook and I saw a video. And I have to tell you, I never stop and listen to videos on Facebook. I leave my volume off all the time. I don’t listen to videos. It’s terrible because I make them but I don’t actually listen. It was a video that Stu was doing with Amy Porterfield. And I didn’t know Stu at all. I didn’t know who Amy was talking to but for whatever reason that morning, I turned the volume on. And he was telling her about the benefits of putting a course or putting a membership at the end of your course. And as I’m listening to him, I’m like, “That’s it.”

 

Shelli Varela: Eureka.

 

Jamie Sears: That’s where those four modules go. And I mean, my husband came in the room. I’m like, “I got an idea,” which is like scary words for him to hear because I always have all these ideas, but he too agreed. He’s like, “That makes so much sense.” After they have the basics and they feel like they have the tools, then you offer them a membership where you can help coach them through the individual lessons they’re going to teach and the struggles that are going to inevitably come up with their students. And that’s how the idea for the membership came about. We had already released the course so we had no time really to get the membership together, but we just knew it’s a good idea.

 

Shelli Varela: That’s amazing. Can you talk about for anybody who’s listening and who’s thinking, they may be sitting on an idea that, “Is this a membership site or isn’t this?” can you circle back to your perspective of that first $11? And the reason I say that is because, you know, I know that you talked about it was $11 and you thought of it as something to invest in more resources for kids. But what about that felt like possibility and what was the first moment you thought, “Oh, this is a thing,” because those beginnings start so small sometimes and they’re very easy to overlook if we don’t see them for the gems and the gifts that they are of the foreshadowing of something far bigger.

 

Jamie Sears: Yeah. Actually, I made this resource and it was called multiple-meaning words and I was playing these games with my students, when one of my coworkers said, “Wow, that was like so much fun. I would buy that.” And I don’t think until that very moment I ever thought anyone would buy something like that. Even though I wanted to buy it, it didn’t occur to me that anyone else would. And I put that product up for sale and it is still on my online store, and that coworker who said she would buy it, we eventually hired her and she is part of our team because she believes in what we do and we realized we got to have people like that on our team. So, way down the line when we were ready to hire, she was one of our first hires.

 

Shelli Varela: That’s amazing. What would you tell somebody who is considering a membership site? Like how has this changed both your business life and also your family’s life?

 

Jamie Sears: Well, my membership and my course kind of go hand-in-hand. And here’s what was happening before I released these two things to the world is that I was selling things in an online store and I was even collecting followers in a Facebook group. And I would say that I had a successful business but I never got to hear from the people who were buying my resources. They might buy that $5 resource and I never heard from them again. I wasn’t forming any sort of relationship with them and I wasn’t helping them to make some kind of transformation. Once we released the course and the membership, we have this whole different relationship now with our audience. They are emailing. They are posting on social media about their students, who now love to write because they’ve changed the way they teach right. They’re talking about how much happier they are as a teacher, how they’ve never felt this happy about teaching before, that they were down and out and now they have a whole new perspective.

 

They’re sharing with me these stories and it motivates me and inspires me. It makes me want to do another project. It makes me want to write the next blog post. It makes me want to do the next video because I feel like I’m making a huge difference. They’re doing the work, but I provided this tool for them that they didn’t have before. And then I start thinking, like, “What other tools might I have, that I need to put out into the world?” And so, I think I have this sense of excitement about my business that I didn’t have before.

 

 

Shelli Varela: That’s fantastic. We were talking at the beginning of this interview before we started pressing record and one of the things you said that I’ll repeat back to you and also if any of the listeners have the same thing, you said you’re the person who often catches themselves saying, “Hey, I have an idea.” And if you are the person who has these ideas, I think so many of us in the society are quick to lead with logic and then we’ll have an idea or a moment of inspiration, and then we’ll look to see if that’s logical or if the odds are in or against us and then try to map out the entire journey. But for you, it really is the rocket fuel in your business. And I have one last question for you with respect to this same question. If you were to be able to give your former self some advice regarding where you would end up when you were having those moments of doubts, as you were in political science and your lobbying, if you were able to give that person some advice about who she was about to become before she became her, what would that be?

 

Jamie Sears: Yeah. That former self was thinking about everything logically, what made sense like you have to go to work Monday through Friday, you have to hustle, and that’s how you provide, and that’s how you’re successful. You don’t need to tell that person to lean into the creativity that I’ve always had. I’ve always been creative. There’s always been things that I’ve wanted to do. I wanted to be an author since the time I was a little girl. And I just thought, “No. authors, that’s not a good job. They don’t make good money.” I talked myself out of it because I was trying to be too logical. I did. I felt like I had to have the perfect plan. I had to know it was going to work. But when I just leaned into something and I had a hunch, and I was excited about it, it was more successful because I was passionate. All my other jobs I was lacking passion. I wasn’t doing what I really needed to be doing.

 

Shelli Varela: And that’s true for so many of us. And so, I really appreciate not only what you’re doing in the world and the ripple effect that you’re creating for the teachers who get to have a better quality of life who show up differently in their classrooms so that they teach their students in a different way with a different kind of energy. And what that carries forward for those kids, I want to acknowledge and honor you for saying yes to that original calling, that it would have been so easy to say no for because the world, my friend, needs more people like you. So, thank you for your time.

 

Jamie Sears: Oh, I love what I do. It’s an honor. Not only is that those kids that they’re making a big difference for but now they’re going home and they are a different spouse and a different parent because they’re a little bit less stressed. And I still have work to do because I see that my audience is still overwhelmed by other things and I know I still have more work to do, but, dang, I’m pumped now because once you just get this little taste of what your capable of then it’s hard to stop.

 

Shelli Varela: Incredible. If people are looking to join you or to find you online, where is the best place they can find you?

 

Jamie Sears: They can find me on my website. It’s NotSoWimpyTeacher.com.

 

Shelli Varela: Amazing. Jamie, thank you so much for your time. You are a blessing, my friend.

 

Jamie Sears: Thank you.

 

[CLOSING]

 

Stu McLaren: I hope you love that story. It’s amazing, right? That’s what It’s a TRIBE Thing is all about. So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. Listen, this isn’t luck. There’s a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and each week we’re going behind the scenes to show you exactly how they did it. Get the latest stories and actionable ideas from each episode at www.ItsaTRIBEThing.com and if you know one other person who could benefit from this, tell them to subscribe. Tell them to go to ItsaTRIBEThing.com.

[END]