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Side hustle to business
Ashliegh met her business partner, Alisha whilst working as teachers in an international school overseas in Dubai in 2011. At totally different ends of the personality spectrums, the two enjoyed working and travelling together. Fast forward to a few years later when they returned to Australia, Alisha became familiar with another online platform for teachers resources, Teachers Pay Teachers and asked Ashleigh to join her creating content to help teachers who are time poor and creatively challenged. As Ashleigh explains it, this platform is a marketplace for teachers resources in a similar format to Etsy. From there, Rainbow Sky Creations was born!
Differentiation defined
“Something in teaching that’s really important is differentiation which means caring for different needs of the students in the class.” Says Ashleigh and what Rainbow Sky Creations does, is offer content for teachers to provide this experience to their students through different lessons or the same lesson at various levels, to help them focus on their students’ emotional needs as well.
The challenges that come with an online business
“If you’re choosing something to do online, choose something that you’re passionate about, that you want to work in and then it makes it so much easier and it makes it enjoyable.”
Ashleigh believes that doing something you enjoy leads to better customer service, engagement and retention as people can ‘read’ that in the services and products you’re offering.
Driving Sales
A key parts of the marketing strategy for Rainbow Creations, is not only through Teachers Pay Teachers but mostly through their online presence, specifically Instagram and Pinterest and also through more traditional platforms like email marketing.
Ashleigh says that most of their success on Instagram comes from producing ‘trust-worthy’ content that demonstrates that she and Alisha know what teachers go through and where their challenges are. Trust is important in the teaching industry especially for resource sales as the buyers/teachers don’t have a smaller budget than most available to use.
Strategies for success
Whilst Ashleigh admits that some luck has been involved in the success of Rainbow Sky Creations, she also believes that there are a few other key strategies that have worked in the growth of their business, like;
A culture problem in the education sector
In a raw admission, Ashleigh talks about the culture issues occurring in the education sector around expecting more from our teachers but not taking away responsibilities when adding more. In another interesting point of view, Ashleigh believes that there is sometimes a disconnect between the roles in schools and the people in these positions in terms of their experience and skills. A great example she provides is a school principal who is an amazing teacher but isn’t skilled in running a business which essentially what the role involves.
This podcast although specific to the education sector, highlights so many aspects and challenges that businesses across any industry and of any size are faced with. Ashleigh’s insights are sprinkled with an authentic passion for her business, education of little ones and helping teachers be the best they can possibly be. To find out more from Ashleigh and Brad have a listen to the podcast or watch on YouTube.
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