Little Shop of Honors: TPT Conference Tips

So if you read my first blog post you know that I shared some things I did to begin selling on TpT, which was also in preparation for going to the TpT conference in Las Vegas. Well now I'm back, and wanted to share some conference tips. Whether you are a beginning seller like me, or have been selling for a while but want to take it to the next level, the conference will get you motivated and give you tons of information on how to get started or improve your store/sales.

Tip #1: Just do it! This conference has workshops for Beginners, Bloggers, Powerpoint tips (one thing you'll learn REAL fast = use Powerpoint or AdobePro to create products on TpT), a workshop for every social media outlet, as well as workshops for Copyright, Common Core, Branding, Apps, Motivation, and many more. In fact, it's pretty hard to choose which sessions to go to. If you can, coordinate with friends so you can "divide and conquer" and share information. So don't worry that you don't have 25+ products in your store, this conference will help you to get started.

Insider Tip: I didn't realize this until a day or two before the conference, but you have to download and print all of your own session handouts - they do not provide them for you. The good news is that you can download handouts for all of the sessions, not just the ones you are signed up for. Many people print them all out and get them bound into a notebook (Staples will do it for about $5) or they put them all into a binder. This is a good way to keep all of that good information in one organized place.

Teacher Swag

How can you not be inspired by this girl?

Tip #2: NETWORK! Get on Facebook or Teacher Blogs to find out what "meet-ups" are happening during the conference, and GO! All you have to do is sign up, and you're in! It's such a great way to meet people, and everyone is really friendly. Oh, and did I mention there are lots of prizes :) Meet-Ups gave me a chance to link up with other sellers so that we could promote each other's blogs, TpT stores, Facebook Pages, Instagram, etc.

The incredible Megan Favre - my blog designer

My Canadian Friends eh!

Primary Pack meet up with my girls!

I was able to link up with Sasha and donate to her Blog Party

Tip#3: Get that darn button! The bigger the better! Everyone wears these as a "name tag" to identify who you are when chatting. You can order them online at Zazzle, Staples, or many other websites. OR you can get a button making kit and make your own :) My friend Amy made mine (thank goodness!), otherwise I think I would have been the only person without one. She also made us these great California blogger buttons so people could see where we were from. It's nice to find fellow Californians so we can plan some meet-ups of our own during the year.

Insider Tip: Bring lots of business cards - probably about 200 - with your social media information. You exchange these with other teacher-authors and then can go home and follow their pages / communicate all year :)

Tip #4: Save up! Have I convinced you yet? If you are thinking about going to the conference next year, The Krafty Teacher made this cute freebie to help you save up...