What Do 6-Figure Teachers Do?! Top Side Hustles for Teachers

Teaching is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world; but sadly, it isn’t always as rewarding when it comes to money. I am on a quest to earn six figures and then seven figures as a teacher and that’s why we are diving in today to the secret sauce of what six figure and even seven figure teachers do as side hustles that can become alternative careers.

For teachers, the goal is to be able to teach because you want to, not teach because you have to, right?

It’s time that we finally start making our worth. And if that sounds good to you, let’s dive right in.

I’m Dario, I am a former teacher and current tutor, with a slight entrepreneur spirit, I write in this website to help people build lives of freedom through earning online and also building scalable business ideas.

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Alright, so before we look into building six-figure and seven-figure teachers and seeing what they have done, it’s important first, that we realize that all of the side hustles alternative careers that I’m going to be talking about have these three elements:

1. They aren’t hourly, or salary based. That means that there’s really room for that exponential growth and room to scale

2. They all have the potential to be passive. So if you’re able to still make money after you set it up, even if it’s running on autopilot,

3. They all scale well when you really niche down.

We’ll talk about that with each side hustle and alternative career we talked about today.

Side Hustle #1:

The first side hustle that many six-figure teachers take advantage of is social media, namely, YouTube, you knew I was going to say YouTube. Since the blow up of social media, teachers have really been able to harness the power of building a personal brand. And if you’re like, “personal brand? why I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then definitely check out this post where I go in depth on building a strong personal brand.

A few months ago, I watched an interviewed with former teacher Kayse Morris, who has built a multi-million dollar company, and she says that YouTube still serves as one of the top funnels for her company.

YouTube is different than other social media platforms, because it’s a place where people are really going to learn rather than just be entertained. So when people learn things from you on YouTube, you’re seen as an expert much faster, you’re able to build trust with your audience.

Now, blogs are also pretty lucrative as well. But more people are willing to write and less are willing to actually take the time to put out videos. So if you can get on YouTube, you’re going to be able to rank better in search and also scale your business faster than if you were to start a blog generally, so to do to fit the criteria.

One it is definitely scalable and not hourly. And two, it definitely can become passive through ads, affiliate links, and as a funnel into your courses or coaching.

YouTube really succeeds when you niche it down and you’re able to serve just one audience. There is a reason why all of the number one refers for online English teaching companies come from YouTube.

Again, people come here to learn. They want to learn what you have to share and for feeling like YouTube is a good option for you to invest your time then definitely check out my free “Starting on YouTube Cheat Sheet”, where I share the tips to starting a really strong foundation.

Side Hustle #2:

The second side hustle or alternative career for teachers is Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) Lisa Markel Sparkles replaced her full time preschool teaching job by selling digital clip art, digital curriculum, and rewards on Teachers Pay Teachers.

She has a wealth of Teachers Pay Teachers knowledge. Some teachers sell courses, but there are a million-dollar Teachers Pay Teachers teachers. I found an interview where a teacher really asserted her success to find a hole in the market. She said she liked task cards, but they were only really being made for primary age students. And she created task cards for other ages and they just took off. It took a store to a whole new level. And she really started to scale from there.

So 1) Teachers Pay Teachers definitely has that scale factor. 2) it can become so passive after you make the resources and you probably already made those resources. If you’re a teacher, you have resources that you can put off or just refine a little bit, because you’re selling digital curriculum or props. It can be really, really passive and 3) the shops that do the best are ones that are really niched down and serve one target audience.

Side Hustle #3

The next top six figure side hustle teachers do is create courses and memberships. This is a really hot topic for teachers. Everyone wants a course or membership because it really checks all the boxes. Now, make no mistake courses and memberships take loads of work upfront. But they really can scale and create a lot of passive income. Some teachers just didn’t build a membership out of the blue, they really found a niche and a whole new market where they were really into the tech side of things. And they also saw that many teachers were struggling with tech. That was an opportunity to bring these two things together and created something that teachers really wanted and needed and really niche it down.

So 1) courses and memberships definitely have that scale factor. 2) courses are really, really passive; memberships are a little less passive, but still, you’re not showing up every single day usually, and you’re not really trading as much time for money like you would be if you’re teaching in the classroom, or you’re teaching hourly and 3) like I’ve learned by watching some interviews, when you can really niche down and serve one audience with a membership, or course, you’re really going to find success.

Side Hustle #4

Before, the way that teachers were building six figure businesses was getting on teaching platforms where you’re paid per student, and you’re able to actually form your own organizations. And this can be done through companies like Outschool.

Definitely check out this post (coming soon) where I dive deep into Outschool and all about the application process. Now, do companies like Outschool that pay per student and allow you to create your own curriculum fit this criteria? Well 1) if you can create an organization and be able to hire on other teachers, then you are really able to build something that scales and it’s less hourly, right? So it has a not hourly factor with scalability. 2) It can become passive because you’re giving classes to other people in your organization, and you are just creating the classes and not necessarily teaching them and 3) teachers and organizations on platforms like Outschool do the best when they are really niched down when you find that thing that you really love teaching on and there’s also a demand for it. And that’s something I talk a bit about in my Outschool post as well.

Personally, for me, I’m not interested in forming an organization on Outschool. But I would still teach for them a little bit because $50-$100 an hour doesn’t suck.

And it would allow me to be able to make a little extra cash while I’m building up these other companies that really have that skill factor that I’m interested in.

Side Hustle #5

The last way that teachers are building up to six figures and making that money is through selling physical products through places like Shopify, Etsy, or even Amazon. According to Jungle Scout, it says new Amazon sellers are making an average of $42,000 in annual profits. That’s on average, that’s not bad, right? Especially if you’re already teaching. That’s some good money right there. Also, according to Jungle Scout, 1 in 5 sellers make $25 to $250, which is a really big gap. But anyway, $25,000 to $250,000 a month.

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What a month! That is not taking into account though, what they’re putting in in terms of like buying those products. But still, that’s some good money right there. I think selling products to teachers or to a niche market is really, really profitable and a good way to go. But it takes a lot of costs upfront. So that’s why I have this listed as the last, because you have to pay for inventory, and pay to get things made and manufactured. So I think it’s a better option to do something like Teachers Pay Teachers where you’re selling digital resources, even on Etsy, you can sell a lot of things digitally. And I really think that’s a way to go, because there are no startup costs, or at least way less than a physical product. But with physical products, 1) yes, to able to scale you have to make a lot of those sales. So 2) it’s not as passive, but it is if you do something like Amazon FBA fulfilled by Amazon, or you hire a company to do all the shipping and fulfilling of orders for you, which is a pretty cool option that you can do nowadays. And 3) like all these things, there’s loads of success when you can find a niche and serve that one target audience.

Now I’ve mentioned a lot about niching today, and if that confused you a bit then definitely check out this post and I have a freebie to help you find your perfect niche.

You can fill out this worksheet. It’s really, really helpful.

Now if you have scroll brain like me and you have a million ideas, it is important to not pick multiple ones of these things to do there.

The reason that all of these teachers have succeeded is because they started with just one thing, right? They picked one specific industry one specific niche, one specific side hustle to really allocate the time that they had leftover in their day to day. They didn’t try and do all the things we try and do all the things, you’re going to fail at all the things. Unfortunately, that’s just how it works.

Try to really pick one and stick with it. Now remember, start scared and stay weird.

Be true to yourself, bring your story strengths and struggles to the table to help you really blow up your business. If this was helpful for you, it’s so helpful for me if you can give my blog a follow, find me on Instagram, say hello and I will see you next post.