Tips for Making Money in Educational Consulting – From a Profit First Professional

Ross Loveland, of Grow Green Profit Advisors, is a Profit First Professional and recently shared an article he worked on about making money as an educational consultant. Check it out to debunk some old ways of thinking and ramp up your consulting business.

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As an educator, your work is incredibly valuable. You do some of the most important work on the planet: teaching and molding the rising generation to successfully face life’s problems and to (hopefully) help make the world a better place.

And yet, too many educators, especially those in public education, are not rewarded for the work that they do. Educational consultants have the chance to change that for themselves, but it doesn’t happen automatically. It can also be extremely difficult to accept the mindset that making good money is acceptable and even desirable.

I met with several wonderful leaders in educational consulting to gather their thoughts on what it takes to be successful, and how to overcome the stigma that being “too” financially successfully is something to be avoided.

MIKE ANDERSON, founder of Leading Great Learning, leadinggreatlearning.com. He also has an awesome course for prospective education consultants, found here.

MONEY-MAKING TIP: Don’t undercharge. It’s way too easy to charge too little, especially when most consultants come from the public system. Be particularly careful about discounting your work. It’s not usually wise to offer a discount for 5 days, and more of a discount for 10 days. The reality of that is that you’re blocking off more and more days on your calendar where you’re making a lower rate. This can make you feel demotivated when another school district wants to hire you at your full rate but you no longer have availability.

“My rule of thumb is to have one standard set rate that I use for all of my local work. That daily rate is the same for one day or 25 days.” Having one set rate also frees you from thinking about money as much. You set the rate, don’t negotiate, and then focus on the work you love.

WHY IT’S OKAY: “We don’t need to be paupers in order to still be mission-driven. As long as we continue to do great work for kids, and great work for teachers, then I don’t think it needs to be antithetical to also be able to put more money into retirement or send your kid to college. You just need to be careful that the money doesn’t become the purpose.”

DR. KEVIN LEICHTMAN, co-founder of TLC Education, tlceducate.com. I also had the great pleasure of recording a podcast with him recently. Stay tuned for more on that!

MONEY-MAKING TIP: Have a business plan that includes a mission and a vision. This doesn’t need to be a 20- or 30-page document, like many templates online. The plan that Dr. Leichtman and his wife, Anala, created is only about a page long, though it took a lot of time and effort to boil it down to those essentials.

“The business plan should state, ‘This is what we’re good at, this is what we’re passionate about, this is what we want this business to function as and do, and this is how we’re going to make that happen.’”

The plan will guide you as you receive new opportunities and help you stay focused on your mission. It also helps with marketing and messaging and will make your branding consistent. Whether someone listens to your podcast, reads your book, or attends your training, they will feel the same unified purpose underlying each of them. They will know what to expect and feel comfortable exploring your other offerings.

WHY IT’S OKAY: “If you forget that you’re making an impact or that you’re bringing any value, it’s really easy to devalue yourself. In this industry, we tend to think it’s all about service and not about money, meanwhile our families struggle.”

But you need to understand that you ARE bringing tremendous value to your clients. Remember that you’re not selling packets or worksheets or even your time; those are just the tools. The value you’re bringing is a struggling student getting a new perspective and having that “aha” moment, or a burned out teacher becoming inspired again and taking that energy back to his/her entire classroom. That has real value to it.

VERNON WRIGHT, creator of shapethewrightvision.com. He also has a great, free audiobook, “10 Steps to Becoming a Gamechanger,” which you can find on the same site.

MONEY-MAKING TIP: Understand the principle of seed time and harvest time, or sowing and reaping. A farmer understands that if they do certain things now (plants seeds, cares for them, and allows time to pass), they can collect a harvest. This is a universal principle that applies everywhere, and certainly in educational consulting.

Many actions do not have an immediate reward. But if the seeds are good (you have a great service) and they’re placed in good soil (you’re in a market that needs that service), the harvest will come. The seed knows what to do! Recognize that it does take time. Keep talking to prospective clients, keep providing useful content, keep delivering a great product to your current clients – each of these is a seed in fertile ground.

When farmers plant their fields, they go out with a bag of seeds. Yet when they return to harvest, they go out with a wagon or a trailer, and perhaps fill a silo with all that they reap. And so it is in this space. Be consistent and take the right, small steps every day, and a great harvest will come.

WHY IT’S OKAY: Money isn’t the root of all evil. The love of money may be, but money itself is a tool. It can be used for evil, and it can also be used for good in incredible ways.

“Educators want to reach as many people as possible, but what they miss and don’t grasp at a deeper level is that in order to expand that reach, to reach as many people as possible, it takes money. What I would ask educators is this, ‘How much do you want to reach people on a wide scale?’”

We never put money before people; always people first. But money can allow us to fulfill our purpose on a larger scale and do more good in the world.

DANIEL KOFFLER, founder of New Frontiers Executive Function Coaching, nfil.net.

MONEY-MAKING TIP: Be mindful of your financial health. Early on at New Frontiers, they were giving a lot of services away. Their heart was in the right place, the team wanted to do the best job possible, but they were hurting the business and its ability to continue doing good into the future. The solution?

“What we’ve done over the last couple of years is to really focus our efforts around KPIs (key performance indicators) that allow us to drive business in a way that is meaningful to the bottom line.” Some examples include staff utilization, competitive analysis, sales strategies, and customer acquisition costs.

Make sure you don’t do great work with such a narrow focus that you no longer have a business to run anymore. Regularly reviewing your financial health, for example with KPIs, will allow your business to remain productive, profitable, and fulfilling its purpose long into the future.

WHY IT’S OKAY: In this field of educational consulting, your product is your knowledge and your experience, and you shouldn’t be giving that away. You spent a long time developing your skills and expertise (and likely your formal education wasn’t cheap, either!).

“My staff are professionals and very high quality people. I’m very comfortable arguing that they deserve to make a living. And I’m not ashamed of doing so either. As long as you believe in the value that you and your services bring, you should feel at ease charging what you’re worth.”

ROSS LOVELAND, founder of Grow Green Profit Advisors, growgreenprofits.com.

MONEY-MAKING TIP: Build a team of professionals around you. No one person knows the answers to everything. Surround yourself with experts, particularly those that specialize in areas you don’t understand or have zero interest in. They will lift you and your organization to new heights.

“One of the best decisions of my business career was hiring a CPA. She knows taxes better than I ever will. I can go to her with questions and she provides excellent advice. She saves me time and money, not to mention the stress and headaches I’d have if I tried to do it on my own.”

Other examples of wonderful people to include in your inner circle are bookkeepers, profit advisors, sales/marketing gurus, business coaches, and financial advisors. You understand where you are strong and where you need help. Seek out quality people who can fill in the gaps.

WHY IT’S OKAY: There’s a common myth that profits and purpose are mutually exclusive. It’s this idea that if you make a lot of money, you must be selfish and therefore taking from the world, not giving to it. And it’s certainly true that there are some rich, selfish people.

“In my experience, most of the time, people with more money give more. So when we’re talking about this myth that making too much money is wrong, I have to disagree. In fact, I believe the opposite is true: greater profits lead to greater purpose.”

Money, like many things in life, is a resource. You can use that resource to do good, to fulfill your purpose and to lift those around you. Hence, the name of our blog, “From Profits to Purpose.” The financial success, the money isn’t the purpose, but it can absolutely lead to and support the purpose.

These five tips will help you as you create your success as an educational consultant. Just as important, they will improve your mindset about money. But all of this is purely academic unless you take action! Implement at least one idea, share with others, and be intentional about the way your run your business and manage your money.

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