The Show Notes
In this episode, I’m chatting with our first repeat guest, Bonnie Moore. Bonnie is an entrepreneur and educational consultant. Every day she uses her classroom and administrative experience to sharpen the skills of educators and leaders in a variety of different companies. She will share how a classroom teacher like you can build your own educational consulting business too.
Discover how you could easily step into a job where your whole job is to help other teachers make a bigger impact!
Understanding the Job Description
An educational consultant may sound like someone who has a lot of experience and a specialized skill set, but the truth is you are already qualified with a teaching background.
What Bonnie noted is that trainers, consultants, and facilitators are all job titles that are very interchangeable. Simply put, educational consultants get up in front of a group of people to present in an interactive and creative way. Sound familiar at all?
The training you present must also be sustainable in the sense that people understand why they are learning what they’re learning and can see the value in putting it to use. While your audience would be older than the students in your classroom, the game is still the same!
But Where Are All the Clients Hiding?
You might be sold on the idea of becoming a freelance educational consultant, but where would you find clients? Clients are everywhere! If you want to build your own educational consulting business, start with your personal network. Bonnie mentioned that the parents of the students in your classroom are an awesome place to start. Where do they work and what do and how might your business be able to serve someone like them?
Additionally, you have to be willing to let people know that you’re building a business. Let your friends and family know. Connect with people in your church or civic organizations. Ask them if they know anyone who might benefit from working with you.
In the beginning, you can offer to do small projects for experience to build a portfolio. Building this kind of relationship often leads to paid work.
Working With Only the Best
Bonnie has a variety of clients because the truth is every type of business needs to create training to develop their employees. In the beginning, Bonnie did a lot of one-time projects. Now, she signs retainer contracts that last anywhere between two and five years.
This type of commitment obviously requires a lot of relationship building and research. Bonnie does this by creating a needs analysis that helps determine how she can support her clients. Bonnie is very careful to only work with clients where she is confident she is valued and she is also providing solutions that are valuable.
A Not-So-Typical Schedule for an Educational Consultant
Nothing about Bonnie’s schedule from day to day is “normal” these days, but the variety is something that she looks forward to. Some days she is delivering content, leading team-building exercises, or just connecting with potential clients on LinkedIn.
Other days she is doing research on a company, putting together a contract, or developing the actual training she was hired to make. The beauty of building your own educational consulting business is that you can work as little or as much as you want!
Want to learn more from Bonnie about how to build your own educational consulting business? Click here to learn from her at the Next Jobs for Teachers: Teacher Transition Summit!
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Connect with Bonnie
Bonnie Moore is a former teacher and administrator who is passionate about leading and learning. She has extensive experience in leadership development, executive coaching, instructional design and team dynamics in a diverse set of industries including: corporate, non- profit and education.
She is a certified master executive coach and has certifications in more than twelve assessment tools and organizational systems. Bonnie belongs a number of professional organizations and has served in leadership capacities for many of them. She currently is a National Advisor for Chapters for the Association of Talent Development and Delta Kappa Gamma Society International Texas 2nd Vice President. Bonnie serves as a Child Advocate for Harris County, a Big Sister and on several non-profit boards in the Houston area making a positive impact for individuals, families and the community. When not working and volunteering, she and her husband Greg like to travel, watch college sports and enjoy the fine arts.
