Marketing toolkit for teacherpreneurs #4: build trust, get reviews.

If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve put in a lot of really hard work to make your microschool a wonderful success.

And if you’ve told your friends, scheduled your social media posts and have been posting regularly to online Parent groups, you should be getting many inquiries and hopefully your first enrollments!

But what if it’s not working?

Or it’s not working well enough.?

We’ve found, that with parents, trust is key.

These parents are entrusting you with the person they love the most in the world- their child.

So how do you build trust?

Through reviews. And more reviews. And more and more reviews.

Because parents trust their peers.

Assuming your listing is in top shape with beautiful photos and typo-free, you probably need more reviews. You should get as many reviews as you possibly can, you should remind people and you should continue to ask for more.

On CottageClass, you can create a profile and ask your friends to leave verified testimonials directly on your profile.

Teachers with more verified testimonials get more enrollment.

And because we care about trust as well at CottageClass, they rank highest in search results.

If you’re a relatively new teacher or a local expert teaching for the first time, you may want to consider asking friends whose kids you’ve babysat or friends with kids. It’s totally fine to ask friends and colleagues to leave reviews for you as well. What parents want to know is that you are legit, that your heart is in the right place and that you will provide a safe, nurturing environment for their child. It’s also really helpful for parents to be able to resonate with other parents who appear to share their values.

Another bonus is that as you ask for reviews, it will get people talking about your microschool!

So email your friends the link to your CottageClass profile.

Post your CottageClass profile on Facebook/twitter/LinkedIN

And ask your friends to publicly vouch for how wonderful you are!

Don’t worry if people don’t reply right away. I’m the founder of CottageClass and I had to remind all the parents of kids I’d taught a couple times before they left me my reviews!

People are busy, but they still love you.

Just keep gently nudging them to show they care:) (you can also use replyup to schedule automated reminders )

Make it a game! See how many reviews you can get!

They only have to be 2–3 sentences, just enough to show that someone thinks you’re great!

Trust me — peer reviews go a long long way to parents trusting you.

Step 5: Share the love: the power of the CottageClass teacher referral network.
Following up on social media — in this post, we dig into how you can harness the power of the CottageClass referral network by liking other teacher’s posts and signaling them to like yours using the hashtag #CottageClass. Learn about how we’re building a grassroots movements of teachers and parents at “Share the love.”