5 Things I Wish I Knew About Marketing My Business While I Was Still Teaching

Written By Sarah Latorre

June 2026 marks the three-year anniversary of booking my very first clients ever!!

I started my business in the thick of new motherhood. I took a course to learn how to start a Virtual Assistant business when my son was 9 months old, in October 2022. I spent nights after he went to bed working through the course, learning how to build an online business from scratch.

It was a slow process. I landed my first clients in June 2023 — two months before I was heading back to teaching.

After landing those first two clients, there was still so much to learn about marketing and getting more clients. I was trying to figure it all out while teaching part-time and parenting a toddler (with no daycare — just my husband and I juggling work and parenting around each other).

I'd listen to podcasts and dream about my business on my commute to the classroom. Then I'd sit in the parking lot for a few minutes — posting to my stories, creating content, responding to DMs — before going in to teach for the afternoon. I'd work on client work before my son woke up in the morning, after he went to bed at night, and on the one morning a week my mom would watch him so I could take client calls or get a little extra time to work on my own business.

It was a challenging season — trying to grow and take on more clients while figuring out what I actually had capacity for, all while trying to grow enough to eventually justify leaving teaching. It was weird to be a teacher by day and business owner by night, living this double life.

Figuring out how to market myself through all of that has been an ongoing journey of learning and building skills. Looking back, here's what I wish someone told me (and honestly, they probably did — I just couldn't hear it at the time).

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5 Things I Wish I Knew About Growing My Business While I Was Still Teaching

Lesson 1: You don’t need to be everywhere all the time

When I was first starting to grow my business, I felt pressure to show up every day on Instagram and Threads, and to grow my email list, just to stay relevant and get more visibility. At the time, I didn't have a website or a blog, and I didn't even think of marketing on Pinterest.

This was tough with the reality of a teacher's schedule. I couldn't be on my phone during the day, so there was no room to be "on" until I was home — and really, it was after bedtime when I was finally available, when most business owners were already logged off for the night. I was trying to do everything in real time just to stay engaged.

I wish I had known about long-term marketing strategies like blogging, SEO, and Pinterest much earlier in my business. It's already hard enough to grow a business while still working a day job. Investing time and energy in marketing that would serve me beyond the 24–48 hour lifespan of an Instagram post would have helped me feel less like I had to constantly show up and create.

Pinterest is an especially helpful platform for someone building a business alongside teaching or a 9–5. It's not a real-time platform where what's posted is seen immediately, then it's gone. 

What you pin today slowly builds traction and visibility over the next 3–12 months. It doesn't need you to be responsive or checking in throughout the day — no DMs to answer, no pressure to document your life constantly.


Here's a real example: a client's pin was posted April 22, 2025, and in the last 30 days alone, it was shown 2,240 times in the feed with 21 saves.

Over the last 6 months, that one pin has gotten 155 saves and 12 outbound clicks — and it's just one of many pins she's created over the past 3 years that continue to drive traffic to her website, grow her email list, and bring in new leads.

Lesson 2: Marketing doesn’t have to happen in real time

I'm a big fan of batching content ahead of time instead of creating in the moment and posting right away. It's similar to the idea of writing lesson plans a week at a time (or more, if you were a Type A kind of teacher). 

Instead of panicking the day of, trying to figure out something trending to post, having a plan with content created ahead of time helps you stay focused on your goals. I love the feeling of waking up on Monday morning knowing my posts are already scheduled for the week — it gives me space to focus on client work and life, without worrying about what to post to sell my offers.

Pinterest's evergreen nature fits the teaching (or 9–5) schedule really well because you can batch create your pins and schedule them all in one sitting — up to 30 days in advance — and that's truly it. You don't have to come back to engage with your audience or anything. You let the pins do the work of driving traffic to your website, all while you're in the classroom or working your day job.

If creating 30 days of pins at once sounds overwhelming, that's exactly what The Content Batch is for. I create 2 months' worth of pins for you to schedule over 60 days.

Lesson 3: Consistency matters more than volume

Small, repeatable actions build momentum, and consistency makes it so much easier to maintain a posting schedule over time. Waiting until you have time or inspiration is never a great marketing plan — especially when your days are already full with teaching, parenting, or other life things.

When I can plan ahead intentionally and create a sustainable posting schedule that I know I can actually maintain week to week, I'm so much more consistent, and it pays off in the long run. When I set unrealistic goals like posting on Instagram 5 days a week, sending emails twice a week, and writing blogs and pinning on Pinterest, it felt like too much. And it was. That isn't a sustainable marketing plan for someone growing their business alongside a full-time job — or even while parenting with limited childcare.

This year, I've switched to prioritizing long-form content first — blogs and Pinterest — then creating my email and social media content afterward, and that has been the biggest game-changer. 

I'm not teaching anymore, but I am still running my business with really limited childcare, and I've needed to find ways to be really intentional with the time I spend marketing. 

Starting with a blog post means I already have the foundation. From there, I can choose a personal story for my email newsletter on the same topic and create pins that drive traffic back to the blog. So one piece of content is doing the work of three. That's the kind of consistency that's actually sustainable when your time is limited.

Lesson 4: Your energy is limited – lean into your strengths and protect your energy

I wish I had realized early on that my strengths lie in writing, not in talking to the camera, and that I'd just embraced that instead of pressuring myself to show up more on video. There are so many ways to market your business online. Instagram and TikTok are not the only options, and I really wish I had understood that much sooner.

Since I started incorporating blogging and Pinterest into my marketing ecosystem, I've been so much more consistent with content creation across the board — blogs, pins, and social media. It all started to feel more manageable once I stopped fighting my own strengths.

I also let the pressure of marketing take up a lot of mental space for a long time. When I was trying to show up like someone in their mid-twenties without kids, it just wasn't a realistic goal for my life. The mental load of spending the morning with my toddler, then being "on" for 30 kids in the classroom, then trying to be "on" for marketing at night — that wasn't sustainable. Especially when I was working outside of my strengths on top of all of it.

2026 is the first year I've really taken long-game marketing seriously, and I honestly wish I had started sooner. Blogging, Pinterest, and growing my email list are things I'm finally getting serious about this year, and I can't help but think that if I started sooner, I'd already be seeing results by now.

Don't make the mistake I did and put all your eggs in the Instagram basket at the beginning. Take time to figure out the ways to market that feel aligned with your strengths and invest your time and energy there. If it is social media, great! But if not — no shame.

Lesson 5: You don’t have to do it alone

I think everyone needs to go through the DIY phase of marketing because that's truly how you build your brand, understand your audience, and find what works for your content. But there are so many ways to get support, even if you're still in that phase.

Free ways to get support

First things first, follow marketing experts you align with and read their blogs, watch their content, and download their free resources. I've learned so much just from the free content shared by people I trust, like:

My free Pinterest resources:

Low-cost ways to get support

In addition to following along with others in the industry and consuming their content, there’s also some low-costs memberships out there which are a great way to keep learning and stay in community. Some of my personal favorites:

And if you want personalized, 1:1 feedback, audits and strategy calls can be a great way to get that without completely outsourcing the work. Here’s a few I’d recommend: 

There is so much value in the free and low-cost ways to get support. It's all about what you take from it and how much you put into practice. The main thing I want you to know is that you're not alone, and there are so many people in the online space who want to see you thrive.

Grow Your Business With Intention

When you're in the building and growing phase of a business — especially when you're doing it alongside teaching or a 9–5 — it can be hard to see the progress being made.

When I look back on the past three years, I can see how far I've come from that beginning season of juggling my business, motherhood, and teaching. That girl could have never dreamed I'd leave teaching to be a stay-at-home mom, running my business around my kids' schedules.

If you're still in the season of building alongside your day job, I see you. That season is challenging, beautiful, and full of hope. You are doing a great job—and I'm here if you need any Pinterest support along the way.

Sarah Latorre
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