Grow Your Quilt Teaching Business with Global Quilt Connection

Lyric Kinard (00:02.136)

Lyric Kinard (00:03.374) Hello friends, today on Creatives on Camera, I'm going to talk to a particular subset of our fellow creatives. I come from the world of quilting, where I have been traveling around the world for a couple decades now, teaching the things I love to create, the things I love to make. It is so much fun. I had no idea that this was a thing. when I was thinking of what do I want to do with my life, right? And it's amazing. Now, quilters, my friends, those of you who teach or want to teach, you know that one of the biggest parts of our job, of any teacher's job, is to get in front of the people who are going to hire you. Doesn't do any good to teach without any students, right? So, Let me tell you one way, one amazing resource that we can help you get in front of the people that will hire you. And this is part of the origin story of the Academy. I've been teaching online forever. I've been teaching in person forever. But when COVID happened, everything shut down. We talked about this a little bit in the introductory episode. and all of a sudden there were no more travel gigs. There are a lot of different or a few. There are different organizations who exist to put teachers in front of quilt guilds and quilters. In the quilt world, it's very community oriented. There are guilds or clubs all over America, Canada, most of the English speaking world. where quilters get together and they share their skills, they share their crafts. Many of these guilds bring in a teacher often every month, sometimes only a few times a year. It depends on the size of the guild and how they run. They're all volunteers. They're all organizations that just get together to share the joy and the love and the beauty of being able to make things with our hands. Lyric Kinard (02:30.476) being able to create beauty from chaos and disorder. As somebody who wanted to get into this profession early on, I was told, well, you have to enter your work into national shows, get it out in front of other people. And that was one way to get your work and your name out there, but that doesn't necessarily tell people that you teach. Another way that I started out way back when was writing articles for magazines. That got my name in front of a lot of people. In fact, I'm sure that that's how I got my very first travel gigs. I also taught locally, the local art community, the craft center on campus at the college. Anywhere I could, I developed my skills in person. Now, when COVID happened and that wasn't available anymore, a friend, Sue Blyweiss and I started the Global Quilt Connection. kind of not on purpose as we want to start a business. It was just getting together colleagues who we thought or who they thought, all of us were willing to jump in the deep end of this live Zoom technology. And the quilt guilds were trying to figure out how to stay alive. How do we serve our members? How do we keep our communities when we can't meet face to face? So one of the first things we did was hold a meet the teacher live Zoom meeting. We got teachers together and we invited hundreds and hundreds of Quilt Guild leaders, the ones who hired teachers to attend. And each of the teachers had a few minutes to say, hey, this is who I am. This is what I teach. And it was live via Zoom. Lyric Kinard (04:31.592) and it was live via Zoom and things happened. Those first few Meet the Teacher live Zoom events, the recordings are still up and I'm telling you they were all terrible. But it didn't matter because we were all new to this. Well, Global Quilt Connection still exists. It has evolved. It is one of the best ways for a quilt teacher to get their names in front of the quilters and the guild leaders who will hire them, both for virtual events and if you want to teach in person. So in the beginning, we had the Meet the Teacher events, we had a website where we would link to the portion of that YouTube video that each teacher was on. So the teachers were listed, you could link straight to their Hey, this is who I am and what I teach video. Eventually we move those videos off onto the teachers websites. So now teachers who list with Global Quilt Connection need to have a quick introductory video. Just a quick hold up your phone and talk to people and say, this is who I am and what I teach. Again, keep it short. They can look at the rest of your website to hear about everything else you teach, but you do have to offer virtual programming. because that's kind of what we're centered around is virtual programming. So people can come to globalquiltconnection.com, find teachers. We also have a downloadable teacher registry that has a lot more information than just a link to your website. So if you're a Quilt Guild leader, you can download the registry and search for teachers who live near you or search for particular techniques that are being taught. So that's one way for teachers to get in front of the people that will hire them. We have become at Global Quilt Connection, one of the main ways that guilds will come searching for teachers, mostly for virtual programming, but often we have a lot of people who started out only teaching virtual, who are now traveling all over the place. Lyric Kinard (06:55.02) because they have been found as a listed teacher on the Global Quilt Connection website. For a while, it was really hard to get quilters to attend a live Zoom class. They would do a live workshop. They would get on and talk to their friends, but thinking that taking a live class via Zoom was going to be terrible. It wasn't going to be anything like in person. So they really didn't want to get on. So we started hosting live events where the teachers were actually teaching. We called it an All-Star Sampler Platter. And that's still going on. The original purpose was to help guilds help their members understand how amazing a live Zoom workshop could be. Teachers would come on and they get 15 minutes to do a demo, a little part of one of their classes. And the guilds were able to invite all of their guild members to this live streamed event. And they got six full hours of really interesting 15 minute tutorials, mini lectures. They could learn about things that they never would have signed up for a class for anyway. We try really hard to mix up all of the techniques that the teachers are showing on a sampler platter. One, it helps the guilds with a lot of great content to show their quilters. Two, It's really entertaining and educational for the quilters. But here's the thing, my friends, what we're really doing is we are showing off our teachers to the guild leaders who will hire them in real time with real, this is how I actually teach kind of demonstrations. So the sampler platters still go on twice a year. It's one of the Lyric Kinard (08:59.64) best ways for our listed teachers to get in front of people. They simply get on and teach for 15 minutes via Zoom. It's still live streamed via YouTube. The guild still has to sign up for getting tickets for all of their members. But we as the emcees are constantly saying, hey, Quilter, if you love this teacher, tell your Guild representative that you'd love to have them come present a Zoom program or maybe come in person or maybe check out if they have on-demand courses that you can sign up for at any time. So the Sampler Platter is a fantastic way to get in front of the specific audience that wants to learn from you and that will pay you to do so. One of the other things that we have is other resources for guilds. We have an on-demand class that is how to hire teachers. And it goes through contracting, it goes through hosting a teacher. It basically lays out the whole structure for a guild to effectively hire a teacher in person or virtually. We're kind of trying to up. the game and standardize the system for quilt guilds. Make it easy for them to hire you as a teacher. One of the resources we have for quilters is a listing of live Zoom or on-demand classes. And this is really teachers, a resource for you to get in front of the students, to get more filled seats in your workshop. So if you have an on-demand course at globalquiltconnection.com, we can list it. If you have a live Zoom workshop, Lyric Kinard (11:00.108) Now it has to be public enrollment. So anybody can have a link to go sign up for that workshop. We can list it. A lot of teachers won't wait to get hired. They'll schedule their own Zoom workshop live and set a date and have a sign up link for it. And they can list it on our website. And they also of course market it to their audience. How do we get those in front of quilters? Well, we have a huge newsletter that goes out to both quilters and one specifically targeted at quilt guild leaders who are looking to hire teachers. So those workshop listings go out every month to the whole list. Now, teachers, what else can we do for you? From the very beginning, we have hosted live Zoom meetings, live round tables where you and your colleagues can get together and say, I don't know what to do in this situation. Help me other experienced teachers. Or we share our wins. We talk about all the things because community is so important. When you have a question, being able to talk about... it with your colleagues, with other people who have experience is vital. It lifts us all. It helps us learn so much. So we've always hosted live monthly Zoom roundtables. Those teacher roundtables now live in the Academy. They're automatically scheduled. You join the free Academy membership and you can find the links and just hop right into any Zoom meeting. Again, They're available for all the teachers. This time, they have evolved outside of only quilt teachers. So art teachers, craft teachers, anybody who teaches online, teaches virtually, we come and just spend an hour together chatting, brainstorming, solving problems, celebrating each other, because we live in an environment that is collaborative, not competitive. Lyric Kinard (13:20.214) We as creatives lift each other, we help each other because we all have the same goal to serve our students and there's enough students to go around. So really when we share with each other, we're helping lift everybody, we lift ourselves as well. Let me think, what else does the Global Quilt Connection offer? We have a certification program. So if you teach live via Zoom, you can apply to be certified. That is for live Zoom workshops. And it runs through the Academy and an adjudicator will join in on one of your live Zoom workshops and just kind of watch and see how you manage the technology. They'll give you an evaluation of your website. And the goal is for you to pass this evaluation. We're not sitting there judging. In fact, you have a huge step-by-step list of what we would love to see on your websites and in your communication and in your management of live Zoom workshop technology so that you are prepared ahead of time and you get lots of feedback. And if you don't pass the first time, you can try again, but you'll get a little blue checkmark. on Global Quilt Connections listing service and also our certification badge that you can put anywhere in your marketing materials. And that way anybody who wants to hire you for a live Zoom workshop knows ahead of time that you know what you're doing. Because not everybody does, right? And that's okay. We're not all perfect. We don't expect perfection. But if somebody's going to hire you to come teach at their group via Zoom, they want to know that you know how to use Zoom. And this is one way that that happens. Okay, we've talked about the workshop listings. We've talked about the newsletter. I'm looking at my bullet point list to make sure I don't miss anything. We are doing everything there to... Lyric Kinard (15:36.985) get you in front of more people. Also, the sampler platter teachers, they go out all over the place on Global Quilt Connections social media, so they really get a lot of air time. The teachers who present for the All-Star Sampler Platter, which happens twice a year, get a lot of gigs. They really do. So those are just a few of the ways that Global Quilt Connection helps quilt. teachers to get in front of the people that hire them. We're doing everything we can to support you and your business. So go check that out. Join the listing at globalquiltconnection.com. And those of you who aren't quilt teachers, all of these same things apply. These are things that we want to help you get in front of the people. that will hire you. The Academy can help you do that as well. So we invite you to join our free membership at academyforvirtualteaching.com. Join in on one of our live Zoom roundtables. It's great to talk to the people who really get you. I'd love to see you there, friends. Take care.