More Monet, Fewer Problems: Attorney Turns Holiday Prints Into Cash

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Hello, what's up? Greetings and welcome. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School," the only show bringing you a daily story of somebody starting a side hustle. And when I say side hustle, I'm not talking about a part-time job.

I'm talking about an asset that you create, something that earns money for you by using the skills you already have. The core principle is that you already know a lot. You have a lot of valuable skills. You just need to learn how to transfer those skills and how to do some simple tasks to set up that income-generating project. Today's example, after going on vacation to Hawaii with her family, a Dallas attorney learns to sell her watercolor prints.

In less than a year, she's sold $15,000 worth on startup costs of about $200. So pretty good return on investment there. And this is a good story of the steps that someone else could take to establish their first art website. And not just website, but sales and customers. It's called "More Monet, Fewer Problems," attorney turns holiday prints into cash.

Stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it. [Music]

Jane Dew is an attorney from Dallas with a passion for art. When she wasn't studying electrical engineering in university, she could often be found absent-mindedly doodling on textbook pages or sheets of paper. But it wasn't until she found a set of oil paints and canvas during a summer holiday that she began to look at her art more seriously. Not seriously enough to pursue it instead of engineering or eventually law school, but enough to take classes and build her skills.

Watercolors, live models, and acrylic paint soon filled her weekends, and her work began to improve. Once in a while, a friend or family member would ask to purchase a painting, but Jane wasn't thinking about making money at this point. She just did it because she loved the creative balance it offered when she wasn't working on case briefs or depositions. When she started to take an online watercolor painting class in 2016, Jane created a Facebook page dedicated to her art so that she could show it off without spamming her friends. Not only did this Facebook page help Jane track her progress over time, it also inspired her to combine different styles to create new art forms.

It was after another class in 2017 that she came up with the idea to combine calligraphy with watercolors. Following a holiday to Hawaii with her family, she made a few postcards to send her her friends with scenes from the island. She also posted them online, and queries started to fill her inbox. Her other friends, the ones who weren't graced with a watercolor slash calligraphy postcard, wanted to buy one of their own. That's when she first thought that creating cards and prints to sell wasn't such a bad idea.

The picture began to form in her mind. It would be easy to grow without taking up too much time, and she could keep the original art. In mid-2017, Jane had a baby, and her maternity leave gave her the time she needed to invest in building out the project. She spent a week watching YouTube tutorials to learn how to create her art by Jane Doe Shopify website, and watched her side hustle come to life with a pre-launch sale that saw 12 orders come in during her first week. Since then, orders have increased, and so has her dedication.

Even though she had this website, Jane began the hustle by focusing on in-person sales, attending markets and craft shows as a vendor, and selling her art prints there. What she says was the biggest factor to growing her business, at least in year one. Since she didn't have a background in search engine optimization or online marketing, she relied on her interpersonal skills. This meant that the majority of her sales were done in markets. Even now, much of her website traffic is made up of people who have taken her business card at an event, or told their friends about her store.

Her bestsellers tend to be prints of local attractions and inspirational quotes. As she puts it, "I make what inspires me. "If it sells, great. "If not, I take it off the market and put in something new." She's able to switch products with minimal effort. Her number one lesson in both life and side hustling is that moving slowly is better than standing still.

As a mom, she doesn't have time to stand still. The incremental gains she saw showed her that some weeks may be more productive than others, but success isn't possible without the little steps along the way. Those little steps have turned Jane's passion into a side hustle that has generated about $15,000 since September 2017. That averages out to $1,400 a month, with startup costs of just $200 for printing proofs and website hosting. Now that she's transitioning more toward online sales, her monthly revenue is steadily increasing.

Since starting the project almost a year ago, Jane has since added two children's books to her roster of creative endeavors. She says they don't have the same profit margins as her prints, but it's just another step on her family's big adventure. In fact, her side hustle has inspired them to take a long trip abroad starting in Mexico. While Jane doesn't know where her side hustle will take them next, she knows that her family's priorities wouldn't have realigned without the freedom she gained from her art. "Moving slowly is better than standing still." What a great quote, I love that.

I think that is a great philosophy, as Jane mentioned in her notes, for both life and side hustling. But let's focus on your side hustle. What action can you take? What incremental step can you take to get a bit closer toward your goal? Now, whatever your goal is, whether you're trying to replace a full-time income or eventually go all in with an entrepreneurial project, or you would just like some extra money, doing one thing a day or using small pockets of time to advance your march toward that destination, it's probably gonna give you better odds of success than trying to tackle a million things at once.

In fact, you probably shouldn't try to tackle a million things at all because you don't have a million days, or whatever the equivalent is. And by her own admission, she doesn't know much about SEO or online marketing, so she started with what she did know. I'm glad that she's moving more toward online sales now because that is what's gonna allow it to scale a bit or to provide some more passive income. But something like this, selling art prints is still largely a relationship-building business. People buy art not just because they like art, but because they like a story behind it, or they feel some connection with the artist, or again, just because they feel something.

So because that emotional aspect is so important, it really helps to have a great story. So I noticed on Jane's website, front and center, she's got a big video of herself, and she's actually holding her baby, talking about why she makes art and her journey toward starting the Shopify store. She includes time-lapse videos of most of her prints. So if you're interested in the behind-the-scenes, you can kind of go and learn about how a particular print you're interested in was created. Anything you can do to build relationships and create that connection between you and the potential customer is gonna help you, especially in the world of art.

All right, congrats to Jane, and I hope you enjoyed this episode as well. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/557. Thank you for listening, I'll be back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.

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