Actor Lands Role Of Her Life In 24 Carat Side Hustle

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

If there was a title that I could use and reuse over and over again, like when we go to title an episode, or we think, what should we call it? That title would be the $0 startup, at least that's the first one. Because probably a good 15%, maybe 20%, a substantial portion of our stories come from people who have almost no startup costs whatsoever, like they have spent nothing on their side hustle. Or whatever they do end up spending happens after the project is making money, which isn't really a startup cost. At that point, it's an investment.

So that's the first one. But my second reusable title, if I were to title the stories the same thing every day, which I would never do because I want to give you, our listeners, a fresh experience. But if I wanted that second reusable title, it would be the accidental side hustle. That theme is not just a feature of the story I'm going to tell you about today. It's actually a common characteristic of frequent thread or through line.

And it happens when a person is bored or curious, or just starts pursuing a new hobby. And without their active intent, at least in the beginning, it ends up becoming a moneymaker of some kind. Now, I hear this a lot. And in our intake notes, the quote I see over and over is, she never intended for this to be a side hustle, but it worked out that way. Like I said, not an unusual experience.

So what does this suggest? Well, first, I should say welcome to side hustle school. My name is Chris Guillebeau. And I think to me, this suggests you should follow your passion as long as you don't have an expectation of that passion leading you to the bank. Because, as I've said before, not every passion is going to be monetized.

There's all kinds of things you should do just for your own development or fun or entertainment. If it's your goal to make money, which is not a bad goal, we talk about that all the time, then be more intentional on the front end about your project. Still, either way, good things come to those who experiment. And so it is good to have an interest in something and just to go for it and see what happens. And in this story specifically, an actor lands the role of her life in a 24 carat side hustle.

She now sells her jewelry online and in several shops in Australia, earning at least $3,000 a month. So that's the setup. Here's the shout out to our sponsor, and then I'll tell you the story. Elizabeth Wilcher is most happy when expressing herself in an artistic way. It's little wonder that she chose acting as a career.

She attended formal training and achieved some success in productions for both stage and screen. But sometimes all that glitters isn't gold. There were a lot of things Elizabeth didn't like about acting. Being on stage performing was great, but the auditions, rejections, and networking with casting directors was a pain. Perhaps the biggest downside was the lack of a reliable income.

That is a downside. For that reason, Elizabeth always had a hustle. She modeled, waitressed, choreographed a school play, handed out flyers, pretty much anything she could find to pay the bills. As time went on, she transitioned into full-time work and kept acting part-time. She took a job as a VIP client manager for an online wine store.

The job was challenging and she liked her colleagues, not to mention that steady salary. But before long, Elizabeth began to burn out. Her acting career wasn't progressing, and the day job was consuming so much of her time that she had none left for other creative pursuits. She decided to take a sabbatical from acting to slow down. But then it wasn't long before she missed the creative outlet.

Hoping to find a new hobby, she came across a short course in jewelry making and decided to enroll. It was just the thing she needed. She was instantly hooked. Then, one day while visiting her parents, she mentioned her new hobby to her mom. As luck would have it, her mom had some old jewelry making tools and supplies stored away.

Elizabeth was thrilled to give those tools a new home, but there was one problem. She had no idea what half of them were for. So she headed to YouTube to learn everything she could about jewelry making. Soon she was crafting professional looking pieces, and unbeknownst to Elizabeth at the time, that was the first step in launching a side hustle that would change her life. Although she never intended to make money from her jewelry, she hadn't told her friends that.

One of them messaged her through Instagram asking to purchase a pair of earrings. And just like that, the new label, Elizabeth Wiltshire Jewelry, or EWJ, was forged. She posted more photos, and more orders began to trickle in over the coming months. Then, one day, Elizabeth discovered a pot of 24 karat gold jewelry at the end of a rainbow. The owner of an exclusive store in her hometown of Sydney saw a pair of her earrings on a customer.

She instantly loved them and got in touch with Elizabeth. One thing led to another, and before long, EWJ earrings, rings, and necklaces were on display in-store. Her pieces sold well and demand grew. After a busy holiday season, when her life had never felt so frantic, Elizabeth made the decision to go full time. She was producing more pieces than ever.

She would often purchase one from the store and then contact her directly for custom orders. On top of that, word of mouth started taking effect, resulting in more direct orders as well. Now, jewelry can be a tough business. There's a lot of competition out there. Not a lot of people earn a full-time living from it, at least not going from a side hustle.

So what does she put her success down to? Well, for one, she thinks that being stocked in a store that will champion your brand is huge because they'll do the selling for you. When it comes to jewelry, there are some statistics that show over 90% of jewelry purchases are still made in person, so it was crucial that she get her pieces in front of people. Buyers still like to touch and feel the quality and see the little imperfections that give a piece that bespoke, heavy, handmade signature. Luckily, that mentality has helped Elizabeth grow a successful jewelry side hustle where many others fail.

It's not quite a gold rush, but there are certainly significant profits. Elizabeth's monthly income is between $3,000 and $5,000, and for now, she's reinvesting much of it back into the business. She's also targeting engaged couples so that she can make wedding pieces and trying to get into more stores. It's not easy to succeed in a market as competitive as jewelry, but it is possible. This side hustle might not last as long as a diamond, which they say is forever, but it's holding up under pressure.

All right, so listen, a couple times recently, as we come to the end of season two, more than 700 episodes so far, I have mentioned just how important it is to me to make sure that we are truly delivering a value add in every episode. And I know that not every episode is going to be relevant to every single person, but the whole point is it adds up. And so if you hear a story that's a similar topic that we've covered before, I want to make sure there's a different twist on it. So in this case, I was thinking, okay, Elizabeth's advice is if you can get in a store, that's great. And I agree, that's great.

That's amazing if you can make it work. But what if you were doing this and you can't get in a store, or at least those leads aren't working out? In that case, I have a different strategy for you. I think you should follow the example of two other people that we featured on the program. One is an episode 221 and the other is episode 622.

As a reminder, you can access any episode of the show by just going to sidehustleschool.com slash that number. So sidehustleschool.com slash 221 or 622. And the first one is about a TV producer who sells monogram scarves. She earns $1,000 riding the subway to work one day. The second one is called when the rubber hits the road.

This mom of three earns $5,000 a month. Now what these stories have in common is they were doing something that was not terribly unique. At least in the beginning, they were doing something in the craft space. It wasn't quite jewelry, but similar in terms of something handmade. Both of them figured out over time what it was that was unique and what was interesting and different about the kind of products they could make.

And there was a whole process that they went through each of them to figure that out. I think they both used Etsy, but in different ways. But the point is they weren't able to be in stores, at least not in the beginning, but they found a way to succeed and get to a really substantial income level. So there is a way and if at first you don't succeed, we'll knock on a different door, right? How's that for mixed metaphors?

Thank you so much for listening. The show notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com slash 720 episode 72720. We'll be back again tomorrow as we approach the end of 2018. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.