Nanny Cashes In On Custom Kicks

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

In today's story, when a nanny is asked to make some custom high heels, she puts her best foot forward and finds a new source of income. Welcome to Sadistle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Now, by the way, did you know the average American will spend over $20,000 on shoes across 268 pairs in their lifetime? We did some quick research, and those were the numbers that Google told us about, $20,000 across 268 pairs in their lifetime, at least for the average American who knows where these numbers come from and, you know, if it's different for various factors and such.

But I think the point is shoes are a big market. I was trying to think, have I spent over $20,000 on shoes? You know, I would like to say no, but I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was yes. So I'm not going to go back through all my receipts to find out. Now, at the end of the story, I also have a constructive suggestion for this savvy shoe seller that I think is important because she has a really interesting product here.

But there's some confusion in how to find it. So we'll look at that after the story. Nanny cashes in on custom kicks. It's coming up after this message from our sponsor. Dawn Chaplin has been working as a full-time nanny for many years.

Every day, she puts one foot in front of the other and gets things done. This isn't just true of her day job, but also the many different side hustles she's tried. Over the years, Dawn has sold refinished furniture, offered photography services, and gone through reflexology training, just to name a few pursuits. At some point, she became attracted to Etsy, an online marketplace of handmade goodness. She loved the site and spent hours perusing other people's stores, marveling at their locations, and she noticed that diaper cakes were becoming popular.

Now, speaking of research, I had to read up on this too because I had never heard of it. Diaper cakes, in fact, are not cakes made of diapers. They are stacks of clean diapers decorated as an ornament for baby showers. This is a thing, apparently. It is popular on Pinterest and Instagram in particular.

So, Dawn made a few of these and sold them on the site under the name 2CuteDiperCakes. But she never figured out a way to make enough money to make it worthwhile. During other challenges, they were difficult to ship. Still, she liked the creative pursuit, so she kept on the lookout for a more profitable venture that would also satisfy that desire. As it turns out, her niece's birthday would provide the next opportunity.

Dawn's niece wanted some Little Mermaid heels and asked if she could make some for her. Dawn had never done such a thing before but was always up for a challenge. She agreed to lace up and make those shoes, turning a plain pair of heels into a Little Mermaid-themed design. It was so enjoyable, both for her and the party guests, that Dawn decided to try selling them, using the name Heavenly Heels. Building on a Little Mermaid, she came up with a range of designs, everything from Disney Princesses to Super Mario Brothers.

After selling a few to friends and family for a small profit, she looked to pick up the pace. On that former Etsy store, she posted pictures of the heels she'd made and asked if anyone was interested. Sure enough, before long, she had found buyers for a pair of Super Mario Brothers heels as well as some Batman-themed heels. And with the money earned, she bought more shoes that she could work her magic on and resell. Soon, Dawn started getting requests for custom shoes, designs she hadn't thought of herself.

For instance, someone asked for a Mary Poppins-themed pair, and someone else a Child's Play Chucky pair, splattered with red paint. These custom-made heels became a part of the shop. And Dawn loved the work. She would smile every time an Etsy review or positive email came in. She would also receive pictures from people wearing the shoes at their weddings.

It made the whole process fun and meaningful. However, she also wasn't making much profit, so she looked at ways of lowering costs. One idea was to source the plain heels from China, which would save her quite a bit of money. Unfortunately, after a couple of experiments, she wasn't happy with the quality and reverted back to the ones she had made in the US. She wanted to keep her prices competitive, selling these shoes for $45 to $70, so she tried to make up the difference by improving manufacturing times.

She's now able to copy a design over and over for repeat orders, only modifying it slightly to make each one unique. For example, Dawn recently noticed that many of her customers were purchasing the shoes for themed weddings. One of the most popular was the Batman-themed high heel. By adjusting her listing slightly and targeting themed weddings, she's been able to sell multiple pairs of these Batman heels. In addition to wedding themes, Dawn targets certain styles around the holiday periods.

She had one of her best months yet during Halloween 2019, when her Nightmare Before Christmas heels sold out. Some months are better than others, and Dawn is currently earning around $6,000 a year selling these custom heels. Not enough to stop working as a nanny, but it's a solid, supportive supplement to her paycheck. So what can we learn from this story? Well, first things first, these high heels look pretty cool.

If you were looking for some fun heels, or you know someone in your life who might wear heels themed with Chucky or Super Mario Brothers or Little Mermaid or something else, I would encourage you to check these out. And I might encourage you to do so soon before she raises the price, because that's my first suggestion for her. I think it's actually okay to raise the price. I often think it's okay to raise the price, but in this example in particular, even though it is somewhat a novelty item, there's a lot of work that goes into it. And it's also something that people will notice.

If somebody wears these to a wedding or something else, it's definitely gonna get a lot of attention. That's why I think it could cost more than that $45 to $70 range. So buy now before she raises the price. Now the main suggestion I had for her is there's some branding confusion regarding the name. Because on Etsy, like I mentioned in the episode that she's using the name Heavenly Heels, but I didn't see any mention of that online, at least not in the Etsy shop.

On Etsy, the shoes are being sold under the brand Too Cute Diaper Cakes, which was her previous side hustle. And then her Instagram account is Beautifully Boudoir, which is also a different focus. I think for a while she was trying to do Boudoir photography. So I think it's wonderful to try a lot of different projects and see what works. But since this is working, and I think it could work a lot more, I would suggest branding the shoes and just going all in with that, at least all in in terms of side hustle focus.

Because these are truly unique, and clearly there's a demand for them. So I'd be curious what happens if we just kind of tightened up that branding, made it really obvious what these are, consolidated some different channels and shops into one. And lastly, Heavenly Heels is a good name, and it's very memorable. But I wonder if something edgier or riskier might be better, especially when she's selling products like the Chucky Child's Play shoes that have the red paint splattered to look like blood. I don't have a great suggestion for what it would be.

It's just something I thought about when I was looking through these beautiful images. Okay, listeners, remember, there's all kinds of ways you can make money in 2020 and beyond. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes. All right.

sidehustleschool.com/1113. We've got a great question coming up tomorrow from a listener who's hoping to go from prototype to product. So be sure you subscribe to come back for that, and more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is SideHustleSchool.