Office Manager Cleans Up With Etsy Soap Store

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

[Music]

Hey there, what's up everybody? It's Chris Guillebeau here, your host of "Saddestal School". Answering questions, sharing tips, helping you along the process of creating an income generating project without quitting your day job. That's what it's all about. That is our central mission for 1284 days and counting.

That would be also 1284 episodes and counting, different episode every single day. Now in today's story, a seasoned traveler takes a soap making course while living in China. Years later, she proves that soap springs eternal by starting a sudsational Etsy store. That's correct, I did say those things in the same sentence. Soap springs eternal, sudsational Etsy store.

By the way, have you subscribed to my YouTube channel yet? Every Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., I'm going live to share a different short lesson and answer questions from listeners, how to different stories from the week and such, kind of like what I'm doing here, but in a more visual interactive form. You can subscribe at youtube.com/chrisguillebeau and my name is spelled C-H-R-I-S-G-U-I-L-L-E-B-E-A-U. All right, in this episode, Office Manager cleans up with Etsy soap store. That story's coming up after this message from our sponsor.

Thank you sponsor and thank you listeners. [Music]

Several years ago, Julie Sanchez was working as an English teacher while living in Shanghai, China. The job was fun and interesting, but had one big downside. It wasn't great for making the social connection she craved as an expat in the city. In an effort to meet people who weren't her students, she signed up for a soap making workshop.

Little did she know, she'd end up loving it. Eventually, Julie returned home to the US, settling into a new job as an office manager for a nonprofit. That job paid the bills so that she could go about enjoying the rest of her life. But even that became difficult when her life turned into a soap opera. Well, actually it wasn't quite that bad.

She just had a failed relationship. Hey, it happens. And that experience helped to reassess everything else. You see, being back home was tough for Julie. Before China, she lived in both Belgium and Japan and visited many other countries in between.

She decided to combine her nomadic history with her love of soap making. Specifically, she wanted to create fragrant soaps inspired by scents from around the world. She spent $150 on soap molds, mold pour bases, and fragrant oils. Then she got to creating. The techniques Julie learned back in China quickly came back to her.

It didn't take long to produce her first successful bar. She called it Amsterdam. It was made using hemp seed oil, something the city is famous for. But even then, she wasn't viewing her hobby as a business. It was just a passion project.

It remained that way for another year while she experimented with different scents. Eventually though, Julie was making so many soaps that it only seemed rational to try and sell some. After all, how many showers can one person take in a day? In mid 2018, she summoned the courage to open her own Etsy store, calling it the Adventurous Soap Co. Julie got on her soap box and started telling everyone she could about her products.

She made Instagram and Facebook accounts, posting images of her soaps to get the word out. And it worked! Less than two weeks later, she made her first sale from an Instagram follower. Although the sound the Etsy app made when the sale came through wasn't loud, cha-ching! The excitement of receiving it kept her up all night.

The exuberant feeling that sale inspired endured. It rolled its way into the end of the year and Julie ended up having a lucrative Christmas. By the time January 1 arrived, she'd already earned $3,000 selling her soaps, all from a tiny initial investment and while holding down her day job. Next, she worked to improve her product line. She designed and printed her own labels and even had professional photos taken for free by using a little hack.

She would send free soap samples to aspiring photographers looking to enhance their portfolios. In return, they'd send a professional product shot back to her. She joined soap making and travel-related Facebook groups and shared her products there. On top of that, she used Etsy's advertising platform to send shoppers to her listings, a method she says is responsible for the lion's share of her sales. She expects these sales to double in her second full year of business.

While some businesses are all washed up due to, well, you probably know why, that big thing of 2020, the point is Julie's is doing better than ever. With more people at home, more people are online shopping and her sales have increased. While it isn't generating enough income for her to leave her day job, she's had her best months yet since the craziness started. To be clear, this increase isn't just due to luck. The whole time, Julie has been expanding her range of soaps and even introducing new product lines in the form of lip balms, perfume oils, and more.

All inspired by scents from around the world. [Music]

Congratulations, Julie. Thank you so much for allowing us to share your story with Side Hustle School. Everyone be on the lookout for the adventurous soap co. Here's a fun fact.

Historians date the earliest discovery of soap to ancient Babylon around 2800 BC. And the first soap recipe consisted of water, alkali, and cassia oil, just three simple ingredients. It was discovered on a Babylonian tablet. I could go on for a while, but you probably don't need to know anymore about the history of soap. I will share with you, however, one other quote from Julie that I really liked as I was working on the notes for this story.

She said, "Working at a day job," and remember, she works for a nonprofit, "Working at a day job, there's only so much in my control. And often you feel underappreciated. But my side hustle is where I find my true passion. It's completely in my control. I have no committees or subcommittees or board directors to run things through.

This is my baby." There are all kinds of reasons to start a side hustle, financial independence, probably being close to the top, but that sense of autonomy can come through in lots of different ways. So whatever your situation is, ask yourself, do you have something that you have complete control over? Not everything in life works that way, of course, but the benefit of one of these kinds of projects is you don't have to report to a bunch of people. You can just do things however you want to do them yourself. I will leave you with that for today.

Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1284. That would be episode 1284. If you've got a comment or question, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And wherever you are, be sure to come back tomorrow.

Thanks so much. This is Chris Guillebeau for "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.