This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Before I begin today's episode, I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas Eve. It is December 24th, episode 1454 of the podcast. Thank you for joining me during this busy holiday season, this busy and probably fair to say strange holiday season, but I'm very grateful to spend this time with you and make this show for you. I'm just trying to put together different resources to help you into your next year, right? As we all go into a new year, and hopefully, if we've learned anything from 2020, it's that there's a lot of stuff that's outside our control.
So since there is so much that's outside of our control, I think it's all the more important to do whatever we can that is within our influence. That's what Side Hustle School is all about, making active choices, trying to create freedom and opportunity for yourself so that you can do more of what's important to you. Now, in addition to being Christmas Eve, this is also Throwback Thursday, a regular segment that we started earlier this year, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. Last week, we heard from a pediatrician who creates an educational tool to help kids with STEM learning. Today, in our latest feature, we'll hear from Brittany in Long Island, who has an idea to go all in on making headbands.
Now, you think headbands, okay, that's kind of cute and crafty, but we're talking about a small amount of money, right? Well, Brittany ends up making thousands of these headbands. A couple of years ago, when we first featured her, she was earning several thousand dollars a month, all from this item that we tend to think of as fairly utilitarian and pretty low priced. And I was just looking at her website and she actually doesn't charge very much for them, so it is a pretty low-priced item to make a good amount of money from. So she has clearly been able to work some magic there.
What has happened since we first featured her? Let's hear directly from Brittany. She's got some good updates and a couple lessons for us. I will be back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
Hi, my name is Brittany Chillingford.
The town is Port Jefferson, New York. My company is Busy B Crafts, and I was featured in episode 714 back in December, 2018. I make headbands for busy women who wanna look put together without having to worry about having time to wash and style their hair. My goal is to be able to walk out with a T-shirt and jeans, my hair in a bun with a headband on, and feel like I pulled together an outfit. I think it's just in my nature to want to create things.
I like to be crafty. I used to scrapbook. So I think for me, seeing something and knowing that I had the skills or could figure out the skills to make it was a no-brainer, even though it costs more money to make the thing than it would have just been to buy it. But I think that is just kind of how my brain works. I can make that.
Let's make it. So right after I was on the podcast in late December, 2018, I quit my job to work as a therapist at a private practice after receiving my license and mental health counseling. After about three months of seeing clients full-time and working on my business kind of on the side, I knew I had to make a change. I wasn't able to do both things at the same time. It was just kind of taking over my life.
And I felt like it wasn't fair for my customers and it also wasn't fair for my clients who needed my full focus that I just couldn't give to them. And I felt like my customers were telling me by continuing to support me and continuing to order that this was the right move. And I knew that I could always quit and just go back to being a therapist if I needed to do that. So I figured, why not? Then soon after that, I decided I could no longer sell all of the headbands myself after receiving over 800 orders that summer.
That took me about six weeks to sew. I found a small-backed manufacturer in Brooklyn to produce the headbands for me. And then I decided that I needed a real office instead of working from the spare bedroom of our house. And after handing off the production, having a separate work and life space, my business significantly changed. It freed up my time to work on other aspects of the business instead of sewing 24/7.
And therefore I was able to have more inventory which led to more sales. As far as the coronavirus goes, I was concerned how it would impact my business and sales. But I do think that it has been a blessing for small businesses. People seem to be extra conscious now of where they're spending their money, trying to be more mindful and wanting to also spend money on themselves if they have the means. A lot of people are home with their kids, working, trying to juggle a lot.
And I found that customers feel like a headband is just $15. It's a little treat for themselves. They can get it in the mail during this time and it kind of brings them some joy. I stopped trying everything else except for headbands. I think the biggest issue that I've had since getting my manufacturer is trying to keep up with the demand.
Products sell out certain products, certain prints in minutes. It will be ripped out of somebody's cart before they can check out, which as people have told me is a good problem to have. But as a business owner, no problems really feel very good. So I've decided that my most important goal is to focus on that, focus on keeping items in stock so that new people can go to the site and actually purchase something and not wait for three months or for another release for things to be available. I think a lot of small business owners have an idea set in their mind and they wanna do it and they don't even know if people want that.
And within an idea, there could be all different variations. And in my situation, I make headbands but there's different styles, there's different prints, there's different colors. And I could do what I wanna do or I could ask the customer, what do you want? What prints do you want? What colors do you want?
Because in the end, they're gonna be the purchaser. I'm not gonna be my own customer. So I need to make sure that I ask them what they want. Of course, as the owner of the business, you have to do what makes sense for you. I'm not gonna start making scrunchies just because people want them.
You have to still make smart business decisions but I think using their information and using their feedback and listening to what they say, if something's too big, if something's too small, they're telling you the answers and they wanna support you and they want things to work out for them as well. So I think that's always my number one advice and just be yourself. Go on social media, be you, be real, don't put on a front. People wanna know who you are and they're gonna like you or not. So you might as well just be yourself, it's much easier.
- Thank you so much, Brittany. Really appreciate that. You are awesome. I was taking a look at her website as mentioned briefly in the introduction. That website, by the way, is busybcrafts.com.
We will link it up in the show notes page. But if you wanna go there directly, busybcrafts, B-I-Z-Z-Y-B, crafts.com. Or B-I-Z-Z-Y for some of our international listeners. Now, one of the things that worked particularly well for Brittany, you know, she's selling headbands. As I said, they are low cost and she's doing really well.
One of the things that has worked particularly well for her is selling them in seasons. So if you look at her website, you know, she's got the winter collection is being sold now, but it's only gonna be sold for a limited time. And then a new collection is gonna come around, presumably a spring collection. That would be my guess, but I don't know. And this creates urgency.
It increases sales since people have FOMO. They're like, oh, I don't wanna miss out on this particular, you know, headband collection, right? I mean, so again, this has made a huge difference in her sales. It's always good to ask yourself, where can I create some natural urgency, some scarcity that is authentic and legitimate? And so in this case, you know, if you're creating seasonal items that there's a limited quantity for, then that is authentic and legitimate.
So good for her. She also has this tagline, "My goal is to make the busy woman feel put together with the addition of just one accessory." So really intentional in that branding as well. I am grateful to Brittany for helping us out with this segment. I am grateful to you, our listener. What a year it's been.
2020 has been our year of interaction. We're working on some pretty cool stuff for 2021 as well. So stay tuned. That's coming up in what, I don't know, just like a week or so. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
You are amazing. Take care of yourself during the season. Be sure to check up on somebody else as well. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
