1639
8 min 2 sec

Graduate Uses Equestrian Art to Canter Out of Debt

When a psychology graduate wants to pay off $65,000 in debt, she takes life by the reins and learns to scale her equestrian art business.
Art Arts and Craft Painting

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What It's About

Whoa Nelly! Hear how a graduate student tramples her debts with her horse artwork.

Business Model
Arts & Crafts
Skills Required
Painting and Marketing
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium

Words of Wisdom

When it comes to making money from art, Bettina says that there is more opportunity than people think. “Art businesses have a place and a key portion of that is to educate yourself and learn how to be an entrepreneur. Being an artist can be incredibly lucrative. People need someone who can translate their emotions and experiences into art, doing this well and embracing the business skills associated will take you there.”

Fun Fact

The shortest horse ever recorded is named Thumbelina, a miniature sorrel brown mare from St. Louis, Missouri, who stood at a meager 1 foot and 5 inches short. On the flip side, the tallest horse ever recorded was named Big Jake, who stood at nearly 7 feet tall.

Notes from Chris

Episode 1639
In 2018, Bettina Norton was fresh out of grad school, and had no idea what to do. She had just gotten her MA in Psychology, but there was a problem: she didn’t want to work in that field.

You see, while studying for her degree, Bettina realized that she needed to find a different path. It happens!

Bettina quickly decided that the 'big thing’ she wanted to put her time into was paying off her debts. She had $55,000 in student loans, and another $10,000 in credit card debts. From what she could tell, the fastest way to do this was to get a full-time job and scale her art business.

Wait, an art business?

That’s right. Bettina had been creating and selling art since she was in her early 20s. The main subject of her art was horses, a passion of hers since she was a child. She created equestrian-themed fine art, prints and lifestyle items.

Bettina knew she could make more money from her art, even if others doubted her. Despite the neigh-sayers (get it?), she knew her business had potential. Not only that, but she knew that figuring out how to maximize her profits could be an important key to paying off her debt. She soon decided to stop horsing around (okay, I’ll stop now too … for the moment) and got a full-time job for a university while working on her plan to ramp up the art sales.

First, she began to build her email list. To do this, Bettina spent a week going back through her inbox and copying and pasting the email of every single person who had ever bought from her before. This got her up to 130 people. From there, she asked every person she was chatting with on Instagram if they wanted to be on the list, and added another hundred people from there.

Bettina also followed the launch process outlined in The $100 Startup, and had her first launch in May 2019. In just a week, she made $15,000 from a collection she called the Simplicity Series. Take note: this was the most money Bettina had ever made in a year before.

By February of 2020, Bettina had paid off all $65,000 of her student loans and credit card bills. However, beyond her side hustle she also credits Dave Ramsey’s steps to get out of debt, as well as being able to live rent-free at her grandmother’s old house, as keys to getting to this point so quickly.

Still, she tripled her profits in just the span of the year. Bettina isn’t ready to slow down any time soon … in fact, she’s firmly back in the saddle.

 
  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Quit horsing around and go check out Bettina's beautiful artwork at her website, BettinaNorton.com/.
SEE ALSO:

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution, cg-sig-newsletter
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Quote of the Day
"Art businesses have a place and a key portion of that is to educate yourself and learn how to be an entrepreneur. Being an artist can be incredibly lucrative. People need someone who can translate their emotions and experiences into art, doing this well and embracing the business skills associated will take you there."
—Bettina Norton #SideHustleSchool

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