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.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

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

SEE ALSO:

• Trader Joe’s Sign Artist Earns $43,200 Selling Tea-Stained Prints: Discovering the art of tea-stained prints using publicly available (and free!) art, a Trader Joe’s employee begins earning $3,600 a month selling custom prints online.
• Rustic Wall Hangings Rack Up Worthwhile Profits: A self-taught manufacturer of home decor transitions her part-time curiosity into a full-time woodworking business.
• Logistics Broker Earns Extra Income From Graffiti: When a logistics broker offers to do graffiti for a friend, he unexpectedly paints himself into an extra income.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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