This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau For a Side Hustle School. Got an interesting story for you today. Interesting for a couple of different reasons.
First of all, because the first iteration of this idea did not work out at all. It was in fact a side hustle failure like we talked about a bit last week. And it was only after a redirection that this person gained momentum and began making money. And it wasn't just money. It was also making a very positive impact.
Now this episode also comes with a disclaimer. Normally I think there are all kinds of things that you can try and experiment with without a lot of qualifications. I am all about encouraging people that you don't need permission. You don't need some authority figure saying, "Hey, it's your turn, go for it." But today's story will be an exception to that because it is about a mental health counselor who creates a set of resources for kids. And just to begin with the obvious, I don't think anyone should experiment with mental health counseling if you don't have the background in education in that field.
However, I still think you'll like the story because the whole purpose of the show is to teach you about transferring skills and adapting skills and taking what you already know and turning it into an income generating model. That's because a lot of people in traditional occupations, they get trained very well for those jobs or those careers, but they don't learn much about how to apply those skills entrepreneurially, which is what I try to talk to you about here on "Side Hustle School." So keep that disclaimer in mind, but I do hope you enjoy the story. It's coming up right up to this. [Music]
Janine Halloran is a licensed mental health counselor and also a mom. She sees clients in the morning, but before and after school until bedtime, her focus is on the kids.
She helps with homework, packs lunches, and takes them to their after-school activities. I like a lot of moms, Janine is pretty busy. In the afternoon, as well as after the kid's bedtime, she has another focus. It is, wait for it, her side hustle. The side hustle is called coping skills for kids.
And before I tell you about it, listen to what happened earlier. Now, I know from my inbox that a lot of people have tried various ideas and fallen short. That is in fact normal. That's why we did failure week last week, highlighting some things that didn't work out. Well, Janine has a failure story of her own.
Before she started coping skills for kids, she had another website called Encourage Play, which was all about teaching kids social skills through play. She tried a couple of different product lines, including a failed subscription box and a failed Etsy shop. She says now that she's glad for this experience because her work at Encourage Play allowed her to discover what people would respond to, and she then translated that into the new project, Coping Skills for Kids. But at the time, it didn't feel great. In fact, when she shut down that subscription box and that Etsy shop, it was a big low point for her, and she even felt devastated.
Still, she picked herself up and moved forward. With Coping Skills for Kids, Janine makes products to help kids learn to deal with stress, anxiety, and anger in healthy ways. She offers both digital and physical products on her site, but her focus recently has been mostly on digital. She also recently created two courses using Teachable, which was easier than she expected. I believe we actually just talked about Teachable the other day, two episodes ago, in fact, episode 164.
Now, I mentioned physical versus digital. Janine says she focused on physical products at first and even tried dropshipping for a bit. Dropshipping is where another company keeps your inventory so that you don't have to do any shipping. But with this project, people responded much more to her digital products, and one of the most successful ones is a set of Coping Skills cue cards, ready to use printable notes that serve as a visual reminder for kids of things they can do. Counselors and educators tell Janine they love her products because they're ready to go, kid-friendly and useful.
Parents also say they're happy because their kids actually use them. Janine feels she's been successful with this new approach because she has the experience of working as a counselor with kids and families, and she's also a mom so she can understand both worlds. And this new focus is working. Profits for Coping Skills for Kids are averaging about $1,100 a month now. That previous project encouraged play, lost money, but since she transitioned, she's actually made a profit every month, which of course feels a lot better.
Janine is now working on more downloadable products as well as posters through print-on-demand services for some of her most popular free printables. She's also thinking about putting another course together on Teachable and continuing to grow this project organically in the midst of her busy life. [Music]
Okay, so as I said, don't try this at home, at least don't try to be a mental health counselor if you're not one. I just encourage you to think about two things before you go on with the rest of your day. First of all, whatever kind of education you had, what skills or knowledge or experience did you acquire that might be able to be applied in a different way, just like what Janine has done.
Remember, you didn't necessarily learn how to be entrepreneurial, but there's usually a way to apply entrepreneurial thinking to your existing knowledge and experience. And second, think about this point of redirection. Again, this is very common. Your first idea may very well not work out. Your second idea might not work out.
Hopefully it won't be dozens and dozens of ideas that don't work, but sometimes it does take time. And that's why I encourage you to start quickly so that you can fast track that process of seeing what works and what doesn't. It's easy to get discouraged when your first project doesn't work or any project doesn't work. But instead of just saying, oh, this sucks, try to understand why it didn't work. Try to figure out what you could change so that something else might work or just be more promising.
That's my encouragement to you today. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to coping skills for kids and teachable. Anything else I mentioned will be at sidehustleschool.com/166. If you have a comment or question for the show, you can write in from there.
You can also give me a call on the Hustle Hotline at 8449 Hustle. Or use your phone to record a quick little voice memo and email that off to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. I hope you have a wonderful day. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
