Scented Santa Letters Become Sold-Out Seasonal Business

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

[Music]

I'm very excited today to bring you another listener success story. Always so fun to hear from our listeners who are starting projects. In this one, a listener writes herself into a personalized letter business that earns $17,000 in three weeks. And you might be thinking, well, this sounds familiar because the title is Scented Santa Letters Become Sold Out Seasonal Business. Well, you're probably actually not thinking it sounds familiar because four years ago, we actually had a story on the podcast about a very similar business.

Well, if you have an incredible memory, you might think that. But for all the rest of us, as you'll hear, this listener took inspiration from that original story years ago and started her own personalized Santa postal service with a twist, okay? Now, of course, I'm gonna tell you all about it, about the twist, about everything else. This is a seasonal business, shocking, right? Because it's about letters from Santa.

It's a seasonal business that brings in real money. And you're gonna be surprised when I tell you the details, as well as this side hustler's plan for a holiday-themed empire that includes a clothing line and so much more. I love everything about this. Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

Scented Santa Letters Become Sold Out Seasonal Business. That is, in fact, the story. It's coming right up. [Music]

Sometimes you don't need a completely original idea. You just need to put your own spin on something that works.

Alejandra Gomez was listening to Side Hustle School, this very podcast, when she came across an episode about a woman who sold letters from Santa. Alejandra had been looking for a way to raise money to buy Christmas gifts for underprivileged kids. And she thought a Santa letter business was a great way to do it. Now, as any good side hustler knows, research is essential. Alejandra dug in and found a huge gap in the market.

Nobody was doing Scented Santa Letters. Scented Santa Letters. Now, since memory is closely tied to our sense of smell, Alejandra wondered how she could connect her letters with a scent to create positive memories that would last a lifetime, or at least through the season. She even devised a storyline that made it all work. Santa is writing his letters in the kitchen while Mrs. Claus bakes.

Side note, I know it's a little patriarchal, but just consider the era when they grew up, Santa and Mrs. Claus. Okay, it was a different time back then. Anyway, Alejandra came up with a secret way to make her letters smell like cookies. But now it was early November.

If she wanted to sell Christmas letters that year, she'd need to do it before Thanksgiving. The power of a deadline. She went to the craft store and bought envelopes, paper, wax for the seals, and of course, some Christmas stamps. Her creativity didn't stop there. Alejandra addressed each envelope by hand using modern calligraphy and even added a bit of fake snow to each envelope.

She also knew the importance of having an effective website. Alejandra hunkered down and made a complete Squarespace website in only two days. She took all the photos in her living room with her iPhone using red poster board as the background. And she wrote the copy herself. North Pole Postal was up and running in less than two weeks for under a hundred dollars.

Try to say that three times fast. North Pole Postal. Her friends became her first customers when Alejandra shared the news on her Instagram. Then her local TV news channel in Houston covered the business in a Christmas segment and more orders came in. But Alejandra knew it would take more than that to make the business a success.

After all, it was kind of seasonal. She made a list of Instagram influencers she thought would be a good fit and wrote to them explaining what she did and her mission to help kids in need. As compensation, she offered to send the influencers free personalized Santa letters for their kids. And some of them took her up on it and kindly shared photos of the letters. Now that was year one, 2018.

North Pole Postal has grown significantly every year since then. The business has gone from selling 32 letters that first year to selling, wait for it. I'll just tell you, you don't have to wait, 1,000 letters in 2020, 1,000. Although the season is only about six weeks long, in 2020, the business brought in $17,000 in three weeks. Now because it's a business with a tight timeline, Alejandra has struggled a bit with her success.

Creating 1,000 personalized letters last year while handwriting each address on the envelope is hard work. To lighten the load, she started taking orders earlier in the year but still can't always keep up with production. In fact, she sold out of letters the past two years or at least turned off the order form because she reached capacity. One Santa's helper can only do so much. North Pole Postal has expanded its product line and now offers unique items including Christmas themed clothing for the whole family.

And next year she's launching a candle collection that Alejandra hopes to sell through a major retailer. But wait, there's still more. The business also offers Santa letters in Spanish. Alejandra was born in Mexico and moved to the US as a little girl. She wants others to enjoy the Santa letter experience without a language barrier.

Right now the letters are only available to the US but will soon be available in Mexico and Canada as well. She admits that the logistics of growing so much year over year has been difficult. There's been a steep learning curve when she had to master everything from figuring out price increases and shipping costs to finding a manufacturer for the clothing line. But the growing pains are worth it. This side hustle is now on its way to becoming Alejandra's full time job within the next year.

She wants to grow the business into a full brand that includes a children's book based on the North Pole postal storyline. She'd love to work as an elf all year round. [Music]

As I said, a fun, inspiring listener success story. Congratulations, Alejandra. I'm so excited to know what happens next.

Maybe let us know next year when the Santa Empire is up and running. And listeners, I'd like to wish you happy early holidays. I was gonna save this story for December, but then I thought some of our listeners might want to order their own Santa letter. And as you heard, she actually does sell out. If you'd like to check that out or perhaps send it to someone you know, just visit North Pole postal.com.

And she is still donating 10% of all profits to an organization that provides holiday presents for underprivileged kids. If you'd like to learn more about anything else I mentioned, show notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com/1761-760. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope you will subscribe or follow and tune in tomorrow. Much more is coming up.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.