Six-Figure Lawn Business Becomes Sign of the Times

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

Today's featured case study tells us if opportunity isn't knocking, build a door. Don't just sit around waiting for something to happen. Go out and find it. I love that perspective. Welcome to Citusville School. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

What's it all about? What is today's featured case study about? That is, it is about a school teacher on maternity leave. And this school teacher hits the books and finds her dream side hustle. Replacing her day job income. That's right. Fully replacing

her day job income. Actually doing very well with this new business and then starting a second business. Because who has time for just one business or at least one side hustle? This story is called Six Figure Lawn Biz Becomes Sign of the Times. It's all about putting signs on lawns in Calgary, Alberta. Hopefully you're going to find it interesting. Hopefully you're going to

find it inspiring. Hopefully you'll go away with something you didn't know before. The detailed stories coming up after this quick message from our sponsor. While on maternity leave, Danielle Oliviero was driven to find some kind of business she could do at home. She didn't want to return to her full time job as a school teacher in Calgary, Alberta.

Instead, she wanted something that worked around her young family. She spent every free minute brainstorming, researching potential businesses. Her mind was whirling with ideas even when she was up with her new baby in the middle of the night. Danielle had always been entrepreneurial. Babysitting as a teenager, teaching piano during university. And one night while she was up nursing her baby, Danielle came across a lawn sign

greeting business for sale in a different city. This inspired her to find out what was available in Calgary. There was only one major lawn sign business in town and she wasn't impressed with the quality of their signs. In fact, she knew she could do better. So after a bit more research, she found a company that offered bright and modern signs for birthdays and other special occasions.

Danielle ordered $1,200 worth of inventory to get started. And while it was being produced and shipped, she built her website using Wix. She also designed a logo and came up with a game plan. Calgary Event Cards was in business. She got her first customers in August 2020 by doing a few client jobs for free. And the business took off from there. This was, of course,

during the height of the pandemic and people were looking for a socially distant way to celebrate, such as drive-by parades. Between organic reach and a few Google ads, Calgary Event Cards made it to the first page of search results almost immediately. Part of the success comes from the fact that her clients were already looking online with a specific service in mind. They aren't randomly searching online and stumbling upon her business. They're searching for her type of lawn sign service specifically, and it works. Danielle quickly had to invest in more inventory to keep up with demand. Overall,

she spent about $7,000 on materials, but that investment has paid off, paid off many times over. Calgary Event Cards has now done over 2,000 lawn greetings. It's grossed almost $200,000 in sales. Weekly profit fluctuates between $600 and $6,000 depending on the season. She's now earning more than she did as a schoolteacher and has hired some of her best friends to go out in the evenings to set up signs while she works behind the scenes prepping inventory and taking orders. This has

worked out really well because Danielle has since had another child and can't be out of the house every evening. Now, while the business is doing well, fantastic actually, there have been some weather-related challenges. Calgary has severe winters. I know I've been in Calgary in the middle of January. It's cold there. The ground, in fact, is frozen five months of the year, making it

difficult to insert the metal stakes. After a lot of trial and error, Danielle discovered that drills really helped to make holes for the signs. Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, as if she isn't busy enough, Danielle also has a baby equipment rental business. She bought this one four years ago for $4,500. It included all the baby gear from car seats to cribs to strollers.

It also came with a website, which she updated and modernized. For this rental hustle, Danielle has done over $50,000 in sales with most of that being profit since she bought in as a complete package. It's not exactly passive income, but she doesn't have to advertise much because there's very little competition in Calgary. She also joined a platform called Babyquip, which we have featured here on the show before, and gets a few clients from it. She easily earned back the $100 sign-up fee.

Danielle plans on running these two businesses in tandem for a long time, but the fire to start yet another project is always there, something that she can do online from home. Let's go back to that advice from Danielle. She says if opportunity isn't knocking, go out and build a door. Don't just sit around waiting for something to happen. Go find it. She also says to

find a business that works for your lifestyle. That's certainly what she's been able to do for her. She needed a project she could do, at least work on, before her kids got up in the morning or after they went to bed. She just kept looking until she found the perfect fit. Two of them, in fact, it sounds like. Well done, Danielle. Congratulations.

We're going to link up Danielle's website. Anything else in the notes page? That page is going to be at sidehustleschool.com/20892089. That's for episode 2089. How about that?

Last but not least, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I hope you'll take these stories as inspiration for your own project for moving forward to create freedom without quitting your job, or maybe in some cases by quitting your job, like Danielle did. So again, well done. And thank you so much listeners for being out there. You've got a comment or question for the show. You can leave that for us on the website as well.

And I hope you'll subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You've been listening to Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.