This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's going on? Thanks so much for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Sight of Soul School," bringing you episode 2099 of the podcast. That's right, 2099. We've been going every single day since January 1, 2017.
It's all about helping you make extra money without quitting your job, giving you some tools, inspiration, action, perhaps a little nudge, or perhaps an idea, just something to guide you in that path of diversifying your income, perhaps eventually leaving your job, or just having, as I said, extra money. Nothing wrong with that. Now, today's segment is the category known as Failure Friday. Failure Friday is a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure, all of the things that go wrong. Okay, so I do wanna help you start, you know, a new business or a side hustle that actually makes money and is profitable, but sometimes there are some challenges along the way.
So in this segment, we highlight those challenges. We look at something that has really not gone as expected, and usually it has gone very wrong. So these stories tend to vary a bit, but ultimately it is about what is that failure like and what does the person learn through the experience. Now, today's short story features Sasha from Oklahoma. She sells custom jewelry directly through Google on retail.
Google on retail, those are the ads or product listings you see whenever you're searching for some kind of product directly on Google. And obviously there's lots of different e-commerce shops that pop up, lots of big brands, small businesses, if they rank well enough. But then you also see direct products because Google is like, hey, somebody wants to spend money. We should capture some of that money. You know, they're very good at that.
So Sasha sells on Google on retail, and in the early days of her business, she had a very negative experience as a result of receiving a very negative review. All right, let's hear the story from her. [Music]
My name is Sasha and I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Last year I started selling handcrafted jewelry on Etsy and Google for retail. I made a few sales and thought I was getting off to a good start, but it quickly turned into a negative experience.
Here's what happened. A customer who purchased four pairs of earrings didn't like the way I was trying to merge the pieces together, which resulted in a more flamboyant design with funky colors and layering. They were disappointed that the quality of the pieces was not very good, at least in their opinion, and they also didn't like the price I charged. The customer left a highly negative review, even though I offered to work with them to find a good solution. They were simply not willing to compromise.
I did everything I could to get the negative review removed, but it seemed like it was the first thing anyone saw when they looked at my listing. I realized that if I'm going to grow my store, I need to grow my customer base. At the same time, my emotional health was suffering, and I was also caring for a family member with dementia. It was a lot to deal with. Then I had a crazy idea, which was to create the first post on my shop to directly address the customer who left the negative review and let them know what I'm doing to rectify the issue.
The first few hundred words of that post were difficult for me to write because I wasn't happy with it. I didn't want to come across as a callous jerk, but I also didn't want to be too salesy. That's when I decided to tell the truth, including some of the details of what I did to address the problem and how it affected my quality of life. I posted the whole thing, which took me several days to write. There were tears in my eyes as I read it to myself.
But you know what? The post got a ton of great feedback. It was no longer in the negative section of the conversation section of the site and SEO tactic. The next day, I had five sales. I also had multiple people tell me how powerful my honesty was.
The whole experience was cathartic. It changed my perspective on customer experience, customer service, and also on who I'm meant to be. After all, did I want a single bad review to negatively affect my future? It wasn't worth it to me to jeopardize everything I'd put into building this business. I had to move on, and eventually I did.
[Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday. You often have these experiences that are difficult. They really don't feel so good. Sometimes you're actually quite worried.
But then often, making it through it, coming to the other side, just like Sasha shared, can be in fact cathartic. And it gives you some motivation, some momentum, some confidence to move forward. So thanks to her for sharing this story. And listeners, if you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, let me know what's going on. sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Today's show notes, of course, sidehustleschool.com/2099. 2099, hope you'll join me again for episode 2100 tomorrow. And of course, a new episode every single day. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
