This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Well, hello, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is Chris Guillebeau. I wanna thank you for tuning in today. I'm always excited to bring you a new episode every single day.
This is episode 2,383. Coming up in this one, we have a question from Denise. Denise has a passion for helping others and has channeled this into her side hustle as a coach for Etsy and Shopify sellers. So basically she helps people who are selling on Etsy and Shopify to either sell more or sell to more clients or have greater visibility, maybe some kind of SEO thing. I'm not sure entirely what she does, but it's a big market.
People who are selling on Etsy and Shopify. So if you can help them sell more, or as I said, sell to more clients or otherwise achieve some business goal, then that could be a viable project. But she's struggling in expanding her initial client base beyond friends and family members. Always good to start with your friends. Always good to start with your family members.
But of course you're not gonna build a business that way unless you've got some really well-off friends and family or maybe a very large network of friends and family. Who knows? But assuming you wanna go beyond that, let's listen as Denise shares more about her hustle and the current challenges she's facing and maybe helpful for some other listeners as well. Stay tuned. [Music]
Hello, I'm Denise from San Diego and I've recently started my side hustle of coaching Etsy and Shopify sellers.
I came across your show while searching for business tips for crafters and it's been very helpful. I've loved helping sellers increase their sales and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from family and friends. However, I'm unsure of how to attract my first customers beyond my immediate circle. What strategies do you recommend to connect with potential clients and generate initial sales? - Hey Denise, let's talk about it.
I'm gonna give you a couple of things you might try and I'm assuming if you've been listening to the show for a while or if you've read any of my books or somebody else's resources as well, like you might have some ideas already. So I wanna add to those ideas with some other possibilities. First being just direct outreach. Since this is your field, if you understand the world of Etsy and Shopify pretty well, maybe identify some successful Etsy and Shopify sellers who might need your services and pitch them directly. At a certain point, it becomes a numbers game.
If you have a service that could benefit them, obviously most people are not gonna respond to cold outreach, but some will, right? So you can find those sellers by looking at top performing shops or those that seem to be doing well but might lack in certain areas of marketing that you excel in. I think that could definitely work. Just set a goal to contact 10 people a day and you hope that maybe one of them, well, let's say maybe two of them will respond and over the course of a week, maybe you get one new client. And so, if you do that every month, you got four new clients and you get them on a recurring plan, that's the whole business.
That's a very active side hustle. It could be more than a side hustle. Next, perhaps create a free resource, something like an ebook or a series of instructional videos on marketing specifically for Etsy and Shopify sellers. Then that might actually give you some reason to contact some of these sellers and say, hey, can I just show you this and see if it's helpful to you. If you give them some helpful resource, then they're gonna think, well, what else can this person offer?
You just gotta make sure that the resource is actually helpful, not just telling them something they've already heard before, but giving them a really specific tip or tactic they can use right away that will help them to increase their business. And then since you're doing direct outreach, I might also look at doing some LinkedIn networking. So use LinkedIn to connect with and reach out to some small business owners. Maybe you find them on Shopify or Etsy and then you connect via LinkedIn, or perhaps you just use LinkedIn to search directly. But again, show genuine interest in their business, suggest a way that might help them increase their sales, approach it from this nature of relationship building rather than salesmanship, and really want to prove your value and expertise.
As I said, this is a very valid way to build a business. You can definitely work in addition to whatever else you're doing. So Denise, I wish you well. I hope you do grow beyond the friends and family circle. Listeners, I wish you well as well.
If you've got a question or some feedback, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Of course, you can subscribe or follow wherever you like to listen. And we've got a new episode coming out tomorrow. New episode every day, in fact. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
