Australian Uses Online Classified Ads to Sell Wedding Flowers

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

[Music]

Oh, hey there. Thanks for tuning in. This is Chris Guillebeau, the host of Side Hustle School. Glad to have you back today. And here's a question I get surprisingly often.

What if your side hustle causes you to get burned out on something you enjoy? Sometimes that's hard for me to answer because I love what I do. I have no desire to do it less, but it is a fair question. And today's story provides at least one possible answer to it in the form of an Australian who learns to do floral arrangements and then undertakes a crash course in marketing or services using an online classified ads website. So it's a great story on its own.

It also deals with that issue of burnout. What if there's something you enjoy, but then you make it your side hustle and you no longer enjoy it? And it's also a throwback to an earlier episode of Side Hustle School way back in our second week with another story of a listener starting their project after hearing what somebody else has done. All good things and they're all coming up in just a moment. [Music]

Kristin Brown manages her father's industrial electronic business in Melbourne, Australia.

Of course, that's not all she does. She also has a side hustle that not only serves as a creative outlet, but also allows her to fulfill her childhood answer to, what do you want to be when you grow up? Of course, she also makes money from it. And not only that, but Kristin decided to start this hustle after listening to one of the very first episodes of Side Hustle School. That was episode nine, where a hobby photographer named Oliver Asis listed his services on Craigslist and began booking gigs as a wedding photographer.

But before we get too much further, we need to back up to 2015, when Kristin did a six month floral arrangement course. Kristin took this course for fun. Just a way to do something more creative with her free time and fulfill a goal she'd had since she was a child. Once she finished the course, she started helping out on the weekends at a wedding florist. So in early 2017, when a friend asked her if she would do the flowers for her wedding, Kristin thought, why not?

And immediately agreed. But then she got nervous about doing flowers for her friend and was trying to figure out how she could practice beforehand without major cost to herself. And that's where episode nine of the show came in. In that episode, Oliver listed his services on Craigslist at a fairly low price point, just to get some experience. This later led him to be able to charge $3,500 a wedding, doing one wedding a month while still keeping his day job working for the state of California.

Kristin realized she could do the same experiment on the Australian equivalent of Craigslist, known as Gumtree. So in March 2017, Kristin did some research on local florists to see what kind of information she would need to provide in order to get what she called practice clients. She saw that photos were very important and realized she would need to make some sample bouquets that would showcase her skills. So she used leftover flowers from her weekend job at the florist and made up a few samples, which she photographed herself in front of the wood pile in her backyard. She uploaded the photos with her ad and made sure to stress her services were affordable, but she avoided the word cheap.

Less than two weeks later, she got her first reply from a bride who said she was getting married in April. By then, it was nearly the end of March and the bride didn't mention if it was April 2017 or 2018. But either way, Kristin said she'd meet with her to discuss options and give her a quote. It turned out the wedding was just a couple weeks away and after meeting with Kristin, the bride accepted. While the timeline was short, Kristin said that actually worked out better for her because it was so soon she didn't have time to panic or talk herself out of it.

It wasn't until after she dropped off the finished arrangements for the bride that Kristin had that moment of panic. She said she was a wreck the whole way home thinking that she was a fraud and worried that the bride wouldn't be happy. Of course, just as she arrived home, the bride texted her a thank you note saying how much she loved the flowers. Kristin was so relieved she celebrated by buying herself her favorite bottle of champagne. After that first wedding, Kristin continued to get more inquiries from her ad on Gumtree.

She decided to revamp a dormant website that she had used as part of her portfolio for the florist course she had taken in 2015. She added the photos she'd done for her Gumtree ad, plus the photos from that first wedding to really showcase what she had to offer. She also thought about offering set packages with optional ad-ons after listening to another side hustle podcast, episode 147, where she liked how the person in that story offered packages to potential clients. From her earlier research, she'd also noticed that most local florists didn't list their prices. So Kristin decided to try something different and put the prices up for all to see.

By listing those prices, she made it clear that she was targeting the budget bride in Groom. She picked that budget price point for a couple reasons. First, with her limited experience, she didn't feel comfortable serving a higher end client. And second, from what she could tell, the budget range seemed like an underserved price point in the market. So her price fit her comfort zone and met a need.

With that website now displaying more of her work and offering packages with clear price points, Kristin continued to get inquiries and bookings. After that first one, she did two more for a total of $1,500, and she already has more than 10 bookings lined up for a total of $7,500. She tries to keep the cost for her flowers around 50% of what clients pay, but she also has to buy things like tape, wire, and ribbon, and she also pays $50 a year for web hosting. Now Kristin is clear about her intentions here. She's not trying to create a full-time job.

In fact, that clarity was reinforced after she finished her third and largest wedding in August and got sick right afterwards. Once she recovered, she had to evaluate why she was doing this project and what she wanted to get out of it. Her husband talked it through with her, and one of his comments stood out. He said, "I don't want you to end up resenting your creative passion." And since the plan for her day job is to eventually take over her father's business, she realized she couldn't let her side hustle take over all her time. These two factors combined helped Kristin realize she needed to set some clear boundaries to make sure she has a good balance going forward.

And to do that, she now has a rule of only booking two weddings a month. Now that she's got that rule in place, Kristin says her side hustle provides her with a creative outlet and some guilt-free spending money. The last family trip, she bought tickets to a water park for everyone, an extra that she could have afforded otherwise, but she says she might've felt a little guilty about splurging on it. She also loves the example that this project provides to her children, showing them that a side hustle can be fun and rewarding while also earning extra money. So what's next?

Well, as it turns out, she's got another idea. Her new idea is to design floral arrangement kits for budget DIY brides that gives them the materials and some instruction on how to create their own centerpieces. Now that she's found a way to not let it lead to burnout, she's still enjoying the two weddings a month, and she's also excited about creating something new that could lead to passive income. [Music]

Friends and listeners, I don't want you to get burned out either. It is a good question about how to avoid that.

It's something that people ask me all the time, and I think this story provides a great example of one way to manage that, by setting boundaries. And it's very easy to do in the service business because you can just say, I'm only gonna have X number of clients. I'm only gonna do two weddings a month. As I recall from Oliver's story, the Craigslist wedding photographer, he only does one wedding a month. Of course, you have to figure out what works for you, and not every side hustle is gonna be so easy to create boundaries around, but still, I think it's a good principle.

And I also think it's important to set a goal. Why are you doing this? Why does this matter to you? What do you hope to get out of it? And once you have clear intentions, it's much easier to make decisions based off those intentions.

So first and foremost, know yourself, know what you're hoping to achieve. Of course, I also love how Kristen listened to Oliver's story and went from inspiration to action. That's my hope for you as well, because inspiration is good, but inspiration with action, so much better. Today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/298. Thank you for listening.

I'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]