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Q&A: "How to grow a facepainting business?"
My side hustle is facepainting, and my question is about creating more income streams from this project. Other facepainters do things like making videos or offering courses or selling paint to other facepainters. But I was thinking of going a different way and selling more to my customers. I've thought about pairing up with other vendors like photographers and balloon twisters, and was wondering about other ideas you have.
There's a clear fork in the road here:
A. Start making courses and selling supplies to other aspirational facepainting artists
B. Find a way to grow through the service itself
The first one involves a shift towards a more productized model, which is good for a lot of people—but I think it's great that Holly is thinking about option B, expanding through the service itself.
You can sell to more customers, or you can sell more to existing customers. Most of the time, inexperienced side hustlers focus on the first option. They think, oh, I have to reach more people. I need more followers, more sales, more clients.
All of those things are good, but often there's a group of people staring at you, just waiting for their face to be painted. You already have a group of people who trust and follow you. Are you serving them to the best of your ability?
Holly mentioned partnering up with other vendors or service providers to offer some sort of bundle. I agree that's interesting—the overarching sense I have is that there are ways to create packages or bundles with other complementary services, from photography to party planning to catering.
