This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, Side Hustle School listeners. Hey, what's up? This is Chris Guillebeau. I want to wish you, first of all, a happy first day of Hanukkah. It is the Festival of Lights, wishing everyone a joyous season, but in particular, those who celebrate Hanukkah.
Now, as I mentioned the other day, holidays can be hard for some people, even though it is a joyous season for others. Sometimes people are going through stuff in their life, or the holidays actually bring up some negative memories. So even as we celebrate, I want to encourage you to be mindful of others. And if you're struggling with something, be sure you talk to somebody, because you're not alone. We all go through hard things and we can get through them.
All right, back to the side hustle world. Today's story features an ESL teacher who becomes a travel planner, at least part-time. It's her side hustle. And she sends clients on surprise vacations. This becomes a profitable project in year one, just nine months in at the time I'm recording this, despite the fact that she's never had a hustle before, or in her words, never knew much about business at all.
What she knew about was planning, travel, and surprises. She was pretty good at all three of those things. And in putting them together, she's created a project that's not only profitable, it's also fun and meaningful. I'll bring you that story after this quick little shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Charlotte McGee is an ESL teacher at an urban elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Until this year, she had never had a side hustle. She didn't know about providing a service, creating a website, deciding on pricing, and so on. But what she knew is that she loved planning travel for people. She was good at it and she noticed that other people often didn't know where to start when planning a trip. While she would happily pass the time looking up options and sample itineraries, other people didn't want to sit in front of a computer for hours after work to do all their research.
Still, she'd only helped friends, and only for free, until one weekend when she and her husband were sitting in a bar in Savannah, Georgia, on a quick weekend trip that, naturally, she had planned. She'd been pondering the idea of starting a trip planning service for a while, and he looked at her and said, "You know what, you should do this." So she did. This side hustle is called Whisk Away Surprise Travel. And here's how it works. A prospective client would go to her website, which she created in a weekend using Squarespace.
A client would choose the region of the world they'd like to travel in. It would select their budget and their travel dates. Then they fill out a short survey, telling Charlotte what they love to do. The whole process takes the client about 10 minutes, and then Charlotte takes it from there. Each client gets a completely customized trip to a surprise destination in the region of their choice.
It's just 10 minutes for that client, but then Charlotte spends around 10 hours per trip doing all the research and preparing a detailed plan. Two weeks before they leave, clients receive an email detailing what time to arrive at the airport, what to pack, and what the weather will be like. One week before, they get a surprise envelope with their entire itinerary inside, flights, accommodations, restaurant recommendations, and activity suggestions. Charlotte is hardcore. She recommends that clients wait to open it until they actually arrive at the airport.
Clients pay the total amount of their trip up front when they book, so if a client wants to book a one-week solo trip to Latin America, those budgets start at $1,500, for example. Again, clients choose the budgets that they're comfortable with, travel costs, and Charlotte's fees are included in the total. More on that in a moment. Well, who is this for? Having someone plan and book your trip isn't for everyone.
For some of Charlotte's clients, the trip she books is their only vacation of the year, so if you enjoy planning or you don't like the surprise aspect, then whisk away is probably not for you. On the other hand, she says if you do choose to let her handle it, you're definitely gonna have a crazy, memorable experience. The first few clients of whisk away were friends of friends, people who knew her already as the consummate trip planner and traveler, and in fact, her very first clients were a couple that wanted to celebrate their honeymoon with surprise travel. Charlotte got the email notification that she had received an order while she was at an end-of-the-year school celebration with her colleagues, and she says she screamed out loud. Then she showed her colleagues and it started a great conversation about going after things you were passionate about.
As it grew, clients largely came in through referrals. That first couple that booked a surprise honeymoon then referred their wedding photographers, who were also an engaged couple, and they booked a surprise honeymoon. So let's talk about the results. Since beginning this year, remember it's her first year, it's her first side hustle, whisk away has brought in $25,000 in revenue. That's revenue, not profit, so of that number, it's been mostly used to pay for clients' travel, some of Charlotte's travel, which she thinks is a great bonus, and some small marketing costs.
So far, her total profit has been about $5,000. She's working with a business coach to look at her pricing structure to ensure that she's getting paid properly for the amount of time she puts into each trip. She says that's been a learning process. The best part is when clients send photos of themselves opening their surprise envelopes at the airport and looking thrilled at where they're headed. She says there really is nothing better than giving people an amazing experience with something you did.
So that's fantastic, what's been challenging. There are a couple of things. When she was starting out, Charlotte was impatient to book those first clients. A friend of hers said something that has stuck with her since then. She says, you know you aren't selling $50 shoes here.
People aren't gonna wake up in the morning and decide to buy a surprise trip on a whim. Give it time. That friend was absolutely right. What she's selling is not only a big ticket item, she offers different budgets, but clients have to pay for their entire trip up front, but they're also buying something with no idea of what they're gonna get. But she's had to build up trust with her clients and find the right people in the first place, which I think is just as important as the other thing.
She's also had some challenges come up with the trips themselves, although there's been a silver lining with those experiences. For example, a client booked her first solo trip with Whisk Away to Latin America. Charlotte was excited because Latin America is her favorite region. The client had also just finished her yoga teacher training. So she sent her to an amazing beach front spot in Columbia.
Tons of history, beach yoga, everything. Well, three days in, Charlotte got an email from her client letting her know that the electricity had been out at the hotel for two whole days. Apparently the city was working on the grid where the hotel was located. It was just a fluke, random circumstance, but of course you have to do something about it. So Charlotte got her rebooked in a different place and that client was happy.
Actually referring another client that booked right away after her friend came home. Experience was a reminder that there are some things with travel and life that just can't be controlled. Even for a planner like Charlotte, being able to respond to changes can sometimes be just as valuable a skill. Coming up, Charlotte wants to look more at pricing and make sure she's being fairly compensated for her time. $5,000 in profit in year one isn't bad at all, but for this to be sustainable, she's gonna need to make more.
She plans to keep working with immigrants in the school system for her day job while growing Whisk Away and hopefully serving at least twice as many clients in 2018. Oh, and she's also recently added an option for gift card purchases, perhaps making a good holiday gift for somebody out there in need of a surprise vacation. You know someone who needs to be Whisk Away, but we know someone who can do it. [Music]
Well, congratulations to Charlotte. What a fun project.
In the introduction, I mentioned that she's never had a hustle before and even according to her, she didn't know much about business, but what she knew about was planning, travel and surprises. This well illustrates what I often talk about on the show about how a lot of these business skills that you need to acquire are really not that complicated. She was able to make that Squarespace website in a weekend. Does need to adjust her pricing a little bit, but she's working with a coach on that. What was far more important is being able to put those things together that she already knew, the planning, the travel, the surprises, research, being able to respond to changes, et cetera.
And that's how she created this profitable project that as I said, is also fun and meaningful. We are coming to the end of the year, at least if you're listening in real time. And I wanna encourage you, if you're doing some kind of annual review, if you're looking ahead to New Year's resolutions or any kind of planning for the next year, what are you gonna do with your side hustle? You have one already, you don't, maybe next year is gonna be your year. I wanna make sure that you feel supported in that regard.
That's why I'm bringing you these different stories every day. An ESL teacher turned travel planner who sends clients on surprise vacations and people are signing up for this. They're kind of in making that investment, putting their trust in her hands and then having a great experience and telling their friends. But like we talked about, it takes a certain kind of person. This kind of service is definitely not for everyone, but that's also a sign of a good targeted service because if you're trying to make a service for everyone, especially something like a travel service, good luck.
Much better to be specific and to come up with something fun and interesting like this. Well, that's my encouragement for you today. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. If you wanna read today's show notes, learn more about Charlotte's project, maybe check out her website. Just come over to sidehustleschool.com/346.
Everything will be linked from there. And if you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoy the show in general, do me a favor, tell your friends about it. And send them to sidehustleschool.com where you can show them how to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to Podcasts. That would be awesome, but I'm grateful for you either way. We'll be back once more tomorrow.
I'm Chris Guillebeau for Sidehustleschool. [Music]
