Afrocentric Head Wraps Earn Extra Money for Target Employee

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

Hey there, Side Hustle School listeners! Welcome back. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. We often talk about the online world, for reasons that are probably obvious, but some products sell better in person. What if you'd like to make and sell something at a local market, craft show, or expo?

Today's featured Side Hustler does exactly that, in addition to selling online through her website. Her product is Afrocentric Head Wraps, and she got started at just 22 years old. I'll tell you how she did it, and at the end of this episode, I'll also pass along some tips on selling at in-person markets or shows. Let's say thanks to our sponsor, and then on with the story. Destiny Larson got started early in her side hustling.

Inspired by a long line of self-starters in her family, she wrote resumes and edited papers in high school and college. So it only felt natural that she would start something else as she was close to graduating. Her latest venture began when Destiny created some head wraps for her mom as a gift. Well, actually, to go back a bit, when Destiny was much younger, her grandparents showed her some of the influences that African Americans have had on pop culture. That upbringing stayed with her as she selected fabrics and created designs.

Her mom wore the wraps and got rave reviews from her coworkers. In fact, several of them wanted to know where they could buy them. This all happened when Destiny was on summer break after her junior year of college in June 2016. By July, she was in motion getting her new business set up. The first thing she did was register with the state of Florida as a legal business.

The next step was coming up with a name. She decided to call it Ushindi 22. Ushindi is a Swahili word for victorious, and 22 is how old she was when she officially launched her business. For Destiny, the name was intended to signify a victory for women adorned in head wraps and to honor the decades of art and perseverance of the African diaspora. She created a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and a simple website using Wix.

She asked her friends to like and share her pages, but she didn't stop with the online world. She took her wrap straight to the people by attending pop-up shops and outdoor markets in her area. That first month she made $100. Not bad for a beginning. But as she built up her inventory, she did a couple things that helped her make more money.

First she opened an Etsy shop. And she used her sorority sisters as models. While she couldn't pay them all individually, she took them out to dinner afterwards and said it was the best investment she ever made. Once she put the photos of people wearing her products up on her website in Etsy, her sales began to rapidly increase. Now I mentioned Expos and in-person markets.

One of Destiny's favorite things to do is travel around the state for vendor shows. She found out about her first show in Orlando when they reached out to her, and that opened up a whole new world of potential markets and clients that she didn't know existed. After that, she learned to go to Eventbrite.com and search for nearby cities, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, and Tampa, looking for community marketplaces, natural hair conventions, small business Saturday pop-ups, and any other event where she might meet new customers. This grassroots strategy has helped Destiny increase her sales and get her brand out across the state. And for you, or anyone who's listening who might be interested in doing something similar, she has a couple tips when considering in-person markets or shows.

First, before committing to an event, ask for a media kit. This will give you a lot of information about who actually attends, so that you can decide if it might be worth your time. Next, look on social media for past events and reach out to businesses that were there. Ask them directly, "Was it worth it?" A lot of them will tell you. Third, remember, even if you don't sell much, it can be good to have your business associated with the face and gain visibility in your community, plus you're also building relationships with other businesses.

And speaking of that, last but not least, number four, bring business cards, because you'd be surprised how many people don't. Through her online efforts and in-person markets, Destiny slowly grew her brand and sales month by month. In the beginning of 2017, she decided to try a new strategy for expanding her reach. She collaborated with graphic artists to create new product lines, including t-shirts, pens, and patches. Her marketing has also evolved.

While she initially relied on friends and family to share her Facebook posts, she now focuses much more on Instagram and Instagram ads. She feels she's better able to tell the story of Ushindi 22 in that more visual medium. Regardless of the product or the medium, her theme remains the same. She calls it Afro-Diaspora victories through the decades. And this theme has resonated because her sales continue to increase month by month.

It's not enough money for her to quit her job at Target just yet, but it does go a long way toward making ends meet, and it also allowed her to get a dog. How about that? I've never heard that particular side hustle success before, but people have all sorts of reasons for starting projects. Destiny plans to keep growing Ushindi 22, and she has her first out-of-state vendor show on the calendar coming up this year. Well, congratulations to Destiny.

I love what she's doing in Florida and online. This episode reminded me of episode 71 from long ago. That was about a woman who earned $7,000 in three days from selling glass nail files at an expo. If you want to hear that one, it's on the site, sidehustleschool.com/71. And I seem to recall that in both stories, there was this offline element in addition to an online one.

So when Destiny and that other person choose to invest their time and resources in going to these in-person markets and expos and etc., they're not saying that online is irrelevant. Far from it. Because even in this story where we're looking at markets, Destiny didn't neglect social media, and she did that photoshoot with her sorority sisters, which helped to increase her sales, and then she opened that other channel on Etsy. So she's essentially doing both, and each format gives you different lessons, gives you different insights. It also makes me think about the book tours that I do now, or if I go back to when I started, when I published my first book, went to all 50 states and every province in Canada.

So I did this 63-city, unconventional book tour, which was mostly planned and coordinated by me and some very helpful readers out there. It wasn't like going around to each state was the most effective way to sell books, because you can probably reach a lot more people a lot easier online, but I know for certain that it informed a lot of things that came later, and a lot of the relationships that began on that tour. People are still following me. I'm still in touch with them. I see them at events.

It helped me gain some depth and perspective. I later wrote a second book that was largely based on people I met on the first book tour. So I very much believe in doing this kind of stuff, which is why I like to highlight it on the show. Anyway, good work, Destiny. Good work to everybody out there as well who's working on their side hustle.

I'm thinking of you and cheering you on over here. Remember inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Today's episode is number 382, which means you can go to sidehustleschool.com/382, 382, to check out the show notes if you'd like to learn more about the project or follow her on social media. And wherever you are in the world, I hope you're taking just a bit of time for yourself. We all have so many things we have to do for other people.

I hope you're taking at least a small amount of time for yourself to think about what matters to you. And if that thing is not present in your life currently, getting closer to making it a reality. That's my hope for you every day. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.