Canadian Mom Spells Out Success with Letter Board Loot

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

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Hello, hello, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. If you see something, say something. You probably heard that sometime, right?

Well, in the side hustle world, if you see something, maybe you should do something about it. So many of our stories come from listeners using the power of observation to spot a money-making opportunity. That's what today's story is all about. It's one of our listeners from Alberta, Canada, and this listener sees the writing on the wall after a search for customizable letterboards leaves her empty-handed. You might have seen Instagram posts or Pinterest pins of these letterboards now that people are spelling out different quotes and other things.

It's a bit of a trend and she wanted to get one for herself, but when she went on a search, it turned out to be pretty expensive to ship to Canada. What comes next? Well, she figures out how to do it herself and to sell them to other people. She's now making thousands of dollars a month. Stay tuned for all the details after this quick shout-out to our sponsor.

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Some side hustles are created from a gap in the market. Some come from experimentation. Sarah Chetney, a stay-at-home mom of three from rural Alberta, Canada, created her side hustle out of both. Sarah is always on the lookout for fun projects to work on with her three kids. Life moves quickly in the Chetney household and finding creative projects to tackle together can be challenging.

Pinterest was a regular source of inspiration for Sarah because of its visual content and abundance of good ideas. While scrolling for a new project on a dull, rainy day, Sarah noticed a new trend emerging on her favorite go-to accounts. Customizable letterboards were popping up everywhere. These miniature marquee boards, which allow you to arrange letters into words to create personalized messages, seem to be flourishing in home decor. To Sarah, they were also the perfect way to entertain her kids.

She found a board she liked through a seller on social media, but when she went to their checkout page, she saw that the shipping charges made the product's cost much higher than what she was prepared to spend. That seller was in the States, so Sarah decided to see if she could find a similar product through a Canadian retailer, but her search came up empty. There were simply no sellers of letterboards based in Canada. This put a damper on her excitement because the shipping fees combined with the exchange rate were both significant markups on an otherwise simple purchase. She kept looking, but without success.

Days turned into weeks. This avid side hustle school listener was dejected, at least at first, but then she realized the lessons she had learned from other episodes taught her that her problems couldn't be unique. Surely she wasn't the only Canadian looking for a letterboard, but put off by exorbitant shipping fees and a crippling exchange rate. If she struggled in her letterboard quest, she thought surely there must be others. Sarah now had a side hustle idea, but going from idea to income was overwhelming at first because she really didn't know where to start.

She didn't have tech experience. She'd never worked in a retail environment before, but since she knew she needed product, she began to research suppliers, looking both locally and at foreign manufacturers that listed their services online. Then she created her first Shopify store to lay the foundation. In a way, she realized the most important part of the work, the competitor research, was already done as a potential consumer. She knew what products were out there and what the fair market value was for letterboards.

This was the stay-at-home mom's first foray into business, but she had noticed that gap in the market. When Sarah's first sale came in, she went into overdrive to fulfill that order. This was last year, but the excitement from each sale still continues. According to her, she says, "It's still special to hear my Shopify notification "go cha-ching when I make a sale." The sense of accomplishment from her success has changed Sarah's life. She calls her shop Letter Poets, and monthly income now reaches about $3,000.

That's about the same amount she would earn working outside her home while paying for childcare. But with the side hustle, she has financial freedom, plus an added dash of excitement, and the ability to work from home. As yet another benefit, she's able to travel with her family without planning around her job. Now, Sarah was first and early, but since the launch of Letter Poets, many other letterboard shops have also opened. She's been careful to pay attention to them, but even with a more competitive market, she tries not to devalue her product and chooses to focus on creating a brand that people trust.

She does that through great customer service and a friendly presence on social media. She also continues to think about pricing her products in a way that's both profitable for herself while also offering savings compared to ordering from the larger companies in the States. Her advice to aspiring side hustlers, create a concrete vision around your idea, research your competitors, suss out valuable suppliers, and then go for it because you only live once. These days, the majority of Sarah's customers are Canadian, with 15 to 20% being American. As for what's coming up, well, she hasn't spelled out her next steps yet, but she does believe that another e-commerce store is in her future.

She's gained this experience. She wants to put it to use elsewhere. So I'm betting that after the success of this first project, $3,000 a month, the next endeavor is sure to make a statement. Want to round things out today? Here's some quick advice from me.

If you're making alphabet soup, but you leave it on the stove when you go out, it could spell disaster. Just don't do it. Oh, and also, how do you know a witch invented the alphabet? Because you have to spell it. Put that one on your Pinterest or your letter board.

No charge, first one's on me. And perhaps even more helpful, if you're interested in selling something like this or making some kind of product, similar market, anything handcrafted, I would encourage you to check out Sarah's website, which we're gonna link up in the show notes. She does a really great job of sharing her story. And we are all about stories on Side Hustle School, of course. And I tend to believe when people buy something like this, they're not just interested in the product, they're interested in the person behind it.

So when you go to Sarah's site, you're gonna see beautiful pictures of the product, which is as it should be. But you're also gonna be able to click on this about page and see a photo of Sarah and her kids. You can read more about her. She says, "I'm a wife and mom who lives in a small city in Alberta, Canada. I've always had a love for words.

In fact, I completed an English degree just weeks before finding out I was gonna be a mom." She goes on a bit, just kind of sharing why she's doing this project. So if you're out there surfing around and you're interested in buying one of these, you have this sense of familiarity. You have a sense of connection and relationship with this person. And it tends to make people feel more comfortable. Tends to make people feel like, "Oh, this is not a big corporation.

This is a real person in this small town." But at the same time, she doesn't overdo it because that story is there really to reinforce like why this product is so fun, why you should purchase from her. So you have that little bit about her, but then like the rest of the site is very much focused on these letterboards, how you can purchase them, why it's simple, why it's easy, why it could be a fun thing to try in your household and so on. Anyway, check that out, I think it's well done. And of course, congrats to Sarah. $3,000 a month so far.

I hope it continues to grow and I look forward to seeing what her next e-commerce store will be. For you over there, remember inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Those show notes will be online at sidehustleschool.com/446. Thank you for listening. So much more is on the way.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.