Stylish Clothes Reseller Becomes Fashion Consultant

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

[Music]

Welcome to a brand new week. What's up my friends? My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Sidus Will School. What are your goals this week?

What are you working toward? I hope that something you hear in this week's eclectic collection of stories, got all kinds of stuff coming out, will inspire you in some way, or at least get you thinking. Remember, there is something out there that you can do. So if you haven't started your hustle yet, maybe this will be the week that you make some progress. Or if you're well underway, that's great, keep it going.

So in today's story, a broke college student learns to buy and resell designer clothes. Then he transitions this business into a high-end fashion consultancy where he now earns six figures annually. Pretty cool story. Like I said, at one point he's completely broke and a few semesters later he has more than $50,000 in clothes lying around his dorm room, all waiting to be resold. And then he completely reinvents himself all over again.

So only on conflict school will you hear stories like this one from flipper to fashionista to fashion consultant. Stay tuned, that story is coming up. [Music]

Joshua Davis was your regular cash strap college student. Even eating at McDonald's was a luxury. He prided himself on frugality and once stretched $20 of disposable income through an entire semester.

But despite his penny-pinching personality, Joshua had one vice. He valued looking good and he loved to wear nice clothes. The problem, well, it's kind of obvious, he couldn't afford to eat at McDonald's, so he definitely couldn't afford those clothes. One day during his freshman year, he found a designer shirt on sale at Macy's. With an original list price of $85, it had been marked down to 14, an absolute steal.

He desperately wanted the shirt, but barely had enough money for gas to get home, let alone to buy clothes he didn't really need. But there was something about that shirt. His instincts told him others would be as enthralled with it as he was. So he decided to place a bet with himself. He signed up for a Macy's credit card on the spot and was given a $400 limit.

With that $400 limit, he bought 30 shirts, 30 of those $14 shirts, and rushed back to his dorm. There he listed 29 of those shirts for sale on eBay, keeping one for himself. Within a week, he'd sold them all and had doubled his money after paying off the credit card. Joshua had cottoned onto something big. He soon became hooked on flipping clothes for fun and profit.

He spent the next year in between classes scouring the discount racks at the major chains, marshals, sacks, Bloomingdale's. He'd find great deals and sell them for a profit, occasionally keeping some of the inventory for himself. With each flip, he made more money. And as the pile of cash grew, so did the pile of clothes. Within a few semesters, he was flipping thousands of dollars in merchandise each month.

And when his senior year rolled around, he had $50,000 worth of clothes sprawled out all over his dorm room. He had no closet space of his own, but he was now widely known as the school's fashionista. However, he was also getting tired. Flipping was profitable, but it was a lot of work. Visiting stores, finding the best deals, buying products, all that took time and head space.

Then he had to list each item individually on eBay, as well as package and ship them as they sold. On top of that, although Joshua had a good sense for what would sell, not every sale was a success. Sometimes he would just break even. That was all about to change when a new opportunity fell into his well-dressed lap. One that would enable him to use his eye for style for something beyond flipping clothes.

His best friend's dad, Rodney, had recently become unemployed for the first time in 20 years. Rodney was gonna have to look for work, and that meant interviewing. For his entire career, he'd been a builder. So when it came to applying for different kinds of jobs, he had no idea how to present himself, and certainly wasn't close-minded. He entered Joshua the fashionista to the rescue.

After receiving a call from his friend asking for help, he grabbed some clothes from his inventory, he had plenty of them, and headed straight over to help Rodney dress to impress. When he got there, he noticed a change in Rodney. Becoming unemployed had taken a toll on him. He was feeling down and lacked confidence. But after Joshua worked his magic, Rodney's spirits lifted, he carried himself more confidently, and in no time at all had landed a new job.

This impromptu fashion consulting caused Joshua to realize he had a gift. So for his next phase of hustling, he strolled down the catwalk to become a fashion consultant. At first, he offered the service completely free. He found prospects via word of mouth and kept things basic in the beginning, a little shopping together and some style advice. Eventually, he realized it was time to start charging.

A young professional asked him for advice, so Joshua threw out a number, $1,000 for the consultation. A client agreed and Joshua was floored. He couldn't believe he would earn so much, doing something that to him came so naturally. From that point, there was no turning back. He was determined to do this full-time.

He built a website and called himself monogram styling. His services would include fashion advice, shopping and image coaching. It wasn't a difficult transition. Joshua had already been offering the service in some form. The only difference was now he would start charging for it.

So to do that, he had to work out the right structure. He looked at the business models of other image consultants and selected an hourly rate of $250. A few of his early clients scoffed at the price, but others accepted. In time, he honed his pitch and was able to convert a lot more people. Since many of his clients were business professionals, he found the best approach was to talk in terms of ROI, or return on investment.

He'd break the clothing down into cost per wear. He would talk about his services, allowing clients to attract better opportunities and be taken more seriously in life and their career. It took some time to get the balance right, but he figured it out. Anyone looking to shop at Macy's or other discount department stores wasn't the right fit. He maintained a focus on executives and high net worth individuals.

In time, as he served more and more of those types of people, they began to refer him to other ideal clients. Joshua has fulfilled his dream. He's now able to do this full time and earns a solid six figures per year doing it. He currently serves 58 private individuals and an additional 40 corporate clients. In any given month, he'll bring on one or two new clients and typically works with around eight of them at any one time.

From his days in the dorm room, surrounded by clothes waiting to be shipped out, to his mobile showroom that he now brings to customers homes and offices, Joshua continues to turn heads wherever he goes. [Music]

Awesome, a lot of stuff we could take away from this story. First of all, congratulations to Joshua. That's super fun. I want to look at this mentality of buying 30 shirts.

All right, he's broke. He finds this shirt he wants to buy. Really can't justify it, even though it's $14. But then he has this idea of buying them to resell. And instead of just buying a couple of extras, which is probably the logical thing that most people do, he buys 30 of them.

He gets the $400 limit on his credit card and maxes it out basically, taking that risk. Now I said it was a risk or I said it was a gamble in the story, but the reality is in the worst case scenario, if he doesn't sell those shirts, he could return them. I mean, he could walk back to Macy's next week and say, I want to return 29 shirts or 30 shirts or whatever it is. Not ideal, but if that's what he could do. And also at that price, it's an $80 shirt marked down to $14.

He feels pretty confident that he can at least sell it for more than that, right? So he's not going to lose money. He's probably going to make at least a little bit of money. And as we heard in the story, he actually doubled his money, which inspired so much more that was to come later, right? So reselling, as I say from time to time, is a pretty simple business model that just about anybody can do.

It may not be what you want to do for the rest of your life. If you've never done this before, if you've never had a side hustle, this is something you can do to get started right away. And it does have a lot of potential. And this is what I started doing 20 years ago, and it turned into a lot of things for me as well. So when it comes to making the transition in his story to image consultant, fashion consultant, image consultant, here's some of his advice in his own words.

Wanted to pass the sign. He said, you know, discover who your market is and just as importantly who it isn't. For me, this took a bit of trial and error getting it right. And in fact, I'm still fine tuning the message. I had to figure out how to turn down those customers who wanted to shop at Macy's, but that's just not a good fit.

This is not what we do. So again, discover who your market is and just importantly who it isn't. Also really basic but solid advice when you're just getting started. So I hope you enjoyed this story as your week is starting off over there or wherever you are and whenever you're listening. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Today's show notes, including links to his project and anything else we can think of are at sidehustleschool.com/786 at his episode 786. Thank you so much. I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.