Episode Transcript
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A hundred thousand bucks hosting a local workshops as
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a side hustle. What's up? What's up? Nick Oh,
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Loper here. Welcome to the side hustle show because
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your nine to five may make you a living,
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but your five to nine, it makes you alive.
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Today, I want to share a unique side hustle
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idea and that's hosting local classes or workshops. Maybe
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it's not as scalable as building an online course
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business, but there's a whole lot less competition. It's
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going to be easier to get your first customers
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and you get some like great money. In fact,
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my guest has made over a hundred thousand dollars
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in sales doing this on the side from her
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day job over the last couple of years from
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100kartist.com. Chloe Winstanley, welcome to
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the side hustle show. Hi,
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Nick. Thanks so much for having me. I'm
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excited for this one. Stick around. We're going to
0:41
cover how to come up with your workshop topic
0:43
or idea, how to market the thing, how to
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get those first students in the door and how
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to potentially scale it up. So it takes less
0:49
of your time. Now, if you're new to the
0:51
show, welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:53
This is the show that deconstructs realistic legit ways
0:55
to make extra money in your spare time. If
0:57
that's what you're looking for, you're in the right
0:59
place. Nobody has more experience in this phase. We've
1:01
been doing it every week since 2013, over 600
1:04
episodes to choose from. And while I would love
1:06
to have you binge on the entire catalog, that
1:08
entire archive, I want to invite you instead
1:10
before you do that, create your own eight to
1:12
10 episode personalized playlist. It's a little extended sampler
1:14
platter, if you will. It's all super easy. All
1:16
you gotta do is go to hustle that show,
1:18
answer a few short, multiple choice questions and you'll
1:20
get that curated playlist you can add directly to
1:22
your device. You can learn what works and then
1:24
you can go out and make some more money.
1:26
That's at hustle that show. Now Chloe, I want
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to start with how'd you come up with this
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idea for these little craft workshops? So
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it kind of just grew progressively. Like
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in 2021 in New Zealand, we were
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in COVID lockdown and so we were
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like staying at home. And so a
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lot of people seem to be like
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turning to indoor crafts and things like
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that. I started a terrarium business, which
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didn't really go anywhere. And then after
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that, I gave polymer clay a try.
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Initially I was making polymer clay earrings
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and selling them online. So I was
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like the only person in New Zealand
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making them. And I
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realized that people, you know, they were
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happy to spend money on jewelry, but
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they also really wanted to just learn
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how to make it themselves. And I
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think particularly coming out of COVID, people
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really wanted to get out of the
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house. And so I was able to
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host people. I had a studio in
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Christchurch, which is in New Zealand. It
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grew from there over time, from serving
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five people to eventually bringing on staff
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and serving 40 people in one workshop.
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So it really grew in that respect.
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So it sounds like started as a
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hobby. Yeah, I can mess around with
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this polymer clay. I can make some
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jewelry. I can make some earrings, like
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a fun little outlet if I'm stuck
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at home and having some success selling
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them online. Is this Etsy? Is this
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through your own site? No, I had
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a my own website and I would
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just advertise on Facebook. And that's how
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I reach customers. After that, I was
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attending markets, craft fairs in New Zealand
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to sell them. But I just realized
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that I could make way more money
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from hosting people for workshops than I
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could just by selling the earrings, like
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the profit margin for one pair of
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earrings versus a whole workshop was just
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like so much more. And for a
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similar amount of work as well, because
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it's still a lot of work to
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make the earrings. So if I'm just
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like hosting 20 people at
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the same time, I'm making a
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lot more within just like two hours of my
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time. So it just made more
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sense in that respect. That's so interesting. Our friend who
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was selling on Etsy 10 years ago, I found the
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same thing to make these really nice looking, you know,
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baby blankets. She's like, I'm gonna have to charge $100
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for this thing to make it worth the time that
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I have into it. And people could go buy the
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same thing for $12 at Target. Like
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it's a really tough sell. But you turn around, teach
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people how to make their own. Okay, now I can
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do it for 510 40
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people at a time. And now this starts to
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become an entertainment type of business more than an
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education type of business more than
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a kind of a done for you product business.
3:52
Absolutely. Yeah. Like the experience is what people sign
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up for. That's what they pay the money for.
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And so many people a lot of the time
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they wouldn't even really care about what they made
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at the end of it, because they're just there
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to have fun with their friends. Yeah, there was
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one in our old town, and it was like
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a sip and paint type of thing. They did
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a ton of group outings and, you know, girls'
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night out type of stuff, or a company team
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building, where it's like, oh, you got your wine,
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and you got the artist leader in front is telling
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you step by step how to recreate this famous painting,
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and, you know, people are having a great time. Sounds
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like something similar. So these first five people, how do
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they find you? How did
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you find them to show up for their
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workshop? I just advertised, again, on Facebook for
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that. I just found that I got good
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results from just advertising to people there on
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Facebook for the local event. And at the start,
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I had five people just because I was like
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finding my feet. And I was really like having
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a lot of imposter syndrome at that point, because
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I was like, you know, I'm not a professional
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artist. I just started learning polymer clay like three
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months ago. Why would these people want to come
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and learn from me? You're nervous. Are people going
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to really show up? Yeah, like are they going
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to like, I'm not going to know what I'm
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doing really, but again, like
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my friend attended that workshop and she was
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just really encouraging. Like I charged people $30 New
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Zealand dollars, which was like
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a tiny amount. And she was like, you know,
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you have to like value yourself and value your
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time. And that's how I worked
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up to eventually charging people like $100 New Zealand
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per person. And
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just like, yeah, actually like valuing my skills and my
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time and knowing that, you know, like I'm not a
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professional, but I'm like good enough to be able to
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teach these people and teach them well and make sure
5:27
that they have a good time. Very good. So
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you secure the studio space and say, Hey, we've
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got a venue for this workshop. And you put
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the word out on Facebook and say, at this
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time, at this place for 30 bucks, come on
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in. We'll teach you how to make this jewelry.
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We'll teach you how to make these earrings. And
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lo and behold, people bought tickets for it. Yeah,
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yeah. And it was quite funny because like I
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said at the start, like I tried a terrarium
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business, like I'd tried many different businesses over the
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years and none of them had gained traction the
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way that this did. So it was just kind
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of like a surprise to myself because I wasn't
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used to it. Like I wasn't used to putting
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an idea.
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