Starting from Scratch: Fears & Fumbles While Growing Our Side Hustles
Episode 145: Show Notes
The cat’s out the bag! We have just started our own new businesses. Two different businesses. Two different industries. And we’re building them completely on our own. Emylee’s latest side-hustle is selling her own hand-painted artworks online and Abbie has started an MLM business with Young Living products. In addition to TCC, we wanted to start something completely on our own and as exciting as it is – truthfully, we’re both a hot mess and are grappling with so many aspects of product-based entrepreneurship that we didn’t even expect as mentors in this field.
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Inside this episode, you will find out more about our latest side hustles, why we started them, how we are growing them and the many challenges we are currently facing in this new terrain. If you are a compulsive entrepreneur or are in the same boat of juggling your many business passions, then this is definitely an episode you’ll relate to. So take a listen, find out how we are going about our new ventures and most importantly, know you are NOT alone!
Find Out More About Our Side-Hustles
Emylee started painting again a few months ago and started sharing a few peeks of her work online. Despite the nervousness, she was warmly received and decided to keep at it. She invested in an online teaching summit and now Emylee is selling her product through an Etsy shop. Abbie is starting over as well and is doing an MLM with Young Living products. She has been using the products for over two years and over the summer had a yearning for something creative. She and her husband have been on a real health journey for the past few years and a huge part of that has included detoxifying their home and being aware of household and body products. She was shocked to find that even some of her soaps were cancer-causing and couldn’t handle it. She then decided to start her own MLM business for Young Living health products and is now a mentor and a team builder as well.
Getting Into The New Business Headspace
We’ve been out of the new business headspace for a while now and now remember how easy it is to second guess every move! Every decision, every plan, every word – there is so much over-thinking that’s done when starting a business. For Emylee, there is a sense of feeling like an outsider in the art industry, an industry she was a part of for so long. Putting her own, personal expressions out there has been a huge challenge. For Abbie, she has started getting back into old, bad habits out of stress. Through starting these extra new businesses, we have been reminded of how difficult and stressful starting a business is. We have to continuously remind ourselves to implement the same advice we give others through TCC! We forgot a lot of the initial challenges that come with starting a business and how easy it is to say “I’m not ready yet” to just about everything.
Leveraging Our TCC Audience For Our New Businesses
What are the most appropriate ways for us to leverage our current audience with our new businesses? Well, the truth is, we are both confused at this point about how we go about differentiating ourselves and infringing on one another’s businesses. This is something we are still figuring out and we’re working on a necessary email that still needs to come out to our TCC members / listeners! We are serial entrepreneurs, so our businesses will keep growing, changing and expanding and there are many others who are in the same position. We need to crack the news in a cool way – and we will soon enough. Just sit tight. We’re still figuring it out and need to have a conversation between us and of course, with you too!
Does The Success of an Artist Come First?
Emylee has personally been grappling with the following questions regarding her own new business. What comes first? Does the success of an artist come when they create good work, figure out how to sell it and get people to buy it? Or does success come when the artist gets known for creating good work? Is the piece more valuable when the person is known for making valuable work? Emylee said, “Everything I’m creating might be shit because no one deems it valuable and good yet” Many other people, throughout other industries, go through these type of questions on many levels. And as an artist or a handmaker of things, do you just tell yourself that it’s great and it’s valuable? When do you feel like a sought-after artist? These are the questions Emylee is putting out to other artists who might be in the same boat. The struggle is real and we get it!
Learning The Ropes of a Product-Based Business
Part of the reason we wanted to start our own additional businesses was so we could better relate to our TCC students and master a product-based business. We don’t know this world and it is not our background. But thankfully, we have a network and community that we can utilize. But one of the challenges, specifically for Abbie, is that she finds resources but then has the urge to recreate the wheel. Mock-ups, handles, websites, promoting, pricing and business crossovers are all so complicated. Emylee, on the one hand, is a mommy blogger, an adoption advocate and a painter. How do we combine, or separate, all of our interests, businesses and projects online? It’s a weird space to be in for us right now. It’s complicated. But hopefully, in the next sixth months, we’ll have the answers and be able to look back at this episode and smile.
Quote This
We are definitely CEO’s but we want to be creating again...
Highlights
Find out more about each of our new side businesses: selling art and an MLM business. [0:04:55.1]
Getting into the new business headspace AKA managing severe confusion. [0:09:20.1]
Leveraging our TCC audience for our new businesses and how to make it all blend. [0:19:40.1]
Emylee’s burning question: does the success of an artist come first? [0:23:00.1]
Learning the ropes of a product-based business and how to manage it strategically. [0:30:50.1]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
MLM business, Side hustle, Selling art, Growing a business online, Cross-promotion, Separating businesses, Managing handles
