← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 168 | He started an AI Art PNG Etsy Shop in December. Here’s What Happened! – with Jason Pagliaro
01:07:26
Curious about semi-passive income with AI digital products on Etsy? Jason Pagliaro is a police officer who just started an AI PNG and Tumbler Wrap shop in December with the hopes of supplementing his income when he retires this fall. Tune in to hear...
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with their calling and all the tools they need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate the life they dream about. If you want to launch, grow, pivot or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand. And now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop. All while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast, we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy, creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to sell your stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here. Hey guys, welcome back to the show this week. I'm so excited you hit play because right now this is the topic I'm so jazzed about. It's like all about the semi passive income on Etsy with AI created products. I'm having a blast and I'm really excited to get to interview Jason today, who you're going to hear about in a minute. But it's just, it's all about the AI. It's all about the AI products. It's been so much fun. Before we get into it, I want to let you know about two workshops that are coming up that might help you. That might be the perfect thing to help you in your business right now. The first one's going to be for new Etsy sellers, people who are thinking about Etsy or people who are maybe struggling a bit on Etsy. If you are not getting views and regular visits to your listings yet, the first thing that's probably wrong is SEO. In fact, if you're not getting views, it's definitely SEO. And so you're going to want to come to my live Etsy SEO workshop. And in that I am going to teach you all about the algorithm. What is SEO? Why does it matter? Where do you have to write it in your listing to get found? What does it take to get seen on Etsy? We are going to talk about how to, how and where you need to put all of that SEO. I'm going to pull out all the stops and show you all my tips and tricks. For getting those listings that you're putting up seen, because on Etsy, if it's not seen, it can't be sold, right? So we're going to get you views on those listings so that we can start getting them converted and making you the sales you deserve in that workshop. I'm going to do 90 minutes. So we're going to meet on Thursday, February 27th from 7 to 8:30pm Central Standard Time. The first hour is going to be all of the SEO goodness. We're just going to SEO until we can't SEO anymore. And then the last 30 minutes I'm going to do a Q and A and I'm going to do shop audits. So if you have been reaching out to me wanting one on one, I'm not doing the one on one zoom sessions anymore because my schedule's not allowing for it. Sometimes I open up shop audits on my Instagram when I have time. It's kind of rare. But you got to follow at how to sell your stuff and you'll see it in my stories. When I periodically open them up, they fill up like immediately, which is why I don't even get a chance to announce it here on the podcast. So you got to follow at how to sell your stuff to see those. But if you come to the AI, not AI, the SEO workshop, I'm going to do some shop audits and that's a chance to talk to me one on one, ask you really specific questions, have me look at your shop and make some suggestions. Today is the the 13th of February. There is currently, if you're listening to this, the Day it drops. There is currently early bird pricing on that SEO workshop. Jump on it now because tomorrow the 14th it is going to go up. The price is going to go up. This is going to be a live workshop. You will get a recording of it, but no one will be able to buy it after the fact. So grab it now for early bird pricing. Grab it, you know, before the 27th when we meet to actually get access to it. The second thing that's coming up, you've been asking for this. You've been waiting for it. I got an overwhelming response of interest in an AI workshop for coloring pages, which right now are all the rage on Etsy. Coloring pages are helping new shops just like totally break into the semi passive income digital product space on Etsy. And so I am doing an AI coloring page workshop on Thursday, March 27 from 7 to 8:30pm I will show you the, give you the prompts that I'm using show you exactly how to use Mid Journey and other AI tools to be able to produce coloring pages that will actually sell. A lot of times AI creates terrible coloring pages, so I'm going to show you the secret to creating great ones that you just sell like hotcakes. I'll help you figure out where the demand is so you know what coloring pages to create where those little holes of opportunity are. And we'll do all the good stuff. So jump on the AI coloring Book workshop. You can now register for that down in the show notes. I feel like I just talked faster than Lorelai Gilmore. Lol. Because I literally mentioned her also in the podcast. That's funny. I'd forgotten about it because I recorded with Jason earlier today and had to put the baby down for a nap. Let me tell you about Jason because this is a really, really fun interview. He wrote this so it's going to be. It's going to be funny. Meet Jason Pagliaro Jason is the proud owner and creative force behind Guardian Custom Creations. A United States Marine Corps veteran, Jason served during Occupation Desert Operation, not Occupation, Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm before continuing his commitment to service as a contractor supporting USMC Intelligence Systems. His work once again took him to the Middle east in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After relocating to Savannah, Georgia, Jason pursued a lifelong dream and became a police officer with the Savannah Police Department. Over his distinguished 20 year career, he has risen to the rank of Sergeant, currently leading the Office of Homeland Security, the Dignitary Production unit, and serving as the Chief pilot for the Drone unit. As he prepares for retirement later this year, Jason is channeling his passion for craftsmanship, design and patriotism into Guardian Custom Creations, a brand dedicated to high quality digital designs. Jason's married to his best friend and biggest supporter, Tina, a successful entrepreneur with a thriving Etsy and Shopify business. Wreaths of Bloom. You might notice. You might recognize that name where Jason handles all the shipping duties. Tina's expertise and creative talent have been recognized in Southern Living magazine and she was a guest on episode 102 of this very Own your How to sell your stuff on Etsy podcast. Inspired by her success, Jason launched Guardian Custom Creations to create meaningful, high quality designs while building a future beyond his time in uniform. When he's not designing, you'll find Jason and Tina out camping, making memories with their four grandkids or spending time with their two beloved rescue dogs, Zeppi and Zoe. Okay, so we're going to chat with Jason. What was so exciting for me about him other than the fact that it's been fun because I met with Tina when her Etsy shop was very early stages breaking into the wreath niche. And she's gone on to make, however, half a million dollars in re in the last three years. So Jason ended up coming to the AIP and G and Tumblr wrap workshop back in December. He had already launched. His shop, wasn't getting sales yet, but things clicked for him when he came to the workshop. He took what he learned and added new listings the next day, and within 48 hours, he was getting sales. He's gone on to have one of those designs, maybe two, now become a bestseller. He's going to share all of that. But I'm so excited for you to hear this because we're really getting into some of the nitty gritty of what it's like to run an AI PNG and tumblewrap sh and some of the tools we're using and what's going down. So please help me welcome Jason to the podcast. Hey, Jason. Welcome to the podcast.
- [07:17]
B
Hey, good to be here.
- [07:18]
A
We gotta tuck it in today. We're always so goofy together. I'm sure it'll come out, but.
- [07:25]
B
Yes, we are.
- [07:26]
A
I was super excited to have you, Joel. First of all, you know what? We need to brag on your wife first, because what episode is that? Tina came on the podcast like, what, a year or two ago?
- [07:35]
B
Hold on, I have it.
- [07:37]
A
You do?
- [07:38]
B
She was on 102.
- [07:40]
A
I knew. Okay, amazing. So Jason's wife is Tina Pagliaro of Wreaths of Bloom, which is one of the top wreath Etsy shops on Etsy. And she had come to me for some coaching in the very beginning of the shop. We worked together. She has blown that thing up. How much has she made now, Jason?
- [07:56]
B
Over half mil.
- [07:58]
A
Yeah, she has absolutely killed it. And what's so cool about that is that wreath reaches. I'm. This is. It's going to. This is going to be such a fail. Reads are such a, like, quote unquote saturated niche, which, hello, we are learning left and right. That doesn't actually exist if you know what you're doing. But she's absolutely killed it as a new shop. And re.
- [08:16]
B
Yes, she really has. We had our best month ever last month. 34,000 for January. So she is. She is killing it and working her tail off to keep up.
- [08:28]
A
So it wasn't even the holidays. It was. It was January. She. Her best. Her best month. That's. And are you still boxing for her?
- [08:36]
B
Yep. Went down and boxed this morning before I came up here for this and we'll go back down and box some more before I, before I shut down for the night.
- [08:44]
A
Such a good husband. Thank you for doing. Thank you for your service. Okay, but then you and I connected because, and we got to get into your story here in a little bit. You took the AI workshop for the PNGS and the Tumblr apps because you're like, let's take this digital, tell us your results so far. Let's just like come in with it. Hot. How's it going?
- [09:00]
B
Yeah, so we took the workshop was December 11th. I posted five the next day, went, went and knocked out five good designs, did some, some research on them, did all my SEO and all the things that we went over in the class and in the workshop and paid attention to stuff in the trendspotting reports and the day after that. So 48 hours after the course, sold my first item that has gone on to be a bestseller and has sold over 60 tumblers. Just that one design. I've got 130 listings up right now. I had a bit of a slow January with, with things at my, my day job, but in, in less than two months, over 110 sales, 220 favorites, just over $320 in sales. And, and that one's, like I said, got a bestseller badge as well. So. And I'm looking probably for another best seller on another design now.
- [09:57]
A
That's right. Yeah, you got that one flying off the shelves as well. So not too shabby for getting started for the first time doing anything like this. Had you already started the shop before that? How many do you remember approximately how many listings you had up before the shop?
- [10:09]
B
I had 10 or 15 listings up from stuff I'd learned in 155 with Bailey. Pay attention to that one and did some research then, but it just didn't all click with me. It was, it was a, it was a great episode and learned a lot and I've, and I continue to learn a lot from Bailey, but it just didn't all click until we sat down that night and had an absolutely amazing workshop. It was nice because it was a small group and there was a lot of interaction, a lot of questions going back and forth after that. I think it really clicked and once it clicked, it clicked.
- [10:44]
A
Can you pinpoint what it was like? There was like this aha moment that kind of kicked you into overdrive.
- [10:49]
B
I think a lot of it had to do with the SEO and, and the, and the designs and, and you know, I've been following trendspotting for a while. Tina. Tina had it and, and then I got into it. But I think when I started really paying attention to what my customers were going to need, because my customers aren't the people that are going to put it. They're not the people that are going to buy the Tumblr, they're not the people that are going to buy the T shirt, it's the people that are going to make the T shirt. So I had to think what they were looking for. And I think that was the aha moment. When we, when we started talking about that and then really getting into prompting and how, how one little word and a prompt can completely change what something comes out looking like, then it all just kind of fell into place. It was, it was like, it was like you just twisted the Rubik's Cube for the last time. And, and the, it was, it was just the perfect picture. Or, or you think back to an old TV when you had to just dialed in an old TV and showing my age there a little bit, but when you had to dial that, that channel in and all of a sudden you got reception, you were like, ah, there it is. That was kind of what hit at the end of that, at the end of the workshop was. It was like everything just came into focus.
- [11:57]
A
That is so awesome. You know, I feel like when I, when my first Etsy shop really took off and all, I went from like, you know, literally crickets to, to, you know, five, six thousand dollars a month with just that, that switch flipping of understanding demand and understanding SEO in the application of my product. But when you were saying the, when you and Tina were in the trendspotting, what did you mean by that?
- [12:17]
B
Your trendspotting email group. Okay, yeah, your trend spotting email I follow religiously. But a lot of times what's funny is a lot of times I'm watching what you're looking at and something else on the page will catch my eye and I'm like, oh, well, Lizzie's talking about this and this is, this is really popular, but because I get squirrel syndrome really, really bad, it's like, oh, there, right there. That's it. That one right there. I need to do something with that. And that will all of a sudden become something. You and I were talking earlier about, about chickens. And you were showing chickens on one of the other ones, and I saw a crazy cartoon chicken on, on one as you were going down the page. And I'm like, well, she's talking about all these serious chicken things. And that's a crazy chicken. And that one just kind of, you know, hit my funny bone. Like, ah, there we go. That's probably going to be my next bestseller. Is. Is one I did off of a crazy looking chicken. And it was just so. I think looking at the transponding emails and looking at the things that you're seeing and then understanding how to find those myself is really kind of making my designs better. But it also gives me things to combine. You're always talking about, you know, trend combining, and the more I look at those kinds of things, I go, oh, well, that combined with that could be really funny. Or that combined with that could just be a knockout design. And I think that's, you know, one of the other things that's really clicked is, is understanding how to find those trends before they're huge trends.
- [13:51]
A
You're using it perfectly because it's ideal to. So the he's mentioning, I have a membership where you can get a weekly email from me on Mondays, and it'll have all of the trends, like, what's really trending on Etsy with, like, a video that shows you how to apply it and everything. And then there's five product opportunities. So it's pinpointing five specific things that are currently in demand with really low competition that you can go design for. But once you get in there looking at what I'm suggesting in those opportunities, you can design directly for those. I give you the SEO. But what Jason's saying is he's taking it a step further, which is ideal. Like that star student behavior, where you let it lead you down a separate path where you now have a bunch of ideas of what to design for and they are all on trend. So that is spectacular. That's so exciting. That's exactly. That's actually how I use it, too. Like, I am working off the same trend report and opportunities I'm giving you guys, and I'm just going down additional rabbit holes so that I'm not, you know, I don't want to be competing with y'all. So I'm trying to do something a little different. But what do you, like, talk about this, this process for you, Jason? Like, well, actually, let me. Let me ask. You're hoping to retire later this year. Can we talk about that at all and, like, your plan, like, what you want this to do? Let's talk about that.
- [14:56]
B
So I've been a police officer with Spanish police department for 20 years. Now this, I'm starting my 20th year. I turned 55 this year and our city has. At 55, you can start collecting. So my goal is August I turn 55 and I'll be at my 20 years with enough vacation time to check out as soon as I turn 55. My goal is to retire September 1st, have this shop produce enough to cover the difference between my pension and what I'm currently making Now a bit of a big demand, gotta grow quick. But it's a good goal to shoot for and, and we'll make it either way. I mean, the, the wreath shop is obviously doing more than enough business. I don't need to have, have my own. It's, it's a want. I don't want to. I'm not one to sit around and do nothing, you know, like you said we were talking earlier, I'm an eight hour day at the office. I'm on call as well, but as soon as I get home, it's packing wreaths for her. And then, you know, we cook dinner together and then I come up here and I start designing for the night and then wash, rinse, repeat. So for me, some of it is just keep me busy as well. But my goal is retirement in September and have this be something that helps me support my income.
- [16:10]
A
So what do you, what would you like it to make monthly by. So we've got, we've got eight months, let's say. What would you like your shop to be producing monthly?
- [16:17]
B
At least 2,000, ideally five.
- [16:20]
A
That's easy. Okay, so like let's go with, let's go with the 5,000 from what you're, you know, what's so great about where you're at right now is you have enough data now, you have enough listings up, you have enough data, you can see, okay, if I list 10 new designs, X percent of them are likely to perform. So I need, you know, then you can take that calculation further. So I need X number of designs to be able to create the income I want by August. How many listings do you want to have up?
- [16:46]
B
Between 1500 and 2000.
- [16:48]
A
Okay, so how many do you have to do a day?
- [16:51]
B
5 to 6 a day is ideal. It's probably a little high for what I can do just based on the time I have. The good thing is I've kind of worked out my own process. So while I may not get 5 today, I may get 10 tomorrow.
- [17:06]
A
Exactly.
- [17:06]
B
It all depends on, it all depends on how things work out and how busy my day is. If, you know, if I'm sitting here and the phone rings and I got to go run out for A SWAT call or to fly or whatever. I have to stop doing everything I'm doing and go do my day job. But that may stop me from doing today, but then I can turn around tomorrow and do 10 designs because I've built the process in a way that. That there's always something in the pot ready to go.
- [17:34]
A
I think, you know, like Bailey had said when she was first launching her shop and she was being really aggressive with it, she was getting up about 20 designs a day. Now she was doing that, I think full time. She didn't have anything else. So what I have found so interesting is, you know, my goal is, is five listings a day. I actually have it. You guys let me know if you. I have a tracker that I've made. It's really bare bones. You pick it up here. It's really, really bare bones. But it's where I can kind of check off how many I get done in a day. And I've noticed that some days, like, it's actually really easy to get six listings up because I'll do two or three designs and then do two to three listings each, just changing out that first thumbnail. But then sometimes I end up like, I've done this a lot with sports, where I come up with a concept and then I just duplicate it for, like, a whole bunch of different sports. As an example, you could do the same thing for occupations, you could do the same thing for all different hobbies, where the same concept would just be extrapolated out. And so then I'll all of a sudden have 30, 30 things ready to list, and then I'm good for, like, for a week getting my listings up. I've. That batching has just changed the game for me. Have you played with that at all? You were talking about your process. I'd love to hear more about it.
- [18:43]
B
I have. I mean, my. My best day was I. I did 14 in a day, so 14 in a day. I did 10 the day after that. I keep track of every day. I've got a calendar on the wall that keeps track of how many I listed, how many I sold, how many favorites I had, and any milestones. So when I hit that 50 sales, when I hit 60 sales, five star reviews, those kinds of things. But my process is pretty simple. Everywhere I go, I have a notebook with me. So if I see something or think of something, you know, if a fleeting thought goes through my mind, I jot it down.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah.
- [19:16]
B
Then I will prompt and somebody else you did a podcast with talk about doing this. They'll do a bunch of prompting and save everything. So what I've been doing is I have a folder on my computer where I keep designs to be worked. It's actually what I call it, Designs to be worked. That is, I have prompted them in in one of the two generators that I primarily use. Get it? I've rolled it enough times that I get what I'm happy with and it gets dumped into that folder. As soon as it gets dumped into that folder, I go to my listings folder on my Google Drive and I create a folder for that design. Then I will continue to prompt the next design, the next design next. And I will have 5, 10, 15 designs in that to be worked folder. Then once I've got 15 designs there, I go over to Photoshop and if they're tumblers, I make them seamless. If they're for T shirts, I make them transparent backgrounds, scale them up to the right size, get everything where it needs to be, and then they get dumped into the other folder and the listings folder. Once I get all of them done, then I go into Canva and I do. I have a dummy listing for shirts, I have a dummy listing for tumblers. I have a dummy listing for coloring pages. I will dump them all into there, get all of my photos for Etsy, dump that into the same folder that everything else is in. So now I've got the design, I've got the mock ups for tumblers. I have a website, I do my my video on of the Tumblr, dump that in there. So everything for my listing is there. Then I will go to Etsy and once I get into Etsy I will just list, list, list. But I have a dummy listing for Tumblrs and Etsy. I have a dummy listing for coloring pages in Etsy and I have a dummy listing for PNGs for T shirts in Etsy. So then it's just a matter of replacing the pictures, putting the keywords in, putting the title in, changing the tags, and putting it in what area of my shop it goes in and posting it. By doing it that way, I tackle one part of the problem and I just tackle the one part of the problem at a time. So I can stop at any point and at any point where when I go to pick it back up, I'm just finishing one step of the process rather than one design through every step of the process. Put it up. One design for every step of the process. I found that it just works easier if I focus on just one one step for all the designs. At once. So I may do 20 designs in Photoshop tonight and tomorrow do them all in Canva and then the next day post them all. But I still got 20 done in three days and I'm good. So that's my process.
- [21:55]
A
I think that that batch work, no matter what your Etsy shop is, whether it's print on demand, it's digital products, it's physical products, I think don't try to do one product from start to finish batch the different steps because you will go so much faster. It's this whole thing of like multitasking. The more times that your brain has to switch gears, it's going to slow you down and it's going to, it's going to expend more energy. Whereas if you kind of make yourself be a bit of a factory, you know, like an assembly line and you're just repeating the same task, you'll be more efficient, you'll make less mistakes, you'll go so much faster. And that has just that to me, when I figured that out in my sign shop was such a huge deal and it's been the same for this. How many mockups are you using on each listing? Are you maxing out all, all 10 or.
- [22:39]
B
I'm maxing out my pictures. I'm maxing out now. Not everything is a mock up, so I will put instructions on how to download on every listing because I don't want that confusion of, of how, how they're going to get the file when they, when they get in there. I also have one that's a sign up for my email list. It's a QR code because I'm using Everbee's email for an email list. Why not? It's, it's quick, it's easy, it's right there. I put a QR code up. It's, you know, it's a picture on, on my listing, but I also have one that says this is what you're getting. You're getting a png. It is not an svg. Do not plan on using it for cut files. It's not designed for that. It's a digital download. You're not getting a physical product, all of those kinds of things. So my listing is a mix of a mockup photo, just the image with a watermark on it, the video on the tumblers, and then there will be a couple other mock ups, but then there's instructions and information and data there so that people understand what they're getting. I don't want people to be confused. I don't want people to come back going, hey, I didn't, didn't realize I wasn't getting a Tumblr. I want my money back.
- [23:50]
A
Yeah, right.
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B
Because I want to make this process as easy as I can for my customer as well. So it's not just images.
- [23:58]
A
I think those, sometimes those graphics are like the most important part of the whole listing. Like just the heads up. This is a digital download. Nothing will be sent to you. Which basically guys, you can get examples of that. You go to any digital product listing for the most part. Any established shops going to have graphics like that that you could see and reference in there. Gosh. I had an idea or a thought to ask you and it just went right out of my brain. Oh, are you doing a listing video for your PNGs? Like just for your graphic designs?
- [24:23]
B
I was debating it. I did a couple early on in Canva where I just basically had it. I took all of the other graphics out and just had it cycle through the the png do it right in Canva. So I hide the slides that have the graphics on them and then just save it as a, as an an MP4 and send it up.
- [24:45]
A
Are you a print on demand or digital product Etsy seller who's tight on time or still learning all of the Etsy secrets? I totally remember the days of having no idea what product to create next before I learned how to make those informed decisions. So I can really identify with where you're at. I know how stressful and frustrating it can be to just create listing after listing and see little to no results. You wonder what you're doing wrong and just you just want someone to tell you what to create that's actually going to sell. Where are those opportunities? So let me give you a leg up with my weekly trends and opportunities report. You just join my membership and every Monday I'm going to send you an email with a list of exactly what is trending right now with a video tutorial showing you how I found those trends and how to apply them in your shop. We're taking guesswork and time, extensive time off of your table. I'm also going to send you five print on demand and digital product opportunities that are growing in demand right now, helping new shops make sales and still have very low saturation in the marketplace. So your tight schedule, your newbie status doesn't have to hold you back anymore. I'm going to help you earn while you learn. You can grab my free demo to start and see an example of what the weekly trends and opportunities Email looks like right from the show Notes, see what you're going to get and I will see you on the inside soon. I know someone's thinking this. I debated asking, but I do want your opinion. Do you think so? I, for years was super intimidated by Photoshop. When I got into Tumblers. I forced myself to learn how to use Photoshop just to make my design seamless. That like I've made a tutorial for that now in the AI workshop just to. It's real simple. And I'm surprised though how usable Photoshop is. But do you think, you know, especially if someone's not going to do Humble Wraps, do you think people have to use Photoshop to. To get this done or do you think there's other ways they can not. Not the seamless part that I think you need Photoshop, but this, this business generally, do they need it or can they get away with other have to have it?
- [26:38]
B
I find Photoshop is, is a godsend.
- [26:41]
A
Yeah, it's easier.
- [26:42]
B
You and I talked about it once before about how easy it is to get something scaled up to 300dpi in Photoshop.
- [26:49]
A
Yes.
- [26:52]
B
The software itself is as good as you want it to be. It can honestly do more than most of us will ever use it for.
- [26:59]
A
Yeah, right.
- [27:00]
B
But at the same time, I find it to be absolutely invaluable. I use it every single day. But I also use Canva a lot. And you know, I, I think I have a couple of things that I pay for, apps wise, and I think every one of them are good purchases. And you and I have talked how important, how much we like using Mid Journey and being able to do it privately. So I'm willing to pay that little extra cost for my designs to stay my designs where if somebody's going to copy and they're gonna have to do a little bit of work at least to copy them, they're not just gonna be able to snatch it down and be done with it. I do the same thing with Ideogram. I like Ideogram for some things. I think it does a better job with text than just about anything else does. I'm not a huge fan of some of the other ones. And that's just, you know, my take, it's not my style. Dolly is, is good, but I think it, it stuff's a little too cartoonish for me. I like the realism I get out of. Out of both Ideogram and Mid Journey. Mid Journey I think does. Does florals better than any of them. And I think it just really Turns out some nice designs, but I don't know where I would be without a pro version of. Of Canva. I. I think there's so much more I can do in there than. Than just just making, you know, little images and things like that that there's so much you can do in it. Down to, you know, when I'm doing a bigger file, like for the coloring pages, I'm using Canva to redo that slide every time because I have to link to my product elsewhere. It's too big to upload to Etsy. So I love Canva for that. I love Photoshop for just the ease in which it is. I can make things seamless. The ease of getting rid of something on an image that I just don't like. But also Canva and the ability to change text when you do something in Mid Journey, and it gives you something that makes absolutely no sense. Definitely not what you prompted. Because Mid Journey struggles with text. We all know it. It's the shortcoming Mid Journey. But there are other pluses to Midjourney that make it so worthwhile. So that's where Canva is super helpful to pull that out and put proper text back in. So I don't know that I would be without Photoshop, though.
- [29:16]
A
You know what? I have found it surprisingly more intuitive than I thought. All of the toolbars were super overwhelming, but, like, one or two YouTube videos and I was good to go. And really, I just, like, stay in my lane with what I use it for. I didn't tell you, though, last night I did try the upscaler in Canva and it worked great on an image that. Because, well. So just to back everybody up. So sometimes Jason and I will DM each other because we're. We're navigating this together. He's. He's been helping me test stuff for the coloring page workshop coming up March 27th. If you're going to join us, um, it's been great to have. Have someone to bounce this stuff off of and also be my guinea pig. Here, try this. And he sends me ideas, too. So this one. This is. This is so technical. But I guess if you're listening to this episode, it'll be relevant to you. I was getting a design that I had used. I'd used a reference image to kind of tell Mid Journey what I, you know, what I wanted. And then I had my text to say, here's. Here's how I want to specialize it. And I was getting such a poor quality out of midjourney. And So I texted Jason, I said, what. What is the problem here? And we figured out that the problem was that my reference image wasn't high enough quality. And so midjourney was giving me a poor quality design. It was so infuriating, it took hours to figure out. I'm texting Bailey, I'm texting Jason, I'm like scouring. What is the problem? It was simply the reference image needs to be high enough quality. So lesson learned. Hopefully I'll save someone some time. But I'm trying everything to upscale it and he's like, you gotta use Photoshop. And I'm like, it's still not working. So that's kind of the background on that. Use a good reference image that's high quality or it's not, you're gonna get a terrible output. But when you have a decent image that you get from midjourney and you put it in the canva upscaler, you can get. I got a good quality. What I don't like about Canva is there's no way to specify the dpi and there's just nowhere in there to do it. You can do it on Kittle, you can do it on Photoshop. You can. I use something called Clidio, which is a free, free site. C L I D E O and it'll take something and it'll. It'll make it 300dpi for you. So that's a free resource anyone can use. But I was pleased. I still had to. I still had to check the dpi, but I was pleased that the upscaling turned out really good from the Canva upscaler.
- [31:32]
B
That's where I like Photoshop is. Literally, I drag it onto a canvas that is already the size I need it to be. I hit export, tell it to export it at the size I want it to be, and it exports at 300 dpi every single time. And I don't have to fight with it.
- [31:47]
A
And the reason why in and of.
- [31:49]
B
Itself is worth it.
- [31:50]
A
We'll throw out some pointers here too. So when you're creating a PNG file that you're going to sell on Etsy, it really. Everyone asks me this all the time. It should be 5,000 by 5,000 pixels and 300 dpi, and that's so that the person who's using it will be able to get a good quality that's not fuzzy on whatever they're going to put the design on, whether they're going to scale it up for a piece of wall art or scale it down to Go on a mug. No matter what they do, it's a high enough quality at 5000 by 5000 pixels and 300dpi to be able to have a good image quality at that size. And so that's what we're talking about. That 300dpi is really important. And that's what Canva's missing.
- [32:29]
B
And for that png, also, that it's transparent background.
- [32:33]
A
You know what? That, to me, that's like so intuitive. You're right. It can't be on a white background or a colored background. You've got to save it as a PNG with a transparent background. And almost everything's got a button you can click to tell it. You want transparent.
- [32:44]
B
Yeah, it's just whether how well it removes that background or not, because that's.
- [32:49]
A
And you know what, Jason? I think Photoshop's background remover is not as good as Canvas, so I would agree.
- [32:55]
B
And I have another one that I use when Canva doesn't get it done. I have another one I use called Pixel. I pay for it, but I paid for a lifetime Pixie and P I X I A N. I think it cost me like 25 bucks for a lifetime membership. It was worth it.
- [33:11]
A
I'm gonna link that for everyone. And actually, yeah, I. I could have used that last night. I was sitting there doing Easter bunnies with all kinds of mess, and I'm sitting there by hand doing the edit thing in Canva, you know. Oh, my gosh, it was. That's why I got so quiet in the DMs there. I'm sitting there fighting with that stupid thing. I should have tried pick. I should have. Jason, what's the better one to remove the background? Anyway? Anyway, okay, so people are listening. They're at all different skill levels. Right. And I'd love for you to talk to like, what do you think? What do you think is the most misunderstood part of this business? And you can approach it any way you want, Jason. I just want to talk to people about what the experience is like and what they might not know or understand about it. You know what, what your experience has been.
- [33:57]
B
I think you know one of the biggest things, and I think we've kind of hit on it, at least tiptoed on it a couple of times in this already is nothing is foolproof. You know, I will put a prompt in mid journey and we'll reroll it 20 times trying to get what I'm looking for. And you change one word and all of a sudden you get exactly what you Wanted.
- [34:20]
A
And sometimes you don't ever. Sometimes it gets worse. Yep. Sometimes you got to move on.
- [34:25]
B
Yeah. And sometimes I just go to a different generator. You know, sometimes I will. Will fight and fight and fight. The other day when I was doing the coloring pages, I was trying to get a wooden block I wanted like we had when we were kids. You know, letter on one side and color on the other. Just want that sitting next to an animal with the letter A on it and an alligator. Not a hard thing to design. I put it into mid journey. I put it into mid journey. I rolled that sucker, I want to say, probably 30 times. I would get a block letter. So the letter was a block, but I would not get a block with a letter on it. I tried it. Vintage toy block. I tried it. Retro toy block. I tried a traditional wooden toy block with a letter engraved on it. I could not get it. I put it in the ideogram once. Got exactly what I wanted. First try.
- [35:18]
A
Really.
- [35:19]
B
So, yeah, so sometimes it's not. It's not a matter of the prompt. Sometimes it's just the AI generator can't generate what you want it to generate. You'll put a prompt in. I want it to say, I would get. All right, I want the letter A next to an alligator with the word alligator underneath it. I would get alligator written in the block. I would get alligator written across the alligator. I would get Al's gator. I would get Ali gator. I would get a or anything but the word alligator. So you. Sometimes you just got to realize, oh, I want text. I'm not getting it out of mid journey. Generators are good. AI generators are awesome. They can do some amazing stuff, but they aren't without a hiccup. It's not going to do all your work for you. This is not. I don't want people to think it's a lot of work, but I also don't want people to think that, oh, I can just sit down at a computer and go, oh, I want this, and blah. There it is. There's. It is semi passive income, but there's a lot of work to it. You're gonna have to stay on top of those trends. You're gonna have to stay on top of your SEO. It's still a business. You still have to, you know, it's not just gonna, oh, well, I want this, but here it comes. There's some work in here. The other thing is, and I hit on it earlier, you're designing for somebody else to put it on their product to sell to Somebody else. You and I were talking earlier. How much time do we have before Easter? We're get close to that deadline because the people that are buying our products are going to have to sell their products in time for Easter. So we've got to get it to them early enough that they can make what they're making to sell to their customer. If not, they're not going to buy from us because they're not going to have time to get it out there. We've got to be thinking a month, two, three months ahead to catch, but you've also got to be looking trends one month ahead, two months ahead. So that, that time on Pinterest, that time in, in Etsy, the time on the trend spotting, email group, all of that is important or you're gonna miss the trends are going to pass you by or you're going to be too slow to get it to your customer in time for them to get it to theirs. So I think those are the two things I think people are not understanding about this. When they start looking at this, it, it still work. It's, it's a lot easier than sitting downstairs making wreaths.
- [37:39]
A
I was going to say, what would Tina say about that?
- [37:43]
B
But Tina agrees. But Tina will also look you dead in the eye and go, this is computers. And I don't understand it at all. So you have fun with that. Tina is always when it comes to wreaths, she is the most creative person I know when it comes to that kind of stuff. But she is the most computer illiterate person I know as well. So. And she'll tell you that. I mean, it is, that is one of our stress points is I will look at her and I will go, hey, honey, how do I do this? She asked me how I did. We just go over this yesterday. Yeah, but you got to tell me again. But honey, we went over it last week. So I literally have things that we have to work on. And it's not, it's not a crack on Tina lover to death. It's just not her forte. Computers have been in my life for the last 40 years. For, for 20 years I did computers for the U.S. military or for 10 years I did computers for the US military. I know computers for me it's second nature. So I can think this way. She doesn't. So it has to be something you're comfortable with as well. You have to be comfortable sitting behind a keyboard, looking at a screen, coming up with ideas. And then you have to be able to also articulate what you want that design to be. If you can't describe it, the generator can't make it. You know, you and I have talked about, about prompts till the wee hours of the morning going, I can't get this to do this. What did you try this? Oh, that was the one word I needed. And all of a sudden you've got what you want, but it's, you have to be able to describe exactly what you want. You put, you know, if I say I want a floral background and I'm going for that, that Matisse look and, and I don't say Matisse or I don't say Boho or I don't say retro or something in that effect, I'm going to get just flowery flowers. I'm not going to get what I'm looking for. And coloring pages are the same way. If you don't, if you don't put that right prompt in there, which we're going to, you know, you're going to talk about in that, that workshop. If you don't put that right prompt in there, you get something that does not look like a coloring book or has so many open lines and areas that you can't color in it. So now you've created more work for yourself because you got to go somewhere else to close it. So prompting is a lot of it is a skill you have to learn. And I think that's often misunderstood too is it's a whole other language. You have to learn how to talk or type, in this case, that you have to learn.
- [40:00]
A
Let me ask you this, because you touched on something that I know is ringing through some people's heads. So there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast who feel like tech isn't necessarily their forte. And I do think that there's sort of a continuum. Okay. So if you're, if you're someone who's still struggling to double click, which no shade at all, like, I get it, I, there's, you know, there's stuff I struggle with too, then probably this is going to be a little too tech advanced. But so it. Would Tina be that, Would Tina be someone who just like, if you even said, oh, do you want to sell digital designs? She'd, you know, her shackles would go up. She'd be like, no, you know, or.
- [40:41]
B
I'm sure she could learn it over time.
- [40:43]
A
So that was my question. Do you think people can learn if they're not necessarily computer centered?
- [40:47]
B
I think anything can be learned. I think that the question is, do you want to put Put the work in it to learn it. I was comfortable with computers, but like I said, I had done a bunch of research. But between the time I listened to the Bailey podcast and the time you had, the AI workshop was almost two months. You know, so in there, I thought I was pretty computer literate and I could learn this, but it wasn't all there. It wasn't until after the workshop that I had that aha moment where everything clicked. No cut on me, no cut on anybody else I was, was listening to. But I think you and I have hit on that as well. Sometimes you got to find the right person to teach you.
- [41:25]
A
That's right.
- [41:26]
B
And it has to be that person you resonate with, you know, who, who your vibe and their vibe work together, that it resonates with you and you can find, okay, this is the right teacher for me. And that's with anything in life. You know, I, I trained police officer for a living. There will be certain people I train that we just don't. My style and their style don't jive. It is what it is. I mean, but when you find that right person and, and you know that person and you just gel and, and the things that they say are the things that you understand, I think that helps as well. But anybody can learn it if they're willing to put the time and the effort into learning. But, but even you and I are still learning it. I mean, neither one of us has gotten this down to a science.
- [42:13]
A
Absolutely.
- [42:14]
B
I mean, we sit on the phone or on the, on the dms, chatting back and forth, learning to do this better because we're not perfect at it. Nobody is.
- [42:25]
A
I kind of wonder if, like you say that, I wonder if we should open a Facebook group where people can be bouncing. Not that we're all designing the same thing, but, like, what would you tweak about this prompt to accomplish X? You know, I wonder if we should open something like that.
- [42:36]
B
Why not? Why not? I, I, I think, you know, as, as much as AI is growing, and I think as as many opportunities as there are in AI, I think that would be amazing. You know, even, even I would bet if you talked to Bailey today, she would tell you there's still stuff she's learning about.
- [42:52]
A
Oh, for sure.
- [42:53]
B
And she's been doing this and she's earned how much? I mean, she's earned a stupid amount of money, and we could only hope, but she's still learning because it changes. It gets smarter. I mean, think about if you think back to your first smartphone, and when Siri was first introduced what Siri could do and what Siri can do now. Holy cow. It just. It keeps getting better. So all of these things, I think. I think a Facebook group where people could. Could bounce ideas and not feel like their stuff's gonna get. I'm not asking you to take my design and go copy it, but where, hey, I can get some honest feedback and I could get some honest suggestion I think would be absolutely amazing.
- [43:34]
A
That's the kind of thing, too. Like, honestly, Bailey's doing that in her school group. You've already got conversations like that happening, so by all means, y'all, let me make it. Make a note of that. But if Bailey. I'm a Bailey group. I'm going to make a, like a, Like a question or survey link. So if people. If. If you're hearing this and you're like, yeah, I'd love that. It'd have to be. It'd have to be, like, paid, but super low ticket monthly membership for Jason and me to be able to spend the time on it. But let us know if you'd be interested in something like that. I'm not going to automatically open it, but I want to gauge. Let me put some feelers out there. If you guys think that would be helpful, let us know. Oh, my gosh. I had three other things I was going to ask you, and most of them have gone straight out of my brain. Jason, number one, super interesting observation to me that you and I actually do this really differently because you're always trying to get the AI to give you exactly what you want, and I tend to instead piece things together. So, like, I'm in Canva, adding my own text to the, like, the illustrations or whatever I get out of midjourney or even ideogram or, like, your block thing where you had the word, the block with the letter on it and the alligator. I would have never tried to get the AI to do all of that for me. So I like. I say that to say there's no right or wrong. Like, there's so many different ways to go about it. I get so exasperated trying to get it to do what I want that I'd be like, I know I can get it to do this by itself and this by itself and this by itself, and I'll put it together for me.
- [44:56]
B
Part of that is the challenge I'm looking for with this, though, is part of the way I get better at writing a prompt is to get it to do all the things I want it to do.
- [45:05]
A
Yeah, no, I Love it.
- [45:06]
B
If I can only get it to do one thing, then I've, I figured out how to get it to do a prompt for one thing. But if I can get it to do two things or three things, if I can get the block and the alligator and the word alligator, my prompt, spot on. Well, but if I can do that for something as simple as a coloring page, then when it's something more advanced, I can get what I'm looking for on something more advanced. So some of it is me challenging myself, some of it is me challenging the AI, and some of it is, is AI learns. I mean, if you've used CHAT GPT for any length of time, you, you're teaching chatgpt what you want, what you are, your voice, those kinds of things. The more I can teach that AI what I'm looking for, the more that AI is going to give me accurately what I want. The more I learn what that AI is capable of, the more I get that AI to do what I want. I can always add that text in Canva. And I have, I mean, there are, there are designs on my page right now where I have said, you know what, I'm tired of trying to get it to get the words right, or I hate the font that's putting them in. I'm just going to put them in in Canva. But there are other times where I'm struck. I, I want that, that little bit of a challenge to get it the way I want it from jump street.
- [46:23]
A
Do you have any ADHD tendencies or not at all?
- [46:25]
B
Oh, absolutely adhd. And I have some ocd. I, I, I have some serious OCD going on. So I'm a ducks in a row kind of guy. The problem is my ducks don't know where the ROE is, and sometimes they're running down the rabbit's hole instead of getting in their row. But, you know.
- [46:44]
A
I was wondering if maybe you were, you were like, less like that and that's why you wanted to stick with it. Whereas, like, I'm getting exasperated after three rolls and it's not, it's not working. So there's just, there's different ways to throw this together. You know, I know there was like, recently a bunch of, a bunch of upset about Creative Fabrica, which is a website where you can source graphics and you can, I mean, they've got millions of graphics and fonts and shapes and all different stuff. And I personally love it. And there was a big, a big flap about it. And I'll tell you guys this, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give you legal advice on what to do there. But I am going to ask Paige Hulse if she'll mention it. She's coming on the podcast a few weeks. She's my attorney friend who specializes in Etsy. I'm going to ask her her thoughts. Jason and I have had some conversations about this. I figure I'd just address it. Here are my two cents. Again, not as an attorney. This isn't legal advice. No matter what you sell, ever. You know, if you're sourcing things from Canva, elements, from Creative Fabrica, from Adobe, from, from AI, if you're making something yourself, there's always a risk in business of intellectual property violation. And, and those, you know, canva, kittle, Adobe Creative Market, Creative Fabrica, those are marketplaces where lots of different sellers are contributing things and the marketplaces themselves do the best job they can of trying to vet for IP violations, but that it would be impossible and it would, it would slow things down. So we as sellers always have the responsibility to do the IP research to check and see if there's trademarks, to do our due diligence to see if there's copyrights. I did send an email to Creative Fabrica. My contact sent back a response, which, gosh, I need to think about where I can put that to show, you know, what it'll be in the show notes. I'll include a copy of that screenshot into this, into the show notes. But the bottom line is it's super, super rare for this kind of thing to happen to me. It's a risk no matter what I do. And so I'm personally not going to choose to stop, to stop using it. I don't even remember why I brought this up, although I'm glad we're mentioning it. You actually watch some of the videos about that, right, Jason, the ones that were saying that a lawsuit.
- [48:50]
B
I watched the original video that most people in the Facebook group had seen and brought the initial topic up from. And the more I watched it, the more it was very apparent that the person that had listed the, the design that got the person sued was doing it illegally. I mean, they didn't have the rights to it, they stole somebody else's design, they posted it, and as a result, somebody else got sued for it. It's a risk. I mean, that's, that's the risk one, of doing business. Two, it's a risk with, with anything. I mean, who knows how many words we use on, on a design that could have been lyrics to a song that we're not even aware of.
- [49:32]
A
Yep.
- [49:33]
B
Or. Or. Or a song in another language that when you translate it, it becomes an IP violation. You do your due diligence, do your best effort to stay above board. And, you know, some of it is luck of the draw, though. I mean, if somebody wants to. To. To sue you that they're gonna sue you, you know, in. In today's society, litigation is so easy to do. I take it with a grain of salt. And I'm not going to stop using Creative Fabrica. I mean, you and I were talking about it last night.
- [50:01]
A
You know, we were using it last night.
- [50:03]
B
Yeah, we were using it last night. I. And I have no qualms about using it still. You know, do I look for the check mark next to the seller, to the. To the designer's name? Absolutely. At least it means that that Creative Fabrica has done their due diligence to vet the person that's posting the stuff. But again, it's still up to somebody being honest on. On. On all ends of the equation. And, you know, we do the same thing when we post it on Etsy. We. We trust that, you know, if I say, hey, I'm giving you a creative license, I would ask if you use it more than 100 times to buy it. Again, we're hoping that they do that. We have no proof that they're gonna. We have no way to know if they did or didn't, you know, because I do up. Because my business, I choose to run with. With integrity and, And. And above board doesn't mean that the person that buys from me is going to. And that's, you know, that's the risk of doing business.
- [50:56]
A
Are you brand new to Etsy, about to get started, or struggling a bit to find your groove? What I'm about to say is just for you, okay? I can completely relate to where you're at, because I think I can help you achieve success faster. When I first started my Etsy shop, it was not one of those success stories that we hear on, you know, on the big YouTube channels, even on this podcast where I just had crazy success. And it took off right away. All right? I all but failed for my first six months, just like a lot of new sellers. And so it's very relatable. And the issue for me was I didn't understand demand, for one. I didn't understand SEO. I was way too broad in my search terms, and I didn't know how to position my product so that customers just couldn't help but click add to cart. And so once I learned those things, I went from making about $25 a month in sales to $6,000 a month and up. And in the holidays, I would even have $13,000 a month like at my shop's peak. And the thing about me, if you've been here for a minute, you already know this. I'm a terrible gatekeeper, okay? When I figure something out, when I crack a code, when I get excited, I cannot help but tell everybody who wants to listen. It's like either my my best asset or my toxic trait. I can't decide. But I put everything that you need to know to fill that beginner knowledge gap into a low ticket just beginner course that I have called Six Figure Secrets to getting started on Etsy. In it, I'm teaching you how to find what's in demand for your niche, how to find and use trends, how to start your shop if you're worried about that part. SEO strategy to find the micro niches where the opportunity is, how to understand the Etsy algorithm, and a ton more. The whole thing is bite sized videos. Not long form, just small bite sized videos. Zero fluff and to the point. You could get the course today, go through the less than three hours over the next couple days, launch your shop this weekend and have sales coming in as soon as Sunday. So let's get you the few missing pieces of the Etsy success puzzle, those little tweaks you need to make so you can start making the sales that you deserve. Because I have never been more convinced that there is room at this table on Etsy for everyone. And the opportunity is so ripe right now. I am in the numbers in the data every day and my mind just keeps expanding, expanding on the possibilities. Okay, so as a special treat, use the code save50 to save $50 on the six figure secrets course today. That's $50 off with a coupon. Save 50 and by all means DM me or shoot me an email when those sales start popping because I want to celebrate with you. I think it's. I still think those are all great resources and I think that like I said, I mean I handmade signs but they had phrases on them and I had to check for. In fact, I've told this story before. A lot of us start as sellers and we don't know all this stuff. That's why it's so great to have community and have conversations like this. Well, I was a Gilmore Girls fanatic. My daughter's name is Lorelei. I Want to be Lorelai Gilmore when I grow up, maybe with a little more self awareness. I've been accused of talking faster than her. And when the remake came out in 2016, I did a line of signs that were like quotes from Gilmore Girls, just not even not knowing, not thinking back then it was so different. It was a handmade product. I did a whole line of those signs with those quotes, and lo and behold, they did so well. I was featured in Huffington Post and buzzfeed for those products. And thank goodness, nothing legal ever came down on me. But I'm showing my dad, look, I'm in Huffington Post. I'm in buzzfeed. And he's just like, that's an IP violation. You're gonna get sued. And you know, all of a sudden, I was looking for that atta girl. And instead I just got a. I got spanked. You know, reality check. I did. So I pulled him down immediately. But, you know, we, we. That's kind of the lesson. Like, don't, you know, you don't use anything. If somebody would buy it because they recognize it. You know, they recognize it because someone else came up with the idea. Character song lyrics, quote, you know, illustration, pattern. Another, you know what I saw recently? There's I, you know, and I almost, I almost got caught. There's this trending product on Etsy for. Okay, you know, the old, you know, the old quote. Geez Louise.
- [55:04]
B
Yeah.
- [55:04]
A
Okay, so, like, all these vintage quotes are doing great. So someone's got a. Several people have these best selling listings on Etsy for bows that have the Louis Vuitton trademarked pattern in, like, put into the bow as the bow with the phrase Jeez Louise on the png. And of course, they're flying off the shelves because people are like, oh, Louis Vuitton. You know, it's like they're making the connection in their head. They like it. It's a bestseller because of Louis Vuitton. And it's just a matter of time before those attorneys. And I mean, these are the things. And you know what? I didn't know at first because I am, hello. I live on a farm. I wear boots and overalls. Like, Louis Vuitton is not in my inventory right now. And so I'm just like, something's fishy about this. And I just looked up, I looked it up and I, and, and, and actually, you know, I found it in their tags. They had Louis Vuitton in the tags. I wouldn't have noticed. I wouldn't have recognized the pattern. So sometimes, you've got to just do some. An extra search. But anyway, this is just all part of the due diligence. I don't even know why all, you know, friggin rabbit hole came up. I want to know in closing, Jason, what, you know, what tips do you have for someone who wants to get started? What steps would you suggest that they take if they want to join us on this adventure?
- [56:16]
B
I would say a couple of things. First of all, do your due diligence on knowing what you want to do. Learn how to do it. Find somebody that resonates with you to either watch their YouTube videos, go to their workshop. But I would also suggest if you do that, find the one person that resonates with you. Don't try. At least when you're starting out, you know, you can expand into more than one person. But I would say starting out, find one person who, you know, that works for you. For me, obviously, that was you. And that's just, you know, we just kind of hit it off real well. But find that one person whose stuff resonates with you. Follow the trends. You know, we've already talked about the transponding email. For me, it's, it's crucial. But I think the other thing is, if you're gonna do it, do it. Don't sit on the fence. The fence isn't going anywhere. And if the fence isn't going anywhere, you're not going anywhere. Start your shop. Be 100 honest. When you start your shop with Etsy, you know, if, if you're like me and you do all your I'm gonna do my homework ahead of time kind of guy. So I got my ein, I got my llc. I got all that done before I ever started my shop job. Be honest about it. Put the right numbers in. Be patient. Because just because the federal government says, here's your ein, does not mean that sucker's in their database. Which means Etsy's gonna look at you and go, yep, that's not your ein. And that may take a month or two to get it done. So if you're gonna start it and you're gonna get an ein because you're hopeful that you're gonna make hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this. And, and as a result, you know, you're gonna need to be a business. Get your ducks in a row. Be patient with the process. My shop took a little longer to get started because of that very, very thing. I got all that in October. It wasn't until November that I could actually open the shop. Wasn't until December that I started selling anything. Do your homework. Find that person that resonates with you. Find other people that do it as well that you can bounce ideas off of. I think that, you know, the Facebook group that you were talking about earlier is a great idea because there's gonna be questions. We get them all the time on the regular how to sell your stuff group of people. You asked about the 5,000 by 5,000. Somebody asked that one the other day. If you don't know, ask there. There are people out there that'll be happy to help you that are not gatekeeping that information, that aren't hiding it, that are more than willing to share it with you. Find those people. If you can't, Lizzie, I already told you, you can put my, my email up there. If you've got a question, shoot me an email. If I can help you, I will. If I can't, I'll point you where to somebody who might or I'll go ask somebody who might. I don't claim to be an expert. I'm still learning this. We both are. But I'll give you the best advice I can and stick to it. Don't get discouraged if it does. If you, if you don't go from no listings to 100 listings and you're not making a thousand dollars that first month, it's a process. You have to grow. Don't get discouraged by the process because once it does grow, you're going to sit there and go, holy crap, it's growing. Tina Shop did the same thing. I mean, when we started Tina Shop, we were, we were happy when we got our first 10 orders last month we had 170 orders. Well, for a one person shop to make 170 Reese in a month, that's kicking our butts. Yeah, we were lucky if we can get below 30 orders right now, sitting, waiting to be made. So it will happen, but let the process happen. Don't, don't be so ahead of yourself that you get discouraged when it doesn't happen instantly. It's work, it's fun. It's a lot of fun, but it still work. So you have to put that work in if you want the results out.
- [60:04]
A
Do you think 20 listings is enough for someone to determine if it's going to work or not?
- [60:08]
B
No, absolutely not. I'm not Even sure that 100 listings is enough to figure out if it's going to work out or not. I think until you've got probably three or 400 listings, you're not even in the Ballpark to know if it's going to work or not. But I think the other thing is with those listings, look at what you and we've talked about this and you talk about it a lot in the Facebook group. Look at what you're getting visits wise, look at what you're getting, view views wise, figure out what that means. As far as your SEO, is it an SEO problem? Is it a listing problem? Is it a design problem? If you're getting views but you're not getting sales is if you're getting views and you're getting visits and you're not getting sales, odds are you need to work on your designs.
- [60:53]
A
Yep.
- [60:53]
B
Or you need to work on. Or you need to work on your images. My first couple of images until you and I sat down and talked that one day, my images on my T shirts and stuff were garbage.
- [61:03]
A
The mock ups themselves.
- [61:04]
B
Yeah, the mockups. And it wasn't until we talked that I went, oh, okay, I see what you're talking about. And now I'm getting good traction on my T shirts. But it's one of those where it doesn't just happen instantly. You have to be willing to let, you have to be willing to put the work in, but you also let your products do the work for you. So once you get it out there, you have to be willing for that to, to, to start to produce for you. And it's not gonna be an instant thing, it's not an instant gratification thing like we get from other mother things in life.
- [61:37]
A
I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm making a note for myself because to your to the point you've already made twice now the person you're selling to, sometimes it's someone who's a hobbyist in their home. A lot of times for sublimation, they're buying PNGs, they're making it home for teacher gift or for their kids for Easter or whatever. But there's also a lot of shop owners, print on demanders, things like that that are buying our items to then resell in their shops. And so the quality of the mockup is critical. It's just, it's just not going to sell if it's not a good mockup. I'm going to link my two favorite shops to buy mockups from. One of them is for like more of a gen or a millennial, a millennial kind of a vibe. So, you know, 30 plus kind of a person. And then the other one's going to be a shop that's Got really good mock ups for Gen z, you know, 16 to 30 year old, like kind of depending on who you're designing for. Millennial a lot of times we'll go way beyond like, you know, even people in their 60s will be attracted to those designs. So I am going to link on Etsy, my shops that I like to buy those from, because that's one of the biggest issues. When I was doing shop audits back in early January, that was the biggest thing is the mock ups like that, that matters so much. It matters so much. So, okay, we have gone down every rabbit hole. What else did you say that I had to make it?
- [62:48]
B
One more thing. I think that's really important if you're gonna do stuff for sublimation. Learn a little bit about sublimation. Learn what the process is. Well, because if you don't understand what it is or what it does.
- [63:00]
A
But didn't you have to teach me that, like, I'm pretty sure you're the one who taught me about sublimation.
- [63:04]
B
Well, I mean, because that was originally going to be my business. My business. I started out on this mindset of oh, I'm going to do physical products sublimation. I went, you know what? Now we did the physical product with the, with the Reese, I don't want inventory. So you mean you can see there's a bunch of sublimation stuff back there. Still do it for fun. But I'm just not going to make it a business. But understand what you're doing, because if you understand what the process is, understand that on sublimation you don't need to have it on transparent background because the white is the bearer of the paper because your sublimated product is white. But understand what the process is. Understand that if you're doing for dtf, this is what it's going to be. And this is why it needs to be a transparent background. Because you don't want a green T shirt with big white square on it with your design on it. Understand that kind of stuff. Because if you don't understand what your, what your customer wants, you can't make what your customer wants. So learn the basics. I'm not saying you have to be a whiz at, at sublimation. I'm saying learn the basics of it. Understand how the process work, understand what they're looking for so that you can, can design better for them.
- [64:17]
A
Well, and you can do that in a few minutes on YouTube. Just go, you know how to sublimation work on YouTube, you'll find a short video that's showing you step by step. Boom, you'll get it, you'll understand. But that's such a good. That's such good advice. Thank you, Jason. This has been so fun. Do you know what? We almost buttoned it up too much. Like, look at how business we got. We just. We like talk about the. I mean, like, who are you? I don't even know. I don't even know. All we ever do is cackle.
- [64:42]
B
Oh, we do a lot of that.
- [64:44]
A
Okay, so I'm including your email. That's the best place to reach you, right?
- [64:47]
B
Absolutely, yes.
- [64:48]
A
All right. And then I'm gonna have links to the free just how to sell your stuff Facebook group. That's where there's a great community you can ask questions to. I'm have a link asking if people are curious or would be interested in like a, you know, very low ticket but paid monthly membership to be in a group where we can collaborate on prompts and AI stuff like that. A link to Pixian, which is your background remover. Ever be email. And then of course, as I mentioned in the intro, there will be links for the AI coloring page workshop, which is coming up Thursday, March 27th. That'll be a live workshop. It will also be recorded. And then the Etsy SEO workshop, that's going to be live on February 27th. That is going to be great. Also recorded. And then if you guys have listened to this and you love what Jason said and you want to take the same workshop that he did, which is the AI PNG and Tumblr rep workshop that is going to be linked at the very top of the show notes with a coupon code for you to get $50 off. And we hope you come and check it out and join us because we're having the best time ever. Would you agree, sir?
- [65:47]
B
Absolutely.
- [65:48]
A
All right. And Jason's retiring and dude, you're easily going to be at 5,000amonth with the rate you're going. Unless I have. No, unless you have like multiple personality disorder. And there's a whole different side of Jason that's going to ghost pretty soon here. And stop. There is a 0% chance you're not going to hit that goal. We have been looking at. We've been seeing shops left and right that within a year are hitting. What was that one I sent you last night? They've made $98,000 in eight months just selling this stuff. Now they are going way faster on getting the listings up than we are. I'll give them that they've got. They don't have a full time job. The kids are homeschooling. All that mess.
- [66:21]
B
Yeah, and a wife who's selling wreaths out the wazoo that you guys spend five hours a night packing boxes for.
- [66:27]
A
Yeah, my husband. You guys need to have a beer and talk about that. Those are battle wounds. All right, sir, thank you so much for spending time with me. Thank you.
- [66:34]
B
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
- [66:36]
A
You're just the best human ever. And guys, we hope this has been interesting, informative, inspiring. We hope you'll join us. And until next week, go make something awesome. Take care, y'all. And that's a wrap on this episode of how to Sell youl Stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog, courses, coaching, and more. If this episode was helpful to you, awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'm providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.