← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 199 | How to Start Selling Printables for the Holidays – with Cody Berman
01:01:31
Ready to turn the Q4 holiday rush into a semi-passive side hustle? Start with Printables—perfect for beginners—and learn how to ride the seasonal boom. Cody Berman of Gold City Ventures shares the hottest opportunities for 2025 and his top tips...
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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.
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B
The life they dream about.
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A
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.
- [00:59]
B
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am energized because I just got done recording with Cody. These are always just such an awesome conversation. We have such a good time. It's fast paced. I love how Cody. I have to try to keep up with Cody as a change of pace. He is the one who is on fire. So we are going to bring you so much goodness today before we dive in. Two quick things going on right now. I want to make sure that you know about Profit Tree, especially if you are newer to the Etsy space and you're kind of looking into all of the things that you need to set up. If you have ever watched Shark Tank, which is one of my very favorite shows, I can't watch it at night though because I get too excited with business ideas. But if you ever watch Shark Tank, you will know how important it is for an entrepreneur to know their numbers. Like, do you know your stats? Do you know what your profit is? Do you know what your net is? Do you know what you're spending on ads or not? Do you know what you're. Do you know what you're really taking home at the end of the day after all of the materials and spend and fees and things like that. And if you have a brain like mine that is a little bit neurodivergent, you might struggle with this and I definitely do. And the Etsy stats is actually really limited. If you want to understand your numbers like, like you need to go on Shark Tank if you want to make sure that you're, you're bringing in enough profit. If you want to learn how to effectively run Etsy ads, you need Profit Tree. And now here's what's really crazy. If you're, if you're brand new to the Etsy space and you're watching all these YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, you're probably hearing about all these different subscription services like oh, I need to sign up for this subscription and this subscription and it seems like it's adding up. Profit Tree recently added Etsy Radar which is a product research tool that competes with all of the biggest tools and it can help you understand how listings are performing so you can make data based decisions about what to create. So if you want to not there. The the Profit Tree special is you can pay a one time fee of just $67 67 to learn exactly what your stats are to be able to do all kinds of product research, to be able to effectively run Etsy ads. Their education on that is the best in the business.
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A
You can save so much money and.
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B
Cancel other subscriptions and just focus on this. So what I'm going to recommend to start either a, I'm going to have a link down there where you can just grab it for $67 and go in and play with Etsy Radar. And I have a YouTube tutorial that I will link so you can see how I, how I play with it ahead of time. If you want to do that. If you really want to start learning about Etsy ads, I have an Etsy Hannah's provided me with an Etsy Ads masterclass. It's completely free that you can request down below as well. So I'm wanting just to make sure you know about Profit Tree for your stats, for your ads and for your product research, especially if you need to save extra money right now because this is going to let you cancel a lot of other subscriptions. So that's the first thing. The other thing is we just last week started with our trend spotting bonuses. So I have a monthly membership. It's only $37 a month with a special code keep20 you can get your first month for only $17 where I give you a weekly email every Monday morning with a, a list of all the trends that are happening on Etsy right now. And with five product opportunities, I literally tell you here's what you can create for print on demand at Digital Products right now and I give you the SEO. I literally just like unpack this for you. In fact, inside the membership when you get in there you'll have access to over 200 product opportunities. I give you a trend spotting video just teaching you exactly what's happening with the trends and how you can apply them. So right now is a special time to join because for just $17 for your first month you're going to get all of these bonuses. So last week I gave away a niche bundle and that was for people who are actively in the membership. So you're just going to get the ones going forward. But on the 22nd we're going to do double opportunities that week. So instead of 5, you're going to get 10. You'll get 5 print on demand 5 digital product opportunities. Here's what I suggest you create this week, including the SEO to like really get seen for those list. On the 29th of September, I'm going to do a Christmas bonus video. So in addition to our general trendspotting video, there will be a Christmas specific video to help you just really nail like hit it out of the park for Q4 on October 6th, you're going to get five free design templates. So I create designs for you in Canva but then you can switch, you can switch them out like adjust them with your own pieces to just like save you a ton of time on designing. Like here are the things that are working really well. And then on October 13th is going to be a mindset visualization audio. So a lot of you have told me before when I've done these that it really helps to like put my voice on. I raise your vibration, I get you excited, I help inspire you when you're having a down day or if you just need to get fired up a little bit. So that will be the bonus that week. So if you ever thought about trying the trends funding membership, now is the time because for $17 your first month you're going to get access to all of these bonuses. Plus I do a live monthly coaching call with you guys where you can get a shop audit, ask questions, get on there with other, other sellers and really ramp up. So it's kind of like an insane, it's kind of crazy. I hope that you can take advantage of, of some of that as we get going. So we're going to talk to Cody. This is such a great episode because anytime Cody and I get together like the juices flow and we are going to be covering lots of things for no matter like what your skill level is. We're going to really, really drill down for the beginners and let them know exactly how to get started selling printables on Etsy. But we're also talking about some things like what should we do about the, you know, Etsy just like is starting to suggest that we change all of our product titles and we know what a Cody and I think about that and what do we do about the new like thumbnail sizes on the search results and do we need to start changing our thumbnails and all of that. So we are going to be diving into things beyond just for the beginner. I hope you can listen with us because you never know what you need to be reminded of. I love going back to older episodes too and like just listening in because you forget you. We can only keep so much in our brains. So Cody and his partner Julie run Gold City Ventures. They came out of the fire movement which is all about like, like building up your finances, building your legacy, being able to retire early. Amazing. Like they've got, there's there they do a lot and one of the things they recommend is having Etsy as a side hustle for digital products because it creates a pretty semi passive income that can help. So Cody Berman is a digital nomad who quit his corporate job to pursue entrepreneurship full time. He started selling digital products in 2018 and became hooked after earning over $700 in one week. He also hosts the Financial independence show. It's a great podcast. In his spare time, you might find him traveling, working out or building another business. He loves selling seasonal products. He earns over six figures in passive income, quit corporate America in 2019 and reached financial independence by age 25. So I'm so excited, especially if you're here for the first time. This is a great one to dip your toes into the how to sell yourself waters with one of my very favorite guests, a good friend. Please, please help me welcome Cody to the podcast. Hey Cody, we get you again this time. Welcome back to the podcast.
- [07:51]
C
Like I mentioned, Lizzie, it is always a blast coming on. I can't wait to share some tips with the listeners today.
- [07:56]
B
I'm, I'm really excited because I decided like we're gonna, we are gonna hold hands with like the beginner, beginner, beginner today. Um, the people who are like, what, what's a, what's a principle? What's passive income? Like, I think it would be so fun. We haven't done this in a few years. Where, and, and I mean what's funny is like everything's changed and nothing's changed and so I'm just like, we need to bring out the big guns and we'll Get Cody. And we're going to have like a rapid fire, like, let's talk to the beginner. But in the meantime, tell us what's going on at Gold City Ventures. How are you and Julie doing?
- [08:25]
C
We are doing great. And for those who are more experienced, I just want to say don't tune out yet because I think oftentimes those who are more advanced can, you know, they're like, oh, this is a beginner episode. There's stuff that you forget, like you can go down a rabbit hole you can get really good at, whether it's graphic design or keyword research. Then you maybe completely forgot about this other area that's very basic that this episode might remind you of. Just want to put that caveat out there before we have the pros tuning out. But in terms of Gold City Ventures, we have just kind of been plugging away, doing the same thing we have been selling and introducing people to e printables for six plus years now. Wow. June of 2019, we're recording this in September. So, yeah, six plus years, we've had over 20,000 students work through our course in our community. And it's been amazing. Lizzie, quite honestly, I mean, just seeing what people have been able to achieve through kind of what we've. What we've taught them, but we've learned through the school of hard knocks. This isn't just. We're not just like making stuff up. We will go and practice the stuff that we teach in our own shops, see what works. And then if something in the course is outdated or something could be done a little bit better, we'll go back and we'll rerecord course videos. We've probably gone through, God, 25 different iterations of the course at this point. It just keeps on getting better and better. And the reason I'm saying that, I'm not just like, oh, you know, it keeps on getting better and better. People are getting their first sales faster than ever. And people are getting to the 100 Sales Club, which is we like to celebrate people when they hit 100 sales on Etsy. We kind of see that as like a really pivotal point in the journey. And a lot of momentum happens from there on out. And yeah, so it's been really exciting, but we just kind of been plugging away, doing the same thing. It sounds boring. As an entrepreneur, I'm like, you know, we're kind of teaching the same thing. We've been teaching for six years. But the course material gets better, the students results get better, and that makes Me and my co founder, Julie, very happy.
- [10:07]
B
You guys are the best in the business. Like, we've worked together now for several years, and I only get the most incredible feedback about what you teach about your. About your. Your free. Like, your free workshop. Cody, People literally get success just from starting there. I can't believe, like, they're like, I just watched this thing, and I'm like, I'm going to buy the course, but I feel ready to at least start right here. It makes me so happy. Like, just. It's been so, so great partnering with you guys and being able to champion your work, because nobody does principles like, y'. All. For those of you listening who were like, what's the principle? We're gonna. We're gonna do all of that. But. So, yeah, you guys are doing amazing work. And that's so. You know what, though? Like, this is such an interesting entrepreneurial mindset note, because the person who's sitting there in their Etsy shop, and they're like, I'm just doing the same thing over and over. We're like, yeah, that's.
- [10:53]
C
That's what it is.
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B
That's the game. So be encouraged. If you're just like, there's nothing, you know, like, I want, you know, shiny object syndrome or whatever, like, that's not what builds wealth. That's not what builds legacy. What builds legacy is getting really, really, really good at something and sticking with it longer than everybody else would. You agree?
- [11:11]
C
I love that. It's the same with everything, though. It's fitness, it's money, it's entrepreneurship. It's not like, all of a sudden, you don't work out for an entire year. You work out really hard for one day, and, like, you know, you could work out for 12 hours that day. That's not going to undo everything you didn't do for the rest of the year. It's the same with money. It's the same with entrepreneurship. It is about the simple, consistent actions every single day, rather than just, like one big sprint day where you try to jam everything in. It's the people who just, like, take the 15 minutes they might have of free time in the day after they drop the kids off from school or early in the morning. Whenever you can find that time, you put in a couple reps, and you do that every day for months, for years. And the results speak for themselves.
- [11:50]
B
Absolutely. I love it. Slow and steady. Slow and steady. Well, let's just start. I want to lay a little bit of a foundation. Why? Because I really agree with you on this. Why are digital printables such a great place for a beginner to start? Like, why printables?
- [12:05]
C
I think that's just like a quick and dirty way to make some side hustle income and more specifically passive income. So I, I was a side hustle guy kind of growing up and getting into the entrepreneurial realm. I was doing all these what I like to call active side hustles. Like I was actively trading my time for money. I delivered Uber eats on a bicycle. We talked about that story in a previous podcast. But it wasn't pretty and it wasn't fun and it definitely wasn't passive. But I've done freelancing. I've done all these sorts of things where I'm directly trading my time for money. It was digital products or printables. It was the first time where I created something and then that something was making me money even when I wasn't working on it. It was making me money while I was sleeping. It was making me money while I was at the gym, while I was working my day job, while I was doing these other things. So I think it's just a great place for people to start. Because once, whether it's, you know, a dollar or $10 or $100, getting that first piece of income that's not tied to you working for it, like actually trading your very precious hours. I think just something, there's some kind of a switch that goes off in your mind and the world just becomes your oyster.
- [13:04]
B
I think like the beginner, sometimes they hear E printables and it sounds intimidating because it sounds tech heavy. Let's debunk that a little bit. Like what, what does someone need to do to create a printable Canva.
- [13:16]
C
Canva is free. It is better than ever. It is come so far since we started in 2019, that's this is actually the most updated section in our course. Like Canvas changed so many times, but it's so good now. Stuff that you could only do in a paid software like Photoshop or InDesign before are now available for free in Canva. So if you have access to a computer or a tablet, I mean I've seen some people even use their phones to create printables. You can create printables and it doesn't have to be complicated. Like some of these are one page thank you cards. You could create like a one page recipe label. Like you don't have to be this graphic design whiz. You don't have to be creating the wall art that's going to in someone's dining room forever. You don't have to be creating, like, wedding stationery. You don't have to go that crazy. That beginning. We saw someone who created, like, this budgeting square. I don't even know exactly what was some kind of Dave Ramsey style of budgeting, but it was literally just like a grid with numbers in them. Like, it was not very complicated to create. It didn't take, like, some crazy savvy graphic design eye, but they sold a ton of these things. So, like, there's so many opportunities. I mean, look around the room, wherever you're listening to this or watching this, look around the room that you're in. Or if you're in a room with nothing, no stationary, no printables, that's fine. Just wait. Next time you go to the doctor's office, next time you walk into your kitchen, there's so many opportunities for you to be the creator of these pieces of stationery, these printables, or these digital products that people are using on their computer. And it really doesn't take a tech wizard. It does not take someone with a ton of graphic design experience today. Lizzy. I like to say I'm like, maybe a 5 or a 6 out of 10 graphic designer. This is someone with hundreds of thousands of dollars in digital product sales. And I've been doing this for years. At this point, I just. I didn't go to school for arts. Like, I'm getting better. I'm better at, like, you know, making sure that these fonts jive and these colors work together and, like, my white space is right and all that. But I'm definitely not someone who can go and just whip out the most beautiful thing ever. I can just create something that's functional enough for people to want to buy.
- [15:09]
B
And I actually. That's such a great thing that you brought up. You know, I just realized that for everyone. I literally forgot to set up my microphone. So I hope I sound okay to everyone. Listen, listen, you up and you do the thing. So do I sound okay, Cody? Do I need to make any adjustments?
- [15:23]
C
I would have mentioned if you didn't. I thought you sounded good. You're talking about your new camera. I was like, oh, Lizzie maybe has a new mic. I don't know, but you sound great.
- [15:30]
B
Lizzie Forgot all of the things. So when someone is like, when we're talking about, okay, this is literally. It could be something that's not even designed, requires no design. There's no picture. There's just words, like a simple PDF, like, everyone knows what A PDF is. And when you go into Canva, you can literally open up a canvas, create the document, and just export it as a PDF. There is like literally no tech to it. So I think that's the first thing. And in a minute I'd love to, like, explain to the total newbie how it actually works on Etsy, because that's a question I get a lot. But before that, would you just, like, rattle off what are. Like, give us a bunch of examples of what a principle could be.
- [16:07]
C
Okay, so let's bucket these two things. I use printable, and sometimes I use it as a digital product. Like a printable has the word print in it. You don't always have to be printing these things out physically. Like, I sell social media templates on in my Etsy shop. No one's actually printing that out. They're using it to create social media posts, whether that's pins or Instagram reels or carousels or whatever. So, like, when I say printables, just know that I might be referring to digital products as well. But I mean some that I can see in my room that I'm recording this in right now, I mean, right in front of me, I have like a spreadsheet. We have a bunch of students who sell spreadsheets and things of that type. Like a spreadsheet or a tracker. I know like water intake trackers are pretty big. People are doing like weight loss trackers or like meal trackers, things like that. I see wall art. I have a piece of wall art over there. It's pretty simple. It's just a phrase. Wouldn't be too difficult for someone to create something like that on Canva and see how it sells other ones that I've done in the past. I really like seasonal stuff, so I like gift thing. I've sold love coupons in the past for Valentine's Day, but also for other occasions as well. Like, I've sold, like, birthday coupons, you know, like, and every variation of that, like 21st birthday, 30th, 50th, all these different variations. So, like, there's niches within niches. We've talked about the riches and the niches in the past, and we'll definitely talk about that a bit today. But spice jar labels was one that did surprisingly well. Games, games for like every single holiday and event. There's a lot of those thank you cards. Any variation of like a thank you card or gift, like something that's done well in my shop is like a little. It's called a gift Card holder. So it's like a piece of paper that you print out and then you literally just, you know, loop a piece of tape, stick a gift card on it, put it in this little gift card holder and you could put some like clever phrase on it. Could be for a teacher or for a coach or for a spouse or for whoever. But yeah, there's, I mean there's thousands of different examples. I could just keep rattling them off if we want to talk about some more that are maybe more complicated like something like a big multi page planner or spreadsheet. Like we've had some students who have sold like 50 plus page like the ultimate business planner or like the perfect, you know, a bunch of craft little SVGs that you can like either use for design or that you can cut out and print out. And yeah, I mean the possibilities are endless. Lizzie, we could, we could dive into any vertical that you want. I'm a, I can talk about printables all day but that should hopefully give people some ideas of what printables are and how they can start thinking about what they want to create.
- [18:24]
B
I love that because I think a lot of times people immediately go to wall art in their head and a, they think it's saturated, which I recently found out. There's unbelievable potential. And here's how, here's how I know this. When I go in to do research, I'm a. I'm using a keyword research tool that helps me figure out how much, how many searches there are a month for a certain phrase and how much competition there is. So I can really look at it. I get excited when I see a bunch of brand new shops which I can tell that. Just another little tip, when you're doing a research on Etsy, I can tell a shop is either new or slow growing by looking literally in the search results at how many reviews they have. And if they have under a hundred reviews I can gather that's a pretty new shop keyword research tool will actually tell you exactly how old it is. And now actually now you can look at the Etsy just updated it where you can look at the profile and you can see how old the shop it is. You don't even need a tool. But when I see that there is a new, there are several new shops having a bunch of bestsellers on a particular then, then I know if they can do it, my new students can do it. If they can do it, you listener can do it. And the amount of potential still in these space even in wall art. But I, I Love casting the vision that, like, you don't even need to be able to create wall art. You can literally to Cody, the. The reason he's like, I could talk about this for hours. I'm like, oh, I know. That's why I said just rattle some off. Because you say tracker. That could. You could do an ADHD tracker, which would be super hot right now. You could do fitness water trackers. You could do business finance trackers. You could do parenting trackers. You could do household chore trackers. You could do like, you could do skincare routine trackers. You could do. Did I take my vitamins? Trackers. And I'm. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but my point is there's so much space for all of this. Like, pick the. Pick the group of people you're excited, pick the people like you and create stuff.
- [20:06]
C
One thing I want to mention to talk about the riches and the niches a little bit. So you're talking about wall art. If you are going to toss up a live laugh love inscripted font and think that's going to sell, it's not. So like when you, when people say, oh, Etsy is saturated, it's saturated with generic products. But if you niche down even just a little bit, we had a woman who was in our community, I think she had a corgi. Corgi. How do you say corgi?
- [20:28]
B
Yeah, corgi dog.
- [20:29]
C
Yeah, a little dog. Yeah, the corgi. And she just niched down and created like everything corgi, like, you know, corgi, like a corgi feeding tracker, corgi medication tracker, corgi wall art. And just niching down to that. Now she's competing with maybe a couple dozen sellers if that versus literally everyone and their mother if she put up a live laugh, love and scripted font. So, like, like you said, lean into something that you're passionate about. She had a corgi. So she's like, let me just create a bunch of stuff around this thing that I'm passionate about. And there's so many opportunities to do this. So if you want to just, you know, create the generic thank you card or the generic wall art probably won't do well. But just niching down that one layer, leaning into your interests, using keyword research tools to lean into other people's interests, you can really come out ahead of the people who are just throwing stuff up. No data, no research, no real thought into what's going into their shop. And yeah, the people who niche down the riches are in the niches.
- [21:21]
B
I think like the most broken record thing I say in my coaching group is because, because the biggest issue when I'm looking and I'm working more with people who are doing more design heavy, a little less of just a tracker and a little more design heavy, the biggest issue that I see as people are trying to grow is the design is 80% there or 60% there. And I'm not going to say your design is trash, but I'm going to say you need to spend more time paying attention to what's selling really well. And it's not to go copy other sellers. It's to pay attention to what trends are happening. What, what fonts pair really well together. What if you're doing a boho style design? What fonts typically do well with boho? Because it's not going to be the same groovy 90s font that you would see on that, on like a more retro design. And so the, one of the best piece of advice that I give is before you sit down to create anything, spend 30 minutes to an hour looking at what's selling well. Like soak in every detail. What is their thumbnail like? What is on that first picture on Etsy? What is in their photo gallery? What is in their description? What is the price point? What does it come with? What is in this case? What is the output file? Are you getting a PDF? Are you getting a jpeg? And I think that if people just were in less of a hurry to like throw stuff up and spent a little more time in those details, like you and I, Cody, we love to dig. Do you know what else pro tip? Go read the reviews. What do people love about that product? What do people hate about that product? How can you make sure your thing doesn't have the thing they hate about that product? Like get into the weeds about it. Do you guys teach that too?
- [22:53]
C
Oh yeah. Our first thing is go look at the thing you're thinking of creating because you can learn so much from the best sellers and from the ones that aren't selling. You might see one and you're like, okay, why isn't this selling? And then you look at the reviews. Or yeah, you can just get, you can get so many clues from just doing a little bit of research. I would say even 30 minutes might be overkill. Looking at other, like you can get.
- [23:13]
B
We're more design heavy.
- [23:15]
C
60 seconds. Like so many people don't even do that. You don't have to, you don't have to carve out this big chunk of time to do research, do 60 seconds before you go and create the tracker or the wall art or the planner or whatever that thing is that you might be creating. And you can save yourself a lot of headache if your thing is just going to go in the direction that isn't towards sales. So definitely, like you said, don't copy. But take best practices from best sellers because there's a reason why there's best sellers. The customers like it for whatever reason.
- [23:45]
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 something going 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.
- [25:00]
B
Even in art school I spent two years in art school school they what do we we didn't sit down to create original things right away. The the very beginning is you're sitting there recreating the greats. You're sitting there figuring out what was that brushstroke like? What was that perspective like? What what is the composition and and you're doing it so that you can perfect different styles of of creation. So I wasn't going to go sell those things no matter how good they were. The point was like let's pay attention to what works really well to, to build up our own skills. Cody, let's explain how this works. Like, so if someone wants to sell printables on Etsy, I guess the first thing I want to ask is what do they, what should they do before they open the Etsy shop? What do they need to do by create in advance in your. What do you guys teach?
- [25:42]
C
We teach pretty bare bones. I mean, when I started this, I had very little money. I did not have money for like a bunch of different subscriptions and all these different tools. I mean there's a lot of great tools out there, don't get me wrong. But you don't need them at the very beginning. I honestly think for someone to get that, get the ball rolling, use Canva, the free version. If you can't afford pro, just create something and get it up in your shop. Even if it's not great, even if you think it sucks. Like everyone's first design sucks.
- [26:08]
B
Yeah.
- [26:08]
C
And so you can, you can constantly iterate and get better. What's going to hold you back is doing like a month of prep work and creating a business plan and like buying all these different subscriptions and trying out 12 different ways to create a printable. Just like get it done quick and dirty. List it, you'll get over that fear and then the second one will be even better, the third one will be even better. And then a couple printables in, you might already be making sales. So that's what I would say. I mean, really go bare bones with this thing. Like, I think the fastest way in any entrepreneurial venture to get started is just the mvp, the minimum viable product. Just get something out there that you're not like completely, completely embarrassed of. You can, you can gut just clicking that polish button, even though it might hurt and you might wince a little bit. Just get clicking that button is a huge, huge step. And once you do that, then the things on the other side of that action are going to be amazing.
- [26:57]
B
Yeah. And I can promise you, if it's not good, it's not going to go viral. So you're not going to be embarrassed. Like if it's not, if it's not like you don't already know what you're doing, it's not phenomenal. People aren't going to see it anyway, so you're totally safe. It's going to be okay. What about Cody, things like deciding on that shop name and branding and all of that.
- [27:14]
C
Same answer. You can change the shop name, you can change the branding. Like literally just throw Something up, use a Canva logo. If you don't want to like create your own logo, just like click on logos in Canva, tweak it, you won't be able to trademark it if you just like click on a default Canva one. But literally just get something up there. The shop name, like I said, can change the shop logo and banner. Those can change pretty easily. There's really not much that can, that's like 100% set in stone right when you do it. So like I said, quick and dirty approach, Just get that first listing up as fast as possible. If you were to stop this right now, go into Canva, create something, open up the Etsy shop, you could probably have something listed within an hour or two and that would just be like such a huge hurdle. I'm sure that some of you listening who have been thinking about this hustle for weeks, months, years maybe, we've had some people on our email list that I'm like, you know, I've been listening to you guys for two years. I'm ready to start my shop. It's like I wish I could just sit with them for 30 minutes and get that first printable listed because so many good things are waiting for them. On the other side of that action.
- [28:12]
B
I think that the intimidation of like, well, what's going to happen if I do this? What if it isn't any good? What if I, you know, the what ifs, it builds up this like block of capacity in our, in our brains, especially like the women who are listening. I have a lot of ADHD women like me listening and we feel very overwhelmed sometimes by those steps. So that's why I'm saying I really agree with Cody. Don't deliberate. You need to just take the step and open the shop. It doesn't matter that you don't have your branding perfected. It doesn't matter that you don't know what you want to call it. It doesn't matter what we know that you haven't created, you know, 20 listings yet. What I want for you, this is why. Oh, and his name flew right outta my head. Like classic ADHD moment. Founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, he only had one outfit and he had like 10 of them in his closet. And he did it so that he didn't spend any capacity making a decision every day what to wear. This is what people do when they've got like, you know, crazy brains like mine. You have to eliminate decisions. So like just I, Cody is like smack dab on it. What's going to happen too. If you're going to spend. You could spend two weeks on your branding. Now, I promise you, you're going change it in a month. When you get on there and you get some experience and you realize, oh, this isn't what it should be anyway. Like remove the hurdle, right, Cody? Like, like eat that frog. Good book.
- [29:24]
C
Eat that frog.
- [29:25]
B
Have you ever read.
- [29:26]
C
This is going to be a crazy segue that I'm sure you didn't intend. But speaking of Steve Jobs and his outfits, let's talk about templates, because templates can save you time because they're things that are pre built. Like Steve Jobs closet. He has all of these clothing templates. He just tosses them on. Maybe he wants to spice things up. He puts a different necklace on or might put a different pair of shoes on. What? But he has the base template already set in stone. He has the same shirt, the same pants. He might change his underwear, he might change his socks. But like the core of the stuff is all the same, right? So that's something that I've really embraced. And in our last episode together we talked about. I did an experiment actually starting just over a year ago. I wanted to see how fast I could get a new shop to $1,000 per month in passive income. So I started creating a bunch of stuff like crazy. Really leaned hard into this template method. So I would create like one base template and then I would literally create like 50 to 100 variations of that template into different products. So I was able to pump out a new product in like 10 to 15 minutes using the same listing images. Basically just drag and dropping the new product in there. I was literally using the same base product and then just tweaking it for different events or holidays or seasons or whatever, using pretty much the same description. Besides changing a few of the things, almost all the same tags, besides changing a few of them based on whatever the product was. But I was able to get like 350, I think it was, or 400 products listed at the time when I hit that $1,000 per month milestone. And since then that shop actually has, I think, let me look now. I think it was just over 3200 sales. And I haven't really spent any time on it since I hit that thousand dollars per month milestone. I just did it to show people because I had so many people. One of the biggest questions, yeah, exactly. Isn't Etsy too saturated? You started in 2018, of course you could do this. I'm like, all right, well, I'll do it again from scratch. I won't. And I didn't advertise the shop anywhere. I didn't even, I didn't tell Julie the name of the shop. I just like, kind of worked in a silo because I didn't want anyone to think I was cheating or like using social media following to get sales. Nothing like that. It was just strictly keyword research and SEO. Now, that shop, sorry, it was 3100. I just passed 3127 sales from last year. And I haven't really spent much time on it since then. But yeah, to go back, to go back to the template thing, I kind of mastered the, this whole template game. And so for those who don't have a lot of time, I know you said you have a lot of busy moms listening. People who maybe are working in 10 to 15 pocket like minute pockets of time when, you know, whether it's after school or like in the morning or late at night or whatever. If you can master this template method and get like one really, you know, do the research, get one really good base template, you know, look at the best sellers, make sure that that first listing image especially is really good. Make sure that you understand titles and tags and all that. But once you kind of have that down, you can just very easily turn, you know, a Mother's Day thing and do a Father's Day thing into a Thanksgiving thing, into a Halloween thing, into a Christmas thing, into a Hanukkah thing, into a Kwanzaa thing, into a Ramadan thing. All of a sudden, like insert any season holiday trend. And you can create so many different variations with just one base template, whether that's like a thank you card or a gift card holder or a tracker. I know you were, you were rattling off a bunch of different tracker types earlier. Lizzie, like to show one thing, could Tracker make 50 different things from that? So yes, I'll get off my soapbox for a second. But templates are so important and they're such a time saver with this side hustle, because once you do the work once you don't have to completely reinvent the wheel. You can just change the colors on the side of the car or give it a little different decal. Kind of like the Steve Job outfit thing. You don't have to completely redesign. Just maybe toss a new pair of socks on that printable.
- [32:55]
B
No, thank you for bringing that up. And then also just to hype you up a bit, don't your students get a bunch of those from you? Don't you guys know, provide those.
- [33:02]
C
Yeah, yeah, we have a bunch in the actual courts itself and then we give away five every month to all of our VIP members as well. So, yeah, people are getting like 75 plus templates from us and then hopefully.
- [33:13]
B
You don't even have to make a template.
- [33:15]
C
Yeah, it's like template overload. We want to give people options because some people, like, I don't want to create kids stuff or I don't want to create trackers. We're like, okay, well here's. Here's another template in a different vertical.
- [33:24]
B
Okay. See, like that's. This is. This is what we're really good at is like, how do we make this as seamless as possible? Still going to be hard work. I'm not going to lie to a single person. You're going to. This is going to take longer than you want it to and it's going to be harder than you think it's going to be. But I promise you, it's worth it. As I sit here at our summer home overlooking a lake, rather than being in Texas at 103 degree heat, I can promise you the freedom that the lifestyle will afford is worth every single hour that you put into it. What about. Okay. Oh my gosh. I just set myself up for the perfect. The next question I was going to ask you. What. How would you describe like the workload, like the daily, weekly workload. What would it look like for someone who wants to build maybe like a 500amonth shop? Digital. Digital product shop.
- [34:08]
C
So with my. And I. The most direct and most recent experiences with this new shop that I was trying to build to a thousand dollars per month, I did that in 116 days, by the way. That was about 10 hours per week. So sometimes it would just be like a sprint on a weekend day. Yeah, sometimes I'd spend like four or five hours on a Saturday. But most of the time it was like an hour or two during the weekdays. I mean, I have a lot of stuff going on. You know, I'm running Gold City Ventures. I have real estate, I have a podcast. Like, I'm doing all this other stuff. So it wasn't like I was spending, you know, I wasn't working 10 hour days on this new shop to hit this milestone. I was working like one to two hours per day. And that got me to a thousand dollars per month in 116 days. So to answer your question, yeah, probably like an hour.
- [34:45]
B
An hour to a day. That's that. I mean, and that is the sweet spot that is what that is what people are looking for. How many listings do you think you would get up on average a day or did you have a goal per week?
- [34:54]
C
Per week I was trying to aim for, I think it was 20 or 25.
- [34:57]
B
New list. That's not bad at all.
- [34:59]
C
Yeah, it would be a lot of research on that initial base template and then I would, once I was really happy with how that base template came out, then I would just like make a different, a million different variations of it.
- [35:09]
B
Yeah, that's exactly what we do in like the PNG space, which is what the shop I launched last year. It's literally like you follow the trends and once you see a trend that's really caught hold, you go and you create it for like every single niche that you can. You have to understand the niche and what like you can't be, you can't not really get it and like you're like going to create it for lacrosse but you accidentally put like a pickleball racket on it. You need to know, you need to pay attention to the niche. But the point is, is that you can run with that trend once you've got it nailed. So then Cody, what happens? So you get these, let's just use the example of, of like trackers and you're, you create the tracker in Canva, you export it as a PDF and save it on your laptop. And then, and then what happens on Etsy? Well, how do you, what kind of, what does the listing need and how does the customer get their product?
- [35:53]
C
Yep. So the listing will need first and foremost a listing image. So you need something to mock up the thing that you created. So usually that's just like a, maybe it's on a desk or like a nice looking background. Very clear what the printable is. So in this case a tracker, maybe you put it on a slight slant. A question we get is like, well if I put it up as my listing image, won't someone steal it? It's like put a slant on it, put a shadow. You can put some text over it if you want. But if, as long as it's not just like, you know, straight on. Here's my letter size PDF of the thing I just created. That's not what you want as your main listing image. To your point before Lizzie, like just look at what other people are doing with their main listing image. Let's say you want to create an ADHD tracker, type in ADHD tracker to the Etsy search bar, see which ones are best sellers and you'll Notice that, like it's very clear what they are. It's probably just like one piece of paper or several pieces of paper on like a desk background or like a fake wooden background or whatever. Create something that looks somewhat similar. Again, don't rip them off. Don't have the exact same listing picture. And if you do have the exact same one, you're going to perform worse because they're going to show up higher in search results because they've been, you know, their listing's been on longer. So yes, you need listing images, you need a listing title. So make sure it's extremely clear what you're selling. You know, ADHD tracker. And then you can add other based on your research, like whether that's in a keyword research tool or just looking on Etsy, see what other keywords or what other phrases people might be typing in to arrive at that printable at that digital product. So you need your title, you need your listing images, you need a description. So that's just kind of telling people what they're getting. Like, hey, this is my ADHD tracker and it's three pages, it's letter size, blah, blah, blah. You know, this is a digital product. You're not going to actually get one of these in the mail. All that good stuff. And then you'll use up your 13 tags is what you get on Etsy. And basically what tags are, it's things that aren't important enough to put in the title. Like your title has only so many characters and you don't want to just like keyword stuff your title, but your tags are where you can kind of put like things that are not maybe directly related to the thing that you're selling, but could attract the right people. I'm trying to.
- [37:50]
B
Divergent tool would be a good one. Like neurodivergent would go like in there. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, things like that.
- [37:58]
C
So things that if someone types it in, they'd. They'd still be happy that they arrived on your printable on your digital product, even though it might not be worthy of being in your title. Because the title should be like the main thing. Like, the title shouldn't be obscure. It shouldn't be like people are guessing what they're getting. Like they should know, right? You know, that first little chunk of title exactly what the thing is that you're selling and that they're buying. Then what else there's. Those are.
- [38:23]
B
Let me ask you something really quick. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the thing that I do. I'm sorry. All right. And we don't know yet. We've gotta. I am in the process of testing this and I'm sure that you are too. Do you and Jewelry Julie have an opinion yet on this Etsy suggesting that we all change our titles?
- [38:36]
C
Yeah, I'm not a fan of being an early adopter of anything.
- [38:40]
B
Exactly. I'm just like, don't do anything yet. Skirt. Like, just wait, just wait. Don't change anything yet. You okay? I'm so excited to hear you guys agree.
- [38:48]
C
Yeah, I mean, they're just rolling this out. Like we had someone who accidentally went through and like clicked yes in all their listings and now they're kicking themselves because some of them don't make any sense. Which makes sense. Like Etsy is figuring it out. You know, they're introducing AI onto the platform, trying to make people's listings better. But I am not one to be a guinea pig. I don't want Etsy messing, messing with all my listings that I spent so much time, so much research making sure that they were keyword optimized, that they were exactly what people are looking for. No, thank you. So that's my long winded answer there.
- [39:16]
B
Are they suggesting. When you. Have you tried. I haven't created a new listing in about a week. Have you tried creating a new. Well, no, you haven't been working in your shop, but you might know anyway. Do they suggest what you should put there you if, if you create a new listing or are they just trying to convert over the old ones?
- [39:28]
C
I think they're doing both. Yeah, I did test it out. They do have suggested titles. When you go in there, you can like kind of AI generate a title, which it's okay, but I still think my brain, knowing the things that I'm like knowing exactly the thing I'm trying to create, it's, it's a little bit better. Etsy is just not quite there yet, in my opinion.
- [39:45]
B
Okay. I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to create some new listings, I'm going to test them and I'm going to have like the ab and I'm just going to try one with their title and one with my normal approach and just see what happens.
- [39:54]
C
Yeah, to see what happens. It never hurts to test. But I don't know, especially I'm not like bulk updating all my listings based on Etsy's recommendation. Not yet anyway. Maybe it'll be amazing in a couple months or a year, who knows? But it's too early.
- [40:06]
B
No, this is just like the. They just changed the image, but they're showing the dimensions that. They're showing your. Your thumbnail in the search results. And everyone's like, I need to go change them. I'm like, don't. Don't change anything. Leave it. It's gonna go back. Probably. Like, just wait and see. Just leave it. It's okay. Okay, so I totally hijacked, so. But I.
- [40:22]
C
That's all right. I remember exactly where we were.
- [40:24]
B
Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, like, people who really like that, they're handheld and like, they're like, okay, I'm hearing this, but this is a lot. And you'd prefer, like a visual click by click. You're gonna want to listen to when we talk about the resources that Cody has to help. Because if you love that, if you don't want to have to do any guesswork and you want someone to tell you how to do this, right, Cody is your man, and so he's gonna tell you more about that. So don't worry about that. Let's maybe even just round it off with like, how do you. How does the customer get the PDF I created?
- [40:51]
C
Okay, so this is the last piece. So I talked about your listing images, your listing title, your description, your tags. Those are the main. It kind of makes up the core things in a listing. You can have additional listing images as well. But then once you have all those plugged in and you're happy with how it looks, then you upload the PDF. So if you're creating in Canva, let's say you just created your ADHD tracker, you download it as a PDF, then you upload that PDF to the listing. So the thing, all the things I just talked about, the listing title, images, description, all that stuff, part of that process, you get to upload a file. And so you upload the PDF, you click Publish. When someone finds that printable on Etsy, you know, they're searching ADHD tracker, yours comes up, it looks awesome. They click the buy button. Etsy will actually automatically deliver them the PDF file that you uploaded when they buy. So that's why I like to say it's. It's passive income. I like to say it's 95% passive income, because 1 in 20 people will send me a message. They'll be like, I don't know how to download this. It's my first time on Etsy, and I have a bunch of auto, like, saved replies for that. So it only takes me like, literally four seconds to answer, but it's on 95% autopilot. So like a lot of times I actually, when I was looking up my shop, I made a sale while we were talking. So that's cool. And then in the new shop, my, my thousand dollar per month experiment shop. So yeah, it's, it's pretty much automated, which is why I'm such a huge fan of the side hustle. Because unlike sweating delivering people's food on a bicycle via Uber Eats, I can make sales while I'm talking to my friend Lizzie. And because the PDF is already living inside Etsy, all the person has to do on their end is find my thing, click purchase, and it automatically gets delivered to their like Etsy inbox.
- [42:24]
B
The other day I got a review on one of my digital products and they're like, thanks for the fast delivery. You're so welcome. My pleasure. So good. But that's the best part. Yeah, it's hard work, but that's it. Etsy just takes care of it for you. So that this is the beautiful thing about it. And this is why I love printables. For someone new, it's not as design heavy, it's not as subscription heavy. There aren't all of these things that you need. You can literally get the templates from Cody to be able to start like it's literally so, you know, unlocked. Do you guys, I think you guys also provide some of the, the shop branding too. Is that right? Do I have that right?
- [43:07]
C
Yeah, yeah, we have listing templates so like for all sorts of products. So instead of creating your own listing images from scratch, if you really want to be lazy and just drag and drop your creations, you can use our listing templates. But also like, yeah, we have like kind of logo suggestions and help people create shop banners and all that stuff.
- [43:23]
B
So helpful. This is where you guys need to start. Don't spend the next six months deliberating over what colors you're going to be. Go use a template. You'll, you'll figure out your colors as you go. That, I think that's, I think that is so. I love that unlock. Okay. I was going to tell them, oh, here, I want to give another little pro tip because when I was, I was already, I don't know, $50,000 into selling signs, meaning that's how much I'd earned before I figured this out. When you're looking at, you were talking before Cody about how important that first image is and looking at, you know, what the best sellers do and don't copy them. Directly, you know, but use it as inspiration to tell you what works. You can actually buy those mockups on Etsy and then you insert your own like printable example. So I would say like a really big time saver is to, to shop on that. You would search the product mock up on Etsy and you'll see examples there. Look for ones that have really good reviews that look good for your product. But then you can literally like, you don't have to figure out even the aesthetic of how to make your template look good. This is something I see a lot like when I'm coaching two digital products that are more printable, less, less visual. The people don't have the aesthetic like and by the way, I'm not naturally good at aesthetic. That's something I've had to learn, which you can if you have a bad eye like me. But those, those images are often very cluttered when a new person is trying to create them like the ones on. So I Recommend Go spend $3 on a, on a mock up on Etsy. You can use the same one over and over again in your shop. No one is going to care that you don't have, you know, for all 30 products that you've created in the last month that it's a different. That it's the same exact image. If it works and it converts, you will learn. We just use it over and over again. So I wanted some. Somebody is going to save time knowing that and I wanted to add that.
- [45:00]
C
Peaks in love it.
- [45:02]
B
What do you think are the most common knowledge gaps that people come in with that. So when you're doing any kind of shop audits or you're doing any kind of coaching, what are you saying over and over again, Cody, what do people tend to need to sharpen their skills on?
- [45:13]
C
Keyword research. Keyword research. Keyword research.
- [45:16]
B
Yeah.
- [45:17]
C
People love to create without any data or having any proof that people are searching for that thing. And we see it time and time again and someone will post their thing and saying, hey, my listing's not selling. Can you take a look at it? And it's just, it's something that nobody's searching for. And I don't know sometimes where they get the idea for this thing and it stinks. And it's sad because I mean I was in that boat before when I first started creating. But just doing a little bit of keyword research can go a long way. And I know that's a loaded term. And people hear keyword research, SEO. It sounds scary. Literally just typing into The Etsy search bar and letting the search bar auto complete. That is a form of doing research. So if you're thinking about a tracker to make like type in tracker and see what pre populates like automatically before and after the word tracker. And that can give you a really good idea. Like hey, these top 10 things that Etsy is literally telling me, like these are the most popular search terms with tracker in it. That can be a great place to start if you want to get more fancy, you can use some of the more fancy keyword research tools. But just doing any kind of keyword research is going to put you ahead of 90% of sellers that are just kind of creating on a whim, not really looking at the data. And you don't want to be, I mean it's good practice, sure, but you don't want to be wasting your time. Like I'm sure everyone listening, myself included, this is a side hustle. You want to make money. So don't spend hours and hours creating something that two people are searching for when maybe you could just tweak something very slightly. And now all of a sudden you have a much bigger buyer pool who are interested in the thing you're creating.
- [46:37]
B
This is a, this is, that was a huge gold nugget that you just dropped. You guys. If you are not getting views on your, on your listing, it's SEO, it's your keywords and there's either no demand or you're using the wrong ones to describe what you've created. So but these are things too that you dive into so well in your E Printables course. Like this is the kind of thing you want the click by click, you want to see how Cody's doing the research. You want to do it the proven way. And that's where we can get into that more. Can you. Okay, let's have a little dessert. Tell us one of your beginner success stories. Like a student that you're really proud of right now that's doing some cool stuff just to get us inspired.
- [47:11]
C
Okay, here's a really fun one with Annemarie. So I mentioned a couple times now I had that new shop experiment hit $1,000 per month in 116 days. So Anne Marie takes it as a personal challenge to beat me. So she's like posting her of her updates. She does it in 92 days. I was like, I don't know if I should be proud or mad. She got to a thousand dollars per month in 92 days. And she's like, does this mean that, like, I get the course for free. Does this. Does this mean I beat you? And I was like, honestly, Emory, yeah, you. I love this. This is amazing. So that's a recent story that I really enjoyed because she took it as a personal challenge to crush the master. And that she did. She made me by, like, 20 days.
- [47:49]
B
So she sounds like a boss. And did she do the same thing? She had a templates that she was repurposing.
- [47:55]
C
Yeah, she just found, like, a niche that did really well for her, and then she just kind of went crazy and created so many different variations within that niche. And that's what I'll say. Like, once you find something that works at the beginning, it's going to be throwing spaghetti at the wall. But once you figure out the, you know, the type of spaghetti that you're making, you can just make different variations of that dish instead of just like, continuing to just create random stuff. Like, if something starts selling, lean into that hard. I remember back in 2019 when I first started selling stuff and I had, like, my love coupons take off. I was like, okay, well, now I'm going to create love coupons for every single event, holiday trend imaginable. And a lot of them sold really, really well because I. And I literally just like, reuse the same listing images, just drag and drop, the different variation, the different style in there. But it saved me a lot of time, and it made me a lot of money because I. I didn't reinvent the wheel. I just kind of went with what worked.
- [48:43]
B
Thank you for explaining that, because I think we hear that a lot lean into what's working. And I think the new person is like, what does that mean? It just means create more, reiterate take which. What's working? Well, don't leave it there, but use that to inform the next thing that you create and create more things. Like it. I love it. Okay. Cody, was there anything. I know you had a bunch of stuff, and I said, hey, let's talk to beginners. And you're like, I've got all these stats. Are there other things that you really wanted to chat share about? What else do we need to hit?
- [49:09]
C
All right, what are we. We're about. About 40 minutes. I don't want people to get like. I mean, we could rabbit hole anywhere. I don't want to talk about too advanced stuff. I'm trying to think there's anything else we missed that a beginner would definitely want to take full advantage of. I guess just one thing just to be wary of, because I know a lot of beginners make this mistake. Please don't sell copyrighted stuff. I know Taylor Swift blown up right now. Don't go and create a bunch of Taylor Swift stuff. Don't go and create a bunch of Disney stuff. Don't go and create, you know, Star wars and Lord of the Rings stuff. We've seen every single variation. Or Marvel, people love selling that stuff. Or like, something from your favorite TV show that's like, sometimes they're the first idea that pops into their mind. They gravitate towards something that's popular in pop culture. But please don't do that. Some of these companies or people have really aggressive PR teams that will take down your listings. And the last thing you want is to have a suspended Etsy shop. And also don't use things that aren't allowed in copyright. So you can't just go and, like, grab random images from Google and use them in your printables. These things have to be what's called okay for commercial use. I mean, that's a whole nother podcast in and of itself. And I'm not a lawyer, but you just want to make sure that everything you're doing is buy the book. The last thing I want to see is one of you guys get shut down and you're all excited and then you throw up an Elsa thank you card, and then you have Disney sending you cease and desists. That's not what we want to see. So just be careful. Make sure you understand the rules. I'm not trying to scare people away here, but I just see it way too often, and I want to make sure that we steer people in the right direction. Create things that can actually be sold for a profit. And you have the commercial rights usage, too.
- [50:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. And we've got a bunch of attorney episodes on the podcast where if you wanted to dive into that more. And I'm sure you guys cover that in E printables, right? Do you give them some pointers on how to look to that research?
- [50:44]
C
Yeah, we have a whole section on, like, trademark and copyrights and all that stuff. And again, we're not lawyers, but it's just like, like, like I, like we were talking. That's like you're talking to your friend. We're kind of just telling you, hey, this is how we do things. This is. These are definitely big no no's, but at the same time, we're not. We're not lawyers. We're not like, giving individualized legal and tax advice and things like that.
- [51:04]
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, right? I all but failed for my first.
- [51:26]
B
Six months, just like a lot of new sellers.
- [51:28]
A
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?
- [51:59]
B
When I figure something out, when I.
- [52:00]
A
Crack a code, when I get excited, I cannot help but tell everybody who wants to listen. It's like either 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 under 33 hours 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.
- [52:24]
B
To start your shop if you're worried about that part.
- [52:27]
A
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, in the numbers, in the data every day and my mind just keeps 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 save50. And by all means DM me or shoot me an email when those sales start popping because I want to celebrate with you.
- [53:28]
B
Okay, so tell us about what resources you have. Like if someone wants to go deeper, they're ready to do this. They look like some hand holding. How do we go deeper into the e printables business and learn more from you?
- [53:39]
C
Well one, I just want to say thank you for our continued partnership over the years. I think we've had a bunch of successful students who have come from your community, from listening to your podcast, from, you know, they're Lizzie Smiley fans. They're like, I'm so glad Lizzie introduced us and so just want to say thank you. First of all, it's been amazing and I'm glad we've been able to handhold some of these folks you've sent over to us. Or if there's someone who is a bit more advanced, maybe we just help them with keyword research and SEO and get more visibility and more sales. But yeah, basically E printables, it's the A to Z everything you could possibly want to know about creating and selling digital products. So ideation to advanced marketing, like the entire spectrum. We teach you with over the shoulder video lessons. Like you'll see me in the corner of the screen creating on Canva. You can create along with me, my co founder, business partner Julie as well. We also have a bunch of group experts that have created content for us. But yeah, it's basically like okay, here's how to think of a bunch of keyword or product ideas using keyword research. Kind of teach you the the groundwork and the fundamentals of keyword research and SEO. And you go and you'll create a bunch of your own stuff using we want, we want to encourage you to at least learn from scratch. But then you can cheat and you can just use our templates and create a bunch of different variations with kind of already preloaded stuff. Then all the way like I said through to marketing. So making sure you understand like what tags to use, what you know, how to structure your listing title, how to make sure that your main listing image looks as good as it possibly can. And then we do some bonus stuff that's not 100% necessary. Like we do marketing with social media. That's another question. We get all the time. Like, do I need social media? Do I need a following to do this? The answer is no. Etsy is really good in that Etsy makes money when you make money. I know people have different opinions about this, but I am more than happy to give Etsy 6.5% of my sale. If I'm selling a $10 thing and they're just hand delivering me a buyer that I've never met before that doesn't know me and I'm paying them 65 cents and I get to keep the rest of that. Like, I think that's a fantastic deal personally. So Etsy is really good in that you don't need any kind of an audience. You just need to understand keyword research and SEO, make sure that your titles, your tags are formed properly or loaded properly so that people can find your listings and buy them, but you do not need any kind of a social media presence. I know that I just went on tangent there. So yeah, but the E printables course, A to Z of everything. We also have a community and in the community we have like a bunch of live events, we have shop audits, we have like keyword research parties, what we like to call them, kind of with one of our group experts, Sasha, she just shows you how she's doing keyword research, someone who has 30,000 plus sales and you get to follow along and kind of get inside her mind. We also, you alluded to this earlier, Lizzie. We have like five plus templates that we give away every single month. We actually have a fun challenge that's coming up in October. We do a couple challenges, four challenges throughout the year. This is the October challenge. So it's kind of just like a sprint to create as many printables as you can before the big holidays are coming up. Because I don't know about you, Lizzie, but the holidays are crazy in my shops. My gosh, November and December are just bonkers. So if you can like, this is like the perfect time to start when you listen to this episode, when this comes out, this is a fantastic time to start selling printables, selling digital products, because the search demand just goes through the roof with these holidays at the end of the year. And I just want to mention, I know you're going to drop the link in the description and everywhere, make sure you buy through Lizzie's link because you guys will get a bunch of special bonuses, you'll make sure that you get the best pricing, all that good stuff. And so yeah, just want to make sure you click there before you Start, you know, you're listening to this and then you're starting to search thing. Search things up. I want to make sure you're clicking on the correct links. That'll give you all the. All the bonuses, all the goodies, all the best prices.
- [57:01]
B
So. And Cody, when are the doors going to be open? Because your course isn't just open all the time. I want people to take advantage of this if they're trying to get started, because it's not just a free. So when. When can people get access?
- [57:13]
C
Yeah, so we're going to be open to the public September 22nd through the 29th. That's a Monday to a Monday, I believe. I don't. My counter in front of me. Those dates sound correct. And.
- [57:24]
B
Yeah, so the link will be like, so what? So should someone, like, let's say someone's listening to that. Well, let's see. We're. Oh, that's next. Starting next week. All right, so if they're listening a little early, what should they. They can still just. They can still go through that link, right?
- [57:40]
C
They can still go through that link. You guys. Yeah, you. You can go through that link. You can watch the free workshop that you alluded to before, where people are getting a ton of value. And that workshop has been perfected. We've. We've done so many different iterations of it, and people have got a lot of value out of it. So they can watch the workshop, they can sign up for the wait list so that they'll be notified the second the course is for sale. And if you are listening to this in that window, then you'll just be able to click the link and sign up directly. But yeah, make sure you use Lizzie's links, because you guys will get preferential treatment.
- [58:08]
B
Oh, thank you, guys. So I'll have a link for the free workshop. That is where you should start a million percent, especially if you can't get in the doors right away. And then there'll be a separate link when the doors are open for you guys to get right into the course and start getting the support. And here's. Here's what I want to tell you. I have been on Etsy since 2016, and I launched this podcast in 2021. And Gold City Ventures are there. This is the only partner that I have worked with the entire time and has my complete trust, especially in the digital product space. You guys know Jenny, Heather, Cassie. I've got great buddies in Print on Demand. I've been working with Cody and Julie longer, and they have my complete Trust. So if there was any time, if you ever want to get more digital product training, you want to go through them. And I. You guys know, I vet. You guys know, I met people. I love these guys. I have had more success stories come out of the Gold City ventures than like any other course that I have sent people to personally. They come back to me and tell me, so, Cody and Julie, it is my honor and privilege to be partnered with you. And I am happy to shout from the rooftops anytime you've got something to support people. Trying to think, if there's anything else I'm forgetting. 9th through the 29th. That's fat. That's soon. We're gonna do it.
- [59:25]
C
We're doing it. And I just want to say thank you, Lizzie. That means a lot. I'm so glad people are coming to you.
- [59:29]
B
And.
- [59:30]
C
Because that's the word. That's the worst thing, right, Is we don't know. Like, you could. You could be sending them to who knows where. I know. Obviously we've had this partnership and we've been friends for a while now, but you don't know. I mean, imagine they had a bad experience that was. It looks bad for both of us. So just the fact that people are coming to you and saying, you know, they've gotten results and it's been awesome, that that means a lot. And that. That's. Admit that's why I like to wake up every day and I'm proud of what I'm doing, you know, helping. Helping people with the side hustle, helping people create and sell digital products on Etsy.
- [59:56]
B
Consistently, consistently. Great feedback. And we have. You and I, we have watched people come and go from the. From this. We've just been sitting here in our little kumbaya huddle, having a great time. Okay? So I. Oh, Cody, thank you for your time, especially with your busy travel schedule and your beautiful bride and all the things going on. I'm super excited that we got a chance to chat. And for those of you listening, I just want to thank you for spending this time with us. I hope we feel a little more set up, a little more comfortable to go for it. The biggest mistake people. I see people make is just waiting too long because you're going to learn as you go. You don't have to. What did Martin Luther King Jr. He said you don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have to take the first step. And my ADHD girlies, and my girlies who overanalyze, I'm telling you right now, you need to open the shop, you need to get the course, and you need to take the step because you're going to feel a lot better once you've got that monkey off your back. So thanks for hanging out with us. Thank you Kody. Until next week, you guys go make something awesome. Bye now.
- [60:49]
A
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.