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- [00:01]
Nick Loper
1000 bucks a week selling digital products. What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the side Hustle show. Because your 9 to 5 may make you a living, but your 5 to 9 makes you alive. And whether you're looking for a completely new side Hustle or to layer on an extra income stream to what you're already working on, you are in the right place. Today we're catching up with a longtime listener, longtime friend of the show, who over the last couple years has been building up an Etsy shop selling printable files, other digital products to the tune of four grand a month. From the flooring girl.com Debbie Gartner. Welcome back to the side Hustle show.
- [00:37]
Debbie Gartner
Thank you. It's so good to be back. It's been about five years.
- [00:40]
Nick Loper
I can't believe it's been five years. So I know we're long overdue to catch up. And in the case of the Etsy business, this is not an overnight success. You know, upload something and the, you know, the passive income starts flowing in. But it is a business where you can consistently add digital inventory. And those efforts really do start to compound over time. And today we're going three rounds with Debbie. Round one is building that Etsy business from the ground up. The kind of products she's selling, how she's making them, the marketing best practices that go into it. Round two is donate a business idea. Stick around for that. We'll see what she's got in store for us. And round three is the triple threat. A marketing tactic that's working right now is a new or new to her tool she's loving right now. And her favorite book from the last 12 months. But let's kick it off with round one and the inspiration to start playing around with. I mean, this has kind of been somewhat of a popular side hustle. The dream of selling digital products and making money in your sleep. Is this originally in the flooring girl? You know, home decor type of space? Like, what kind of printables do you come up with?
- [01:45]
Debbie Gartner
So that was my original plan, but that plan did not work out that well, to be honest, So I just had to pivot. It seems like pivoting is the story of my life as it is for every entrepreneur, and I'm sure you're familiar with that. I think when I met you, Nick, I was $135,000 in debt. And then after I was on the show, my older cousin heard me, and then she thought I was, like, really famous or something because I was on your show.
- [02:13]
Nick Loper
Love it. Love it.
- [02:14]
Debbie Gartner
It was really funny. My parents were like, what are you talking about? And she kept explaining how wonderful I was and how wonderful this show was. But honestly, it gave me a lot of inspiration. And from there, I was determined to get out of debt by the next Thanksgiving, and I actually exceeded that. I got there by Bastille Day, so July 14th. And then I paid off my mortgage, which is another $305,000. I fixed up stuff in my home, everything that was broken, and, you know, started my retirement fund again, blah, blah, blah. But life is not always a simple straight line, right?
- [02:53]
Nick Loper
No. In fact, probably rarely is.
- [02:55]
Debbie Gartner
Right. Exactly. So then two years later, I went to the doctor for a routine colonoscopy, and then they whisked me off to the er. So that was a lot of fun. And it turned out, unbeknownst to me, even though I was feeling fine, I had dangerously high blood pressure where they said I narrowly avoided having a stroke or. Or a heart attack. Yeah. So it was pretty scary. It was just getting my health back. And I did whatever I could. I changed my eating habits, all that sort of stuff. And to make a long story short, I got better and also at the same time, improved my autoimmune disease. So it was a narrow escape with a good outcome, I guess you could say.
- [03:40]
Nick Loper
Yeah. I'm happy to hear you're on the mend.
- [03:43]
Debbie Gartner
Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, so it's been a couple of years, and then I decided to really turn over a new leaf and really, really focus on things I really enjoyed. So I was no longer worried about the money. I just wanted to do things I liked. So I've been blogging, but I kind of. Honestly, I don't like writing. And I just got sick of blogging. So I did Etsy as, like, a creative outlet. I had no idea that I would like it so much, but it was actually a lot of fun. So that's what I've been doing and focusing my time on because I feel like I'm helping people.
- [04:18]
Nick Loper
Yeah, the flooring girl has been around forever. This site, you're like, you get sick about talking about, you know, whatever the seasonal paint colors are.
- [04:25]
Debbie Gartner
Right, Right. I've been doing it since 2010, so it was a long time. Right.
- [04:30]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [04:31]
Debbie Gartner
So I was then kind of trying to improve my health. I was stressed, blah, blah, blah. So I then created a whole bunch of health tracker. I did a blood pressure chart. I mean, I sell it for like a dollar or something. It's not like a big Moneymaker. But I felt like I was helping people and I was helping me at same time drive my blood pressure down and eating healthier foods and avoiding things with more cholesterol and stuff like that. So I made several things like that.
- [04:59]
Nick Loper
Okay. Yeah. Starting with what's going on in my life right now. You know, starting with a kind of a scratch your own itch approach.
- [05:05]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly, exactly. So what I was doing was failing, but I knew that Etsy had a big opportunity. So, you know, just like with blogging, you start with what do you know, what do you like, and how can you leverage that? So the simplest thing, like a blood pressure one page, you know, tracker is all I did. And I did other things like that. And then I started getting into games because I've always loved games. So I created a July 4th trivia game just because I had a blog post on my website that was for July 4th fireworks, you know, in my county. So I did that. And of course, it was, I don't know, November, so it wasn't very relevant.
- [05:49]
Nick Loper
Oh, okay. You got to skate where the puck is going. Right? Okay. Come July, there's going to be some demand for this. Okay.
- [05:54]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly, exactly. So then I said, okay, I made it done, but it proves to me that there's an opportunity here. So now let me do another trivia game. So I did a trivia game for Thanksgiving, and then I said, okay, well, there's Hanukkah and there's Christmas, and you just keep going through all the different holidays. I would do that. I would do different games. And I just had fun with that because it was really interesting. I just enjoyed it. There was the solar eclipse this year, so I did several solar eclipse games. So whatever is kind of of the moment, or coming up, let's call it two to three months in advance, I would do it, and then I would just keep doing different things I was interested in or that I wanted to lear about. And that's kind of how I did it. At some point, I had this realization that when I was younger, like in high school, I had this conversation with one of my friends in math class. You know, like, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I told them I wanted to be a puzzle master.
- [06:59]
Nick Loper
Okay. Okay.
- [07:00]
Debbie Gartner
You know, like Will Shorts does. Except at that point in time, Will Shorts, I didn't know who he was. He wasn't anyone famous. But I'm like, I want to do something like that, but there's no such job. So I just went to college and had a regular Job?
- [07:15]
Nick Loper
Yeah, like a, you know, virtual escape room coordinator or there's. That's a really interesting one. You know, I had a similar. Cause now you're making money doing that. Like, taking it back to high school. I had, you know, my job shadow day would have been junior. Senior year was going down to, like, the sports broadcast Office for Channel 5 in Seattle. And I was like, yeah, it's super irrelevant to what I'm doing today. And then my buddy was like, you're kind of in media. That seems actually pretty relevant. So I was like, oh, it's kind of this weird full circle moment of. Yeah, I guess that kind of is broadcast media in a way.
- [07:51]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. There's so many things I've done in my life in different jobs, different courses I took in college or high school or just continuing ed courses or hobbies or anything. And so then I just kept going through my brain, like, what do I. Like, what am I interested in? And then I would try to understand, is there a need for whatever that is. Do a little bit of keyword research, try some stuff out. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. Then do more of what works, like rinse and repeat. And that's basically what it is.
- [08:24]
Nick Loper
So I'm picturing like, trivial game, like Trivial Pursuit, where I've got a bunch of these cards. I got these, you know, card, you know, question cards that people are cutting out at home. It's just like a big list, like, tell me just like a little bit of the structure of what the product looks like.
- [08:37]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. So you can't use Trivial Pursuit because that's a trademark, but you can take games like that or something else and call them something else and make sure you don't use the trade colors of them or anything like that. But yes, that's exactly the idea. And what happens is when you make some products, Etsy recommends other products that are like this, and you kind of can't help but notice other games. So as I start creating more games, I see more games that are available, and then I try those, and then some work, some don't. And then whichever ones of those work, I make more of those. And then I get more suggestions and then it gets my brain going because I am not naturally a creative person. Like, not at all.
- [09:25]
Nick Loper
I don't know. Give yourself some credit. You've been creating content on the Internet for 14 years here.
- [09:29]
Debbie Gartner
Well, you get better at it. So the point is, you don't need to be creative. My mom would always say, you're so creative. I'D say, no, I'm not really. Honestly, I'm good at creative problem solving, but I'm not a creative person. But it doesn't matter because you can just learn it, because as you do it, you become more creative. You know, just like I did not know anything about flooring, but you learn it. And then I became good at home decor. So you just. As your interest level increases, your curiosity does too, and then so does your knowledge. They always work together, and then ideas, they just come to you. I don't even try anymore. You've seen one of my things where I wrote, I have 10, 14 ideas of things I can create on Etsy.
- [10:18]
Nick Loper
This is on the upcoming product to do list. If there was only more hours in the day, here's what I would get done.
- [10:24]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. I was afraid when I started, I would quickly run out of ideas. I didn't even know what to do in the first place.
- [10:32]
Nick Loper
Yeah, that's what our blog keyword, upcoming article list, and video list kind of looks like. Because we're adding more all the time. Like adding more faster than we can create this stuff.
- [10:42]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. And that's what happens is the same thing that happened with my blog post. Like, a customer would say something to me or ask me a question, and not only would I answer it, but then I'd say, oh, that's a blog post idea. And then I would write it down, do it. And my experience has been the more ideas I do, the more I come up with. So my to do list never gets shorter.
- [11:07]
Nick Loper
I think that's the mark of a creative person. Yeah. Give yourself some credit.
- [11:10]
Debbie Gartner
Thanks.
- [11:10]
Nick Loper
So starting, you know, fourth of July trivia game, and now I kind of have a template that I can, you know, maybe this got a little bit of traction. So I can pivot that to all the other major holidays and events and create the same product. Kind of like Monopoly has.
- [11:25]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly.
- [11:26]
Nick Loper
Every different city has their own Monopoly type of game or something like that. And it's. Well, you didn't have to start completely from scratch because you had some templates built out.
- [11:34]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. And you just keep reusing the templates and then you just come up with other, other ideas, use the same template so it makes it faster. And not only that, you just get better. And I try to do things I already know about. I also use AI to help me, and we can talk about that later. But I pick topics that I like and have an interest in, and because of that, I can do them quickly. So now I can pretty much get each game done in like let's call it 30 minutes and then I can list it in 30 minutes. That's not how it started, but after you get the hang of it, you do that and then you say, oh, here's another game. And then you adapt the original template for the second game and then you can keep going down and down and you can change the topics. Like you can do a trivia game about this hobby or this sport or this food or these types of books or these types of TV shows or whatever it is.
- [12:34]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Or this football team or. Yeah, yeah. You could see how that would be even a cool gift for somebody who's a Washington Huskies fan or something. You're like, hey, do you remember this play against this team? Or do you remember this key player? I think it would be. Once you start going down that rabbit hole, it could be pretty endless.
- [12:50]
Debbie Gartner
Yes.
- [12:50]
Nick Loper
More with Debbie in just a moment, including her favorite Etsy keyword Research tools how AI can help you accelerate your product creation, how she prices these digital products, and a whole lot more right after this. What if you no longer needed five separate apps for your business bank account expense tracking, invoicing, contractor payments and tax planning. I'm excited to partner with our new sponsor, Found, for this episode because Found is business banking designed specifically for side hustlers, solopreneurs and small business owners like you. Under the hood, you'll find one easy to use app to help manage your money, track your spending, invoice clients, and even handle your taxes so you can focus on more important things like running your business. There's no minimum balances, there's no account maintenance fees, and there's no paperwork or credit checks when you sign up. One cool feature Found calls them Pockets, lets you allocate income to certain categories like marketing or taxes or profit, which is really handy if you want to practice the profit first methodology, but you really don't want to set up a bunch of different accounts. Over 500,000 small business owners like you chose Found as their banking solution. So stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free@found.com Sidehustle Sign up for Found for Free today at f o u n d.com Sidehustle. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Piermont bank member fdic. Found's core features are free. They also offer an optional PA product, Found plus, here's a quick side hustle you can do today. It's called the Substitution Game, and it's an easy way to score what I call reverse passive income in your life. That's money you're no longer spending every month. That goes straight to your bottom line. How it works is you find lower cost alternatives to the things you're already spending money on. For example, I made the switch to our sponsor Mint mobile back in 2019 and haven't looked back. Mint Mobile offers Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month when you purchase a three month plan. And all plans come with high speed data and unlimited and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your existing phone number along with all your existing contacts. To get this new customer offer and your new 3 month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com sidehustle that's mintmobile.com Sidehustle cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mint mobile.com sidehustle $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. To get it started, did it start with keyword research? Like, how'd you come up with the idea to do a game in the first, aside from, you know, the, you know, high school math, I'm like, I want to be a puzzle master. Like, I always want to get into gaming.
- [15:48]
Debbie Gartner
I don't know. Honestly, I probably read it somewhere. I probably saw one. Oh no, no, no. It was because of July 4th, as I said. And then I said, I know a lot of July 4th trivia because I've been to, I don't know, Mount Vernon and where a bunch of presidents lived. And I was like, oh, you know, like which president died on July 4th? And I just started stuff like that.
- [16:11]
Nick Loper
Is this where AI comes into play? Like, and then you got a fact check? I suppose. Like, did that actually happen?
- [16:17]
Debbie Gartner
Right, right, exactly. So then after I started selling more, then my next question is how do I do this more efficiently? So that's when I tried AI and using it on ChatGPT, which is free, or Claude AI or different ones, like that doesn't really matter. And then I purposely pick things I know. So if I'm doing something about the presidents, I would know and I would, you know, anything I'm not sure about either is off the list. Or I may say, is that true? And then just Google the information because AI can definitely give you the wrong information. So like, I would not do a holiday like Diwali or watch I'll end up doing it. But I don't know anything about Diwali. So I'd be having to research every single question to make sure it's correct. I mean, the worst thing you can do is have a question with a wrong answer. And I have. And you will get a bad review. So I pick stuff generally that I know or that I mostly know. And then while I'm doing it, I have fun doing it. And then I learn some new facts as well. Like the Eclipse. I love the Eclipse. I've been planning to go there since 2017. And then when it was coming up, I was like, oh, I'm going to go, because I can drive somewhere upstate New York and go and see it.
- [17:42]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:42]
Debbie Gartner
And then. Oh, let me make it more fun for me. I'll create a trivia game for that and it makes the whole event more exciting.
- [17:50]
Nick Loper
Nice. And then. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Are there any tools that you like on the keyword research side to try and figure out? Well, it's still quite a bit of effort to create this thing, especially the first few things. I want to make sure there's some level of demand there.
- [18:03]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. So that is so important and is one of the big misses that many people make. So I highly recommend doing that. I use two keyword tools. I'm not very original in this, but they are very practical. So I use Erank and I use Insight Factory. And then very importantly, I care about market research, which is are people actually buying it? So not just searching for it, but actually have user buyer demand. And I can find that out on both Insight Factory and Erank. So it's real actionable data.
- [18:40]
Nick Loper
If I'm poking around in those tools, are there any metrics that I'm looking for in terms of, I don't know, they give you volume, do they give you buyer, estimated sales, volume, competitiveness, anything like that?
- [18:51]
Debbie Gartner
In general, you always want that people are buying stuff and that there's low competition or else medium and medium, but you don't want to have high competition. That's the biggest mistake most people make. They'll do something very generic like a planner or, you know, a calendar, which is fine to do, but you need everything to be more specific. But for me, I really focus on the sales data, which is sales. I know that sounds so stupid when I say it, but that is what it is. So you can't go by revenue because the keyword research tools are not accurate at all on the revenue because it takes the original list price and not the Actual sale price or the discounted price, but that's not what anyone buys it at. So you need to use the sales and then you look at how basically the velocity, how many are selling per week or per month or that sort of thing.
- [19:46]
Nick Loper
Okay, so sales meaning like number of transactions.
- [19:50]
Debbie Gartner
Yes, thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Yes.
- [19:52]
Nick Loper
And then sales velocity. Okay. And imagine for some of the seasonal stuff, like it might look like nothing is moving, but is there a way to go back into. Well, last November, you know, this is what happened.
- [20:01]
Debbie Gartner
Yes, yes. So you can go back and do that or you can just use your logic in your head. Like if it's for Halloween, that's basically going to sell in September and October. So just do the math.
- [20:14]
Nick Loper
Okay, cool.
- [20:15]
Debbie Gartner
Yeah. Either way. Or do division. How long has the product been around for how many days? You know, use a calculator if you need to. But that's what I do. Yes.
- [20:24]
Nick Loper
Okay. I'm assuming Canva to like build these out, but I really don't know.
- [20:28]
Debbie Gartner
Yes. It depends on the product, but I mainly use Canva. I also do some spreadsheets because I love spreadsheets. So you could do that. I see some people doing some things on Word as well. Anything that has artistic elements of any sort, I do in Canva. I'm not a designer. I can't do anything advanced. I just do simple stuff.
- [20:50]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Speaking of spreadsheets, I came across this business last month. It was called Spreadsheets Crafter. And I don't know if they sell on Etsy or not, but they sell a buttload through their site and they're driving their own traffic from TikTok, from Instagram and it's like $35 pay period, budgeting template and things kind of in that budgeting personal finance type of space, just printing money, no cost of goods, no cost of delivery. You could discount it to whatever you want. It's still incremental revenue. It just was really interesting. And are you pretty much relying on Etsy search and discovery, or are you able to drive your own outside traffic to some of the stuff through your own social media, through the website, through influencer partnerships, anything like that.
- [21:32]
Debbie Gartner
So there are two ways to approach it. So first of all, let me talk about Etsy for one second because I consider that phase one, but with Etsy, you honestly do not need any. No source of traffic whatsoever. Once you learn how to do Etsy and Etsy SEO, you just put the product on there and it can sell over and over. I do not use any form of Social media, I don't even use generally email. But we got to come back to email in a second. I don't send any traffic from my website or any website. I, I do nothing, nothing for marketing. And yes, I have tried and no, I general, I don't think it's a very good use of time.
- [22:14]
Nick Loper
Fair enough. Going back, I forgot to clarify on the like E Rank or Insight Factory you mentioned, hey, look at the sales, look at the sales velocity. Is there a minimum metric there? Like, oh, I want to make sure it's moving 10 transactions per week or something like that.
- [22:28]
Debbie Gartner
In general, if you feel it's worth your time, then you do it. So let me go back to what you said before, which is there's no cost of goods or anything like that and there's no work once you need to do it. Like I don't need to make any of this stuff or sew anything or package it or send it or pay for postage. So the margins are pretty high. The margins, you can easily on Digital products make 70% margin versus on something like print on demand, which is, is, you know, a different story. But those people are usually only making 10% margin if they are lucky.
- [23:06]
Nick Loper
Sure, yeah. It's physical product shipping involved, all sorts of stuff.
- [23:09]
Debbie Gartner
Right. And you have transaction fees and PayPal fees and like all that sort of stuff. So 70% is a good amount. And honestly, if you were selling it on your own site, you would still have some of those, you know, fees, fees for whatever program you're using. Plus you're going to have PayPal fees, that sort of thing. So you can't get around you like you can never have 100%. But then you have to think, okay, is that worth my time to make it? Most these products I can make pretty quickly. Like I can maybe spend an hour on it and then be done. That's the combination of making it and listing it, all the listing images and everything like that. So then you have to say, what is it worth it? Like, what could I price it at? And then guesstimate in your head or on a calculator. I just do it in my head, like how much you can make. Right. So for me, I try to at a minimum look at something that I think could sell at least once a week.
- [24:03]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Debbie Gartner
And sometimes I find that I end up making much more than I expect to, sometimes a little bit less. They kind of average out. But that is what I use as a benchmark. If I'm a new beginner. I just want to try to make A few sales and then I want to like keep stretching the bar and make more and more.
- [24:23]
Nick Loper
Yeah. And that's the stage that I'm in. Like that thrill of that first, you know, making money in your sleep kind of passive income type of thing. I put something out on the Internet. Somebody bought it. Some stranger, you know, searched for this thing and they bought my thing. And that's a really exciting moment and probably quite addicting where he's like, well, shoot, how do I do more of that? And, you know, keep leveling up and keep creating more of those products. What's a typical price point for something like this?
- [24:46]
Debbie Gartner
Well, it depends what you're selling, but I sell most of my items between like $1.49 to $10. So a lot of them may be in the three to five dollar range, but that's kind of the range of what I do. So they're really quick and simple to do and rinse and repeat. And as you said before, you can take the same idea and then just, you know, swap out some stuff for a different holiday or a different occasion, like a birthday or something like that. So it gets much quicker.
- [25:16]
Nick Loper
Yeah, totally. And some, some of the stuff, like think about not necessarily who you're competing with on Etsy, which is certainly a factor, but at point, you know, a simple blood pressure tracker, you're competing with people just making their own spreadsheet, like for free. It's like, well, it can't be that expensive because it's super simple to make. Whereas, you know, a more complex trivia game, of course, is going to command a higher price point. Did you ever go and shop these to, you know, a Hasbro or anything? Like, do you want to license this, you know, this IP that I created, and you could turn this into like a something that's on the shelves at Target?
- [25:45]
Debbie Gartner
Well, that's another idea, but I haven't even gone there. I am looking for simple in my life now. So since I had that blood pressure scare Simple. I do simple everything people do Escape Rooms. And that's a great example of a more complex game. And I have been meaning to do that, but I generally don't do that. What I will do is take several simple games and bundle them together. So Instead of selling one game, I may be selling five games or 10 games and do it that way. And then I also will sometimes take the same games and put those in bundles of other products because they can apply to anything.
- [26:25]
Nick Loper
Got it, got it. Yeah. And it increases the average order value and perceived value. It Makes sense.
- [26:30]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. So I often think about my business in layers. So you know how in the winter you're supposed to wear layers to stay warmer. I think about the same thing about insulating my business. So it makes it harder for that money to erode. So I have been working on a lot of things the last year or so to improve my average job size. That's what I call it from the flooring business. But whatever you want to call it, you get the idea, right?
- [26:56]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah.
- [26:56]
Debbie Gartner
So can I trade people up to a higher price item or get people to buy two items or get people to buy three items? That is what I'm doing. Etsy just came out with a new feature about a week or so ago where you can bundle three items together as well.
- [27:14]
Nick Loper
Oh, cool.
- [27:15]
Debbie Gartner
So that's one way I do it. Another way I do it is in the listing images. You might want to get the matching item. So if I was doing something for Halloween, let's just say then I might have, you know, 10 different Halloween games. I could take one and be like, you might also like these. Or I could take one and say, or get a better value by buying all 10. You know, there are different ways to do it and you try different ways.
- [27:40]
Nick Loper
No, I think that's really smart to try and increase that order size because again, it's like, well, it doesn't cost you anything extra to include one extra link in the delivery email or something. So that makes a lot of sense. And I should note here we're not mentioning the name of the store for the sake of copycats. Similar to some of the other Etsy related episodes that we've done in the past, this stuff can be relatively easy to duplicate and rip off. So we want to protect Debbie's site. Go find your own niche people, I think is the moral of the story there. But you like games, you like spreadsheets, any other product categories that people should have on their radar.
- [28:13]
Debbie Gartner
I probably do about 10 or 15 different things and that is part of the key of diversification because you want to have sales going every month of the year, year round. Like I don't want to just do well for one holiday or whatever. So I do things like handprints, like handprint art, like for little kids, like toddlers. It's really cute. I do some spreadsheets, I do canva templates, some for businesses, some for regular people. I do photo collages, I do fillable.
- [28:44]
Nick Loper
Trackers like where people would upload their own pictures and you turn it into a collage.
- [28:48]
Debbie Gartner
They turn it into a collagen. It's diy. I don't get involved in anything. But yes, I'll create a template of blank frames. Could be a number or a letter or whatever and then you can upload your own pictures in there or. So you could do something for pets. I haven't really done that, but I do that. You could do that sort of thing.
- [29:10]
Nick Loper
Oh, you know what I saw. So you know, in Canva Pro they have all these like photo effects on. I forget what even the, you know, which part of the menu or this is. But like I, I turn your image into, you know, a hand drawn animation or I will turn this into kind of like an anime looking thing or I will cartoonify. It's like, I guarantee there are people on Fiverr selling this as a service. You upload this file and you know, five minutes later they have sent you the thing. It's like no work required. You'd already paid for your Canva Pro license and now you're just selling this thing over and over again. So another business idea for you.
- [29:42]
Debbie Gartner
Yeah, no, that's great. And that's the point is like, like I started very, very simple. I started with printables, you know, one or two pages and my design skills were not that good and my head would explode if I was trying to learn too much, so I didn't. So I just did easy stuff. And then after three or four months I then do something else and then a month later I learned something else. And by taking these little baby steps, I just keep improving my skills and broadening the breadth of what I do. But you have to take baby steps.
- [30:18]
Nick Loper
Yeah, absolutely. And do you have to do anything with Etsy ads or primarily relying on just organic Etsy search?
- [30:24]
Debbie Gartner
Right, Pretty much organic search. So I did not use any Etsy ads until after 18 months, maybe 19th or 20th month, but only on like a couple of items and only a little bit. So you can do this organically. So let me just tell you what I ended up getting. So it does take some time, but I hit $750 in month six and then about my one year mark slightly later, maybe like 12 and a half months or something, I was at $1000 a month and then I think around 18 months I was at 2000 and then a month or two later it was 3000 and now I'm over 4000 per month.
- [31:08]
Nick Loper
So it's kind of like I'm picturing that chart that's kind of starting to accelerate a little bit. And you can See that path forward.
- [31:14]
Debbie Gartner
Yes, exactly. And this is not the only thing I do or not the only way I make money. So if I was spending even more time on it, I could probably do much better. But it's fun. It's cathartic. Like I said, I had to get over the whole blood pressure thing, and I was like, I want to do stuff. I enjoy it. Turned out I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It taps into my creative side. Even though I'm not very creative, my design skills have gotten much better over time.
- [31:44]
Nick Loper
Well, I'm excited for you. And this is the mark of a good episode for me. When I hang up being like, I should totally go do that. Like, you know, it's just. I know it's the result of a lot of consistent effort and being really intentional and targeting the right keywords and everything, but, you know, when you start to see those results, you start to see that flywheel spinning. Oh, you know, it gets exciting there. So I want to point out Debbie's got you a free Start your Etsy Shop challenge that we'll link up in the show notes for this episode. It'll be side hustle nation.com Debbie2, since this is her second appearance. Debbie2 again, that's your free Start your Etsy Shop challenge, which will link up for you and encourage you to go check that out. We'll be right back with rounds two and three with Debbie right after this. Being an entrepreneur and being able to work remotely definitely has its perks. I've recorded podcasts everywhere from Vietnam to Italy, drafted newsletters from Japan, hosted Mastermind meetings from Spain, ended up being in the middle of the night to get to US Business hours and outlined courses in Mexico. The common thread of all of these trips, though, is Airbnb. We love being able to get exactly what we're looking for in a place to stay and have a more local experience than staying in some giant hotel chain. And you know me, I'm always thinking about the next side Hustle idea, the next income stream, right? And one that's at the top of the list is hosting our place on Airbnb while we're traveling. That way, the house doesn't have to sit empty. We could use the income to help pay for the trip. And we've heard from several successful Airbnb hosts on the show. And what's interesting is a lot of them started with almost that exact strategy, renting their place or even a spare room while they're out of town. Taking inspiration from that, you Might have an Airbnb right under your nose. In fact, your home might be worth more than you think. You can find out how much@airbnb.com host that's airbnb.com host to find out how much your home is worth. All right, we're back with Debbie from thefloriengirl.com Round two is donate a business idea. This is something that you might start yourself if you had more time. This is something that ought to exist in the world. This is something you think listeners could start if they were so inclined.
- [33:54]
Debbie Gartner
What I would do, and I've been meaning to do forever, and you will laugh at this because it's very original. I would love to do a podcast. Okay. So I really got started making money online while listening to you and Pat Flynn and some others. It gave me the motivation when I was at my low point. So I always had wanted to do something like that.
- [34:17]
Nick Loper
What would your show be about?
- [34:18]
Debbie Gartner
It would probably be about making money online or entrepreneurship or something like that. I actually. This is so sad. I actually started one. So I recorded, I think, four episodes, and I had a plan to do it, but then life got haywire. So I was having a conversation the other day with one of my good friends who I had coached and taught SEO many, many years ago, and she's doing really, really great. But she just asked us on this phone call, this momentum group we have, do you guys think it still makes sense to blog? Like, can you still make good money blogging? And all of us, all of us paused and we all said, yes, but. Yes, but yeah, but it depends. And so my answer was, clearly, you can make money online blogging, because I have made a lot of it. Right. I know plenty of other people that have, and. And I know it's more challenging, but if I think about where things are now versus where they were in 2016, which is when I kind of had this whole, you know, have to start over sort of thing. There have been so many more things that have become so much more popular, like, or have become very popular. You know, whether it's podcasting or YouTube would be something I would recommend to other people, but not for me, because I. I hate being. Yeah, I'm sorry I made an exception for you, but I almost never go on video because I just. I hate it. I really. It. I hate seeing myself on the left hand side. I'm trying to look at you and not at me, but it's too distracting.
- [35:57]
Nick Loper
See, the secret is I'm off in my notes. I'M off in another tab. Like, I don't see the video until. And even then, I don't really watch it. My video person, she puts it all up on YouTube. So I'm sure there's times I forget I'm, like, picking my nose or something. I don't know.
- [36:10]
Debbie Gartner
No, I totally know what you mean. But I started doing some live meetings where I could be behind my slides, and that worked really well because I wasn't distracted. I wasn't looking at myself and wondering about my hair or anything like that. So I think that those are great opportunities for people. If you feel comfortable doing it, do it. But then I said, it depends on what you like doing. Now I'm getting really jazzed up by Etsy because it's visual and creative in a different way than I've done for the last, I don't know, 8 or 10 or 15 years. It's just. That's what interests me right now. So I think it depends. What medium do you feel comfortable in? Is it writing? Is it doing creative products or digital products, or is it doing YouTube or is it doing podcasting? Like, whatever. Whatever energizes you is what you should do. I mean, you hear all those people, like, you know, what brings you joy, like, all that sort of stuff, and I think it's true. You know, it's. It's because you're going to keep doing it. Like, you can't just choose something because it's going to make you money. You have to choose something because you like it and it happens to make you money. Like, that's how I see it.
- [37:29]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, you heard it here first. The upcoming Debbie Gartner show is coming to a podcast player near you. We're looking forward to checking that out. And I think the. I mean, it's probably similar to these Etsy products. It's, you know, trying to find that niche that resonates with the right target audience, the right listeners. Obviously, it's more crowded today than it was in 2013 when the side Hustle show started. But there were already lots of entrepreneurship podcasts at that time.
- [37:55]
Debbie Gartner
Yes.
- [37:56]
Nick Loper
And I think why the show worked and worked is very relative in terms of the download chart in the first few years, but it was niched down into that side Hustle specific type of space. I don't know. For some reason that resonated. Obviously, there's some survivorship bias to that, but it's a very difficult platform to try and grow from scratch. But the people who tune in, they're with you for the long haul. They're often completionists, I kind of call it. If you start an episode, you're likely to listen to the end where it's like you look at the drop off on YouTube videos, like, how many people? I lose half people in 30 seconds. And that's considered good. You're like, dang, this is. The attention span is crazy, but the relationships that you can build. And trying to climb what I call the listener pyramid, from strangers at the bottom to listeners, to subscribers, to fans, and with every piece of content that you create, try and elevate people on that pyramid. But unfortunately, the biggest section, the base of the pyramid, is strangers. People who don't know you exist. So there's a lot to play on that discovery side. YouTube is a part of that. But you have a little bit of an existing audience through the email list who I'm sure would love to tune into you and just hear, well, what am I working on? I enjoy checking out your emails and say, well, what's the latest and what's working? What's not working? What kind of challenges are going on?
- [39:20]
Debbie Gartner
Right. One of the fundamental things I learned in marketing a long, long time ago is build unbreakable bonds with your audience. So the question is, how will you do that? As an example, on Etsy, which I'm now doing, and I just told you I enjoy, a lot of people will come in and buy a product and then you never hear from them again. Right. But when you have an email list, which really honestly needs to be phase two, then you can keep connecting with them over and over. Right. I have an email list from my blog about making money online and I used to publish all my income reports and people became very interested in that. And I have some of the same subscribers, actually some of them came from your show in 2019 and they remind me I've been with you since that podcast with Nick.
- [40:14]
Nick Loper
Sure, sure.
- [40:14]
Debbie Gartner
I didn't know who the heck you were, but I liked what you had to say. So I'm sure that happens with other people, but you have to like build that audience and keep connecting with them. So on Etsy, that is now my next step. I'm trying to create an audience from there on some of the topics that they are already interested in and I am too. And build an email.
- [40:36]
Nick Loper
Got it.
- [40:36]
Debbie Gartner
So I started that on July 9th.
- [40:38]
Nick Loper
Does Etsy give you the customer information? Like you're able to remark and say, hey, we came out with a new product that is semi related to what you already Bought, you know, come check it out.
- [40:47]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. You need to. That's the key. You need to narrow it down to one topic. So if you're a shop like I am, where you may have a multitude of things for different types of people or different types of needs, you can't just do a random email list. So I started one on games because I have, I don't even know how many games I have, but I know I have more than 250.
- [41:10]
Nick Loper
Wow.
- [41:11]
Debbie Gartner
So I might have close to 300. So I'm starting a list on that. I started that almost three months ago, I think 85 days ago. And I am at, as of yesterday, I was at 275 people on there.
- [41:27]
Nick Loper
The people joining through their transactions, they get added to that database. They get added to that list.
- [41:33]
Debbie Gartner
Yeah, exactly. So you can't just automatically add them to your list. That's against Etsy's terms. But you can have them opt into something and get them on that way. So I'm experimenting with that. It does seem to be driving some more sales, but it's honestly a little bit soon to really tell. But I can see there's a share and save link and I can see the sales going through there and it's going up and up. But I really want to wait until the end of the year to really analyze the impact on that. And then from there I will probably at some point create a Shopify store that's my own and I can market in both places.
- [42:16]
Nick Loper
What's the opt in or what do you. How do you incentivize people to get on the list? After making a purchase, you give them.
- [42:22]
Debbie Gartner
A free something that's related to the something that they already bought. So when I looked at my data, I don't know, a month and a half ago or something among the people that were seeing that, because I didn't put the same, like if I was doing games, I would not put that in handprints. It just, just makes no sense. Right?
- [42:45]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:45]
Debbie Gartner
So if I looked at the Games, 8.5% were opting in.
- [42:50]
Nick Loper
That's pretty strong.
- [42:50]
Debbie Gartner
Yeah, I was pretty happy with that considering that they're loyal to Etsy and they don't know who the heck I am. Right, Right.
- [42:57]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Okay. So you can't add them automatically, but you got to give them some reason to. And I feel like it used to be more common with Amazon. I don't know if they've cracked down on it or they're just like the packaging has changed. But you used to see Those like product slips, you know, register your product or you know, get a free bonus by cutting. It's like, well, I know exactly how you, I know exactly what game you're playing. Are you trying to get me onto your list so you could hopefully wean yourself off of Amazon? And you said maybe. Well, that's phase three is, you know, phase one, Etsy, phase two, email is phase three. Maybe it's your own store, we can start to drive your own demand and traffic.
- [43:30]
Debbie Gartner
Exactly. That's my plan and that was my initial plan when I joined Etsy and I was going to get them onto my home decor email list.
- [43:39]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [43:40]
Debbie Gartner
But it didn't work. But that doesn't mean the idea, doesn't mean the idea doesn't work because the idea does work. It just, that idea did not work for me.
- [43:49]
Nick Loper
Fair. All right, so we got a little bit sidetracked in a good way. So round, round two was the donate a business idea that was to start a podcast. Somewhat of a, like a difficult thing to turn into a business, but can be a really powerful relationship builder. It can be maybe a content marketing channel for some underlying business. Because it was years to be totally truthful, like before the direct revenue from the sponsorships in my case turned into what would be close to a full time income from the show. But I'm still very bullish on podcasting. I think there's a lot of upside. It's really a powerful and fun place to play. Obviously it's been 600 episodes, still love doing it and have no plans to go anywhere. So that's round two. Round three is our triple threat. The first part of this is a marketing tactic that's working now. It doesn't have to be Etsy related, but what have you got for us here?
- [44:36]
Debbie Gartner
Okay, I'm trying to do things that are simple and easy for me. So I try to find things that enhance and improve the productivity of what I'm doing. And so for that I've been using a lot of AI and trying to really think about the prompts that work to help me generate the games that I create. So I use ChatGPT, I use Claude AI and I use Gemini as well. I'm hoping soon to get into mid journey as well. So I just, I don't do tools for tool sake. I do tools that enable me to do what I'm already doing better or faster. So those are the things I'm using.
- [45:18]
Nick Loper
Okay, so we can put those down on the tools front and then what kind of prompts are you Feeding you, like asking for product ideas. Asking them, you know, we talked earlier about, like, asking them to help you come up with the trivia questions in that example. Anything else?
- [45:33]
Debbie Gartner
Right. So AI is not good for telling you how important or relevant stuff is, but they're good for once you've determined that to then feed into the input of what you want to create. So I may say, you know, give me 20 questions and answers about XYZ, whatever XYZ is. I may also be more specific and be, you know, more targeted, like for kids or for teachers or for senior adults, whatever the different thing is. So I do that and then I just try to refine those more and more to get more specific and I'll just rinse and repeat and do that.
- [46:15]
Nick Loper
All right. I will add those as our recommended tools to check out if you're not already using those. And there's. You've been playing around more and more myself, like with different, different prompts to try and prime it in the right way. And what's really interesting is, I mean, it probably knows who you are. It probably knows some interesting things about you because I can prime it, like, hey, you are Nick Loper from side Hustle Nation, and you need to accomplish this goal and. Or it is just. And it kind of starts to do it. In your tone, it's really interesting. Anything on the marketing tactic either driving traffic, driving sales, anything there that we should know about?
- [46:50]
Debbie Gartner
So instead of just finding new customers, it's how do you get the customers to be more and more loyal and buy more things from you? So instead of trying to drive as many people as I can to my email list, I want to get the highest quality people on my email list, regardless of what the email list is. So on Etsy, there are some people, as an example, that say, oh, opt in here to get 20% off your next sale. And you can do that. But those people are not loyal. They're just shoppers. Right? They're not loyal customers to you. So I'm going after people that have already bought something and then I'm trying to keep in touch with my people so they want to buy more and more. And I try to also do loyalty discounts. So if someone buys a product from me, then they may get a discount off of the next product from me. So, for example, we do, I do a lot of challenges and I've teamed up with my good friend Sasha and we do a bunch of. We're now doing Etsy challenges, but I've done challenges of various sorts, whether It's SEO or blogging. It doesn't really matter.
- [48:06]
Nick Loper
Oh, that's great.
- [48:06]
Debbie Gartner
But you do like 30 things in 30 days or something like that, Right? It just keeps you going and it motivates you as a group. So we will take something like that. And then the first time, it may cost. Cost $49, but the second time, you get a $20 discount. So it's only $29. I want to reward the people that have rewarded me.
- [48:28]
Nick Loper
I like that. I think that's really important to remember. Like, it's so much easier and less expensive to sell something extra to somebody who already knows, likes, and trusts you than to kind of convert a new subscriber, customer, listener, viewer, totally from scratch. And that's probably an important reminder for me. It's like, oh, how do we get. How do we get more page views? How do we get more? It's like, well, there's already this existing audience. How do serve them? I think that's an important reminder for sure.
- [48:53]
Debbie Gartner
Yeah, yeah. What. What do they need? What do they want? What resonates well with them? How can you use their ideas to create new podcast episodes for you? And how can I use that to generate new product ideas?
- [49:06]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I like this loyalty discount. I'm sure there's a way to filter. Filter the email list. Everybody who's stuck around for more than a year, like, could you send them some. Hey, you know, thanks so much for being part of this community for over a year. Oh, yeah, you know, here's, you know, some. Some special deal on something I have.
- [49:20]
Debbie Gartner
That's a great idea. That's a great idea you can do. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is, I mean, I use ActiveCampaign. I'm not sure if you're still using that or not, but everything that people bought from me is tagged, so I know what everyone bought. So I will sometimes do emails that only go to people that bought this product or that product. That's one thing I don't like about Etsy is you can't control that. Etsy owns the customer. Amazon owns the customer. You don't. So you want to create those unbreakable bonds with your customer. That's why I ultimately want to get them off of Etsy. I will still use Etsy as my prime way to get things out there because they have such a huge audience and bigger than I will ever be able to build, but they can bring in a steady pipeline of email subscribers to me to keep building totally. So then I Don't have to worry about things like Google algorithm changing or Pinterest algorithm changing or Instagram. Like, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. They are loyal to me and that is what I want.
- [50:30]
Nick Loper
Totally. That's the ultimate way to kind of protect yourself against algorithm changes, whatever update that may happen, and you run into trouble there. But if you have some. Some level of loyalty in a database of customers that you can communicate with directly, you're in a much safer place.
- [50:46]
Debbie Gartner
That's right.
- [50:46]
Nick Loper
It was interesting. My yoga studio just sent me this because I, like, had just turned a year of being a member there. It was like, hey, happy birthday. You've been a member for a year now. Your. Your membership is now 10% off. It was unexpected. It was like. It was really kind of surprising. And I don't know if they filtered that by who was actually going to classes, because I imagine if you trigger that to somebody who hadn't been going, they might be like, oh, shoot, I should probably cancel that. But in my case, like, oh, I've been using it. I was like, oh, wow. I didn't, you know, just now I'm talking about it. You know, it was like kind of an unexpected thing. And sure enough, it hit the statement, it was 10% off. So in those loyalty discounts, I think that's a really interesting one. Let's wrap it up here. Your favorite book from the last 12 months.
- [51:25]
Debbie Gartner
Okay, so I don't read books anymore, but I'll choose one that I would like to read and I think will help a lot of people, which is, I heard, you know, Mo Raka.
- [51:34]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I know that name.
- [51:35]
Debbie Gartner
He's like a TV celebrity or something. I don't really know, but he has. I heard him talking on the radio about. What is it? Rockogenarians. So it's basically people that got started or got restarted or pivoted in their life when they were older. Older, in his mind was like 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. They might have started new businesses, they might have started new hobbies that had an impact. And I think it's so inspiring. And I meet so many people that need to restart their life. I myself did. Like I had to do. I had to do it once in my 30s and once in my 40s. And it's. It's hard, you know, the older you get, the harder it is you get set in your ways. But I love the idea that you can really start anything at any time as long as you have the passion and the drive to do it.
- [52:31]
Nick Loper
All right. Rocktogenarians late in life debuts, comebacks and triumphs. We'll link that up in, in the show notes. I mean there's, you probably see the thing like, oh, Ray Kroc started when he was however old. You know, Colonel Sanders started when he was however. You know, these people who get in our mind like, well, you got to be in your 20s to start anything meaningful. It's like, well, you know, you're never too, you're never too late to do this stuff.
- [52:52]
Debbie Gartner
Yes, there it is. Not only that, I think that when you do it, when you're a little bit older, you have your own experiences that can actually make you more successful. So a lot of people that I know that have been successful even online have been older. They have been in their 40s, 50s, 60s, that sort of thing, because they have experience that they bring from somewhere else. It all translates there.
- [53:16]
Nick Loper
Very, very good. Well, Debbie, it's been awesome. We should do it more frequently than every five years. It's been awesome to have you back. The Flooring Girl.com where you can find her. Check out the start your Etsy shop challenge which we'll link up in the show notes side hustlenation.com debbie2 or just follow the link in the episode description. It'll get you over there. If you like this printables model, we've got another episode on the printables business that is 4:49 in your archives. And if you want more Debbie in your life, you can check out our original episode from 2019. That's number 362. You can scroll down a little bit to find that one. We're talking SEO, talking Pinterest, we're talking affiliate income, all for the Flooring girl site in that one. And if you haven't got yours yet, I want to invite you to grab your own personalized side Hustle show playlist. At Hustle show, all you gotta do is answer a few short multiple choice questions. You can do it on your phone. It's gonna ask you about, you know, your side hustle, interests and goals and then it's gonna recommend eight to 10 episodes to add to your device and what to listen to next. So Hustle show for that. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message. Hey, let's crank up that Etsy shop. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle show. Hustle on.