Arts
Thinking about starting your own side hustle? Take it from the Side Hustle Queen herself, Marissa Rhoades: a stay-at-home mom of five who is a freelance makeup artist, does SEO for local businesses, and has been with Sabbatical Beauty for about two years. Here’s what she’s learned from all of the hustling, and her best advice for anyone who wants to start their own side hustle. Julie's successful side hustles: Jewelry making. She didn’t have too many friends (or cable) after her second child was born so she spent her time on a forum for handmade crafters. She saw that people were creating guitar pick earrings, so she created her own using special limited edition guitar picks, spending $5 and making $50 in return. Freelance makeup artist. She had been working in retail cosmetics for a long time until she finally got to her goal: working at MAC. It was great exposure and opened the door to people asking her to do makeup for weddings and photoshoots. Search Engine Optimization, or helping people rank on Google searches. She began by helping her husband, who does SEO, whenever he’d run out of bandwidth. When she created her site for her makeup artistry, she ranked in the top three within three months, and so decided to offer her own SEO services for small local brick and mortars. She’s a strong supporter of mom and pops, and likes that she’s serving the community by helping small businesses rank. Event planning. Because of her makeup work, Marissa was very close with the art community. She wanted to start a company that hosted events showcasing local artists that also benefited local charities. Their first event benefitted InterAct, and was praised by an attendee as on par with a New York Fashion Week show they had attended. Things you should know about side hustles: Don’t go into business with your friends. But if you do, clearly establish who’s boss, otherwise everyone will think they’re a boss. Family time is more precious than doing your work for cheap. You have to choose what’s more important: your personal time, or doing work for less than your value just to build up a portfolio. Keep up with trends, because you have to stay relevant. It’s just as important as having a classic staple product that people need. Customers and clients are what keep you afloat. Never stop networking or marketing to new people. Stand your ground and trust your instincts. If you feel in your heart that you have an excellent product or idea, stick with it (but still do your research). How Boss Foundations has helped Julie succeed: Marissa has learned to set work boundaries and mentally clock out. Her day is hectic with five kids, so while she doesn’t keep a daily routine, she does have “mini-routines” and rituals for her tasks, like her example for writing copy. One very helpful thing was learning how to break down her tasks into smaller tasks, so you can set yourself up for a bunch of smaller wins during the day and build momentum. Julie's advice for side hustlers: Do the Boss Foundations Masterclasses. They help you avoid making amateur mistakes and give you the shortcut instead of you losing more time and money to trial and error. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t worry about what other people are saying. If you’re doing the best that you can without sacrificing yourself and your personal time and striving for your dreams and aspirations, then you're doing good enough. Resources Marissa Rhoades (LinkedIn) InterAct