March 23, 2020 • 46 mins
FYI!!! Carla Marie is no longer the host of a morning show in Seattle but she is still supporting small businesses in every way possible. She’s even started her own small business with her radio cohost and best friend, Anthony. All of the links below will help you stay up to date!
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201-305-0894
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
For a lot of people. You know, why are you wait?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustles side side hustle do it. I'm a hustle
side hust do it. I'm a hustles side us love.
Come on, ask about me yo yo. It's the side
Hustless podcast we call the Root. This is side Hustlers.
(00:24):
I'm your host from my Heart Radio, Carla Marie. And
for the last two years and almost one d episodes,
we have heard from people following a passion outside of
their day job, even some of those people who left
their full time job to turn their side hustle into
their full time job and be a small business owner.
(00:44):
And that's just how they live and how they function.
And right now, those are the people who need us
the most. And I've been feeling it a lot lately. Obviously.
Whenever you're listening to this podcast, hopefully it's in the
future and we are all past this and you were
listening to this going wow, you remember when the coronavirus
was happening and everyone was at home and small businesses
(01:07):
needed our help, And now they're thriving I hope that's
when you're listening to this podcast, but if you're not,
if you're listening to it in real time, if you're
listening to it right now in March of they do
need our help a lot, and I have been feeling
it so much because I have heard the incredible stories
from these people, the stories of inspiration, of drive, of motivation,
(01:28):
of leaving your day job and being scared but making
it happen. And it's been so cool to hear their stories.
They've inspired me, they've inspired others. I mean, we've had
people come on this podcast who started their side hustle
because they were inspired by someone from two years ago
who were on the podcast. So it's been crazy for
me right now. I've been reaching out to all of them,
(01:50):
asking them how we can help them, and they're all optimistic,
they're all positive, but they're all really scared at the
same time. So in this epis we're gonna hear from
a lot of them on what they're doing differently. So
you're gonna recognize some of these people, and I'm gonna
put links to their original episodes also in the description
of this podcast if you want to go check them out.
After if you've never heard their original episode. So we're
(02:13):
gonna get from them on what they're doing differently, we're
gonna hear from them on how they're feeling and how
we can help them. It's kind of crazy right now.
I mean, everyone's got their own thing going on. Maybe
you can't help them monetarily, and I say this all
the time, but you can help by following them on Instagram.
And that sounds so crazy, but it helps support them
in any way possible. Go to their website, click around,
(02:36):
share their website, like on Instagram, comment on Instagram because
it helps other people see their business. Everyone's going through
something right now, and personally, I'm dealing with a lot.
My mom's surgery was canceled. Her open heart surgery was
canceled because the hospital has COVID nineteen patients and they
don't want to subject her to that in such a
(02:57):
vulnerable state. So now my mom has to sit around
for more in thirty days waiting for her surgery to happen.
And I'm on the opposite side of the country of
my entire family. So mentally, I'm dealing with a lot
right now. I know you are too. We are all
seriously in this together, and it sounds so cheesy, but
we are. And everyone's got their own thing that they're
dealing with right now. No one is in any better
(03:19):
of a situation than any of us. Unless you're living
in a cave in the middle of Montana, in some
doomsday shelter that you built, then you're good. And if
you're listening to this podcast, reach out to me because
I want to know about it. But we're all in
some ship right now, that's the best way to say.
But if you can help someone else, I promise you
you will feel better on your own. And it sounds
(03:42):
so ridiculous, but buying take out from small businesses helped
me feel better. And I saw a meme that was
in February. When you bought from take out from a
small business, you felt like a lazy piece of crap
sitting on your couch, and now you feel like a martyr.
And it's true. But do something to help someone else today,
even if it's sharing their story on Instagram, anything sharing
(04:04):
this podcast will help. Not just because I want to
get listens. It's not about that right now. I want
you to help the people who have become part of
the side Hustlers family. Before we get into this week's guest,
I do want to remind you that next week you
are going to hear that one hundredth episode with Laura Burkhard.
Now that was recorded last month at a time when
people could be in one place together, so it will
be a little weird, but it will bring you a
(04:24):
sense of normalcy. It's kind of cool too, super positive episode,
So be here next week to check that out. If
you have any questions for any Side Hustlers, feel free
to reach out to me Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail
dot com because we may end up doing another episode
like this. Over two years ago, at this point, I
got an email from a woman named Tiffany. Tiffany lived
(04:45):
in Rent in Washington, where her salon Sweet Pea Beauty
was located. And Tiffany was originally a mortgage underwriter but
had a love for makeup and taught herself makeup and
now she not only does makeup for brides and people
day in, day out, but she's got a lash bar
where she does amazing lashes, she does waxing, she does
(05:06):
so much at sweepe Beauty and Rent in Washington. It
went from being her side hustle to her full time job,
and Tiffany in these last two years has become an
amazing friend of mine. She's a mom with two kids,
and right now her business is closed. So let's get
Tiffany on. Tiffany, Hi, how are you? I'm good? So
you're coming to me from home? Yes? Okay. So the
(05:27):
last time you were on this podcast, we were in
studio in Seattle, and it was over two years ago.
You had just expanded Sweetpe Beauty to kind of be
two locations within one. You had your waxing, you had eyelashes,
you have makeup, and you're still doing all that well
except for right now in this current moment. So how
(05:47):
has sweet Pe adjusted during this time of where you
need to be closed, Especially someone like you is in
close contact with your clients. You can't not be in
contact with any of your clients. Yeah. So we closed
on Thursday before it was mandated by the governor, just
because morally, I just felt like it was super wrong
to be that close to people and not knowing that
(06:10):
I could be hurting someone and spreading this this virus.
So now that we're completely closed, I'm trying just to
do more stuff virtually and make contact with like the
email list, and if there's retail items that I know
people were talking about getting seeing if they want to
get him and then try to deliver it to them.
I don't know, just really trying to think outside the box.
(06:31):
We're talking about doing like a virtual makeup class. So
sweetpe beauty dot com is where people can go to
see those items, cause I know you sell, You've got makeup,
You've got the last here um that I love using.
You even have jewelry and store, You've got cool things
that people can use as gifts. So here locally in Washington,
what you've been doing is kind of hand delivering these
products and people order them. They can also go to
at sweet Pee Beauty on Instagram to kind of follow
(06:54):
along to what you're doing. But when you first close
and then obviously had to cancel upcoming appointments, what was
everyone's general reaction? The first person that I told was
not happy and kind of made me feel like I
was never going to be able to do business with them,
which you know, at that point, I was like, oh
my god, am I doing the right thing, Because at
that point it wasn't I legally didn't have to it
(07:16):
was just what I felt was right and wrong, and
so that was my first reaction. Um. Since then, though,
I started sending out the text messages the next morning
to all of my clients for the next week, and
everyone totally got it, and they all said like, well,
we're in this together. We'll be right there right when
you open up. And a couple of people asked, how
do we make the lashes last longer? And um, So
(07:39):
it's been good. My regular client base has been really supportive,
and people can buy gift cards if they want to
help support right now and then obviously cash them in
when we're all back to normal. Yeah, you know, I
didn't think about that in the very very beginning, and
then I had two people just message me and say
I got gift cards. And you know, now it's like
a big thing. It's every everyone's telling everyone to get
(08:00):
gift cards. But that's been It's so cool to like
go on I use Square and I go on my
transaction list for the day and I'm just seeing like
random cards being purchased and I don't know who it's too,
but it's yeah, it's super cool, even if they're probably
buying it to themselves, to some people just because they
want to help you. I mean, they believe in your business.
What the cool thing about what's sweepy is you do
(08:22):
something for women or even men that they can't do
for themselves. Like you've given me the best lashes that
have been awesome for like photo shoots and big events
that I've done. You've done makeup for women on their
wedding day. You know, it's you've been there with people
for big moments for them. So of course they want
to give back, and of course they want to help you.
But you told me something the other day that has
(08:44):
set me off to no end, and I want people
to know that this is not okay. You told me
there's a black market of people trying to do what
you do in their homes right now. Yeah, it's really frustrating.
Like I understand because as a business owner, and most
of us are small business owners, were scared, and that
was like my first fear of like how am I
(09:04):
going to make money? We don't know how long this
is gonna last. So there's that fear, right, But then
for me, my morals were like, no, this is wrong.
We are way too close to people. I've got to
shut down. But when the governor shut all salons down
in any anyone, astetician, cosmetologists, anyone. I started getting a
couple of messages, um like one was from someone I
(09:25):
didn't know, one was from just like a friend of
a friend. And then my girlfriend who owns another beauty bar,
messaged me and told me. And then I started seeing
things on Instagram and basically people want the asteticians or
cosmetologists to come to their house, probably even I would
imagine like massage therapists because they were shut down, to
will you come to my house to do this service?
(09:46):
So yeah, I mean, I understand people want to still
make money, but you want to make money. But my
question is I have seen not like a single human
other than maybe two co workers in the last who
needs their lashes done right now. I know, I agree.
I mean, I'm a hot mess, like my lashes are done,
so I totally get it, like I'm in it with everyone.
(10:07):
But I'm just, yeah, I'm super piste just like you.
It's frustrating because ultimately what's going to happen is if
any of my clients go to these people, this black
market of getting lashes done, they might stick with them.
So I might lose clients over it. It's frightening to
be on your side. But you had originally said to
me like because of your you said, because of my morals,
I could lose a client, and that's unfair. Like you,
(10:29):
your morals are the right thing to do right now.
And the people who are doing the wrong stuff, it's
not like you are doing like guerrilla marketing, and I'm
trying to get out that that's not what they're doing.
They're doing illegal ship right now, and it's not okay.
So if you're listening to this podcast right now and
you are a soliciting someone to come do that in
your own home, stop be If you're on the opposite
(10:49):
side of it, get your ship together. I'm this is
the podcast I'm gonna curse the most. Get your ship
together and really put yourself in check because it's not
okay what you're doing right now. And I think of
anyone knows if anyone doing this, put a stop to it.
Tell them. I don't care. If there was like a
hotline to call people out on this, I'd be calling
it right now. So just be smart. It is not
(11:10):
safe to have someone come in your home work that
closely to your face and then go to someone else's home.
You don't know where they've been. It's almost worse than
coming in contact with someone in public, because they're going
to people's homes and being in their faces. I'm done ranting. No,
it's true. I feel the exact same way it is.
It's really, really, really frustrating. We all decided to go
(11:31):
to school to work for ourselves, so we're all feeling
this right now and every and the problem is, I
think everyone is doing things out of fear. It's true.
They're not doing things to be sneaky. It's true. It
is out of fear and and but you're doing it
in a better way out of fear. By connecting with
your clients and your customers one on one, seeing what
they need. Can you do no contact delivery? Can they
(11:52):
buy gift cards? Possibly doing an online course, You're not
being sneaky, which I think is amazing. So I want
people to go to sweepee Beauty dot com at Sweet
the Letter p Beauty dot com to go support, and
then follow Tiffany Sweepy Beauty on Instagram. But also, you're
a mom right now, your husband, you guys all live together,
You've got two kids. What is it like right now
(12:13):
with the kids being home. Yeah, it's really hard because
I'm still trying to run sweepy in a different way.
So there's still a lot of hours that I need
to be online and trying to think even like moments
to myself to think creatively and try to continue income
to come in. But on top of it, yeah, I'm
teaching a preschooler and a first grader and so it's
(12:35):
really hard. But I've like spent money on these online
websites that you can do learning on. And my thought
was I just sit my first grader in front of
the computer and let him just kind of do his thing.
But there's constant questions. He's not used to working on
a computer, and so he there's like mom, the computer
shut down, her, mom the computers beeping at me. So
(12:56):
it's not in my mind I was like, oh, he
can go do math for an our away from me,
But that's not what this is. So you're a teacher,
you're a business owner, you're a wife, a mom. Like,
it's a lot right now. So the house is never cleaned,
so there's that pressure of like, oh, my gosh, can
we try to just maintain it not to look like
Jumanji happened in the house. Mine looks like Jumanji happened,
(13:18):
and I live alone, So don't worry. Okay, Okay, I'm
gonna blame the cats. They've been out of control. You know,
they're not used to be totally. The cat's faulty. Absolutely well, Tiffany,
thank you for being here. Sweepe beauty dot com. Go
give her some love. Thank you so much. If you remember,
a few episodes ago, I had Conscient from Chip Monkey
(13:39):
Wine on the podcast. Everyone loved her. She was super positive,
fun to listen to. It's kind of crazy because right
now she is one of those companies that could actually
be thriving during all of this chaos. So Chip Monkey
Wine chip monkey wine dot com, if you remember, that's
where you can order wine as a gift, but a
personalized gift first a month. So, for example, Conscience brought
(14:01):
in for me a bottle of wine with a card,
and on the card was a printed picture of me
holding my key to my new home, and it was
a whole little note inside about why this specific wine
was great for moving into a new home. And you
can go on her website and just tell her what
you want to buy someone a wine for and she'll
(14:22):
help you pick out the best wine for them and
then make it personalized. And right now we're all kind
of stuck on our homes. It's hard to send gifts
in some cases, or it's hard to get up to
the liquor store and buy wine. Maybe you want to
get yourself somewhat. But it's a really cool gift to
send someone right now if you can't celebrate with them.
And she's got Quarantine Wine as a specific wine. She's
got Brown Box Survival, which is you'll get a bunch
(14:45):
of bottles of wine ship to you. And then something
she's working on is Thank You first Responder Wine. It's
not available at the moment, but I do want you
to know it's something she's going to have at chip
monkey wine dot com so that you can possibly send
it to a first responder so you can ship wine
in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
(15:06):
She sent me the abbreviations, moping, I just got all
those states, right. N D is North Dakota, right, Yeah,
it definitely is okay good. That's the level that I'm
out right now chip Monkey Wine on Instagram. It's also
chip monkey wine dot Com. Go get that wine because
you need it right now. Okay, So we've got Andrea
Michelle right now on the podcast. So Andrea, where are
(15:27):
you at the moment? I am in my closet of
a studio of hartbet, which I'm sure is not the
easiest thing to deal with right now. No, I'm just
glad I have a porch. Okay. So two years ago
you were on side Hustlers, and at the time you
were a therapist full time and your side hustle was photography,
and since then myself and our morning show have used
(15:49):
you a ton of times for photos. You've gotten to
do some really cool stuff. Didn't you shoot for Starbucks?
Who I shot with Andrew who was also on your podcast,
who got asked to do shoot for Starbucks? So him
and I together have shot for Starbucks. Okay. So on
that episode you said your end goal would be able
to do photography full time and then kind of had
your side hustle be therapy, your family therapy. So that
(16:13):
recently happened? It did? I guess it was like two
weeks ago. Now, Um had my last day as a
full time therapist, and I'm now doing three days a
week of therapy, but just in the afternoons and then
the rest of the week photography, which is an odd
time to make that chump and a scary time to
make that jump. So what has it been like leaving
(16:34):
a full time job and then assuming that a lot
of your shoots have been canceled or people are putting
them off. What is going on right now with you? Oh? Man,
They're so when you ask that question, there's so many
like overwhelming feelings that come up with that, because I
mean I was able to work that first week, and
then I was able to work last week, but it
was you know, meeting new people was really hard in
(16:57):
therapy because everybody's in a panic about what's currently happening,
and I didn't even know what was happening, and I
didn't know how to help these people, and so it
was really overwhelming to feel like stressed in the new
job all of a sudden, but then feel relief that
I didn't, you know, have to work the rest of
the week. But then I went, you know home to
(17:17):
go work on photography the rest of the week and
was like, well, now, what what what are my options.
I'm a creative I'm not an essential for anyone. So
people are going to want to save money. They're not
gonna want to go buy prints or schedule a photo
shoot or buy a gift card. What what do I
have to offer? And I actually posted a YouTube video
about this yesterday. I was like, what's my purpose right
(17:41):
now as a creative person? And I still kind of
I'm trying to figure that out and find out and
where can people see that video? It's on my YouTube channel,
which is just Andrea Michelle, and I'm going to post
a blog about it tomorrow on my website where you
can actually watch it on the blog. Okay, so it
should be up on the blog by now by the
time this podcast post. So it's Andrea Michelle dash photo
(18:02):
dot com for people to get to your website and
find everything. I know that people are scared and they're
not spending money right now, like you said, but I
think we need creatives now more than ever because you know,
you don't have so many outlets that you normally do have.
And yeah, people may not be scheduling a full family
photo shoot in the park right now, but we do
(18:22):
need people like you. Obviously, A therapist around and showing
that there are beautiful things in this world. And you've
done something where you've kind of upped your shop for
print game on your website, which I don't even think
I realized you did this ever before. Now did you know?
This is? This is something that I've been wanting to do,
and I've been like throwing around the idea of like
setting up a Patreon or setting up an sc shop
(18:46):
or whatever. And then because I have a square Space account,
which is fabulous, you can actually set up an e
commerce section of your website. And I was like, well,
I'll just sell prints and see what happens. So I'm
offering like things from my brabbles, like to Iceland in
Hawaii and San Francisco, things that look pretty in a house,
and even things from the Pacific Northwest. Or I saw
(19:09):
that Thank you, I was like, Oh, which one do
I want to put in my room? And there's all
different like sizes you can do different things. So I
think it's interesting that this is something you've always wanted
to do and you just did it now. And I
think a lot of people need to take a page
out of your book, and that including myself because I
keep saying I've always wanted free time, and there's all
these things I've wanted to do. Why am I not
(19:30):
doing them? And we're all kind of in that nervous
depression self pity mode, which is fine. But think about
all the things you've always wanted to do and do
them just like you did, and I'm glad you've done that.
It's important. And there's something about seeing my photos up
in like a print shop that's different, and it's a
little bit like, well, this is my personal art that
(19:51):
I've done that I now want to share where things
on my social media is like, well, here's what you
could buy from me. This is no this is my
heart that on a canvas or on a fine art
print or a postcard or or I think I'm selling
coasters because I was like, what the hell, why not?
What else can I say? People need them? They're sitting
at home on their couches. I need to protect their
(20:12):
tables right now. And I'm just like you. I think
I put a note on my website too that was like,
if there's any other thing you want, like a mug
or a or like a tablecloth or something or place, Matt,
just send me a message like, I'm sitting in my
computer all day, I may as well order what I
can and then send me the picture of it. So
if people want to order photos of the Carla, Marie
(20:33):
and Anthony show on a mug, can they Yes, Oh
my gosh, that's genius. That would actually be hilarious. I'll
send you our show logo you could do it or
put you look great, and then just our our mugs
on a mug. Yes, I have the perfect picture. I'm
visioning it now. I'm going to tell my mom. Gonna
send my mom one of me. That's what I'm gonna do. Well,
(20:53):
there you go, Andrea, thank you. I know this was
super short, but I want people to go follow you.
It's Andrea Michelle Photo, and then they can start scheduling
stuff with you. Right, you can kind of schedule a
little far out right now. Yeah. My print shop also
features a gift card which you can buy for people
if they need headshots, family photos, our weddings and boudoir yet,
which is what we talked about in our podcast. So
(21:15):
you can buy gift cards for other people or for
yourself to use later. Uh, they're discounted. So when you
do schedule the shoot, they won't be as much as
a full session is then cool awesome, Well, thank you
very much. Hanging there, do something like jumping or something
to get in there. Love you, love you too. See uh.
A few months back, I had Kim from Fresh Tangerine
(21:38):
on side hustlers. Fresh Tangerine is dainty jewelry, which I
am a huge fan of. But Kim had two stores
here in Seattle, and you can order from Fresh Tangerine
dot com from anywhere. Well right now the stores are closed.
Kim really isn't doing any wholesale because anyone she would
do wholesale with has closed their store, so she's relying
solely on Fresh Tangerine dot com. Um now, Kim employs
(22:02):
six people, which means that she doesn't qualify for a
lot of the government assistance that other businesses could be
getting because they are really such a small company. So
to keep her doors open and to keep her business going,
you can go to Fresh Tangerine dot com. It's a
great place to order gift for yourself right now, or
for anyone who may be having a birthday this month
that you want to shop for. So that's another cool
(22:23):
business you can help out right now. So now coming
to us from Maple Valley, Washington, we've got Missy from Dreamy.
So it's high Missy. Hello. So you actually just posted
that it's been literally it was like a year this
weekend that you would have been on side Hustlers. Yeah,
it was just about here, which is nuts. So you
have handmade soap, and anyone can go back and listen
to your episode, but just quickly explain why you started
(22:46):
Dreamy sous because I love that story. I started it
because my friend found out she had cancer and her
doctors told her she probably needs to start using more
natural stuff in her daily life. And it got me
thinking about what I use every day in the bathroom,
and I started looking around and stuff we use every day,
and I started looking for natural alternatives. I couldn't really
(23:08):
find a lot that I wanted. So I also found
out that you could make it yourself, and so I
started doing it and here we are, which is nuts.
So now did you ever think we'd live in a
world where the product you're making is like flying off
the shelves and no one can find it anywhere. No,
it is crazy, absolutely crazy. So you've got obviously you've
(23:28):
got hand soap. You've got moisturizer, you've got body wash,
you've got bath bombs, which are my favorite, by the way.
I love your bath bombs. You've got your shower soap,
which is super cool. The parfait is that, Yeah, I
love that. Do you have you noticed that cells are
going up because people are like, I need to find soape,
not necessarily, I mean, it's it's kind of tough. I
(23:49):
noticed a little bit of a downward trend in sales,
mostly because my presence has been more in person than anything. Okay,
because you do markets a lot, that's right. One of
my goals this year was to do more markets in person,
and so I signed up for a ton and spring
is the second best season for I assume a lot
of makers, but soap especially, And here we are. My
(24:13):
first market was supposed to be this weekend. I know
it was Full Moon market, right, No, well, I was
going to do that one later in the year, but
I was going to go to the Tacoma night market. Okay,
So the Tacoma nine market was canceled, so then people
could obviously be buying their soap for me, and I
know a lot of people are like, well, do I
need a specific soap right now to make sure I'm
combating germs. And it's any soap, soap and soap so
(24:34):
they can be buying from Dreamy So it's correct. Absolutely, yes,
it doesn't need to be antibacterial. Just the act of
washing your hands with plain old soap and water is
just as protective as anything else. And everyone is complaining
about having dry hands right now, and because they're using
soaps that have a lot of chemicals in them, that's right, yes,
(24:54):
And and just by washing so much, ironically, using a
lot of water is also going to dry your hands out,
but you might as well use still good for your skin,
and it smells great too, so Dreamy SuDS dot com
to check that out. But you have said something to
me that you didn't want to take advantage of people
right now and at all. I love that you actually
have discounted some of your items. Yeah, I am doing
(25:14):
a sale right now of anything in my store, partially
to kind of support that theory. You know, we shouldn't
be taking advantage of anybody right now at all, and
people need these items, and secondly because I need to
make up for sales. Jeezs Well, it's true and it's
good that you're doing that. You know, you aren't taking
advantage of people, and Dreamy SuDS is still your side hustle,
(25:36):
which is great. You do have a day job, but
where are you Are you able to still go to
your day job right now? What is the deal with that?
I still have my day job, but I am working
from home. I'm one of the very lucky people that
can still do that. My husband as well, and my
my daughter's out of school, so it's very close family time.
(25:57):
And then how is it being a mom and a
business owner and working from home literally all at the
same time in the same place. Yeah, it's it's a
lot to juggle, but you know, we're making it work.
We're all in it together. We're starting to go a
little still crazy, but the weather has been nice, so
we've been taking advantage and you're practicing great social distancing.
I'm sure, yes, good, good, good good. Okay, So go
(26:18):
support Missy Dreamy SuDS dot com, d r e A
m Y s u ds dot com And you can't
listen to Missy's full episode and anyone I've talked to
you today there The link is actually in the description
of this podcast. Missy, thank you for being here. Thank you,
and I got a shout out my girl Kayla from
C Town Sweets now cea Down Sweets is here in
the Seattle Western Washington area, but you can support Seatown
(26:40):
Suitets by following on Instagram. It's C town S e
a Town Sweets like Seattle. Get it sat Down Sweets
for the best cookie cake cupcake porn there ever is
out there. You can always support that way, but if
you live in Snahoma's County or King County. Kayla is
offering delivery and curbside pick up from her shop, which
(27:01):
is really cool, So you can go to seatown Sweets
dot com and under the order online tab. She's actually
added new products and different assortments like birthday cookies, Springing,
Easter cookie decorating kids. So if you're at home with
the kids, are about yourself, you want to do a
cookie decorating kit that's really cool, so you'll get the
sugar cookie and you'll be able to do your own
decoration on it. I've had Stown Sweets cookies for my
(27:22):
birthday for friends birthdays and they're always the best. And
I'm a huge, huge fan of what Kayla does. She's
also reduced the minimum quantities on certain assortments from one
dozen to a half dozen. So you're not sitting at
home with a dozen cookies, or maybe you are, but
it's really cool that she's doing that. And if you
order for fifty dollars or more, you will get free delivery.
(27:43):
So that's C Town Sweets dot Com. Coming to me
from New Jersey is Matt from seed Tech. Him at Hello, So,
I know you and I have been talking about doing
episodes where I bring back some people to kind recap
how their business is now. Unfortunately it's under these circumstances.
(28:04):
But I got you back on the podcast, and you
guys at seed Tech are doing something really cool right
now and I want everyone to know about it. So
I guess also explain first what seed Tech is, because
you'll explain it better than I do, and then we'll
talk about what you're doing now. Yeah, sure, thanks for
having me back on an unfortunate time. I'm glad to
be back. So we do digital marketing, we do websites.
(28:25):
We're helping more business to business from when the first
time I was talking was helping people at home, so
now we've kind of shifted what we do. So a
lot of it is digital marketing and helping people using
POS systems in their businesses. Uh So it's kind of
turned into more business to business. So now we're out
there helping and supporting small business. So if there's like
(28:47):
a mom and pop shop, pizza place, it's been around forever,
and they decide, oh, we want to actually switch to
one of those POS systems or is it is the
S and POS system point of sale system? Okay, if
they want to switch to one of those, you guys
can go in and help them do that. Yes. Yeah,
whether it's like Square, Clover, another party, those are the
(29:08):
ones that most people know about. Okay. Cool. So when
it comes to digital marketing, then you guys are just
helping people promote their company on Instagram and other social media.
Yeah exactly. That Google as well, so we do Google Analytics,
so we helped build their audience and etcetera. Okay, So
then right now, what is C tech doing differently during
(29:29):
this crazy time for small businesses? Right now, everything's remote,
so we're doing everything that we can remotely, which is
what we typically do. But as obviously right now, we
can't go inside any businesses unless it's an emergency because
we are considered an essential business for I T support,
So if a server goes down or something, we have
to go in. But nine out of ten times we
(29:50):
can do everything remote. So our entire team is now remote,
which is a little different because most people are used
to being out on the road. Okay, so then you
were posting about out something that seed Tech was doing
for not necessarily businesses, but for elderly people right now,
and I love this. Explain what you were doing and
how people can find out and get set up with you. Guys,
(30:11):
we're doing something that we're going back to our roots
and we're trying to help anybody, elderly people or people
that just don't understand technology. Knowing that people are on
isolation and people are alone to use video chat, whether
it's Spacetime or Google Duo, if they've never used it before,
I just need help setting it up anything along those lines.
We're doing that for free until this is pretty much over.
(30:32):
That's amazing. So how do then, like, say, you've got
a grandma who's never used face Time or Google Duo before,
how do you help them from far away without actually
showing them. It's it's difficult, but we try to do
it over the phone as best as we can. A
lot of us are used to remotely teaching people how
to do stuff without being in front of them, so
(30:55):
we pretty much guide them as best as we can,
and we hope to do it. Uh. If we have
set up accounts for people, you know, we are a business,
so they can entrust in us. That there and stuff
is safe with us, of course, but you know, we
want to do what's best for them and keep them
connected as best as we can. So if someone wants
you to help their grandma or grandpa gets set up,
how do they What is the best way to get
(31:15):
in touch with you? Guys? They can visit our website
and there's a chat that pops up. They can type
into that, or they can reach out to us on
Facebook which is seed Tech Media, or they can call
us the numbers on our website. Okay, and your website
is seed tech LLC dot com. Yes, now that's something
you're doing for the grandma's and grandpa's of the world,
but for the small businesses out there, you guys being
(31:37):
one yourself, though, how are you helping small businesses? We
offer digital marketing services, like I mentioned before, so we
want to offer graphic designs. So with that being like
posters their announcements that restaurants and small businesses showcasing their
hours what they might have available. Uh, we're offering that
for free as well, so they can get their word
out there and easy to read for all their customers
(31:59):
on so for media. Okay, So again they can go
to seed tech llc dot com to sign up there, Matt,
thank you. I mean, you're doing the good stuff right now,
given out all the free things that people can use
to stay connected, which is really cool, and hopefully in
the long run when things are back up and running again,
the same people will come to seed tech to really
launch their business for the next level after this chaos. Yeah,
(32:21):
that's an afterthoughts. So right now, as long as we
can help anybody. We can't offer products, there's anything like that,
but we can offer help so as best as we
can with tech. If you don't understand it, reach out.
We're here to help you. Guys are the best. Well,
thank you for being here. Thank You're not really not
really here, but you know what I mean. Social distancing, Ye,
Crystal from Nobility Leadership was on side hustlers during moms
(32:44):
who Hustle last May and Nobility Leadership, if you remember,
is this amazing company that helps small business owners be
better leaders and have better plans for their company. Well,
right now, Nobility Leadership is actually offering free workshops. You
get to sit on your couch and have a workshop,
which is really cool and Crystal has been having some
amazing topics. Go to Nobility Leadership dot com. You can
(33:07):
also follow on Instagram Nobility Leadership. This is a great time,
whether you're a business owner or not, to pick up
some new skills and Crystal's doing it for free. Nobility
leadership dot com. For those of you who are complaining
that you're being lame and sitting on your couch and
not doing anything for yourself. Coming to me from the
(33:29):
floor of our store in West Seattle, it's Shandon. Hi, Shandon, Hi,
pretty girl, how are you. I'm great? So you were
on side hustlers to almost two years ago. I think
so okay. Because you originally started your store a Layer
Seattle as a side hustle. It's been a full time
job for a long time. Now, what is it like
owning a brick and mortar store in all of this
(33:51):
craziness Right now? You know, it's really really hard. The
first week when we were figuring it out, it's such
an adjustment, and people either house to come there, and
you know, we haven't done a lot of online sales
are like anything like that before this. But I would
be sitting in the store and I'm personally scared as well,
and I'm personally have feelings I'm trying to process. And
(34:14):
then you're sitting in the store and that week it
was like really rainy, and I would be sitting in there.
In three hours would go by with no customers, and
I would just like, I put a sign on the door,
and I was just kind of like, we're all playing
this by ear. Once a couple of hours goes by
with more customers, I'll leave And that's what I did.
But then people would see the hours on Google or
whatever and come down. And it's also really hard to
sit there for hours with nobody in there, in the
(34:37):
spin of what's happening in your head. And then when
somebody comes in to switch it on and be like, oh, hey,
how are you, you know, like and then be in
public and be the face and when you've been just
sitting there spinning and freaking out, for you know ours
obviously you're trying to keep your business running, but also
you're the same like you're a human just like the
rest of us going through all of this emotionally. So
(34:58):
I think being real with your customers is great. And
you they know you at this point, most of them
who are coming in there so so they're in there
obviously because they want to support you and they want
everyone to pull through at the end of this. So
you have changed some things with a layer throughout this
chaos to cater to your customers and to keep you
know yourself healthy. So you're doing curbside pickup is one
(35:19):
of the things. How does that work? You shop online
and a week ago, currently it would be you could
have it shipped or pick up in store. So now
instead of pickup in store, is a pickup store or
curb side pickup. So people just pull up right out
front and they call us and we run it out
to them, and we even had a table out there
where we would just leave, you know, if they wanted
a no contact pickup, but most people are cool with
(35:41):
us just putting it in that car. And you also
got a shipment of hand sanitizer recently, which is like
gold these days. So people have been because you posted
on Instagram. Did you notice people coming in as soon
as you got it? No, Actually, it's pretty funny. I
posted it and I thought that it was going to
be like that, and I was actually pretty nervous about
to see because I was like, developed so many cool
(36:02):
relationships and I was like, I'm going to post it
and everybody's gonna ask me to hold it, and then
people are going to come in. I'm gonna have all
this stuff on hold. So I was just like, no holds,
like this is what we're doing. And then I was
trying to figure out how to make it fair. But
you know, you also want everybody to have what they need,
but you don't want to like be the guide from
Amazon that was in the New York Times. It's you know,
like you don't want to. You have to figure it out.
(36:23):
So I'm actually like not really making profit on it.
It's expensive right now to make, especially in small batches,
because getting the materials tough. I posted it and the
next day somebody came in about twenty minutes after I opened.
She was like, do you have any left? And I
was like, yeah, I haven't sold any of it yet,
because I think people just assumed I was going to
be out so fast. And I've got another order since then,
(36:46):
so I actually have a lot right now. And they're
two ounce bottles and they're you know, handmade, but they're
se alcohol so they're um, yeah, they're good. We put
a limit on it, but everybody's been pretty awesome. Nobody's
been trying to buy more than they can or that
you need. Um, everybody wants to make sure. I think
it's at the beginning people did it differently, but now
people are really seeing like there's people can't get it now,
(37:08):
You're not now if anyone wants to go to a
layer Seattle dot com, those will not be online, right, Okay,
won't be I had a couple of people reach out
to me that had done online orders and wanted to
adam in and I did that and shipped them out
for a couple of people. But now they're not going
to be online. Okay. And you're also doing FaceTime shopping,
which is something you and I are going to do
this week because I need to shop for my family. Hey,
(37:30):
birthdays are still happening, things are still going on. I
want to send gifts, so you're going to kind of
take me around the store because the store has more
than you have online, and I know it would be
torture for you to get everything in that store on
your website. But FaceTime shopping is something anyone can do
from anywhere, right, Yeah, FaceTime shopping. And if you want
to set up the FaceTime shopping, you can just reach
out to me and we'll set up a time to
(37:50):
do it Instagram, Instagram, or yeah at La Seattle, or
you can email me at Shandon at a layer Seattle
dot com or a Layer Seattle and gmail dot com.
Is probably easier than me having to spell my name
for everybody, but you know, or you can call the
store and figure it out. We've been open right now.
It could change every day, you know, if we go
(38:11):
into shelter or whatever, it'll change. But as of right now,
I'm going to do Wednesday through Sunday from twelve to four,
so that people kind of have times that they know
they can pick up curbside or they know they can
set up a FaceTime shop. But we're doing other hours
as well. We're doing some private shopping and then I
also want to set up some live Instagram videos where
(38:32):
I basically do like a big FaceTime shop and walk
around and then people can on the live video watch
it and then see the kind of stuff and then
just comment and then we can reach out and figure
it out afterwards. Yeah. I've seen a lot of people
do that. That's really cool. Now you mentioned private shopping,
and I know you've got you had a really cool
experience this weekend where you got to help out someone
(38:52):
who is men to compromise and can't leave their home.
Haven't left their home in how long? Three weeks? Wow?
So she was able to come into your store, were
in shop, and you closed on the store only for her. Correct. Yeah,
it was the coolest story. They come in and shop
pretty often. She has down syndrome, and she's not very verbal,
and you know, writing letters is her love language, and
(39:14):
that's how she keeps in touch with everybody. And she's
immune compromise. So she's been inside solidly for three weeks
and she doesn't understand why she's not going to work
and why she's not allowed to go do the things
that she usually does. And you know, they reached out
to me yesterday and asked me if there was a
slower time of the day where they could bring her in,
and I was like, you don't want to do that,
Like that's like just come in before we open, like
(39:37):
we'll give you some private shopping. She had Latex gloves
that she wore while she was in the store. We
had hand sanitizer for We made sure we cleaned everything up,
and it was the first time she got to leave
the house and we just you know, really wanted to
make it as special as possible. And then I, you know,
on the slide, I got her address from her sister
so that I could send her some stationary sporadically for
(39:58):
however long this take spect It was just that since
we're all on our own right now, and we're kind
of sitting in our houses alone, and you know, our
significantthers driving us crazy, or kids are driving us crazy,
or we're worried about our business, or we're worried about
the health of our loved ones or whatever it is,
there's always perspective that we're not thinking about, Like somebody
(40:19):
that you love is in your house and they're so
upset and they don't understand, and you feel so helpless,
like it's just it was one of those perspective moments
and I was like, this is something really cool that
we can do, and it's awesome. It's awesome to be
able as a business within your community to be able
to help the people who are still also trying to
help you. It's great that you're able to do that.
And I know you sent out a newsletter to everyone
(40:39):
who has been signed up, who has subscribed to a
Layer Seattle, and You've got a lot of great feedback
just from your newsletter because it was super positive and
you're keeping things as optimistic as possible, even though none
of us know how long this is going to go on,
for what's going to happen, how this is going to end.
And I guess talk about some of the points you
made in your email because I loved it. Thank you. Yeah,
(41:03):
that email was, you know, I said the first one.
There was two of them, and I sent the first
one that was like at the end of that week
where I was just figuring it out closing early when
I did too, and I was spiraling pretty bad that week.
And then I talked to some friends that were teachers
and they were talking about the school not being and
and a lot of people talk about the kids are
you know, maybe not have food, and that's they get
(41:24):
their only meals at school. But there's a bigger picture
also where there's some schools, especially down like the tuck
Willa area that's by the airport, and a lot of
those parents work at the airport, they work in the hotels,
and hours are getting cut, and not only are they
used to getting their meals at school, but also now
they're at home with parents that might be losing hours,
(41:45):
that might be having trouble paying their rent, and there's
a lot of tension that's happening, and they don't have
the break of leaving and going and seeing their friends
and getting out of that environment for a little bit.
And I was talking to them after this week of
me being uncertain and really a may being sad at
me being scared, and then I just was like, you know,
it switched it in my head, and I was just like,
(42:06):
there's stuff we can do, Like we don't have to
sit here and just think the doomsday, like all the
bad stuff that can happen, Like there's things we can
do to help. So I set out that first email
and it was just like, you know, nobody knows what
we're doing. We're taking it by day by day, I'll
keep you guys updated, but in the meantime, like, let's
collect some food. Let's do this, and it was like
(42:26):
the response was great, the amount of food we got
in forty eight hours, which just so you were you
were able to donate through your customers like list that
you have, you were able to have them bring in
food and you were able to donate, which is wild
because most people right now we're just trying to figure
out how to keep their business open, and you were
still in this time, found time and energy and brain
(42:46):
space to be able to do that. Yeah, and like
what's the point in having like the people that are
making the money off of the hand sanitized, you know what, Like, yeah,
we can keep we all want to keep our business open,
and we all you know, it's three years of my
life and it's every dollar that I have is there,
and you want to figure out how to keep it open.
But also like you need to be a human too,
and like I don't want to profit off of this
(43:08):
community just to stay open and and be like the
last one standing and be like ha ha, Like you
still have to be able to hold your head out
and say that, like you feel good about how you
handle the situation. So if a shelter in place does happen,
if which at this point kind of seems inevitable. So
if that happens, you do have to close. Can people
(43:29):
still FaceTime shop from you? And you can you still
mail things? Like how does that work? You know? I
don't know. I like people can still face time shop.
If I'm at the storm there, find myself. I live
three blocks away, so I can go down there and
package stuff up and mail it. And to be honest,
I kind of hope it does. Like I feel like
this in between of and every crazy that's coming from
(43:51):
a business owner, like yeah, and a brick and mortar.
But it's just I feel like, I mean, it's been
two weeks already and there's a lot of uncertainty, and
I'm like, we just need to hit the reset button.
People are dying and people are getting really sick, and
people are so stressed, and the longer that we're putting
this off, it's like the longer it's going to go on. Yeah,
let's just do it, Like let's just hit their hit like,
(44:12):
let's make everybody stay inside and let's hit the reset
button and then let's try again, like everybody's on edge already,
like we just we need to have a light at
the end of the tunnel. I'm with you on that.
So in the meantime, people can go to a Layer
Seattle in West Seattle to shop in store. You're doing
a great job at cleaning everything. I know that you've
(44:32):
got hand sanitizer for everyone to use in store, but
you can also shop from anywhere. It's a Layer Seattle
dot com, a L A I R Seattle dot com
and then they can reach out to you on Instagram
for FaceTime shopping a Layer Seattle. Yes, okay, Shennon, Well,
thank you for being here. I know you've got a
billion things to do, so go home and cuddle your dogs,
all right. Thank you so much, and thank you for
(44:54):
spreading a word about everybody. You're the best. I love you.
Thank you so much for list sending to this podcast.
I know there's a lot of crap going on in
the world. I know there's a lot of things you
could be listening to, So thank you for being here.
I seriously and genuinely appreciate you. And a lot of
you have been asking how you can help small businesses.
This is how if you have more questions for them.
Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail dot com. If you have
(45:16):
a small business, I don't care if it's a side
hustle or you are a side hustle, I'd love to
hear from you. I can always get you on an
episode or just shout you out. Let me know how
people can help you or what you're doing to help
your community. I would love, love love to hear that
help a small business in any way you can this week.
You could buy a five dollar gift card from them,
You can order from their business. You can buy gifts
(45:37):
in advance for things coming up later on this year
and have them at home, which is really cool. Or
you can just follow on Instagram, Facebook, whatever it may be.
Like them on social media. It truly does help in
the end. Or share with a friend who you may
think would benefit from knowing about that business. It's the
most simple thing you can do right now. So spread
the love support small businesses. Next week you're going to
(45:58):
hear the one hundredth episode of side Hustlers. Obviously we
recorded that last month total different time, but still celebrating
the one episodes and the amazing business owners we've had
on this podcast. And then After that, I'll probably do
another episode like this. So thank you for being here
as always and more than ever now I appreciate you
hanging there. We've got this practice, the social distancing that
(46:21):
you've always dreamed of doing, you know, being at home alone,
away from everyone. We've got these guys until next week.
Keep hustling,
For a lot of people. You know, why are you wait?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustles side side hustle do it. I'm a hustle
side hust do it. I'm a hustles side us love.
Come on, ask about me yo yo. It's the side
Hustless podcast we call the Root. This is side Hustlers.
(00:24):
I'm your host from my Heart Radio, Carla Marie. And
for the last two years and almost one d episodes,
we have heard from people following a passion outside of
their day job, even some of those people who left
their full time job to turn their side hustle into
their full time job and be a small business owner.
(00:44):
And that's just how they live and how they function.
And right now, those are the people who need us
the most. And I've been feeling it a lot lately. Obviously.
Whenever you're listening to this podcast, hopefully it's in the
future and we are all past this and you were
listening to this going wow, you remember when the coronavirus
was happening and everyone was at home and small businesses
(01:07):
needed our help, And now they're thriving I hope that's
when you're listening to this podcast, but if you're not,
if you're listening to it in real time, if you're
listening to it right now in March of they do
need our help a lot, and I have been feeling
it so much because I have heard the incredible stories
from these people, the stories of inspiration, of drive, of motivation,
(01:28):
of leaving your day job and being scared but making
it happen. And it's been so cool to hear their stories.
They've inspired me, they've inspired others. I mean, we've had
people come on this podcast who started their side hustle
because they were inspired by someone from two years ago
who were on the podcast. So it's been crazy for
me right now. I've been reaching out to all of them,
(01:50):
asking them how we can help them, and they're all optimistic,
they're all positive, but they're all really scared at the
same time. So in this epis we're gonna hear from
a lot of them on what they're doing differently. So
you're gonna recognize some of these people, and I'm gonna
put links to their original episodes also in the description
of this podcast if you want to go check them out.
After if you've never heard their original episode. So we're
(02:13):
gonna get from them on what they're doing differently, we're
gonna hear from them on how they're feeling and how
we can help them. It's kind of crazy right now.
I mean, everyone's got their own thing going on. Maybe
you can't help them monetarily, and I say this all
the time, but you can help by following them on Instagram.
And that sounds so crazy, but it helps support them
in any way possible. Go to their website, click around,
(02:36):
share their website, like on Instagram, comment on Instagram because
it helps other people see their business. Everyone's going through
something right now, and personally, I'm dealing with a lot.
My mom's surgery was canceled. Her open heart surgery was
canceled because the hospital has COVID nineteen patients and they
don't want to subject her to that in such a
(02:57):
vulnerable state. So now my mom has to sit around
for more in thirty days waiting for her surgery to happen.
And I'm on the opposite side of the country of
my entire family. So mentally, I'm dealing with a lot
right now. I know you are too. We are all
seriously in this together, and it sounds so cheesy, but
we are. And everyone's got their own thing that they're
dealing with right now. No one is in any better
(03:19):
of a situation than any of us. Unless you're living
in a cave in the middle of Montana, in some
doomsday shelter that you built, then you're good. And if
you're listening to this podcast, reach out to me because
I want to know about it. But we're all in
some ship right now, that's the best way to say.
But if you can help someone else, I promise you
you will feel better on your own. And it sounds
(03:42):
so ridiculous, but buying take out from small businesses helped
me feel better. And I saw a meme that was
in February. When you bought from take out from a
small business, you felt like a lazy piece of crap
sitting on your couch, and now you feel like a martyr.
And it's true. But do something to help someone else today,
even if it's sharing their story on Instagram, anything sharing
(04:04):
this podcast will help. Not just because I want to
get listens. It's not about that right now. I want
you to help the people who have become part of
the side Hustlers family. Before we get into this week's guest,
I do want to remind you that next week you
are going to hear that one hundredth episode with Laura Burkhard.
Now that was recorded last month at a time when
people could be in one place together, so it will
be a little weird, but it will bring you a
(04:24):
sense of normalcy. It's kind of cool too, super positive episode,
So be here next week to check that out. If
you have any questions for any Side Hustlers, feel free
to reach out to me Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail
dot com because we may end up doing another episode
like this. Over two years ago, at this point, I
got an email from a woman named Tiffany. Tiffany lived
(04:45):
in Rent in Washington, where her salon Sweet Pea Beauty
was located. And Tiffany was originally a mortgage underwriter but
had a love for makeup and taught herself makeup and
now she not only does makeup for brides and people
day in, day out, but she's got a lash bar
where she does amazing lashes, she does waxing, she does
(05:06):
so much at sweepe Beauty and Rent in Washington. It
went from being her side hustle to her full time job,
and Tiffany in these last two years has become an
amazing friend of mine. She's a mom with two kids,
and right now her business is closed. So let's get
Tiffany on. Tiffany, Hi, how are you? I'm good? So
you're coming to me from home? Yes? Okay. So the
(05:27):
last time you were on this podcast, we were in
studio in Seattle, and it was over two years ago.
You had just expanded Sweetpe Beauty to kind of be
two locations within one. You had your waxing, you had eyelashes,
you have makeup, and you're still doing all that well
except for right now in this current moment. So how
(05:47):
has sweet Pe adjusted during this time of where you
need to be closed, Especially someone like you is in
close contact with your clients. You can't not be in
contact with any of your clients. Yeah. So we closed
on Thursday before it was mandated by the governor, just
because morally, I just felt like it was super wrong
to be that close to people and not knowing that
(06:10):
I could be hurting someone and spreading this this virus.
So now that we're completely closed, I'm trying just to
do more stuff virtually and make contact with like the
email list, and if there's retail items that I know
people were talking about getting seeing if they want to
get him and then try to deliver it to them.
I don't know, just really trying to think outside the box.
(06:31):
We're talking about doing like a virtual makeup class. So
sweetpe beauty dot com is where people can go to
see those items, cause I know you sell, You've got makeup,
You've got the last here um that I love using.
You even have jewelry and store, You've got cool things
that people can use as gifts. So here locally in Washington,
what you've been doing is kind of hand delivering these
products and people order them. They can also go to
at sweet Pee Beauty on Instagram to kind of follow
(06:54):
along to what you're doing. But when you first close
and then obviously had to cancel upcoming appointments, what was
everyone's general reaction? The first person that I told was
not happy and kind of made me feel like I
was never going to be able to do business with them,
which you know, at that point, I was like, oh
my god, am I doing the right thing, Because at
that point it wasn't I legally didn't have to it
(07:16):
was just what I felt was right and wrong, and
so that was my first reaction. Um. Since then, though,
I started sending out the text messages the next morning
to all of my clients for the next week, and
everyone totally got it, and they all said like, well,
we're in this together. We'll be right there right when
you open up. And a couple of people asked, how
do we make the lashes last longer? And um, So
(07:39):
it's been good. My regular client base has been really supportive,
and people can buy gift cards if they want to
help support right now and then obviously cash them in
when we're all back to normal. Yeah, you know, I
didn't think about that in the very very beginning, and
then I had two people just message me and say
I got gift cards. And you know, now it's like
a big thing. It's every everyone's telling everyone to get
(08:00):
gift cards. But that's been It's so cool to like
go on I use Square and I go on my
transaction list for the day and I'm just seeing like
random cards being purchased and I don't know who it's too,
but it's yeah, it's super cool, even if they're probably
buying it to themselves, to some people just because they
want to help you. I mean, they believe in your business.
What the cool thing about what's sweepy is you do
(08:22):
something for women or even men that they can't do
for themselves. Like you've given me the best lashes that
have been awesome for like photo shoots and big events
that I've done. You've done makeup for women on their
wedding day. You know, it's you've been there with people
for big moments for them. So of course they want
to give back, and of course they want to help you.
But you told me something the other day that has
(08:44):
set me off to no end, and I want people
to know that this is not okay. You told me
there's a black market of people trying to do what
you do in their homes right now. Yeah, it's really frustrating.
Like I understand because as a business owner, and most
of us are small business owners, were scared, and that
was like my first fear of like how am I
(09:04):
going to make money? We don't know how long this
is gonna last. So there's that fear, right, But then
for me, my morals were like, no, this is wrong.
We are way too close to people. I've got to
shut down. But when the governor shut all salons down
in any anyone, astetician, cosmetologists, anyone. I started getting a
couple of messages, um like one was from someone I
(09:25):
didn't know, one was from just like a friend of
a friend. And then my girlfriend who owns another beauty bar,
messaged me and told me. And then I started seeing
things on Instagram and basically people want the asteticians or
cosmetologists to come to their house, probably even I would
imagine like massage therapists because they were shut down, to
will you come to my house to do this service?
(09:46):
So yeah, I mean, I understand people want to still
make money, but you want to make money. But my
question is I have seen not like a single human
other than maybe two co workers in the last who
needs their lashes done right now. I know, I agree.
I mean, I'm a hot mess, like my lashes are done,
so I totally get it, like I'm in it with everyone.
(10:07):
But I'm just, yeah, I'm super piste just like you.
It's frustrating because ultimately what's going to happen is if
any of my clients go to these people, this black
market of getting lashes done, they might stick with them.
So I might lose clients over it. It's frightening to
be on your side. But you had originally said to
me like because of your you said, because of my morals,
I could lose a client, and that's unfair. Like you,
(10:29):
your morals are the right thing to do right now.
And the people who are doing the wrong stuff, it's
not like you are doing like guerrilla marketing, and I'm
trying to get out that that's not what they're doing.
They're doing illegal ship right now, and it's not okay.
So if you're listening to this podcast right now and
you are a soliciting someone to come do that in
your own home, stop be If you're on the opposite
(10:49):
side of it, get your ship together. I'm this is
the podcast I'm gonna curse the most. Get your ship
together and really put yourself in check because it's not
okay what you're doing right now. And I think of
anyone knows if anyone doing this, put a stop to it.
Tell them. I don't care. If there was like a
hotline to call people out on this, I'd be calling
it right now. So just be smart. It is not
(11:10):
safe to have someone come in your home work that
closely to your face and then go to someone else's home.
You don't know where they've been. It's almost worse than
coming in contact with someone in public, because they're going
to people's homes and being in their faces. I'm done ranting. No,
it's true. I feel the exact same way it is.
It's really, really, really frustrating. We all decided to go
(11:31):
to school to work for ourselves, so we're all feeling
this right now and every and the problem is, I
think everyone is doing things out of fear. It's true.
They're not doing things to be sneaky. It's true. It
is out of fear and and but you're doing it
in a better way out of fear. By connecting with
your clients and your customers one on one, seeing what
they need. Can you do no contact delivery? Can they
(11:52):
buy gift cards? Possibly doing an online course, You're not
being sneaky, which I think is amazing. So I want
people to go to sweepee Beauty dot com at Sweet
the Letter p Beauty dot com to go support, and
then follow Tiffany Sweepy Beauty on Instagram. But also, you're
a mom right now, your husband, you guys all live together,
You've got two kids. What is it like right now
(12:13):
with the kids being home. Yeah, it's really hard because
I'm still trying to run sweepy in a different way.
So there's still a lot of hours that I need
to be online and trying to think even like moments
to myself to think creatively and try to continue income
to come in. But on top of it, yeah, I'm
teaching a preschooler and a first grader and so it's
(12:35):
really hard. But I've like spent money on these online
websites that you can do learning on. And my thought
was I just sit my first grader in front of
the computer and let him just kind of do his thing.
But there's constant questions. He's not used to working on
a computer, and so he there's like mom, the computer
shut down, her, mom the computers beeping at me. So
(12:56):
it's not in my mind I was like, oh, he
can go do math for an our away from me,
But that's not what this is. So you're a teacher,
you're a business owner, you're a wife, a mom. Like,
it's a lot right now. So the house is never cleaned,
so there's that pressure of like, oh, my gosh, can
we try to just maintain it not to look like
Jumanji happened in the house. Mine looks like Jumanji happened,
(13:18):
and I live alone, So don't worry. Okay, Okay, I'm
gonna blame the cats. They've been out of control. You know,
they're not used to be totally. The cat's faulty. Absolutely well, Tiffany,
thank you for being here. Sweepe beauty dot com. Go
give her some love. Thank you so much. If you remember,
a few episodes ago, I had Conscient from Chip Monkey
(13:39):
Wine on the podcast. Everyone loved her. She was super positive,
fun to listen to. It's kind of crazy because right
now she is one of those companies that could actually
be thriving during all of this chaos. So Chip Monkey
Wine chip monkey wine dot com, if you remember, that's
where you can order wine as a gift, but a
personalized gift first a month. So, for example, Conscience brought
(14:01):
in for me a bottle of wine with a card,
and on the card was a printed picture of me
holding my key to my new home, and it was
a whole little note inside about why this specific wine
was great for moving into a new home. And you
can go on her website and just tell her what
you want to buy someone a wine for and she'll
(14:22):
help you pick out the best wine for them and
then make it personalized. And right now we're all kind
of stuck on our homes. It's hard to send gifts
in some cases, or it's hard to get up to
the liquor store and buy wine. Maybe you want to
get yourself somewhat. But it's a really cool gift to
send someone right now if you can't celebrate with them.
And she's got Quarantine Wine as a specific wine. She's
got Brown Box Survival, which is you'll get a bunch
(14:45):
of bottles of wine ship to you. And then something
she's working on is Thank You first Responder Wine. It's
not available at the moment, but I do want you
to know it's something she's going to have at chip
monkey wine dot com so that you can possibly send
it to a first responder so you can ship wine
in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
(15:06):
She sent me the abbreviations, moping, I just got all
those states, right. N D is North Dakota, right, Yeah,
it definitely is okay good. That's the level that I'm
out right now chip Monkey Wine on Instagram. It's also
chip monkey wine dot Com. Go get that wine because
you need it right now. Okay, So we've got Andrea
Michelle right now on the podcast. So Andrea, where are
(15:27):
you at the moment? I am in my closet of
a studio of hartbet, which I'm sure is not the
easiest thing to deal with right now. No, I'm just
glad I have a porch. Okay. So two years ago
you were on side Hustlers, and at the time you
were a therapist full time and your side hustle was photography,
and since then myself and our morning show have used
(15:49):
you a ton of times for photos. You've gotten to
do some really cool stuff. Didn't you shoot for Starbucks?
Who I shot with Andrew who was also on your podcast,
who got asked to do shoot for Starbucks? So him
and I together have shot for Starbucks. Okay. So on
that episode you said your end goal would be able
to do photography full time and then kind of had
your side hustle be therapy, your family therapy. So that
(16:13):
recently happened? It did? I guess it was like two
weeks ago. Now, Um had my last day as a
full time therapist, and I'm now doing three days a
week of therapy, but just in the afternoons and then
the rest of the week photography, which is an odd
time to make that chump and a scary time to
make that jump. So what has it been like leaving
(16:34):
a full time job and then assuming that a lot
of your shoots have been canceled or people are putting
them off. What is going on right now with you? Oh? Man,
They're so when you ask that question, there's so many
like overwhelming feelings that come up with that, because I
mean I was able to work that first week, and
then I was able to work last week, but it
was you know, meeting new people was really hard in
(16:57):
therapy because everybody's in a panic about what's currently happening,
and I didn't even know what was happening, and I
didn't know how to help these people, and so it
was really overwhelming to feel like stressed in the new
job all of a sudden, but then feel relief that
I didn't, you know, have to work the rest of
the week. But then I went, you know home to
(17:17):
go work on photography the rest of the week and
was like, well, now, what what what are my options.
I'm a creative I'm not an essential for anyone. So
people are going to want to save money. They're not
gonna want to go buy prints or schedule a photo
shoot or buy a gift card. What what do I
have to offer? And I actually posted a YouTube video
about this yesterday. I was like, what's my purpose right
(17:41):
now as a creative person? And I still kind of
I'm trying to figure that out and find out and
where can people see that video? It's on my YouTube channel,
which is just Andrea Michelle, and I'm going to post
a blog about it tomorrow on my website where you
can actually watch it on the blog. Okay, so it
should be up on the blog by now by the
time this podcast post. So it's Andrea Michelle dash photo
(18:02):
dot com for people to get to your website and
find everything. I know that people are scared and they're
not spending money right now, like you said, but I
think we need creatives now more than ever because you know,
you don't have so many outlets that you normally do have.
And yeah, people may not be scheduling a full family
photo shoot in the park right now, but we do
(18:22):
need people like you. Obviously, A therapist around and showing
that there are beautiful things in this world. And you've
done something where you've kind of upped your shop for
print game on your website, which I don't even think
I realized you did this ever before. Now did you know?
This is? This is something that I've been wanting to do,
and I've been like throwing around the idea of like
setting up a Patreon or setting up an sc shop
(18:46):
or whatever. And then because I have a square Space account,
which is fabulous, you can actually set up an e
commerce section of your website. And I was like, well,
I'll just sell prints and see what happens. So I'm
offering like things from my brabbles, like to Iceland in
Hawaii and San Francisco, things that look pretty in a house,
and even things from the Pacific Northwest. Or I saw
(19:09):
that Thank you, I was like, Oh, which one do
I want to put in my room? And there's all
different like sizes you can do different things. So I
think it's interesting that this is something you've always wanted
to do and you just did it now. And I
think a lot of people need to take a page
out of your book, and that including myself because I
keep saying I've always wanted free time, and there's all
these things I've wanted to do. Why am I not
(19:30):
doing them? And we're all kind of in that nervous
depression self pity mode, which is fine. But think about
all the things you've always wanted to do and do
them just like you did, and I'm glad you've done that.
It's important. And there's something about seeing my photos up
in like a print shop that's different, and it's a
little bit like, well, this is my personal art that
(19:51):
I've done that I now want to share where things
on my social media is like, well, here's what you
could buy from me. This is no this is my
heart that on a canvas or on a fine art
print or a postcard or or I think I'm selling
coasters because I was like, what the hell, why not?
What else can I say? People need them? They're sitting
at home on their couches. I need to protect their
(20:12):
tables right now. And I'm just like you. I think
I put a note on my website too that was like,
if there's any other thing you want, like a mug
or a or like a tablecloth or something or place, Matt,
just send me a message like, I'm sitting in my
computer all day, I may as well order what I
can and then send me the picture of it. So
if people want to order photos of the Carla, Marie
(20:33):
and Anthony show on a mug, can they Yes, Oh
my gosh, that's genius. That would actually be hilarious. I'll
send you our show logo you could do it or
put you look great, and then just our our mugs
on a mug. Yes, I have the perfect picture. I'm
visioning it now. I'm going to tell my mom. Gonna
send my mom one of me. That's what I'm gonna do. Well,
(20:53):
there you go, Andrea, thank you. I know this was
super short, but I want people to go follow you.
It's Andrea Michelle Photo, and then they can start scheduling
stuff with you. Right, you can kind of schedule a
little far out right now. Yeah. My print shop also
features a gift card which you can buy for people
if they need headshots, family photos, our weddings and boudoir yet,
which is what we talked about in our podcast. So
(21:15):
you can buy gift cards for other people or for
yourself to use later. Uh, they're discounted. So when you
do schedule the shoot, they won't be as much as
a full session is then cool awesome, Well, thank you
very much. Hanging there, do something like jumping or something
to get in there. Love you, love you too. See uh.
A few months back, I had Kim from Fresh Tangerine
(21:38):
on side hustlers. Fresh Tangerine is dainty jewelry, which I
am a huge fan of. But Kim had two stores
here in Seattle, and you can order from Fresh Tangerine
dot com from anywhere. Well right now the stores are closed.
Kim really isn't doing any wholesale because anyone she would
do wholesale with has closed their store, so she's relying
solely on Fresh Tangerine dot com. Um now, Kim employs
(22:02):
six people, which means that she doesn't qualify for a
lot of the government assistance that other businesses could be
getting because they are really such a small company. So
to keep her doors open and to keep her business going,
you can go to Fresh Tangerine dot com. It's a
great place to order gift for yourself right now, or
for anyone who may be having a birthday this month
that you want to shop for. So that's another cool
(22:23):
business you can help out right now. So now coming
to us from Maple Valley, Washington, we've got Missy from Dreamy.
So it's high Missy. Hello. So you actually just posted
that it's been literally it was like a year this
weekend that you would have been on side Hustlers. Yeah,
it was just about here, which is nuts. So you
have handmade soap, and anyone can go back and listen
to your episode, but just quickly explain why you started
(22:46):
Dreamy sous because I love that story. I started it
because my friend found out she had cancer and her
doctors told her she probably needs to start using more
natural stuff in her daily life. And it got me
thinking about what I use every day in the bathroom,
and I started looking around and stuff we use every day,
and I started looking for natural alternatives. I couldn't really
(23:08):
find a lot that I wanted. So I also found
out that you could make it yourself, and so I
started doing it and here we are, which is nuts.
So now did you ever think we'd live in a
world where the product you're making is like flying off
the shelves and no one can find it anywhere. No,
it is crazy, absolutely crazy. So you've got obviously you've
(23:28):
got hand soap. You've got moisturizer, you've got body wash,
you've got bath bombs, which are my favorite, by the way.
I love your bath bombs. You've got your shower soap,
which is super cool. The parfait is that, Yeah, I
love that. Do you have you noticed that cells are
going up because people are like, I need to find soape,
not necessarily, I mean, it's it's kind of tough. I
(23:49):
noticed a little bit of a downward trend in sales,
mostly because my presence has been more in person than anything. Okay,
because you do markets a lot, that's right. One of
my goals this year was to do more markets in person,
and so I signed up for a ton and spring
is the second best season for I assume a lot
of makers, but soap especially, And here we are. My
(24:13):
first market was supposed to be this weekend. I know
it was Full Moon market, right, No, well, I was
going to do that one later in the year, but
I was going to go to the Tacoma night market. Okay,
So the Tacoma nine market was canceled, so then people
could obviously be buying their soap for me, and I
know a lot of people are like, well, do I
need a specific soap right now to make sure I'm
combating germs. And it's any soap, soap and soap so
(24:34):
they can be buying from Dreamy So it's correct. Absolutely, yes,
it doesn't need to be antibacterial. Just the act of
washing your hands with plain old soap and water is
just as protective as anything else. And everyone is complaining
about having dry hands right now, and because they're using
soaps that have a lot of chemicals in them, that's right, yes,
(24:54):
And and just by washing so much, ironically, using a
lot of water is also going to dry your hands out,
but you might as well use still good for your skin,
and it smells great too, so Dreamy SuDS dot com
to check that out. But you have said something to
me that you didn't want to take advantage of people
right now and at all. I love that you actually
have discounted some of your items. Yeah, I am doing
(25:14):
a sale right now of anything in my store, partially
to kind of support that theory. You know, we shouldn't
be taking advantage of anybody right now at all, and
people need these items, and secondly because I need to
make up for sales. Jeezs Well, it's true and it's
good that you're doing that. You know, you aren't taking
advantage of people, and Dreamy SuDS is still your side hustle,
(25:36):
which is great. You do have a day job, but
where are you Are you able to still go to
your day job right now? What is the deal with that?
I still have my day job, but I am working
from home. I'm one of the very lucky people that
can still do that. My husband as well, and my
my daughter's out of school, so it's very close family time.
(25:57):
And then how is it being a mom and a
business owner and working from home literally all at the
same time in the same place. Yeah, it's it's a
lot to juggle, but you know, we're making it work.
We're all in it together. We're starting to go a
little still crazy, but the weather has been nice, so
we've been taking advantage and you're practicing great social distancing.
I'm sure, yes, good, good, good good. Okay, So go
(26:18):
support Missy Dreamy SuDS dot com, d r e A
m Y s u ds dot com And you can't
listen to Missy's full episode and anyone I've talked to
you today there The link is actually in the description
of this podcast. Missy, thank you for being here. Thank you,
and I got a shout out my girl Kayla from
C Town Sweets now cea Down Sweets is here in
the Seattle Western Washington area, but you can support Seatown
(26:40):
Suitets by following on Instagram. It's C town S e
a Town Sweets like Seattle. Get it sat Down Sweets
for the best cookie cake cupcake porn there ever is
out there. You can always support that way, but if
you live in Snahoma's County or King County. Kayla is
offering delivery and curbside pick up from her shop, which
(27:01):
is really cool, So you can go to seatown Sweets
dot com and under the order online tab. She's actually
added new products and different assortments like birthday cookies, Springing,
Easter cookie decorating kids. So if you're at home with
the kids, are about yourself, you want to do a
cookie decorating kit that's really cool, so you'll get the
sugar cookie and you'll be able to do your own
decoration on it. I've had Stown Sweets cookies for my
(27:22):
birthday for friends birthdays and they're always the best. And
I'm a huge, huge fan of what Kayla does. She's
also reduced the minimum quantities on certain assortments from one
dozen to a half dozen. So you're not sitting at
home with a dozen cookies, or maybe you are, but
it's really cool that she's doing that. And if you
order for fifty dollars or more, you will get free delivery.
(27:43):
So that's C Town Sweets dot Com. Coming to me
from New Jersey is Matt from seed Tech. Him at Hello, So,
I know you and I have been talking about doing
episodes where I bring back some people to kind recap
how their business is now. Unfortunately it's under these circumstances.
(28:04):
But I got you back on the podcast, and you
guys at seed Tech are doing something really cool right
now and I want everyone to know about it. So
I guess also explain first what seed Tech is, because
you'll explain it better than I do, and then we'll
talk about what you're doing now. Yeah, sure, thanks for
having me back on an unfortunate time. I'm glad to
be back. So we do digital marketing, we do websites.
(28:25):
We're helping more business to business from when the first
time I was talking was helping people at home, so
now we've kind of shifted what we do. So a
lot of it is digital marketing and helping people using
POS systems in their businesses. Uh So it's kind of
turned into more business to business. So now we're out
there helping and supporting small business. So if there's like
(28:47):
a mom and pop shop, pizza place, it's been around forever,
and they decide, oh, we want to actually switch to
one of those POS systems or is it is the
S and POS system point of sale system? Okay, if
they want to switch to one of those, you guys
can go in and help them do that. Yes. Yeah,
whether it's like Square, Clover, another party, those are the
(29:08):
ones that most people know about. Okay. Cool. So when
it comes to digital marketing, then you guys are just
helping people promote their company on Instagram and other social media.
Yeah exactly. That Google as well, so we do Google Analytics,
so we helped build their audience and etcetera. Okay, So
then right now, what is C tech doing differently during
(29:29):
this crazy time for small businesses? Right now, everything's remote,
so we're doing everything that we can remotely, which is
what we typically do. But as obviously right now, we
can't go inside any businesses unless it's an emergency because
we are considered an essential business for I T support,
So if a server goes down or something, we have
to go in. But nine out of ten times we
(29:50):
can do everything remote. So our entire team is now remote,
which is a little different because most people are used
to being out on the road. Okay, so then you
were posting about out something that seed Tech was doing
for not necessarily businesses, but for elderly people right now,
and I love this. Explain what you were doing and
how people can find out and get set up with you. Guys,
(30:11):
we're doing something that we're going back to our roots
and we're trying to help anybody, elderly people or people
that just don't understand technology. Knowing that people are on
isolation and people are alone to use video chat, whether
it's Spacetime or Google Duo, if they've never used it before,
I just need help setting it up anything along those lines.
We're doing that for free until this is pretty much over.
(30:32):
That's amazing. So how do then, like, say, you've got
a grandma who's never used face Time or Google Duo before,
how do you help them from far away without actually
showing them. It's it's difficult, but we try to do
it over the phone as best as we can. A
lot of us are used to remotely teaching people how
to do stuff without being in front of them, so
(30:55):
we pretty much guide them as best as we can,
and we hope to do it. Uh. If we have
set up accounts for people, you know, we are a business,
so they can entrust in us. That there and stuff
is safe with us, of course, but you know, we
want to do what's best for them and keep them
connected as best as we can. So if someone wants
you to help their grandma or grandpa gets set up,
how do they What is the best way to get
(31:15):
in touch with you? Guys? They can visit our website
and there's a chat that pops up. They can type
into that, or they can reach out to us on
Facebook which is seed Tech Media, or they can call
us the numbers on our website. Okay, and your website
is seed tech LLC dot com. Yes, now that's something
you're doing for the grandma's and grandpa's of the world,
but for the small businesses out there, you guys being
(31:37):
one yourself, though, how are you helping small businesses? We
offer digital marketing services, like I mentioned before, so we
want to offer graphic designs. So with that being like
posters their announcements that restaurants and small businesses showcasing their
hours what they might have available. Uh, we're offering that
for free as well, so they can get their word
out there and easy to read for all their customers
(31:59):
on so for media. Okay, So again they can go
to seed tech llc dot com to sign up there, Matt,
thank you. I mean, you're doing the good stuff right now,
given out all the free things that people can use
to stay connected, which is really cool, and hopefully in
the long run when things are back up and running again,
the same people will come to seed tech to really
launch their business for the next level after this chaos. Yeah,
(32:21):
that's an afterthoughts. So right now, as long as we
can help anybody. We can't offer products, there's anything like that,
but we can offer help so as best as we
can with tech. If you don't understand it, reach out.
We're here to help you. Guys are the best. Well,
thank you for being here. Thank You're not really not
really here, but you know what I mean. Social distancing, Ye,
Crystal from Nobility Leadership was on side hustlers during moms
(32:44):
who Hustle last May and Nobility Leadership, if you remember,
is this amazing company that helps small business owners be
better leaders and have better plans for their company. Well,
right now, Nobility Leadership is actually offering free workshops. You
get to sit on your couch and have a workshop,
which is really cool and Crystal has been having some
amazing topics. Go to Nobility Leadership dot com. You can
(33:07):
also follow on Instagram Nobility Leadership. This is a great time,
whether you're a business owner or not, to pick up
some new skills and Crystal's doing it for free. Nobility
leadership dot com. For those of you who are complaining
that you're being lame and sitting on your couch and
not doing anything for yourself. Coming to me from the
(33:29):
floor of our store in West Seattle, it's Shandon. Hi, Shandon, Hi,
pretty girl, how are you. I'm great? So you were
on side hustlers to almost two years ago. I think
so okay. Because you originally started your store a Layer
Seattle as a side hustle. It's been a full time
job for a long time. Now, what is it like
owning a brick and mortar store in all of this
(33:51):
craziness Right now? You know, it's really really hard. The
first week when we were figuring it out, it's such
an adjustment, and people either house to come there, and
you know, we haven't done a lot of online sales
are like anything like that before this. But I would
be sitting in the store and I'm personally scared as well,
and I'm personally have feelings I'm trying to process. And
(34:14):
then you're sitting in the store and that week it
was like really rainy, and I would be sitting in there.
In three hours would go by with no customers, and
I would just like, I put a sign on the door,
and I was just kind of like, we're all playing
this by ear. Once a couple of hours goes by
with more customers, I'll leave And that's what I did.
But then people would see the hours on Google or
whatever and come down. And it's also really hard to
sit there for hours with nobody in there, in the
(34:37):
spin of what's happening in your head. And then when
somebody comes in to switch it on and be like, oh, hey,
how are you, you know, like and then be in
public and be the face and when you've been just
sitting there spinning and freaking out, for you know ours
obviously you're trying to keep your business running, but also
you're the same like you're a human just like the
rest of us going through all of this emotionally. So
(34:58):
I think being real with your customers is great. And
you they know you at this point, most of them
who are coming in there so so they're in there
obviously because they want to support you and they want
everyone to pull through at the end of this. So
you have changed some things with a layer throughout this
chaos to cater to your customers and to keep you
know yourself healthy. So you're doing curbside pickup is one
(35:19):
of the things. How does that work? You shop online
and a week ago, currently it would be you could
have it shipped or pick up in store. So now
instead of pickup in store, is a pickup store or
curb side pickup. So people just pull up right out
front and they call us and we run it out
to them, and we even had a table out there
where we would just leave, you know, if they wanted
a no contact pickup, but most people are cool with
(35:41):
us just putting it in that car. And you also
got a shipment of hand sanitizer recently, which is like
gold these days. So people have been because you posted
on Instagram. Did you notice people coming in as soon
as you got it? No, Actually, it's pretty funny. I
posted it and I thought that it was going to
be like that, and I was actually pretty nervous about
to see because I was like, developed so many cool
(36:02):
relationships and I was like, I'm going to post it
and everybody's gonna ask me to hold it, and then
people are going to come in. I'm gonna have all
this stuff on hold. So I was just like, no holds,
like this is what we're doing. And then I was
trying to figure out how to make it fair. But
you know, you also want everybody to have what they need,
but you don't want to like be the guide from
Amazon that was in the New York Times. It's you know,
like you don't want to. You have to figure it out.
(36:23):
So I'm actually like not really making profit on it.
It's expensive right now to make, especially in small batches,
because getting the materials tough. I posted it and the
next day somebody came in about twenty minutes after I opened.
She was like, do you have any left? And I
was like, yeah, I haven't sold any of it yet,
because I think people just assumed I was going to
be out so fast. And I've got another order since then,
(36:46):
so I actually have a lot right now. And they're
two ounce bottles and they're you know, handmade, but they're
se alcohol so they're um, yeah, they're good. We put
a limit on it, but everybody's been pretty awesome. Nobody's
been trying to buy more than they can or that
you need. Um, everybody wants to make sure. I think
it's at the beginning people did it differently, but now
people are really seeing like there's people can't get it now,
(37:08):
You're not now if anyone wants to go to a
layer Seattle dot com, those will not be online, right, Okay,
won't be I had a couple of people reach out
to me that had done online orders and wanted to
adam in and I did that and shipped them out
for a couple of people. But now they're not going
to be online. Okay. And you're also doing FaceTime shopping,
which is something you and I are going to do
this week because I need to shop for my family. Hey,
(37:30):
birthdays are still happening, things are still going on. I
want to send gifts, so you're going to kind of
take me around the store because the store has more
than you have online, and I know it would be
torture for you to get everything in that store on
your website. But FaceTime shopping is something anyone can do
from anywhere, right, Yeah, FaceTime shopping. And if you want
to set up the FaceTime shopping, you can just reach
out to me and we'll set up a time to
(37:50):
do it Instagram, Instagram, or yeah at La Seattle, or
you can email me at Shandon at a layer Seattle
dot com or a Layer Seattle and gmail dot com.
Is probably easier than me having to spell my name
for everybody, but you know, or you can call the
store and figure it out. We've been open right now.
It could change every day, you know, if we go
(38:11):
into shelter or whatever, it'll change. But as of right now,
I'm going to do Wednesday through Sunday from twelve to four,
so that people kind of have times that they know
they can pick up curbside or they know they can
set up a FaceTime shop. But we're doing other hours
as well. We're doing some private shopping and then I
also want to set up some live Instagram videos where
(38:32):
I basically do like a big FaceTime shop and walk
around and then people can on the live video watch
it and then see the kind of stuff and then
just comment and then we can reach out and figure
it out afterwards. Yeah. I've seen a lot of people
do that. That's really cool. Now you mentioned private shopping,
and I know you've got you had a really cool
experience this weekend where you got to help out someone
(38:52):
who is men to compromise and can't leave their home.
Haven't left their home in how long? Three weeks? Wow?
So she was able to come into your store, were
in shop, and you closed on the store only for her. Correct. Yeah,
it was the coolest story. They come in and shop
pretty often. She has down syndrome, and she's not very verbal,
and you know, writing letters is her love language, and
(39:14):
that's how she keeps in touch with everybody. And she's
immune compromise. So she's been inside solidly for three weeks
and she doesn't understand why she's not going to work
and why she's not allowed to go do the things
that she usually does. And you know, they reached out
to me yesterday and asked me if there was a
slower time of the day where they could bring her in,
and I was like, you don't want to do that,
Like that's like just come in before we open, like
(39:37):
we'll give you some private shopping. She had Latex gloves
that she wore while she was in the store. We
had hand sanitizer for We made sure we cleaned everything up,
and it was the first time she got to leave
the house and we just you know, really wanted to
make it as special as possible. And then I, you know,
on the slide, I got her address from her sister
so that I could send her some stationary sporadically for
(39:58):
however long this take spect It was just that since
we're all on our own right now, and we're kind
of sitting in our houses alone, and you know, our
significantthers driving us crazy, or kids are driving us crazy,
or we're worried about our business, or we're worried about
the health of our loved ones or whatever it is,
there's always perspective that we're not thinking about, Like somebody
(40:19):
that you love is in your house and they're so
upset and they don't understand, and you feel so helpless,
like it's just it was one of those perspective moments
and I was like, this is something really cool that
we can do, and it's awesome. It's awesome to be
able as a business within your community to be able
to help the people who are still also trying to
help you. It's great that you're able to do that.
And I know you sent out a newsletter to everyone
(40:39):
who has been signed up, who has subscribed to a
Layer Seattle, and You've got a lot of great feedback
just from your newsletter because it was super positive and
you're keeping things as optimistic as possible, even though none
of us know how long this is going to go on,
for what's going to happen, how this is going to end.
And I guess talk about some of the points you
made in your email because I loved it. Thank you. Yeah,
(41:03):
that email was, you know, I said the first one.
There was two of them, and I sent the first
one that was like at the end of that week
where I was just figuring it out closing early when
I did too, and I was spiraling pretty bad that week.
And then I talked to some friends that were teachers
and they were talking about the school not being and
and a lot of people talk about the kids are
you know, maybe not have food, and that's they get
(41:24):
their only meals at school. But there's a bigger picture
also where there's some schools, especially down like the tuck
Willa area that's by the airport, and a lot of
those parents work at the airport, they work in the hotels,
and hours are getting cut, and not only are they
used to getting their meals at school, but also now
they're at home with parents that might be losing hours,
(41:45):
that might be having trouble paying their rent, and there's
a lot of tension that's happening, and they don't have
the break of leaving and going and seeing their friends
and getting out of that environment for a little bit.
And I was talking to them after this week of
me being uncertain and really a may being sad at
me being scared, and then I just was like, you know,
it switched it in my head, and I was just like,
(42:06):
there's stuff we can do, Like we don't have to
sit here and just think the doomsday, like all the
bad stuff that can happen, Like there's things we can
do to help. So I set out that first email
and it was just like, you know, nobody knows what
we're doing. We're taking it by day by day, I'll
keep you guys updated, but in the meantime, like, let's
collect some food. Let's do this, and it was like
(42:26):
the response was great, the amount of food we got
in forty eight hours, which just so you were you
were able to donate through your customers like list that
you have, you were able to have them bring in
food and you were able to donate, which is wild
because most people right now we're just trying to figure
out how to keep their business open, and you were
still in this time, found time and energy and brain
(42:46):
space to be able to do that. Yeah, and like
what's the point in having like the people that are
making the money off of the hand sanitized, you know what, Like, yeah,
we can keep we all want to keep our business open,
and we all you know, it's three years of my
life and it's every dollar that I have is there,
and you want to figure out how to keep it open.
But also like you need to be a human too,
and like I don't want to profit off of this
(43:08):
community just to stay open and and be like the
last one standing and be like ha ha, Like you
still have to be able to hold your head out
and say that, like you feel good about how you
handle the situation. So if a shelter in place does happen,
if which at this point kind of seems inevitable. So
if that happens, you do have to close. Can people
(43:29):
still FaceTime shop from you? And you can you still
mail things? Like how does that work? You know? I
don't know. I like people can still face time shop.
If I'm at the storm there, find myself. I live
three blocks away, so I can go down there and
package stuff up and mail it. And to be honest,
I kind of hope it does. Like I feel like
this in between of and every crazy that's coming from
(43:51):
a business owner, like yeah, and a brick and mortar.
But it's just I feel like, I mean, it's been
two weeks already and there's a lot of uncertainty, and
I'm like, we just need to hit the reset button.
People are dying and people are getting really sick, and
people are so stressed, and the longer that we're putting
this off, it's like the longer it's going to go on. Yeah,
let's just do it, Like let's just hit their hit like,
(44:12):
let's make everybody stay inside and let's hit the reset
button and then let's try again, like everybody's on edge already,
like we just we need to have a light at
the end of the tunnel. I'm with you on that.
So in the meantime, people can go to a Layer
Seattle in West Seattle to shop in store. You're doing
a great job at cleaning everything. I know that you've
(44:32):
got hand sanitizer for everyone to use in store, but
you can also shop from anywhere. It's a Layer Seattle
dot com, a L A I R Seattle dot com
and then they can reach out to you on Instagram
for FaceTime shopping a Layer Seattle. Yes, okay, Shennon, Well,
thank you for being here. I know you've got a
billion things to do, so go home and cuddle your dogs,
all right. Thank you so much, and thank you for
(44:54):
spreading a word about everybody. You're the best. I love you.
Thank you so much for list sending to this podcast.
I know there's a lot of crap going on in
the world. I know there's a lot of things you
could be listening to, So thank you for being here.
I seriously and genuinely appreciate you. And a lot of
you have been asking how you can help small businesses.
This is how if you have more questions for them.
Side Hustlers Podcast at gmail dot com. If you have
(45:16):
a small business, I don't care if it's a side
hustle or you are a side hustle, I'd love to
hear from you. I can always get you on an
episode or just shout you out. Let me know how
people can help you or what you're doing to help
your community. I would love, love love to hear that
help a small business in any way you can this week.
You could buy a five dollar gift card from them,
You can order from their business. You can buy gifts
(45:37):
in advance for things coming up later on this year
and have them at home, which is really cool. Or
you can just follow on Instagram, Facebook, whatever it may be.
Like them on social media. It truly does help in
the end. Or share with a friend who you may
think would benefit from knowing about that business. It's the
most simple thing you can do right now. So spread
the love support small businesses. Next week you're going to
(45:58):
hear the one hundredth episode of side Hustlers. Obviously we
recorded that last month total different time, but still celebrating
the one episodes and the amazing business owners we've had
on this podcast. And then After that, I'll probably do
another episode like this. So thank you for being here
as always and more than ever now I appreciate you
hanging there. We've got this practice, the social distancing that
(46:21):
you've always dreamed of doing, you know, being at home alone,
away from everyone. We've got these guys until next week.
Keep hustling,
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