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What It's About
Holiday gifts for family lead two friends to a lucrative side hustle selling body care products.
Business Model
Product
Skills Required
Researching & Experimentation
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
Meredith and Yolanda's most successful online marketing strategy has surprisingly been through Facebook. They asked their friends and family to like their page in order to build social proof and began sharing images of the products and their benefits. After a few weeks, the organic likes began slowly flowing in. The Facebook page, five months after launch, has just over 500 likes—and the Instagram following is quickly catching up.
Fun Fact
At the moment, Meredith is in the process of creating 200 balms for an Olympic stylist who gives the athletes she works with an “essentials for athletes” bag to help them get through the grueling Olympic season.
Notes from Chris
Episode 213
The Christmas season was swiftly approaching quickly. Meredith Moseley-Bennett wanted to give her family gifts that reflected her personality and would be more practical and meaningful than random stuff they didn’t need. She called up her neighbor, Yolanda Grbic, who became a partner in the endeavor. Together, they sourced some ingredients, bought some gift tins, and created a few batches of all-natural body butter and lip balm. The families and friends of Meredith and Yolanda loved the gifts. They worked well and didn’t contain obscure chemicals. Impressed, they encouraged the two women to consider going into business together. Their first products ranged from $6 for lip balm and $18 for body butters, but two products just weren't enough. They wanted to be able to cross-sell other products to their customers. Once things were up and running, the pair quickly created and launched two new products, Mosquito Minders (an all-natural mosquito repellant) and Tickety Split (an all-natural tick repellant), which have since become Oh My Balm’s best sellers. In the first three months, Oh My Balm saw about $1,300 in online sales and another $1,000 from local pickups. But in May they booked their first craft show—and everything changed. In one weekend they brought in $850 at a small-scale show. They quickly booked two more shows and made $2,000 more.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Oh My Balm: Get the full list of Meredith and Yolanda's line of skincare products on their Etsy page
- Global Mamas: The community that Meredith and Yolanda decided to source their shea butter through due to their shared values of wanting to create a life of prosperity for African women and their families
- SquareSpace: The website building platform that Meredith and Yolanda used to create the Oh My Balm website
- Claire's Facebook Guide: If you'd like to up the ante, here's a free beginner's guide to getting started in the world of Facebook Ads
- FreshSparks | 11 Simple Steps for a Successful Brand Building Process: If you'd like to build a strong brand, here are some tips to help you get started
- Florist & Sculpture Professor Make Presidential Lip Balm: Adventures in creating homemade presents for friends and family lead a Beyoncé-obsessed duo to lip balm world domination. Bonus: learn Abraham Lincoln’s favorite dessert recipes
- Oncology Nurse Creates Products to Regrow Hair After Chemo; Earns $80,000: After kicking cancer to the curb, a Texas oncology nurse discovers the power of essential oils for hair regrowth and launches her own handmade hair care line
Quote of the Day
"Our mission is to show our two daughters that you can do anything as long as you are brave, smart and strong—and not afraid to work hard."
—Meredith Moseley-Bennett #SideHustleSchool
