Hey, Hey, hey guys, It's me Tiffany and it's Manjo. We just want to say thank you guys. You guys are amazing thanks to you. Since we started our podcast, it was just me and Mandy listening to ourselves to now we get over one hundred thousand downloads a month, and I know it seems like that's awesome, but we can do even better.
And we have a favor to ask, just.
A tiny favor, if you could please share our show. Share it on your social media. You can tag us at Brown Ambition Podcast. Take a screenshot of the show that you're listening to and share it on Twitter, on Insta, on Facebook, tell a friend to tell a friend. You can tag us on social media. We're at Brown Ambition Podcast on Insta, at the BA Podcast on Twitter, and of course our Facebook group. You can find us under Brown Ambition. Don't forget to tag our personal handles too.
On Insta. I'm at Mandy Money, Mandy with an Eye, and Tiffany is at the Budget Nista. When you tag us, we will share your post and help amplify it even further. Thank y'all for all the love this is just going to help us give us that little extra brown boost.
Hey, hey Hazy, hey hey, he switched it up for you.
You know, I said, let me bring it back to nineteen ninety seven.
It's summer. It was ninety degrees today, so you know what, why not we need some easy up in here.
I know, Hey, Mandra, how are you?
Hey?
I am doing well, so excited about today's show?
Me.
Does you see what I did there?
I did Yo and tiendo Moibean. We have an amazing guest on today show. You want to talk about this, Sandy?
Yes, Honestly, I think I'm trying to think where did I meet Sandy? I think I met Sandy when I met I think I'm met her online first, but then I went to my first you know conference as shall but I'll not be named, like six or seven years ago, and she was there, one of the few brown faces, and she was just warm and welcoming and Sandy. I don't know that.
I honestly don't know anyone that doesn't like love Sandy.
She has such a good energy, gives yet hugs, which I know you probably don't love about her, but I personally love a good Sandy hug.
She is just so giving. I don't know that I've ever asked anything of Sandy and she hasn't said sure girl.
And so Sandy, I originally met her through her brand, Yes I Am Cheap, which is the brand she still has. You know, it's all about frugalness and living simply, but she has since evolved into a couple of other things. She is like the go to for all things side hustle. Literally we call her side Hustle with Sandy because my dreamcatchers love Sandy and when she comes to teach them about working from home making extra money, Sandy also gives great advice about how to make extra money at your
current job. And then two we talked about Sandy. I think last episode about her Elevate conference, which is specifically for black and brown financial educators and podcasters and bloggers to have a safe space to share, you know, their experiences teaching their community. So Sandy's just all around amazing. So I'm excited she's a guest on the show.
I feel like we manifested her because as soon as that show wrapped, I was like, Sandy, you fro ant ambition now she said, okay, finally she was ready. We were ready. Love it. Well, that interview is coming up later on the show. Y'all, can we talk about the stock market real, real quick like because I feel like blah blah blah. Another record high for the S and P five hundred today. I was looking at my four and one K, which I try not to do. I
don't want to like jinx anything. But I was looking at my four one K and I'm in my separate Broke Ridge account, and I'm like, hell, yes, y'all, just stay the freaking course. I'm so glad. Even Homeboy you hear Rio, he's very excited for mommy. He's like, yes, Mommy, I want to go to a very good college. Yeah, I'm just feeling like, you know, people were so scared because it was quite scary. I mean, my my investments were down because I'm still like really really like ninety
percent in the market with all my investments. I'm a frugal saver, but I'm a I like to aggressive investor because I know, I just I don't know I had the stomach for it. I guess I built the stomach. But yeah, things were down thirty percent. I was like I had to tell Husby, stop stop looking at your stop looking at your selling.
I remember that there was like March, was that March when things were down?
Yeah, March April was when things really hit it. But I actually, I think I was contributing ten percent. This is just my four one k. I was contributing ten percent from.
Each pay period.
And then when I realized what I was saving by not commuting, not eating out every day, I went in and I was like, I can afford to double my savings. So I started kicking in twenty percent of my paycheck into my retirement and then I was like, this feels great. This is the right thing to do. It's so hard emotionally to tell yourself what to do because you know, on paper it's like buy low and sell hi.
Hi.
And I was like, just listen to your own advice, Mandy, Like this is a clearance sale. You got to get in and get that clearance. But it's it's now that the market's you know, bounce back, and then some I'm so I'm feeling kind I'm kind of feeling myself.
I don't know, like I hope that is.
I mean, and I know there's some people who are like because a lot of my friends invest in individual stocks and that can seem scary for some of y'all, but you don't have to, Like, you can literally invest in the market via an index fund. So they're like S and P five hundred. There's there are ETFs which are like they're like a basket of stocks that you
can trade on the market. Or you can use a mutual fund where you could just say, oh, I'm going to put two hundred bucks a month into this mutual fund that mirrors the market, which is an index fund, so you can find so you can say S and P five hundred ETF symbol or mutual fund s and P five hundred, and you can literally just invest in in that index. And what's so awesome about it is that the S and P five hundred is the top five hundred companies that are traded in the United States.
So when things are up, like Mandy said, your money is up, and when things are not so up, the truth is you can actually just put more money in because over time, history has shown us that the market goes up over time. Even if it dips, it eventually finds its way back up again. So those are two easy ways mutual funds and ETFs to start investing without having to pick individual fots, which most people are not good at anyway.
Yeah, and I feel like we always get and personally, I don't have my Teani and I talk about our little robinhood accounts. You know I do have. I think I have some stock in Chewy dot com because I love Chewy dot com personally for my dog stuff. If you have a pet, you probably know Chewy. But anyway, that's not the main That's not where I put most of my investments. My main investments consisted of like a target date fund that I got way back in like
twenty thirteen, which I've since traded into. Just I just selected my own index funds. But I am an index fund girl all the way. And my husband and I were arguing back and forth about the difference between ETFs exchange traded funds and mutual funds, and it was so funny we're both saying the same thing. But Tiffany, you nailed that. The big difference is an ETF you can trade it during the day, so if you have time and you want to trade one TF for another, you
can do that. But with a mutual fund or an index fund, you can only you only going to be able to sell that index fund for the price it hits at the market closes. But that's fine because for most index funds savers, you know, we're not in this for the daily ups and downs of the market. We're in it for the long haul. Like if the market goes up or down, I'm not selling my funds. And that for me is my strategy. It's a long, long
term strategy. You know, I understand if people want to be selling, you know, buying and selling stocks or ETFs during the day, if that's what you're into and you got the time, cool cool cool. But for me, you know, and I think a lot of you know, long term investors, index funds are cheap, they're very easy, and you can get them through any from many, many different brokerage accounts. We talked about Vanguard Fidelity, Charles Schwab. I mean even on Robinhood you can you can.
Do not mutual funds on Robinhood ETFs.
And I was looking recently. You know, Tiff and I are fans of Ally. We talked about they have they are all these you know, a lot of banks are now getting into investments, and you know, you can invest through Ally, but I saw that they charge they do offer. You can buy you can commission free trades for stocks and ETFs, but nine ninety five to trade mutual funds.
So no, thank you, ma'am. Yeah, no, you want to look for Yeah, you want to look for brokerage accounts that have lower no commissions if you plan on trading, you know, even a little bit, and especially if you plan on trading frequently, and then look for you know, shop around and look and see which brokerage account you know you think appeals most to the way that you like. Honestly, it really comes down to the look, feel and the brand because they're very similar at the end of the day.
I've used Vanguard and the and the price.
And because you want to look for that that expense ratio, which is really just the pride the feed that they're charging you on your on your on your total portfolio. So if you like, for example, vanguards like point zero zero nine percent, point zero nine percent or something like that, child Shwaw might be point zero seven, somebody else might be point might be one point five.
We don't like those.
So you're you're gonna want to look for an expense ratio that is low. It means the percentage they're going to charge you on what you've invested with them, So
obviously the lower the better. Now, being mindful that if something is actively if someone has an active or a fund has an active manager, meaning someone a person that is picking stocks and manipulating stocks and picking bonds or whatever it is that's in the fund for you, know that the expense ratio is going to be higher because the purpose of that fund is to beat the market, although statistics show rarely does fund fund managers beat the market on a consistent basis, But just know that that
that the purpose of that is to beat the market. An index fund is different. The index fund is literally there to match the market. It's supposed to say that S and P. Five hundred, the top five hundred companies went up to, your fund went up to, it went down to your fund went down to. So some people like to pay the extra money for an actively managed
fund because they're hoping to beat the market. But like I said, you know, studies and statistics have shown that rarely do fund managers beat the market consistently year after year after year after year after year. That for me, I just like index funds because I'm like I'll just match the market. Let the market go up and I go up, and when it goes down, I go down. But over time, I know I go.
Up, yeah, one thousand percent. And remember're talking to Sandy a little bit later about side hustles and additional sources of income in order to build wealth. But you know, for me, nothing beats that stock market. I love it and it's so fun. I mean, time is the only thing you have to you have to accept like it's going to take time to see gains and to see
yourself bounce back from any lows. But you know, I've got a decade where I've been in the market now a little under a decade, and I've I've gone through two recessions now, I mean the Great Recession and then this.
Can are we calling it a recession?
What is this?
It's like a crisis, but not a crisis because the market is oh.
It is technically, I mean now the markets up, but it is even though the market is up, it doesn't mean that the economy is up.
It's two separate things.
So we are still technically in a recession because we still have seen slow down and job growth in exports, not exports, but like, uh, the economy has been down in JDP it has been yeah, our GDP, so.
So yes, we are still.
We are technically in a session, even though the market would not suggest it. And that's what confuses people because they're like, well, we're doing good. It's like economy is down, market is up. Because the economy is based upon actual money and jobs and things flowing out or in to this country.
Reality.
Yes, I was going to.
Say, it's based on facts, no printer, whereas the market it's all emotion. It's just I feel a thing, I buy a thing, I react to a thing. So I don't want you to look at the stock market and think everything is amazing. That's just feelings. The economy is facts, and the facts show I think I was being statistics like it was like one in four people basically are defunct on their mortgage, you know, like they were like they applied for that mortgage assistance, so they have not
paid since the Cares Act was passed. And so with that being said, that's the worry because it's like, well, if people are not paying their mortgage, if people are still have not gone back to work, if people are still not making the income they were making before. That's the economy, that's the real meat and potatoes. And although the stock market, which is great, which is the dessert,
it doesn't really tell the full picture. So you just want to be mindful how you navigate, and that you still want to be mindful that we are still in a recession and we still could see potentially the ripple effects of like people not working and not paying for things like their mortgage, and that what is that going to look like a year or two years from now?
Are we going to have a whole bunch of people who are.
Foreclosing or is the you know, our our federally back mortgage is going to come up with another program to help people. I don't know, but you know, don't be fooled by just the market. That's you know, that's the long flowing hair, but that hair is a weave, it's not her.
And one last notice, you know, I talk about staying the course, but it's really about staying your course. Like you are the only person who knows your own circumstances, your own goals, your own time horizons. So if you're listening right now and you're nearing retirement, I mean I personally am fine being you know, like ninety percent in
the market right now. Because I'm thirty three years old, I imagine I'll be working for at least another twenty, you know, years, and I've got time to recover from a dip. But if you haven't been rebalancing, you know,
we talked to this before. The people who truly get slammed during times like this and hurt, like, you know, really hurt sonistic is when they don't rebalance your portfolio to be a little bit less risky so that when there's these big dips in the market, they're not getting hit because you know, you've got your investments more in conservative things like bonds, which you can also get bond
ETFs and mutual funds and all that. So definitely, like if you're if you're listening to us, like we are excited because you know we've got some time we're in the market, et cetera. But you've got to do what works for you. You would definitely consult the financial advisor a financial planner if you need that extra help figuring out what your strategy is. But I say, once you've got it, just just stick to the course and that's the best. You know that you can do.
Yes, And so you're not gonna hear Stu wins at the end because, quite honestly, the fact that we have Sandy on the show, that's our win.
That is the win. You're welcome. Well, let's take a break now and we will come back with our interview with Sandy Smith, the side hustle Queen. She's going to talk about not just great side hustles anyone can do while working at home these days, but also how to do it realistically, how to treat it like a business, and how to actually market the products and get people to buy them. So stay tuned for our interview with Sandy.
So I'm excited, You're excited, Mansard's excited.
We're all excited because we have the one, the only Sandy Smith. Formerly are currently of Yes I Am Cheap, but more importantly of side hustles with Sandy. We have been teasing you with Sandy since the very beginning of the podcast, and we finally wrangled her in today to talk to you all about ways that you can make money working from home. Honestly, Sandy's just a delight. She does so many things. She is If you guys ever
watched Clarence or The Godfather on Netflix. That's what she is too, black and brown finance, so she is our go to. She is the creator of Elevate, which is a group of black and brown financial educators and writers and bloggers. And Sandy's just amazing, So we're happy to have her.
Thank you for joining me.
I feel like I've been here every episode because I'm always playing guys in the car. I feel like I'm sitting here with you and Mandy having a whole kiky going on. So I'm like, oh, this is my like, you know, fiftieth appearance.
I mean, Sandy, you were there from the very beginning when tiff and I met it at fin Con. I remember that was the first time I realized that that was the beginning of Elevate, right.
It was the expansion of Elevate. Eleva had been around for like a year or two before that, but it definitely expanded.
Then.
That's when it really formalized in my head what I really wanted to do.
Well, what I love most about you, Sandy. And this is something Tiffany and I have been talking a lot more lately. It's about how to get past that stage of saving and scrimping and paying down things and really
get into more of a phase of building wealth. And what I love about you especially is that you know, you talk about side hustles, but you don't talk about it like, you know, come home from you nine to five, work a side hustle, stress out, you know, just like you're really into the idea of encouraging and helping people build wealth and building it through passive income streams. So I just want to dive right in. Can you tell us about your journey, Like, what were some of the
early side hustles you as Sandy Smith. What was the first time you started to realize, oh, I could make some money on the side with very you know, with some upfront costs, but you know, have passive income. And yeah, tell us how that all.
Started for you.
So huge disclaimer, I'm Jamaican, so you know, okay, you always have to have tree jobs at least, right, So my first job, as always your parents will tell you if you are from the Caribbean or if you're from Africa, your first job is being a student, right, one hundred and ten percent being a student.
And then so it started for.
Me actually while I was in college because my mom had filed bankruptcy the year that I was going to college, and I had a full academic scholarship to go to Xavier University, but I couldn't afford to take out enough laws to pay for my room on board. So the first year, my aunt helped me out with that, and then afterwards I was like, I had to give up
the scholarship because I couldn't afford the rooman board. So I came back to New York and I was like, Okay, tuition's actually a lot of money and I needed to supplement my income. So it actually started way back in the ice age in the nineties. Side mustling for me, So time.
To go, well, pre internet kind of okay, how old do you think I am?
I mean, you know.
The internet was around, but it wasn't like in every household.
Yeah, it wasn't because it wasn't the So Sandy, what is your I mean, I know, but I think the audience would love to know what's your biggest like side hustle claim to fame, Like when you made like the biggest bucks.
In the shortest period of time? What was that and how much was it?
Yeah?
That was definitely when I was on Amazon really really heavy, and a couple of my products went viral. I was doing coffee munths at the time, which is like the most mundane thing, right, and I ended up taking all of my vacation time to fulfill my orders. So you know, I had a regular job and still had to do that. And I think it was I made like sixty seventy thousand dollars that month selling these coffee bunks. We could not keep up with the orders. So that was like my aha.
But but I still didn't quit my job.
I wasn't crazy. I still had my job and this was a side thing. So imagine making that much money on the side.
Wow.
Man, I paid off.
I paid off everything.
So this was so to talk about how the internet because everythink I think that they're you know, another thing that is great about Sandy as you acknowledge the fact that there are some like Scammy. There's a lot of work from home, like there's so much and they often target black and brown communities especially.
I found them when I was like eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one. I felt for a lot of them. So I say, I've been the guinea pig so that you don't have to make the same mistakes that I've made, because now I can smell a scam ten miles away because I've fallen for them before, right, and everything old is new again. So I think some of the most popular ones right now, especially because there's so many people out of work, is the fake, definitely work from home scam.
And the most dangerous one that I can think up off the top of my head that I've warned people about a million times is the one where they pretend you're getting a legitimate jobs. Of course you send all this personal data, right, and that's like a big thing.
But the second part that's really dangerous is where they start sending you packages and you're supposed to be like quality control or you're repackaging the things and shipping them somewhere else, and clearly those products are from stolen gains. Usually sometimes they may contain illegal items, but most of the time it's from somebody else who scammed somebody, and they're washing the money by buying products laptops, electronics, sending it.
To your address.
You're repackaging, and you're sending it to like a drop box or something, you know, someplace else. You think you're doing a job a real job that you're can get paid for and now you're out of your personal identification and the postal police are probably going to knock on your door very quickly.
Wow, yikes.
So what are some legitimate work from home? Because you're right this at this time in our country, I mean this is when I mean your ears must be on fire.
People must be hitting you up every day because if you're not out of work, I think there's this new found like vigor and interest in Okay, maybe I maybe we we skated by with this recession or for calling it a recession, you know, the market downturn, but we really need to start thinking about how can we build wealth and how can I do that while you know
with my full time job. So what are some legitimate ways you have you yourself, have you know, earned money on the side or you feel like, is you know something that is accessible to people today who are maybe juggling you know, one or two jobs at home plus and all this craziness.
Yeah, you might hear my two year old screaming at some point. So a couple of months ago I thought about this. I was like, you know, this is going to run for a long time, and it's going to affect a lot of people before it's finally over and done. So what can you really do at multiple skill levels from home? And I think I can go back now and say a couple of the things that I pointed out as being big are actually that big.
So big time.
We all know tutoring if you have a kid at home and you're not everyone's not a teacher, right and you might be struggling with your kids homework. I probably would struggle with my two year old's homework. Online tutoring is huge, huge right now. And along those lines, babysitting from home, because there's so many people who you know, want to go back to work, but finding childcare is really tough or they don't want to send their kid to a really big facility. I know I struggle with that.
And so if you're home and you like taking care of kids, people work all shifts. You know, you've got nurses that work twelve hour shifts and they might work overnight. Who's going to watch their kid? So you know, childcare is like another really really big one. And then of course I know you guys have heard that Amazon has sold like all time highs during the epidemic but they're not the only ones target best Buy. A lot of these retail retailers are selling a lot, but not just
the big companies. Small guys like you and I who are selling products online are actually making decent money during the epidemic because people aren't going into physical retail stores and they're buying things online. So even if you just sell stuff on eBay, thrifting and now I've like introduced a bunch of people to thrifting. You know, going to the shop, finding something, cleaning it up, and reselling it elsewhere is a legitimate and easy way for you to make money.
And you know, the Internet is.
A twenty four hours a day, so is eBay, and so you can list your products and they sell when they sell, and you make your profit. Now, I was going to say one of the struggles that I know that people have, I know, even for me, I'm like, well, what do.
I get these products to sell?
So say, if I don't want to, I don't want to ship from my house. I don't want to you know, I don't want to mail things out. You know, how do I go about finding things and then selling things? So where do I find the like the best, the best products I can find at the lowest price and the distribution so I don't have to worry about shipping
them out myself. Yeah, so job shipping has been really huge, huge, across all different avenues lately, and all different kinds of products, from things for your kids to play with to T shirts, which I'm doing myself as well right now, and also teaching other people how to do, and all different kinds
of products, feminine care, et cetera. And the thing is you don't have to stock the products, you don't hold onto them, you don't keep the inventory, and even better, you don't spend the money up front to keep inventory. So like when I had my big month on Amazon, about a third of it went through drop shipping, and two thirds diactually touched. So at some point I shifted one hundred percent to drop shipping, and I was mostly
customer service. But then you know, once my son came along, it was really difficult, so I had to kind of give it away because I just had too high of a volume to be customer service all the time. So I would say that drop shipping is a legitimate, legitimate way to start a business without a lot of upfront investment, without having a whole bunch of products and without you know, losing your mind and having to shift things yourself. So with that said, once again, I'm going to go back
to scams. There are a gazillion scams out there, and on top of that, don't come for me. There are a lot of mlum programs that kind of build themselves like this, but they're very, very difficult for you guys to make money with them. Usually people try to snatch my when I talk about the MLMs.
They're so protective of them. I don't understand. I mean, I do understand fine print. Nobody reads the fine print and realize that those people that they talk about when they're recruiting you are like the top one percent and ninety nine percent of people and MLMs never actually make money and they required to disclose this right, but nobody ever reads that fine print. And then you get tired of your friends, get tired of getting annoyed. But anyway,
I'm not coming for the MLMs. But if your MLM does focus on the product and you love the product, and they will ship the product for you without you having to have a monthly investment and all these other things, fine them all for it.
Love it. If you love it, I love it.
Well, let's talk about actual and drop shipping was a term I didn't know existed until I started to follow more closely the work that you've been doing recently to educate people about side hustles. So it's just that's just the name of the process where you're not actually holding merchandise. You're like, you're signing up with the company, you're designing the merchandise, but they hold the inventory and they ship it for you exactly perfect.
That's it.
And the big part is that you don't you don't invest your money in the inventory until it's already been sold. So if Mandy, if I'm selling you a pair of earrings, right, you buy the earrings for fifteen bucks, and I go, there are these companies that sell them for like five dollars or whatever. You pay me fifteen dollars for these air airrings. Then I go and I order these airrings for five dollars. So the ten dollars in between is
my profit. And I didn't have to hold inventory, and I don't have to do anything until after you've already ordered it, and then that company is going to package it and ship it on my behalf to you, so it never has to see me, right?
Can you name? Like what are if you are just getting started, what are some trustworthy I guess you can call them drop shipping sites where you would recommend people start? And what's hot right now? Like what products? Do do people want? Earrings? Do they want? You know, I'm assuming no one's making like, you know, custom business card holders anymore. But maybe mugs are in our T shirts? Like what's hot right now?
Now?
That's mugs are come up a little bit later. T shirts are hot, and T shirts are hot for one reason, and I'll tell you why. All these protests that have been occurring all across the country. People have something to say, and so they're looking for a shirt that matches and expresses their emotions. And so a lot of these shirts don't have to be like these intricate, super wonderful designs. They're literally words on the shirt. Anyone can do that. You can do it. I could do it right. They're
literally words on a shirt. And what I had told my group before was the biggest selling T shirts the last few months. You guys can guess what it said.
Come on, Black Lives Matter, boom one period. That's it.
So and think of how many different fonts, how many ways it's been written. Is it on a black shirt with white writ is it on a white shirt with black writing?
Is it pink? Because you know what I mean.
So that's not.
Even anything that's really difficult for anyone to do. And there are a ton of companies out there that will allow you to create a store and do it really quickly. You can have something up and running within fifteen minutes. I tell people, you can have a legit drop shipping site within fifteen minutes. So printfle is my favorite one
for that. Printify is another one, and Printify is even better in some respects because Printify has a bunch of different companies that they work with all across the country. And the costs if you're listening to this podcast outside of the US as well, outside of the US, so does printful. If you're in Europe or Mexico, this could be you too. And so those are two of the largest ones. You've got Red Bubble Cafe Press, but they're a little bit more expensive and they're geared towards retailers.
But those like four that all legit if you want to get into a T shirt business tomorrow and on a drop ship basis, you can do that other products. You really have to look around what's going on right now. So, for example, everything related to sanitization or cleanliness is really hot right now. One of the hottest things that I've seen, and I do a lot of research on what's going
on because I just do what. I'm crazy our products that help your kids, say like clean because we all know, you know, kids, kids are German boxes.
They nasty, nasty.
So one of the hottest products that I've seen is a wristband that has like anti bacterial gel in it that you just snort into the palm and so you know, it's like a little jelly wrist band with a little like a little repository for some a little bit of hand hand sanitizer and escorts into the pump.
Huge seller right now.
Huge since your kids are home and Mandy's not there yet, but I'm deep in this body training. Those body training items and things that keep your kids busy, those are humongous. And also, don't forget that we're going into toy season. I know it's really too early for you guys. You're out there enjoying your eighty ninety degree weather. But mentally, a lot of the stores have already shifted into Christmas buying and so, you know, toys for kids, especially with
an educational focus, that's a big one. Clothing is always really big. But clothing is very difficult right now, and the reason why is that there's so many retailers who are either going out of business or are unsure about what to stock for inventory coming up, so you would actually be competing with your TJ. Maxis and all these other stores. It's very very difficult to do unless you have a very niche kind of product that you have, like, for example, one of the big things where these big
chunky knit blankets with the huge oversize. Have you guys seen these? It's like the yarn was like the yeah, business of my arm right, so that was like really popular last year. Unless it's like a really popular novelty item kind of like that. When it comes to clothing, it's a little bit difficult to kind of predict. So for me, I kind of have to have my eyes and ears on what's going on in pop culture, What
are people looking for? What are they searching for? I'm looking at Google trends and trying to figure out what could be big, what has been really big lately? And these ladies saw before we started wigs because the beauty salons closed.
How did you get into a wig selling business.
Everyone's not comfortable rocking their grays and their naturals. Okay, I need to look professional out here, and my baby slot is still closed. So yes, the whig business has been booming for the last few years. And there's so many ways to get into the whig business if you wanted to. You can go directly Made in China is a site that I use. The other one that everybody uses is Ali Express and you can literally buy and job ship wigs directly from the manufacturers to your customers.
If you go to Ali Express, it's just know that most of it's coming from China or India. It's going to take twenty thirty days to get here. Worse, with the post office being slow, you can't filter for things that are made in the US. It will cost you more, but a higher cost basis, but it will get to your customers faster.
So you're not having wigs in your garage. No, I mean you're okay, solf right, Okay, So you don't actually have to like acquire the wigs. How do you tell if they're good quality?
That's always the question that people ask. And this is where I say that you need to do your due diligence, and then includes a couple of different things. I always make a sample order, and I don't say a sample order, because what happens many times is that they will send you your best their best quality, right, and I want to catch what you're going to send on a regular basis. So if you can either request a sample or make an order as a customer without you know, saying that
it's a sample, that you're doing business with them. And then I'm always searching the Googles. Let your fingers do the walking. See what other people's feedback have been of that you know of that company, What reviews do they have, what's the most popular complaints. I don't always trust the reviews on a company site because they're going to delete the negative ones just you know it happens.
I may look, but I don't always trust it.
So I'm always searching for what other people have to say from sites that I trust about the company before I like will do anything. But more often than not, I'm just doing like a secret little order myself to see what's going to happen. What's my experience going to be?
Well, what do you have to look out.
For when it comes to legally, So let's just say I don't not for example, Black Lives Matter, I don't know that that's trademarked. But so what should people look out for if they're wanting to put phrases and things on the mugs or T shirts or or just you know, like purchasing wigs and making sure people are not like your wig gave me alopecia? So what should people look out for legally? Yes, so always, in forever, depending on what you're doing, Copyright infringement is the thing to look
out for. It you don't want to infringe on somebody else's copyright because you definitely will get a season desist or people will just suit you outright. So if you think you're going to do anything with any sports authority without their permission, express written permission, it's not going to happen. And also, if you're selling things on another platform, they
may decide to take that down. So if you're on an Amazon, you're at sea, you're an eBay, whatever it may just come down and has to strike against you, or you may be banned from the platform, or if you're if you're having things that are made print on demand, for example, like T shirts, the printing company may not print it for you if it's a copywritten.
Note, phrase, image, et cetera.
So do try to come up with your own things, especially if it's a phrase or something that's going on a shirt or something like that, if it's image based. I sometimes have hired artists to do things for me, and I definitely do searches to say, is this phrase copywritten?
Does somebody have that?
So the USPTO is your friend, that's the US Patent and Trademark Office, and you can do a search on their site. Very you know, it's not use your friendly. I'm going to be the first one to tell.
You no, you're right. It is such a nightmare from when we trademarked our show.
Yeah, it's not use your friendly. So you know, you might have to dig in there for a couple of days until you're comfortable with the system. But definitely, you know, do your searches so that nobody else comes after you for a phrases copywritten or an image or something like that. Now, when it comes to product quality, especially when it's something
health related, that's very difficult. So for example, we had a ton of these antibacterial things that were recalled, right, and they were all over the place and legitimate companies. I bought from Costco a hand sanitizer that ended up being on a recall list. Sometimes you don't know because you're trusting that it has passed quality control and tests.
The best thing I could tell people is make sure you have some kind of insurance because if all you need is one person to have a bad experience for it to be not so good for you, right, So, business liability insurance is one of the things that I tell people to go ahead and invest in. Not so expensive, but if you're doing like skincare products and it's not been tested, that's going to be more expensive for you.
There are a lot of cottage industry people out there now that are mixing things and essential oils and you know, left, right and center, and you do have to be careful about things like that hasn't been tested? Is it? What's
the efficacy? Are you representing the product correctly? And so for me, when I'm drop shipping things, I tend to create a product that won't hurt anybody, hopefully, because that's a risk that I don't feel like I would want to take on myself, but I understand that other people, you know, would, especially if you're making hair products and somebody's hair falls not God forbid, you know, so I
definitely would be very, very careful. I personally stay away from those because for me, I just wouldn't sleep very well with the liability. But the insurance is out there for a reason.
Well, let's take a question from a listener. You've already kind of answered a couple questions that I had waiting because you're so good. But here's one on the business aspect. Instagram user Ellen Monica says, at what point should you make your side hustle into an LLC?
Why not do it from the beginning? I get that question so often. It's probably one of the biggest questions that's falling around right now. Why not do it from the beginning. It does not cost that much to formalize your business from the outset, and then you're not going back to do it. The most it will cost you is whatever your state is going to charge you for
the organization. The articles of incorporation and the business filing, and then you know, you may have annual requirements that you have to fulfill, but honestly, if you don't make any sales, you don't have no harm, no foul, basically right. So it's there. I tell people, don't go back afterwards to do it when you could have done it in the beginning. And I think people think of their side hustles as not a legitimate business, and they really are.
Whether you're driving for Uber or you're doing somebody's hair, it is a business, especially black women, the kitchen beauticians, your side things that you do, your little hustled, your little coin that you make on the side, it's a business. It's a business. We don't think of it as businesses. We may think of it as a hobby, and the IRS does to have some things around is it a hobby?
Is it a business?
But for the most of us, it really is a business, and we just need to shift our thinking around that and not be afraid to formalize it at the very beginning, because more often than that I hear people say I wish I had you know, after the fact.
Well, let's talk about the IRS. Taxes like when you got hit. When you made that sixty grand in a month, that's amazing. But Uncle Sam was probably like, Sandy, can I can I get my shirt the whole something? So how does that work? What if you don't know it's going to be huge and all of a sudden it's like, oh crap, how do you plan for that? Do you set it aside in advance? Yeah?
I have separate accounts, so I'm bank with my local bank. My local credit union automatically has a savings account when you open a business checking account, So for me, when I make money that goes into that business checking account, I'm putting at least third into the business savings account, at least off the top. That's not my money. I'm holding up Uncle Sam. And then if you collect sales tax as well, because people forget about this, that's not
your money, that's Uncle Sam's money. You're just collecting it on behalf of Uncle Sam. They might give you a little hate hold this hold a tiny piece because you collected it and you fouled it on time, and then giving my money. So I tell people, off the top, even if you're driving for Uber and I'm saying the Uber or if you're doing door dash, if you're Uber eat sing it, if your postmates any of those things, that's not all your money. Uncle Sam will want their money.
I highly advise you to put at least thirty five percent away. If you're in a state like New York, or you're in New York City where we've got federal, state, and city taxes, you want to drop a little bit more, sprinkle more on there and put that in your savings account. So for me, I knew that sixty grand was in my sixty grand. Nope, some of that money legitimately belonged to Uncle Sam. And I know we kind of get wrapped up for the fact that we're going to owe taxes.
But you wouldn't owe the taxes if you didn't make the money.
That's right, true.
Yeah, So many of the people in my family who have tried to start side hustles, they're always trying to figure out way how to get around without paying taxes. And I'm like, just pay the taxes. I mean, it's kind of the law. They're like, well, wealthy people don't do it. I'm like, well, do you have wealthy people's money to foreign lawyers who figured.
And that's not necessarily true.
I mean, I set aside forty percent see of my you know, of my gross because a large part of my income comes from what's called the owner's draw and that's when not just payroll, but you withdraw from the company any excess money, whatever it is that you feel like doing. You know, so I set aside forty percent full zero and then you know, of course we work toward, you know, reducing our tax risk and our tax burden. But at the end of the day, I have to I still have to pay in one way, shape or form.
And I've heard some of my friends say, oh girl, you got to get you an accounting like mine. He was able to dot dot dot. And I'm like, you just still want to be careful because what you don't want is to end up owing not only the original taxes, but any sort of fees and things on top of that, enalties.
Yep.
Yeah, So you just want to be mindful of that because there are legal loopholes, but just make sure that they're legal, right, right, And so for me, I am all about finding a loophole. I have never filed my taxes on time because I'm looking for every single deduction that I could possibly potentially take.
I'm gonna take them.
Right, So when April fifteenth rolds around, your girl is not following her taxes in I'm gonna need a little bit of extra time to figure out how.
Yes, you know I need.
I need to see every deduction I could possibly take, but it's every deduction that falls within the letter of the law.
It is not I'm inventing something, right, but I'm.
Still putting that money at the very beginning so that I can pay them. And the good thing that happens is that chances are there I put that money away to pay them, and if I do have enough deductions, what I put away is going to be too much, right, So that's a good part. You just decide, it's kind of like tithing. You're tithing to Uncle Sam. It's that money didn't belong. It's not even there, just it's not there. It's or it's like your full.
And K money.
It comes off the top you don't even see it, and then you know. So that's how I think about it.
Do you recommend is there a benefit to opening a business account from the start so you're not commingling your regular income with additional income.
Streams always in forever.
And I have a business account with my local community bank here and then I have with a large bank Chase. So I always recommend as soon as you set your business up, you know, it doesn't take much money. I think I opened this latest business account, like a hundred bucks or something like that, just to open the account, whatever the minimum was, and that's it. You know, I open the account, I put the money in there, and
now it's legit. And what that sets me up for in the future is this, It sets me up for potentially having business credit because now I have a formalized business, I have a business bank account, and now you know, once my business has been formalized for eight months a year, then I can I've started to build my business credit.
So the other thing that a lot of black businesses suffer from, and I'm speaking directly to the women because we do this pretty often, is that we're underfunded and we don't grow to our full potential because we don't tap resources that are out there for businesses. I'm seeing a lot of like scholarships, a lot of funds people try to spend money with black businesses, and a lot of the requirements so that you had to have already been in business, or you had to have been in business.
For a year.
If you didn't formalize your business when you first started, you may have been in business, but that doesn't count because you weren't legitimate at that time.
Right.
So even there's a fund like Facebook has a fund one hundred million dollars that they're giving out one hundred million dollars, not loans grants, And one of the requirements is that you have to have been in business for a year. If you were out there doing hair every week for the last year but you never formalize your business, your business does not exist or wouldn't qualify for that.
So yeah, I tell people, register for your business, get your business bank account, put a little something in there. Separate your money. Do not commingle your money, your individual money with your business money. Have it be a separate thing. So you want to register and formalize your business account so that you can set yourself up to qualify for other things in the future. One of the things that we don't do very often that we should do, and
you should do this. Once you're registered and you have your bank account and everything is also get certified as a minority or you know, black owned business as well, and that qualifies you for other things. And you do need to have your business account so you know, don't cole mingle your funds, have a separate account for everything.
It helps you later on with your taxes and tracking your expenses and all that good stuff as well, which makes things easier for you, right, And yeah, it's just an easier way to have your business operate.
I love it well to I know, we've we've there's so much more that we can talk to you about, and we're definitely going to tell folks where they can. I know, you have some courses and you have a whole website where you're sharing your tips. You're also doing like Facebook lives and everything. But what this sort of sounds like, you know when you're talking about and some of the questions we've gotten have been about, you know,
choosing you know, choosing a side hustle. If you're going to get into drop shipping, you know, what product do you choose? And to me, it kind of sounds like in a way you're trying to be educated to your due diligence, but kind of time the market. It's one of those financial double Dutch situations again, like, okay, when do I get in? You know, are there sole protests going on? Does it make sense to jump on the T shirt? Or has that has that wave you know
kind of passed already? Can you talk about, you know, advice you have for folks who are trying to figure out what investment is. I know that there's low risk when you're doing drop shipping because you don't hold the inventory. You don't sell it till you know someone orders it. But what advice do you have for folks who aren't really sure you know which product or which which platform they want to move forward with first?
So I like being a consistent one hit wonder, which means that I pay attention to pop culture and I try to slide in there, like you say, time the market. Try to get in there when things are hot, because I know there's there's going to be a crescendo at some point in ill arch and then go down, and I'm trying to get in before it goes up and down.
That's one methodology. The other is to you know, be the person that's that it offers commodity items that people are going to, you know, want all year round every day. So if you're a person who's selling toilet paper, guess what people buy a toilet every day?
You know it will may.
Not be something that makes you a ton of money, but you will have consistent orders. So I think at first you have to decide what kind of celler are you going to be? What's your strategy? Are you the person who wants to always have their nose to the ground trying to figure out what's the next thing? Or are you the person who wants to be consistent and you know, have a steady stream that may not be so high so low it maybe it might be cyclical, but that's okay. It all depends on how much time
you want to invest. And then the second thing is I think you sell something that's really comfortable for you to know and understand. I'm not going to be out there selling laptops because then I need to know all the components' functions et for those laptop because people who are interested in laptops are going to ask me if I don't know what I'm talking about, They're going to be able to sniff that out in two seconds.
But if you talk to me about some.
Remy ways, you know, I might be able to talk to you about that about bleach knots and you know, sixteen inches and not Remy and HD lace, et cetera, et cetera, because that's something I legitimately am interested in and I know about, so I can talk about it. So it makes it easier for me to sell a product that I know like and I'm interested in already. And I tell people to kind of go with what
you know. If you can't figure out what to sell, go with what you know when you're comfortable with already, and that makes it easier for people to get their foot in the door. And all you need is at first sale that's the hardest one. Then you can kind of figure out what went right with that one and replicate it. If you're a mom, for example, and you're surrounded by baby toys, you might just be an expert in baby toys at this point.
So maybe you don't.
Love it because they're all making sounds and they're driving you crazy. And I'm speaking from experience, but you know a lot about these toys. You know it's good for a certain age. You know what should be in the mouth or it's not in the mouth. What works with this toy. What doesn't work with this toy? And then maybe that's something that you could think about selling because you've had some experience with that, you've worked with that,
you've touched it, and then you're comfortable with that. So you know, don't chasee just the dollar because that's going to get very old and tired, very very quickly. Go for something you know that's easy, that you can go ahead and do research about, that you can talk about because you're going to have to sell it, and you can't sell something that you don't know.
That's a good point to make.
I'm immediately thinking of ways I can create a branded pot and pan with a wooden spoon that your little one can bying to their hearts content that's been a big hit lately.
And then just one last question, standy, So like just maybe some quick marketing tips. It's like, you have this great T shirt you know, you're you said you went
viral a couple of times. Yep, So some quick marketing you know, like, hey, you know you might not have a big old following or a lot of followers on social what's some great ways that people can market It's funny because the internet has been in one ways the great equalizer in people being able to reach a bigger audience, But at the same time it's made it difficult because there's so many people doing at the same time. So
marketing is the toughest part of any of this. The first difficult part, I think is identifying the product, and the next is marketing. But marketing is even worse. So I'm down on MLMs because they force you to go to your family and friends and try to market to them, and that gets old and tired very quickly. I always say, your your family and friends aren't your customers, and if they are, they're just being.
Nice to help you out.
But you can't.
You can only sell to them once or twice. You can't continuously sell to them, right, So you've got to find new new people to sell to. And so that's where I think the internet's been really great equalizer. Everyone can make a website very quickly, very cheaply, and if you can't do it yourself, you can hire somebody who
could do it for you. Every business needs a website because people will google you or your product immediately, so that's your first marketing thing, and people don't think of it as something that's related to marketing, but it really is. It's your business card on the web. So one, have a business website or have a website for your product. Two is I look for sometimes influencers within the space
who will allow me to market on their channels. So if it's Instagram and if I'm selling if I'm selling Mandy's pots and pants or babies, I'm looking for a mom or a marketer within the baby space or a family space, and then I'll approach because a lot of these a lot of the influencers do market products. They'll tag oh, I'm working with so and so for this
product or service. It will cost you some money, but if they have a bludge enough following, you're putting your product directly in front of a very targeted audience who would most likely be interested in your product. So don't sleep on influencer marketing. It can be very, very effective and very cost effective.
I think.
The next I think are Google and Facebook ads. Everyone's all about Facebook, but Google is a behemoth in the room. And Google has a whole ad team that will help you craft and create your ads, and oftentimes they will give you a one hundred dollars ad credit right, So free hundred dollars to advertise yourself and they're going to help you craft your ad for you to advertise your stuff.
So every website that you go to that you see an add on, it may have come through Google's network and so there are you know, so many billions of websites across the globe. If you target specifically the website that you want to reach, that's a good way too. As well as being on Facebook, Facebook has their own ad platform and so it will put ads on Facebook and on other websites as well, so you can, you know, get in a Facebook ad going for not much money
at all. The only thing with Facebook I think is that there is a learning curve and you can throw good money after bad if you don't know what you're doing. So I definitely would look at facebooks. They have a bunch of videos directly on Facebook themselves on how to
craft and add on Facebook. And then the last thing is encouraging if you've got close friends and family people who legitimately would like your product or service, I give stuff away for free and then be like tell them where you got it, and yes, before I forget, don't be afraid of putting your product on the larger marketplaces. Amazon is one of the biggest sites on the planet
for a reason. People go there to shop. So even though it's a drop shipping product, maybe I'll have one or two on hand, but people are going to see my product and so maybe I make a smaller margin. But it's on a marketplace, whether it's eBay, Amazon, whatever the other marketplaces are, it's putting my product in other people's eyes. And also those platforms they also have their own ad programs as well, so you can advertise on
their platforms your product to reach other people. So this is the case where sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and I think we get hung up on that a little bit, but I think it's a good reason to spend the money. And also it's a write off for your business.
I like by you are a guru, I have a million work questions. Were gonna have you on again, yes, but just to clarify the Amazon point. So that's like
a way of legitimizing your business. It's not necessarily the best place to, like, you know, bring in cash flow because of the volume of people selling on there, but you see it as a way to like, oh, Sandy Smith Incorporated is selling products there, and if someone's looking for something, they might see that and then want to know what else you have in your you.
Know, Amazon products come up on a Google search, you know.
Yeah, and I imagine like how you name your product probably matters because of the tyler's searching for the title of it.
Right, The title matters a lot. The title matters a lot. And then we can get into Amazon a little bit because the Amazon has a whole different program that's perfect for Christmas where people that's where people tend to make the most money. But yeah, even if you just have your products on Amazon, you have a limited you know number people when they Google because Amazon pays for ads even though you don't pay for ads sometimes and so your product may rank high on a Google search just
for being on Amazon. That's not the strategy. And so you know, people can find it, and what people will often do is they will look for the site for that product. So if you're you're able to put your
own brand name, now this is going deep. You can put your own brand name on Amazon and so people will click so look at the you know, the products that your brand has, or they'll Google your brand name or your company name that you're put on that slot, and then they can come over to your site and find your product.
Thank you, Nicky J.
Smarty.
Well, there's so much, there's a there's there's a ton of information to cover. We don't have a ton a ton of time, but Sandy tel folks where they can get some resources and learn more from you about creating side hustle income and doing it like it should be, like a real business.
Yeah.
So my main hub is the Samchap dot com and there'll be more stuff coming out on side hustles. You want to check out the article top side hustles to Booster Income through Quarantine and after where I go through a lot and there's also an hour long video there as well, So I really cover.
A lot of side hustles there.
And then if you're really into it and you want to be abound a group of other people who are side hustling, because sometimes it feels good to bounce your ideas off of other people who are kind of in the same headspace. The hustlecrew dot com. It will take you to my side hustle group and they're like nineteen
thousand people in there. So there's bound to be somebody who has either tried what you're doing or you know before you spend your money, because we've saved a lot of people from scams just to even come do some market research or figure out.
Is this legit or knowledge it?
That's amazing. Hustle Crew is the hustle crew dot com.
The Hustle Crew all right, it's awesome.
Check the show notes y'all will have links to all that. Sandy, thank you so much. I'm so loudy thank you.