This is the second edition to my job search post. The first one covered how to redefine yourself when your job title is gone and the second post will cover how to treat job searching like a sport (or like you are in sales). Intentional Interview Preparation Me just before the tour of the Amazon facility just north of Hartford, CT. Took the opportunity to learn something new while being out of work. A few minutes ago, I got a rejection letter for a company I had 4 interviews with. I saw it coming as they moved fast and I didn't hear from them for a few days following my fourth interview. It was a pretty cool start up but just not meant to be. Separately, I have a second interview with another company today. The lesson here is to try and have multiple opportunities in the funnel. However sometimes that doesn't always work so the next best thing is to focus on the process. If you are doing all of the little things right, the big things will fall into place. I am a firm believer in this approach, and for that, I am not worried about what is next. In fact, just the opposite. I am excited for what opportunities lie in front of me as I continue to explore new roles and new companies. As referenced in the first part, I initially shared these topics below on LinkedIn but after additional consideration, I thought they would be great to share here as well. It is not required to have a job to create a sensory based lifestyle but there are many aspects of being employed that help. This includes building friendships, sharing a sense of purpose, travel, etc. I hope you enjoy. Do you have a pre-interview routine? Hopefully you do. I am sharing my intentional interview preparation below but would love to learn more about what you are doing as well. This process starts when the interview is secured. Research phase 1) Review company website, learn about company messaging, products, positioning, etc. 2) Ask AI tool the following question> tell me what customers and employees say about this company. Ask follow up questions as needed. Be curious about other topics such as if it's a start up, how does their funding rounds compare to the average. I use the standard free ChatGPT for this but any AI tool will do. 3) Ask AI to provide a SWOT analysis on the company. I like to use Storm by Stamford University for this. I found it to be better than Chat, Claude, etc. However, the new Deep research by Gemini was really impressive. I tried to do it on my last interview but got stuck in the queue so I went back to Storm. 3) Review the job posting again making sure I understand the role as every job has a bunch of nuances including responsibilities and who it reports to. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: "Visualize yourself being in the role as you are preparing for the interview. Tell yourself I am going to great on this interview. Manifesting can be a great tool in your success." Prep phase 1) Start building out questions for my interview. Page 1 includes a set of questions about the company, the position, and a few about the interviewer itself such as why do you like working for the company or what changes do you anticipate in the next year for your role? In total I try to have 10-15 questions ready. I put stars next to the key questions as I have never got through all 15 in an interview, sometimes I only get one due to time so I make sure it is the most important. 2) Create a second page for interview notes. Make sure I title both pages so not to get the info lost or confused with another role. Day or two before the interview 1) Send an email confirming the meeting, showing I did some research, offer topics of interest and things I can talk about. I usually do this for interviews 2 and after. I always include my resume and cover letter in pdf for their reference. Day of the interview 1) Start with a cold rinse at the end of the shower (to get the blood flowing). Eat walnuts for a snack (for brain clarity). 2) If its an afternoon interview, make sure I eat a light lunch (so not to get the afternoon crash) 3) Set alarm for 30 minutes before and 5 minutes before. At 30 minutes, I do 150 jumping jacks on the rebounder (small trampoline) to get the blood flowing again. Wash face with cold water after (same reason as above). 4) Put on a dress shirt 5) Review some notes and questions again 6) Close my eyes, take a few deep breaths Interview time 1) Join 1 minute before the interview. I always like to be early (and never want to be late) but sometimes there might be technical problems and I want to catch them before the interviewer jumps on. After the interview 1) A few hours later, I send a follow up thank you note. Something simple but try to incorporate something about the interview. Good luck in your interviews. Let me know what your routine is. 11 things I recommend when searching for a job. Me at the Joshua Tree National Park on vacation last year. 1) Get your resume, LinkedIn, and a base cover letter fine-tuned. You can customize the resume and cover letter as needed but for me, I only do very slight adjustments. 2) Be specific on what type of job you are looking for. This will help you focus and as well, help others help you. 3) Be specific on the type of company (ie. big or start up, location, salary range- if they publish it, etc). This will help you focus as well. I have passed on potential opportunities as it wasn’t what I wanted to do and have also bypassed jobs to apply to based on location. I also want to work for a company that is not in the decline. For example, I passed on applying to a role at a company because they losing customers, going through layoffs, etc. 4) Network. Don’t ask people for a job but let them know you are looking, what you are looking for, and have a conversation. Ask them for advice (ie. what was one thing they did to help them land their last job). 5) Apply for jobs selectively. Don’t send out 1,000 resumes as the companies you are applying to are getting 1,000 candidates. Apply for jobs selectively and then network to get your name at the top of the list. This could be emailing the recruiter or hiring manager, connecting to people via LinkedIn, finding 1st level connections who are connected to people at the company, or your previous employer alumni or college alumni. 6) Be mentally strong. This can be a long process and frustrating when you don't get call backs or make any progress. People need to have a mental resilience as they go through this process. 7) Be disciplined in your job search hours. Get up at the same time you would have gotten up for work. Try to keep the same or similar routine. 8) Find a hobby. This will help your sanity. 9) When you do get an interview, do research on that company and build an interview preparation guide with at least 15 questions. Ask simple questions to ChatGPT like what do customers and employees say about this company, is the company growing, stable, etc. Asking AI for a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) about the company will help give greater insight on what questions to ask. 10) The day before your interview, send the person a note with your resume (and cover letter) and outline what you would like to talk about and what you are prepared to talk about. It helps guide the conversation and gives some structure as many interviewers go freeform when interviewing. 11) Take breaks/vacation just like you would if you were working. Please share any additional suggestions or advice! I actually like to interview. Yup, you read that right. One of the things I enjoy most about the interview process is learning about other companies. Being in sales for most of my career, I always spent time learning about the companies I was calling on. From a pure business perspective, you become a student of the company you are supporting. The same is true in the interview process. I have interviewed with a wide range of companies, mostly in the software space, but not exclusively. I learned about companies that sell help desk software, affiliate marketing software, retail advertising auctions, cloud storage, insurance underwriting software, security software, marketing services, healthcare third party administration, mortgage processing software, and most recently, supply chain transparency. Being out of work allowed me to learn so many new industries and topics I wouldn't have necessarily explored otherwise. My Advice to the Job Seeker Reframe the idea of searching for a job to an opportunity to learn something new. This will help drive an improved positive mental outlook, which will help in your search. There are no right answers, but I thought you may benefit from this post. If you are currently employed but know someone that is out of work, please share. Also, as mentioned in the beginning of this story, if you missed the first post, Career Transition Intentional Practice Method, it covered one of my favorite topics, do I search for a job or do I go out an play? Do these posts resonate and if so, what lessons learned, or advice can you share?

While I have been completely open on LinkedIn about me being out of work, I actually haven't posted about it on Rooted & Refined Living. Mainly, I didn't believe there was a fit as this site is about sensory based products, lifestyle tips, and intentional living, not the grit of the job search or career transition. Me and Franklin hard at work. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was value in me pulling out some of my LinkedIn posts and sharing them here. As I reread a few of the posts I shared on LinkedIn, I decided to group them together in 2 posts. The first section (below) will cover how you redefine yourself when your job title is gone and the second post will cover how to treat job searching like a sport or if you are a salesperson. You will notice I reference this website a few times below as these posts were originally published on LinkedIn. Do I search for a job or do I go out and play? That is the question for today (and most days) as I continue to have an internal struggle to come up with an answer. I am sure there is balance, and I have done some of it already. As you know, I have been active in the job search, but I have also taken some time for myself. The question that keeps coming up is what is the right balance? The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: "Job Searching can test your resolve. Balancing the search with a hobby can create the mental clarity needed between interviews." I was fortunate to get severance and a few months of subsidized medical coverage but come October (it is now February and I have 2 weeks left), the cost of medical, dental, and eye for a family of 5 in the US is $2,754 (now $3,106 in 2026) through Cobra and I am searching for additional options. I do have a nest egg to carry me through a bit, and my mortgage has been recently been paid off 😀 which pretty much gets replaced by the Cobra payment 🙁. We also somehow spend a lot of money whether it be on car repairs, car insurance, helping the kids with some expenses, going out, etc. (As I am proof reading this post now, I have a plumber working upstairs as we needed a new garbage disposal, along with a clogged pipe. These are more reasons needed to get a job as I anticipate the cost to be ~$600. Mary Beth does not work but can if we need to. You get the point, life is expensive and with no income, it sometimes can get unsettling. On the flip side, this is the first time in 30 years I have been out of work and recognize more than ever that time is precious. I have taken a planned vacation (to Kauai which prompted the start of this website) and a 2-day trip up to Maine doing some hiking with Michael. I have taken the time to do some yard work (probably not enough) as well as some exercise like a hot yoga class. I am also in the process of creating a blog website (check!) on product recommendations and separately started posting my job search videos on TikTok which freaked my kids out a bit when I came up on their feed (which I will include here on this site as well in the future). My routine hasn't changed much. I still get up at 6AM, exercise and start "work" around 8AM just like when I was employed. I also finish up most days around the same time around 6PM. I do all of the normal job search activities such as networking, applying to specific jobs and being targeted in my outreach, watching videos to learn job search techniques, more networking, etc. So back to a few questions. Could I take some time off? Yes Am I taking enough time off? Probably not Am I doing enough for the job search? Yes, but like being in any job, you can always do more Should I retire? Definitely not ready to do so and I think Mary Beth would kill me if I did without a real hobby to replace my time (good thing I have this website now)! Ultimately, I am sharing this as I presume others are, or have been, or will be in the same position. There are obviously no right answers, but I do know that I want to make sure I have a healthy mix between the two. Good luck in your search if you are in the same position. "I am practicing for retirement"😃 Not quite retired but this is a great view of Lake Tahoe on a trip with some friends. That is a great way to say I am out of work, but the more I have been thinking about it, the more I believe that what I am doing now is a practice run for when I retire. I don't have a specific time period on when I plan to retire but I know it is not now and not in the foreseeable future. For example, I didn't have a real hobby and now I created a lifestyle blogging website. But I am also doing other things including: - Created 40 videos on tips to get a job based on my current search process. - Held a class on how to get a job like a salesperson - Volunteering as a student advisor for an international business 400 level capstone course - Went white water rafting - Climbed a mountain - Went on vacation and toured a Cacao Farm (coolest thing ever) - Went on multiple hikes and bike rides - Started reading again (on audio) - Did a bit more gardening and yard work - Went to a Celtics pre-season game only to be surprised they were filling a Mark Wahlburg movie, "Weekend Warriors" during halftime. So cool to be "a part of a movie" so to speak. I am sure there are other things, but the point is, I am enjoying being out of work. It has given me time to recharge and take advantage of the time away. Because I know when I start working again, I won't have the freedom to just take the afternoon off whenever I feel like it. "Career Transition: What I have learned from being out of work" Some of these aren't necessary new learnings but great examples of human spirit like the first point on my list during your career transition. 1) People are inherently good. So far, 125 people have gone out of their way to help me with specific referrals, introductions, etc. I really appreciate every act of kindness people shared. 2) Society defines introductions when you meet people by "what do you do for work"? The question makes you think about how we define ourselves as our job shouldn't define us. At some point we will all retire and you will need to answer the question to yourself. 3) Being unemployed can test your resolve. If you don't know by now, I am an optimistic person. Even for me, while I have the utmost belief that my skills are valued in the marketplace, the unknown world of the impact of AI has given me doubt at times- even as I continue to learn as much as I can about it. My Advice to the Job Seeker Take a few weeks off after your time at your company ended. This will allow for the mental and physical reset to enable the creativity to flourish. Next, find a hobby to occupy your time as there are only so many roles you would be interested in applying for. The rest of your time needs to be filled with things you like to do outside of work. It will help keep your sanity. There are no right answers, but I thought you may benefit from this post. If you are currently employed but know someone that is out of work, please share. Do these posts resonate and if so, what lessons learned, or advice can you share?

This is part two to help anyone looking to start their own business, or specifically, looking to help their kids start one of their own. If you missed the first post, it will help with context to read this next section. As a disclaimer, these Start a Side Hustle posts were accurate at the time of publish, about 5 years ago. The costs and fees from sites like eBay are now meant to be directional and educational, not factually accurate today. Michael at one of his early Farmers Markets. Chapter 5) Understanding Product Costs to Start your Side Hustle Assigning costs to a product is critical but can be challenging at times. For example, how do you assign the cost of flour to your first batch of cupcakes when you only use a portion of the package? In the last chapter we discussed the marketplace place costs and to make sure you fully understand every cent you are being charged by the marketplace companies like eBay and Etsy. In this chapter we will review your product costs. Depending on what you choose to sell, your product costs can vary greatly. For example, if you are just starting out and want to see if this is something you even want to do, you may opt to sell one of your personal items such as the clothes from your closet or some old toys or miscellaneous items lying around the house. On the other hand, you may need to buy the raw materials to assemble your product such as making cupcakes or handmade items like soap. Understanding the product cost is so important so you don't lose money every time you make a sale. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: "Tell a story with the product or service you are selling. It's not just a widget, but how can it help the person and how does it make them feel when they use it." To keep things simple, I will use an example of making cupcakes with the ingredients of flour, sugar, and eggs. I know you need more ingredients to make cupcakes but for this example we are going to use just three. We are also going to make 5 batches of 12 cupcakes or 60 total cupcakes. To make 60 cupcakes we are going to need 2 pounds of flour, 2 pounds of sugar, and 6 eggs (I am making this up as I go and recognize that this is not how you make cupcakes). So off to the store we go to buy our ingredients and the costs are listed in the below chart. Cost Item Size Cost per Purchase Calculation for your reference Flour $5.00 5 Pound Bag $1.00 per pound $5.00 / 5 pounds = $1.00 per pound Sugar $3.00 10 Pound Bag $.30 per pound $3.00 / 10 pounds = $.30 Pound Eggs $3.00 12 Eggs per Carton $.25 per Egg $3.00 / 12 Eggs = $.25 per Egg Total $11.00 As we leave the store, the total costs were $11.00. Now we are going to figure out how much it is going to cost for our first 5 batches of cupcakes. Item Cost per purchase Amount Needed to make 60 Cupcakes Total Cost to make 60 Cupcakes Calculation for your reference Flour $1.00 per pound 2 Pounds $2.00 $1.00 x 2 Pounds = $2.00 Sugar $.30 per pound 2 Pounds $.60 $.30 x 2 Pounds = $.60 Eggs $.25 per Egg 6 Eggs $1.50 $.25 x 6 Eggs = $1.50 Total $3.10 As we have now purchased all our items and made all the calculations, it will cost $3.10 to make 60 cupcakes or just $.05 per cupcake. So, as we look to set our price for the cupcakes, we can sell each cupcake for $.25 and make a profit of $.20 per cupcake. When Matthew first started out selling his LEGO Storm Trooper minifigures, we didn't capture all the costs correctly. For his first 7 transactions, we initially thought he was making a good profit but soon realized we missed a cost of one of the components of his sale. This resulted in a profit of $.16 on $300 in sales. When we realized the error, he updated his selling price to make sure he was making money on each sale. It was much easier with selling Michael's photography and understanding the costs of each printed photo. We went to a local photography store and printed out the photos and had each of them mated. The cost was about $12 per photo, and he sold them for $35 at the craft fairs, making a profit of $23 per photo. Chapter 6) Keeping Your Costs to a Minimum Underestimating startup costs is the single biggest reason small businesses fail. Get creative on spending money as you get started. Shipping costs can be expensive but there are ways to mitigate the costs. Family and friends will help if you ask. You will be surprised as to the lengths people will go to help others. When it's time to start a business, you may be in the position where you can be one of the lucky ones where your only cost is your time and all of the materials or service-related costs are all free. Most of us are not in that position and even if you are on the opposite end of that situation where money is no object, managing costs should always be a focus. You may have heard small businesses burn through cash at a very fast rate, and more specifically, faster than you can bring in sales. Typically, the problem all entrepreneurs and small business owners underestimate is how fast their product will fly off the shelves and they will be a huge success. The reality is selling anything is hard and often harder that you may think. As a result, figuring out how you can save money from the moment you think of your idea, the better you will be. Matthew has impressed me from the moment he started in that he was always looking to not spend money when he was selling his LEGO mini figures on eBay. I would watch him be relentless in only using as little shipping tape as he needed (even when it was my shipping tape and he wasn't paying for it). As he would pack the envelopes, he would reuse small clear bags he got from LEGO sets he bought for his personal use. If I was in his position at his age, I probably would have raided my parents Ziplock bag section and used those bags not thinking about the costs. Matthew recreated the Millennium Falcon from spare LEGO bricks. As Matthew started to sell larger sets, he needed to use shipping boxes. If you look to buy boxes at the store, a single box can run $1.00-$5.00 per box depending on the size. Those are costs he didn't want to spend and would leverage the shipping boxes we would get from Amazon or Target. At a point where this becomes a full time business, he may then need to buy boxes that show his brand or at the very least not someone else's. Until then, these are free boxes our family collects on a regular basis from all of our personal online ordering. Conversely, if you happen to be one of the few who doesn't order online, as we were running low at one point, I reached out on Facebook to one of the local town groups and asked for boxes. The offers came pouring in and we made arrangements to pick them up. We also asked family members and had to ultimately tell them to stop as we were getting too many too quickly and we did not have a place to store them. We also got help from friends, specifically with Michael's photography business. Since he was selling at craft fairs, one of our college friends offered to make him shirts and a table cloth with his logo on it. She also noticed he loves wearing hats and he now has touch of nature logo hats as well. The offer was generous and unexpected and really appreciated by our entire family. Matthew also got shirts made for one of his LEGO events he participated in last year. It's fun to see their brand on merchandise. Again, do not underestimate your costs and try to find ways to mitigate or reduce your costs every step of the way. Chapter 7) Choosing the Right Company Name Pick a name that relates to your product or service. You want to make sure the customer can easily identify what you are selling. Names can be changed over time. The original name of Yahoo was Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Picking a name for your company can be really easy or insanely difficult. For those of you who are old enough to remember the Yellow Pages, company names that started with the letter A were often picked first when someone was looking up the need for a service like a plumber. Many people would just pick the first name they saw and as a result "AA Affordable Plumbing" was coming to your house to fix your leaky sink. There are lots of different opinions on picking a company name. Some will say you should create a brand new name such as what Google did while others suggest picking a name that has symbolic meaning such as Nike. Other scenarios including how Starbucks got their name was from a character in the book Moby Dick. Most likely you don't have the marketing dollars to build your brand so make it relevant to what you are selling or personal to you to make it more meaningful. For Matthew, he picked his name, Summerfield's Toys, after his favorite stuffed animal, Summerfield. With Michael, his business was selling nature photography and we tossed around a few names before picking touch of nature photography by michael fiore. He wanted all lowercase for the way it was printed on any documents. In the case of my family's former business, Fiore Brothers, the simplest idea is to just name it after you. There are two other things to consider, uniqueness and is it available across all social platforms. For uniqueness, find out if the name is already taken. For example, picking the name Tony's Pizza, will be one of hundreds around the country and difficult to differentiate your pizza from someone else named Tony. The other recommendation is to google your proposed name on all of the major search engines as well as the major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You want to make sure nobody has your name already. Matthew's first logo, he initially changed it to Summerfield's Bricks to align more to selling LEGO sets and bricks. Chapter 8) Creating a Logo Match a logo that fits your brand, product or service. It is also important to have it fit your personality. Consider the future possibilities of your business growing. You do not want to be limited by your logo. Leverage free sites or friends to help with logo creation. You might not be creative but someone you know might be. Picking the right logo for your company can be daunting. Do you want it to be just words or a picture or something abstract or all of the above?. As well, do you want it to match your company name or limit it to just the one product or service you are selling?. There are lots of decisions to think about and hopefully this post will help offer some ideas to simplify the confusion. The first question you need to answer is to design the logo around your company name or the product. My preference is the company name as over time you may have more than one product or service. You also want it to fit your personality as well as your brand's personality. For example, if you are a very artistic person who is selling flowers, you may want lots of bright colors in your logo. When Matthew was deciding on a logo, he asked a friend in his class and she was nice enough to give him a few options. After just a few minor adjustments, his logo was ready to go. For Michael, he initially did not have one but as he started participating in more craft fairs, his sister Emma made him a big poster board with his name on it with a big tree. Over time, we combined a few free photos we saw on the internet and came up with the tree and camera logo. Michael's logo for touch of nature. He later created his own logo for his next business venture. Chapter 9) Getting Started with Social Media Pick one or two social media sites to get started. Start where you may have lots of personal connections. Using social media can be very beneficial but takes some work. Set the pages as a business that is linked to your personal account. Just like everything in life, getting your social media site up and running and growing takes work, a lot of work. This post will cover some of the challenges we experienced in getting subscribers and followers and hope you have better success than we did. To give you an idea of how challenging it may be to grow your followers, here is a quick story. A few years back I taught a college level class on information systems and analytics at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. The students' assignment was to work in groups of 4, pick something on campus to take pictures of, post on Instagram and grow their subscribers and user engagement (likes and comments). Many of the students thought this was an easy assignment as they had many personal Instagram followers. As they picked their theme, which included pictures of scenic campus pictures, sports, and even campus food, they quickly found it wasn't easy to grow followers. In the 6 weeks we ran the assignment, they got up to about 250 followers at the high end. One of the more popular sites was the pictures of the campus food, but while they got to an early and wide lead over the other groups, they struggled to grow once they hit 200. The reason I created the assignment in the first place was based on the experience Matthew and Michael had with their sites. They both have Facebook and Instagram sites but topped out at about 175 subscribers on Instagram and 50 or so on Facebook. It was hard to gain users organically by just posting. After you get some friends and family to subscribe, getting actual followers is a lot of work and something I myself am not skilled at, nor are my kids if you will believe that. For a while I was posting pictures every day for both of them. Posting pictures for Michael was easy as I was pulling from his collection. However, after I went through the really good photos, it was hard to pick through the rest to post. After a while he lost some interest in taking photos and I got frustrated with the lack of subscriber growth. With Matthew, he took a few pictures that I used, and I took the rest from his personal collection. Same thing happened with Matthew's Instagram and Facebook pages where we couldn't get the subscribers to grow. My assumption is content is king and our pictures along with the hashtags just didn't connect with the audience to get the algorithm to work in their favor. After all these experiences, they still post every once in awhile but not often. My advice to those who are starting a business is to keep trying, especially if you are dependent on social media to grow your following. Try different strategies like a few hashtags or lots of hashtags, but most of all, make sure the content (ie pictures) look great. I hope these two posts gave you inspiration to start your own side hustle or help your child get started in their own business. Let me know if you have any questions and how it's going.

This post is for anyone looking to start their own business, or specifically, looking to help their kids start one of their own. Michael standing at the top of some rocks after a hike in Acadia National Park A few years ago, I started my first blog site, Bringing Hobbes To Life. It was a play on words from my favorite comic strip growing up, Calvin and Hobbes, and the word hobbies, which both my boys, Matthew and Michael, created businesses from. I documented the process we went through to start a side hustle. While the website is no longer active, I printed out each of the blogs before I shut it down and had saved them in a filing cabinet. With the help of AI, I scanned them into a file and then had pulled the text out. I made a few grammatical updates, but these two posts (Part 1 and Part 2) are all in their original form. As a disclaimer, these posts were accurate at the time of publish, about 5 years ago. The costs and fees from sites like eBay are now meant to be directional and educational, not factually accurate today. About Almost 30 years ago when I was I high school, I had my first interest in starting my own business but could never figure out what I wanted to sell. As high school passed, and then college and work and family, the idea of a business just never materialized. Then a few years ago, my oldest son Matthew wanted to make extra money (at the time he was 14) and started selling LEGO mini figures on eBay. Then my middle son Michael started selling his photography at local craft fairs when he turned 14. Both were very successful and as of this initial post, have sold over $36,000 with a net profit of over $12,000. In both cases, I shared as much knowledge as I could to help them be successful, all of which I will share in the following post chapters. (Update- Total sales were $60,000+). The posts will share my lessons learned, both the good and the bad of how to start and grow your side hustle. What this is not going to be is a site to start your own business to go public but how to leverage your passion, sell something profitably, and just have fun. The name of my blog, Bringing Hobbes to Life, has a dual purpose. The phrase is both the idea of taking your hobby and doing something with it and it is in honor of one of my favorite comic strips as a kid, Calvin and Hobbes, where 6-year-old Calvin has many real-life adventures with his stuffed animal tiger, Hobbes. My hope is you find the site helpful. Chapter 1) Finding Your Passion- Start a Side Hustle Your passion is something you probably like doing already. For example, do you like to cook, organize, build, fix, write, create, draw, shop, design, or have a specific style that is unique? Picking a side hustle can be a product you create (baking cupcakes) or buying and reselling (clothes) or a service you offer (resume writing). Engage the advice of family and friends. The people closest to you may have ideas for you to get started, and they may even be willing to help out! Matthew getting his first shipment of LEGO sets to break apart and resell. As early as I can remember, my dad was sharing tips with me on business related items such as learning about income statements, making decisions and strategic planning. I took those lessons and have enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) a career in sales and now sales management helping others succeed. I will focus my posts based on what I learned helping my two boys start their own businesses. They started from scratch and built profitable and successful businesses for them to earn money. Now it can be your turn. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: "Follow the lead of your child." About My Family I have been happily married to my wife Mary Beth for 21 years and have three kids. Our oldest Matthew has three passions in life- Star Wars, Marvel and LEGO. Our middle son, Michael, took an early interest in nature photography and also loves WWII history. Emma doesn't have an interest in starting her own business (yet) but loves interior design. Passion Matthew started selling post cards on eBay after getting a few lessons from his Uncle Mike who gave him a box of post cards to get started. Matthew spent hours on my eBay account posting one card after the next selling them for $.50 to $1.00. After getting a few sales Mike moved him up to selling books and he also made a few sales doing that. As he was selling both post cards and books, This is what Matthew's LEGO area typically looks like. Matthew started to list and sell some of his LEGO mini figures. It turns out they sold pretty quick, but he also quickly ran out of mini figures of his own he wanted to sell. One day we were driving to a Salvation Army store looking for used books for him to sell, and as we were leaving the store he complained about how much trouble it was selling books, with issues around having to box them up and go to the post office (which became my job) as they sometimes didn't fit in the mailbox. He sat in the car and said "I just want to sell LEGO mini figures. You don't need to worry about them breaking in the mail and I can leave them for the mail carrier to pick up in our mailbox at our house". So from that point forward he started selling LEGO and ultimately creating his own blog site, Summerfields Toys (which is no longer active). Michael had a different business trajectory. He always had a creative eye for taking photos, usually at the point of view of very low to the ground and would go around taking pictures with my camera (and his own). At the age of 11, He got a small point and shoot camera and joined the photography club in middle school. He would also take some pictures during family vacations. Mary Beth and I picked out a few of his pictures and made coasters out of them for our family room table and a friend of Mary Beth's commented on the photos and how unique they were. She suggested we go and sell at this large local craft fair called stART of the Street in Worcester, MA. So we took some time to pick out about 30 photos, went to a local store, Westboro Art and Frame, and they helped us narrow down to about 10 pictures we printed for sale. We did some research on selling photography at craft fairs and 3 years ago, he sold his first pictures to non-family members validating to him that his eye for taking pictures was a talent to develop. Michael's photos are on display at Slice of Heaven cafe in Jamestown, RI As for me, I always wanted to start my own business growing up but could never find the right product to sell. As it turns out, helping our boys start their own business helped me satisfy that itch, and had the great benefit of spending great time with them. I also am leveraging the editing skills of my dad so this has become a full circle family side hustle. Chapter 2) Start Small with Little to No Monetary Investment Test your idea by starting small. Can you sell or create something from the contents in your home? Big ideas can start small. Even if your plans are grand, think how you can sell a few items to start and see how it goes. Borrow from your parents (if you are a kid looking to start out). Parents, make sure you pay your kids the profit right away to keep their interest. After Matthew decided that he wanted to sell LEGO mini figures, we sat down and tried to figure out what to sell. He shared with me that the mini figures can sell, specifically the Star Wars Storm Troopers, which people need to build an army of them. Unfortunately, when you buy a set, it may only come with 2 or 3 storm troopers and to build an army, one would have to buy lots of sets and get other parts they weren't interested in as much. As a result, we bought 5 sets of LEGO 75165, Imperial Trooper Battle Pack. It came with two stormtroopers and two Imperial Death Troopers. He opened all 5 sets and sold the troopers initially in lots of 5, meaning a person would have to buy 3 sets to get 5 troopers. His offer wasn't unique to those who sold LEGO as we would periodically see similar offers on eBay but his was the cheapest. His goal was not to maximize profit but just to make some money and have fun doing it. As the mini figures sold, we started buying more and offering larger lot sizes of 10 and 20. We had a great formula for success until the product was discontinued and he had to look at other ways to sell LEGO. Matthew's initial investment was less than $100 and based on what was selling he was making about 30% profit. Michael getting read for his first craft fair the night before Michael's photography start up costs were a bit more financially expensive. It was recommended that for his initial craft fair, which attracts 30,000-50,000 people he should get two of each picture, with matting and 3 of the photos we framed as 11x14. As we learned pictures are a challenge to sell as the buyer has to have an idea of where they are going to hang it and of course the buyer has to like the photo before buying it. The are now hanging in our house as after 2 years we couldn't sell those at the price worth making any money. We spent about $400 initially to fund his pictures and he sold about $700 worth his first showing, some from family and friends but many from strangers which helped validate that he had a talent that was just starting to materialize. In both cases, we made sure we captured all the costs, including all eBay and PayPal fees for Matthew and the craft fair fees and PayPal fees for Michael. After all costs were documented on a spreadsheet, we paid the boys the profit on each product they sold, not waiting until they sold enough to break even. This was a big motivator for both kids to continue to sell as they were seeing immediate satisfaction. Depending on what you want to sell, your initial investment may vary. For example, if you are making cupcakes, it may only cost you a few dollars for ingredients. If you are creating a blog site like this one, the costs can range from $50-$500 depending on the option you choose to set up the site. My recommendation is to start as cheap as possible to keep costs as low as you can. Regardless of what you choose to start, make sure you document your costs by item such as cost of flour and to get as granular as possible such as a bag of flour will make 10 dozen cupcakes. Then, take the cost and divide by 10 and that's how much the cost of flour is for you to make 1 dozen cupcakes. This will help greatly in the future to make sure you are selling at a profit. Chapter 3) Setting Up An Online Marketplace Pick the marketplace that fits your product. Selling art and handmade items sell best on Etsy while eBay is great for selling just about anything else. For more advanced users Amazon and Walmart offer marketplaces for general items. Specialty items such as LEGO also sell really well on sites like BrickLink and Brickset. Check to see if there is a specialty marketplace for your product. Pick one marketplace to start and learn as much as you can about it. Each site has its own unique features, benefits, and rules. Understand the costs to sell. Is there a listing fee, how much is the site taking per sale/transaction, etc? Online marketplaces are great as they connect the seller (you) with millions of potential customers. Sites like eBay have close to 200 million registered users on its site with 10's of millions active every day. Michael at his second craft fair in Worcester, MA, stART at the Station (help at the Union Train Station) The key is how do you get started. This section will not review the sign up details but things we experienced as we were starting out on eBay and Etsy. Details matter and making sure each section of your product is filled out is critical. The algorithms (just a fancy word for how the software makes decisions) are based on many factors one of which is did you complete the entire product section with things like color, shipping dimensions, and pictures- don't forget pictures. The better the picture the better your selling experience will be. If you can include more than one picture, it will help your chances of getting higher in the search and give the prospective buyer a better understanding of what you are selling. The other major thing we have learned, especially pertaining to eBay (but I am sure for the other sites as well) is that engagement matters. It is not the type of platform where you set it up once and just watch the orders come flowing in. You have to be on it constantly, and in my opinion at least once a day in some form to have the algorithm see you are engaged (most social media platforms work in a similar way also). First, I will cover what did not work for us, mainly using the experience of my son Michael in setting up and maintaining his online Etsy store. Michael is the true definition of an artist who only wants to take pictures and has no interest in any other side of the business. The business part is what I enjoy and with my help, I set him up on Etsy. Etsy charges $.20 per listing per quarter or $.80 per year. In all, not that much if you are selling a bunch of items. The nice thing about Etsy and eBay is you can increase your quantity and still only pay the one listing fee. With handmade or art based items, descriptions are key as the user has to search on a key word that describes your item. For Michael, his business was called touch of nature photography and he had photos and a few we turned into notecards. I played around with the search engine optimization (SEO) words on the Etsy site, but he wasn't getting very many hits. Except one day he got his first and only sale online and it turned out to be a great one. The sale itself was only $10 for a digital print of a dam in our hometown. However, the person who bought it worked for the Massachusetts State House Library, and it was featured in 2019 in their summer display about Waterways of Massachusetts in the State House in Boston. It will also be archived in the State House library forever. It was a pretty cool and unexpected result from just a $10 sale. However, with that being his only sale, and trying multiple approaches to get his product sold, we opted to pull the listing after a year and focus solely on craft fairs which have turned out to be very successful for him. Michael's photos on display at the Massachusetts State House Library in 2019 Conversely, Matthew has had a tremendous amount of success selling on eBay and the LEGO specific site of BrickLink. Selling LEGO, or any defined product, is a bit easier as there is already a set name and number that people search. Plus there are ways eBay makes it easier to list similar products which copies over all of the relevant data. Another key factor for success is listing the product on eBay as they recommend. For example, if eBay states the product is best sold at $7.50, if you sell for more than that, it may not sell as well because eBay will put it further down in the search listing. Conversely if you offer it for a lower price, you may get a better chance at selling but may also lose out on potential revenue. My recommendation is to always use what eBay states, at least in the beginning so you can build up your site and customer credibility until you gain the knowledge of what works and what does not. The last thing you absolutely need to understand is the platform fees. eBay recently moved to Managed Payments which ultimately cuts out their partnership with PayPal. In doing so, it costs 12.5% plus $.30 per transaction. The 12.5% is on most products but each selling category (ie toys may be different than books) is different. You may also get charged a listing fee of $.30. I have not seen it recently but when Matthew first started he had to pay listing fees. As an example, if you sell something for $10.00, it will cost you $1.25 (which is 12.5% of $10.00) plus $.30 for a total of $1.55 just to get started. However, if you sell something for $1.00, it will cost you $.125 plus $.30 for a total of $.425 just to get started plus you have to factor in the cost of the item and if there are any shipping costs and listing fees. This is just a quick overview as I wanted to give you something to think about as you start to plan your selling strategy. Chapter 4) Understanding Marketplace Costs Understanding selling costs from the marketplaces like eBay and Etsy can be confusing but it is possible to figure out. This blog post will help. We are going to cover just one tip because it is so important to understand and get right. If you miscalculate, you could be losing money on every sale and not know it. My goal is to prevent you from getting into that situation. In this example, I will explain the selling structure of eBay and their new Managed Payments program. The costs that will be outlined are for most products, but you will need to check the actual costs for each item category you are selling. For example, selling books and toys are in two different categories and as such, the selling costs are different. In most categories including toys which is where Matthew's LEGO sets fall under, the cost of the category is 12.5% plus $.30 per transaction. So if you sell a product for $10.00 it will cost you $1.25 ($10.00 x .125) right? Not quite . eBay charges 12.5% on the total of the sale of the product, the shipping that the buyer paid and the tax that was collected, which varies by state (some states do not charge tax). At the time of this article being written eBay collects tax from 44 states in the US. For us to get the complete picture of how much your sale will cost, let us use the following example costs. For simplicity, we are going to say you are selling something you already own and as a result, the cost of the product is zero. You list and sell the product on eBay for $10.00 and you charge $2.76 for shipping. The buyer also lives in a state where they charge tax of 6% or $.60 ($10.00 x $.06). The total costs can be summarized as follows: Item Cost Product sale $10.00 Shipping cost $2.76 Sales tax $.60 Total cost $13.36 Based on this chart the buyer will pay eBay $13.36. One nice thing about eBay, and I assume all of these marketplace sites, is they collect the tax and pay the government tax on your behalf. This saves the seller a lot of time not having to process and pay sales tax. However, while they take care of the sales tax, they still put it in the calculation when they charge you for the sale of your product. Adding one more column to the chart above, the costs eBay will charge you in their Managed Payments program is as follows: Item eBay fee at 12.5% Cost Product sale $1.25 Buyer's shipping cost $.345 Sales tax $.075 Total cost $1.67 Transaction fee $.30 eBay's fee $1.97 In this specific example, the eBay fee is $1.97 ($13.36 x .125 plus $.30) on a product sale of $10.00 or 19.7% of the product sale. The 19.7% is much different from the 12.5% you might have been expecting and why it's so important to understand the marketplace costs so you don't lose money on the sale. When Matthew first started selling on eBay, we really did not pay attention to the costs. We knew there was a listing fee at the time of $.30 per item when he was selling the post cards but that was about it. Since he was under 18 at the time, the account was in my name and I let him list and sell. All was going great up until I got a monthly invoice from eBay. It came as a shock to me that I owed eBay $42 and it was automatically deducted from my PayPal account at the time. I quickly started to learn about the costs eBay (and PayPal at the time) charges on each sale and built a spreadsheet to track our progress. I also helped him by building out a second tab that he could input some sample data to identify how much profit he was making on each sale. To continue how to start your own side hustle, or help a child get started, please read chapters 5-9 at Start a Side Hustle: The Family Business Method- Part 2.