The 99 Authors Project – Season 6 – Episode 10 with Janine Bolon14 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello Janine Bolon here bringing you tips from around the globe as we guide practical people like yourself with their finances using money tips, we increase your incomes through side businesses and we hope to help you maintain your sanity by keeping you in your creative zone. Now The Janine Bolon Show is a syndicated program of four podcast shows that were combined in October of 2021. Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations, and The Practical Mystic Show, were programs that we’re running since 2017, we’ve produced over 300 episodes and interviewed over 250 guests. And today, we will be spotlighting an entrepreneurial idea that I personally had no idea that would take off and bring me anywhere from 300 to $500 a month as a business side gig. So first of all, I was absolutely stunned by the results. I found it super easy. And I never saw myself doing this. Now it started as I was walking to my grocery store, and I happened to pass my dry cleaner. And that particular dry cleaner had a sign up that said, tailor needed. So I walked in and I asked him I’m like, what are you looking for, because I know so many people. I’m like, surely I’ll be able to help them find the person that they need to whatever that particular employment opportunity was.

Janine Bolon
I set up an appointment with the owner of the place. And what was fascinating to me, was as he was walking me around the dry cleaning shop way at the back, they had six sewing machines, three of them were Sergers, two were your normal sewing machines and one was a leather working machine. There was a wall full of zippers on one side, the other wall had nothing but threads and then there was a little break area and a fitting room where people could get items altered for them. He looked at me and surveyed everything that he had there in the back room and I was in awe with how beautifully not only was it set up, but it was a beautiful place to work. I mean, I could envision myself working there. And he turned to me and he goes Janine, I can’t find anybody to do the work. So I sat there and I chatted with him a little bit, because I know several seamstresses that would love to have a part time gig. And the difficulty was the man that was running that dry cleaning shop had had a person that was an amazing seamstress, she was a retiree, and she was willing to work for only $17 an hour and work at this full time. He was trying to find somebody to replace him at that level. And I said, I don’t think you’re going to be able to find anybody like that, because King Soopers, that grocery store right beside you is offering $16 an hour for people to push grocery carts. So you can see the disparity here. And he just kind of was like, I don’t know how to afford this. And I offered him my coaching services and I’d be able to show him how he could expand his business what he could do. But he wasn’t interested in investing in that way. And besides, I was just somebody off the street. He really didn’t know me from Adam.

Janine Bolon
But this got me started thinking about, well, you know what, one of the things that people are finding out is that going to a place of business is challenging, right? There’s an expense involved and with groceries going up and that sort of thing. They’re being more circumspect on what they are willing to work for. So as I went home, and I was kind of thinking about this idea, my daughter came home from college and was chatting with me about how fast fashion and how the garment industry runs, how we have our clothing made is actually very deleterious to the planet and our own health, the carbon footprint, that kind of thing. I won’t go into the political, economic, or environmental issues with what happens with fast fashion and how Levi’s and denim is made and the cost of the planet. With that I won’t get into all that. I will make you aware of it, though, that it is a thing. What has happened is the machines that are run in other countries would never be allowed to run in our country. The speed that the sewing machines run, and the fact of the harm that can be happened to the employees of that would never happen here in our country. So the garment industry has moved overseas, alright. However, what you can do is create your own business. So if you have a sewing machine, and you have a plastic bin here is a business that I started and I am now to a point where I am looking for freelancers to help me with my sewing business.

Janine Bolon
It started with the app Next Door. Now I don’t know if you know this about this app, but Next Door has the ability for you to really lock down as a social media app, how far your signal goes. So you can keep your comments in your posts to people that are just in your neighborhood. You can expand it to a three mile radius or you can expand it to everyone that’s on Next Door in your county. Now I chose to only have Next Door operate in a three mile radius of my home. I live in a what some people would call a smaller town. We only have about 88,000 people here, but we are surrounded by Denver, and we also have Boulder. And so in my little community of Next Door, we have about, I guess, 100,000 people that would see my posts. Not everybody is going to need the business I need. So what was my business? I put up I am not a seamstress. I am not a tailor. I’m a mender, meaning you can start this business without a sewing machine. You can start with just a needle and thread and let people know you patch holes. What is amazing is there’s so much clothing out there that people are not wearing because there’s a hole in it, but they want somebody to patch it or fix it for them so that they can go on wearing it. That there is a delight and being able to love a garment so much that they want it. Now I know some of you may think you may be in areas where you’re like absolutely not, Janine, nobody wants that. I would like you to try this.

Janine Bolon
So what I did was I went on Next Door I started a business page that said Mending Longmont because that’s where I live is in Longmont, Colorado. So I started up Mending Longmont and then after I did that I just went on Canva created a cute little logo with a needle and thread and put Mending Longmont in some pretty script. And that was my logo. And after I created that I went on Next Door, built out my little business page and said, hey, do you have a hole in your favorite pair of jeans? And I showed where a belt loop had come off of one of my children’s clothing. And I said I can mend it for you. That’s all I did. I got 32 hits from people saying hey, can you put in zippers? Hey, can you hem my pants? Hey, can you do this? Can you do that? And I said yes to it all because I did have experience. Now, do I consider myself a tailor? Absolutely not. Am I a seamstress? Absolutely not. I am a woman who knows how to run a sewing machine. And I have the ability to sew on a button. I considered my skills to be not at a professional level. And I would let everybody know that dropped off their items. I’d say in my text messaging, I do this part time, this is a side gig, that sort of thing. So that they knew that the reason why my prices were so inexpensive was because I didn’t consider myself a pro. What I did is I went on to a website of my local dry cleaner, and I found out how much it cost on their price list to do all the things they did. And because I didn’t consider myself at the same level as the people that were operating that dry cleaner. I took my prices and made them $5 less relative to everybody else. It happened on January 9th, that’s when I started my business. And I am now recording this on February the 17th. And I want to assure you that I made so much money at $20 apiece for some of my hemming. Like I would hem pants for $20 a piece. I would put in zippers in jackets for $20. My business exploded. I had people who were retiring out of the seamstress industry, they were handing me and giving me zippers. I had one lady give me 300 zippers of various kinds and sizes just because she knew I would use them. How did I do all this? I just got on the Next Door app, I posted a couple of things where I showed what my mending looks like so people could see the quality of it. They could see that, you know, they could see that and then they could decide whether or not they wanted to hire me.

Janine Bolon
I then set a plastic bin out on my front step that had Mending Longmont on it. And I then proceeded to tell people just drop it off in my bin. Now I have issues like everybody else that sometimes there are times where people will take things off of porches and that sort of thing. So I always set my bin out at 8am. And then when I come back from work, I pull it in at 8pm. And I have had absolutely no difficulty with this. And I don’t think I will because there are so many wonderful doorbells that we have now that take photos of people walking up on your front step that a lot of that has been deterred in our neighborhoods. So we don’t have that same issue. If you live someplace where you are in an apartment building or something like that, I encourage you to get a doorbell that allows you to stick it on to the side of your door and it will take pictures of anybody who drops off or or picks up. This is a very low cost option to give you a bit of security for your people. What’s fascinating is almost everybody is using Venmo to pay me and it is lovely because I also had people that had retired that were giving me zippers that they no longer could use. I receive mail now like people that have mailed it to my mailbox where there’s packages for the zippers and people who had seen that I was doing this work on Next Door and voluntarily gave me these zippers so that I could use them in the clothing I’m working on.

Janine Bolon
What is fascinating to me is there is a part of the United States that is very generous and very giving, especially when they see people doing good work. I let people know, look, I can’t give you a tax write off. This is a for profit business. And they said, don’t worry about that, just use the items. So in the effort of recycling, reusing, upcycling, however you want to call this just wanted to let you know this is a business you can start. And I ended up making so much money in the first six weeks of my business, I bought a brand new Serger. So that I am now able to help people cut their dresses to size. I now have the ability to cut the pants off, surge the pants or the ends of dresses and be able to take care of finer woven clothing. So basically, as your skill set builds, so does your ability to do this. Now you’re saying, but Janine, I’m not a seamstress, or I don’t have a sewing machine. I have no interest in this. That’s fine.

Janine Bolon
We’ve taken this business model, and I’ve started teaching it to some of the students that I have online. And what’s fascinating to me, is they’re actually getting traction on things like electronic recycling. I had a gentleman that opened up a business called Salvage Savant. And what that student ended up doing is he told people, he fixed coffee makers, because he found where the primary spot is the coffee makers break. So when you turn on the on button, and it’s not working, he’s found out where they break in that regard. And so people have started dropping off and putting coffee makers in the dropbox on the front step that he has. Then he had somebody say, hey, can you fix this cookie press? And he goes, I’ve never fixed anything like that before, but drop it off let’s see if I can fix it. If I can’t, you can take it back. No harm, no foul. So that’s some of the things that you can do, put a dropbox on your front doorstep, figure out what it is that you like to do, what is it that you’d like to fix, repair or mend. And if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. But gosh, we have so many resources nowadays we didn’t have before, where people can drop off an item and then you can go on YouTube and see if somebody else has learned how to fix it. And then charge $20 for your time of learning it and at the same time, give the person back an item that they thought they would have to drop off and put into the dumpster or what have you.

Janine Bolon
The other thing is it’s going for us here in Colorado is it’s very expensive for us to dump electronics. We are not allowed to put electronics in our trash bins. So if you have an opportunity to fix electronics, please reach out to me here at the Janine Bolon Show. I would love to know more about you because here in Colorado, we’re looking for people who can repair old electronics and keep them up and running due to the expense of having them recycled or reduced.

Janine Bolon
So this is Janine Bolon and thank you so much for listening to The Janine Bolon Show. We’re here every week bringing you quality conversations on money, business, creativity and keeping your sanity. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to the Janine Bolon Show.com, where you will find additional resources as well as a transcript of this show. And I wanted to say a shout out to the 8Gates and Salvage Savant, companies that are dedicated to the financial stability of families by using the 60/40 principle and upcycling of electronics. Be sure to visit our sponsor at the 8Gates.com Have a great day. Keep your feet firmly on the ground while you keep reaching for the stars. Take care of yourself.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.