Key Points:
- When your finances and the feeling overwhelms you to transition from employee to entrepreneur work, it’s a wise choice to dive into the abyss of entrepreneurial uncertainty and take power back from your employer.
- As long as you work for someone else punching a time clock, you’ll never be paid what you feel you’re totally worth. This should subliminally inspire you to start a side hustle and do the transformation business work out of inspiration or desperation.
- Ambitious feelings should surface before and after starting a side hustle; working harder and smarter for yourself versus following the crowd in keeping your employer rich and settling for less than an unsatisfying salary.
Tori Gerbig did the right thing when she finally made the decision to quit her day job and start a side hustle. She was unsatisfied earning a potentially measly $35,000 salary. No one can live on that kind of money today, especially in the era of Russia invading the Ukraine and suffering from inflated gas prices. Tori’s entrepreneurial ambition and progress should be seen as motivation for everyday working class people that they too can go from employee to entrepreneur by starting a side hustle and taking power back from their employers.
When she dove into the abyss of side hustle uncertainty, she started whore remote work business working from home. On her way out the door as a regular employee, she started her side hustle of buying and reselling clothes on the Internet for a markup profit. Tori Gerbig refused to settle for salary sloppy seconds from her employer. She knew she was worth more than a measly $35,000 annual salary. According to Tori narrating her CNBC.com Make It video on YouTube.com, she made the conscious decision to quit her day job when she acknowledged that she was earning more in online sales than she was taking home from her day job. She was determined to make her side hustle work and never go back to corporate America.
In transition to engaging in her side hustle at full strength, she named her company Pink Lily in 2014, after walking away from her job earning under $40,000 annually. Gerbig’s company is based out of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Her online reselling business started in 2014 on eBaY.com as a small potato operation from home. Part of her motivation to delve full strength into side hustle entrepreneurship was graduating from college in 2009, and working a crappy job as an insurance agent earning about $25,000 annually, according to the CNBC video narrated by Tori. Graduating from college and earning that kind of money in any career field should be subliminal motivation for anyone to have enough faith in themselves and do the transformation business work. Tori believed enough in herself and refused to settle for “sloppy salary seconds,” starting her side hustle out of “inspiration or desperation,” along with dealing with about $70,000 in student loans, according to Tori.
When Tori and her husband made the decision to go all the way in on eBay.com and start selling full-time, the husband stood by her side 100%. This is what a committed-dedicated husband is supposed to do when supporting his wife. Fortunately, after quitting her job and deciding to go Allin full-time on eBay, Tori and her husband’s initial eBay investment was $300 starting out. And their investment paid off. The couple was able to successfully flip their money in very little time, bringing in steady passive income ranging from $300-$1000 monthly, according to the CNBC video.
Tori sold anything from golf clubs to specialty items “anything she could virtually get her hands on.” As her eBay business group, she learned along the way about the importance of buying and reselling online for a profit. If she didn’t allegedly go to thrift stores to purchase items, Tori was able to buy things in bulk at wholesale prices to resell on eBaY.com. During Gerbig’s transition into full-time online entrepreneurship, she unfortunately had to deal with the unpaid maternity leave. Dealing with not being paid as a new mother while employed full time for a company can be quite depressing. Tori found inspiration in the adversity of being unpaid. She formed a Facebook group while on maternity leave and started to build her eBay business from the ground floor up. She started selling items she was getting at wholesale prices from South Korea, Los Angeles, and China. Her Facebook sales skyrocketed due to the fact that she was posting daily in her Facebook group. After forming her Facebook group, it was then she started to sell clothing and accessories as a way of building up her side hustle. Creating a Facebook group is a good thing for your online business, as Facebook groups allow you to integrate third-party applications to automatically syndicate content to your Facebook group wall as Facebook posts. She didn’t quit her job after launching the Facebook group and giving birth to her newborn. She played it smart and did the transformation business work out of “inspiration or desperation.”
Shortly after launching her Facebook group and sometimes working in the middle of the night processing orders, she started generating $500 a day in sales according to the CNBC YouTube video. As sales grew, her heart grew more disconnected from her day job. Sometimes, she would sell items out of the trunk of her vehicle during her lunch break, Tori says. As sales funneled in through our Facebook group and selling items out of the trunk of her vehicle, and sometimes meeting people at certain locations after asking her employer to leave early from work, she amassed enough finances from her sales to launch the website PinkLily.com in 2014. 2014 was quite a productive year for her. After her fourth month in business online, she was fortunate enough to generate about $100,000 in sales. She consciously made the decision going forward officially to join the “quit your day job,” and also joined “the great resignation” cliques for entrepreneurs. It was in April of 2014 she made it official… “I quit!” And after she quit her job, her husband followed in July 2014 and walked away from his job.
Her side hustle performed quite well in her first year of running an online business with possibly 0% previous marketing experience. While Tori had a small goal of amassing a certain amount annually in sales in her first year side hustling through Facebook groups and selling on eBay, she managed to amass about $4 million in online sales. In the years following, her online sales grew from $4 million-$12 million. And from $12 million in online sales to amassing about $141 million in online sales. In fact, she amassed great sales to the point of opening a Pink Lily retail store in Bowling Green, Kentucky. With the combination of an eBay store, a physical retail store in Bowling Green, and 250 employees, not only is she doing well as a female entrepreneur setting an example for other women to follow, but also has about 210,000 ft.² in warehouse space to stock her products.
Though the business is financially rewarding, Tori worked about 50 to 55 hours a week. When you are working for yourself, it’s required as an unwritten rule to work smarter versus traditionally working for someone else, by trading time for money eight hours a day.
Tori is one of many female entrepreneurs who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that females and males can make the successful transition from employee to entrepreneur. When you unfortunately have to endure a spike in adversity, especially from people closest to you, let that be subliminal motivation to bring out the best in you and not the worst. Enduring adversity can end up being a blessing in disguise. The more problems you experience, the more you should be determined to get that side hustle going. Especially if you receive an employment retention letter from an organization offering you almost 3 dollars less than what you’re originally paid as a full-time employee. You should be motivated to start a business and achieve more than becoming a future online millionaire, especially when you’re harassed on the job by a narcissist third shift VP of a financial institution. You should be extra motivated to start your own business and achieve more than becoming a future Internet millionaire, especially when you’re nitpicked at a job by a narcissist store manager who hates to hear about you claiming “Religion” in the workplace. Your worst life experiences could end up making you “really really rich.”
Never allow anyone or any adversity hold you back from unleashing your true entrepreneurial potential. You can achieve just as much success in your side hustle as Tori did. Always remember before and after starting a business that the success of it is about “mind over matter.”