I would like to offer my services as a personal shopper this holiday season. I am not self-employed, meaning that I have a regular 8-5 job, but would just be doing this on the side to make extra money and because I enjoy shopping and wrapping presents.

My target market would be busy professionals, probably executives, and mostly men, I would guess. I would offer to purchase either a list of items or give a consultation to help a client choose a gift for a particular person. I would then offer to wrap the presents and personalize each one individually. My fee would be 25% of their purchases, with a $25 minimum.

My question is, how do I go about marketing this service? Obviously, this isn’t my career, so I wouldn’t want to invest a lot of money into marketing, but perhaps utilize some low-cost methods to get the word out to busy professionals that my services do exist.

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Jay’s Answer: Personal shopper means different things to people.

To market yourself easier, create specific packages. For example: employee recognition gifts, shopping for family gifts (spouse, etc.), client gifts, etc.

For each package, create a story around it (ideally a true story that you were involved in). Tell why the person hired you (they were busy, recovering from surgery, on the road, etc.). What you did for them (found things that were better than they would’ve chosen). And the results (They couldn’t stop talking about it).

Selling an abstract service is hard. Selling a story is much easier.