Daniel’s Story Part II: The Daily Find

Working on commission is exciting and scary. It certainly was for me, when I started out as a SX merchant adventurer. On the one hand, I LOVED participating directly in an effective antidote to sweatshops, and I dug the lifestyle of working independently. On the other hand, it was emotionally trying not knowing for certain how much money would come in from month to month.

There quickly came a point at which I had to decide to embrace the uncertainty, or call it a (very) early retirement from sales and move on to something with a guaranteed wage or salary.

I decided to dive headlong into the challenge. This meant getting organized, since I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to start pulling in commission checks unless I had a plan.

I took a couple of part-time personal assistant gigs to help pay the rent while I gradually developed a sense of who to approach about ethical merchandise, and how.

I sent out emails and made phone calls to all of my friends and acquaintances in the social justice world. I created a simple excel spreadsheet to help me keep track of who I had contacted, results, and follow-ups. I developed a self-enforced policy of sitting down at my computer for at least a few hours a day. Even if no sales resulted, something good -- a "daily find" -- would result from reaching out to more and more people, in an organized way.

After a couple of weeks I generated my first lead. It was a call from a staff member at a philanthropic organization that needed custom-printed luggage tags. (They were going to distribute the tags in the community to remind travelers to tip housekeepers and patronize union hotels.) This group had gotten my phone number from a friend of mine who worked at a sister organization. Before long, the group placed their order and I had earned my first commission check.

That first project proved to me that there were groups out there who needed access to and information about ethically-made products. All I needed now was for that relatively simple process to happen over and over again, on a regular basis.

And so it has!

Tons of groups need help finding ethical sources for their custom-printed merch or swag. Tons of union workers and factories need support so they can expand, to the benefit of workers everywhere. In between those groups and those workers, there’s you and I. It doesn’t work without us.

So, for me, busting through that initial anxiety about working on commission has been worth it, hands down. I’m sure it will be for many of you as well, and I look forward to working with you!

Daniel Cardozo is a member of the Ethix Ventures, Inc. team.