Southern Indiana Business March-April 2020 | Page 36

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Bob Stotts
Realtor by trade,
woodworker by hustle
Bob Stotts is a RE/Max real estate agent by day. His side hustle is woodworking through his
personal business, Creation Creek. He builds items other real estate agents use to give clients as
thank-you gifts. He also sells his creations at craft fairs.
Photo by Bill Hanson
Bob Stotts has created a rare recipe
for life: a side hustle that helps him
grow his primary hustle. When he’s
not buying and selling houses for Re/
Max, he’s crafting name tags and other
Realtor swag, new homeowner gifts, or
thank you pieces for his clients. It’s part
relationship building, part sales.
“The idea for me was how can I
endear clients to me?” said Stotts as he
shared one of his thank you client gifts,
a personalized bourbon barrel head. “I’m
not trying to make money, I’m trying to
build relationships, to build my business.
And that’s what I found out works best
for me.”
He doesn’t just make gifts for his own
clients, though. Word spread quickly
when other agents saw his work, and
now he sells his crafts to them as well.
He also creates clocks, magical Santa
keys, cutting boards and more and sells
them on Facebook marketplace and at
craft fairs. And true to his singular goal,
each one comes with one of his Re/Max
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March / April 2020
business cards.
“As I went along I tried to figure
out how I could make it work with my
career,” he said. “Some people want to
make a career out of it, I don’t want to
do that. I want to accent what I do and
market myself.”
In addition to helping grow his busi-
ness, Stotts says the woodworking helps
him both physically and mentally after
suffering a recent stroke. It allows him to
work at his own pace, and rest when he
needs to. He works mostly at Maker 13,
a community nonprofit maker space in
the Jeffersonville Arts District. Director
Christy Riley described him as “family.”
Stotts’ financial goals are modest —
earn back the $65 monthly membership
he pays to Maker 13. The real reward is
growing both his real estate business and
exploring his creativity.
“I like the idea of envisioning some-
thing and making it from scratch,” he
said. “That finished product is really neat
to me.”