The Side Hustle Show

Latest Episodes:

349: How to Start and Grow a Local Consulting Business: Effective Marketing Ideas Aug 22, 2019

Show notes

She always knew she wanted to start her own business, she just didn’t know what kind of business.

Sound familiar?

So, Sylvia Inks asked friends and colleagues what they saw her as an expert in, and what they go to her for advice and help with.

Their answers?

“They said I’m great with finances, and they said I have great research skills,” Sylvia told me.

This helped Sylvia narrow down her focus to financial coaching. From there she started networking, wrote a book, and worked diligently on her presentation and speaking skills. Her business has taken off as a result.

Tune in to hear how Sylvia found her niche, found her first clients, and continues to level up her impact and income. As you listen in, you'll notice the common theme throughout the call: conversations + action.

Full Show Notes: How to Start and Grow a Local Consulting Business: Effective Marketing Ideas

348: Blog Coaching: Building Traffic and Income to a Brand New Site Aug 15, 2019

Show notes

Creating content.

Marketing your site.

Monetizing your traffic.

There’s a lot that goes into running a money-making website! In this episode, I want to shortcut your learning curve a little bit.

To do that, I’m joined by a couple of gracious volunteers. The first is Side Hustle Show listener, Jamie Robe, who’s started a new website to help people in the path of hurricanes and tropical storms.

As a resident of Central Florida, it’s a topic he knows plenty about!

My second volunteer is professional blog coach Kim Anderson.

(You might remember Kim from an earlier appearance on The Side Hustle Show, in which she shared how she made financial independence a reality for her and her family through her blog, Thrifty Little Mom.

Listen in to our coaching call with Jamie as we try and guide him toward clarity on his content, promotion, and monetization strategies.

What strategies could you apply to your own site?

Full Show Notes: Blog Coaching: Building Traffic and Income to a Brand New Site

347: Paid to Breathe: Make Money Hosting a Unique Local Experience Aug 08, 2019

Show notes

Michele Mattix of SedonaMeditationExperiences.com has a unique side hustle where she gets paid to breathe.

As a tagline that sounds great, but there’s a lot more to her side hustle than just breathing.

In fact, in Michele’s own words she describes her business as helping, “people experience the spiritual side of Sedona and to bring more awareness and wellness into their life through meditation, mindfulness, and a deep connection with nature.”

Michele is able to offer all of this because she is a certified meditation instructor. The interesting part is how she's managed to carve out a profitable business model in the experience economy using Airbnb’s Experiences platform.

When travelers book a stay in Arizona using Airbnb, they are also offered one of Michele’s meditation experiences -- at a cost of course.

This enables Michele to take advantage of the huge marketing machine that is Airbnb. They drive the traffic and raise awareness of her meditation experiences, and it’s paying off.

Tune in to hear how Michele found her first experience customers, what she’s done to market and grow her business, and how you may be able to apply the same strategies to an experience of your own.

Full Show Notes: Paid to Breathe: Make Money Hosting a Unique Local Experience

346: The Con of the Side Hustle, Beanie Babies, Affiliate Marketing, and More: 20 Questions with Nick Aug 01, 2019

Show notes

It’s time to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show.

I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 20 to talk through in today’s show.

Like this format? This is the 8th installment of “20 Questions” so feel free to go back and binge on the older ones too:

A common piece of advice you’ll hear is to take audience questions and turn them into content, so here’s a meta example of that in action.

This episode covers the dark side of side hustling, beanie babies, affiliate marketing, and much more.

Full Show Notes: The Con of the Side Hustle, Beanie Babies, Affiliate Marketing, and More: 20 Questions with Nick

345: A Millionaire Business Coach Takes a Look Inside My Day-to-Day Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

Jaime Masters has interviewed more than 500 millionaires. On top of that, she runs some premium mastermind programs and is a sought-after business coach.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to get on the podcast for years, and I think we came up with something unique and hopefully compelling.

Jaime agreed to actually coach me on a couple of areas of my business.

In preparation, she:

took a look at the last 12 months of my business finances
asked me to complete a time-tracking study to see what I was actually spending my time on
had both my wife and I complete a 5-year vision document

So, if you want to hear what a millionaire coach thinks of my operations and what I could or should be doing differently, or just want hear the kinds of questions that come up, tune in.

I think you’ll find the insights applicable to your own business, no matter what level you’re at.

Full Show Notes: A Millionaire Business Coach Takes a Look Inside My Day-to-Day

344: Virtual Consulting: How to set up your location-independent Consulting Business Jul 18, 2019

Show notes

A location-independent consulting business that replaces your day job income in a matter of months?

That's exactly what Paul Minors accomplished with his virtual software consulting business.

You might recognize Paul’s name. Paul is a productivity blogger and consultant from New Zealand. He was part of a fun productivity roundtable episode we did towards the end of 2016 -- that was episode 197 if you want to go back and check it out.

What I now know, is that at that time Paul was putting the wheels in motion on his consulting business centered around specific software tools.

Which as a side hustle tactic, is fantastic. If you can hitch your cart to a rising tide of interest in a particular tool, and become the go-to expert in that space, you can do really well.

And, that’s exactly what Paul has done.

Paul was able to leave his day job within a couple of months of starting his business. He was then able to go traveling with his wife for 6-months while working 15-20 hours a week from his laptop.

After arriving back home, he started working full-time on his consulting business. “I noticed the impact of that straight away, within a couple of months I had doubled my income,” Paul told me.

It's clear Paul has figured out this business model.

This one’s packed with ideas you might be able to apply to your own areas of expertise. Maybe you’ll even uncover some areas of expertise you never really considered that special before.

Tune in to hear how Paul came across the idea of offering his first consulting services “by accident”. As well as how he’s used several different marketing channels to drive targeted traffic to his website, and how he’s been adding more products and services to his portfolio and seen his revenue increase as a result.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Virtual Consulting: How to set up your location-independent Consulting Business

343: Hiring Your First Virtual Assistant: When, Where, and How to Do it Right Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

We all have a limit to our capacity. For some entrepreneurs and small business owners, that’s a tough pill to swallow .

But when you’re up against that ceiling you have to decide between two options. You can:

Settle in.
Ask for help in breaking through.

This episode is about growing your team in such a way that you have some breathing room in your schedule and in your mental bandwidth to do the work that’s required of a business owner.

Even though I’ve been hiring virtual help in my businesses since 2005, I’ve still got a lot to learn! This is something that’s been on my mind this year as I think about where I want to my current operations to go and who can help get me there.

To help dive into this topic, I’m excited to welcome John Jonas and Nate Hirsch to the show.

Between them, they’ve got more than 60 virtual team members and have been practicing remote management for more than a decade.

They both run platforms to help you make your first virtual hire as well:

John heads up OnlineJobs.ph, the largest remote job board and resume database for workers in the Philippines.
Nate created FreeeUp.com, a curated freelance marketplace for workers all around the world.

Tune in to hear John and Nate’s take on when it’s time to hire, how to find the best talent for your budget, and some common mistakes to avoid.

Full Show Notes: Hiring Your First Virtual Assistant: When, Where, and How to Do it Right

342: Options Trading 101: 8 Rules for Success for Total Newbies Jul 04, 2019

Show notes

Is options trading legit? Is it a viable side hustle?

In this episode, we’re tackling trading options -- a topic that’s been frequently requested by listeners, but is somewhat foreign to me.

To help school me on this, I’m excited to welcome my friend Kirk DuPlessis to the show. Kirk runs the super popular site OptionAlpha.com, where you can get all sorts of free options trading training. He’s been at this for over 10 years and the site has over 150,000 members.

Options trading (when done right) is a high probability form of investing, but as with all investments it’s based on risk.

Kirk explained options contracts are like insurance. As a trader, you can either be a buyer of insurance or a seller of that insurance.

On the buying side, it’s a way to kind of amplify your trading power through leverage. Instead of buying 100 shares of a certain stock and hoping it goes up, for example, you could buy contracts for a fraction of the share price that give you the option to buy the stock at today’s price should it go up by a defined amount in a certain amount of time -- the contract term.

If it does, you exercise your option and make a big gain on a small initial investment. If it doesn’t, you just lose your initial option contract purchase price, kind of like your car insurance premium if you don’t get into a wreck.

On the seller side, you’re the person selling that insurance. You collect the cash upfront, and as long as the trigger event doesn’t happen, you keep it. Kirk argues that just like insurance companies are some of the most profitable in the world, option sellers are most often the winners in the options trading game.

In this post and podcast episode, Kirk explains in more detail about how this all works in practice and shares his 8 rules for success in options trading.

Full Show Notes: Options Trading 101: 8 Rules for Success for Total Newbies

341: How to Make Money with Wholesale Bundles on Amazon FBA Jun 27, 2019

Show notes

Amy Feierman and Kristin Ostrander of MommyIncome.com have generated over $2 million in sales on Amazon over the last 12 months with a unique strategy that has high margins and lower costs per sale.

What are they selling on Amazon?

Bundles -- Think shampoo and conditioner, peanut and butter, or any 2-6 products that compliment each other and provide some added value and convenience to the buyer.

Amy and Kristin have both been selling online for over 10 years, but recently they have shifted their focus onto this specific strategy of wholesale bundles – and it’s working really well for a number of reasons.

These bundles make life easier for the 1-click ordering, free Prime shipping Amazon customer, and they make life better for you as a seller because you face less competition and can earn better profit margins.

Tune in to hear how Amy and Kristin go about their product research that leaves them confident their bundles are going to sell without any paid ads, product reviews, or marketing efforts.

You'll also learn how they're sourcing their inventory, the kinds of upfront investment needed, and the price points and margins they're working with.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Make Money with Wholesale Bundles on Amazon FBA

Bonus: How to Start an Audience Business Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

Over the last 10 years, the bulk of my energy and attention has been on building audience businesses.

These types of businesses (usually) involve creating some helpful resource, and then figuring out a way to monetize the people who come by to use it. In my case, that's primarily been through affiliate marketing and more recently, advertising on this podcast.

But you also have the flexibility to sell products and services to your audience once you have their attention.

In this episode, I'll play a section from my latest book on Building an Audience Business of your own, and share why I'm giving it away for free on Amazon.

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