The Side Hustle Show

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226: Earn Your First $500 on the Side in the Next 7 Days - No More Excuses! Apr 20, 2017

Show notes

Scott Voelker is the host of the super popular Amazing Seller podcast, where he’s recorded more than 300 episodes about the Amazon FBA business model.

He's a family man and a serial hustler, having been involved with a number of businesses ranging from construction to photography to ecommerce.

His latest project is the 1k FastTrack Challenge, where he takes a group of students through the paces of making their first $1000 selling online.

One of the biggest challenges people struggle to overcome is deciding on, or even finding a side hustle they can start and take those important first steps.

In this episode of The Side Hustle Show, Scott takes you through the 5-steps he uses when guiding his students to earning their first $500 online in just 7 days.

He also shares some powerful words of motivation and some success stories he’s been part of, helping you to see just how easy it really is when you follow these 5 simple steps.

"You’re probably sitting on a few hundred, if not thousands of dollars in your possession right now that you’re not even aware of," Scott explained.

Tune in to find out exactly what Scott is talking about, and how you can start your own challenge today to earn $500 in the next 7 days. No investment needed, no prior experience selling online, just the motivation and willingness to stick to a deadline.

Sound good? Join the free SH Nation Facebook group and look for the #7daychallenge thread to post about your results.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Earn Your First $500 on the Side in the Next 7 Days - No More Excuses!

224: $5k a Month as a Self-Published Author - in Fiction Apr 06, 2017

Show notes

Derek Murphy's book portfolio is bringing in $5k a month. He's is a world traveler, book cover design extraordinaire, and the author of a dozen different books, mainly in the young adult fantasy genre.

A lot of the self-publishing content and interviews on the Side Hustle Show has been related to non-fiction books, and to me, it's a more straightforward process: help someone solve a problem.

Fiction is a bit of a different animal, and something Derek covers in detail over on his site at CreativIndie.com.

Derek started out editing books and designing book covers while completing his Masters and PhD in literature. Having an interest in reading fiction and wanting to get away from client work, Derek started writing fiction books.

He explained there's a lot more demand for fiction than non-fiction, and because of that it can be easier to make more money.

It’s not as competitive as you may think either. Although there are literally millions of fiction books available, when you cut through to the books that are being marketed and targeted to the right audience, Derek says it’s not that difficult.

Tune in to hear how Derek starts by finding keywords and researching what the readers want based on what's already selling, then testing the market for demand before committing to a series of books.

He also shares the methods he used to grow an email list of more than 32,000 as well as advice on how to launch a book with an email list of zero.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: $5k a Month as a Self-Published Author - in Fiction

223: How to Turn Your Hobby into an Online Business Mar 30, 2017

Show notes

Jacques Hopkins is a former full-time engineer who turned his passion for playing piano from a side hustle into a full-time business at the end of 2015.

With more time and energy to devote to Pianoin21Days.com, the business continued to reach new heights.

It was after reading the entrepreneurial handbook that’s inspired a generation to start side hustles – The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss – that Jacques knew he wanted to start "something on the side that could make money."

That was back in 2007, and after several failed ventures, each of which has played a part in getting him to where he is now, Jacques is crushing it with his YouTube videos, ebook sales, and online course.

Tune in to hear how Jacques realized there was a market for teaching “regular people learn to play modern songs on the piano in as little time as possible.”

You'll hear how he used YouTube to generate lots of free traffic and build his email list, how he doubled his conversions by picking up the phone and talking to potential customers, and how he now lives the lifestyle wants and spends his time promoting the business.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Turn Your Hobby into an Online Business

222: 5 Real Estate Side Hustles You Can Start on the Cheap Mar 23, 2017

Show notes

Chad Carson is a 30-something semi-retired real estate mogul, who together with his business partner, oversees a portfolio of 90+ rental units.

In fact, he and his wife are in the middle of an exciting adventure — a year abroad in Ecuador with their two daughters.

But of course he didn’t start there. Fresh off the football field at Clemson, Chad’s real estate career started more modestly by “bird dogging” and house hacking — two of the tactics he shares in this week’s show.

You can learn more about Chad and his real estate business at CoachCarson.com, where he writes about using real estate investing to retire early and do what matters.

In this episode, Chad walks me through 5 real estate side hustles you can start on the cheap. Tune in to hear:

How to use house hacking to earn rental income and live for free
How to take advantage of tax-free live-in flips
How anyone can start master leasing
How to become a leasing agent
How to start “Bird-dogging”

Chad proves that you that you don’t need a large down payment to get started in real estate. You can even learn “how to do one of the more important parts of the rental business on someone else’s dime” if you’re smart about it.

This episode is packed with actionable advice to help get you started with a side hustle in the real estate market, as well as some long-term options to set you on the path to building long-term wealth.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: 5 Real Estate Side Hustles You Can Start on the Cheap

221: Wholesale on Amazon: From Part-Time Hobby to $13 Million in Amazon FBA Sales Mar 16, 2017

Show notes

Dan Meadors is one-half of TheWholesaleFormula.com. He and his partner Eric Lambert began selling on Amazon as a hobby with an original investment of only $600.

They would work nights and weekends buying products on clearance at local retail stores and selling them on Amazon for profit.

It took only a few months before they saw the potential to turn this hobby into a business and they both left their day jobs to sell on Amazon full-time. Since then they have been able to generate over $13,000,000 in total sales on Amazon.

Most of Side Hustle Nation will be familiar with the Amazon FBA program, but Dan's strategy is a bit different from the retail arbitrage and private label strategies we've covered in the past.

In Dan's case, he's buying inventory at wholesale prices from a brand or manufacturer, instead of trolling the clearance section at Walmart or having a product built specifically for him by a manufacturer. Then, like the other Amazon FBA business models, it's on him to list and sell it through Amazon.

In this episode, Dan talks me through everything you need to know to get started with wholesaling on Amazon, including how to target potential products and brands to sell, and how to reach out to them in a helpful way.

Full Show Notes and Full Highlight Reel: Wholesale on Amazon: From Part-Time Hobby to $13 Million in Amazon FBA Sales

220: SEO for Bloggers: How to Get More Free Traffic to Your Website Mar 09, 2017

Show notes

Joseph Hogue is a Marine Corps veteran, a former investment analyst, an author, a blogger, a freelancer, and an all-around super-smart dude.

We met through FinCon and hit it off right away. Maybe because we have the same haircut??

He blogs at MyWorkFromHomeMoney.com (and several other sites) and his latest book is called Google SEO for Bloggers: Easy Search Engine Optimization and Website Marketing for Google Love.

Joseph runs a number of blogs, and through smart keyword research, great content, and some techniques he uses to attract lots of high authority backlinks, Joseph has seen his traffic, and more importantly his revenue increase quickly in the last two years.

Search engine optimization (SEO) doesn’t need to be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. Joseph uses a simple process to find keywords with “buyer intent”, optimizes his content with on-page SEO, and uses some innovative, but simple techniques to generate powerful backlinks that Google will love and in turn boost your posts in the search results.

Tune in to hear Joseph’s SEO tips, techniques, and hacks. He shares examples of his own link building techniques, loads of useful tools to help you gain that competitive advantage over others in your niche, and ultimately ways you can increase your blog revenue.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: SEO for Bloggers: How to Get More Free Traffic to Your Website

219: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More: 20 Questions with Nick Mar 02, 2017

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.

It's been a few months since the last Q&A show I did and I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since then. I picked 20 to talk through in today's show.

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.

I'll cover questions about my daily routines, driving traffic, growing a subscriber base, staying motivated, making sustained sales, and what I'm struggling with today.

Full Show Notes: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More: 20 Questions with Nick

218: How to Build a 6-Figure Side Hustle on Fiverr Feb 23, 2017

Show notes

Kendell Rizzo made over $100,000 in profit in 18 months part-time selling services, workbooks, and other downloadable products on Fiverr.

In addition to being a 6-figure Fiverr seller, Kendell is a crowdfunding expert, a world traveler, an ironman triathlete, and runs her blog at leadandlaunch.com.

It’s been more than 100 episodes since our last Fiverr episode where Mark (AnarchoFighter) talked me through how he was the first person to make a $10k sale on Fiverr.

Fiverr is still going strong, and it’s a great example of a Buy Buttons platform – there's no bidding for work and no outside marketing necessary. This is what attracted Kendell to Fiverr after being frustrated with other freelance endeavors that sap time bidding for jobs or submitting resumes.

Within a year and a half Kendell turned over more than $100k in profit, and went from the $5 gigs everyone starts out with to averaging between $500-$900 an order. And with digital products for sale, this was all possible while working part-time.

Tune in to hear how she made her gigs stand out from the crowd in the competitive Fiverr marketplace, and why “over-delivering” is a fast-track to Fiverr success.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Build a 6-Figure Side Hustle on Fiverr

217: Crowdfunding 101: How to Raise Money for Your Next Project Feb 16, 2017

Show notes

Nathan Chan is the founder of FoundrMag.com. The digital magazine started as a side hustle in 2013, and has since transformed into a multi-million dollar media company.

Nathan is perhaps best-known for growing his business through Instagram, a platform where Foundr now has almost a million followers.

But today I want to dive into a different angle of Nathan’s business, and that’s crowdfunding.

Time, money, and ideas are the big 3 challenges I hear from Side Hustle Nation over and over again, and this conversation attempts to address one possible answer to the money question.

Nathan and his team are fresh off a $200,000 Kickstarter campaign for the first volume of Foundr books, a really high-end, beautifully designed coffee table book, which you can find at foundrmag.com/book.

In this episode, Nathan shares why Kickstarter is such a powerful platform -- even if you don’t have a big built-in audience, and everything he did to make their campaign a hit. Stay tuned for his advice on why you might consider crowdfunding, how to make the most of your Kickstarter exposure, and some examples of other side hustler’s products that have taken off.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Crowdfunding 101: How to Raise Money for Your Next Project

216: Merch by Amazon: $53k in T-Shirt Profits in 10 Hours a Week Feb 09, 2017

Show notes

I’m excited to introduce you to a new Buy Buttons opportunity under the Amazon ecommerce umbrella called Merch by Amazon: it’s a print-on-demand service for t-shirts now (and perhaps other merchandise in the future).

My wife and I have already made our first sales on this platform and it's become our latest side hustle obsession.

To help me explore this business model, I invited Elaine Heney on the program. She’s an app entrepreneur, a former Amazon FBA seller (a biz she actually sold), and last year she sold over $128,000 worth of t-shirts through Merch by Amazon program, of which $53k was profit. You can follow along with Elaine's Merch adventures at MerchEntrepreneur.com.

The advantage Amazon has over other print-on-demand sites is their massive daily organic traffic. Elaine doesn’t even need to do any marketing to promote her shirts, and using their interface is as easy as uploading a design, choosing colors, and clicking a button to list your shirts.

There are no monthly fees, and no inventory risk.

In this episode, Elaine takes you through the steps you need to take to start an account on the Merch by Amazon program. She shares how she finds graphic designers to help with her t-shirt designs, how to use the Merch by Amazon platform, and some of her best tips for creating designs that will sell well.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Merch by Amazon: $53k in T-Shirt Profits in 10 Hours a Week

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