0:00:04 A listener reached out and said, you got to get this woman on the show. She’s got a really
0:00:08 creative resale business, actually getting inventory donated for free, and then applying
0:00:14 some really savvy branding and marketing to build what she calls a sustainable soft toy
0:00:21 adoption agency. She’s saving the planet one teddy at a time from lovedbefore.london,
0:00:23 Charlotte Liebling. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:27 Thank you very much, Nick. It’s lovely, lovely to be here.
0:00:31 I’m excited for this one. This is a big deal. Your kid outgrows their stuffies. There’s probably
0:00:36 50 or more in the next room over there. They’re still in okay condition, most of them,
0:00:41 and a lot of donation places won’t accept them. Parents, at a certain point, want them out of the
0:00:46 house, so they end up in the landfill. I got to get rid of them some way. I can’t donate them.
0:00:53 So you come in with loved before and say, there’s got to be a better way. With over 10,000 sales now,
0:00:58 adoptions now, beautiful branding, retail partnerships. We’ll get into all of that.
0:01:03 But it started as a side hustle. You’re working full-time. You say, there’s got to be another
0:01:04 alternative path here.
0:01:12 Yeah, that’s exactly it. I was actually volunteering in a charity shop at the time, and I started to
0:01:19 notice just how many donations people were bringing in of stuffed animals and often what a really big and
0:01:23 sentimental and emotional moment it was for them. But as you say, the process, as it was,
0:01:29 is these charity shops are really overwhelmed. Thrift stores, charity shops, op shops, same thing.
0:01:34 And they were going straight out the back and into the bin, unfortunately, or they were just
0:01:41 sold as dog toys. And the memories that they came with and the love and stories were just thrown away
0:01:45 in that moment. And that really struck me. I kind of went from there, really.
0:01:49 Yeah. So you say, well, what if we could re-home these? What if we could turn this,
0:01:55 what is now, unfortunately, going to be garbage into, give it a new life? And so what are some
0:01:56 of the first steps here?
0:02:01 Well, the actual first step in that moment was for me to go home and understand that that was a
0:02:07 wider problem than just one that I was seeing in this specific shop. So I jumped straight onto Google
0:02:13 that night and was kind of frantically searching, is this a widespread problem? And what does this look
0:02:18 like on a global level? And I remember the walls were kind of covered in scribbles and crazy post-it
0:02:24 notes and like mad scientist vibes. I kind of had this brainwave of, all right, well, if we can change
0:02:29 the perceptions of them becoming rubbish and losing their value once loved, then maybe we can make a
0:02:36 real difference in the industry. And that’s kind of where I went from there, really. And I think I
0:02:44 started with the most nothing, nothing you can have, apart from maybe a very supportive mum and dad and
0:02:50 boyfriend who were kind of cheering me on. But, you know, I had sort of the five pounds in my bank
0:02:56 account that I had at the time. And I was thinking, okay, well, how do I turn that into 10? And how do I
0:03:02 turn that 10 into 100? And, you know, piece by piece, build up something here. But I would say what we
0:03:10 actually started with was a community. And so before I sold anything, before I presented any kind of
0:03:17 product or service, I put something out into the world via social media to validate that other people
0:03:22 would connect with this and this would resonate with them. So yeah, I started with the community side.
0:03:26 Was there any social following? This is just on your personal accounts at this point?
0:03:31 I set up a whole new account for this. And fundamentally, what it was, was me and my little
0:03:39 one bedroom flat with a few teddy bears, just starting to talk about some of the things that
0:03:44 were going through my brain and sharing some of their adventures and that kind of thing. So it was
0:03:50 separate from my personal account because I wanted to. I think there’s a lot of value in building
0:03:57 something almost secretly from the people around you. You want to know that this is validated beyond
0:04:04 your circle of friends who will, you know, support everything you do. And it has to have legs and
0:04:06 those legs must be built in the real world.
0:04:10 Okay. So do you have an example of what those first few posts said or looked like?
0:04:17 Yeah, it was stuff like, because I guess there’s a few elements of the concept or the proposition that
0:04:24 needed testing. It was around, do people so feel as emotionally attached to stuffed animals and
0:04:30 would people or are people looking for other ways to give them up or donate them that don’t involve
0:04:36 them going in the bin? And so I guess I was introducing some toys as having character and
0:04:42 talking about their name and what they love and personifying them and bringing them to life in a way
0:04:48 to understand whether that was the kind of thing that, you know, would at all resonate and whether
0:04:55 I was just this crazy teddy bear lady on one corner of the planet. And that’s all it was.
0:04:57 But it turns out I wasn’t.
0:05:02 Yeah, other people did resonate with this story and have it a big way since then. This is at
0:05:07 lovebefore underscore London, almost 150,000 followers on Instagram at this point. But starting
0:05:12 out with a brand new account from scratch, anything that you did to boost the post or get more eyeballs
0:05:12 on it?
0:05:19 To be honest, we don’t put any spend into marketing. It’s about storytelling, finding different and
0:05:26 creative ways to emotionally not just tell people what you’re selling and what they can buy from you,
0:05:33 telling them stories, whether that’s the stories of the brand or the founding of the business and all
0:05:38 the background. When someone comes across your profile, they should feel like they have just
0:05:46 met their new best friend. You know, you have to go beyond selling into the kind of depths of
0:05:51 human connection. And I think that for us has been the key.
0:05:57 For your initial inventory, do you go back to that charity shop where you’re volunteering at? Or do
0:06:02 you kind of put the call out on these social channels to say, if you have a used teddy bear,
0:06:08 somebody that is ready for their next adventure, we’ll take it off your hands?
0:06:15 At the very, very start, I piloted this in a small way with the charity shop that I had been working in.
0:06:21 And they, you know, gave us some of the inventory and I found they’ve accompanied them to a couple of
0:06:26 market stalls and that kind of thing. And then I said to you, okay, well, this is, this has got legs and this
0:06:33 is something I really want to develop as a sole entity. And so kind of parted from them and then was left in this
0:06:40 strange position where I’ve had just nothing. I remember that very clearly as a time where I would spend my
0:06:47 evenings, putting leaflets through doors of my local neighbourhood, you know, telling people that they
0:06:54 could come and drop stuff off. I spent my days, you know, with friends walking around charity shops,
0:07:01 pitching to them and saying that if you’ve got anything you’re throwing in the bin, then redirect it to me,
0:07:07 I’ll come and connect on a Saturday, as well as the social media side too. But yes, it was very much a
0:07:14 case of knocking on doors. But there was a turning point with that, I’ll be honest. It was probably
0:07:21 during COVID, people were looking for feel good and connection and warm and fuzzy. And that led a lot
0:07:28 of people naturally to our doorstep. And I think that was also a time where we really started to see,
0:07:37 I’m going to use the word avalanche of donations. And instead of me knocking on doors, you know,
0:07:40 the post for knocking on my door several times a day.
0:07:47 Right. So word starts to spread through this local marketing, handing out leaflets and just knocking on
0:07:50 doors at the existing charities. Look, look, if you’re going to toss it, give it to me, it said,
0:07:55 or I’ll come by and pick it up. As you start to collect some initial inventory, what happens after that?
0:08:00 A big moment of validation was sometimes you could see the amount that people were paying
0:08:06 in terms of postage to send, you know, sometimes, or before we could accept donations internally,
0:08:14 for example, within the US, someone would readily send a box containing one or two stuffed animals
0:08:20 that cost them $150, $200 to send to us just because they cared so much about what happened
0:08:26 to it next. So I guess it really gave me a kind of strength of validation in that period. Quite quickly,
0:08:34 we started to work our way up Google. So if you type in, you know, donate soft toys or donate teddy
0:08:40 bears, for example, we are the first result on the first page, you know, of most of those search terms.
0:08:47 And we have been for a long time. And I think we worked hard on that. And it was our kind of first
0:08:53 introduction to SEO and starting to understand that. But yeah, you know, there was a particular
0:08:59 day where I remember opening the door and physically not being able to walk out of my front door because
0:09:05 of this wall of boxes. And that was really particularly difficult because we shared a hallway with our
0:09:12 neighbor, who I hope isn’t listening to this because I’m sure he absolutely hates me. But yeah,
0:09:17 he could also not get out of his door and it became a bit of a regular thing. And it was kind of funny,
0:09:20 but also not so funny.
0:09:25 So now you’ve got a wall of stuffed animals that have showed up on your doorstep. How do you even
0:09:31 begin the process of cleaning these up and crafting a story around each one of these? Like it seems,
0:09:35 I solved the first problem. I got some inventory for free. Great. Now I got to go and sell it.
0:09:40 Yes. The reality of this business is from day one, it’s been a big old journey of
0:09:46 trial and error. This isn’t a business where you order something from China and then you see if it
0:09:51 works and you order it a thousand more times. Each product needs to be very individually processed
0:09:57 and loved back to life in a lot of scenarios. And it’s been a case of working out how you do that to one
0:10:02 and then how you do that to 10 and then how sure that, you know, over the same duration,
0:10:07 you do it to a hundred and then a thousand. It was quite literally opening boxes,
0:10:13 understanding all the sizes and shapes and, you know, conditions that those toys came in
0:10:20 and practicing. Yeah. Loving them back to life and, you know, failing at that a hundred times
0:10:23 before making any success for that.
0:10:27 Is it as simple as throwing it in the laundry machine?
0:10:28 I wish.
0:10:33 I love the branding on love before where you call it like the spa day where you show the
0:10:37 little teddy bear getting like scrubbed and like a lovingly, you know, it’s got a little
0:10:40 bathrobe on, I think in one of the pictures. And it’s just like, that’s great.
0:10:47 Yeah. This is something that is a bit of a weird tension with a business like this where,
0:10:54 you know, they do go through the spa and we do like live a lot of that branding and value,
0:10:57 but you know, there is that business side of like, if you’re trying to scale,
0:11:01 you can’t give each of them a bubble bath with cucumber over their eyes.
0:11:10 So we’ve had to very much work out what that balance is and how it’s so far from just being
0:11:15 able to throw them in a machine. But at the same time, you have to find cleaning methods
0:11:19 that are robust enough that you don’t know where these toys have come from. And you have to assume
0:11:24 the worst with every single one that you pick up. This is one of the areas where I think I’m often
0:11:28 most guarded because it is a bit of a secret sauce and we’ve worked so hard on it.
0:11:32 You’ve got me curious on like, well, what other categories? Like if I roll up to the local
0:11:37 thrift shops and donation shops, like, well, is there a different category of goods where they’re
0:11:42 like, yeah, we just can’t take this or it’s more trouble than it’s worth for us. But if you want it,
0:11:45 sure, you know, take it off our hands. I’m wondering if there’s any other categories because
0:11:50 it’s so creative. I was going to ask, is there a first sale moment where you’re like, okay,
0:11:54 I managed to flip one of these or I managed to sell one of these. Was it through social?
0:11:59 Was it through the website? Like take me back to the, the first revenue here.
0:12:06 Yeah. I actually don’t remember the first online sale, but I do remember there was one particular
0:12:15 sale and I think it was just so powerful in, in how much it went for. It was a, an event. There’s
0:12:24 like a, this kind of festival and I set up a stool there and it was cash only. And a few of the toys I
0:12:28 had there were just normal ones. You had, you know, builder bears and stuff like that.
0:12:34 It were going for, you know, 10 to 20 pounds, that kind of thing. And there was a couple of really,
0:12:39 really special bears I’d had there. And this was at a point, I feel like now I have a built-in
0:12:43 valuation tool in my brain, but this is at a point where I certainly didn’t. And so I’d had some help
0:12:49 in valuing these toys. And there was one there that was valued for somewhere between 350 and 400
0:12:54 pounds. And I thought it was beautiful and really, really special, but I certainly didn’t,
0:13:00 you know, expect that anyone else would, especially for that price tag. And it was the first one to go.
0:13:05 Yeah. And just in context, to translate it to dollars, we’re talking like 450 to $500 for a
0:13:06 stuffed bear.
0:13:13 Yeah. So it would be over 500. And yeah, someone whipped out their purse or there was their wallet,
0:13:22 actually, and took out all of that cash and handed it over. And I think I was in such disbelief. You
0:13:26 know, this wasn’t a collector’s fair. This wasn’t that kind of audience, but this person had been so
0:13:33 deeply struck by the concept and was so in love with this object and the item and the story it came with,
0:13:40 that they were more than happy to part with that cash. And so, yeah, that was a really special moment
0:13:46 in just, again, making me realize, okay, this has legs and other people get it and other people believe
0:13:46 in it.
0:13:49 Yeah. There’s something to it where something, this was going to get tossed. This was going to get
0:13:54 thrown away. And now all of a sudden with the right branding and positioning and story behind it,
0:14:00 it’s worth 400 pounds. More with Charlotte in just a moment, including how she landed partnerships
0:14:06 with brick and mortar luxury retailers and the surprising operational challenges of scaling this
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0:16:31 Did you continue doing like those types of almost like a pop-up event where you show up, you know,
0:16:35 at a festival at a something else where there’s going to be a crowd of people and kind of set up shop? Is
0:16:43 that the early days of the sales side? I would say so. I think putting together a website and working out how to
0:16:49 do that was one thing that I was trying to do from the start but involved a lot of kind of
0:16:53 complexity. Obviously, each product needs to be individually photographed and things like that.
0:17:00 So going to the odd event felt like an easy touch way to start making sales and start circulating the
0:17:06 brand. I have distinct memories, you know, of totally alone, carting around a little trolley containing,
0:17:13 you know, 20 bears in this packaging. Actually, I used to hand make, this sounds so strange,
0:17:20 I couldn’t afford to buy cardboard boxes to put them in or packaging to put them in. So I used to buy
0:17:27 pieces of card and I’d hand cut out the frame of a box and make the box myself. So I used to cart
0:17:37 that all around to little, yeah, little fairs, summer fairs or school fairs even and just stand and I think
0:17:48 that as an entrepreneur, when you’re starting out, you have to dig so deep, you know, when no one else believes in
0:17:53 you or what you’re doing, you see a box among both selfless people. But, you know, people are
0:17:58 walking past and you have to dig so deep in those moments to put yourself out there and start to
0:18:03 convince other people. There’s a reason to believe in what you’re standing out with, you know.
0:18:07 Yeah, and it’s super valuable. Get the one-on-one customer interactions, what they like, what they
0:18:10 don’t like, what resonates. What are the factors that make somebody pull out their wallet and say,
0:18:11 yeah, I’ll take one?
0:18:18 It’s funny because people connect with love before and with the products, you know, and the concept on
0:18:25 such different levels. Sometimes it will be that they walk past a toy and that the name or the story
0:18:31 is something that resonates with some aspect of their life. And that will pull someone in. It could be
0:18:38 that the storytelling itself is what’s bringing someone or the, the kind of initial tag that it’s
0:18:43 something sustainable. It’s something circular. And when they dig further, they really kind of
0:18:49 fall in love with that element. I learned very early on that the packaging was such a huge part of
0:18:55 that storytelling and in that like value signaling as well. The fact that these toys were sitting there
0:19:00 with a little handwritten bio and they had their own little box with a cushion in and, you know,
0:19:07 just bringing them to life in that way again really is, is what sets it apart from a toy that’s in a
0:19:09 a box at a charity shop.
0:19:13 Yeah. They’re super cute. And you’ve given them all individual names and written a quick
0:19:16 background bio on them.
0:19:19 Yeah. And often that’s supplied by the previous owner as well.
0:19:24 Oh, okay. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. I was going to say, if you just plug it into AI
0:19:28 and have them come up with all these, like, you know, heartwarming stories, it’s like, no,
0:19:31 it’s got to be authentic, but it needs it because otherwise it’s like, okay, you’re selling a used teddy
0:19:36 bear. Like, okay, gross. You know, that’s probably the reaction. It’s like it needs to be
0:19:38 like elevated in, uh, in the way that you’re doing it.
0:19:45 Yeah. That’s exactly it. Like these toys that have been loved, there’s this big, you know,
0:19:50 misconception that they’re losing their value. Whereas actually, if you can physically signal,
0:19:55 you know, through the packaging and through the storytelling that, that they’re so much more
0:20:00 valuable through the stories they come with. And that totally changes the perceptions. Um, but yeah,
0:20:05 often they come, you know, with their story fully written with little anecdotes about them or memory
0:20:09 shared with them, et cetera, which is always lovely. Yeah. I’m going to give an example.
0:20:14 This is a little teddy bear called Tumbles. It says Tumbles isn’t sure how her feet got so big,
0:20:19 but she’s decided to make the most of them great for dancing, stopping in puddles, or simply being
0:20:25 noticed. She’s looking for a home where clumsy is just another word for adorable, right? 25 pounds.
0:20:31 And so I want to ask about like, how you think about pricing in margins here, where it’s like most
0:20:36 on the website, I’m seeing mostly like kind of in the 15 to 25, 30 pound range, uh, you know,
0:20:42 call it 20 to $40. Is that a typical, uh, typical price per, per item?
0:20:48 Our kind of most popular price points are between like 16 to 25 pounds. You know,
0:20:53 obviously that differs, for example, if they’re in Selfridges or, um, so, you know,
0:20:58 different retailers that we’re with now, it can be different, but I’d say online on our own
0:21:03 DTC platform. Yeah. 15 to 25 ish is, is, is kind of standard.
0:21:09 Okay. How about in the retail shops? I want to talk about how those retail partnerships came to be
0:21:14 to set up a, it looks like a semi-permanent display at Selfridges, at Bloomingdale’s,
0:21:16 get some of these, you know, higher end stores.
0:21:22 It’s funny really, because it’s still quite surreal that we’re actually in those places. Um,
0:21:28 when I started this business, I said, you know, the ultimate goal, I can’t remember what the
0:21:32 question was asked that made me say this, but you know, or something along the lines of how will you
0:21:41 know when you’ve made it? And I said, if we can get these toys from rubbish, like literal rubbish to
0:21:45 being sold in the world’s most luxury stores, then I’ve made it.
0:21:50 Yeah. It’s a big gap. And it’s, it’s like, well, it happened. That’s crazy.
0:21:59 It happened. So with Selfridges, what happened is, is I wrote them an email. I found an email on their
0:22:06 website and I followed that email, you know, being very insistent that they wanted to hear from me.
0:22:12 And I followed that and followed that until I found a contact and then they put me in touch with the
0:22:18 right place. And then I said, you know, I didn’t waste much time kind of going back and forth in terms
0:22:25 of like an email chain. I said, look, let’s have a call and let me tell you about me and love before
0:22:32 and why I think you’re going to want to hear this. And so they said, yeah, okay. And we jumped on a call
0:22:39 and I kind of pitched love before and I told the story and I’d done a lot of researching and understanding
0:22:45 their own goals, especially around sustainability and where they were going as a business. And I aligned
0:22:50 it quite specifically with all of that. We started with a pop-up and we did a pop-up in their London
0:22:58 store over Christmas to kind of prove ourselves, I guess. And when we did that, they offered us a
0:23:03 permanent space in their Trafford and their Birmingham stores. And then not long after that,
0:23:08 they offered us London. So Selfridges only have four stores in the UK and we’re permanent spots in
0:23:09 three of them now.
0:23:13 Yeah. So, so cold outreach, you’re like, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no,
0:23:18 but trying to find a decision maker on the, on the buyer side or the merchandising side,
0:23:23 especially with, with brick and mortar retails, like we only have a finite amount of floor space
0:23:28 and we got to think about how it’s going to turn and how it’s going to position our brand. It’s like,
0:23:32 well, we’re not known for selling used teddy bears. So how are we going to, how are we going to make
0:23:36 sure this is in alignment with what we want to do? But the research, Hey, we, you know,
0:23:40 we know you have these sustainability goals. We feel like this is in alignment and here,
0:23:44 we’re not asking for a permanent placement right out of the gate, but let us test it out with a
0:23:47 little pop-up over the holidays. We’ll see, we’ll see how the, the shoppers react.
0:23:52 Totally. Let us prove what we can do. And I think another big selling point was
0:23:58 the fact that we, I’ve done all the design from day one of anything of all the packaging,
0:24:03 the space design, anything kind of creative. We weren’t asking anything of them. We were saying,
0:24:08 we’ll do the storytelling. We’ll design the space. We know how to do this. We,
0:24:12 we know what your variables and how we can fit in with that. So I think coming with that full
0:24:19 package made a little difference. But from that point, I’ll be really honest as we do some outreach
0:24:26 and, you know, we track leads and stuff outside, but actually people were on our doors. You know,
0:24:31 bloomingdales came to us. Oh, that’s interesting. I was going to ask if it was similar,
0:24:34 like a cold outreach to bloomingdales, but they found you.
0:24:42 Yes. And I would be silly not to think that selfridges are an incredible sales opportunity
0:24:46 for us and the traffic and the footfall that they have is incredible. And the sales
0:24:54 are absolutely great. But more than anything else, they are marketing and, you know, many of the buyers
0:25:00 or the people that have the other stores we’re now stocked in found us because they walked through
0:25:06 selfridges just on a shopping trip or with their child and they were pulled into our space and they
0:25:12 started reading about it and they went from there. So I think we owe a lot to that kind of first win.
0:25:14 Yeah. It’s like leveraging some, uh, some social proof.
0:25:20 Very much. So we’ve had a friend of mine, Harry was running the vertical farming podcast. He’s
0:25:25 trying to get guests like CEOs of vertical farming companies. And it’s like in my first email, it’s
0:25:29 like, Hey, I’m reaching out to, you know, well-known name, number one, well-known name, number two,
0:25:32 and so on. And then as soon as he booked them, he’d replaced that language with, Hey,
0:25:36 I’ve already booked calls with well-known name, number one. It’s like, okay, how do we keep this
0:25:38 virtuous circle spinning?
0:25:43 That’s exactly it. You need one foot in somewhere and the rest will follow.
0:25:48 So very good. As a percentage of the pie chart, like these retail placements versus online sales,
0:25:53 versus social versus pop-ups, like how does the revenue part break down now?
0:25:58 It can vary massively. And I think we’re in a moment of real growth on the retail side where
0:26:05 we’re bringing in lots and lots of new retailers, but it generally tends to be quite 50, 50. And so from
0:26:13 our own kind of D to C side versus the through retailer. And I think that it, it kind of always
0:26:20 has been because as we’ve grown our capabilities to fulfill larger orders for retailers, so have we
0:26:26 scaled our capability to put more on our online drops. And therefore they’ve kind of grown quite
0:26:28 nicely in parallel together.
0:26:33 Is that how you structure where we’re going to batch, spa treatment, a bunch of new donations,
0:26:37 and then do a drop versus like, we’ll put them up Wednesday, Tuesday, as we photograph them,
0:26:39 as we get them available?
0:26:45 Yeah. So we have always done drops. It’s kind of always been the mechanism against which we’ve
0:26:53 worked at the start. Those drops were of, you know, 10 to 15 bears, and now it’s 150 plus weekly. In
0:27:01 terms of our processes, it makes sense, but also actually driving the, the exclusivity and the
0:27:05 limited availability is a really powerful tool. I think on e-commerce particularly.
0:27:09 Well, plus there’s built in scarcity. It was like, there’s only one tumbles. And it’s like,
0:27:11 if you want it, he’s going to be gone.
0:27:18 And it’s very competitive. Like we, we have some real, you know, like genuinely very upset people
0:27:23 sometimes at drop time, you know, people will sit on the website as it leads up to 8pm and they’ll be
0:27:27 waiting. And if they miss out on someone they’ve had their eye on, you know, through our previews or
0:27:33 whatever, that causes genuine upset. It sounds like I’m laughing. I’m not, I find it really upsetting,
0:27:37 but that’s a really powerful thing. And it’s to, to drive that traffic that,
0:27:42 you know, is going to be there each week and to be able to track that data and watch it grow and
0:27:46 change and fluctuate, you know, throughout the year and the seasons is also really powerful.
0:27:52 And then those, the, the anticipation is primarily built through the social channels or through email
0:27:55 or like, how are you getting people pumped up for the next drop?
0:28:01 Yeah. So it’s largely socials. And we do in the kind of 24 hours ish leading up to the drop,
0:28:07 we’ll start to preview them. We put things on our stories. We do posts, we introduce a couple of the
0:28:15 stories. We use the kind of Instagram little forecasting families to give teasers. We certainly
0:28:25 do have, I think, about 40,000 subscribers to our email. And we certainly remind them of the drop and
0:28:30 give them a bit of a teaser in that too. So I would say it’s predominantly socials.
0:28:34 Was there a specific revenue target or milestone and maybe it’s getting into these, you know,
0:28:39 retail shops where you felt comfortable saying this could be a full-time thing. Like I’m going
0:28:44 all in on love before. Well, people are actually quite shocked to find out, but I actually do still
0:28:46 have another job as well. Oh, I didn’t realize that.
0:28:55 Yeah. So in true side hustle form, I started love before on the Sunday and I started an internship
0:29:00 internship at what is now my other job on the Monday. And so they have grown in parallel
0:29:06 together and fed into each other from day one. Wow. So yeah. If you ever find yourself saying,
0:29:09 well, there’s not enough hours in the day. Well, look at what Charlotte’s doing over here.
0:29:14 Yeah. It’s, it’s been a wild ride when one job has ended, the other has started. I think people
0:29:21 find it quite strange, including my own team, which is of about 15 people now that I work somewhere
0:29:26 else. But when you’re starting from absolutely nothing, you have no freedom. You have to grow
0:29:32 that freedom and we’ve never taken on investment. So I kind of consider myself my own investor,
0:29:36 you know, my, my fiance, he works full-time for the business. He manages the team and
0:29:45 people find it quite strange for sure. But yeah, I think you have to make sacrifices of all kinds as
0:29:51 an entrepreneur and investments beyond financial. And for me, it’s just been one of them so far.
0:29:55 More with Charlotte in just a moment, including growing the team, how she actually has people
0:30:01 volunteering to come work for her and some of the tools and tech she uses to manage it all coming up
0:30:07 right after this. One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was
0:30:12 starting out was this idea of the piggyback principle. In the startup phase, that means you don’t have to
0:30:17 start completely from scratch. But instead, you can take advantage of existing tools, templates,
0:30:22 playbooks, best practices from the people who’ve gone before you. A perfect example of this is our
0:30:28 partner Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses from household names
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0:31:20 the software powering this important channel was super outdated and clunky. We wanted to make it
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0:31:32 That’s Darina Kulia, co-founder of our sponsor, OpenPhone. Trusted by more than 60,000 customers,
0:31:37 this is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications.
0:31:44 We bring your calls, your messages, your contacts in one simple place and we allow you to bring in your
0:31:50 team. So you as a business owner don’t end up being the bottleneck and we really make it easy for you to
0:31:56 deliver that incredible experience. It’s all about speed, streamlined communication, team access to one
0:32:01 centralized place. I think that makes a lot of sense. Something that all of our customers love is
0:32:07 ability to have a shared phone number, which really is great for calling and texting. So when someone
0:32:12 calls you or texts you, there’s multiple people that can team up on responding and everyone is in the loop
0:32:17 about that conversation. This visibility is so critical, especially as you scale.
0:32:24 And the ability to text a business is like a new and novel thing that as a customer, I really appreciate.
0:32:30 One thing that we’ve launched at OpenPhone, which is I think a game changer, is Sona, which is our voice
0:32:37 AI agent. It basically helps you never have a single missed call. It can handle responses to any common
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0:32:53 call is a lost opportunity. Now, OpenPhone has automatic AI call summaries, so you don’t have to worry about
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0:33:04 basically allowing you to quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints
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0:33:50 Who was the first team member or the first couple roles that you brought on help for?
0:33:56 One was my now fiancé. So my partner’s name is Alex. We’ve been together for coming up 14 years.
0:33:58 So since I was 15 and he was 16.
0:34:00 Similar story over here. No, that’s great.
0:34:01 Oh, really?
0:34:02 High school sweethearts.
0:34:07 Oh, I love that. Well, I mean, there was a point in our lives where, you know, he’d come home from
0:34:11 work, I’d come home from work, and then I’d spend the whole night sitting on the living room floor,
0:34:16 packing orders for this strange little business that was just like in my own head at the time. And I
0:34:22 think he kind of had the thought of, okay, well, if I ever want to spend any more time with her again,
0:34:24 I think I’m going to have to jump on this ship.
0:34:25 Yeah, I’m going to have to help out, yeah.
0:34:31 Yeah. And so he did so, and he did so wholeheartedly. And I can honestly say the business
0:34:36 would not be where it is without him. He’s the kind of the other half to my brain. And so we were kind
0:34:43 of CEO, COO, and he was the first, you know, additional person. It was a no-brainer to bring him
0:34:48 along and to introduce him in. And then I’d say we kind of went through a period of having
0:34:55 a couple of different friends jump in that we would pay for bits and bobs of time just to help us fulfill
0:34:57 online orders. So packing.
0:34:59 Okay, like the logistic side.
0:35:08 Yeah, pick and pack, operational, logistic kind of side. And I suppose that’s kind of the core of our
0:35:16 team now. We do really do everything in-house. Particularly myself and Alex have kind of
0:35:22 worked out how to do all of the things in all of the roles across time. So the bulk of our team
0:35:30 are people that do the sussillment of the orders. And so like, for example, I can focus on growing
0:35:36 the business and extending it into the different directions. Yeah, we call them now officially,
0:35:38 they are junior cuddle coordinators.
0:35:43 Well, one thing that’s interesting is there’s a little volunteer tab on the website.
0:35:43 Yeah.
0:35:48 And do you get people offering their help? They just love the brand. They love the story so
0:35:49 much. They want to work for you for free.
0:35:55 It’s wild. We get so many. So I had to build this section of the website because each and
0:36:00 every day we would get people saying, you know, I want to quit my whole life and move across the
0:36:02 world to join this business.
0:36:03 Wow. That’s incredible.
0:36:09 I could show you thousands of entries across this from around the world of people who want to
0:36:14 either join the team or help bring this to their corner of the world. Or, you know,
0:36:19 as you say, volunteer for us. We do have a few members of the team now who are
0:36:23 volunteering, particularly on the like customer services side. We’re fortunate enough to have
0:36:30 made it onto a platform called We Make Change. You have to prove that you’re a business that’s
0:36:35 genuinely doing something positive and, you know, making change to get on there.
0:36:39 Wow. Okay. Is it technically, I know there’s a charitable component with, you know,
0:36:42 donating profits, but it’s not technically a nonprofit business, is it?
0:36:50 Absolutely not. And that was a really strong strategic decision from my side. For me,
0:36:57 if we’re truly to change the way the industry is going, you have to take it away from this just
0:37:03 being like teddy bears in charity shops. This is a business. This is a business that, you know,
0:37:07 off its own back chooses to do good. And like you say, supports charity in a number of ways.
0:37:14 But this is a business that I want to be, and is competing with the world’s biggest stuffed animal
0:37:21 brands, like a household name. This isn’t just a charity. This is a business that’s doing good.
0:37:23 And yeah, a proper business.
0:37:30 Got it. Yeah. In coordinating the team and coordinating the retail effort and the accepting donations,
0:37:35 the cleanup process and the online sales effort, I was going to ask if there’s any tools or software
0:37:42 or tech that you swear by that you rely on to help keep tabs on this growing empire while
0:37:44 still working the other job too.
0:37:53 For me, as a kind of, I guess, creative, as well as a business owner, I work best in platforms like
0:37:59 Figma. And so Figma is like a cloud-based kind of design platform, which is a collaborative tool
0:38:06 that I use as a bit of a whiteboard and workshop space, but also somewhere where I create deliverables
0:38:07 and design proper things.
0:38:14 The reality is a lot of this business is built in spreadsheets. This is Alex’s specialist area,
0:38:23 but he has built some incredible, incredible spreadsheets that underlie that secret source space.
0:38:31 But the fact that we have each product individually photographed and has to be checked and all their
0:38:36 safety information inputted and all of that, and in one button that uploads to our website.
0:38:41 Yeah, that’s such a logistical, you don’t think about it, the managing inventory, hundreds of sales
0:38:46 a week. And it’s not like, well, there’s 25 of this one item. It’s like everything is individualized.
0:38:49 So now I got to go delete that row or market is sold. And it’s like, absolutely have to build
0:38:52 a process around that. Otherwise it’s just going to break immediately.
0:38:59 I hope that the magic of this business is that it comes across as this simple, beautiful concept.
0:39:08 The reality is that we’ve had to break and build every part of it. You know, we exist in a weird
0:39:15 gray space. We’re not a traditional toy brand, nor are we a traditional reseller. We fall in between
0:39:22 spaces. And so we’ve had to break and remake all the systems. And it is sometimes people will say,
0:39:29 well, I’m going to poppy you and do this myself. And honestly, I’m like, good luck, good luck for you.
0:39:36 The complexity that sits behind it. And I think that particularly sits behind going from selling
0:39:45 10 to, you know, sending us a thousand in a week is infrastructure, but we’d need like now scientists
0:39:45 in the background.
0:39:49 Well, you might call it a gray space. Others might call it a blue ocean where it’s like,
0:39:53 there’s nobody else competing in this specific sub niche. So I think that works. It looks like the
0:39:58 website itself is powered by Wix. Anything else on the tools and tech side?
0:40:06 I think recently, and this comes with increased cash flow is, is using tools like it sounds so
0:40:12 silly, but zero and accounting tools. There are so many spaces as an entrepreneur where you can
0:40:21 pour in your energy and so much energy. But if you can afford to, that energy can be so much better spent
0:40:27 in other directions if you can just plug something simple in. And I think that particularly, you know,
0:40:31 I know it sounds boring to just be like, get accounting software, but it’s, it’s not. And it’s,
0:40:37 you know, once you reach that point, it’s like a massive, massive weight lifted off your shoulders
0:40:44 on the actual operational side. So obviously each toy comes with a bio. And at the very start,
0:40:50 I would handwrite them all. I’ve actually got a lump on my finger, which is from writing,
0:40:54 you know, hundreds and hundreds per day. And it’s really painful and I can’t do it anymore.
0:41:01 But at that point, you know, we had to work out, okay, well, how do we mass write cards? And we
0:41:06 couldn’t afford the printer that would take the cardstock that would allow that. So we managed
0:41:12 to get our hands on a, on a robot and Alex programmed this robot to hold a pen.
0:41:13 What?
0:41:20 I’ve got footage of this. It’s quite incredible. And the robot would communicate with the computer
0:41:26 who would, you know, send the story to it. And we, in the end, we even programmed another robot.
0:41:28 So we had Isaac was our first handwriting robot.
0:41:30 A handwriting robot.
0:41:37 Yeah. Incredible. And then we had Margot Roby, who would pick up the card to give it to Isaac,
0:41:42 because obviously you’ve got, you know, it’s all well at writing the cards, but it’s not helpful if
0:41:44 you have to sit there all night handing it a card to write.
0:41:46 Babysitting the robot, sure.
0:41:52 Yeah. So Margot would use a suction arm to hand the card to Isaac, who would communicate with the
0:41:58 computer and write the story using an actual biro. And, you know, we went from there. And we did that
0:42:03 until we reached the point where we could afford the ridiculous printer. But then, even then, we didn’t
0:42:08 want to lose that handwritten touch. So it’s like built around my handwriting and all of this, you know,
0:42:15 that’s the side to the tech that I think you just have to go through the works of and the processes of
0:42:17 and the trial and error of.
0:42:21 Yeah. That’s kind of crazy. We go through this, you know, elimination, automation,
0:42:22 delegation type of framework.
0:42:23 Absolutely.
0:42:27 What gives you energy? Where’s your time best spent? Like, okay, is there a way to automate it?
0:42:32 It turns out we could automate handwriting pretty well with a robot. I never knew that that was a thing.
0:42:33 Yes.
0:42:38 Very cool. I was going to ask, going back to that point about where you’re spending your energy,
0:42:43 what’s a day in the life look like for you if there is such thing as a typical, you know,
0:42:45 typical Tuesday and in the day of Charlotte?
0:42:51 I would say that there definitely is no typical day in my life. A day in my life really has very
0:43:00 little pattern or routine. I spend, I’d say, a lot of my time on calls kind of growing the business,
0:43:06 whether that’s with new retailers or, you know, partnerships and talking to new people. I do a lot
0:43:12 of interviews, you know, a year or two ago. I was the one that was up through the night packing orders,
0:43:17 but I’ve moved since further away from that operational side into the kind of growing the
0:43:18 business. Yeah.
0:43:24 Yeah. So a lot of my day is, is telling our story in various different directions. It’s
0:43:29 working with different people to work out how to tell the story alongside them.
0:43:33 Yeah. Well, the press loves you. I don’t know how my listener came across you, but I mean,
0:43:39 we’ve got features in BBC and The Guardian and dozens of other outlets here. What’s surprised
0:43:42 you the most over the last four or five years of building this thing?
0:43:49 I could probably do a whole podcast episode on mistakes and surprises. No, I feel like there’s a
0:43:57 moment, a turning point where you realize that you actually appreciate the surprises and the failures
0:44:03 and the mistakes more than the successes, because they teach you so much more than anything else ever
0:44:08 could. So I feel like that’s the point where I’m at. And I can look back a lot of the moments that we have
0:44:17 had in a very different light. You grow in maturity as a business owner quite rapidly. And if I look at
0:44:24 some of the decisions I made earlier on, and frankly, some of the ways in which I was taken advantage of
0:44:31 by other businesses, for example, were quite shocking. And I think we’ve grown a lot since then. We’ve had
0:44:37 packaging that’s arrived totally wrong. And we’ve spent huge amounts of money on, you know,
0:44:45 moments where we’ve lost every penny that we had, even stuff like almost burning down our whole office
0:44:49 and workshop by accident. The learnings around that kind of thing.
0:44:55 Love Before has facilitated over 10,000 adoptions. What’s next? Where are you taking this thing? More
0:44:59 retail partnerships? What does the future hold? Fluffy world domination, for sure.
0:45:00 Nice.
0:45:06 I think that looks like many different things. The goal is absolute household name. You know,
0:45:12 when someone thinks about a stuffed animal, whether that’s buying, donating or getting rid of,
0:45:18 learning how to care for, I want them to think of us and for us to be the authority in that. We will be
0:45:26 soon expanding our services into, for example, the spa side more so people can send in their toys and
0:45:30 have them pampered and sparred and sent back to them. You know, so building out more services based
0:45:37 on the capabilities that we’ve built in-house. I think having our own stores one day, as well as
0:45:44 expanding into retailers across the world. Currently, and this is, well, I don’t know if I should say this,
0:45:46 writing a book in the background.
0:45:48 In your spare time, geez.
0:45:55 In my spare zero time. But yeah, you know, when I say world domination, I really mean it. I want to be
0:46:01 everywhere in every touch point that exists that a stuffed animal does. It’s not just about, you know,
0:46:06 selling them in the beautiful boxes. But when you go to a theme park, for example, and you see them all
0:46:12 stuffed in a machine with a grabbing, you know, a grab machine, you know, why do they have to be produced
0:46:18 new and shipped over from China? Why aren’t we using the ones we already have for those kind of
0:46:23 things? So I think developing the proposition from what it is now into, like I said, every touch point
0:46:25 that interacts with a stuffed animal.
0:46:30 Yeah, you got to work both sides, the supply side, we got to keep up the volume of donations to keep
0:46:36 up with the demand on the sales side. I love the idea of spinning off, starting a side hustle on the
0:46:39 side hustle, we can have a spa service, send them to us, we’ll send you back. I think that’s really cool
0:46:46 and excited to see where it all goes. And today, you’re supporting Make-A-Wish UK with half of all
0:46:53 profits donated to charitable causes. Loved before that London is where you can check out the sustainable
0:46:59 stuffed animal adoption agency. Charlotte is at the fluffy CEO, if you want to follow her personal
0:47:04 account. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation, particularly as a
0:47:10 founder, who is really trying to change the world. The top tip is about building something that makes
0:47:19 people feel something. I think connection is the most underrated currency in business. And it’s
0:47:26 something that’s massively under-recognized. Anyone can sell stuff, but you have to, behind that,
0:47:32 build a brand that people come back to, that they believe in, that they tell others about.
0:47:36 Yeah, that people threaten to quit their jobs and move across the world and try and volunteer for you.
0:47:40 Exactly that. People do, and some of my team have. They’ve given up their whole lives to come across
0:47:47 them because they believe in it so deeply. You have to stir something in people. Because I think
0:47:53 something I always say is that feeling leads to following. That following is where you build trust,
0:47:59 and that trust is where you see magic. I like that. Feeling leads to following.
0:48:06 Yeah. Feeling leads to following. And this is that community-first approach. Brand before business,
0:48:09 before product, before anything else. Make people feel.
0:48:14 Yeah, that’s great. That was one of the things that I wrote down was your line. When somebody comes
0:48:19 across your profile or your site, they should feel like they just met their new best friend. It’s like
0:48:24 that kind of gut, first response, reaction, almost love at first sight type of thing. “Hey, these people get
0:48:29 me. This person gets me, right?” And like, “Yes, I want to follow that.” Feeling leads to following.
0:48:33 That’s great. The other takeaway that I put down was find that gray space. You know,
0:48:39 find that blue ocean. John Lee Dumas calls it, “Be the best, be the worst, be the only.” And it’s like,
0:48:43 if you can niche down to the point where you could say, “We’re the best stuff toy adoption agency. We’re
0:48:47 the worst because we’re the only. We’re the only game in town.” If you want this type of thing,
0:48:53 find that gray space. Loved this conversation. Again, loved before that London. If you’re listening
0:48:57 to this, you want to make extra money, you’re not sure which path to take, I want to invite
0:49:01 you to take our free two minute quiz at hustle.show. You can do it right from your phone. And then based
0:49:07 on your answers, it’s going to point you hopefully in the right direction with a custom curated list of
0:49:13 eight to 10 side hustle show episodes from the greatest hits archives, what to listen to next. Again,
0:49:17 that’s hustle.show. A few short questions about your side hustle interests, your goals,
0:49:21 and then you can add that personalized playlist to your device. You can learn what works from
0:49:26 some of our top guests and then go out and make some more money. Again, big thanks to Charlotte for
0:49:31 sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:49:37 Sidehustlenation.com/deals is the spot to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one
0:49:41 place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you’re finding value in the show,
0:49:45 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message. Hey,
0:49:50 you got to check this out. I know you’re going to love it until next time. Oh, let’s go out there
0:49:55 and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show. Hustle on.

0:00:05 Hey, this guy sells 300 grand a year on the side of a product he didn’t even invent.
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 Nick Loper here.
0:00:11 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show, where we’ve been helping people make extra money since
0:00:12 2013.
0:00:17 Today’s guest took a creative approach to his side hustle, starting with a product that
0:00:21 was already selling and then applying his own branding, marketing, positioning to it
0:00:25 and driving around $300,000 a year in sales.
0:00:29 From baldbuck.com, Chris Gray, welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:31 Nick, I’m happy to be here.
0:00:34 Your voice is so soothing.
0:00:38 Like it could be like on a calm radio station or something.
0:00:40 You have a really nice voice, dude.
0:00:43 This is my podcast voice, honed over decades of doing this.
0:00:43 Okay.
0:00:45 Well, you as well.
0:00:46 Very deep.
0:00:47 Let’s stick around in this one.
0:00:51 We’re going to learn how Chris came up with the idea for Bald Buck Barbecue Seasoning.
0:00:52 It’s a barbecue rub brand.
0:00:57 The sales tactics you can borrow for your own business and how he’s grown and scaled all
0:00:59 as a part-time project.
0:01:01 And barbecue season is upon us.
0:01:02 So good timing on this one.
0:01:05 And my understanding is that’s where this story starts.
0:01:08 A few years ago, eating some delicious chicken.
0:01:09 Yeah, man.
0:01:14 I was hanging out with my brother-in-law and I’m, you know, I’m in Texas, Texas boy.
0:01:16 And I love smoking food.
0:01:21 One day I go over there and I eat this chicken and I’m like, man, this is delicious.
0:01:22 What did you put on it?
0:01:24 And he showed me the, uh, the seasoning.
0:01:26 I said, oh, okay.
0:01:30 So I went and found out how to get some, um, or actually he gave me some, like a big bag of
0:01:30 it.
0:01:35 I used it on chicken, Mick, and my friends loved it.
0:01:36 My family loved it.
0:01:40 I started getting requests to like cater within the family, right?
0:01:42 This is not like paid catering, but people were just loving it.
0:01:43 Okay.
0:01:48 And so I was like, I’m sitting on something here and I could either go open a restaurant
0:01:50 or I can just sell the rub.
0:01:53 So I decided to sell the rub.
0:01:53 Pause right there.
0:01:57 Cause those are two very different options that I think other people might’ve come up with.
0:01:59 Other people might’ve been like, well, here’s where you can go get it.
0:02:00 Or here’s where I got it, right?
0:02:01 Like there’s the easy solution.
0:02:06 And then there’s the one step, you know, inserting yourself into potential profit stream step.
0:02:07 Yeah.
0:02:07 I don’t know.
0:02:08 I think that’s the way I think.
0:02:10 I just saw an opportunity, right?
0:02:14 I, I, I like most entrepreneurs, I probably suffer from chasing too many things.
0:02:19 Um, but I saw here was an opportunity for something that I’m passionate about, which is
0:02:23 smoking food, barbecue, and then I’m also passionate about marketing.
0:02:30 And so I chose to go sell the seasoning itself as opposed to open a restaurant because the overhead
0:02:35 was going to be lower and I could work more digitally than having to commit a bunch of money
0:02:40 to buying a space and getting staff and having rent and all the overhead that would come.
0:02:41 Yeah.
0:02:42 With having a barbecue joint.
0:02:42 Okay.
0:02:44 So step one, delicious chicken, maybe step zero.
0:02:50 Step two is, I assume going to your brother and say, well, where did you get this stuff?
0:02:54 How can I, um, build a, build a distribution channel here?
0:02:55 Like what’s going on there?
0:02:56 So this is what I love.
0:03:00 I tell people, I sell this barbecue seasoning and they’re like, oh man, did you come up with
0:03:01 your own special blend?
0:03:03 And how long did it take?
0:03:04 And did you have a lab?
0:03:05 And none of that, man.
0:03:07 I just found out who made it.
0:03:10 And then I called them up and I’m like, Hey, I like your seasoning.
0:03:12 Do you white label it?
0:03:15 Meaning do they give you the rub and allow you to put your own brand on it?
0:03:16 Yeah.
0:03:17 And the white labeling happens all the time.
0:03:21 If you go to like Costco has Kirkland’s, which is a white label of something else.
0:03:24 Walmart has great value, a white label of something else.
0:03:25 And so Amazon does it.
0:03:26 Everybody does it.
0:03:27 Yeah.
0:03:29 And so I called them up and said, Hey, can I just white label your season?
0:03:31 They’re like, yeah, we have a program for that.
0:03:32 And I was like, great.
0:03:38 So then I had to go and create my own brand, my own coloring, my own, all that stuff, which
0:03:39 was easy to do.
0:03:43 I was lucky because my business partner, we have a business partner in several businesses.
0:03:45 He’s a graphic design guy.
0:03:50 And we were going over all these different names on, you know, what we wanted the seasoning
0:03:50 to be.
0:03:52 I had a list of 20 different names.
0:03:53 One was bald buck.
0:03:55 We chose bald buck because it was funny.
0:03:56 Plus I’m bald.
0:03:58 My nickname with my friends is buck.
0:03:59 They would call me bald buck.
0:04:03 So I found, I thought this would be a way of like getting back at them.
0:04:04 Like, Hey, you made fun of me.
0:04:05 Now I have a brand.
0:04:08 Um, and so we did that.
0:04:10 We came up, he drew the, he made the logo.
0:04:11 We came up with the name.
0:04:12 We gave it to the company.
0:04:15 They label it, they can it, and they just ship it to us.
0:04:19 So all I got to do now is push it, which is kind of scary, Nick, because when you get
0:04:24 sold or when you get shipped 5,000 units of seasoning, you better, you better figure out how
0:04:26 to move it or you better cook a lot of chicken.
0:04:27 Okay.
0:04:32 So the seasoning company had this system already in place and they say, Hey, you can totally
0:04:32 do that.
0:04:34 Just send us your graphics.
0:04:35 Send us your seasoning.
0:04:38 Send us your branding package and we’ll, we’ll put it on the bottles for you.
0:04:39 You don’t even have to do that yourself.
0:04:41 Yeah, they, they can it.
0:04:42 They put it on enough.
0:04:42 I want to save money.
0:04:45 I got to do that myself eventually, but they do it all.
0:04:47 And a lot of places do this, Nick.
0:04:48 And a lot of different things.
0:04:49 Um, it could be microphones.
0:04:50 It could be art.
0:04:51 It could be shirts.
0:04:54 Like a lot of people do most of the work for you.
0:04:56 All you have to do is go push it.
0:04:58 And that’s something I wish I would have understood a long time ago.
0:05:00 I don’t have to create everything.
0:05:02 A lot of the work can be done.
0:05:05 I just need to find something that works and then find a way to sell it.
0:05:08 So in this case, we had this seasoning worked.
0:05:09 My family loved it.
0:05:10 Friends loved it.
0:05:13 It was already popular in a different state.
0:05:16 I just had to take it, bring it and wrap a different story around it.
0:05:17 And that’s what I did.
0:05:17 Yeah.
0:05:24 And there’s some, uh, parallels or similarities to like the Amazon FBA private labeling world
0:05:26 that was big, you know, eight or 10 years ago.
0:05:29 Whereas, you know, look at the two, three, four-star reviews for a given product.
0:05:32 You know, what are people it’s, you know, you know, it’s already selling, you know,
0:05:35 there’s some proven demand, but how can you make some tweak
0:05:39 or improvement or iteration and go oftentimes find that same factory?
0:05:42 Like, I want you to make me this, but with these adjustments,
0:05:45 with these small changes, then I bring that to market.
0:05:49 And like, that was a very popular side hustle for, for a long time.
0:05:50 And I imagine people are still doing it.
0:05:53 And in this case, it sounds like, well, I didn’t tweak the recipe at all.
0:05:56 I just, I’m going to put my own marketing to it.
0:05:57 Once I, once I’ve got it landed.
0:06:00 Yeah, man, I think things get, uh, what’s the word?
0:06:05 Commoditized easily nowadays say there’s a widget out there and everybody’s selling it.
0:06:08 And I say, well, my widget just kind of has this little special thing to it.
0:06:09 The special feature.
0:06:11 Well, then nobody cares about a feature, right?
0:06:13 Like I have a Apple watch right here.
0:06:18 If you see any kind of Apple commercial, they don’t, they don’t sell you on the features of the phone
0:06:20 or the watch or whatever it is.
0:06:21 It’s always some kind of benefit.
0:06:25 And usually one key benefit they talk about with seasoning, right?
0:06:31 There’s no like, well, there is a benefit, but what I think sells this thing is the stories
0:06:32 that are behind it.
0:06:35 These are things that are happening in my life or things I’ve experienced or things I heard
0:06:36 from other people.
0:06:39 But I don’t know if you ever heard, Nick, somebody can look this up.
0:06:41 I forget the name of it, but it was a study done over 10 years ago.
0:06:47 And these guys bought several items from eBay, several like really, really cheap items.
0:06:51 They probably bought them for, I don’t know, sub two bucks, sub a dollar, whatever they buy
0:06:52 them.
0:06:59 And then what they did was they paid some copywriters to put a story behind each item
0:07:01 and then they relisted it, right?
0:07:07 So say they bought something for a buck on eBay, take that same item, relist it this time
0:07:08 with a story.
0:07:09 Okay.
0:07:09 Okay.
0:07:12 There was a story about a horse head and a story about this, that they did that.
0:07:17 They sold this thing for like, if they bought it for two bucks, they could sell it for like
0:07:18 32 bucks.
0:07:18 Okay.
0:07:18 Right.
0:07:19 Whatever that multiple is.
0:07:25 And that was item after item after item with the only difference being the story.
0:07:27 That’s an example of what happened with bald buck.
0:07:31 Cause you take this seasoning and I’m not just, we’re not just selling seasoning here.
0:07:32 There’s a story behind that.
0:07:33 This there’s love behind it.
0:07:34 There’s entertainment behind it.
0:07:35 There’s some drama behind it.
0:07:39 We wrap these stories around the recipes and that’s how we sell it.
0:07:39 Yeah.
0:07:40 I like that.
0:07:43 I tried to do something similar selling an old car of mine, a crappy car.
0:07:46 It was going to sell for like 2000 bucks, but I was like, here’s the journey that we’ve
0:07:47 been on together.
0:07:50 They’re like, it’s ready for its next adventure, you know?
0:07:51 Yes.
0:07:52 So this is, this is great.
0:07:58 I love that example of, you know, taking a commoditized thing and adding words to it, adding
0:08:00 a little more emotion and story to it.
0:08:00 Absolutely.
0:08:02 You get 5,000 units.
0:08:05 First of all, we got to pause and say, well, how much does that cost?
0:08:07 And it was at the minimum or could you have gone lower?
0:08:10 Or like how much does the minimum order, what’s the startup cost here?
0:08:16 Well, the MOQ was like 300 actually, but it was like the price is super high.
0:08:18 So I just like, let me, I just jumped in.
0:08:20 It’s kind of like to burn the ships, right?
0:08:23 Like if I buy 300, I’m kind of like, yeah, well, I got 300 here.
0:08:24 It might work.
0:08:28 I buy 5,000, which ended up being over $5,000 or something.
0:08:33 And it’s like, okay, you know, I’m, I better move this seasoning or my wife is going to
0:08:35 be upset.
0:08:39 So that gave me the added motivation to really move this seasoning.
0:08:43 And so one of the things that helped get it, get it off the wall, I’m talking a lot that
0:08:45 did I answer your question before I go?
0:08:45 No, no, no, that’s good.
0:08:45 Okay.
0:08:47 So just to get a ballpark, okay.
0:08:54 5,000 units, roughly 5,000, maybe a little more, but like a bucket to per jar per thing.
0:08:55 Is that accurate?
0:08:56 Yes, sir.
0:08:56 Okay.
0:08:57 All right, go ahead.
0:08:59 So these things get landed and now you’re like, well, now I got to figure out how to
0:08:59 move them.
0:09:02 Like, what are some of your, what are some of your first marketing moves here?
0:09:02 All right.
0:09:06 So the first one, I didn’t know I was sitting down, I was sitting down and I was like, man,
0:09:07 I gotta, I gotta move this.
0:09:09 And so I just started thinking, I’m like, well, you know what?
0:09:10 Let me just reach out.
0:09:16 I use something to tell me the most popular barbecue influencers on YouTube.
0:09:21 I Googled it, got the most popular ones, and I went to the list and then I found, I was
0:09:25 watching these different guys’ videos and there was some I resonated with, some I didn’t.
0:09:27 There was one in particular named T-Roy.
0:09:28 I just liked him.
0:09:29 I just liked his vibe.
0:09:30 I liked his shows, digging him.
0:09:33 So I started doing my research on him.
0:09:35 If you’re reaching out to somebody, and this is something that I’ve learned.
0:09:38 So this is like, if I’m, if I was watching this show, this is me talking to me.
0:09:44 If I’m looking to reach out to Nick or somebody on YouTube, learn a little bit about them and,
0:09:46 and be able to speak to them a little bit.
0:09:51 Because if you just kind of come out and you’re just like, hey, sell my seasoning and I don’t
0:09:51 know who you are.
0:09:53 Well, then they’re not going to, they’re not going to really care about you.
0:09:58 But if you can reach out and speak their language or resonate with them in some form or fashion
0:10:02 or show that you’ve been watching it or you’re, you’re familiar with them, then that helps.
0:10:09 So I do my research on T-Roy and come to find out, Nick, that T-Roy used to live in the
0:10:10 same city I lived in.
0:10:13 It’s a, it’s a, it’s a bigger city now in Texas, but it’s not huge.
0:10:14 It’s called Pflugerville.
0:10:15 It’s North of Austin.
0:10:16 It’s like not a big city.
0:10:17 He lived in Pflugerville.
0:10:19 I lived in Pflugerville.
0:10:21 Then I found out that he lived his own, and I forgot how I did this.
0:10:22 I was doing research.
0:10:25 He lived in an old neighborhood that my best friend lived in.
0:10:31 So when I reach out to T-Roy, I reach out to him with a, I don’t just say a simple email
0:10:33 like, Hey, check out my seasoning.
0:10:38 I get, I put, I gave him an email that he would, would break his pattern, his reading pattern.
0:10:42 The title of the email was like, ball, black, Jamaican from Pflugerville, Texas.
0:10:46 That’s going to be a lot different from everything else he sees in his email stuff.
0:10:46 Right?
0:10:48 So ball, black, Jamaican from Pflugerville, Texas.
0:10:49 He opens it.
0:10:50 Then he opens it.
0:10:52 And I first go into, I’m from Pflugerville.
0:10:55 I had a, my, one of my best friends grew up in Black Hawk, blah, blah, blah.
0:10:58 So I was, so I, he knows that I’ve done my research then.
0:11:02 Try to find like some common connection and may not, you know, luck may not strike that
0:11:06 you have, you know, a hometown in common with, with the big influencer in your niche, but like
0:11:10 use that as a framework to try and find some sort of common connection.
0:11:11 Yes.
0:11:12 And there’s, there’s all, there’s going to be something.
0:11:15 I got lucky with that, but there could have been a number of things.
0:11:18 I could have talked about seasoning or an episode, whatever it is.
0:11:20 There’s a number of ways I could have gone about it.
0:11:22 But to, to your point, Nick is yeah, find something in common.
0:11:23 I did that.
0:11:28 And then the next thing I did that was important was I didn’t say, Hey, will you just put my
0:11:29 seasoning on your show?
0:11:30 Who’s going to do that?
0:11:30 That’s all.
0:11:31 That’s like, what’s in it for me.
0:11:34 My thing was what’s in it for him through that.
0:11:35 It was like, you know what?
0:11:37 I’m going to, I love to give you this seasoning.
0:11:38 I like to mail it to you.
0:11:40 I want you to try it.
0:11:44 And if you, I said it, it works best on chicken, smoked chicken.
0:11:51 If you like it, I will then give it to the first 50 fans who request it for free.
0:11:53 So one, I’m saying, Hey, try it first.
0:11:55 Cause I’m not sure if he’s going to like it or not.
0:11:56 And I want him to like it.
0:12:01 Otherwise he’s not going to really be like as authentic when he talks about it on the show.
0:12:04 And then two, it was like, it was something that he could give to his fans.
0:12:06 It’s not me giving to him.
0:12:08 It’s him giving something to his fans.
0:12:14 I, I, I lose what a hundred something, 200 something bucks when it comes to the shipping
0:12:14 and all that other stuff.
0:12:15 Yeah.
0:12:21 But I just paid that money for massive advertisement and backing.
0:12:22 Yeah, no, this is really cool.
0:12:25 So it sounds like he does try it.
0:12:26 He, he, he responds.
0:12:28 First of all, you get a yes.
0:12:28 Yeah, sure.
0:12:28 Send me it.
0:12:29 I’ll give it a try.
0:12:32 He likes it, makes a video about it.
0:12:34 And there’s a cool angle of like, Hey, this stuff is super good.
0:12:39 Plus if you’re watching this and you’re the first to like comments,
0:12:42 subscribe, you know, whatever his call to action is, uh, you fear in the first 50,
0:12:45 I’ll send you, Chris, I’ll send you a jar of this.
0:12:46 Absolutely.
0:12:48 And that was done in like 2021, I think.
0:12:50 And I’m still getting emails today.
0:12:51 Hey, I saw your video.
0:12:54 Can I, that was done in like four years ago at this point.
0:12:54 Yeah.
0:12:59 The first 50 have long since been claimed, but well, that’s, and that’s kind of cool.
0:13:03 It’s like an evergreen type of, uh, type of medium where people could be discovering
0:13:06 the stuff years after it’s originally published.
0:13:07 Absolutely.
0:13:10 And then now what was beautiful about this is okay.
0:13:15 We, um, you know, I put it out there, the video, you get this massive spike in traffic
0:13:19 when, when the video drops, you know, first 50 people get it for free.
0:13:20 Other people who realize, Hey, I can’t get it for free.
0:13:21 I’ll buy it.
0:13:22 They, they go buy.
0:13:23 So a couple of things happen from there.
0:13:28 One, other YouTubers will reach out to me about, Hey, I saw it on T-Roy station.
0:13:30 Can we do it on ours?
0:13:33 I’m like, yeah, I’ll give it to your fans for, I’ll give it to 20 of your fans, depending
0:13:35 on the size of their, their channel.
0:13:38 So I just started giving it away to people who asked me to do reviews.
0:13:38 Okay.
0:13:44 And because T-Roy was a, a giant in the barbecue influencer space, other people were watching
0:13:48 is that, Hey, you know, could we do, could we do set up a similar arrangement, uh, for
0:13:50 my own channel for the other barbecue channels?
0:13:54 I’m looking, it looks like 350,000 subs for T-Roy.
0:13:58 So I’m not a, not a small influencer to say yes, right out of the gate.
0:13:59 Not a small one, dude.
0:14:02 He, it, he had, you’re right.
0:14:03 You hit the nail on the head.
0:14:06 He had a, he has a massive influence and other people who want to be like him are watching.
0:14:07 So then they want to be like him.
0:14:07 So what do they do?
0:14:10 They go copy him and they reached out to me.
0:14:12 So I got other videos done just through that.
0:14:14 And then number two, I have the video.
0:14:17 I have a video of T-Roy that to your points evergreen.
0:14:23 Now I can use that in several different ways as social proof.
0:14:31 So now if we do an ad or we do a story or something, it’s not us talking about how great
0:14:32 ball buck is.
0:14:34 We’ll do the story or whatever, and we’ll put ball buck in there.
0:14:39 We’re also going to drop that video there so that the person who’s reading this story, reading
0:14:44 this thing, this recipe can click the video, go to YouTube, or they can watch the video right
0:14:45 on the page.
0:14:49 Or if they YouTube ball buck, he’s probably going to come up with some other people.
0:14:51 So they watch a C ad or whatever.
0:14:53 And we talk about how good it is.
0:14:57 They leave the landing page and now they search us and we’re there.
0:15:03 We’re on YouTube and we have other people talking about how good the seasoning is, which gives
0:15:05 us some social proof and helps sell it.
0:15:05 Yeah.
0:15:05 Yeah.
0:15:07 It’s not just the brand talking about it.
0:15:08 Like, hey, trust us.
0:15:08 We’re great.
0:15:09 It’s like, I don’t know.
0:15:11 We have other people vouching for it too.
0:15:12 Yes, absolutely.
0:15:17 More with Chris in just a moment, including the marketing tactics that drive consistent
0:15:17 sales.
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0:17:42 Aside from the giveaway, I take it, you said that the people who don’t get the, they don’t make it in time for the giveaway.
0:17:44 Like, do they come by and buy the stuff?
0:17:47 Like, are you starting to see your first paid sales at this point, too?
0:17:48 Yeah.
0:17:51 The people who didn’t make the giveaway, they start, some of them start buying it.
0:17:53 Then eventually that slows down.
0:17:57 And so I hit this point where I was like, okay, I did the T-Roy video.
0:17:57 That was cool.
0:18:01 It’s cool to show my family and friends and stuff like that and make a few sales.
0:18:03 But then how do I keep selling?
0:18:03 Right.
0:18:05 I got 5,000 of these to move here.
0:18:05 Yeah.
0:18:08 So then that’s what I came up with.
0:18:09 I was like, well, that’s when it hit me.
0:18:10 And I was like, well, I have this video.
0:18:12 This video is excellent social proof.
0:18:14 So at that point, we’re like, you know what?
0:18:18 Let’s write some blogs, some stories about this.
0:18:21 And what we did, Nick, was we would, I was like, you know what?
0:18:25 Let me write an article about how to smoke chicken.
0:18:29 Or get with, we would get like, this is interesting.
0:18:31 My brother-in-law, right?
0:18:35 He has his dad, his dad’s a salty older guy or whatever.
0:18:36 So I would just talk to this guy.
0:18:38 This guy’s been in a lot of different barbecue competitions.
0:18:40 I would talk to him about stories.
0:18:43 And he would teach me a little bit about how to smoke chicken.
0:18:46 But I’d also ask him about stories, about competition stories.
0:18:47 I jotted down.
0:18:52 So now I take those same tips he gave me about how to smoke chicken because they’re really
0:18:53 good tips.
0:18:57 And I could write an article about how to smoke the best chicken and blah, blah, blah.
0:18:58 And you’re going to get some feedback.
0:19:00 I’m going to educate you on how to smoke the chicken.
0:19:02 But more important, there’s going to be a story in there.
0:19:07 And that story would probably resonate with the demographic that’s going to read that article.
0:19:09 And so that’s what we did.
0:19:09 All right.
0:19:14 And you’re relying on Google Organic at this point for people to find it?
0:19:15 We pushed a lot of that through Facebook.
0:19:17 Again, I’m a marketer.
0:19:24 So if we could rely on Organic and if I didn’t have 5,000 units of it, I probably would just
0:19:28 slow roll it, but didn’t have the time for that.
0:19:33 And so what I did was we just went to Facebook ads, put an ad out there, and then let it roll.
0:19:38 And the great thing for you guys who don’t know, Facebook ads or most platforms nowadays,
0:19:41 they do what I call the heavy lifting.
0:19:44 Like back in the day when me and Nick were doing a bunch of marketing, you’d have to be
0:19:48 real specific about your targeting and kind of get all technical with your targeting.
0:19:52 Nowadays, these platforms, these social media platforms are so good.
0:19:56 They kind of know who to put these things in front of without you saying it.
0:19:59 You just need to put the ad out there and it’ll figure it out for you.
0:20:01 And so was the ad like a direct call to action?
0:20:02 Hey, come by the seasoning.
0:20:05 Or was it more of like a content?
0:20:08 We’re going to show them the article on how to smoke.
0:20:10 Here’s a great smoked chicken recipe.
0:20:12 Try to get a sense of what you found effective there.
0:20:17 If I come out and say, ball buck season and buy it, watch this video, not going to sell.
0:20:21 But if I come out and say, hey, hey, here’s how to smoke chicken.
0:20:24 Or here’s some three smoked chicken tips that most people don’t know.
0:20:27 And I give them really good tips that they did not know.
0:20:28 That’s really helpful.
0:20:33 And then I subtly mention the rub and how it helps.
0:20:36 Now it has a better chance of selling.
0:20:38 It’s an indirect sell.
0:20:42 So the purpose here is to educate, then sell, not sell.
0:20:43 Got it.
0:20:43 Got it.
0:20:50 And I’m looking at pricing on the site and it seems to be kind of in the $30-ish, $35 maybe.
0:20:53 Oh no, it’s $18 for the single container.
0:20:58 So if the acquisition cost is a buck or two, there’s some margin to play with there.
0:21:01 Have you done any testing on pricing or how do you arrive at this?
0:21:03 No, I mean, I started at the top.
0:21:09 So I just went and looked at the best rubs in the market, found how much they could, what was the max they were selling for.
0:21:11 And then I matched that.
0:21:14 And I had to because, you know, this is not a high ticket product.
0:21:22 So you want, you know, if there was any, again, if I’m watching this and I’m giving myself advice, like charge more, right?
0:21:25 It’s easier to come down in a price than it is to go up.
0:21:34 So I figured I needed to charge more so I could have room for hiring people and shipping and buying products and the things that come with selling a seasoning.
0:21:36 So we charged, I charged as much as I possibly could.
0:21:41 And I’ve gone up since then because tariffs and things are more expensive to get shipped in and stuff like that.
0:21:44 And so, but yeah, I found the most expensive thing on the market and matched it.
0:21:45 Okay.
0:21:45 Got it.
0:21:45 Yeah.
0:21:48 You’re going to have to pay for shipping or pay for ads.
0:21:51 There’s acquisition costs involved.
0:21:53 Did you pay for these giveaways, all sorts of things?
0:21:54 Yeah, exactly.
0:21:55 We have to pay for these giveaways.
0:21:59 I mean, I had, I need as much room to work with as possible.
0:22:01 And so I need as much margin as possible.
0:22:01 Yeah.
0:22:08 I was going to say when it’s a direct to consumer play, it’s not like somebody is standing at the grocery store and they’re, you know, comparing one, two and three.
0:22:12 And well, this one is $5 and this one is 10 and this one is 15.
0:22:15 And they’re like really looking at the label and sniffing it and smell.
0:22:23 It’s like, it’s almost in this impulse buy category of like, well, this YouTuber recommended it or this recipe looks good.
0:22:24 Like it recommended it.
0:22:25 It’s like, I’ll give it a try.
0:22:25 Right.
0:22:29 And so it seems, even though it’s somewhat commoditized, right?
0:22:36 You can get this stuff at any grocery store, but it’s like, that’s that story and that branding and the positioning and like the interrupt factor.
0:22:37 Oh, I saw this on Facebook.
0:22:41 I saw this on YouTube where it’s maybe less price sensitive than you might think.
0:22:42 Yeah.
0:22:47 I mean, they’re at the grocery store and they’re comparing, okay, this one’s five, this one’s 10, this one’s 20.
0:22:49 Oh, I’m going to get the five one and try it.
0:22:50 And that’s just a commoditized type thing.
0:22:58 Whereas our seasoning, you know, not saying that there’s nothing special about the seasoning at the grocery store, but there is a lot of love behind what we do.
0:23:03 And the stories that, I mean, I’m, I’m talking to, by the way, my rub goes out to an older demographic.
0:23:06 And it’s funny because where I get my stories comes from an older demographic.
0:23:10 I got, I got, uh, you know, the, the pit match guy I was talking to.
0:23:12 He’s, he’s an older gentleman.
0:23:14 There’s a female I talked to and she’s older as well.
0:23:16 And I go and I grabbed their stories.
0:23:18 I grabbed that people who love to cook.
0:23:19 And then I use that.
0:23:22 If I was just trying to push seasoning, I wouldn’t do that.
0:23:28 Like I care about this and these people, and they talk to me and there’s a love there that I then transfer to the landing page.
0:23:32 That’s much different than me just putting an ad out about a seasoning.
0:23:34 I think there’s more behind what we do.
0:23:40 And when the reader feels, reads that, it’s like when you, when people go to the movies, they’re going to the movies to check out.
0:23:42 Like there, there’s nothing going on.
0:23:45 That’s a lot of people’s way of being present and checking out.
0:23:45 Right.
0:23:53 So now if I give you a story and it happens to be by seasoning, but I’ve allowed you to check out and get immersed into something.
0:23:58 And then you see this thing, you’re much more receptive to paying whatever the price is.
0:24:00 Cause now it’s not a five, 10 or $20 thing.
0:24:04 It’s a, this really cool story about this really cool product changes the game.
0:24:06 Here’s one thing that kind of surprised me.
0:24:09 Cause I’ve seen so many direct to consumer brands go this way.
0:24:12 The default is the subscription.
0:24:14 I’ll send you another thing every month, click here to sign up.
0:24:16 And it’s like, timeout.
0:24:17 I don’t know if I want it.
0:24:21 Like I haven’t even tried it yet, but it’s like, everybody seems to go be going that way.
0:24:26 And it’s kind of surprised, especially since it’s like a replenishable type of thing.
0:24:28 You’re going to, if you use it, if you like it, you’re going to run out.
0:24:29 You’re going to need to order more.
0:24:36 I was a little bit surprised not to see that like checkbox for the recurring, you know, subscribe and save type of thing here.
0:24:37 I thought about that, Nick.
0:24:39 And I was like, man, really, this is, it’s a lot of seasoning.
0:24:42 I mean, if you’re a heavy user, you’re probably using two cans.
0:24:46 I mean, if you’re a, if you’re a barbecue pit master guy, whatever.
0:24:46 Okay.
0:24:47 Different.
0:24:51 But your everyday person who’s buying this, maybe one a year.
0:24:52 I’m lucky if they get two.
0:24:56 It’s just, so what I’m going to send you seasoning every, every three months.
0:24:57 You’re just going to stack up.
0:24:59 No, I’m going to sell it to you.
0:25:02 And I’m also going to send you weekly emails to let you know that I’m still here.
0:25:05 So when you decide to buy, you can do it.
0:25:10 But again, this thing is, there is a very human component behind what we do.
0:25:11 I, at least I believe.
0:25:16 And I think that the way we approach it, avoiding the subscription thing is just more of a, is an example of that human approach.
0:25:16 Right.
0:25:17 That’s fair.
0:25:23 We’re going to do the follow-up, but we’re not going to, we’re not going to force you to commit to doing this subscription thing.
0:25:24 I wouldn’t want to buy all that.
0:25:25 See, like, what am I going to do with all that seasoning?
0:25:26 It doesn’t make any sense.
0:25:27 And so, yeah.
0:25:28 Okay.
0:25:33 Going back to the Facebook ads, was there a target cost of acquisition that, that you like to be in?
0:25:35 And like, how often do you have to rotate the copy?
0:25:38 Or is it just like, we’re running this on Evergreen?
0:25:41 Some of the campaigns run three, four, five months at a time, depending.
0:25:44 It is hard to get a target CPA.
0:25:46 A target CPA, for those who don’t know, is target cost per acquisition.
0:25:49 So you want to say, hey, I want to sell this thing.
0:25:54 I want this to cost me no more than $5 in advertisement for everything I sell.
0:25:56 That’s harder to do nowadays.
0:26:05 Back in the day, before cookies and this, and when consumer behavior was a little more simple, you could get a pretty decent target CPA.
0:26:08 You could be like, yeah, it’s costing me about five bucks to sell this thing.
0:26:11 Nowadays, the consumer is smart.
0:26:13 We’re all smart.
0:26:14 Like, I’ll give you a quick story.
0:26:21 We have, we had Windows installed in my house a year or two ago, which are way more expensive than I thought Windows should be.
0:26:22 We got them installed in our house.
0:26:23 But this is the thing.
0:26:26 I saw a ad on Facebook.
0:26:29 I then forwarded to my wife.
0:26:33 My wife goes to their website, comes back and talks to me.
0:26:37 And then she calls them again, I think, through their PPC, their pay-per-click, their Google Ads.
0:26:42 So, what happens is their Google Ads gets credit for that sell.
0:26:43 But where did it start?
0:26:45 It started back with me, with Facebook.
0:26:54 So, what I mean by that is, like, I can’t trust the CPA, and Facebook might be super high.
0:26:59 But if I’m selling a lot of products on the back end, well, they might have saw the ad on Facebook, but they watched YouTube.
0:27:01 Yeah, they had to come from somewhere.
0:27:06 Yeah, they saw it on Facebook, then it went to my site, or they went to Amazon, or something like that.
0:27:11 And so, I have to kind of get a feel for it as much as – it’s not as much as the science, like it used to be.
0:27:12 Okay.
0:27:22 Yeah, there is – as much as we’d like to be able to track down to the dollar with all these attribution models, it sounds like there may be a little bit of a gray area.
0:27:27 And you have to kind of trust the bottom line of, well, what sold?
0:27:28 What was their ad spend?
0:27:29 They had to come from somewhere.
0:27:34 They had to find that initial awareness somewhere, and it must be working, even if it’s not –
0:27:38 they didn’t follow the funnel in the same session.
0:27:38 Yeah.
0:27:43 I mean, and they’re so – they do have these other attribution tools, like I think Hyros and Triple Well.
0:27:46 They’re supposed to – to me, they’re not that great.
0:27:48 To me, at the end of the day, this is just for me.
0:27:53 I’m not saying that for everybody, but just for me, it’s what Nick just said, where I’m just – it has to come from somewhere.
0:27:54 Let me see what’s happening at the bottom line.
0:27:55 What am I spending on marketing?
0:27:55 Total.
0:27:57 What are my top line sales?
0:27:57 Total.
0:28:06 Let me do my best to try to figure out what’s really working as best as I can, but it comes down to having a feel, which you get by doing this over time.
0:28:06 Okay.
0:28:12 Now, are you shipping these initial orders out of your spare bedroom, out of the garage?
0:28:15 Like, is there a logistics partner?
0:28:24 Like, all of a sudden, if we’re talking about 5,000 units, licking and sticking and going to the post office, and it’s like, this is starting to get to be another – a whole other job.
0:28:29 Yeah, my living room was real fragrant there for a while, really fragrant.
0:28:40 And when I first started doing this, it was just me and my office, and I would have two days a week, which I didn’t have those two days to be doing this, but it was two days – I started off really heavy.
0:28:43 So, it’d be like two full days of me just doing it all.
0:28:44 Like, I was like – because I got hit.
0:28:48 It kind of – it was like an oh-my-gosh moment where it just – a lot came at once.
0:28:53 My very first article worked way better than I thought it would, and then all of a sudden, I have all these orders.
0:28:58 And so, now, I’m like, oh, crap, I have to do all these orders, and two days a week of just doing orders.
0:29:02 And as time went on, I ended up – my grandma lives down the road.
0:29:04 Thank goodness she has a big shed.
0:29:08 I could put an AC unit in, so now I put all the product and everything and all my materials in that shed.
0:29:11 The AC and all that’s good to go.
0:29:18 And then I have a pool house slash workout room in my backyard, and I have – there’s two employees, actually three employees.
0:29:22 But one of the employees comes once to twice a week, depending on the workload.
0:29:29 And she’ll go in the pool house, and she has everything she needs out there, and she’s just – we do all that in the pool house.
0:29:32 USPS comes and picks it up, and I’m done.
0:29:33 All right.
0:29:34 We’re not promising overnight shipping.
0:29:36 We’re going to process these a couple days a week.
0:29:38 You get it when you get it.
0:29:51 You mentioned Amazon, so I do want to talk about that as a distribution channel, as a place to potentially find people who – yeah, they discovered you through YouTube, and they’re – well, they’re used to shopping on Amazon, so they may find you over there.
0:29:52 Yeah.
0:30:00 Or through potentially Amazon directly if they’re looking for unique gifts or barbecue seasoning or something directly on Amazon.
0:30:03 Can you talk to me about that as a sales channel?
0:30:04 Yeah, absolutely.
0:30:05 I was against it at first.
0:30:08 For those who don’t know, when you ship on Amazon, you don’t keep your data.
0:30:09 What do I mean by that?
0:30:11 That means that you don’t know the person’s email.
0:30:13 You don’t know their phone number.
0:30:15 I don’t know if you even get their address.
0:30:16 I don’t remember.
0:30:31 But my point being is if you buy from my store, if Nick comes to my store and he buys, I get all Nick’s information, not just like random information, good information, like his real name, real phone number, a real email because he just bought something, so he wants to track it.
0:30:34 So I get a real email address, and I get his physical address.
0:30:38 This is quality data, which is a whole other game, whole other conversation.
0:30:39 So I get that.
0:30:41 When you go to Amazon, you get none of that.
0:30:42 Amazon keeps that.
0:30:44 Yeah, it’s Amazon’s customer, not your customer.
0:30:45 Exactly.
0:30:49 I’m helping Amazon get data, and nowadays data’s gold.
0:30:52 So I’m helping Amazon get all the data, keep all of it, and I just sell.
0:30:56 So I was against it, but I had to, I was like, you know what?
0:30:57 People trust Amazon.
0:30:59 They may not trust me, even though I have all the social proof.
0:31:00 Let me put this on Amazon.
0:31:04 So I put it on Amazon, and man, it’s sold.
0:31:05 Like, people just trust Amazon.
0:31:07 So I was like, oh gosh, the people are really buying it.
0:31:08 Yeah, yeah.
0:31:10 Like, I see, like, hundreds of reviews on the listing.
0:31:10 Yeah.
0:31:12 People, it’s Amazon.
0:31:13 They trust it.
0:31:17 So I had to go there at the expense of data.
0:31:20 It helps with the top line, so I just had to go there.
0:31:21 And here’s the thing.
0:31:25 With Amazon, I don’t play the whole, let me compete with other barbecue seasonings and
0:31:27 barbecue brands and play the organic and the SEO.
0:31:29 I had my site optimized on Amazon.
0:31:34 Like, I, you know, the first time I threw it up there, it was a really weak looking, like,
0:31:34 listing.
0:31:37 And then eventually, I was like, oh, let me look like a professional.
0:31:41 And so we did it, and it looks like a professional listing now, at least as professionals I can
0:31:42 pay for.
0:31:45 But we did that.
0:31:48 And like I said, man, it did really, really well.
0:31:49 What’s your take on this?
0:31:53 Because we’ve seen more people go your direction versus starting on Amazon.
0:31:57 We’ve seen more and more people try and build up their own traffic sources through their own
0:31:58 Shopify-powered store.
0:32:02 And then you know that a certain percentage of people are going to be looking for it on
0:32:02 it.
0:32:03 Can I just get it on Amazon?
0:32:05 Like, they already have my checkout information.
0:32:07 Can I just click the one-click thing?
0:32:12 Do you find there’s some value in the algorithm when you’re, like, driving your own traffic to
0:32:13 a certain extent?
0:32:13 Absolutely.
0:32:17 I think that I’m playing the whole, like, Amazon SEO.
0:32:19 When I say SEO, guys, it’s search engine optimization.
0:32:23 So I’m trying to rank organically on, like, if somebody typed in Barbecue Rub, there’s a
0:32:24 game you play to get you at the very top.
0:32:27 I don’t want, I don’t feel like playing all that, playing the game.
0:32:28 I don’t feel like advertising on Amazon.
0:32:31 I don’t even do the whole fulfillment by Amazon because they take a lot of your money.
0:32:35 If I do the advertising and fulfillment by Amazon, my margins shrink.
0:32:36 So I was like, forget it.
0:32:40 What I’ll do is do all my advertising off that platform.
0:32:44 And I only use Amazon when somebody wants to buy.
0:32:46 If somebody finds me on Amazon, they’ve probably made their decision already.
0:32:47 Okay.
0:32:48 And that’s what I wanted.
0:32:52 So the conversion rate on those, you know, listing clicks are super high because they
0:32:54 already know what they are looking for.
0:32:56 And so you’re doing fulfillment by merchant.
0:32:58 Like somebody will collect the order and then you’ll ship it out.
0:32:58 Absolutely.
0:32:59 Yeah.
0:33:00 Otherwise, yeah.
0:33:03 If they’re warehousing it, if they’re, if you’re doing their ad platform, like all this
0:33:03 stuff.
0:33:06 And all of a sudden those margins get real, real narrow.
0:33:08 Amazon’s making money no matter what your margins are.
0:33:10 Amazon’s so dirty, Nick.
0:33:14 And what they’ll do too is like, if you have a commodity or something, like say I had this
0:33:14 comb.
0:33:17 If you’re wondering why I have a comb, it’s for my beard, not for my head, obviously.
0:33:21 But if you have a comb there and Amazon sees that you’re selling a ton of this comb, what
0:33:22 does Amazon do?
0:33:22 Yeah.
0:33:23 The Amazon basics version.
0:33:24 Yeah.
0:33:25 They have all your data.
0:33:28 They know exactly what you’re doing and they have more money than you.
0:33:31 So they’ll go and just take your product and undercut you.
0:33:32 The beautiful thing about this.
0:33:34 And so you have to be cognizant, man.
0:33:39 Amazon can play that game where you can have your Amazon barbecue rub, but it’s not going
0:33:43 to sell unless you, because you’re not doing what I’m doing, which is putting something else
0:33:43 behind it.
0:33:48 More with Chris in just a moment, including the creative way he increases his average order
0:33:54 size and the side side hustle he expects to eventually overtake the barbecue rub e-commerce
0:33:55 part of the business.
0:33:56 Coming up right after this.
0:34:02 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out
0:34:06 was this idea of the piggyback principle in the startup phase.
0:34:09 That means you don’t have to start completely from scratch, but instead you can take advantage
0:34:15 of existing tools, templates, playbooks, best practices from the people who’ve gone before
0:34:15 you.
0:34:18 A perfect example of this is our partner Shopify.
0:34:24 Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses from household names to side hustlers
0:34:28 on their way to becoming household names with hundreds of ready to use templates.
0:34:31 Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store and start selling.
0:34:35 Plus, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your workflow.
0:34:40 We’re talking product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhancing your product photography.
0:34:44 You can even easily create email and social media campaigns to reach your target customers
0:34:46 wherever they’re scrolling or strolling.
0:34:49 If you’re ready to sell, you’re ready for Shopify.
0:34:53 Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side.
0:34:59 Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:02 Go to shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:05 Shopify.com slash side hustle.
0:35:13 For such an important channel like phone, the software powering this important channel was super outdated and clunky.
0:35:20 We wanted to make it delightful and make it very easy for businesses to connect with their customers through voice and text.
0:35:24 That’s Darina Kulia, co-founder of our sponsor, OpenPhone.
0:35:31 Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications.
0:35:39 We bring your calls, your messages, your contacts in one simple place, and we allow you to bring in your team.
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0:35:53 I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:36:00 Something that all of our customers love is ability to have a shared phone number, which really is great for calling and texting.
0:36:08 So when someone calls you or texts you, there’s multiple people that can team up on responding, and everyone is in the loop about that conversation.
0:36:12 This visibility is so critical, especially as you scale.
0:36:18 And the ability to text a business is like a new and novel thing that, as a customer, I really appreciate.
0:36:25 One thing that we’ve launched at OpenPhone, which is, I think, a game changer, is Sona, which is our voice AI agent.
0:36:29 It basically helps you never have a single missed call.
0:36:39 It can handle responses to any common questions, basically any questions that you train it on, and then it can capture that information so you can quickly follow up.
0:36:43 We are helping businesses never lose a customer because a missed call is a lost opportunity.
0:36:49 Now, OpenPhone has automatic AI call summaries, so you don’t have to worry about taking notes while you’re on the call.
0:37:01 But another cool feature is what Darina called AI call tagging, basically allowing you to quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints or requests for a discount.
0:37:09 So you can review those and see what worked, what didn’t, and train team members on the most effective tactics and language in those cases.
0:37:13 And it’s all in the name of building a better, faster, and friendlier customer experience.
0:37:24 Right now, OpenPhone is offering SideHustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at OpenPhone.com slash SideHustle.
0:37:29 That’s O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E dot com slash SideHustle.
0:37:35 And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
0:37:38 OpenPhone, no missed calls, no missed customers.
0:37:40 Yeah.
0:37:45 You have control over the pricing, too, so you can kind of match, make sure it’s the same pricing.
0:37:46 Absolutely.
0:37:48 Can I hit on one thing about pricing, if you don’t mind?
0:37:49 Yeah, go ahead.
0:37:53 If you go on my site, you’ll see that there’s, I’m not just giving people seasoning.
0:37:55 Seasoning is expensive.
0:37:57 There are some items where it’s, what is it, a premium.
0:38:03 So the premium being, like, you buy this seasoning, you get this thing for free.
0:38:05 My seasoning is expensive.
0:38:05 I get it.
0:38:13 And so what I did was I would work with, talking about MOQs, I would work with, like, an Alibaba or somebody like that who sells wholesale.
0:38:17 This is prior to all the tariff stuff, by the way, so I’m not sure what the prices are now.
0:38:28 But back in the day, I could, like, get a bunch of barbecue slicers or, yeah, I can get a bunch of slicers or barbecue meat, like, thawing trays or 50-cal bottle openers.
0:38:38 It’s just cool things, depending on if it’s a female or male who’s buying my stuff, that if they went and bought that item alone, it would cost them north of 20 bucks, sometimes over 50, depending on the item.
0:38:50 So I go and I buy those and I say, hey, if you buy five things of seasoning, which lasts you two, three years, if you buy five things of seasoning, you’ll get this thing for free, this meat thawing tray.
0:38:53 Or you buy two things of seasoning, you get this slicer for free.
0:38:59 And then you see that, and you’re like, oh, the price of this is 30 bucks, but if I just bought the slicer alone, it’s 20 bucks.
0:39:00 So really, this is, it makes sense.
0:39:05 I did the premium thing, and you can help me kind of, like, make this point a little better here, Nick.
0:39:11 But adding a gift to it, like a free gift, a premium or something, helps justify the purchase.
0:39:16 If Nick buys something today and it was super expensive, and he goes to his wife and is like, babe, I bought this and it was really expensive.
0:39:17 She’s like, what the heck?
0:39:22 But if Nick’s like, hey, babe, I bought this, it was expensive, but we got a free car, she’s gonna be like, oh, that was great.
0:39:28 So you want to give people an excuse, a reason to not look stupid when they’re making a purchase.
0:39:40 I think that’s a really creative way to increase the average order size where you’re like, I could just get the, you know, the one pack, but for a little bit more, I could get two plus this free gift, or I could get five.
0:39:43 Yeah, I think this is a really interesting way to do it.
0:39:48 I don’t know if I’ve seen anybody doing exactly that on other e-commerce sites like this before.
0:39:49 Yeah, thanks, man.
0:39:51 That was exactly what it was.
0:39:53 It was like, I need to increase this average order value for this thing to make sense.
0:39:55 And it’s a good deal.
0:39:58 These slicers and these other things that we give away, those things are expensive, man.
0:40:03 Like, so we just give it to you for free with the seasoning, and now it makes more sense to buy the seasoning.
0:40:04 Okay.
0:40:07 Now, is there all these sitting in the pool house slash warehouse now too?
0:40:10 Yeah, yeah, they’re in the warehouse slash pool house.
0:40:16 So you have most of it in the warehouse, and then we just went, as we move things or things are selling, we just put what we need to in the pool house.
0:40:20 And again, the pool house is my workout room, and it is quite fragrant.
0:40:23 Come out of there, smell it like barbecue.
0:40:25 Yeah, exactly.
0:40:33 The other thing that you touched on was email marketing and sending out kind of a weekly, sometimes story-based, you know, newsletter, so to speak.
0:40:36 Is this content on how to smoke better chicken?
0:40:43 Like, give me an idea of what kind of stuff that you’re sending out that can’t always be, hey, did you run out yet?
0:40:44 Buy more.
0:40:50 Yeah, and that’s exactly what I was avoiding was, you know, you don’t want to send out something like, hey, buy more, buy more, because nobody cares about it.
0:40:54 Again, I’m thinking about the consumer more than I’m thinking about me when it comes to this.
0:41:01 And with the newsletter, this is a way of building a community around a seasoning, which sounds odd, right?
0:41:02 How do you build a community around a seasoning?
0:41:04 Well, we do it through our newsletter.
0:41:08 And for those who don’t know, if you’re looking at a side hustle, you know, don’t sleep on newsletters.
0:41:11 There’s platforms out there like Beehive, and newsletters are big business.
0:41:13 There was one, The Morning Brew.
0:41:15 They sold for like $75 million.
0:41:19 And then there’s smaller ones that sell for a million, and smaller ones that sell for $500,000, $600,000.
0:41:23 So newsletters are a side hustle if you could build it.
0:41:25 And so what I decided was, hey, you know what?
0:41:26 We’re going to do a newsletter out of this.
0:41:31 It’s going to have a weekly recipe, but it’s not just going to be, hey, here’s a cheesecake recipe.
0:41:34 It has nothing to do with the seasoning, but I give them recipes.
0:41:39 But if I just sent out recipes about chicken alfredo or something like that and pointed back to my site, nobody cares.
0:41:43 But it’s more of the same where it’s like, okay, who are these people?
0:41:46 These people I know that I can get stories from or whatever.
0:41:49 And then I go and I take those stories.
0:41:51 I give those to the people.
0:41:55 Like, here’s a story about something that happened last week or whatever it is.
0:42:01 And then I give them the actual recipe of what I’m saying or what I’m talking about that week.
0:42:03 And then let them go to the site if they want to or not.
0:42:10 It’s a cooking newsletter, but really it’s an entertainment newsletter where it’s a story about something that happened with our guy Buck that week.
0:42:12 And then there’s three interesting articles.
0:42:17 It’s typically articles that we find interesting, something that will entertain people.
0:42:18 And then there’s a recipe.
0:42:21 And it’s that format week after week.
0:42:23 And what we found, Nick, is that the audience loves it.
0:42:27 They email us back saying, hey, this is something that they look forward to weekly.
0:42:30 They really look forward to it, something that entertains them.
0:42:33 So now, again, it is not just a seasoning.
0:42:34 It’s a community.
0:42:35 It’s a thing of entertainment.
0:42:36 It changes.
0:42:39 I’m out of that whole commoditized, is it 5, 10, or 20?
0:42:41 I’m in a whole new ballgame.
0:42:42 Mm-hmm.
0:42:42 Yeah.
0:42:47 I mean, is the newsletter, do you see that becoming a side hustle on a side hustle?
0:42:53 Like, is it become its own like barbecue influencer thing that people follow along with, whether or not they ever buy the stuff?
0:42:54 That’s exactly what it’s going to be.
0:42:55 It’s a side hustle on a side hustle.
0:42:59 At this point, I did my first advertising two weeks ago.
0:43:01 My very first one, $7.20, right?
0:43:04 We got to start somewhere, though, right?
0:43:07 But I’m consistently like Beehive.
0:43:13 I like Beehive, the platform, because Beehive will make it easy for your newsletter to get sponsored.
0:43:16 All you have to do is make sure people want to actually read your newsletter.
0:43:18 And so we get high engagement.
0:43:22 And so now we’re getting flooded with sponsorships.
0:43:23 My first one was $7.20.
0:43:30 And then now I’m starting to figure out, OK, I can start testing how to put sponsorships in here.
0:43:32 And there’s other ways to monetize the newsletter.
0:43:36 So to your point, Nick, it’s a side hustle on a side hustle.
0:43:44 And to me, I think that I will eventually be more profitable in the newsletter business than I am with the seasoning business.
0:43:45 Interesting.
0:43:46 Yeah, you can see where it’s going.
0:43:48 How many subscribers do you have to at this point?
0:43:50 Right now we’re at 7,000.
0:43:51 We were as high as 9,000.
0:43:55 I had 42,000 emails at one point.
0:44:00 And then I went down to like 15,000 that were like somewhat active.
0:44:07 And then now on Beehive, since it’s so they really care about people engaging, I keep the list real tight.
0:44:10 Like if you don’t open my email within 30 days, I’m kicking you off and I’ll tell you.
0:44:10 Yeah, yeah.
0:44:18 And so I keep it real tight because I’d rather have a tighter list with higher engagement than a big list with low engagement.
0:44:18 Okay.
0:44:22 So Beehive, I assume Shopify is what’s running the site.
0:44:22 Absolutely.
0:44:25 Any other tools or tech that you swear by here?
0:44:28 We run the site on Shopify, use Beehive as a newsletter.
0:44:34 I use a lot of, I do a lot of talking with ChatGPT and Claude.
0:44:35 These are AI platforms.
0:44:38 A lot of idea stuff happening with that.
0:44:41 For those who I’m sure at this point, everybody knows about ChatGPT.
0:44:49 Some of y’all might know about Claude, but I don’t just go in there and like just come out to ChatGPT and ask it, hey, solve this problem.
0:44:55 I really take time to make sure ChatGPT knows exactly how I wanted to act.
0:45:02 And not just that, if you’re in ChatGPT, you go to the top of it, there’s certain models that ChatGPT has.
0:45:05 And each model does something different.
0:45:06 You’ll have a basic model.
0:45:09 You’ll have a model that’s good for ideas and research and writing.
0:45:11 You’ll have a model that’s good for coding.
0:45:17 I am very, very intentional about the way I’m training it to act.
0:45:19 Think about like training a person.
0:45:23 I tell it exactly how to act and I give it examples of what I’m looking for.
0:45:23 Okay.
0:45:24 Right.
0:45:26 And then I pick the correct model.
0:45:29 I’m looking, so if I’m doing research, ideal stuff, I’ll pick the research one.
0:45:30 At this point, it’s 4.5.
0:45:32 So I know how I want it to act.
0:45:34 I have it in the correct model.
0:45:37 And now I start working with it and coming up with ideas.
0:45:39 And here’s the thing I’ve learned about AI.
0:45:45 If you are terrible at, let’s say, writing copy, which is mean writing words to sell yourself,
0:45:51 if you’re terrible at that and you use AI, it’s just going to multiply how terrible you are.
0:45:52 Right.
0:45:52 That’s all it does.
0:45:58 But if you have a skill, like something you’re good at and you use AI correctly, it’ll multiply
0:46:00 your efficacy by 100 times.
0:46:06 And so I use it to magnify my strengths and in some cases compensate for my weaknesses.
0:46:11 But I find much more help when I use it to magnify my strengths.
0:46:12 Yeah, but you’re right.
0:46:14 It’s kind of garbage in, garbage out.
0:46:19 But if you can kind of prompt and prime it to act a certain way, it does a really good
0:46:20 job of doing that.
0:46:24 And again, between, and I’ll use, I’ll go, I’ll have chat GBT open and I’ll have Claude
0:46:24 open.
0:46:25 Claude’s another one.
0:46:32 And I’ll do the, I’ll like do the exact same thing to both and get different ideas and different
0:46:32 feedback.
0:46:35 And I’ll kind of compare and contrast that feedback.
0:46:40 It’s just like helping me expanding the mind, man.
0:46:40 It’s really, it’s really good.
0:46:45 Any other tools or resources that you like?
0:46:49 If you are trying to sell something, like you don’t have stories, you don’t know what’s going
0:46:57 on or whatever, Reddit is a goldmine, just a goldmine, depending on what you’re trying to
0:46:57 do.
0:47:02 If you’re trying to like crowdsource things or figure out what people think, if you’re trying
0:47:05 to find the story or something for something, I like to go to Reddit.
0:47:09 I’ll find the subreddit that makes the most sense for what I’m trying to figure out.
0:47:12 Then I’ll sort it by top comments.
0:47:16 Then once you do that, or top posts, you can sort it by top posts.
0:47:20 And then after you sort it by top posts, you can say for the year, for all time, for the
0:47:20 last week.
0:47:24 So I usually go top posts all time or top posts for the year.
0:47:27 And I start at the top and I look at the posts.
0:47:30 And not only do I look at the posts, I’ll open the post up and I’ll look at the comments.
0:47:31 These are real people.
0:47:36 So depending on your niche, let’s say you’re in the weight loss niche and you sell to females
0:47:40 and you find a subreddit that has a bunch of females who are looking to lose weight and
0:47:42 you sort it the way I’m looking at, I’m telling you to sort it.
0:47:46 And you go there and you read the posts and more important, read the comments and the comments
0:47:48 that really got a bunch of likes and stuff.
0:47:49 You learn a lot.
0:47:51 It’s crowdsourcing for free.
0:47:55 I would pay money for Reddit with the type of stuff that I learned from it.
0:47:56 It is amazing.
0:47:58 Do you have an example in the barbecue space?
0:48:01 Like I’m trying to think of what that might look like.
0:48:04 And now that I think about it, at the very beginning, when I was telling you, I was trying
0:48:06 to find an influencer, I use Google and I’m going to Reddit.
0:48:08 And that’s how I found T-Roy.
0:48:13 Now that I remember it, but in the specifically selling the product, there was a, it was tips
0:48:16 on how to smoke something called tri-tip, I believe.
0:48:20 And I went to, went to Reddit, went to the barbecue thing.
0:48:23 I looked up tri-tip, went in there, started looking through what people were saying.
0:48:25 Amazing tips, amazing tips.
0:48:26 I take it.
0:48:27 I go test it.
0:48:28 It worked great.
0:48:29 Boom.
0:48:30 Good to go.
0:48:34 And then putting that into an email or putting that into an article, which then drives a
0:48:35 Facebook ad, which then drives sales.
0:48:37 Absolutely.
0:48:39 That’s just one small example.
0:48:41 I’ve got different businesses done different things.
0:48:43 I’ve used Reddit heavy.
0:48:44 Got it.
0:48:44 Yeah.
0:48:49 This is almost a page out of the Buzzfeed playbook where, you know, there’s curating different
0:48:50 tweets or different faces.
0:48:52 And it’s just, you know, now that’s a piece of content for them.
0:48:53 Exactly.
0:48:57 And then for me, I’ll go to like, cause I’m not just doing, I don’t just sell barbecue
0:48:58 recipes.
0:49:01 I might, I had like, let’s say a creamy lemon chicken or something like that.
0:49:06 I’ll go to things like all recipes or just any like popular food thing.
0:49:08 And I do the same thing.
0:49:10 You go and you just look at the recipe.
0:49:10 Okay.
0:49:11 Is that good or whatever?
0:49:13 But then I start reading the comments.
0:49:16 There’s so much free crowdsourcing information out there.
0:49:23 If you get creative, if you want to pay for stuff, there’s another tool I use called SEM
0:49:23 Rush.
0:49:27 And this talks about traffic that’s at different websites.
0:49:30 And it’ll show you, Hey, this website’s getting so much X traffic or whatever.
0:49:36 But if you pay a little bit more, you figure out what the top pages are in that website.
0:49:38 So now let’s take a cooking website, like all recipes.
0:49:40 I go there, put it in SEM Rush.
0:49:41 It will show me all the traffic.
0:49:46 Then I’ll select something called top pages and I’ll sort it for top pages by the last two
0:49:46 years.
0:49:51 And then you’ll start to see which one of their recipes got the most traffic.
0:49:55 If that recipe got the most traffic, well, that tells you that people are interested
0:49:56 in it.
0:50:00 Maybe I should write an article about that recipe because people are already interested
0:50:00 in it.
0:50:01 Oh, okay.
0:50:01 Okay.
0:50:07 And even if it’s not going to rank organically, it may resonate with people on social because
0:50:09 you’ve got some data to back it up.
0:50:11 People are already finding it through all recipes.
0:50:12 Absolutely.
0:50:16 And so now instead of somebody having to search for it, like anything else, I’m bringing it
0:50:16 to them.
0:50:21 And they’re like, Oh yeah, I want to know how to make, you know, great homemade brownies
0:50:22 or something or whatever.
0:50:23 I keep using desserts.
0:50:25 I don’t really sell the product with desserts.
0:50:30 It’s like, well, it’s gotta be a Thai cheesecake and then chicken on the side.
0:50:33 But yeah, it’s usually a more savory recipe than I’m advertising.
0:50:37 But when I’m trying to put on my rest on my website and my newsletters, I’ll just, again,
0:50:38 I’m just giving out good information.
0:50:42 So I’ll give them a solid brownie recipe that I got from some website.
0:50:45 Plus use AI to like polish it up and give me tips.
0:50:47 I’ll give them some like really good information on how to cook stuff.
0:50:51 I mean, it’s such an interesting angle because I imagine the cost per clicks or cost, you
0:50:56 know, that you’re paying to Facebook are so much lower sending people to a piece of content
0:51:01 on a, you know, a recipe type of page than it would be to a product sales page.
0:51:04 And if I’m at the conversion rate, it’s obviously going to be a lot lower too.
0:51:07 It’s like, there’s a balance there and then, but there’s, you know, retargeting.
0:51:10 There’s all sorts of fun stuff you can do after that.
0:51:11 You got those people to initially click.
0:51:11 Yeah.
0:51:12 Yeah.
0:51:17 I’m not pushing finance or weight loss stuff or these things that have high CPCs cost per
0:51:18 clicks or high CPM.
0:51:20 CPM is basically how much it costs for people to see your stuff.
0:51:22 This is just food stuff.
0:51:26 And I want to find a recipe that’s engaging because here’s one more quick tip.
0:51:29 If you’re advertising on social media, you’re working with social media.
0:51:34 You have two different people who are your, your readers or your clients on there.
0:51:36 You have the people that you’re trying to sell to whoever that is.
0:51:39 And then you have the actual platform itself.
0:51:39 So let’s take Facebook.
0:51:44 You’re trying to reach the user, but also you need to be like taking care of Facebook.
0:51:45 Well, how do you take care of Facebook?
0:51:49 What’s Facebook in here for Facebook want Facebook or Tik TOK or whatever it is, pick your social
0:51:50 media platform.
0:51:50 What do they want?
0:51:54 They want people on their platform for as long as possible.
0:51:59 So if you’re putting something out there that has people on the platform, whether it’s like
0:52:05 watching a video for a while or engaging with the video or writing or sharing it or reading
0:52:10 something, if you play Facebook’s game or any social media platforms game, which is keep them
0:52:15 on that platform for as long as you can, then that social media platform will reward you
0:52:18 by putting your stuff out there for even cheaper.
0:52:20 So that’s the game.
0:52:20 Okay.
0:52:24 So it’s not even driving, it’s not even driving traffic back to baldbuck.com.
0:52:28 It’s like, I’m going to, I’m going to copy paste the whole recipe into the body of this Facebook
0:52:28 post.
0:52:41 And then also what Facebook likes is you get the biggest, I guess, bump, if you want
0:52:43 to call it for sharing and comments.
0:52:47 So if you’re getting people to share your stuff or comment on your stuff, if Facebook sees it,
0:52:50 man, this post, everybody’s talking about it, they’re sharing it.
0:52:51 What’s Facebook going to do?
0:52:52 Boom, boom, boom, boom.
0:52:55 They want to keep people happy, keep people engaged, keep them on the platform.
0:52:58 If you could do that, then you could do well.
0:52:58 Yeah.
0:53:02 And then all of a sudden, yeah, your cost per engagement or cost per reach goes, goes way
0:53:03 down because they’re pushing it out.
0:53:04 Way down.
0:53:05 Absolutely.
0:53:05 All right.
0:53:06 What would you do differently?
0:53:09 I mean, it sounds like we were three, four years into this business.
0:53:12 If you had to start over, anything you’d do to accelerate the journey?
0:53:19 I would have gotten more aggressive with reaching out to YouTubers or user-generated content influencer,
0:53:19 whoever it was.
0:53:22 I still could do that to this day, but this is a side hustle.
0:53:27 I got other stuff going on, but it’s not what you have to say.
0:53:29 It’s what other people have to say about the product.
0:53:32 And there’s a few ways of doing that.
0:53:33 You can’t just copy and paste a review.
0:53:40 If you could really get other people to speak about the product for you, that gives leverage,
0:53:40 man.
0:53:42 Would you approach it similarly today?
0:53:44 It was like, hey, we could do a giveaway for your audience.
0:53:49 Would you say, hey, I’d love for you to be an affiliate partner for this thing.
0:53:51 You know, here’s a unique referral code.
0:53:52 Like, how would you, how would you pitch it?
0:53:56 Everything you just said, the essence of what you just said is what’s, what’s in it for that
0:53:56 person.
0:54:02 Um, not caring about like, you know, obviously I have goals here, but for me to get those
0:54:04 goals, it’s the whole Zig Zig Ziglar thing, right?
0:54:05 You can get everything you want.
0:54:06 If you help enough people get what they want.
0:54:09 So it’s what’s in it for this other person.
0:54:13 How can I make them look good or help them make money or whatever it is?
0:54:15 Let me key in on that.
0:54:17 And then I’ll get what I need from, from this.
0:54:18 Fair enough.
0:54:20 Any, uh, any big surprises?
0:54:23 The surprise was, oh no, all of a sudden it’s an actual business.
0:54:27 Oh no, I have to actually like work with people and now I have to manage people.
0:54:28 And that was a surprise.
0:54:31 And so I didn’t think about that prior to getting into this.
0:54:32 I didn’t see that coming.
0:54:32 Yeah.
0:54:33 That’s interesting.
0:54:36 Is that the, the question most people ask is what if this fails?
0:54:37 What if it doesn’t work?
0:54:40 What if I just have to liquidate these 5,000 units of seasoning?
0:54:44 The other side of it is, well, what if it does work?
0:54:48 You know, what’s that, what’s that going to look like two, three, four years down the road?
0:54:53 And if it actually is selling, is that going to be, is that, it could be a win for me?
0:54:57 And I mean, it sounds like, yes, but just like, you know, there’s, there’s other things that
0:55:00 happened along the way or that necessitated along the way.
0:55:03 It’s like, yo, if I don’t want to be doing all the work, yeah, I’m going to have to bring
0:55:03 on some help.
0:55:06 This is something that’s going to sound a little bit of woo woo, but I’m going to go there anyways.
0:55:10 Like I told you at the very beginning, I bought a bunch of units and it was, I might, I might
0:55:10 recommend it.
0:55:15 I’m not saying go spend a bunch of money and like put yourself into a corner.
0:55:16 I don’t, that wasn’t a wise move.
0:55:17 It was just something that I did.
0:55:25 But I will say that I feel like the mindset behind stuff is, is underestimated.
0:55:30 So if I bought these units feeling like, man, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know if I’m
0:55:33 going to be able to do this, then I probably want, if I buy these units and I’m like, I
0:55:37 have to do this, then it just puts me in a different mode.
0:55:39 You’re working from a totally different place.
0:55:40 That’s one.
0:55:44 And then the second thing, when I’ve noticed this with anything that I’ve started, any
0:55:48 business or whatever, I would get caught up in what’s the logo going to be?
0:55:50 What’s the product?
0:55:51 Let me optimize the product.
0:55:52 What’s my website going to look like?
0:55:52 What?
0:55:53 Oh, let me change this color.
0:55:58 And I would do all these things, do all these different things, everything, but the most important
0:56:00 thing, which is sell it.
0:56:01 It was a pattern of mine.
0:56:03 Well, it’s easy to procrastinate on.
0:56:03 Yeah, that’s the hard part.
0:56:05 But you feel like you’re doing something.
0:56:09 It’s like a, like a, like a running back going from sideline to sideline instead of up to
0:56:09 field.
0:56:12 Like you look busy, but you’re not doing anything.
0:56:12 Yeah.
0:56:15 And that’s how I was like all these little things that made me feel good.
0:56:16 Let me get it up.
0:56:18 Maybe I should go back to school.
0:56:21 Like all these things making me feel good about it.
0:56:24 But what I’m doing is really just procrastinating, doing the thing that’s most important, which is
0:56:25 selling the product.
0:56:29 And if I could go back and tell myself that with anything I’ve done is figure out how to
0:56:31 sell it, then figure everything else out.
0:56:32 Yeah.
0:56:33 We’ll figure out.
0:56:33 Yeah.
0:56:35 We’ll, we’ll figure out the logistics once we got some orders.
0:56:35 Yeah.
0:56:38 Well, we could always change the logo down the road if we don’t like it.
0:56:38 Yeah.
0:56:39 There’s all sorts of, yeah.
0:56:43 But no, it’s, it’s easy to get caught up on that, you know, because you want to, you
0:56:47 want to put your best foot forward, but at the same time, yeah, I’m, I’m with you
0:56:48 on, on all of that.
0:56:52 But baldbuck.com, that’s where you can find this order ups, the barbecue seasoning for
0:56:53 yourself.
0:56:55 Yo, Chris Gray is where you can find Chris on social.
0:56:57 What’s next for you?
0:56:58 What’s got you excited this year?
0:57:00 I love our newsletter and what we’re doing there.
0:57:02 That’s, that’s really fun.
0:57:05 And then I’m really excited about where AI is right now.
0:57:10 Kind of think that we are in the wild west of it where in my, in my little inner bubble
0:57:13 circle, whatever you want to call it, everybody’s talking about it, but the general population
0:57:15 isn’t really on it.
0:57:19 And I think that this is like, you know, back in the day, you know, I don’t know how old
0:57:21 you are, Nick, I’m, I’m 44, man.
0:57:25 And, and I was around when the internet started coming to, to be a thing.
0:57:26 I’m, I’m close to that.
0:57:27 I’m almost there.
0:57:27 Yeah, man.
0:57:32 Well, you remember people were like email or you could buy things online.
0:57:34 That’s how it was back then.
0:57:35 Now look at it today.
0:57:39 I believe we’re there with AI and we’re on the precipice of it.
0:57:40 And a lot of people don’t know about it.
0:57:43 And there’s a lot of different ways to make a lot of money.
0:57:48 Maybe using AI and using AI and robotics and automation and, or use you just using AI to
0:57:49 get ideas and help with stuff.
0:57:54 But I think we’re kind of, we’re here where there’s an opportunity to use it to make money
0:57:58 or use it to help you make money or directly use it to make money.
0:57:59 I’m excited about that.
0:57:59 Yeah.
0:58:01 It’s a, it’s a brave new world.
0:58:02 We’ll see where it goes.
0:58:06 I’m trying to get better about using it on a daily, weekly basis.
0:58:09 I know I’m just scratching the surface and try, try and crowdsource some, some wisdom
0:58:12 from guests and from side hustle show listeners as well.
0:58:14 And what, what’s your use case here?
0:58:15 What am I, what am I missing out on?
0:58:16 But, uh, very cool.
0:58:20 Uh, so we’ll link up all this stuff, baldbuck.com and Chris Gray’s socials.
0:58:24 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:58:29 My number one tip is if you are starting to sell something or you have an idea of a product
0:58:34 that you want to do or a service you want to do, and you’re just starting, find something
0:58:36 that already works.
0:58:41 Don’t get crafty and try to create something unique and have this, oh, this idea, my blah,
0:58:41 blah, blah.
0:58:48 Like to get the thing off the ground to, you really want to get a ball rolling, find something
0:58:49 that is already working.
0:58:50 Then put your spin on it.
0:58:53 In the case of baldbuck, the seasoning was already selling.
0:58:56 I just need to, it was already good.
0:58:57 It already tasted good.
0:58:58 I didn’t need to come up with my own blend or something.
0:58:59 It was already working.
0:59:00 Yeah.
0:59:00 Yeah.
0:59:02 I just put, I put my label on it and figured out how to sell it.
0:59:06 But I think that concept is something else that’s helped me tremendously as I leverage
0:59:07 what’s already working.
0:59:07 Yeah.
0:59:09 Remove part of the equation, right?
0:59:13 Like it’s a way to kind of leapfrog or piggyback what’s already been done.
0:59:15 You don’t have to start completely from scratch.
0:59:19 It’s, you know, just, there’s still a lot of moving parts that you got to figure out,
0:59:21 but it’s like, well, here’s one, one less thing to worry about.
0:59:22 One less thing.
0:59:22 Up to the move.
0:59:24 So appreciate you sharing that.
0:59:25 That was one of my takeaways here.
0:59:32 You may not have to be a creator, an inventor completely from scratch.
0:59:36 And maybe you iterate on something that’s already out there, but go where there’s some proven
0:59:38 demand versus trying to create demand from scratch.
0:59:44 I loved Chris to talk about the brand positioning and then going after the partnerships.
0:59:46 We’re like, well, how am I going to sell this stuff?
0:59:48 Who’s already got some traffic and eyeballs?
0:59:50 Well, all these barbecue influencers do.
0:59:55 How can I make it a win for them instead of, and trying to find some sort of common ground
0:59:57 and then initial outreach, lots of good tips there.
1:00:02 And then going back to the storytelling and the emotion and his eBay example of like, it’s
1:00:03 the same stuff.
1:00:07 It’s the same commodity that it was 10 minutes ago, but now it has this story attached to it.
1:00:09 People willing to pay a premium for that.
1:00:12 Plus some creative ways to increase the average order size.
1:00:15 You’re going to do the shipping and logistics side of it anyways.
1:00:19 You know, what’s another couple of jars of stuff to throw into the box?
1:00:22 How do you incentivize people to increase that average order value?
1:00:23 What do you think?
1:00:26 Is there an opportunity to white label a product that you already love?
1:00:32 Your free listener bonus for this episode is my list of 20 hobby-related niches to get
1:00:35 your creative juices flowing, like barbecue might be a hobby for you as well.
1:00:37 Other stuff you might be able to sell for a profit.
1:00:40 Just follow the show notes link in the episode description.
1:00:41 It’ll get you right over there.
1:00:43 You’ll be able to download that for free.
1:00:46 Again, my list of 20 other hobby-related niches.
1:00:49 Big thanks to Chris for sharing his insight.
1:00:52 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
1:00:57 As always, you can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our
1:00:59 sponsors in one place.
1:01:00 That is it for me.
1:01:01 Thank you so much for tuning in.
1:01:05 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
1:01:07 So fire off that text message.
1:01:09 Maybe it’s to that barbecue lover in your life.
1:01:12 Maybe it’s to somebody who’s just on the cusp of that next side hustle idea.
1:01:14 Would love your help in spreading the word.
1:01:17 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
1:01:20 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
1:01:21 Hustle on.

0:00:04 This PE teacher started a $150,000 side hustle.
0:00:09 In this episode, you’ll learn the fun, unique business he chose, how he got his first customers,
0:00:14 and how he’s scaled it to a pretty serious income stream all on the side.
0:00:20 From foampartyallstars.com, Tim Karstensen, welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:20 Hey, Nick.
0:00:21 Thanks for having me.
0:00:23 I’ve been listening to your podcast for quite a while.
0:00:24 Love it.
0:00:27 And I thought, why not come on and tell our story here?
0:00:28 What a cool example.
0:00:29 I guess I just gave it away.
0:00:31 It’s a foam party business.
0:00:32 Let’s stick around.
0:00:37 We’re covering the startup costs, the marketing tactics, the pricing and delivery, all that
0:00:37 good stuff.
0:00:44 So you might be able to borrow Tim’s idea or a similar local service and spin it up in your
0:00:44 own town.
0:00:46 But I got to start off at the beginning.
0:00:48 Like, out of all the side hustles, why foam parties?
0:00:49 How’d you come up with this?
0:00:49 Yeah.
0:00:57 So I’ve been an elementary PE teacher for the past 18 years and always in my summers off,
0:00:59 I have either another job or another business.
0:01:05 I used to teach and coach in the summers, driver’s ed, stuff like that, which has its own stories.
0:01:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:01:07 I got the whole summer off.
0:01:08 I might as well take advantage.
0:01:09 Yeah, yeah.
0:01:15 So in 2022, in the summer, I was kind of looking for something else.
0:01:21 And at first I stumbled upon the bounce house business and I kind of did a deep dive on that.
0:01:23 But for me, it was a little too saturated.
0:01:29 I found out that the floor for insurance in the bounce house business is pretty high when
0:01:32 you’re just starting out and it’s hard to make money in the beginning.
0:01:33 Oh, okay.
0:01:34 Interesting.
0:01:38 Do you find like you’re going to need a lot of inventory, multiple bounce houses, like
0:01:41 to make the insurance pencil out for somebody like starting in that space?
0:01:46 Even if you had one or two bounce houses to start, your floor for insurance might be, let’s
0:01:51 say, $5,000, $6,000, which, you know, if you’re renting out a bounce house for a couple
0:01:54 hundred bucks, it’s going to take a while to get that back.
0:01:58 I found some people that were doing bounce houses down there in the Southern states, Arizona,
0:02:03 Florida, California, Texas, were also doing foam parties for kids.
0:02:09 And I think it was a party rental Facebook group that I stumbled upon that.
0:02:12 And I thought, oh, okay, that’s interesting.
0:02:14 Foam parties for kids.
0:02:18 I mean, I remember when I was in college, I went to a foam party, but I don’t think that’s
0:02:19 not really a kid’s thing.
0:02:24 So, you know, it picked my interest and I was like, okay, I’m good at working with
0:02:26 kids, 18 years teaching, you know, elementary PE.
0:02:31 And then I, you know, looked around here, around the Chicagoland area.
0:02:36 And I found out at that point, there was only one other place and they were about 50 miles
0:02:37 north of me.
0:02:40 So that was really the only competition I could find.
0:02:42 So I thought, okay, this looks doable.
0:02:43 Okay.
0:02:43 Okay.
0:02:44 And maybe we should pause.
0:02:46 Like, I kind of have a vision and I’ve been on your website.
0:02:50 Like, it’s just like kids running through walls of bubbles, like, you know, sometimes
0:02:51 up to the shoulders in bubbles.
0:02:53 And like, it just looks like a lot of fun.
0:02:54 Yeah.
0:02:56 Cast that visual of like what we’re talking about here.
0:02:56 Right.
0:03:01 We play kid-friendly music, even hire a voiceover artist to do like a countdown to the foam
0:03:05 party, you know, like a New Year’s Eve countdown, get them excited.
0:03:08 There’s rules of the foam all over the speakers.
0:03:13 And we have these giant, we call them foam cannons and they shoot foam around.
0:03:17 You can pretty much fill up like a 30 foot by 30 foot area.
0:03:21 And depending on the size and the age of the kid, you could keep it low if it’s a little
0:03:25 kid or you could bury them up high if it’s a teenage type kid.
0:03:27 It totally depends on the situation.
0:03:32 But the kids just like dancing around and frolicking around with their friends and enjoying
0:03:33 it, exploring it and things like that.
0:03:38 So it sounds like it was born from this research of looking at the inflatables business, the
0:03:42 bounce house rental side hustle and saying, oh, it’s interesting.
0:03:46 As I’m on the websites of some of these other service providers, here’s something else that
0:03:46 they offer.
0:03:49 Like maybe we could just spin up only that part.
0:03:52 There’s got to be lower liability or something like that.
0:03:54 And maybe that might make sense.
0:03:54 Yeah.
0:04:00 Since it was kind of a novel idea to me and I ran it by my wife who shut down my bounce
0:04:01 house business idea.
0:04:03 And she said, that’s interesting.
0:04:04 Tell me more about that.
0:04:05 OK, OK.
0:04:10 From that point, I was like, OK, well, I might have an OK from my wife, which is good.
0:04:11 We have three young kids.
0:04:16 So she’s an angel and stays at home with the kids a lot when I’m out doing phone parties.
0:04:21 So I kept looking into it and looking at the, you know, the competition that was there.
0:04:26 And then I found a Facebook group of phone party providers around the country and studied
0:04:29 every post that I could from from that Facebook group.
0:04:30 There’s a Facebook group for everything.
0:04:31 That’s crazy.
0:04:32 Yeah, there really is.
0:04:37 And they kind of lay it out in the Facebook group, how to start things and how much success
0:04:38 they’ve had for a lot of the people.
0:04:43 And that was kind of my my guideline for how to get things started and just kind of went
0:04:47 from there, you know, started up the business, thought of a name, phone party all stars.
0:04:54 And, you know, did all the starting business stuff, got the logo and the websites, did that
0:04:57 myself, which I don’t know if I had to do it again.
0:05:00 I might have had a professional to start out with that instead of spending so many hours
0:05:02 on something so basic.
0:05:05 But, but, you know, you learn, you learn.
0:05:06 That’s OK.
0:05:07 Everybody starts somewhere.
0:05:11 I think everybody has that struggle of like trying to make a website, make it look a certain
0:05:12 way.
0:05:15 And yeah, that’s that’s like an entrepreneurial rite of passage.
0:05:16 Exactly.
0:05:16 Yeah.
0:05:20 You know, you might save a little money, but you’re spending a lot of time sometimes.
0:05:21 That’s the trade off.
0:05:23 You got away in that situation.
0:05:26 So building the website, do you have any equipment at this point?
0:05:29 Like, or we kind of like, oh, I want to wait and see if we get any bookings.
0:05:30 Like what’s going on here?
0:05:31 Yeah.
0:05:40 So I bought my first phone party set up right around when I had the website go live after
0:05:43 I, you know, get all the business stuff, you know, registered with the state and everything
0:05:44 like that.
0:05:53 And then in, in January, I sent out some postcards to kind of get the ball rolling and as a way
0:05:56 to have people know that we exist.
0:06:03 And we ended up getting quite a few responses and bookings from that, which was awesome.
0:06:06 And since it’s wintertime, people are like, could you come by in May?
0:06:07 Like they’re planning ahead.
0:06:11 And so you don’t necessarily need to have the stuff like ready for that weekend.
0:06:12 Right.
0:06:15 So these aren’t like the, the private birthday party type of things.
0:06:23 These would be interests from daycares, summer camps, park district, churches, schools, things
0:06:27 like that, who book farther in advance than a typical birthday party would.
0:06:27 Okay.
0:06:32 So you build up your own mailing list of the daycares, summer camp, and then you put out kind of a
0:06:34 really targeted mailing just to them, just to those offices.
0:06:35 Right.
0:06:35 Yeah.
0:06:43 So I’d found pretty much any daycare, summer camp, park district, library, elementary school
0:06:51 within about 35 or 40 miles, I made a list and I sent the same postcard to all of them.
0:06:56 Now I kind of break it up with individual marketing for the different types.
0:07:02 So I might, I would send a different postcard to schools than I would to churches or libraries
0:07:03 and things like that.
0:07:08 But back then it was just the one postcard, Vistaprint, send it all.
0:07:13 Hope we get some responses and definitely worked to get the first few responses.
0:07:13 Yeah.
0:07:15 How many, how many did you send out?
0:07:19 I want to say maybe 700 total.
0:07:19 Okay.
0:07:20 Okay.
0:07:24 So, you know, you’re putting a little bit of money into it at that point.
0:07:24 Yeah.
0:07:29 Casting a wide enough net to kind of know if you are shooting completely blank after 700
0:07:31 and maybe, maybe the messaging needs, needs some tweaking.
0:07:33 Might be time to turn it around, right?
0:07:33 Yeah.
0:07:38 So, and at that point I thought, well, if I needed to, if, if it wasn’t going to work,
0:07:42 I could sell the equipment back and I wouldn’t really be all that much of a loss.
0:07:42 Yeah.
0:07:43 Relatively low risk.
0:07:45 What did the equipment cost?
0:07:51 The foam cannon itself, I use a professional grade model that cost at the time about $2,500
0:07:52 for the cannon.
0:07:58 And then I would say for other things that are in the foam party setup, we have these barriers
0:08:05 like PVC and some vinyl with our, our marketing on their barriers to keep the foam from coming
0:08:08 back at the person shooting the foam.
0:08:09 And okay.
0:08:11 I’m picturing like a medieval, like a shield.
0:08:11 Yeah.
0:08:13 In case the wind shifts.
0:08:18 So it’s, it’s kind of like a little wall about four feet high, maybe with our marketing on
0:08:19 the front that they see.
0:08:23 And then it keeps the foam from blowing back at us and getting on our equipment.
0:08:28 And then just little things like, well, we have a five by five tent with our branding on
0:08:30 it that just kind of makes it look professional.
0:08:37 And then a lot of little things like tools that you might need and hoses and electrical cords
0:08:39 and speakers.
0:08:40 Yes.
0:08:46 So you just need a water source and, you know, BYO bubbles basically.
0:08:49 And then in this, this professional cannon at a bare minimum.
0:08:50 Right.
0:08:50 Yeah.
0:08:55 So we, we do need a water source, uh, just a regular hose hookup works.
0:09:00 And then, uh, an electrical outlet, a regular outlet works, uh, if it’s just for one foam
0:09:05 cannon, if it’s multiple foam cannons, or if you’re not close enough to an outlet, then we bring
0:09:10 a generator in that situation for most of like the smaller events, daycares, summer camps
0:09:11 and stuff like that.
0:09:13 It’s just one, one foam cannon.
0:09:20 And so, yeah, I started off with one, got a few bookings before I even did any foam parties,
0:09:26 even though I had some booked, uh, I bought a second setup and it just kind of kept on rolling.
0:09:27 What did the postcard say?
0:09:28 Was there pricing on there?
0:09:33 Was it just like, you know, booking now for, you know, summer 2023 or whenever it was.
0:09:36 It said like, we bring a foam party to you.
0:09:42 And then it said like, foam parties are great for, and then I tried to hit summer camps, daycares,
0:09:48 school events, church events, library, summer reading, kickoffs, block parties, birthday parties.
0:09:55 And then it says like foam party packages include, you know, foam cannon, a foam party leader.
0:09:57 Which is you showing up and leading the thing.
0:09:58 Right.
0:09:59 Which at that point is just me.
0:10:01 I’m the only guy that’s, uh, that’s available.
0:10:02 Okay.
0:10:04 And then, you know, book now at our website.
0:10:10 Uh, we did have pricing on our website for, for basic, like, you know, one hour, one cannon,
0:10:15 or, uh, we also do something called glow foam, which is, looks like the foam is glowing in
0:10:16 the dark for night events.
0:10:19 So we had pricing for that on the website, not on the postcard.
0:10:20 Okay.
0:10:21 What’s it cost to get you to come out?
0:10:24 For a one hour, like a birthday party, it’s 375.
0:10:29 And then most people just, okay, we’ll book you for an hour and then you kind of clean up,
0:10:32 tear down and hopefully you’ve got another one booked for the afternoon.
0:10:32 Right.
0:10:33 Yeah.
0:10:37 So for birthday parties, which is a lot of what we do on the weekends, birthday parties and
0:10:42 block parties, uh, we usually just an hour, which we found is a good amount of time for,
0:10:43 for the kids.
0:10:47 Uh, if you’re doing two hours with the same group of kids, you know, they kind of lose
0:10:48 interest.
0:10:49 That’s, that’s fair.
0:10:50 It’s opposite of an upsell.
0:10:54 A lot of times it’ll be, you know, we want to do two hours for this birthday and it’ll
0:10:58 be me saying, well, we found that one hour is a good amount of time.
0:11:05 And, but, and also if you, uh, do a foam party on a grass surface for two hours, uh, your,
0:11:09 your chance of mud is, is a lot higher than one hour.
0:11:14 You don’t generally see any kind of mud, but I try to warn people this ahead of time.
0:11:14 Okay.
0:11:15 Yeah.
0:11:17 There’s other, other logistics involved.
0:11:17 Okay.
0:11:18 Right.
0:11:23 And it does feel weird to try to, you know, almost, uh, you know, reverse upsell, uh, you
0:11:25 know, you sure you want to do two hours?
0:11:30 I try to do that just to make it the best experience for, for the kids and the parents.
0:11:31 Yeah, that’s fair.
0:11:35 And then, and then it just dissolves, like it just evaporates away and, or you hose it
0:11:36 down.
0:11:41 The foam generally dissipates within, uh, 20 minutes to a half hour, um, depending on if
0:11:47 it’s on grass or, or, you know, asphalt concrete, what, um, that will change it a little bit.
0:11:52 And if it’s windy out and things like that, we can hose down the grass, but really it doesn’t
0:11:53 really make much of a difference.
0:11:56 You wouldn’t even know it was there after, you know, an hour or two.
0:11:58 So, I mean, it’s just wet because it’s mostly water.
0:12:05 Uh, we use about a hundred and 125 gallons of water for a one hour party for one cannon.
0:12:09 So, you know, that in a concentrated area, you can definitely tell that it’s wet.
0:12:10 All right.
0:12:13 So, so you send out all these postcards, 700 postcards.
0:12:17 You start to get some inbound inquiries through the website.
0:12:19 People start calling you, Hey, we want to book this thing.
0:12:21 What kind of questions are they asking you?
0:12:25 Cause you’re like, you know, you’re presenting all the confidence of like, yeah, we’ll bring
0:12:26 the party to you.
0:12:29 But like never having done it before, like what kind of questions come up that now you know
0:12:33 the answer to, but at the time you’re kind of like, uh, yeah, we could totally do that.
0:12:39 Tim’s answer to those initial inbound inquiries plus his first paying gig coming up right
0:12:39 after this.
0:12:46 Yeah, it was definitely a kind of a fake it till you make it type situation where, you
0:12:51 know, you try to be prepared, you know, by researching what other people have done around the country,
0:12:53 but you’ve never really done it before.
0:12:57 So you’re kind of going on the fly and, you know, just being honest.
0:13:01 And if they ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, just let them know that you
0:13:03 will get back to them as soon as you can.
0:13:08 But with the daycares that we initially got, uh, most of the time it would be like, all right,
0:13:09 we have 125 kids.
0:13:11 Like how long do we need a phone party for?
0:13:13 How much is it going to cost?
0:13:14 Is it going to ruin the grass?
0:13:16 Which is normal question that we get.
0:13:17 And then do they get wet?
0:13:18 Do they need a towel?
0:13:20 Do they need a change of clothes?
0:13:22 Does it sting their eyes?
0:13:24 This is a question that we get a lot.
0:13:25 The answer is no.
0:13:26 Got it.
0:13:26 Got it.
0:13:27 All right.
0:13:29 Let’s fast forward to, to party number one.
0:13:33 Then you go and you set this thing up for the daycare or wherever it is.
0:13:36 And it goes off without a hitch.
0:13:38 It goes, there’s, you know, kids crying and screaming.
0:13:41 Like, you know, anything could happen at this point.
0:13:41 What happens?
0:13:42 Yeah.
0:13:44 It’s definitely a learning process.
0:13:49 I mean, I, I, I set it up at my house and, you know, did a party from the kids and the
0:13:49 neighbors.
0:13:50 So that’s right.
0:13:51 I have a trial run.
0:13:51 Yeah.
0:13:52 Right.
0:13:53 Which, which was smart.
0:13:56 Cause that would have been not good if, if I didn’t.
0:14:01 However, my first party that I had booked was actually kind of higher on the difficulty
0:14:02 scale.
0:14:08 It was a school event and it was a two foam cannon glow foam party.
0:14:13 So that is actually much trickier.
0:14:19 So glow foam, there’s a special additive that you put into the foam that makes it glow.
0:14:21 Looks like it’s, you know, glowing UV glow.
0:14:27 Uh, once, uh, once, once it gets dark out, but you also have UV lights that are, that are
0:14:32 hanging from, uh, your tents, uh, which, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot more cords to
0:14:33 deal with.
0:14:45 It’s just, it’s trickier, especially for a, you know, the water containers fast enough with
0:14:48 one water source and two, two cannons.
0:14:53 And, you know, with a huge crowd, I mean, there was a couple of hundred kids there, which looking
0:14:57 back, I would have wanted more than two foam cannons if, if I knew there was that many kids,
0:14:59 but I was just happy to be there at that point.
0:15:06 I showed up and the setup took way longer than it should have spent probably an hour and 15
0:15:10 minutes setting up, which now would be half that for a two foam cannon.
0:15:12 But yeah, it went well.
0:15:14 You get better as you go along, you get more reps in.
0:15:14 Yeah.
0:15:15 Oh, absolutely.
0:15:16 And it went well.
0:15:18 Uh, the kids loved it.
0:15:19 It was definitely a learning experience.
0:15:25 And, you know, each one that you do, you kind of pick up something or might, you might do
0:15:25 something wrong.
0:15:30 I think that one as well, their water source at the school, there was like a pebble somehow
0:15:32 stuck in the water source.
0:15:38 So then I had to run 250 feet of hoses to the next closest water source.
0:15:43 And yeah, so one of those things, you know, they, they didn’t check it beforehand, but which
0:15:47 now I tell people to do, but back then didn’t have the experience.
0:15:48 So, okay.
0:15:48 Yeah.
0:15:54 So learning, learning curve, learning process and a non-zero amount of equipment involved
0:15:58 between the cannons and the speakers and the tents and the hoses and everything else.
0:15:59 It’s helpful to know.
0:15:59 Yeah.
0:16:00 Basically packed.
0:16:06 We, we have a minivan, we fold all the seats down and I could fit two foam setups in the
0:16:08 minivan, but I mean, it’s jam packed.
0:16:14 It’s like, like you probably way too much stuff in there, but yeah, you’re not seeing out the,
0:16:15 at the rear view anymore.
0:16:15 Yeah.
0:16:16 No, definitely not.
0:16:18 Okay.
0:16:22 So you get these initial bookings from the postcards and hopefully some positive feedback
0:16:25 from those and, and maybe some word them out.
0:16:29 But like what happens after that in terms of driving additional traffic?
0:16:34 Cause it is, you know, maybe you can, well, we’re going to book you every year and there’s
0:16:38 some level of recurring revenue here, but it’s, it’s a lot of times it’s got to be kind of
0:16:42 a one and done thing for, uh, you know, onto the next, uh, onto the next gig.
0:16:43 Yeah.
0:16:48 So on a daily occurrence, it’s a one and done thing and onto the next gig, but we definitely
0:16:51 have a lot of recurring, um, customers.
0:16:57 Uh, we found that once we started doing some of the daycare locations, some of the larger
0:17:03 chain daycare locations, once you do one or two and get your foot in the door and you show
0:17:05 that you do a great job, the kids love it.
0:17:11 You’re easy to work with then, you know, it might not happen the same year, but the, the
0:17:16 following year, you know, if we had three of a chain daycare, then the next year we had
0:17:23 12 and, um, it just kind of snowballed in that way, especially with a lot of the larger daycares,
0:17:24 you know, we did a good job for them.
0:17:30 And, um, you know, the following year they would all rebook and then they would tell some of their
0:17:34 neighboring daycares of the same chain and they kind of snowballed in that way.
0:17:34 Okay.
0:17:35 Okay.
0:17:40 Now the other half of the business, I would say is birthday parties and block parties for
0:17:44 that we marketed with Facebook ads.
0:17:53 And, uh, also we, I posted a lot in every neighboring Facebook group that I could find, um, with, you
0:17:58 know, good pictures and an explanation of what a phone party is.
0:18:00 And there was a very positive response with that.
0:18:05 I even use my wife’s, maybe I shouldn’t say this on the air, but I use my wife’s Facebook
0:18:11 account to go into the mom’s pages and I would post from her account since, you know, they don’t
0:18:18 really always allow males to post, but since it was under my wife’s account, I was able to post.
0:18:23 So it would be like city name moms would be like an example of a group that would exist.
0:18:24 Exactly.
0:18:28 And there’s a lot of them for birthday parties, especially 98% of the time.
0:18:35 It’s the mom that is booking the party and the dad, when you get there is asking, are you going
0:18:36 to kill his grass?
0:18:38 But the mom books the party.
0:18:39 So that’s like the target market.
0:18:41 When I run ads, I run the ads to moms.
0:18:43 I really don’t run it to dads.
0:18:46 Yeah, it’s interesting.
0:18:51 We’re seeing all sorts of creative, you know, birthday party, like especially elementary school
0:18:51 age.
0:18:54 You can go to the bounce house place is a really popular one.
0:18:55 You go to the arcade.
0:18:59 We’ve had a couple where our kids have been invited to go.
0:19:01 It’s like a video game truck.
0:19:06 Like a guy shows up in his F-250 and behind it is like this pretty good size, like horse trailer,
0:19:11 but he’s got like a couch in there and like this wall of TVs and he’s got like every console
0:19:14 imaginable as like, it was a pretty cool setup.
0:19:19 And I don’t know how much it costs, but again, it’s like, you know, upfront cost for him in
0:19:24 the setup and then just, you know, do two, three parties a day and it’s slowly, you know, recoup
0:19:24 that.
0:19:28 And after a while, you know, so you maybe got to buy new games every now and again, after
0:19:29 a certain point, it’s all gravy.
0:19:29 Yeah.
0:19:30 I’ve heard of those too.
0:19:31 Those actually look cool.
0:19:35 I would love to check one of those out, but not my business, but it would be cool.
0:19:37 I think, uh, you know, my kids would love it.
0:19:41 The other one that somebody sent me this, it was like a Nerf party rental and it looked like
0:19:44 they were, you know, maybe they would do kids parties, but it was more like corporate team
0:19:49 building where we’re going to set up this like pretty intense, like, you know, with, uh, you
0:19:52 know, inflatable pylons and like almost like a paintball arena, but like, well, could it
0:19:53 come to you?
0:19:54 We’re going to have a Nerf war.
0:19:55 Yeah.
0:19:56 Those look fun too.
0:20:01 I saw this, a similar thing with almost like a Nerf war, but it was with water, water guns.
0:20:05 And somehow on the vest, it registered when you got shot with the water and a similar
0:20:06 type thing.
0:20:08 Oh, like a full on like laser tag type of setup.
0:20:09 Yeah.
0:20:10 I thought that was cool.
0:20:13 So yeah, people, uh, you know, people spend money on this stuff.
0:20:15 It’s an interesting place to play.
0:20:16 And, and I, I think you’re right.
0:20:17 Like, okay.
0:20:22 Especially if there’s a franchise or a chain daycare, well, I got my toe in the door with
0:20:22 this one.
0:20:27 And now you can see how that would snowball and you can see how it would turn into recurring
0:20:27 revenue.
0:20:31 We’ll come back for our field day next year and, and we’ll, you know,
0:20:32 reserve that almost in advance.
0:20:33 Well, let’s pencil you in.
0:20:33 Let’s get on the calendar.
0:20:34 Yeah.
0:20:38 It was, it was hard initially with some of the chain daycares to get in because a lot
0:20:41 of times there, you have to go through their corporate office.
0:20:45 You have to file certain paperwork and like nobody who seems to want to give the, you the
0:20:47 paperwork, they say, Oh, you’re not a registered vendor.
0:20:48 It’s like, Oh, I’ll be a registered vendor.
0:20:50 Just send me the paperwork.
0:20:50 Yeah.
0:20:50 Yeah.
0:20:51 Show me how to register.
0:20:52 Exactly.
0:20:56 So, but once you break through that and you get registered, then it’s like, okay, you know,
0:21:01 people see you do a good job and then it kind of has snowballed for us at least.
0:21:05 And we see the birthday party thing snowball word of mouth wise too, where it’s like the
0:21:06 kid goes to the phone party.
0:21:09 The kid goes to the video game truck rental party.
0:21:10 Well, I want that for my birthday.
0:21:10 Right.
0:21:14 And so this kind of like starts to, uh, starts to spread and then the moms text the other
0:21:17 moms to be like, well, who was the, you know, Timmy really wants the phone party.
0:21:19 You know, who, who did you use?
0:21:19 Yeah.
0:21:27 And in the end, I think really our best marketing is seeing our, our phone parties because, you
0:21:32 know, a lot of times you might see pictures and you might think, well, that’s kind of weird.
0:21:33 I don’t know that maybe that would be fun.
0:21:34 Maybe it wouldn’t.
0:21:39 But then if you see it and it’s kind of like, okay, that’s the kids are really enjoying this.
0:21:39 That’s pretty cool.
0:21:45 And then we have built into, uh, again, we hired a voiceover artist that does like a
0:21:46 promo for us.
0:21:50 Like, Hey, if you want to have your own phone party at a daycare or a school or a birthday
0:21:55 party, you come get a postcard or come get a business card from your phone party leader.
0:21:57 And, you know, and then the next song goes.
0:21:59 So that’s another way that we market.
0:22:04 This is just, it’s like built over the, over the loudspeakers, like into your party playlist.
0:22:05 Exactly.
0:22:08 Like a, you know, a 25 second commercial for our own business.
0:22:10 Uh, during the phone party.
0:22:15 Uh, and that usually drives, you know, several parents over to say, Hey, this is really cool.
0:22:17 Like how much do you charge or can you come to here?
0:22:20 Or so it’s, it’s, it’s been effective for sure.
0:22:23 Now, would you go, would you go all the way into Chicago?
0:22:26 It looks like you’re kind of out in the burbs a little bit, but if I, if I search phone
0:22:28 party Chicago, you’re there on the first page.
0:22:29 Yeah.
0:22:35 So we, we don’t go out to Chicago too much sometimes, but basically if, if we’re not booked around
0:22:37 us, then yes.
0:22:39 Uh, we do some like block parties out there.
0:22:40 Block parties are big.
0:22:41 To be honest with you.
0:22:46 I, I, I really need to change up my, our Google business profile and add Chicago in, but I’m,
0:22:47 I’m worried.
0:22:50 Cause I know sometimes if you change certain things, you can get suspended and I don’t want
0:22:51 that to happen.
0:22:52 Yeah.
0:22:55 Like expand the service area on the little map back.
0:22:55 Right.
0:22:57 So I’ve kind of been on the fence.
0:23:00 And if you don’t have to drive that far, like then that’s, that could be an advantage too.
0:23:04 If it’s a big enough party, like there’s a kid’s museum that we’re doing that’s like an hour
0:23:07 and a half away, but I mean, they’re doing four hours of multi-canon.
0:23:09 So it’s like, yeah, we’ll come to you for sure.
0:23:13 If it was a kid’s birthday up there, it would probably be, no, I can refer you to somebody else
0:23:15 that does phone parties in your area.
0:23:15 Got it.
0:23:20 Are you going to franchise the thing and go, go nationwide and be like, oh, I’ve got a, sure.
0:23:20 Yeah.
0:23:21 We’ve got a guy in that area.
0:23:25 There are a couple of places around the country that are starting to franchise their phone
0:23:26 party business.
0:23:28 I’m not planning to do that myself.
0:23:33 Still have the teaching job, but yeah, there are some that are starting to do that.
0:23:33 Fair enough.
0:23:35 That’s going to be the next private equity roll up.
0:23:37 So we’re going to acquire all these different companies.
0:23:38 HVAC and then phone parties.
0:23:39 Right.
0:23:40 That’ll be the next trendy thing.
0:23:41 I promise.
0:23:41 Yeah.
0:23:41 All right.
0:23:47 So Facebook ads, Facebook groups targeting the local neighborhood groups, the mom groups.
0:23:49 It is just kind of like an introductory post.
0:23:50 If you’re not already a member there.
0:23:54 Hey, we’re, I’m Tim, you know, I’m from this nearby town.
0:23:55 This is what we do.
0:23:57 You know, look at all these happy, smiling kids.
0:23:59 Is there any offer or call to action?
0:24:01 It’s more just kind of like, Hey, you know, if we’re here when you need us.
0:24:02 Yeah.
0:24:07 I don’t really do like an offer as in like a discount offer, but I usually just say, you
0:24:12 know, for party packages and info, go to our website and then kind of leads them there.
0:24:15 And then we have more information on our website.
0:24:17 And then if they have questions, they’ll usually email or call.
0:24:18 Yeah.
0:24:18 Got it.
0:24:23 Is there a like calendar availability, like for somebody to just click and book or it’s
0:24:25 like they go through like a request.
0:24:28 The pricing is on there, but like they got to fill out a form and there’s a little bit
0:24:31 of confirmation that needs to happen for the date availability.
0:24:35 We don’t have like an instant availability option.
0:24:41 We have a form to fill out with, you know, where the phone party is at, how many people
0:24:45 are going to be in attendance and, and things like that.
0:24:49 And then they send that to us, get it to my phone and email immediately.
0:24:54 I say on there that I’ll get back to you with, with availability within 24 hours.
0:24:56 It’s usually way quicker than that.
0:24:59 I, you know, try to set the bar low and beat that expectation.
0:25:01 And then they’re like, Oh, that was quick, you know?
0:25:05 But if we had a full calendar of when we’re available, especially in the beginning of
0:25:07 the season of like, wow, these people are always available.
0:25:09 They must not be too much in demand.
0:25:15 So, you know, which seems crazy, but it’s kind of a, something that people think about it.
0:25:15 Yeah, that’s fair.
0:25:16 I didn’t think about that.
0:25:21 And then sometimes it’s a little bit complicated with the schedule because now that we have nine
0:25:25 phone party setups, we could technically be doing nine phone parties at a time, but most
0:25:30 of the time we’ll have, you know, employee that’s not available that day, or you got to drive
0:25:33 from this party in the Southern suburbs to the Northern suburbs.
0:25:34 And you got to take all that into account.
0:25:37 So it’s hard to just make it a one size fits all calendar.
0:25:39 So I kind of do that manually.
0:25:41 Nine phone party setups.
0:25:44 More with Tim in just a moment, including how he’s grown his team.
0:25:46 So he doesn’t have to run every party by himself.
0:25:51 In the smart way, he was able to fund some of that new equipment coming up right after this.
0:25:54 Nine phone party setups.
0:25:56 So clearly there was demand for this.
0:26:00 And I imagine you started to get the inquiries where you need to be two places at once.
0:26:02 I’m turning down money here.
0:26:03 So there we go.
0:26:04 Buy setup number two, number three.
0:26:09 And you got to replicate yourself too, to go have somebody else deliver the experience.
0:26:10 Yeah.
0:26:15 And to be honest with you, I think replicating myself and learning to delegate as has been
0:26:18 one of the lessons that I wish I had learned initially.
0:26:22 Although at some point when you’re starting out, you don’t have the luxury of that.
0:26:26 You don’t necessarily have the money to pay people to do the actual phone party, the actual
0:26:27 job.
0:26:30 And you just need to be the jack of all trades.
0:26:37 Now I’m trying to still trying to work in progress, more so eliminate myself from the,
0:26:40 you know, regular birthday parties where we might have four or five at a time.
0:26:47 And I usually will only go to the larger multi-canon events unless I’m needed in an emergency or
0:26:47 something like that.
0:26:53 But, you know, I also have to man the phones and emails and, you know, invoices.
0:26:58 And if it rains on a Saturday and we have 10 parties, I’m going to be on the phone all day
0:27:02 because, you know, well, now it looks like 60% chance.
0:27:02 I don’t know.
0:27:03 Let’s keep you posted.
0:27:04 Okay.
0:27:07 Now in my area, it looks like 30% chance.
0:27:12 And, but, uh, you know, so it’s, it’s, uh, it luckily it doesn’t rain that often, but it
0:27:13 throws a wrench.
0:27:14 I didn’t even think about that.
0:27:17 It was just like, you just have to postpone or what do you, what do you do?
0:27:20 So you, you can do a phone party in the rain.
0:27:21 Don’t do it.
0:27:23 Obviously if it’s lightning anywhere in the area.
0:27:28 So we have a lightning apps where it alerts us if there’s lightning anywhere in the area.
0:27:32 It’s not fun for the person doing the phone party if it’s raining, but for the kids
0:27:35 they’re wet anyway, so they don’t, yeah, they don’t care generally seem to care.
0:27:41 Um, I would say a lot more people end up just doing the phone party in the rain as opposed
0:27:46 to rescheduling or canceling, especially with birthday parties, because they might not be
0:27:50 able to reschedule with, you know, invitations going out a month or two in advance.
0:27:52 So a lot of them will just say, let’s just do it.
0:27:57 And we go ahead with it as long as there’s no lightning or anything like that.
0:27:58 Yeah, that’s true.
0:27:58 Yeah.
0:28:01 It’s, it’s, you’re, you’re, you’re committed.
0:28:03 You’re up to like, you know, hope for good weather that day.
0:28:03 Yeah.
0:28:09 How long was it before you needed to expand to the second set, the third set and, and hire
0:28:10 additional team members?
0:28:15 I think I might’ve even gotten the third set up before we even did any parties because
0:28:21 it’s a very seasonal business around us, especially because we’re in, in the Midwest Chicago suburbs.
0:28:27 So it really doesn’t get warm enough to, to do a phone party until at least late April, even
0:28:29 then it’s kind of spotty depending on the day.
0:28:34 So, you know, when you start marketing in January, you kind of get a feel for, you know, how many
0:28:42 bookings you have and, and I realized that I need to just reinvest these, uh, deposits into
0:28:44 some more phone party equipment.
0:28:44 Oh, okay.
0:28:49 This is going back to some of the initial postcard mailings where they would, they would book it,
0:28:50 they would put down a deposit.
0:28:54 So you’re, you’re collecting some cashflow right away and then, okay, we’ll take the balance
0:28:57 upon delivery or, you know, a day of.
0:29:01 And so you could, you could pay that forward into like, oh, there’s clearly some demand here.
0:29:03 We’re getting multiple inquiries for the same day.
0:29:09 And I didn’t want to be stuck where, you know, turning away too many parties, which I mean,
0:29:16 as much as I try not to, it still happens for various reasons, but I tried to expand as quickly
0:29:20 as possible and to be able to keep up with the demand that I was seeing.
0:29:26 And it’s just kind of kept expanding, you know, for the last couple of years that I’ve been doing
0:29:26 it.
0:29:31 A lot of the people that run phone parties for us are teachers that I know since they
0:29:35 have summers off at, you know, the schedule aligns with their schedule.
0:29:41 And then sometimes college students that are home for even a larger timeframe than the teachers
0:29:41 are.
0:29:42 So.
0:29:42 Okay.
0:29:43 Yeah.
0:29:44 Here’s, here’s a fun summer job.
0:29:46 Come hang out at this phone party, be the DJ for a little bit.
0:29:47 And it is fun.
0:29:49 I’ll be, I mean, I love running the party still.
0:29:53 I try to step back from doing as many as I did last year.
0:29:59 I did almost a hundred myself, which I, again, I enjoy it, but I have three young kids at home
0:30:02 and I also have to answer the phones, emails and everything.
0:30:06 So more of a, you know, work on your business, not in your business type of thing.
0:30:12 I feel like I’m best served to just train the people that are running the phone parties and
0:30:14 try to step back from doing as many myself.
0:30:15 Yeah.
0:30:16 And it’s great.
0:30:19 It’s not, you know, phone parties by Tim, it’s phone party all-stars, right?
0:30:23 So you have set it up in such a way where you don’t need to be there.
0:30:29 And I imagine most of the people calling don’t, don’t expect the owner of the business to show
0:30:29 up.
0:30:32 They expect you to have a team in place or a team member come and do it.
0:30:32 Yeah.
0:30:37 Unless they had me the first year where I did, you know, a majority of them almost not a
0:30:42 majority, but a large, large chunk than they might, but no, I think people understand and
0:30:43 it’s gone well.
0:30:47 I’ve met a lot of great people and you know, there’s been ups and downs.
0:30:53 We’ve had a couple of events where the foam cannon broke and it was no fault of ours,
0:30:57 but you know, it’s, it’s not a good feeling when you’re, you know, you have the countdown.
0:30:58 All right.
0:30:58 Are you ready?
0:31:01 Five, four, three, two.
0:31:05 And then just, oh no, like nothing comes out.
0:31:08 Like, oh boy, kids are chanting.
0:31:09 We want foam.
0:31:12 That’s, it’s not a good feeling for that reason.
0:31:17 I usually bring a whole backup set in my own car just in case, but it’s happened a couple
0:31:17 of times.
0:31:20 And I don’t know, six, 600 plus parties that we’ve done.
0:31:22 So right, right.
0:31:23 Have some backup and redundancy.
0:31:25 If you’ve got two, you got one.
0:31:26 If you got one, you got none.
0:31:27 But yeah, that’s okay.
0:31:28 Time out.
0:31:29 Put a pause in that.
0:31:30 We’ll be, just give me 15 minutes.
0:31:32 We’ll set up the other one and we’re good to go.
0:31:33 Yeah.
0:31:33 Yeah.
0:31:36 I’m going to run my car or just have it with you.
0:31:40 But yeah, it’s happened a couple of times, not fun, but the people have been, twice it
0:31:42 was at a daycare and they were very understanding.
0:31:47 I was just like, you know what, I’m just, I’m going to, can we find a day for me to come back
0:31:49 and I will, I will do it for free.
0:31:53 Cause this is obviously, you know, don’t want to do anything for free, but inconvenience
0:31:54 them.
0:31:54 Yeah.
0:31:58 But you got to preserve that reputation and keep customers happy.
0:32:02 That’s one of the things that I’ve noticed here is like dozens and dozens of, you know,
0:32:04 positive five-star reviews for foam party all-stars.
0:32:10 You do anything specific or proactive to collect those after a, a party gone well?
0:32:16 Um, you know, I just send, uh, an email, uh, which I should also be sending texts to be
0:32:18 honest with you, but I, I send a email.
0:32:21 Thank you for having a phone party with foam party all-stars.
0:32:26 If you felt you had a five-star experience, you know, please click this link and leave us
0:32:26 a review.
0:32:32 If you have any, I don’t phrase it this way, but if any negative feedback, you know, please
0:32:35 email the owner, Tim at this email and, or call.
0:32:39 And we’ve really only had one that got back to me and said, Hey, I wanted to say some, there
0:32:41 was some stuff that I wanted, wasn’t a hundred percent happy with.
0:32:44 And it was good because I was glad that they brought it to my attention.
0:32:49 That was one that one of my workers was doing and I would never have known, uh, it was nothing
0:32:54 major, but just, you know, it’s good to be able to give feedback to the, uh, the worker,
0:32:57 even though I’m not there and I didn’t get a negative review out of it.
0:32:58 Yeah.
0:33:01 I can collect some, if you felt you had a five-star experience, here’s what you can do.
0:33:02 Yeah, exactly.
0:33:03 Exactly.
0:33:07 And if you have some constructive criticism, um, we’d, we’d, we’d love to hear it too.
0:33:07 Exactly.
0:33:08 Cause that’s, that’s how we get better.
0:33:09 All right.
0:33:13 So we have several different varieties of foam parties.
0:33:16 Sounds like most of the time we’ve got other people going out to deliver those.
0:33:19 Now the website says we could accommodate up to a thousand participants.
0:33:20 That’s a lot of foam.
0:33:22 Is that all nine cannons going at once?
0:33:23 Well, now we can.
0:33:24 Yeah.
0:33:25 I mean, we, yeah, probably.
0:33:31 And that, that would be more so for like a community event or festival, which, you know,
0:33:35 we’ve partnered with a few neighboring towns and, and done community events that are, that
0:33:36 are larger.
0:33:41 Uh, we’ve also a lot of fun runs that either through an elementary school or a park district.
0:33:46 Some of those get pretty large where we are bringing a lot of cannons to those.
0:33:51 And then the kind of the niche glow foam, different colors of foam we can do.
0:33:56 And then, uh, even have gender reveal on there, which we don’t get a lot of interest for.
0:33:59 Uh, I should probably just take it off the website, but definitely intriguing.
0:34:04 And I think it would be cool, but it’s, it’s a lot of money for colored foam for your gender
0:34:04 reveal.
0:34:11 Well, I saw one the other day was like college bed parties, which was not what I thought it
0:34:12 was going to be.
0:34:17 Once I clicked on it, it was like you decorating your bed with like a blanket for the school
0:34:21 that you got accepted into and a bunch of pillows and sweatshirts and stuff.
0:34:27 And it’s like, Oh, could you blast off cannons in, in purple and gold for, for Washington
0:34:27 Huskies or something?
0:34:32 Maybe the gender reveal thing, maybe there is a something to that or, or something similar.
0:34:34 I saw that same thing actually.
0:34:40 And there’s also along a similar vein of bedding, but, uh, there’s like kids sleepover parties
0:34:45 now where they set up like elaborate tents and set up, I think mostly indoor, but I think
0:34:46 might be outdoor too.
0:34:51 And like a company actually comes out and decorates it with your theme and, you know,
0:34:52 Taylor Swift sleepover.
0:34:54 And I mean, it’s kind of amazing.
0:34:55 Yeah.
0:34:55 Yeah.
0:34:55 Yeah.
0:34:55 Yeah.
0:34:58 It’s like a party in a box, like a prepackaged type of thing.
0:34:59 Yeah, definitely.
0:35:04 I mean, one of the risks be like, well, is this just a, do I go in all in on this business
0:35:07 that like happens to be a, an 18 month fad and then it’s over?
0:35:12 Like, do you see any of that with, with phone parties or is it like, yeah, I think this is
0:35:12 here to stay.
0:35:13 You know what?
0:35:15 I’ve always had that in the back of my mind, especially starting now.
0:35:18 Like I was kind of skeptical, like, is this really going to be a thing?
0:35:21 But it honestly seems to be picking up traction.
0:35:27 I have more competitors now, definitely, which honestly I’m on good, good terms.
0:35:31 And we actually refer parties to each other if we’re fully booked, you know, if I know they
0:35:32 do a good job.
0:35:32 Yeah.
0:35:34 Caught it on the upswing.
0:35:34 Yeah.
0:35:39 So a lot more competitors, but our sales are still going up from where we were last year,
0:35:40 which went up from the year before.
0:35:43 So I would say it’s definitely a growing trend.
0:35:47 And I know I don’t want to knock on bounce house, but I’m an elementary school teacher
0:35:49 and our district, we can’t even do bounce houses anymore.
0:35:52 There was an injury at another school or something like that.
0:35:56 So a lot, a lot of daycares are the same way where they’re risk management.
0:35:59 I mean, people say that phone parties are fine, but bounce houses are not.
0:36:01 Honestly, I think both are safe, but that’s just me.
0:36:03 Yeah.
0:36:05 The insurance for the bounce house thing was too expensive.
0:36:07 What’s insurance costs for phone parties?
0:36:08 Yeah.
0:36:08 It’s not bad.
0:36:10 Just for a 1 million, 2 million policy.
0:36:14 It was, I want to say about 12, 1300 bucks.
0:36:15 It’s not too bad.
0:36:16 It’s like an annual premium.
0:36:17 Right.
0:36:18 Yeah.
0:36:19 We can tolerate that.
0:36:20 We can make that back in a few parties.
0:36:21 Absolutely.
0:36:21 Yeah.
0:36:23 That’s, that’s reasonable.
0:36:27 The 5,000 for the bounce houses, that was a little much, but.
0:36:28 Right.
0:36:34 I mean, it’s all, it’s all kind of this equation of, well, what’s my pathway to break even here?
0:36:39 And I love the, we’re going to make some investment in marketing in these postcards, but we’re going
0:36:40 to collect the deposit up front.
0:36:44 Even if it’s going to be several months, we can use the deposits to buy the equipment or pay
0:36:49 for the equipment and kind of a creative way to, to go about it and see if there’s any,
0:36:50 any demand here.
0:36:54 Well, I mean, especially starting out, you know, my wife and I both have W2 jobs.
0:36:55 We’re doing fine.
0:37:00 So for me, it was more like, you know what, if I see the opportunity here, I need to go,
0:37:02 you know, strike while the iron is hot type of thing.
0:37:07 You know, I need to expand as quickly as I can.
0:37:11 And I don’t want to hold back, you know, just because I don’t want to spend the money
0:37:13 if I know that we’ll make money on the back end.
0:37:16 Have you gotten the kids involved in the business at all?
0:37:21 So my kids are, uh, my youngest turned four, so four, five, and seven.
0:37:26 So they have been to a ton of phone parties, but it’s funny.
0:37:27 They still like it.
0:37:31 And like, I’ve, they’ve done at least 20 because every time, you know, it’s like, Hey, uh, you
0:37:34 know, the girl scout troops coming over, let’s do a phone party.
0:37:37 Um, my, my wife’s like, Hey, they haven’t done a phone party before.
0:37:39 Let’s bring the baseball team over.
0:37:40 And it’s like, yeah, sure.
0:37:40 No problem.
0:37:42 But they still enjoy it.
0:37:47 So to me, it’s like, maybe this has some staying power if they’ve done this so many times and
0:37:48 they still like it.
0:37:49 So, okay.
0:37:49 Yeah.
0:37:54 They’re a little bit young to hire them to run the DJ booth or set up the equipment, but
0:37:59 it’s cool that they’re exposed to this, uh, entrepreneurial side of mom and dad.
0:38:00 Yeah.
0:38:00 Not quite yet.
0:38:05 I need to talk to my accountant about, you know, can I start up a, uh, Roth IRA for them,
0:38:08 you know, type of thing, but we’ll see.
0:38:08 Yeah.
0:38:12 You know, a couple of years, it’d be hauling equipment for you and yeah, absolutely.
0:38:13 Get them paid.
0:38:13 Yeah.
0:38:17 I mean, they’re in some of the promotional pictures since, you know, I’ve done a lot of
0:38:18 phone parties with them.
0:38:22 So I think it would probably be legal, but I need to consult with my accountant.
0:38:24 Yes.
0:38:26 Child modeling contracts, licensing rights, usage rights.
0:38:27 Exactly.
0:38:28 Exactly.
0:38:28 Yeah.
0:38:31 We’re going to do social media for you and maybe there is something to that.
0:38:37 Any big surprises along the way or, you know, you know, disaster stories aside from the things
0:38:39 not working, but anything else that stands out?
0:38:45 It’s been surprising and this isn’t maybe not the best answer, but just the amount of great
0:38:46 people that I’ve met along the way.
0:38:48 I didn’t think it would be that way.
0:38:51 I thought it would be like a lot more negative experiences.
0:38:58 And when things have gone wrong, people have been very understanding and I didn’t expect
0:38:58 that.
0:39:03 I thought it would be more cutthroat type thing, but I’ve definitely learned a mistake that I’ve
0:39:07 definitely learned is the old adage, like hire slow, fire fast.
0:39:13 I’ve come to find out not through many people that have worked for me, but just a couple that,
0:39:19 you know, if somebody’s, you know, showing when they first take the job that they’re not doing
0:39:24 things the right way, not showing up on time or there are any kind of issues, you need
0:39:25 to take care of that right away.
0:39:31 Otherwise, it could have the potential to kind of take your brand down with you and your company
0:39:31 will suffer.
0:39:35 That was definitely, you know, an issue, especially the first year.
0:39:39 Again, that kind of led to me as the owner stepping in and doing a lot more parties than
0:39:46 I probably should have needed to, but you got to kind of rescue things if, if nobody else
0:39:46 is available.
0:39:46 Yeah.
0:39:52 It’s on you to pick up the slack, but yeah, if, if people aren’t performing early on, given
0:39:56 the guidelines and the expectations, like you have to think like the first couple of weeks
0:39:57 on the job is going to be their best foot forward.
0:40:01 If it’s not going well, it’s like, oh, how are they going to be in three months?
0:40:02 Exactly.
0:40:05 Don’t think that they’re going to turn it all around.
0:40:08 Like if there’s, I mean, obviously give them a chance.
0:40:09 Mistakes happen.
0:40:15 However, if you see some pattern of something, you need to cut ties quickly.
0:40:19 You know, otherwise, you know, that with a new business, one bad Google review.
0:40:20 Now we haven’t really had any, luckily.
0:40:21 Yeah.
0:40:24 So it’s like, it’s super fragile early on, right?
0:40:25 It’s like the reputation is everything.
0:40:28 You end up getting somebody upset.
0:40:28 Exactly.
0:40:34 Is there a revenue target you’re shooting for this season or where, where do you want
0:40:34 to take this thing?
0:40:38 Is it, does it become a full-time thing aside from the teaching gig?
0:40:38 Definitely.
0:40:44 We’re going to try to hit 200,000 this year, which is cool.
0:40:47 I mean, especially because it’s basically May through end of September.
0:40:51 So it’s kind of jam packed in just a few months.
0:40:52 Yeah, that’s great.
0:40:56 I think we should be able to get there, but that’s the goal for revenue side.
0:41:02 And then while simultaneously trying to kind of remove myself from doing as many of the
0:41:03 day-to-day parties.
0:41:06 So those are my, my main goals for, for foam this year.
0:41:11 I’ll probably keep doing both jobs for at least the foreseeable future and then just kind
0:41:12 of see where we’re at.
0:41:16 The one thing that could cause me to step back from one or the other, just my kids are getting
0:41:21 to the age where they’re starting to be in t-ball, soccer, dance classes.
0:41:25 And I want to make sure that I’m there to be able to see all of that.
0:41:30 I don’t want to be the dad that is off to work instead of seeing all their, their things.
0:41:30 Right.
0:41:31 Yeah.
0:41:34 You’re like, that was, that was the whole point of this to have extra time freedom down the
0:41:34 road.
0:41:35 Right.
0:41:39 So that’s where the kind of the rubber meets the road with that decision with me, but for
0:41:42 the foreseeable future, going to keep doing both.
0:41:47 It’s definitely challenging to, to balance both with the young kids, but doing the best I can.
0:41:48 Yeah.
0:41:52 I think it’s really cool what you’ve built in the example that you set and saying, well,
0:41:54 my income doesn’t have to be fixed.
0:41:59 You know, we could start this thing on the side and, and grow it in a kind of organic and
0:42:00 low risk way.
0:42:02 So I’m pretty excited by that.
0:42:05 So foam party, all stars.com is where you can find Tim.
0:42:09 If you’re in the Chicago area, go book him for a party, do him a favor.
0:42:10 Foam party, all stars.com.
0:42:14 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:42:19 If you see an opportunity to open a business, go do it.
0:42:25 Sometimes I think I am sort of a paralysis by analysis type of person, although it might
0:42:29 not seem like it from when I said that I keep kept reinvesting in the business.
0:42:33 But if you see the opportunity to open a business, go do it.
0:42:39 There are so many resources, whether it be listening to people on side hustle nation that have already,
0:42:44 you know, entered the same niche or Facebook groups where people are running the same type
0:42:46 of business or YouTube videos.
0:42:52 There’s a YouTube video to describe how to do every step of opening a business.
0:42:55 I have no formal background of business.
0:43:01 You know, I’ve sold on eBay and Amazon a little bit, but, and I was able to learn everything that
0:43:04 I needed to know, obviously with some trial and error along the way.
0:43:07 But if you see an opportunity, definitely take it.
0:43:12 Well, I think it’s a really cool case study on the marketing side, going back to your 700
0:43:13 postcards, right?
0:43:18 We talk about, you know, the dream 100 strategy was like, well, and some people kind of struggle.
0:43:18 Well, I don’t know.
0:43:20 I don’t know who my dream 100 customers would be.
0:43:26 You were able to come up with 700 potential customers within a, whatever, 35 mile radius.
0:43:29 It’s like, they’re out there and they don’t know you exist yet.
0:43:32 So you got to go get on their radar and be front and center about it.
0:43:34 And I thought that was really cool.
0:43:40 And then the other takeaway that I wrote down was kind of intentionally be the business owner
0:43:40 here.
0:43:45 And you’re going to have to go in and pick up the slack if something falls through, but like
0:43:51 trying to, from early on, hire other people to go deliver the product to be on the fulfillment
0:43:52 side.
0:43:57 So you can be the marketing arm, the administrative arm that you need to be to kind of position
0:44:02 the brand and move it forward and go out and, you know, land bigger and bigger events and
0:44:03 continue to grow that way.
0:44:04 So I think it’s really cool.
0:44:06 Again, phonepartyallstars.com.
0:44:07 You can find Tim over there.
0:44:11 Your free listener bonus this week is my local marketing checklist.
0:44:15 We talked about a few local marketing ideas inside this checklist.
0:44:20 You’ll find 10 proven ideas to get more lead flow to your local business.
0:44:24 You can download it there for free at the show notes for this episode, sidehustlenation.com
0:44:30 slash Tim, which is shocking after 650 episodes that Tim was available.
0:44:30 I don’t know.
0:44:31 I’m sure we’ve had another Tim, but who knows?
0:44:36 Sidehustlenation.com slash Tim, or just follow the show notes link in the episode description.
0:44:37 It’ll get you right over there.
0:44:40 Big thanks to Tim for sharing his insight.
0:44:44 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:44:49 Sidehustlenation.com slash deals is where you’ll find all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:44:50 in one place.
0:44:51 That is it for me.
0:44:53 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:44:57 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:45:02 Fire off that text message to that friend of yours who might appreciate a little money-making
0:45:03 phone party in their day.
0:45:07 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen, and I’ll catch you in the
0:45:09 next edition of the Side Hustle Show.

0:00:06 Hey, real quick, this week only is the annual BC Stack Bundle Sale. It’s your chance to get over
0:00:11 60 products related to growing your business for less than a dollar each. The theme this year is
0:00:17 scale. How to get more traffic, viewers, listeners, customers, and ultimately sales and profit in your
0:00:22 business. And it’s a chance to get my all new SMASH workshop training for half off. SMASH stands for
0:00:28 scale, my awesome side hustle. Plus you get access to the 60 plus other BC Stack products as a bonus
0:00:33 if you want to look at it that way. The SMASH training covers the three levers you can pull
0:00:38 to scale your business. Tactics I’ve picked up over the last 12 years, over the last 650 plus
0:00:44 episodes of the side hustle show. But in addition to that, you’ve got resources on digital products,
0:00:51 AI, email marketing, social media, YouTube and video, paid ads, SEO, and tons more. I order this
0:00:55 thing every year. I always pick up a few new ideas to test out. Make sure to order today through my
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0:01:07 because doing so makes your purchase 100% refundable through the Side Hustle Nation satisfaction guarantee
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0:01:19 Stack for a great bundle of products on how to grow your business. But you got to hurry because this offer
0:01:26 ends June 7th at midnight central. Check it out today. SideHustleNation.com slash BC Stack.
0:01:31 And now on to the show. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show
0:01:36 Greatest Hits Collection. What’s up? What’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because
0:01:43 you are the CEO of your own life. In this episode, you’re going to meet Jane Havens who went from being a
0:01:48 quote, bored stay-at-home mom to running a multi-six-figure business in just a few short years.
0:01:53 Jane, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to chat with you
0:01:57 today. Well, me as well. This is kind of a two-for-one episode because we’re going to learn
0:02:04 about starting a service business from scratch. In Jane’s case, that’s TheSnoozeFest.com. I love
0:02:09 that domain name where she helps babies and toddlers sleep through the night or maybe more accurately
0:02:13 helps parents with their babies and toddlers sleeping through the night. Definitely a big
0:02:18 pain point for moms and dads everywhere. That business started earning thousands of dollars
0:02:24 a month. That’s pretty cool. And then part two in the two-part episode is the addition of an online
0:02:30 course component teaching other people how to do what she did. So stick around in this one to learn
0:02:35 how she’s grown both sides of this thing and how you can borrow some of the same tactics in your own
0:02:42 business. Notes and links for this episode are at SideHustleNation.com slash Jane. It’s J-A-Y-N-E.
0:02:48 While you’re there, make sure to download my free list of 101 service business ideas that you might be able
0:02:55 to apply some of Jane’s same strategies to and get those creative juices flowing. So Jane, 65 grand in
0:03:01 your first year. Tell me about the service that you decided to offer and how you found customer number one.
0:03:09 I launched my business just a few years ago. Prior to becoming a sleep consultant, I worked in catering
0:03:16 sales before I had kids. So I had a bit of a sales background, but when my son was born, I decided that
0:03:23 I wanted to stay home with him. I loved being a stay-at-home mom, but after a few years, actually,
0:03:28 it was around the time that my daughter was born, about four years later, I was sort of feeling burnt out
0:03:36 from the stay-at-home mom life and was really itching to have something to exercise my brain
0:03:44 and to just like get the creative juices flowing again. So I decided sort of on a whim to get my
0:03:49 certification to work as a sleep consultant. This was something that I happened to be really good at
0:03:55 with my own kids. I got both my kids sleeping through the night at a pretty early age. And I was
0:04:01 always sort of the one that friends would come to asking for advice. They wanted to know how to get
0:04:08 their kids to sleep through the night. And frankly, it was really just a hobby of mine for years. What I
0:04:13 thought was going to be just sort of a passion project, something to keep me busy while I was caring for my two
0:04:19 young kids, really turned into a pretty legit business pretty quickly, which was exciting.
0:04:25 And where did I find my first client? In a Facebook group. You know, there are tons of moms’ Facebook
0:04:31 groups, either based on location or hobbies or interests. And I was just sort of lurking around
0:04:38 in Facebook groups. And I would hear parents complaining or seeking advice regarding their children’s sleep.
0:04:45 And I would just chime in and sort of answer their question is really what I did. I would answer their
0:04:50 question, provide a ton of really solid advice, and then also let them know that I was a professional
0:04:56 in this field and that I could help them one-on-one if they were seeking that type of support.
0:05:03 I didn’t know there was such thing as a baby whisperer certification, sleep consulting certification.
0:05:09 Do you think that was important for, you know, building credibility or your own confidence?
0:05:15 I asked myself the same question. I was really well-read in this topic because I had two kids of
0:05:21 my own. I worked really hard to get them sleeping. And part of me felt like, why do I even need to
0:05:26 take a certification course? Is this really necessary? Can I just do, I’m already doing it. Can I just
0:05:31 charge for it? You know, that thought definitely crossed my mind, but I do think that it was really
0:05:38 important to take a course for a few reasons. One, it sort of put me in the position to take myself
0:05:44 more seriously and to have confidence that I was trained, I was qualified, and I was a professional
0:05:50 in this field rather than just sort of winging it. I also think that there’s a lot to be learned.
0:05:56 Even if you think you know everything, there’s always more to be learned. Just in my case in particular,
0:06:01 my two kids, I taught them to sleep independently when they were about three or four months old,
0:06:07 and they have been solid sleepers ever since. I never personally struggled with an 18-month-old
0:06:14 trying to climb out of a crib or a three-year-old that wanted a parent to stay next to them while falling
0:06:19 asleep. These were things that I knew that other families struggled with, but I had personally never
0:06:25 gone through them. So it was really valuable to have the education to prepare me to support families
0:06:29 that had been through other struggles that I personally had never gone through.
0:06:35 Okay. Yeah, I like that. Combining something that people were already asking you questions about,
0:06:38 something that you’d gone through yourself, but not the full spectrum of it. It’s not like you were
0:06:42 struggling with this for years and years and years. So it’s like, okay, there are other
0:06:49 challenges that potential customers might know about. And then this investment in your own training,
0:06:56 education and saying, okay, and I imagine from the perspective of a prospective client to, I mean,
0:07:01 if you’re comparing, you know, two potential service providers to potential sleep consultants in this
0:07:06 case, like, yeah, all this being equal, I’ll take the one who did the certification training. I don’t
0:07:11 know. So that makes, that makes sense as a prospective customer, that little badge of approval or seal of
0:07:18 approval would, would make some sense. The next thing that you mentioned was I was in these mom’s
0:07:22 Facebook groups and people were asking questions or complaining about the kids sleeping. And so it’s
0:07:27 kind of just, you know, slowly raising your hand and saying, Hey, well, have you, have you tried this?
0:07:32 Have you, you know, what, what’s working? What’s not working? Kind of Q and A. Is that how the
0:07:33 conversation started?
0:07:39 The way I always approach it is I wanted to establish myself as an authority within these
0:07:44 communities. So when I was first getting my business off the ground, I really spent time just
0:07:51 making my name known. I wasn’t necessarily trying to land clients right off the bat. I just wanted
0:07:58 people to trust me. So I was providing a ton of really solid advice. You know, if somebody was posting
0:08:03 that their eight month old was up every 45 minutes and they were losing their mind and they just didn’t
0:08:11 know what to do, I would chime in and say, hi, I am a certified sleep consultant. I specialize in both
0:08:18 infant and toddler sleep. My guess is that your eight month old is waking up hourly because they don’t know
0:08:24 how to fall asleep independently. And when a baby doesn’t know how to fall asleep independently, then
0:08:28 they’re not properly positioned to fall back to sleep independently, which leads to multiple wake
0:08:33 ups throughout the night. You know, my suggestion would be to teach your child how to fall asleep
0:08:38 independently so that they are better positioned to do that work in the middle of the night when
0:08:43 they briefly rouse. If you’d like some guidance and support through this process, reach out to me,
0:08:49 you know, here’s my website. Here’s a direct link to schedule a free 15 minute phone call.
0:08:55 That little calendar, which I think you use as well is my lifeline. So, you know, giving people access
0:09:02 to reach out to me if they wanted it while also providing a ton of really valuable free advice,
0:09:08 I think is what made people trust me and, and want to reach out to me and hire me.
0:09:12 Okay. Yeah. It sounds like you have posted this dozens and dozens of times. You got the script down.
0:09:18 I like this part about introducing yourself as a certified sleep consultant, like just coming in,
0:09:23 you know, to rise above the noise that might happen inside of a parenting Facebook group,
0:09:27 like where everybody’s just throwing opinions at you. It’s like, okay, that one little line
0:09:32 establishing some authority and then going into the advice and then the call to action for the
0:09:38 free 15 minute consult at the end. That works. Do you ever like find yourself posting proactively?
0:09:42 Like, you know, would that be allowed? Would that be considered spammy today? Like, here’s the
0:09:48 top five tips that you need to know at the top of the group, or I don’t know if that type of post
0:09:49 would get any sort of engagement.
0:09:53 When I was first getting started, all the Facebook groups sort of have different rules.
0:09:59 Some allow a little bit of self-promotion. Others definitely don’t. I did reach out to a lot of
0:10:05 admins of Facebook groups that I was active in. And I would ask some of them, Hey, would it be okay
0:10:11 if I did maybe a monthly free Q and a for your community? You know, maybe I would just introduce
0:10:18 myself as a certified sleep consultant. And on the first Wednesday of every month, I will be here for
0:10:25 an hour to answer everybody’s questions. So I did that for a little bit. I definitely think that it helped
0:10:31 again to build authority. I don’t know how many clients came from that, but it was good just sort of
0:10:37 word of mouth and name recognition. So, you know, I don’t regret spending that time doing that, but I don’t
0:10:41 really do much of that anymore, to be honest. Yeah. I can see people do, I mean, it’s the more
0:10:47 times people see your name and then they associate that with sleep consulting, the better, right? It’s
0:10:54 all little touch points to establish credibility. And we’ve seen some examples really of people doing
0:11:00 similar things in like entrepreneurial Facebook groups. For example, one example that I always point
0:11:06 to is Steve Stewart in the podcast editing space and specifically the podcast editing for personal
0:11:12 finance podcasts, like inside of the FinCon community. Anytime there was a podcasting question,
0:11:17 either he would, you know, be on top of it, he would respond right away or people couldn’t rush to tag him
0:11:21 fast enough. Oh, this is a question for Steve, right? And so he became really well known through that
0:11:27 community for as being the go-to guy for that thing. And I imagine the same thing happens over time
0:11:33 in these different groups as well. Did you start out locally or you’re like, I’m going nationwide,
0:11:40 baby. I’m going to like, try to find these huge moms groups. It was easiest to establish authority in my
0:11:46 own local Facebook groups because I had plenty of friends and family members and just extended
0:11:53 network connections that were quick to tag me in sleep related posts. But I definitely expanded beyond
0:12:00 just my own local mom’s Facebook groups and joined some larger communities. And, you know,
0:12:06 it took a little bit longer to gain that authority in those groups where I didn’t have as many
0:12:11 connections within those communities. But after time, you know, after some time, what ends up happening
0:12:17 is people that don’t even know me personally have never even worked with me, are used to seeing my name,
0:12:23 just like you said, about sleep related posts and they just tag me. So yeah, over time, I was able
0:12:28 to build some credibility and authority within other communities outside of my own local space.
0:12:35 Did you give any thought to, well, is this something that people pay money for like competitive analysis
0:12:41 wise, like who else is out there? What are they charging? What’s the, I mean, the market size is
0:12:46 potentially huge. Like any, any parent with young kids, like, okay, that’s a huge market, but how to
0:12:51 say like, is this something that people pay money for? I knew that people were paying money for it.
0:12:59 I didn’t invent the idea. You know, when I decided to get my certification, I quickly Googled, you know,
0:13:05 sleep consultant certification courses and a few names popped up and I researched them a little bit.
0:13:09 You know, you can’t, you can’t really tell from a website, like how big are these companies,
0:13:14 how many people are really enrolled in these programs. It was hard to tell, but you know,
0:13:19 I knew I wasn’t the first one out there doing this. I knew that people were paying for this service
0:13:25 and I just needed to decide, you know, what I was going to charge for this service and what my services
0:13:31 were actually going to look like because they didn’t necessarily need to look like what everybody
0:13:36 else was doing. My pricing didn’t necessarily need to be the same. And my, my offer didn’t necessarily
0:13:37 need to be the same.
0:13:39 How much were you charging early on?
0:13:48 So early on, I was charging $425 for a two week consultation, which might sound really low
0:13:53 to somebody that doesn’t understand what we do. And it is a little low. I’ve, I’ve since raised my
0:13:59 pricing, but the way that we support families, at least for me, I find that if I set my clients up for
0:14:06 success on the front end, which looks like a really thorough, well-written sleep plan, a phone call to
0:14:13 answer all of their questions, those two things set up my clients for success. So I’m not talking to them
0:14:18 all day for two weeks, you know? So I write this plan, I get on a 30 minute call, and then they have
0:14:23 text message support from me for two weeks with a wrap up phone call at the end. All in all, most of my
0:14:30 clients really only require about an hour and a half to two hours worth of work. You know, it’s 45
0:14:35 minutes maybe to write the plan, two 30 minute phone calls, and then some like sporadic text message
0:14:41 support. So what I found is that I really can support a lot of families at once and really build a pretty
0:14:48 substantial income. You know, at one point I was supporting 25, 30 families a month, which I’ve
0:14:54 since scaled back. But you know, you can make good money charging four or five hundred dollars doing
0:14:59 that. More with Jane in just a moment, including how she generates referrals and word of mouth to deal
0:15:04 with the inevitable client turnover in a service like this, and how your hourly rate can improve over
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0:17:44 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out was this idea of
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0:18:54 Yeah. And so they kind of graduate out of the consultation after this two weeks, or do you find
0:18:55 people renew after that?
0:19:02 Very few families need to renew. Most of my clients that have infants were totally done in two weeks. And
0:19:07 then my clients that have older children, sometimes it’s a little bit of a longer process, but I still
0:19:12 find that most of them are ready to be wrapped up. Even if they have more work to be done on their end,
0:19:17 I’ve given them the tools in those two weeks that they don’t really need me anymore. They just,
0:19:21 they know what they need to do and they just need to keep doing that work to get to the finish line.
0:19:28 Okay. So it’s kind of this, at least on the consulting side, this constant hunt for new
0:19:33 business. Cause it’s like, well, if a client only lasts two weeks, then I gotta, I gotta go back to
0:19:34 the drawing board to find the next client kind of a thing.
0:19:40 Yeah. So that’s true. But what I find is that all of my clients are really coming to me by way of
0:19:46 referral. I’m really, I’m changing lives out there right now. You know, parents come to me sort of at
0:19:53 rock bottom. They’re so desperate for sleep. They’re so exhausted. They’re delirious. And in two
0:19:58 weeks, I, I turned their life around. You know, people tell me that I saved their marriage. People
0:20:03 tell me that their children are, their behavior has completely changed, that they enjoy their children
0:20:12 more. So this really rapid, amazing results leads to them sort of singing my praises from the rooftops.
0:20:19 And most of my clients come to me by way of hearing my name through a former client of mine.
0:20:25 So I’m not really out there hunting for business. I was in the beginning when I first, when I first
0:20:30 got started, I definitely was out there hunting for business. But at this point, it’s sort of like
0:20:36 every single day I get an email or a text message or a phone call from somebody that got my name
0:20:43 from a former client. Yeah. Parents tend to know other parents and the word of mouth starts to
0:20:49 spread. One other thing on the, on the pricing or the consulting side, and that’s you, I’m writing up
0:20:57 this plan, but I imagine by this point, you’ve seen just about every scenario or every, you know, sleep
0:21:03 related problem. And so it’s like, there’s probably a template that you can, you know, dust off from,
0:21:08 Oh, I had somebody, you know, on the other side of the country, you know, last month who was dealing
0:21:13 with the same thing. So we can just apply this. And so that makes it even faster to deliver.
0:21:20 Absolutely. I’ve supported so many families at this point that actually when a new client comes in,
0:21:27 maybe it’ll be, you know, baby Eli and he’s four months old and I’ve already worked with three Eli’s
0:21:32 that are four months old. So, you know, you know, the details might be a little bit different. Maybe
0:21:38 the first Eli was sleeping in a snoo and the second Eli is sleeping in a crib and the first Eli uses a
0:21:45 pacifier and the second Eli doesn’t. So I need to make sure that all of the details are specific to
0:21:50 the family that I’m supporting, but yeah, I’m not, I’m not reinventing the wheel. I’m not starting from
0:21:55 scratch every once in a while, a situation comes my way that I feel like is a little bit unique.
0:22:00 And I do have to start a little bit from scratch. And that actually throws me for a loop at this
0:22:04 point because it’s so rare. Okay. No, but that’s, I wanted to highlight that just because like, okay,
0:22:10 the, the hourly rate becomes a lot better as you go forward. And as you have kind of more,
0:22:16 you know, more knowledge and more files and more case studies in your database or in your Rolodex,
0:22:19 you can say, okay, I can, I know what, I know what’s going on here.
0:22:25 On the referral marketing side, aside from delivering great service and transforming,
0:22:29 you know, parents are obviously getting more sleep and they’re happy. They’re going to spread the word.
0:22:35 Is there anything specific to incentivize that word of mouth sharing or just, Hey,
0:22:36 it’s going to happen naturally.
0:22:43 I personally don’t incentivize my clients to refer me. I don’t want to give them a little
0:22:49 Starbucks gift. It just, it’s not, it doesn’t feel sincere. I don’t know. I don’t really want to be
0:22:56 paying my former clients for referrals. So I personally don’t do that. I just take really good
0:23:01 care of them. I send every family a handwritten thank you note with a little gift for their child
0:23:08 at the end of our two weeks together. I think that that gesture goes a really long way and
0:23:14 they remember that. And you know, they, they share my name. I haven’t really had the need to
0:23:18 highly incentivize my clients to refer business to me.
0:23:22 Yeah. I know that. That makes sense. Especially when it’s something so
0:23:26 personal. It’s like, well, are you recommending this person because they were good or because
0:23:27 they sent you a Starbucks card?
0:23:28 Exactly. Yeah.
0:23:32 But I like this, this personal touch, handwritten thank you, a little token,
0:23:36 a little something for the kid. I think that’s awesome. And aside from the Facebook stuff,
0:23:41 anything else on the marketing side, or is it just like, Hey, I need to do the Facebook group thing
0:23:47 to get this initial customer base. And then the word of mouth starts spinning.
0:23:55 So I think the key to finding clients is networking and connecting is talking to people. I don’t think
0:24:00 that necessarily has to happen in Facebook groups. That’s where it was happening for me,
0:24:06 but I know that other sleep consultants are successful networking and connecting offline.
0:24:12 You know, if Facebook groups aren’t your thing, it doesn’t need to be that for me, that’s where I got
0:24:17 started. And then it was referrals and word of mouth. But I know that others spend time networking with
0:24:24 pediatricians, lactation consultants, doulas, preschool teachers, family photographers. And,
0:24:29 you know, as my network has grown, these are all places where I also receive referrals. Actually,
0:24:36 a good friend of mine is a family photographer and takes pictures of newborns and older babies. And,
0:24:42 you know, she’s referred business to me. My daughter’s preschool director has referred business
0:24:47 to me. So, you know, there’s lots of ways that I am networking and connecting to grow my business.
0:24:51 Facebook is just one place where I’m hanging out to do that.
0:24:56 All right. Think of, you know, who your target customers are already doing business with,
0:25:00 where are they hanging out? I like this, you know, the preschool teachers. If people know what you do,
0:25:06 then it’s easy and who you do it for, then it’s easy to make that connection. So I think that all
0:25:12 makes a lot of sense. All right. So things are spinning on the marketing, the referral side,
0:25:17 people are coming in, they’re signing up for this two week consultation and you’re delivering
0:25:23 their results. Can you give me a sense of, you know, a day in the life, if there is such a thing,
0:25:28 or, you know, the logistics of delivering us on a service-based business like this?
0:25:34 Frankly, it looks different every single day. I wake up in the morning and before I even get out
0:25:38 of bed, you know, seven o’clock in the morning, I’m texting all of my clients just to see how the
0:25:44 night went. That’s how I start off my day. I like to get that out of the way before my kids start
0:25:49 getting going and I’m rushing to get them off to school. Just a little bit of back and forth with
0:25:55 each family to hear how the night went and to offer a tiny bit of advice or support or just
0:26:03 whatever they need. Then my morning is busy with getting my kids ready for school, breakfast out
0:26:09 the door. Then I usually have time to myself for about an hour or two. My calendar doesn’t open up
0:26:16 for calls until about 10 a.m. So I have, you know, an hour and a half to run to the grocery store,
0:26:24 get gas, you know, do whatever I need to do for myself in my own life. And then from 10 until about
0:26:32 two to 30, I am doing all sorts of stuff. Sometimes it’s phone calls with perspective
0:26:38 clients. Sometimes it is that first 30 minute phone call to onboard a family that’s getting
0:26:44 started with sleep training. Sometimes it’s just hanging out in Facebook groups and, you know,
0:26:50 doing my thing really looks different every single day. I make time for the things that I want to be
0:26:56 doing because the whole point of me starting this business was to like, continue to be that
0:27:01 stay at home mom that I was. I just also wanted to use my brain and make some money. So I still make
0:27:09 time for myself. I will make sure that I have a lunch with friends once a week. I played tennis earlier
0:27:14 today. You know, I do the things I have a Mahjong group. So like I do all the things that I want to be
0:27:21 doing as a mom that has her two kids in school that has some free time, but then I’m also
0:27:27 churning out stuff for my business. And most of it can be done by phone. You know, I’m on my cell
0:27:33 phone all day. I’m not sitting at a computer. So, you know, I can talk to my clients while I’m sitting
0:27:39 in carpool line or at the checkout counter at Target. You know, I have a really flexible schedule
0:27:44 with work. And then I write all of my sleep plans at night after my kids are in bed. It’s just
0:27:49 my routine. They could be done during the day, but for whatever reason, I’ve just gotten used to doing
0:27:52 them at night. That’s what I do. And I don’t know, that’s what my day looks like.
0:27:58 Okay. Yeah. Something that kind of fits in the cracks in the days in a lot of ways versus,
0:28:02 you know, here’s my nine to five, going to the office, firing up the laptop. And it’s like,
0:28:06 oh, it sounds, it sounds very flexible. One thing I did want to ask about was the
0:28:12 transition from this free initial consultation to saying, hey, I think I can help you,
0:28:18 but it’s going to be $425. Like what’s that conversation like, or what’s that,
0:28:21 you know, gentle nudge to sign up for the actual service?
0:28:29 Sure. So it’s now more like $600. 425 was what I was first starting. But I think when people are
0:28:34 getting on that free 15 minute call with me, and I’m probably making this pretty clear when they’re
0:28:40 getting on that call that the 15 minute call is not for me to share free advice. The free 15 minute
0:28:46 call is for me to hear a little bit about what they’re struggling with, wrap my head around their
0:28:51 specific situation. And for me to paint a picture of what it would look like for us to work together
0:28:58 and how I can help, how I can solve that problem that they have. So they know, most of them know that
0:29:04 that 15 minute call is really just to make sure that we jive, we get along, and then they decide
0:29:09 whether or not they want to hire me. And, you know, I sit there and I listen to their struggle.
0:29:16 I share how I can help. I explain what the process looks like. And then I explain to them that if they
0:29:20 would like to work together, they head to my website and sign on to work together. And then for me,
0:29:28 it’s about 48 hours to turn around a sleep plan and get started on working towards their children
0:29:33 sleeping more independently. Okay. Yeah. They’re not expecting to have all their problems solved in 15
0:29:39 minutes. Do you have prices listed on your website? I do. Yeah. I think that that’s important. I understand
0:29:46 in some industries that is more complicated, but in my situation, I think that they need to know.
0:29:52 I don’t really want to be getting on phone calls with people only for them to hear my pricing and
0:29:57 think it’s outrageous or whatever, you know, that just feels like a huge waste of time. So
0:30:02 I’m really transparent about pricing. It’s always like, you know, if, if it’s all the,
0:30:07 you know, call us for a quote or request a consultation, it’s like, if you have to ask,
0:30:12 it’s probably not going to be a good number. So yeah, be upfront with it, save everybody some time
0:30:17 and heartache and just, it makes a lot of sense to be upfront about that. And so you’re working with
0:30:22 clients who are going to be a good fit. And then they’re going into that consultation, likely knowing
0:30:30 what comes out the other end. Are you, do you have a sense of the typical conversion rate, so to speak,
0:30:32 of somebody jumping on the call with you to becoming a client?
0:30:40 I really don’t keep track. Uh, I really don’t. So the thing about me is like, I’m not a computer
0:30:45 person. Like I always joke, like how successful would I be if I actually knew how to work my own
0:30:52 computer? You know, like I am not one to track data and have spreadsheets and I’m just, you know,
0:30:55 I’m getting on calls with people. And if they hire me, they hire me. And if they don’t, they don’t.
0:31:01 I used to spend a lot of time keeping track of who I had spoken to and following up with them.
0:31:06 I do believe that to some degree, the fortunes and the follow-up, but as my business has grown,
0:31:12 I’ve just come to a point where I’m sort of good with whatever happens. If they hire me, great. If not,
0:31:18 I’ve moved on and I’m busy. So I, I’m not as, I’m not worried about it. Yeah.
0:31:23 Yeah. Versus, yeah, I’m going to grow a team and I’m going to franchise this thing out. And maybe this
0:31:29 is a good transition point. So you’re getting questions from parents all day long, but I get
0:31:34 the sense that you’re also starting to get questions from other moms or other parents saying like, well,
0:31:41 I, you know, how could I do what you do? And this is the, the birth of the online course side of the
0:31:49 business. Let’s talk about that, that transition. Sure. So a few reasons for why I decided to create
0:31:57 my own certification course. One, I’m just sort of hungry when it comes to business. I like the feeling
0:32:04 of being successful and growing and always challenging myself and creating my own certification course felt
0:32:13 like the best way to level up for lack of a better way of explaining it. I also saw that the other sleep
0:32:18 consultant certification courses on the market were lacking in certain areas that I felt like were
0:32:24 pretty, it was pretty like substantial what was lacking. And I felt like I could fill that gap
0:32:31 and provide a higher level of support, a higher level of mentorship. And, you know, I also place a
0:32:35 really heavy emphasis on business building and entrepreneurship in my program, which I don’t
0:32:40 think other courses on the market are really doing. This was sort of what I saw missing. I,
0:32:46 I saw these women coming out of these programs and they were trained to be sleep consultants,
0:32:54 but they weren’t trained to grow a business. And they really lacked that understanding of how to find
0:33:01 clients, how to network, how to grow, how to just like logistically set yourself up. They weren’t given
0:33:09 the tools to have the proper mindset to be successful. And these were all things that some, most of which came,
0:33:14 I think a little bit naturally to me, but it’s also what I really love. I love the entrepreneurial side
0:33:22 of having a sleep consulting business. So I thought it would be frankly, just really fun to coach and
0:33:29 inspire others to have a similar level of success. Yeah. There’s two sides to this. There’s learn how to
0:33:36 do the thing and then learn how to go get customers for that thing. And so touching on both of those makes a lot
0:33:46 of sense. So this is at the CPSM.com center for pediatric sleep management. I am checking the site
0:33:55 out now on the certification thing. So you can just create your own certification and say, you know,
0:34:04 give it an official sounding name and now customers are certified. Yeah. So the universe of sleep consulting
0:34:09 is really an unregulated field, which I have mixed feelings about because I do think that,
0:34:16 you know, it would be nice to have some standards within the industry, within the field. But I also
0:34:22 think that the work we do is we’re essentially, we’re parenting coaches. We are coaching parents
0:34:27 through the process of teaching their child to fall asleep and back to sleep independently. There’s nothing
0:34:32 dangerous. There’s nothing risky. There’s nothing medical about the work that we’re doing. So,
0:34:37 you know, in some respects, I sort of think, do we really need to be regulated? You know, we’re just,
0:34:42 we’re coaching parents through something that feels hard, just sort of like potty training, right?
0:34:46 There are actually potty training consultants. I don’t know if you know that, but you would never
0:34:51 think that potty training consultants, that that needs to be a regulated field, right? Like you just
0:34:56 coach parents through the process of potty training their kids. And I think sleep training is very
0:35:02 similar. Yeah. And I’m not trying to make light of it because I see other online programs doing the
0:35:07 same thing. So I just had to bring up LoanSigningSystem.com. This is Mark Wills, and we’ve
0:35:13 had several of his students on the show as well, teaching people how to become mobile notary loan signing
0:35:17 agents. And he says, you know, at the very top of the thing, this is America’s number one
0:35:23 notary public loan signing agent training course and certification. So it’s like, and if it becomes
0:35:30 big enough, if you become kind of the go-to brand in that space, then all of a sudden your certification
0:35:36 starts to hold some merit, hold some weight with potential customers and say, okay, you know, you
0:35:41 had some education in this space. We’re, we’re good to go on this. Tell me about the, I guess, initial
0:35:49 traction or what was there any like pre-sales or market research that went into creating this course?
0:35:55 Did you have a waiting list of, you know, moms who wanted to sign up? Yeah. So this was like really
0:36:00 outside of my wheelhouse, if I’m being completely honest, like, you know, creating a digital course,
0:36:07 creating the curriculum for a digital course. I had never even heard of platforms, you know,
0:36:11 all the learning platforms like Thinkific and Teachable and Kajabi. Like I literally didn’t
0:36:17 know what any of those were and I didn’t know how any of them worked. And I didn’t even have an email
0:36:23 list. I didn’t have, I wasn’t working with, now I have active campaign, but like, you know,
0:36:30 when I was just doing consulting, I wasn’t using MailChimp or Constant Contact or anything like that.
0:36:36 I really sort of had to get my act together. I hired somebody to help me write the course curriculum
0:36:42 because I had never done that before. This is what she does professionally. And I literally,
0:36:49 I sent her six books. I got on a million Zooms with her. We literally outlined the course module by
0:36:55 module. I taught her everything I knew. After I would tell her something, I’d say, okay, then go to this
0:37:00 book and like, read about it here. And then write up this, you know, she helped me to create this whole
0:37:07 curriculum and we put it on Thinkific. And I just started, I started list building, but literally I
0:37:14 was building it in a Google doc. You know, I was meeting people in Facebook groups that were maybe
0:37:18 interested in becoming a sleep consultant. And I would tell them, you know, my course is launching
0:37:25 in three months. Can I just grab an email from you? And when it does, I’ll make sure that you get emails and
0:37:33 information about it. And so I was having these conversations in Facebook DMs. And then I had my
0:37:39 Google doc of like their names and their emails. So I think by the time I launched my course, I had
0:37:46 about 300 people on my email list. Wow. Very grassroots, kind of like one-on-one hand-to-hand
0:37:52 list building. Yeah. More with Jane in just a moment, including how she uses a Facebook group to connect
0:37:57 with qualified prospects and the other tools and tech she swears by right after this.
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0:40:18 Yeah. And so what was great was that not only did I have their name and email, but I had also
0:40:23 previously connected with them in Facebook Messenger. So like I had access to having conversations with
0:40:28 them. You know, it wasn’t like just sending an email that somebody was going to delete. It was like,
0:40:34 I could actually send them a Facebook message and I could see whether or not they read it and then
0:40:40 hopefully they’d respond, you know, but it was a little bit more like personal access than just
0:40:48 an email. So when the course was finally ready to launch, I did have a pre-sale and for, I think it
0:40:56 was like seven to 10 days, the course was pretty heavily discounted. And during that launch, I think I sold
0:41:03 about seven courses and then a few days later, my goal was 10. I know that. And I know that I didn’t
0:41:09 make my goal in the initial launch, but literally a few days later, I was up to 10. So I was very close
0:41:15 to making my goal. And that was from a list of about 300 people. So I think that was like, it was pretty
0:41:21 decent for a launch. Yeah. Like a 3% conversion rate. I don’t know what’s good or bad, but, but,
0:41:26 you know, I think it was considered to be decent or I felt good about it. You know,
0:41:32 that’s, that’s what counts. Yeah, whatever. And, and then, so I just sort of kept plugging along and I
0:41:39 would just keep adding people to my email list. And I was everybody I was in touch with. Again,
0:41:44 this was like connecting with people in Facebook groups. And for this side of my business, I was
0:41:50 sort of hunting around in more entrepreneurial type Facebook groups, talking to women that were
0:41:58 teachers, nurses, paralegals, hairstylists, really anybody, but that were sort of unhappy in their
0:42:04 career, looking for a passion project. And, and I would just put them into my email list. And I would
0:42:11 also just keep in touch with them in Facebook messenger, you know, over time that built. And eventually,
0:42:16 I don’t know how long it was after I started the course, but I created my own Facebook group,
0:42:23 which is called becoming a sleep consultant. That was a real turning point for my business and how I
0:42:30 grew the course, because now I sort of use that Facebook group as the top of my funnel. And I bring
0:42:36 people from various Facebook groups over to my Facebook group and nurture my audience there. They
0:42:42 still get all of my emails, but it’s a good way to sort of educate them on what it looks like to become
0:42:48 a sleep consultant and then, you know, provide information on what my program specifically looks
0:42:55 like and the value that I offer. Okay. Let’s talk about the group at the top of the funnel. So now I’m
0:43:02 on the becoming a sleep consultant group. I think Facebook is an underrated search engine in that sense.
0:43:05 So if somebody searches sleep consultant, you know, you want to show up. If somebody searches
0:43:11 side hustle, I want the side hustle nation, Facebook group to show up as a top of the funnel entry point.
0:43:15 If Facebook is going to send me free traffic, I will take it. So how does this, how does this work?
0:43:18 Somebody comes to this page for the first time or this group for the first time.
0:43:23 So they come to the group either because just like you said, they searched sleep consultant and because
0:43:29 that’s in the name of my group, they just find it. Or I found them in another Facebook group and
0:43:35 encourage them to join my Facebook group. And they have to answer a few membership questions. One of which
0:43:41 is, you know, would you like to receive my free ebook on becoming a sleep consultant, which opts them into
0:43:46 my email. So if they share an email, then I plop them into my email address. I add them into the
0:43:52 Facebook group and I will either tag them in. I have a welcome post at the top of my group, which is just
0:43:59 sort of like a 20 minute rundown of everything they need to know. I’ll either tag them there, or if they
0:44:04 join the group, one of the questions I think I ask them is like, do you have any questions about becoming a
0:44:09 sleep consultant? If they ask a question that I’ve already answered in the Facebook group, I do a lot of
0:44:14 lives in that community, just answering questions that come up regularly. So, you know, if their
0:44:20 question is, how do I choose a sleep consultant certification program? Well, I’ve done a live on
0:44:27 that exact topic. So if that’s their question, I tag them there and they can watch that and sort of that
0:44:35 gets them sort of hopefully more interested in what I do. I also send every single person that joins my
0:44:41 Facebook group, a message just to introduce myself, let them know that they can ask me questions in
0:44:47 Facebook messenger anytime. And it just sort of opens up the communication and, you know, gets us
0:44:48 talking.
0:44:54 Yes. This is something that, and not that 3000 is a small audience, but 3000 members today is something
0:45:00 that a smaller group, a more intimate group can really do and really have an advantage over,
0:45:06 over a larger group where it’s like, I couldn’t DM everybody who requested to join. So I think that’s
0:45:10 actually really cool. And that’s an advantage that you may have starting out and really have this one-on-one
0:45:18 touch point. Are you doing manually when somebody requests this, the email opt-in thing with the
0:45:18 membership questions?
0:45:27 I was for a long time, uh, which was brutal. And then, then somebody told me that I could use one
0:45:33 of those little like Chrome plugins to do it all for me. And that actually has been totally life
0:45:37 changing. I think it’s called, I want to say it’s called group leads.
0:45:41 Yes. Group leads is the one I’m using. I love it. It’s like the coolest piece of software.
0:45:48 Life changing. Yeah. So, you know, they, they request to join. I accept them using the group
0:45:53 leads, little red button, and it automatically sends them a per, a welcome message, personalized
0:45:58 welcome message. It automatically opts them into my emails if they’ve agreed to be opted into emails
0:46:00 and that gets it started.
0:46:05 Yeah. Now they’re in active campaign. Now they’re, now they’re part of the system versus just being
0:46:10 another person on Facebook. Like it’s, it gets more touch points and does it in an automated
0:46:14 way. So I’ve really been happy with that release for the last seven, eight months I’ve been on
0:46:16 group leads. Definitely. Yeah. Same.
0:46:22 A, um, a game changer for sure. Okay. So now you have opportunity to communicate with people. You’re
0:46:25 answering questions. You’re like, if you have any questions, Oh, we already covered that in this
0:46:29 live. And so now they’re watching this video and they’re building a deeper relationship with you.
0:46:35 And then for the course itself, is this on a open and close cart? Is it evergreen? Is it always
0:46:37 available? What’s the strategy there?
0:46:43 It’s always available. I’ve had strategists, coaches tell me to do it differently. You know,
0:46:49 everybody has a different opinion about this, but my course is always available. And I like it to be
0:46:55 that way because I like for a person to register here, a person to register there. You know, if I have
0:47:01 20 or 30 people registering at once, it’s actually overwhelming for me on like the onboarding side.
0:47:06 And then also there are a few assignments that I have to grade throughout their, you know, going
0:47:11 through the course. And it actually is really nice to have them all staggered so that they’re turning
0:47:17 in assignments at different times. Um, I actually had a crazy, crazy busy month this past November.
0:47:24 I ran a black Friday sale and now I’m sort of on the struggle bus because they’re all wrapping up the
0:47:30 course. So, you know, I’m paying the price for that right now. So it’s nice when they trickle in.
0:47:37 Okay. Is there anything to encourage people to get off the fence and just do it? Or just like, Hey,
0:47:43 the price is the price, whether you jump in this week or next week or next month,
0:47:45 whenever it’s right for you, doesn’t matter to me.
0:47:53 So I do offer sales pretty regularly. It works, you know, giving people a couple hundred dollars
0:48:00 off the price of the course makes them feel like they are winning, you know? So, so I do that from
0:48:07 time to time. I also often will, you know, if I get on a call with somebody and they, they seem like
0:48:14 really, really ready and they just need a push. I will offer them sort of a personalized flash sale
0:48:20 code. You know, if you sign up within the next 72 hours, I’ll give you $250 off, you know,
0:48:27 and the code is Anna 250, like their name and 250 after. And you need to set that up in the Thinkific
0:48:34 like admin dashboard. So I used to use Thinkific for my checkout cart and I’ve since moved over to
0:48:40 Thrivecart, which has been just a world of difference, but yeah, same thing. Okay. Basically.
0:48:47 Lots of friends on Thrivecart. It must be, I’m an affiliate of several Thrivecart users, but I have
0:48:52 not used it as a shopping cart myself, but know that lots of other people are on it. So some safety
0:48:58 in numbers there for sure. What was the advantage of, you know, running checkouts through there versus
0:49:06 just, you know, sign up directly through Thinkific? So Thinkific is amazing in almost every single
0:49:12 way, except for their checkout cart. Thinkific’s checkout cart. I really do love that platform,
0:49:18 but their checkout cart is I think a two-step process. So you have to first, you know, put in
0:49:23 your name and your email and you’re this and you’re that, and then you go to the next page and it’s your
0:49:28 credit card. And I think by the time people to get, get to their second page, the second page, it’s like,
0:49:35 then they start to hesitate and it’s crazy. But like when you’re making a big purchase, my, you know,
0:49:41 my course is almost $2,500. So when you’re making a big purchase, you know, in that split second,
0:49:47 you could get cold feet and just change your mind. And actually I was noticing that that was
0:49:53 happening because you have to sort first register as a user in Thinkific before you can purchase
0:49:58 something. So I would get an email that a new user had registered, but I didn’t get the email that they
0:50:03 had checked out. So like, that’s exactly what was happening is they were like registering and then they
0:50:09 were changing their mind. And I felt like that was a major problem, you know, it kept happening.
0:50:15 So I investigated because I’m on, I’m on a teachable and it’s, it’s the same. Sometimes I’ll get
0:50:21 notifications like, Oh, so-and-so registered for your school, but then there’s no like second email
0:50:25 that like, Oh, they actually registered for the class. Yeah. They’re changing their minds in that
0:50:33 split second. And thrive cart is a one page, like it’s literally name, email, credit card, boom,
0:50:38 done. And then whatever information you need later, you can get that later, you know?
0:50:43 Okay. And they’re still doing as a one-time fee, like lifetime license for thrive cart.
0:50:49 Yes. Okay. So it layers on top of Thinkific and then it syncs over, you know, the customer
0:50:53 data through, through Zapier or just, it happens automatically.
0:50:55 Yeah, no, it’s, it’s Zapier. Okay.
0:51:01 Like two years ago, I had no idea what Zapier was. I had no idea what any of this stuff was. So it was a
0:51:06 huge, it was a huge learning curve for me. I love it. Um, and that’s a great sign that,
0:51:10 you know, you can learn new things. And we had somebody recently said like, you know,
0:51:15 if you had asked me five years ago, would I be involved in running a website and affiliate marketing
0:51:20 and SEO? I would have told you, you were crazy. And it’s like, yes, you can learn new things. I love
0:51:23 that. Anything else on the tools and tech side that you swear by?
0:51:30 So my favorite, favorite tool, which I mentioned a little bit earlier is my Acuity calendar. I feel like
0:51:36 I can’t live without that. Uh, it makes it so much easier for me to schedule both calls with
0:51:41 clients, prospective clients, and then also do things on the student side of things. You know,
0:51:47 when my students complete the certification course, I offer them what I call a zoom strategy session.
0:51:52 So we get on zoom for about 45 minutes and just answer any of their lasting questions, whether they
0:51:57 be sleep related, business related. And I love that, you know, when they finish the course,
0:52:03 it can just automatically send them an email, like, congratulations on finishing the course.
0:52:08 Here’s your link to schedule your zoom strategy session. Right. And then we just pop up on zoom
0:52:15 together. It’s the best. So I love Acuity. I like zoom. I use Canva a lot for my business.
0:52:22 I find that it’s really easy to put together things that are relatively beautiful and professional for your
0:52:28 business on Canva, which I would never be able to do without. And then I recently moved my website over.
0:52:35 It was on WordPress and I was always struggling with my WordPress website because I didn’t know how to use
0:52:39 it. I didn’t know how to make changes. I didn’t know how to, it just felt really overwhelming and
0:52:46 techie for me. So I moved it over to a platform called show it, which still uses the WordPress blog.
0:52:52 So from an SEO perspective, it’s still really strong, but the show it website sort of operates
0:52:58 like Canva and I can go in and just make changes really easily. It’s almost like I’m a web developer.
0:52:58 It’s crazy.
0:53:03 All right. Yeah. I was trying to, you know, view source on your site just now to see like,
0:53:06 well, what are you running? It doesn’t look like WordPress. I did see that show it show up in the
0:53:12 code. Uh, well, cool. Thanks for sharing all of those different tools. I think that ends up being
0:53:18 how a lot of people do it. You know, it’s, it’s taping a bunch of stuff together that meet your
0:53:25 needs and really the website and the email list, the active campaign kind of at the, um, at the core of
0:53:32 that. Anything that you do differently or anything that surprised you on either side, either the service
0:53:37 side or the online core side in the last two, three years? I don’t know. I don’t know what I do
0:53:41 differently. Cause I don’t really know what anybody else is doing. I’m on my own, you know, I’m on my
0:53:46 own path. I’m, I’m in a competition with myself. I’m not really looking at my competitors. Like I really
0:53:50 do feel like there’s enough business to go around both on the consulting side and on the core side.
0:53:56 there are plenty of tired parents. There are enough tired parents to warrant as many sleep
0:54:02 consultants that they’re, you know, it doesn’t matter. And then, and then same thing with the
0:54:08 course. You know, I think that my audience for my course is perfect for me. And then there are other
0:54:14 programs that probably attract an audience that’s more appropriate for them. Uh, the key to my success,
0:54:21 I think has been to just like keep challenging myself and always trying new things and then also
0:54:27 seeking support when necessary. I hire virtual assistants to help me with tech stuff that feels
0:54:33 really hard. Active campaign in particular is something that’s really overwhelming to me. I know how to send
0:54:40 like a one-off email campaign, but if I were to try and create a whole automation or to tag people in
0:54:45 certain ways, I would lose my mind. I don’t know how to do any of that. So, you know, instead of me
0:54:51 freezing up and not doing things, I just pay somebody to do it for me and, and move on.
0:54:58 On that front, is there an automated welcome sequence or sales pitch once somebody,
0:55:03 either they, they find you, you add them to the list manually, or they get added through the Facebook
0:55:08 group and the group leads integration. Is there like a, you know, three, four, five email sequence
0:55:14 that ultimately leads to sales pitch? Yeah. So when they first enter my email list,
0:55:19 they get access to my ebook on becoming a sleep consultant. They get a download of the course
0:55:26 syllabus. And then, you know, I think it’s seven emails in the welcome sequence that ultimately ends
0:55:34 with an offer. And, you know, they, if they book a call with me on that, you know, sixth or seventh email,
0:55:41 I think they will be eligible for a $250 discount on the price of the course. And, you know, they book
0:55:48 that call. I have the code ready to go for them and hopefully that converts. And then after that
0:55:57 welcome sequence, it’s me winging it to be completely honest. I send emails based on what’s going on. I was
0:56:04 just on a podcast the other day that dropped, you know, yesterday or the day before. So I sent out
0:56:08 an email like, Hey, I was on this podcast, you know, if you want to take a listen, here’s the link.
0:56:14 If I share something interesting in the becoming a sleep consultant, Facebook group, I’ll send out an
0:56:19 email like in case you missed it. This is what we talked about in the Facebook group today.
0:56:20 Okay.
0:56:26 You know, every once in a while I get antsy and offer a flash sale. I’m totally winging it there.
0:56:30 You get antsy. Like if it’s been, you know, a couple of weeks of a dry spell,
0:56:35 is that what would cause that? Yeah. Like sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m just
0:56:41 like, yeah, exactly. What should I do? You know? So breathe, breathe some new life into it. Okay.
0:56:48 Yeah, exactly. And it works for me. So, you know, sometimes I feel like I’m throwing spaghetti at the
0:56:52 wall. And then sometimes I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of what’s working. And I don’t
0:56:58 know. Either way is fine. I think the combination of those two things is entrepreneurship in a nutshell,
0:57:01 right? You got to throw the spaghetti and then double down on the spaghetti that’s working.
0:57:02 So I like that. Exactly.
0:57:09 Given the price point, $2,000 and up, do you find that most of the sales are coming through these phone
0:57:16 consultations or are people kind of ordering just a la carte on their own without booking a call?
0:57:22 So I get really excited when somebody pays for my course and they haven’t spoken to me.
0:57:30 That really lights me up because that just means they’ve been lurking either in my Facebook group
0:57:35 and they like what they’ve seen. They don’t feel the need to talk to me. Or just yesterday,
0:57:40 somebody enrolled in my course that told me she found me on Google, which is very exciting because
0:57:48 I’m really not doing much to warrant any significant placement on Google. It’s on my list of things to do,
0:57:55 but I am starting to hear that more and more. And that’s really exciting because that means that my
0:58:04 website is making people feel comfortable with my offer and my program. And I don’t know, that really
0:58:10 lights me up when somebody signs up without talking to me. That just feels amazing. I do have an affiliate
0:58:17 program where, uh, you know, if somebody refers somebody to my program, they get a commission and
0:58:24 I have a few affiliates really actually one or two that seem to have a lot of authority within their
0:58:31 own communities. And, you know, when we run a promotion together, I do, those do convert because
0:58:38 their audience is trusting them. So then they trust me and that works really nicely. I don’t often have to
0:58:43 get on calls when we run those promotions. Okay. Yeah. I just was curious about that. You know,
0:58:50 sometimes some, I’ve heard that $2,000 is the kind of upper limit of what people will buy without,
0:58:54 you know, getting on the phone. And so it’s like, you know, I was curious to test out, well,
0:59:00 is that a true assumption or is that just a thing? But it’s cool that you offer the phone consultation as,
0:59:06 um, as a last or as a next step. So, you know, I like to talk to people before they enroll in my
0:59:13 course because, you know, I really do treat my course as a community. It really does feel like
0:59:20 a family of friends or colleagues and it really helps me to know who they are. I like to get on a
0:59:25 zoom and see them face to face and hear their little two-year-old crying in the background. You know,
0:59:31 I like to know what their story is and feel like I’ve connected with them so that I can better support
0:59:37 them. What’s the breakdown if you’re comfortable sharing between the sleep consulting work and the
0:59:44 core sales today as, as the picture of the revenue pie? Uh, again, like I have no stats on anything,
0:59:50 but most of it is core sales just based on, you know, the price that I’m selling the course versus
0:59:57 the price that I’m offering my two-week consultation, you know? Um, so it’s, it’s mostly income from,
1:00:03 from core sales at this point. That being said, I’m busy with clients. I have six or seven clients
1:00:07 on my roster right now. So it’s not like I’m not supporting families, but if you’re looking at the
1:00:13 dollars, most of the dollars are coming from core sales. Yeah. You gotta, gotta stay in the game,
1:00:19 you know, so you know what to do in the next version of the course. Where do you want to take this thing?
1:00:26 What’s next for you? I don’t know. I would love to find somebody to help me to sell the course,
1:00:32 you know, sort of like build out a sales team a little bit. I’m having trouble finding that person
1:00:37 because all of the people that are great, that have taken my course that, you know, I’ve approached
1:00:41 about this. They’re really excited about growing their own businesses. They, they’re not really concerned
1:00:48 with growing mine, which I totally, which I totally respect. So I’d love to find somebody or build a
1:00:54 little bit of a team. I’d also love to figure out how to make the internet work for me a little bit
1:01:01 better. I mentioned, you know, working on some SEO, making that a bit of a priority. I did just hire
1:01:07 a Pinterest manager to help me grow my presence on Pinterest, which we literally just started.
1:01:13 I think it’s been a month and a half since we started maybe two months. So, you know, just
1:01:18 getting, getting the internet to work for me a little bit better rather than like me hustling so
1:01:23 hard all of the time would be amazing. But I also think in the same breath, I’m the type to always
1:01:29 hustle. So even if the internet is working for me, I’m still going to do what I do. Um, I guess it’s
1:01:33 just going to allow me to grow. It’s a good feeling when you can get the internet to work for you.
1:01:39 People are finding you organically and signing up for your things and buying your stuff. That’s a,
1:01:43 that’s a great feeling. Um, and I’m confident that you’ll, that you’ll get there. It sounds like
1:01:44 you’re already halfway there.
1:01:49 It’s slowly happening. You know, the Google thing, it’s happened a few times in the past couple of
1:01:52 months. You know, when somebody signs up for my course, there’s a little line, how did you hear
1:01:59 about CPSM? And a few times people have said, Google, like really? What? Like, how’s that? You know,
1:02:05 so it is starting to happen. And so I guess I have to just keep doing what I’m doing. Uh, but I would
1:02:13 love for that to happen a little bit more. You do anything with paid ads? No, I have dabbled in paid
1:02:21 ads a teeny tiny bit from time to time. And it just feels like a really expensive way to list build with
1:02:29 the wrong people. That that’s my experience. And so it hasn’t made sense for me. I don’t want to pay
1:02:35 for people to be added to my email list. You know, I, my product is expensive, so I can’t just put up an ad
1:02:41 for somebody to buy my course. Like they’re not going to see an ad and pay $2,500 for a course. They’re going to
1:02:47 want to see an ad and opt in to learn more about my course. Right. So it just feels like a really
1:02:52 expensive way to list build. I I’m good at list building. I’m good at getting out there and talking
1:02:57 to people and connecting with people that are legitimately interested in what I have. And I
1:03:02 think I’m, I’m better at that than what any ad would do for me. And then it just becomes more expensive
1:03:08 to have all these people on my list that are, that are the wrong people. The reason I ask is it’s such
1:03:12 a niche, or at least from the outside looking in, it seems like such a niche service or certification
1:03:15 where it’s like, you know, become a certified sleep consultant. Like how many other people could
1:03:21 be bidding on that keyword in Google? And it’s like, well, if you’re using the Facebook group
1:03:26 as top of the funnel, we’ll opt in for the free ebook guide to this and get the course syllabus.
1:03:31 It’s like, could you do that? Same thing. I don’t know how maybe those ads would be prohibitively
1:03:36 expensive, but it’s like, you know, it might be worth, you know, if it were to be like, well,
1:03:42 if I could, I shortcut my exposure in, in Google, in SEO by buying my way to the top of the results.
1:03:45 And it’s like, well, I was paying 50 bucks a lead and the conversion rate just didn’t shake
1:03:51 out. Then maybe not, maybe not so much, but you know, it might be worth, it might be worth a test,
1:03:52 but I’m not in charge here.
1:03:57 It definitely, no, it definitely is worth a test. It’s just, you know, this is one area where I do
1:04:03 feel like it’s tricky to find the right people to support you until I find that right person.
1:04:08 I don’t want to just throw a bunch of money at something. You know, I already have a system that’s
1:04:15 working and, you know, even, even just like my SEO has gotten better. So, uh, and I do,
1:04:20 I have somebody that blogs for me. So like, maybe that’s working. I don’t know, but I, I would like
1:04:26 to just, I don’t know. I, you’re right. I should probably do that at some point. The secret is finding
1:04:31 the right person to help because I can’t do it myself that it’s outside of my wheelhouse.
1:04:37 It’s a learning curve, especially I feel like Google, well, you know, my background was in
1:04:42 paid ads like 15 years ago and the ads, Google ads platform is so much more complex than it was
1:04:46 at that point. All the different ways you can slice the data and the targeting and, and everything.
1:04:53 Right. And then Facebook is another black box of, you know, ad optimization and audience
1:04:56 targeting and everything. But that’s something that just came to mind. So, you know,
1:05:00 yeah, you’re right. I don’t know. Um, but sounds like things are going awesome for you.
1:05:06 The snoozefest.com. If you are a parent struggling with getting your kids to sleep, check, uh, chain
1:05:13 out over there and the CPSM.com for the sleep certification, sleep consultant certification
1:05:19 program. Appreciate you joining me sharing the ins and outs of all this stuff. Let’s wrap this thing
1:05:26 up with your number one tip for side hustle nation. I guess my number one tip is to brush the fear
1:05:33 aside. I think that when it comes to entrepreneurship or really just like making any big leap or choice,
1:05:40 like everybody’s scared, right? Like everybody has fear or anxiety around starting something new
1:05:48 and the people that are successful are scared and do it anyway. And the people that do nothing are scared.
1:05:54 So they do nothing. Right. So like everybody has this fear. And if you can be one of those people that
1:06:01 pushes through and, and tries, uh, then I think you’re ahead of most of the others.
1:06:07 I think you’re right on that. A hundred percent. Like progress happens just beyond your comfort zone.
1:06:12 Brush the fear aside. Everybody’s scared. The people who got off the sidelines are the ones who pushed
1:06:18 that fear aside just for a moment. Jane, this has been awesome. Just some final thoughts or, you know,
1:06:24 kind of big ideas for me from this episode. Uh, the first was this idea of being expert enough where
1:06:29 you were already answering people’s questions and maybe you weren’t the world’s, you know, foremost
1:06:35 leading sleep scientist expert, but you knew enough to be dangerous and you invested in yourself in the
1:06:39 training certification. Like, look, I know what I’m talking about. I can help people with this.
1:06:43 People are seeing results and that’s, you know, part of this brushing fear aside.
1:06:48 I think the idea of creating your own certification program, like we kind of talked about,
1:06:55 it’s a pretty cool idea. And there’s something that could gain traction and it’s, you know, for
1:06:59 better or worse, like you said, it’s something you can just kind of put your own stamp on. We had,
1:07:04 when I was running the virtual assistant site, I had a little badge that I would put on the reviews
1:07:09 for the companies that I had tested. And it just said, you know, virtual assistant, assistant tested.
1:07:13 It didn’t say certified or approved or anything, although it could have, it was something that I
1:07:17 thought about adding, you know, maybe the, the companies could put their, you know, they could
1:07:21 put that certification badge like down at the bottom, like, Oh, they were certified by this,
1:07:26 you know, random dude in his, uh, you know, spare bedroom, but whatever it was. So I think that was
1:07:30 really cool. And then this, you know, come one of the common threads, just, you know, meet your
1:07:34 customers where they’re at. If they’re on Facebook, great. If they’re not on Facebook, you’ll go find
1:07:39 another way to connect with them. Like you mentioned through different networking opportunities,
1:07:45 other people who are already talking to them, you know, it’s the, the pediatricians and the
1:07:51 librarians. We had a Riley Jarvis on the show a couple of months ago, who was a sleep consultant
1:07:55 in a totally different niche. He was targeting executives. And so he would go and connect with
1:07:59 them through LinkedIn and it was, you know, different audience, different platforms. So go where your
1:08:03 customers already are, but really appreciate you joining me, Jane. Thanks for sharing your insight.
1:08:07 Once again, the full text summary and links to all the resources and mentioned for this one
1:08:13 are at side hustle nation.com slash Jane, J A Y N E. While you’re there, make sure to download my free
1:08:19 list of 101 service business ideas that you may be able to apply some of Jane’s same strategies to
1:08:25 and get those creative juices flowing. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time.
1:08:29 Let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle
1:08:30 show. Hustle on.

0:00:05 500 bucks a day from work you love. What’s up? What’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to
0:00:09 The Side Hustle Show, where it’s all about ideas, action, and results toward building
0:00:13 extra income streams. Fun one for you today, where my guest took her passion for cooking,
0:00:20 turned it into a six-figure business. From chefjessica.com, Jessica Leibovitch. Welcome
0:00:21 to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:23 Hello. Thank you for having me.
0:00:27 Excited for this one. Stick around in this one. Even if you don’t know a saucepan from
0:00:31 a spatula, we’re covering how to get clear on what kind of service niche you could offer,
0:00:37 creative ways to get clients, and the different revenue streams that one skill can turn into.
0:00:42 So, Jessica, my understanding is you’re working in catering, you have some culinary background,
0:00:47 and then there’s this switch that flips. Maybe I could take this skill freelance. Maybe I can go
0:00:52 solo. Maybe I could get a personal chef type of client. Can you talk me through your first time
0:00:55 getting paid for this type of work as a personal chef?
0:01:02 Yeah. My background was in catering. I was very young, working very hard, burnt out in my early
0:01:08 20s. And someone told me, oh, have you heard about being a personal chef? You might be really good at
0:01:14 this. And I looked into it and I thought, I would be really good at that. I was still working. I just
0:01:21 decided to take a client on the side and I made in one day what I was used to making pretty much for
0:01:21 the whole week. Wow.
0:01:28 So, yeah. So being young and naive, I quit my job with no exit plan. I would not recommend that to
0:01:36 anyone, but that’s what I did at 22. So, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’ve been a personal chef
0:01:38 now for 25 years.
0:01:40 Okay. How’d you find that first client?
0:01:45 It was through word of mouth, through some recommendation in the community. Most of my
0:01:50 clients in the beginning were word of mouth. But when I initially started my business, I created a
0:01:58 press release for a local community newspaper in a sort of an upper class neighborhood. And they loved
0:02:04 it. They ran with it because I wrote the story for them. And that really got the momentum going in my
0:02:10 business. Because as a personal chef, you really only need a few clients. And once you have a few
0:02:13 clients, word of mouth starts to spread.
0:02:18 Oh, I love this example. How big of a newspaper are we talking here? Like, you know, neighborhood
0:02:20 specific, city specific?
0:02:25 Yeah. No, a small one. You know how when you go into a coffee shop and they have the free papers there?
0:02:25 Yeah.
0:02:30 Those are the papers that I would send my press release to because those are the community papers. They
0:02:37 usually feature people in the community. And people love to read them and they want feel good stories. So
0:02:43 someone suggested it. And it’s really such a great way to get clients as a personal chef because it builds
0:02:45 trust and it’s free.
0:02:50 You write your own marketing material. This is good. Do you remember what it said? Like, Chef Jessica,
0:02:52 you know, now open for business or something?
0:02:58 Well, what I always tell people is you have to tell a story and market yourself without marketing
0:03:04 yourself. So basically, you show the problems that you’re solving. At the time, I was showing a family
0:03:10 in the community where I was really helping them. One of the family members had an allergy and the other
0:03:17 family members were having a hard time kind of eating around those specifications. And this was all new
0:03:23 for them. So I helped them. So now you do have to make your angle a little bit different. You can’t
0:03:28 just be like, oh, I’m a new personal chef in the area. You want to show how are you really helping
0:03:35 your community and what challenges are you solving for your clients? Like a unique spin on it. And a lot
0:03:40 of times they will pick it up because if you think about it, these journalists have to constantly come up
0:03:46 with news and articles. And if you give them something that’s nicely done, why wouldn’t they
0:03:46 use it?
0:03:53 Sure. So like there seems to be just recently a lot of press around food dyes and the danger. So it’s
0:03:58 like you could be like how to have a dye free, you know, kitchen or something like that.
0:04:03 Yeah. I mean, clean food is such a big thing now and just take, you know, seed oils, eliminating things
0:04:10 out of your diet. Adding red meat back in is really popular as well. So helping people do
0:04:16 those changes. There’s a lot of different things. It really depends on the chef and where their
0:04:17 strengths lie.
0:04:23 Yeah. This was one of the pages out of the 1-800-GOT-JUNK playbook where we’re talking with
0:04:27 Brian Scudamore, the CEO. And early on, he just bought a thousand dollar pickup truck and started picking
0:04:32 up. John started taking on very few clients, but initially…
0:04:33 Solved a big problem.
0:04:37 Solved a big problem and then pitched it to the local paper because it was like,
0:04:41 hey, high school student or college student, you know, creates his own summer job. And,
0:04:46 you know, it was a unique feel good type of story. Hey, young entrepreneur does good. But by virtue of
0:04:50 that, and of course, the picture that he submits is like him with the side of his truck with the phone
0:04:55 number like emblazoned on the side. It’s like starts getting all of these calls after the fact. It’s
0:04:59 like trying to figure out, like to your point about the seed oils or the allergy specific,
0:05:04 like what’s the broader trend that’s going on? Like how can you, in Brian’s case, like in a slow
0:05:08 job market, you know, local teen creates his own income stream. So like what’s the…
0:05:13 Yeah. What’s the angle? What’s the, you know, what’s the hook? I actually, in my, in my academy,
0:05:19 my business in a box for chefs, I give them a sample press release and a press release guide because
0:05:24 I feel like it’s so important as a personal chef to be able to get yourself out there in the press
0:05:30 because, you know, everybody wants to pay for marketing or do ads, but we have such a short
0:05:37 attention span and people also have such a strong distrust of ads that when you see someone in a
0:05:43 newspaper, it really, you’re able to trust them and you have an attention span that’s a little bit
0:05:46 longer than an ad. So it’s just much more effective.
0:05:50 Yeah. Especially targeting, you know, there’s, there’s some level of assumption that the journalist
0:05:55 has done some level of vetting. So there’s like, you, you’ve kind of skipped the line in a lot of
0:05:55 cases.
0:06:01 And they do. Most of the times they do. They’re not just going to publish it without speaking to you.
0:06:06 And again, sometimes you need to follow up with them. I mean, I’ve sent my press releases out where
0:06:11 they have not responded. And then I followed up and they’re like, oh yeah, we do want to do that
0:06:16 article on you. We just got busy. And then they end up publishing it. So, you know, sometimes you
0:06:18 have to be a little bit forward.
0:06:24 The one advantage that I see of this type of business is it seems ripe for recurring revenue,
0:06:29 potentially long-term recurring revenue, where if a family gets used to having a personal chef,
0:06:34 like probably a luxury expense in a lot of cases of targeting a more affluent audience.
0:06:38 Sure. But like, once I get used to it, it’s like, I can’t imagine going back to cooking for myself
0:06:41 again, right? It’s like, they could keep you on the, on the payroll here for, for months and months
0:06:42 or maybe years.
0:06:46 Exactly. I’m glad you mentioned this. This is a huge pillar of what I teach. There’s
0:06:53 sort of three pillars and it’s consistent income, work-life balance, and a high level of service.
0:07:00 And you’re only able to have consistent income if you give that high level of service and it,
0:07:06 you do, you become indispensable to your clients. And I think one of the nicest things one of my
0:07:11 clients ever said to me was that I was like part of the furniture, which I took as a compliment.
0:07:14 Not that we’re going to like walk over you like a rug, but yeah.
0:07:19 Yeah, exactly. You know, when I went to renew my contract with them and raise my price, they were
0:07:24 just like, yeah, you’re not, you’re not going anywhere. But you have to be in there and solve the
0:07:29 problem and understand them and be able to give that high level of service and really care about
0:07:35 them and their goals because their success is your success. And it’s the people who have that heart
0:07:41 who are successful at being a personal chef. It’s not necessarily the people who are amazing chefs.
0:07:47 I’ve been a chef for a long time. I was trained in France and I have a culinary arts degree, so I have
0:07:53 the whole background. And the funny thing is my clients almost never asked me about it. Most of
0:07:58 them have no idea where I went to school. Yeah. And a lot of times I don’t even use these skills because
0:08:02 the food they want is so simple. Yeah. When you were starting out, did you have
0:08:10 a niche in mind of like, I’m going to focus on organic or vegan or allergy free or like trying
0:08:16 to serve like, hey, I’m the go-to person for these specific dietary needs?
0:08:22 Well, I started so long ago that special diets were not as common back then. And because my background
0:08:28 was in fine dining, that was really where I went to. And my clients were aligned with that in the
0:08:34 beginning. They wanted really yummy food. I was making things like lasagna or, you know,
0:08:41 I would make roasts and gravies and things like that. And I still occasionally will have a client like
0:08:47 that, although it’s very rare. But what happened was, I think it was my first time I got a client.
0:08:55 She was a single mom with cancer. And, you know, I just was so invested in her eating well. I think
0:09:01 I was probably more invested in it than she was. And so once you have somebody like that and you’re
0:09:06 helping somebody like that, if you really are passionate about what you do, it sort of just
0:09:13 gravitates where I just started helping more people like that with health challenges. And because I could
0:09:21 put that focus and time and attention into each client, I was able to really develop a relationship
0:09:26 with them. And that’s where you will get that indispensability is when you have that long-term
0:09:34 relationship with a client. So I did sort of go in the direction of health challenges because I just
0:09:37 felt like there was such a need and those people really needed a chef.
0:09:44 I imagine it’s becomes somewhat more competitive. But even in Googling near like your personal chef near
0:09:49 me, your personal chef, Sammamish, I see some like catering companies that pop up.
0:09:55 People are very confused. The problem is, is what I’m doing a lot of there used to be a lot of us.
0:10:02 But what’s happened now is everybody wants to be a meal prep or a caterer because they don’t
0:10:07 understand how to make a career and income out of being a personal chef, because it is very specific.
0:10:12 You do have to be able to give the high level of service to be able to give that time and attention
0:10:19 and, you know, really understand what your clients need. And so a lot of people don’t want to do that.
0:10:25 And so they will do the meal prep. But what happens is a lot of times they will burn out because
0:10:33 it’s a lot of work. It’s exhaustion. You’re working weekends. You’re working evenings. You’re working
0:10:40 holidays. Personal chef is a Monday through Friday schedule. You’re typically working 9 to 5. And if you
0:10:48 have five weekly clients, you’re maxed out. And if you have 10 biweekly clients, you’re maxed out. So it really
0:10:54 depends on how you schedule it. So that’s why it’s not as competitive, because it’s very specific niche that
0:11:00 not a lot of people do. And a lot of people decided, oh, I want to do meal prep or I want to I’m a personal
0:11:07 chef, but I actually have chefs working under me. So if somebody is a personal chef, but they have
0:11:11 chefs working under them, that’s really not a personal chef, because how can they give that
0:11:17 one on one high level of service that the client needs with somebody working under them doesn’t
0:11:23 quite work the same. So it is a one on one solopreneur type business.
0:11:27 Yeah, it’s like a personal chef agency, semi personal chef.
0:11:33 A lot of people are doing that. I’ve tried it kind of like hiring people. But I feel that the
0:11:39 quality was lost. And what happens is instead of giving that time and attention to your clients who
0:11:42 are paying you for it, you end up giving it to your team.
0:11:48 Yeah, there’s pros and cons to it. Obviously, the advantage being you’ll free up your time in theory
0:11:54 from doing the direct, you know, one to one type of client work, how to expand beyond kind of the
0:11:59 natural capacity. Like you said, if I can do this only five days a week, and especially if I’m doing
0:12:04 it as a side hustle, maybe I only want to do it one day a week. And now here’s a chance to free some of
0:12:05 that up.
0:12:09 And there are ways you can do that. I mean, my team personally is like my bookkeeper,
0:12:17 my CPA, I have somebody who supports me with VA stuff. But as far as my relationship with my clients,
0:12:18 that’s all me.
0:12:24 Yeah, what’s typical in terms of pricing here? In terms of how, how much can you charge? Or how much
0:12:25 how much are people paying for personal chefs?
0:12:33 So for me, personally, it’s about 650 plus groceries per day. And I’ve, I’ve worked my way
0:12:40 up to that. But that’s very, that’s not on the extremely high range. That’s about average for a
0:12:40 lot of chefs.
0:12:44 And that’s not one day’s worth of food. That’s like a week or two weeks.
0:12:47 Oh, no, that so that would give them about a week’s worth of meals.
0:12:52 Okay. That’s like, hold on. That’s like a really, really nice restaurant. Yeah.
0:12:58 Yeah, no, not per meal. So so that’s my revenue for the day. And and to be honest,
0:13:02 it’s more than one day, because a lot of times I’m planning the night before I’m shopping that
0:13:09 morning, I’m cooking. So so if I have a weekly client, I typically will bring in at least $2,500
0:13:17 from that client a month. So if I have four weekly clients, that gets me to 10,000. Now, the way that
0:13:25 if somebody is just starting out, I typically suggest they start at the $500 rate and because
0:13:30 they’re a lot of times they’re more comfortable with that. It’s easier for them to sell until they
0:13:37 get really comfortable with pitching their value. But at $500 plus groceries, if they have five clients
0:13:40 a day, that’s 10,000 a month or five clients a week. Excuse me.
0:13:47 Okay, you have five clients a week. Got it. And so yeah, they come in do the weekly, weekly prep
0:13:52 on a Monday or, you know, on a Saturday, if you’re doing it as a side hustle.
0:13:57 Yeah. So they basically prep like a week’s worth of meals. It’s all customized. They leave them
0:14:01 packaged for them. And then, you know, they come back the following week and and do it again. And
0:14:06 they get feedback from the clients. Usually people are doing once a week or once every two weeks.
0:14:12 Okay. And if they do once every two weeks, it’s actually very affordable for, so it’s not just
0:14:19 for, you know, the upper class or the wealthy. You’re able to really market to just professionals
0:14:20 who really need support.
0:14:26 Yeah. I’m trying to think of, you know, putting yourself in the client’s position, which was going
0:14:30 to help your marketing is, you know, what are you, what are you really buying? It’s like on the surface,
0:14:34 you’re selling food, but you’re really, okay, what am I buying as the customer? I’m buying back my time.
0:14:40 I’m buying back my mental load of having to do me, just think about what’s for dinner this week.
0:14:44 Honestly, I like to say they’re buying a transformation because some of the chefs don’t
0:14:48 understand this because they think I mean a transformation in their health, but I don’t like,
0:14:56 and you probably know this because when you up level in life and you’re able to offload or outsource
0:15:01 some of your challenges, you transform things. You transform the way you react to things.
0:15:05 You transform your relationships because you’re able to breathe and focus your attention on other
0:15:11 things. And so that’s really what you’re selling is you’re selling that whole package of a support
0:15:17 system. It’s not just I’m cooking for you. And that’s why when my client told me that I’m part of
0:15:22 the furniture, I took it as a compliment because it is like a support system. It’s like I’m always there
0:15:28 for them. They know that I’m always going to be there to help them and they need me. So that’s kind of
0:15:33 how you have to look at it more than I’m just saving you time and cooking for you, because
0:15:35 if that’s all they wanted, then they could just get DoorDash.
0:15:42 Sure, sure. More with Jessica in just a moment, including the most effective free and low cost
0:15:45 marketing tactics coming up right after this.
0:15:52 Yeah. Okay. So this is helpful on the marketing side. What are clients really buying? Hey, you’re buying
0:15:56 a transformation. You’re buying a support system. You’re buying just the mental, you know,
0:15:59 offloading. Yeah. And like you said, leveling up. Hey, what are the things I don’t have to
0:16:04 think about? I don’t have to worry about anymore. I’ve got a team in place for this. Just like having
0:16:08 a virtual assistant. Right. Like, Nick, think about it this way. Like, if you have a housekeeper,
0:16:15 I’m not just paying for a clean house. It’s that whole support, the feeling of knowing it’s going to
0:16:20 be taken care of. It’s off my shoulders. I get to come home and it feels amazing to come home to a
0:16:26 clean house. I know she’s helping. It’s all of those things. It’s not just about the act. And I
0:16:30 think that helps in your marketing because when you’re able to communicate your value and also
0:16:35 really understand where your clients are struggling and how you can help, that’s going to help you
0:16:39 kind of get that ball rolling and have them sign on.
0:16:45 Do you find yourself making the same stuff week after week? Like if the client, if that family has a few
0:16:50 favorites where they’re like, well, make sure to include that in this week’s menu or is it, does it
0:16:53 have to, do you feel the pressure to like be constantly rotating?
0:17:00 No. In fact, most people want a rotation. So most people want to eat the same things most of the time
0:17:06 with a few new things sprinkled in. And think about it. Like, do you want to eat new things every single
0:17:11 week? Probably not. You probably have your favorites that you enjoy. And so a lot of times what I’ll do is
0:17:17 I’ll do three or four of the same things that I know they love and maybe try one or two new things.
0:17:22 And then if they love the new thing, that goes on the rotation. So the longer you cook for someone,
0:17:27 the more they find things that they love. But initially I do an assessment, try to play it
0:17:32 really safe, just go with things I know they’re really going to enjoy. I don’t want to scare them
0:17:38 too much. I want them to love the service from the beginning. And then once I get to know them better,
0:17:42 then we sort of branch out and try new things. And you have it set up, it sounds like as a recurring
0:17:49 monthly service, right? It’s $2,500 a month per customer. I come in every week and I do my thing.
0:17:56 Any tools or tech that you use either on the recipe, the shopping side, the client, you know,
0:17:58 recurring billing side, anything that we should know about there?
0:18:03 Yeah, I use a lot of tech in my business. Well, first of all, there’s a there’s a lot of different
0:18:09 recipe database programs that you can use. I have one that I call it’s called MasterCook that I love
0:18:16 because it creates a shopping list for you. And it stores your recipes and you can add to your
0:18:22 shopping list based on your recipe. This is very helpful for not forgetting things. Being a personal
0:18:29 chef is a very low stress job. But the one thing that will stress you out is if you forget an
0:18:35 ingredient and you’re ready to cook. So a program like that is really helpful to make sure that
0:18:36 doesn’t happen. Okay.
0:18:41 Some of the things that I do for my clients, I go above and beyond. So I will calculate macros
0:18:47 for a client if they want. For example, if they say, Jessica, I need to make sure that this meal has 40
0:18:53 grams of protein and 20 grams of fat. I will do that for them. And so I use programs for that. I
0:19:01 have a program called macro stacks. It’s an app that I use. Okay. And I also just use spreadsheets and I
0:19:08 will put their meals in the spreadsheet and calculate their meals for the day, depending on how I’ve had
0:19:13 clients who were with me a few days a week where they’re on a very high retainer. I will do their
0:19:19 macros for the whole week to make sure they’re on board. And so I need a really good tech for that.
0:19:24 Just to clarify macros, we’re talking about grams of protein, fat, carbs.
0:19:31 Right. So I’ll input all their food for them to make sure their meals are not going over and to
0:19:36 make sure that my meals are staying within the proper macros. But yes, it’s protein, fat, and carbs.
0:19:36 Got it.
0:19:43 Is it typical to go shopping, bring all the stuff to the client’s house? Are you doing it at your
0:19:48 place and then delivering it? Are you renting out a commercial kitchen space?
0:19:53 Well, you could do all of that. So I always say don’t ever rent out a commercial kitchen space. That’s
0:19:59 a waste of money. Typically, you’re going to either cook in your client’s home or you can cook in your
0:20:04 own home and deliver. Now, if you cook in your own home and deliver, you just need to make sure that
0:20:08 your client is aware of it and they’re okay with it. So you both are in an agreement.
0:20:12 Do you need to have like a cottage kitchen license or food handlers or anything?
0:20:16 No, you don’t because you’re not selling food to the public. It’s a service-based industry. So it’s
0:20:22 not a permit-based industry. You’re not being overseen by the health department. That’s why I
0:20:27 said you have to make sure that your client is in agreement. Now, if you’re telling your client,
0:20:31 oh, I’m at a commercial kitchen and you’re really cooking at your home, that’s not okay. You have to have
0:20:36 an agreement. Now, for me personally, I don’t really like cooking at my own home because it’s
0:20:40 more work. You have to bring the groceries to your home, prepare, package up. I get distracted at my
0:20:46 house. My clients have much nicer kitchens than I do. So I prefer to cook in their home. But a lot of
0:20:51 times, like for example, my clients, if they’re sick or if they have a lot of kids at home or if they
0:20:57 just had a baby or, you know, whatever it may be, I may cook at home. Or if it’s a one-time thing,
0:21:03 like a gift certificate, you can do that. Another reason people do it is I have chefs who are in the
0:21:09 corporate world and they are making their exit plan to be a personal chef. And so they’re doing the
0:21:15 remote work at home and they picked up a client and they’re able to cook while they’re doing their
0:21:20 breaks on their remote work and over the weekend and then deliver in the morning before their job
0:21:26 starts. So this is how they’re they’re able to kind of segue out. Got it. Yeah. And you can imagine
0:21:30 you can stack it up, you know, one client, two client, three clients, like it just lowers the
0:21:34 height of the of the cliff that you need to jump off of to quit your job. That’s what I always suggest.
0:21:40 Don’t do what I did. But yeah, if that way, if you have a couple of clients, you start to save money,
0:21:45 you know, and once you gain the momentum as a personal chef, it doesn’t take as long.
0:21:51 Once you start to get your marketing strategies dialed in and you build your list. I love Google
0:21:57 ads, another way to get clients. So if you have a Google ad going, they’re going to deliver leads
0:22:03 to you on a regular basis if you have a pretty good website. If people are searching personal chef near
0:22:08 me or personal chef, you know, city name, then you want to make sure your ad shows up? Yes, because
0:22:15 there’s no competition. There’s not, you know, there’s not 100 personal chefs. So typically if you have a
0:22:19 Google ad for personal chef and someone is searching, they’re going to see your website.
0:22:24 So it just increases your visibility. Like I said, I’m not a huge person who loves to pay for ads,
0:22:28 but that’s just one that is really effective for personal chef.
0:22:31 Yeah, I like that. That seems like a low, low budget. I mean, I can’t imagine there’s a huge
0:22:34 search volume, but like you said, it doesn’t take a lot of clients. Like I only need one,
0:22:39 you know, one taker to add potentially 2000 bucks to my bottom line.
0:22:43 Yeah, $5 a day too is all the ad spend you really need.
0:22:49 Okay. What else have you got on the marketing side? I think this is, it’s not going to take
0:22:54 a ton. You probably not have to do all of these different marketing tactics to fill up your
0:22:55 schedule, but what else?
0:22:59 Strategic partnerships are really effective that are aligned with your strengths. You know,
0:23:05 a lot of times people will think, oh, I’m going to go with a personal trainer. That’s not what I would
0:23:10 consider a strategic partnership. What I would consider a strategic partnership is again,
0:23:16 someone who you’re helping solve that challenge. So like a doctor or nutritionist is a good strategic
0:23:22 partner because they will give their clients or patients a plan and just send them on their way and
0:23:30 have no idea of how they’re going to do that. So a personal chef is that bridge between the plan
0:23:36 and execution that really helps that customer have success. So they’ve been really great strategic
0:23:43 partnerships. So a lot of times when I work with chefs, my homework will just be to find 20 strategic
0:23:49 partners and reach out to them with an introductory offer. And a lot of times that is enough to just get
0:23:51 your ball, the ball rolling as a personal chef.
0:23:54 Can I pause on introductory offer? What do you, what’s an example of that?
0:23:58 So an introductory offer of obviously like people aren’t going to want to jump in and pay
0:24:04 $2,500 to somebody if they’ve never tried their service. So an introductory offer is a way, it’s a
0:24:11 taste. It’s a way for people to get to try your food, your services, get to know you, start to build
0:24:15 that trust and see if they want to take it further. It’s, you know, it’s just like any other relationship,
0:24:21 you know, people aren’t going to ask to be exclusive on the first date. So you want to just kind of
0:24:26 get to know and see, is this an alignment? Is this going to be good for both of us? And so an
0:24:34 introductory offer is that, that ability. And by doing that, you have a crowd-pleasing menu that
0:24:41 showcases your food in a way that is a little bit less work for you and maybe a little bit lower of a
0:24:41 price point.
0:24:46 Okay. And are you offering that to the doctors and nutritionists or you’re offering it as
0:24:50 something that they can then in turn pass along to their, their clients?
0:24:58 Yeah. And it could actually be offered to anyone or you could tailor them to the specific doctor or
0:25:03 nutritionist, depending like if you have a doctor or nutritionist who focuses on, you know, let’s say
0:25:08 they have a heart patient. So you want to gear it towards them, or you could have a general introductory
0:25:13 offer. That’s going to be really up to each individual chef, how kind of dialed in they want
0:25:18 to get. Okay. Yeah. So the nutritionist is going to say, Hey, you’re, we got your, we got your test
0:25:24 results back. You need to improve your omega-3, omega-6 ratio. You need to add more lean protein to
0:25:28 your, to your diet. And then they just send you on your way. So like, here’s a value add for them.
0:25:33 And by the way, if you’d like a discounted sample from a trusted personal chef contact of mine,
0:25:35 you know, give Chef Jessica a call.
0:25:42 Exactly. Or she, she has a special introductory offer just for people in our office. And here it is,
0:25:48 something like that. I mean, I love ChatGPT for helping me kind of fine tune my offers. A lot of
0:25:55 times they’re very general, but if I can’t decide how I want to position it, it might help me. Okay.
0:26:00 I have a nutritionist who specializes in this, and I really want to help her patients do this.
0:26:05 Can you help me? And then it will help me kind of pinpoint that offer. And then I can fine tune it
0:26:11 more towards my food and my messaging. But that’s just one way. Strategic partnerships are a really
0:26:18 great way. I mentioned press releases. Just being visible in your community. So instead of posting on
0:26:23 social media all the time where people have such a short attention span, getting out there and talking
0:26:29 to people, going, like, I love going to senior centers. I will go, I’ll bring a healthy baked good,
0:26:37 I’ll bring a healthy lunch salad, and I’ll talk to them for an hour or two. And it’s so fun. And it’s
0:26:41 so rewarding. A lot of times I get paid a couple hundred dollars. I mean, it’s not a ton of money,
0:26:47 but it’s enjoyable. It’s paid marketing. And you get them to sign up on your list. You always make
0:26:53 an offer at the end. That’s one thing that chefs need to always do is make an offer at the end of when
0:26:58 you’re talking or your demo. And if they don’t sign up, collect their emails, and then you can pitch
0:26:59 your offers in the future.
0:27:05 Okay. So the senior center is paying you to come in as the expert guest of the week?
0:27:11 Yeah. Actually, a lot of places do. Like, wellness, places with wellness businesses that have wellness
0:27:16 programs for their employees. Like, I used to go to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal
0:27:21 Park. They had a wellness program for their employees. And they would pay me to come in,
0:27:24 and their employees would get points to come and watch me.
0:27:29 Oh, okay. And you’re giving a presentation on how to make healthy food at home or something like that?
0:27:33 Yeah. I think for them, it was healthy eating for the work week. And again,
0:27:37 pitch my offer. I still have those, a lot of, this was probably like 15 years ago I went there
0:27:42 for the first time. And I still have those people on my list that read my newsletter.
0:27:48 Okay. Yeah. This is one of our favorite marketing tactics. First, the strategic partnerships that
0:27:52 you mentioned on that, or like doing any sort of commission or ref share, like, oh, I’ll give you
0:27:54 10% of the first month’s service or anything like that.
0:28:00 I never have, honestly. I’m helping them really, their patients have success. So I don’t really feel
0:28:06 like there needs to be a revenue share. Because again, then it’s also like making money, more money
0:28:10 off of their patients when really we’re just trying to help them. And I think if you come from this
0:28:13 business with a service mindset, you’re going to be a lot more successful.
0:28:17 Yeah. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it both ways. So just wanted to clarify, you don’t have to have
0:28:23 like a paid affiliate relationship or partnership that way. And the other thing that you mentioned
0:28:29 here was these kind of like low-key speaking gigs at the, you know, the corporate wellness event,
0:28:34 you’re getting on their calendar, the senior center where you’re showcasing your expertise,
0:28:39 you’re getting in front of a larger group of potential customers all at once. Of course,
0:28:42 not everybody’s going to sign up. You don’t need everybody to sign up, but if they are going to
0:28:46 hire the service, all of a sudden you jump the line, right? They’re not going to go to Google
0:28:50 anymore. They’re just going to go straight to you. This is a really, really powerful, we’ve seen people
0:28:56 do this, you know, in person, like lunch and learn, Hey, come learn about copywriting from, you know,
0:29:02 the seven deadly SIDS you’re making with your website to, to doing it online partnerships,
0:29:06 whereas, you know, invite your email list to this free webinar workshop, and we’ll teach you this
0:29:12 skill and this really, really effective way to, to kind of jump the line and, and showcase some
0:29:18 expertise. Yeah. I mean, it builds trust, I think. And as a personal chef, you really, they have to
0:29:22 trust you because they’re bringing you into their home and they’re sharing a lot of personal information
0:29:28 with you. And so by doing those things, for example, having the San Diego zoo and wild animal park,
0:29:35 bringing me into their employees, it built trust. Their employees trust me and it, it sort of softens
0:29:39 that relationship. But not only that, again, I talked about earlier how, you know, we have such
0:29:45 a short attention span and to be able to really capture people’s attention span is where you’re
0:29:50 going to get them. I mean, you know that you have a podcast where people are tuning in. It’s totally
0:29:54 different than when people are scrolling, you know, and you have them for two seconds. So that’s why
0:30:00 really being visible and getting out there in your community and showcasing your offers, showcasing your
0:30:05 skills is always going to be more effective than posting on social media.
0:30:08 Yeah. Fair. I like it. Anything else on the marketing side?
0:30:14 Get comfortable with talking about what you do and telling people what you do, because a lot of people
0:30:18 I work with, they just don’t talk about it or they don’t tell people and people don’t know. Having a
0:30:24 elevator pitch or a tagline where you can describe your services very quickly is very helpful. But just
0:30:30 getting more comfortable and confident is really what’s going to get you over the edge and be good
0:30:33 marketing because nobody’s going to hire a chef that’s not confident.
0:30:39 More with Jessica in just a moment, including the additional income streams she’s been able to build
0:30:44 from this one skill beyond just cooking for clients one-on-one. That’s coming up right after this.
0:30:51 Let’s talk about a potential way to scale because it’s like, okay, I can make great money doing
0:30:56 something that I like. I could start doing it as a side hustle. It doesn’t take a lot of clients to
0:31:01 really build up a meaningful income stream. But if I ever want to take time off, all of a sudden I’m not
0:31:08 getting paid. If I want to try something else, I’m kind of potentially stuck in this trading time for
0:31:16 money business. And is there, you know, what are some ways that you’ve seen where someone with a
0:31:20 skill could branch out to some other creative revenue streams?
0:31:25 Okay. Some of the things that I have done and I’ve seen chefs do is, you know, you look at the
0:31:32 problems you’re solving for your clients right now and how can you help people who can’t afford your
0:31:39 services on the same level. So one of the things that I will do is I would create a customized menu
0:31:47 plan for people that has recipes, shopping lists. So it basically shows them how to be their own
0:31:54 personal chef. You can start to release recipes. I have personally done a lot of consulting work.
0:32:01 So I will do recipe development for companies such as like I’m making a developing a protein bar
0:32:10 developing a healthy shaved ice. I have created a cookbook for a supplement company there. You can
0:32:17 also do cooking classes, cooking classes online or in person. So there’s a lot of different ways that
0:32:22 you can creatively create different income avenues as a personal chef.
0:32:28 Okay. So these, these companies are coming to you to say, Hey, we saw you on social or we saw like,
0:32:32 can you, can you help us put this together? Yeah. And believe it or not, they either find me through
0:32:37 my website, which is primarily through looking for a personal chef. They’re not looking for a research
0:32:43 and product development chef. I can tell you that because I know my keywords and also through my
0:32:49 personal chef clients. So a business partners of my personal chef clients will say, Hey, Jessica,
0:32:54 I’m really interested in making this. Do you think you could help me? So that’s just things that have
0:32:59 come to me because I’m open to them. And I talk to people about these types of business situations,
0:33:07 but I think that people being open to helping people with eating healthy in new ways. So it’s not just
0:33:13 about, Oh, can I cook you a healthy dinner? There’s think about it’s problem solving. I mean, I can’t answer
0:33:21 how, you know, chef Dan in Idaho should, should align his business to the highest level, but I know there’s
0:33:28 a way for him to do it. Right. I like this, um, this kind of reframe or this, this, um, exercise of,
0:33:33 you know, what can I create for the people who can’t necessarily afford my one-on-one services and then
0:33:38 parsing out using those same skills. Oh, it could be the recipe development. It could be the meal planning.
0:33:45 It could be, you know, the group, uh, cooking classes or the hosted dinner party. Like there’s,
0:33:48 um, eat with, or was, you know, I came across one of these sites where I was like, you know,
0:33:54 host this dinner party. It was like a cool experience type of thing, kind of a sample almost of your work,
0:34:00 but, you know, allows you to serve lots of people all at once versus just the one, uh, one-on-one
0:34:04 client. Yeah. Ideas are popping into my head as we’re talking. Like I’m thinking, Oh, you could,
0:34:10 you could create a dinner party master plan where you teach somebody how to create a four course
0:34:14 dinner party in their home. I mean, there’s so many different things that you could do. You have to
0:34:21 take what your skill is and what do you like to do, but especially now with AI, it’s much easier to do
0:34:26 these digital things as a chef, because a lot of times in the past, they didn’t necessarily have
0:34:32 those skills, but it’s easier now. And it’s something that I’ve done for at least 10 years now,
0:34:39 been doing the digital side for my chef clients where I sell menu plans and recipes and cookbooks
0:34:45 and things like that. And it’s great because it allows me to connect with people all over the
0:34:49 country and the world that I would not normally have as clients. Yeah. What do you charge for the
0:34:54 menu, menu planning or something like that? If it’s 500 bucks a day or 600 bucks a day to have you come to
0:34:59 my house? It’s not cheap. It’s usually starts at like 150, but it’s quite a bit. It’s, it’s very
0:35:04 extensive and it’s customized and it’s something they have forever. And it always comes with my
0:35:08 support. I always want to support people with anything they purchase of mine. So I always tell
0:35:14 the chefs as well, you know, provide that support and people will keep coming back. Another thing I did,
0:35:18 which is interesting. So one of the things that I teach people is offer and visibility, create the
0:35:23 offer and be visible. That’s how you get the clients. So I created an offer during a slow time
0:35:29 called the soup trio. And basically this was for my local clients and I did, it was three
0:35:36 plant-based soups and it was sort of like a detox. But what I did was I sent it out to my whole list
0:35:41 as an option of either you could purchase the soup or you could purchase it as a digital download.
0:35:47 So you could get all the recipes for the soups that had the shopping list. So if they wanted this
0:35:52 detox or this cleanse at home, they’re able to do that. And I think I sold that for like
0:36:00 $30 or something very low. But that was a way to showcase what I did. But it was no more work for
0:36:04 me because I was already doing it for my regular clients. I already had to create all of that stuff
0:36:05 anyway.
0:36:11 Yeah. Do you do any of the group classes? I’m thinking is when we travel, I think we did one of
0:36:16 these in Thailand where I don’t know if it showed up on TripAdvisor or like some other friends had
0:36:21 gone and said, oh, you got to do this while you’re there. I mean, anything like that through Airbnb?
0:36:27 Yeah. So I didn’t mention this in the marketing. Airbnb has connections. So they reached out to me
0:36:34 and I’m sure any chef could do this. They have an elevate part of their services where you can post
0:36:39 something that you want to provide, a service that you want to provide. If you want to do a
0:36:46 fancy picnic or a cooking class, you post that in the Airbnb elevate area and then people searching
0:36:52 for services like that will see it. As a personal chef, there are a lot of apps and companies that
0:36:59 want to market with you. There is Cozy Meal, which does cooking classes. So people will sign up on their
0:37:05 app and book a cooking class through you. Airbnb, a lot of places. So you can kind of hand off the
0:37:09 marketing in some aspects if you like to do events like that.
0:37:15 Yeah, I think this is really interesting. When we were trying to shop for a place to do our annual
0:37:21 Friendsgiving and we’re looking for AirBbs or houses to rent in Mexico. And it seems like a lot of the
0:37:26 hosts, the owners of these places had relationships with local chefs. We’re like, and if you don’t want
0:37:32 to bring, you don’t want to deal with going out or you don’t, we could bring in our partner chef to
0:37:36 prep three meals a day for you. It would be an extra hundred bucks a day or something. It was like
0:37:41 different currency, cost of living, everything else. But it was a unique value add where if you have
0:37:46 some strategic partnerships, if you’re in a tourist area, you don’t necessarily want to do the full
0:37:52 weekly thing, but you’d be open to doing it every now and again when the requests come in. I could see
0:37:57 that being a thing too. Yeah. I mean, nobody wants to go out every single night when they’re going out
0:38:03 to eat. So it’s actually a really great service. I don’t do this as much anymore, but I used to spend
0:38:09 a lot of time or a lot of events doing vacations because I live in an area where a lot of people
0:38:13 come in for vacation in the summer. And so a lot of my clients would travel during the summer. So it
0:38:18 allowed me to kind of pick up extra business. Yeah. We came across, there was, I want to say it was
0:38:23 Southern California too. Maybe it was in LA, but they were doing these luxury picnic setups and there
0:38:28 was some overhead involved because like, you know, fancy little table and table linens, you know, for
0:38:34 this, they’d set up the whole charcuterie platform, but it was like. So pretty. I’ve seen them. I forget
0:38:39 the price, but it was much higher than I expected somebody to pay for a picnic setup. Yeah. It’s
0:38:45 definitely a premium service. There are so many cool ways to market yourself as a personal chef. It’s kind
0:38:51 of like, and it’s just like anything. Like I always feel like everything takes effort and work,
0:38:56 no matter what we’re going to do. Everything takes hard work, but I don’t feel like this is a hustle,
0:39:04 like hustle hard. It’s more of a hard work and alignment type of side hustle where, you know,
0:39:10 you find people who you’re really connected with and you can help instead of having to work so hard to
0:39:16 find clients because you only need five to 10 clients. Right. Yeah. And it’s a helpful exercise
0:39:19 where you’re not, you’re not trying to serve thousands of people, right? You don’t, you don’t
0:39:22 need to. And you, and you, you, you physically couldn’t. Yeah. There’s not a lot of businesses
0:39:29 that you could get to six figures with just five clients and still work Monday through Friday,
0:39:34 nine to five. I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of businesses like that. So in that way,
0:39:39 it’s very unique, but again, it’s, it is a service-based industries. Right. And have some
0:39:45 level of security in that. Well, if you, it’s a good job, if you got one client and you get fired,
0:39:49 then you lose a hundred percent of your income. Like, well, if I lost one, one client and I lost
0:39:53 10 to 20% of my income instead, then I go replace them. That’s true. Actually.
0:39:59 So you’ve been doing this a couple of decades, like any big surprises or any big mistakes that you see
0:40:05 new personal chefs making? I would say the biggest mistake is getting locked in with either the wrong
0:40:11 client or too low of a price or agreeing to something that they know they shouldn’t do.
0:40:17 Because as a personal chef, once you’re locked in with the client, it’s really hard to, you can’t go
0:40:21 back and say, you know, I think I want to raise my price or I think I don’t want to cook this much food.
0:40:27 So that would be my biggest mistake. I see people make is agreeing to stuff because they’re so,
0:40:31 they want a client. So they just go, you know, they, they drop all their boundaries.
0:40:36 Okay. Yeah. You price too low at the beginning or it’s just like, it’s not a great fit. And now,
0:40:37 and now you’re kind of stuck.
0:40:44 Or promise the world, you know, the people are asking too many things and, and the chefs don’t
0:40:50 know how to set parameters on their business. Because I think a lot of people, they come from this,
0:40:53 they come to this business because they love to cook and they want to help and they,
0:40:59 they liked doing it, but the business side, they’re a little bit clueless on and they don’t
0:41:01 know how to really communicate that part.
0:41:06 Yeah. I think a lot of people fall into that boat of, well, I have this, I have this skill
0:41:11 and I just flip, flip a switch and say, well, now I’m in business. Like, well, there’s a few
0:41:16 freelancer skills or entrepreneur skills. It’s got to learn along, uh, along the way that we,
0:41:20 we talked about the mindset and the marketing and positioning and everything else.
0:41:24 Yeah. And, and also like as a personal chef, the interesting thing is you’re dealing with people
0:41:32 who are very business savvy, right? Your, your clients and you may not be. So if you’re, if
0:41:37 you’re coming in and you, you’re going to get steamrolled, they’re going to push your boundaries,
0:41:42 you know, because they can’t, I’m not saying they want to, they just don’t know. They’re not mind
0:41:46 readers. They don’t know where your boundaries are. And that’s why it’s really important for business
0:41:51 owners, especially personal chefs to be able to communicate that. And that’s one of the things I,
0:41:58 I see them really struggle with is because, and that’s confidence mindset. That’s all of it. That’s
0:42:03 why I always say confidence mindset is the first step to pricing, to your pricing strategy.
0:42:08 Yeah. I like this call to put up some boundaries, put up some guardrails from, from, from the early
0:42:12 days of, you know, what are you willing to do? What are you not willing to do? And kind of stick to
0:42:16 your, your North star guidance on that. So I appreciate, appreciate you sharing that. You’ve
0:42:22 alluded to it a couple of times. The Prosperous Personal Chef is a program that Jessica has created.
0:42:28 You can find it at chefjessica.com. Tell us a little bit about it. Who’s it for? What do you, what’s
0:42:36 inside? It’s basically start to finish walking you through the business of starting, growing, sustaining
0:42:42 a personal chef business. That being said, there is a ton of stuff in there that’s done for
0:42:49 you. The assessment, the sample menus, all of that is in there. And then anybody who goes
0:42:54 through the academy also gets my full support because I want to make sure that they’re successful.
0:43:01 So I include three full calls to make sure they are on page with their going through the right
0:43:08 direction because even I find that as a self-study course, it’s not as successful as if you have my
0:43:14 support because people still kind of get off the rails with their marketing and their boundaries and
0:43:21 all of that. Yeah. Well, I think it’s a fun example of kind of packaging up years of knowledge and
0:43:26 expertise and sometimes like the actual resources and templates and stuff that you use. And I imagine
0:43:31 people were asking like, Hey, can I, can I pick your brain on how to get started on my own? How did
0:43:35 you get customers? You’re like, well, you know, you get, you get sick of answering the same questions
0:43:39 over and over again. You’re like, well, let me put, if there’s some demand for this. Yeah. It was also
0:43:45 like, ah, like watching, you know, watching a train wreck or like you, you, it’s like you seeing
0:43:50 almost like your child wants to go to Disneyland, but won’t put their shoes on. That’s kind of what it was
0:43:56 like watching with chefs and seeing them doing the wrong thing over and over again as personal chefs and
0:44:02 people constantly posting questions that are like, how much should I charge for this? Or things like
0:44:09 that. Just when I felt like I got to get this information out there because somebody needs to
0:44:14 document the right way to do this. There’s too much misinformation and too many people doing it the
0:44:20 wrong way. Oh, very good. We’ll link that up. Chef Jessica.com. You can find your free guide to
0:44:25 getting high paying VIP clients over there. We’ll link that up in the show notes. This has been fun.
0:44:31 Hopefully some lessons and takeaways, um, regardless of what kind of local service business that you’re
0:44:36 running. You talked about, you’d may not be, uh, cooking may not come, uh, naturally to you, but lots of,
0:44:41 uh, tools and tactics I think that you’d be able to apply and different mindset shifts that you might be
0:44:46 able to apply to different business models as well. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip
0:44:52 for side hustle nation. Connection. I think that if you want to grow a successful business, it’s all
0:44:59 about connection and building that connection with your clients is truly the secret to success in my
0:45:07 opinion. That’s so true. It’s all about your network and building that level of trust and who knows you,
0:45:12 how they know you talked about the strategic partnership angles, talked about the, uh,
0:45:17 introductory offer angles, like the, like the free samples at Costco. The example I come back to
0:45:22 a lot of times, I go, Oh, I don’t know if I want to commit to having you here every week. Let me,
0:45:25 let me see about this first. I call it dipping your toe in the water.
0:45:32 Yes. I love that angle. I love the angle of doing kind of low, low risk, low key speaking events
0:45:38 or presentations to showcase your expertise and, uh, build, build trust. Lots of cool marketing tactics
0:45:45 here. Again, chef Jessica.com is, uh, where you can find her. You also find the full text summary of
0:45:52 this episode, links to all the resources mentioned at side hustle nation.com slash chef. While you’re
0:45:57 there, go ahead and download your free listener bonus for this episode. That’s 101 service business ideas.
0:46:03 she might be able to apply some of Jessica’s same strategy to once again, side hustle nation.com
0:46:08 slash chef, or just follow the, uh, the link in the episode description. It’ll get you right over
0:46:13 there. Big thanks to Jessica for sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this
0:46:18 content free for everyone. You can hit up side hustle nation.com slash deals for all the latest
0:46:24 offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in until next
0:46:29 time let’s come out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side
0:46:30 hustle show. Hustle on.