468: 16 Marketing Ideas from Side Hustle Nation to Grow Your Business

Like it or not, we’re all marketers.

Whether we’re selling ourselves in a job interview, pitching our product or service, or trying to get people to pay attention to our content — we’re all marketers.

And you should know this is one of my all-time favorite topics.

So, how do we solve the awareness problem?

How do we position ourselves so the right people can find us — and the wrong ones leave us alone?

To spark some inspiration and maybe breathe new life into your own marketing efforts, I asked members of Side Hustle Nation to share what’s working for them right now.

Tune in to this episode of The Side Hustle Show to hear 16 of the best marketing wins and tips, including:

• how you can dominate local search for your business and get a steady flow of organic leads
• the best social platforms to use to grow and engage with your audience
• some different and highly effective ways you can build your network
• and more

Full Show Notes: 16 Marketing Ideas from Side Hustle Nation to Grow Your Business

467: What I’ve Learned and Applied from 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs Part 8

At the end of nearly every episode of The Side Hustle Show, I ask my guests for their “#1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.”

There’s always a great variety of responses, and I wanted to take some time today to go through some of my favorites from the past 50-ish interviews.

This has become an annual tradition on the show, which is now almost 8.5 years old and recently passed 17 million lifetime downloads.

If you like this short-and-sweet meta-style show, be sure to check out the others in this series:

• Episode 50 – 2014
• Episode 124 – 2015
• Episode 177 – 2016
• Episode 236 – 2017
• Episode 288 – 2018
• Episode 338 – 2019
• Episode 392 – 2020

Full Show Notes: What I’ve Learned and Applied from 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs Part 8 

466: Online Drop Servicing – Building a $10k/mo Niche Productized Service Agency

Where there’s pain, there might also be profit…

That was the case for today’s guest, Pete Mockaitis. Pete was seeing some traction with his podcast, the HowToBeAwesomeAtYourJob Podcast, but was struggling to keep up all the off-air tasks — the show notes, the editing, the social media.

For Pete Mockaitis, that pain turned into AwesomePros.co, a niche drop-servicing company that he co-founded with Brian Kearny and is now doing $10k a month in recurring revenue.

This is something that will work in just about any niche where you can outsource tasks remotely, and in this episode, Pete and Brian break down exactly how they grew their business.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• how Pete and Brian took this from an in-house solution to a $10k/mo business
• the tactics they’ve used to grow their client roster
• how you can figure out niche and pricing if you want to replicate this in another vertical

Full Show Notes: Online Drop Servicing – Building a $10k/mo Niche Productized Service Agency

465: 6-Figure Growth Hack: Partner Workshops

One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem – nobody knows you exist.

To help erase this problem, I’ve invited Dustin Lien from JumpXmarketing.com back on the show.

Dustin first appeared on episode 251 back in 2017. Back then, he was just ramping up JumpX after shutting down his own physical product business.

Since then he’s grown it into a 6-figure operation and built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.

What’s been his key driver?

Partner workshops, which are essentially virtual lunch-and-learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without ads or bidding for work.

This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process so you can go out and apply it in your own business.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• Dustin’s fast-track strategy to getting in front of the right audience
• how he builds his email list quickly with
• his top tips for creating warm outreach emails and connecting with customers

Full Show Notes: 6-Figure Growth Hack: Partner Workshops

464: The $8k a Month Curly Hair Blog

Ever thought about turning your expertise in an everyday subject or topic into an online business?

For Delilah Orpi, her expertise was on taking care of her curly hair — and starting as a side hustle, she turned that into an online business earning around $8k a month at HolisticEnchilada.com.

Delilah has some interesting strategies she used to grow her audience, build her email list, diversify her multiple income streams — all of which can be applied to a topic of your choosing.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• why Delilah started blogging about curly hair
• how she has grown her audience through Pinterest and organic search
• the multiple income streams she’s created and a high-converting tripwire

Full Show Notes: The $8k a Month Curly Hair Blog

463: Memberships vs. Online Courses: Which Business Model is Right for You?

There are tons of ways to make money online — the root of all of them comes down to helping people.

Two common ways entrepreneurs help a wide audience is by packaging up their knowledge and experience into an online training course or a membership program/community.

But which model makes the most sense for your business?

To find out, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown.

For the debate, I’ve invited back two Side Hustle Show favorites:

• Jacques Hopkins has sold over $2 million worth of his flagship online course PianoIn21Days.com and teaches others how to create their own courses at TheOnlineCourseGuy.com.
• Shane and his wife Jocelyn sold their primary membership website for over $1M and now help other people create and grow membership sites of their own at flippedlifestyle.com

Tune in the week to learn:

• how Jacques and Shane approach creating content for their businesses
• the differences in business models between memberships and courses
• the time commitment involved for both business models
• tips for pricing and increasing conversions
• and more

Full Show Notes: Memberships vs. Online Courses: Which Business Model is Right for You?

462: Zero to 50,000 Followers in 12 Months: How to Build and Monetize an Audience on Facebook

We’ve been on a bit of an audience building kick lately in our conversations with Dickie Bush about Twitter, with Tori Dunlap about TikTok.

Today you’ll meet a long-time listener of the show who built her audience on Facebook.

Chantal Lavergne is the founder of FunSensoryPlay.com, which started as a Facebook page in early 2020 — and that’s important because that’s years after the supposed death of organic Facebook page reach.

Since then she’s grown the page to nearly 80,000 followers using some specific and proven engagement strategies, and turned that following into a business with multiple revenue streams.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• how Chantal came up with the idea to start a sensory fun Facebook page
• how she has grown her audience so fast by creating an “ecosystem”
• the multiple income streams she’s created for her business

Full Show Notes and PDF Bonus: Zero to 50,000 Followers in 12 Months: How to Build and Monetize an Audience on Facebook

461: How to Grow and Monetize a TikTok audience: 1.6M Followers in 13 Months

Tired of toiling away on social media for lackluster results? Tori Dunlap earned her first 200,000 TikTok followers in just a couple weeks, and has added another 1.4 million since then.

All that attention has helped her turn a healthy 6-figure business into a multi-7-figure operation. 

Tori is the founder of HerFirst100k.com and host of the Financial Feminist podcast, where she helps women become more financially confident.

She argues that TikTok is the best social media platform on which to grow a targeted audience right now.

For a start, TikTok has more than a billion monthly active users and is still seen as an up-and-coming social media platform where you can easily connect with your target audience.

In addition to the huge user base, Tori explained that “there are more consumers than creators,” which gives content creators like you an edge. 

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show to learn:

• how to get started on TikTok and what type of content works best
• how Tori creates viral videos that helped her gain more than 1.6 million followers in 13 months
• the ways she’s driving TikTok traffic to affiliate offers and paid products

Full Show Notes PDF Bonus: How to Grow and Monetize a TikTok audience: 1.6M Followers in 13 Months

460: Side Hustle Showdown: Buying a Business vs. Investing in Real Estate

If you’re looking to add some time-leveraged cash flow to your bottom line, two of the best options are investing in rental real estate and buying small businesses.

Both are viable options, and to help you figure out if either or both of these investment options are right for you, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown.

For the debate, I’ve invited back two Side Hustle Show favorites:

• Chad Carson is the owner of over 100+ properties and the author of Retire Early with Real Estate.
• Codie Sanchez is the owner of several so-called “boring” small businesses, including a laundromat and a podcast production service.

(In Chad’s first appearance, we covered 5 low-cost ways to get started in real estate. With Codie, we explored how to grow and monetize an email newsletter.)

Tune in the week to learn:

• what kind of portfolios Chad and Codie have built up
• how you can get started buying real estate and small businesses
• some of the creative financing options available
• the mistakes they made along the way
• and more

Full Show Notes: Side Hustle Showdown: Buying a Business vs. Investing in Real Estate

459: Online Arbitrage: Make Money with Amazon FBA from Home

Online arbitrage is the process of buying inventory from one site to resell on another (usually Amazon).

To help school me on this side hustle is Chris Grant, a longtime Amazon seller and the founder of ClearTheShelf.com and OAChallenge.com.

Chris has been involved in the online arbitrage space for the last 10+ years and is currently selling $75,000-80,000 per month.

In this episode, Chris explains the systems he’s built and the tools he uses to help him find more “winners”, minimize the risk of losses, and how anyone can make money with this side hustle in just 1-2 hours a day.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• Where Chris finds inventory to sell on for profit
• The tools and tech he uses to automate and streamline his product sourcing
• How he minimizes risk on the downside and some hacks for finding discounts when buying in bulk

Full Show Notes: Online Arbitrage: Make Money with Amazon FBA from Home