458: $80k on This Site: How to Get More Freelance Gigs

Few words will get as polarizing a response among freelancers and side hustlers as Upwork.

Depending on who you ask, it’s either a fantastic platform to connect with well-paying gigs and quality clients … or it’s a hopeless, desperate race to the bottom, overly-competitive bloodbath with no chance of success.

Like a lot of things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and a lot of your outcome will depend on your strategy and how well you show up.

Upwork is the world’s largest freelance marketplace. The platform booked $2.5 billion worth of work last year, so there’s no shortage of cash flowing — if you know how to get it flowing toward you.

To help is do that, I invited 2020’s most popular guest, Chris Misterek, back to the show. 

Chris is a web design pro who’s booked over $80k worth of work through Upwork. 

(We’re going to focus on Upwork but these same rules apply for other freelance platforms as well, like Fiverr or Thumbtack — so get ready to set yourself up for success.)

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• how you can set up your Upwork profile for success
• why Chris says niching down will help you secure more jobs
• how to pitch clients the right way to increase your chance of landing your ideal jobs

Full Show Notes: $80k on This Site: How to Get More Freelance Gigs

457: Growing a 6-Figure Side Hustle in 12 Months

Today’s guest has gone from zero to almost 50k followers in the last 12 months and has turned that newfound attention into a 6-figure online business.

This is impressive in itself, but what’s even more impressive about this story is that Dickie Bush has built his audience on Twitter.

You know, that social media platform that’s always just … been there. One of several platforms that I’d kind of written off.

In fact, in 8 years and 450 episodes, we’ve never done a dedicated conversation on Twitter as an audience-building platform.

Dickie has been a frequently-requested guest over the last few months. He’s a former college athlete turned portfolio analyst. But on the side, he’s the creator of Ship30for30.com, a cohort-based online course that helps you build an online writing habit.

Dickie opens up enrollment for Ship 30 for 30 every 6 weeks, and in the last enrolment, he had 476 students paying $350 each.

That’s $166,600 in gross revenue.

If you’ve been focusing on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, you may be missing out. In this episode, Dickie explains why Twitter is the perfect platform for quickly building an engaged audience.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• why Dickie uses Twitter and says it’s the best platform for building an audience
• how he writes tweets that go viral and attract followers
• why he opted to build a cohort-based course over evergreen content

Full Show Notes: Growing a 6-Figure Side Hustle in 12 Months

456: 16 Marketing Tips for Books (and Other Products) From Bestselling Authors

What’s the best way to write a bestselling book? Ask a hundred people and you’ll get 100 different answers.

Sure, I’ve had some book launch success before, and have certainly learned a lot about self-publishing since my first title in 2012. But there are always new and different tactics to try, and you never really know how audiences and algorithms are going to react.

You can check out my latest book at 1K100ways.com. 

I asked several fellow authors “What’s your #1 book launch or book marketing tip?”

Here are their answers.

Full Show Notes and PDF Checklist: 16 Marketing Tips for Books (and Other Products) From Bestselling Authors

455: The Side Hustle Snowball: Erase Your Expenses One Extra Income Stream at a Time

I want to introduce a concept I call The Side Hustle Snowball.

If you’ve heard about Dave Ramsey’s “Debt Snowball” framework, this may sound familiar.

Here’s how The Side Hustle Snowball works:

You itemize out your expenses and then aim to come up with side hustle income to cover them, starting with the smallest and working your way up.

Once you reach the bottom of your list, you don’t need your job anymore!

In this episode, I’ll share 11 of our real household expenses and how we zero those out with side hustle income.

Full Show Notes: The Side Hustle Snowball: Erase Your Expenses One Extra Income Stream at a Time

Bonus: $1K 100 Ways: The Book Project 6 Years in the Making

Some ideas just won’t die. This project was one of them.

My latest book is called $1K 100 Ways, and it features 100 case studies from the Side Hustle Nation community on how to earn an extra $1000 or more in your spare time.

The first flicker of the idea came into my head way back in early 2015. This is the story of how it finally came to life.

Full show notes

454: Easy Website Wins: Marketing and Monetization Lessons From 175 Website Flips

Today we’re diving into the easy wins — the quick updates you can make to your websites to drive more traffic and sales.

To help me out on that topic is Mushfiq S., a side hustler who has been building, buying, growing, and selling websites since 2008, all on the side from his full-time career.

During that time he’s done over 175 transactions and has a wealth of knowledge on what it takes to make money and build equity online.

You can think of it a little like flipping houses — trying to find these undervalued fixer-upper projects, and making ’em shine.

Only it’s better suited to those who are more comfortable creating content than they are replacing countertops and cabinets — and your upfront costs may be a lot lower too.

You can find out more about Mushfiq over at TheWebsiteFlip.com and EasyWins.io where you can buy a copy of his “easy wins” spreadsheet listing the things he does to fix up sites he purchases.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• where Mushfiq finds “distressed assets” he knows he can fix up and flip for a profit
• the buying criteria he uses to find the best deals
• some of his best “quick wins” that have the biggest impact on a site’s revenue

Full Show Notes: Easy Website Wins: Marketing and Monetization Lessons From 175 Website Flips

453: 12 Expert SEO Tips for 2021: Get More Free Traffic

Want to drive more organic traffic to your website?

I’m sure you do.

At the heart of organic traffic is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

The better optimized your site is for search engines, the higher you’ll rank for your target keywords, and the more visitors you’ll get.

For everyone interested in SEO, I have an excellent round-up style show for you today.

To help you get up to speed with the latest SEO techniques and methods that are working right now, I invited a bunch of friends of mine and experts who make a living online to share their top SEO tips.

I asked them what’s working today in terms of driving more search traffic to their sites, and they shared some insights, resources, and tips that are easily replicable for your sites.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show this week what’s working now in the world of SEO, including how to:

• find easy-to-rank-for keywords
• perform a free SEO site audit and identify easy SEO fixes
• use content editors to write better-optimized content

Full Show Notes: 12 Expert SEO Tips for 2021: Get More Free Traffic

452: Blogging vs. YouTube: Which Platform is Best to Grow an Online Business?

If you’re starting an online business, you’re almost certainly going to create content. But should you focus on written content on your blog, or video content to try and tap into the massive YouTube audience?

Which is better to focus on for audience growth, monetization, and for the best ROI on your limited time?

To help you figure out which type of content is best for you, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown.

For the debate, I found two gracious volunteers. Both are from the food and recipe niche, so we can compare proverbial apples to apples.

They are:

• Blogger Jannese Torres-Rodriguez, who started DelishD’Lites.com as a side hustle to share her love of Latin food. She has since turned it into one of several income streams under her multi-6-figure business umbrella.
• YouTuber Nisha Vora, who is a former lawyer who started RainbowPlantLife.com and the Rainbow Plant Life YouTube Channel to share how to master vegan cooking at home. She’s closing in on half a million YouTube subscribers and has more than 20 million lifetime views.

Tune in to hear:

• Which type of content takes the longest to create
• How they go about creating content that ranks well on each platform
• The pros and cons of “owning” your blog content vs. relying on YouTube
• How monetization compares on the two platforms
• And more

This is a fun one, and by the end, you’ll have an idea which platform is going to be best for your business.

Full Show Notes: Blogging vs. YouTube: Which Platform is Best to Grow an Online Business?

451: Affiliate Marketing, Early Retirement, and Side Hustle Shifts Over 8 Years of Podcasting: 20 Questions with Nick

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

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

Click here to join Side Hustle Nation for free!

The questions:

1. How I can use my knowledge for a blog or a podcast or affiliate marketing?
2. How have your attitudes about side hustling changed over the last 8 years in the space?
3. How do bundle sales work? Why would these product creators give their work away for so little?
4. What’s the table of contents plugin you’re using on your site?
5. How is the “You Might Also Like” box in your newsletter working for you in terms of boosting clicks, pageviews, etc.?
6. I noticed that you are using Teachable — any particular reason?
7. Which WordPress theme should I use?
8. How much do podcasters get paid by sponsors?
9. What made you “jump” [from your day job]? How did failure not become an option for you?
10. Should you build a review site around a single product or service, or broaden it a bit to the whole family of products of services?
11. What are some good potential side hustles for retirees?
12. How can you protect yourself from legal liability related to online content?
13. What’s your take on services like Skimlinks?
14. Do you still recommend putting your books in Kindle Unlimited / KDP Select?
15. When registering a business, can I be my own registered agent?
16. I have 11 separate websites for the local towns where we operate. Should I consolidate domains?
17. I’m just getting started. Should I write and publish a book or start a service business?
18. How much is enough to retire at 35?
19. What side hustles or gigs grew the most in the last year?
20. How would you speed up the process of growing a community?

Full Show Notes: Affiliate Marketing, Early Retirement, and Side Hustle Shifts Over 8 Years of Podcasting: 20 Questions with Nick

450: How to Make Money with Kids Books on Amazon

Royalties from book sales is one of the most passive of all my income streams.

After you create a book, with print or digital distribution handled by Amazon, you can collect royalties for years.

And while I enjoy the writing process and have published several titles myself, I have yet to venture into the world of children’s books. 

(Despite having the outlines of a couple kids books on my phone for the last two or three years!)

This week I connected with Matthew Ralph, a children’s book author from England, who recently quit his full-time marketing job to focus on his publishing and freelancing business.

His bestselling work to date is Sam the Speedy Sloth. The idea of which came to him while walking through an airport, and by the time his flight landed, the book was almost written.

Matt has since added more books to his portfolio, while freelancing to help other self-publishing authors.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• what the children’s book creation process is like
• the most effective ways he’s found to market his books
• how he’s expanding his portfolio and entering different markets

Full Show Notes: How to Make Money with Kids Books on Amazon