361: How to Get More Clients … By Interviewing Them

Would you trade $200 for $4,000?

That’s exactly what today’s guest, Josh Elledge is doing.

Josh runs a kind of modern PR service for small businesses and has developed a unique and innovative way to break through the marketing clutter and have real conversations with real prospects — and do it at scale.

He’s found a way to create what he calls “a speed dating environment.” That’s his metaphor for the revolving door of new prospects he’s interviewing and selling his services to.

To do this, Josh has created a podcast called The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. It serves as a platform for business owners to talk about their businesses, and for Josh to demonstrate to them how he can improve their visibility.

It’s a win-win, and with streamlined processes in place, Josh is seeing a return of around $4,000 for every $200 he spends on producing his show.

If you’re a current or aspiring freelancer, consultant, coach, or agency owner… this is gold. 

Tune in to hear how Josh does his proactive prospecting, how he’s turning his content creation into sales conversions, and the foundational ground game he’s got set up that makes this all work.

Full Show Notes: How to Get More Clients … By Interviewing Them

360: From $12/hr at Walmart to a $70k a Year Part-Time Business

He knew his $12 an hour gig at Walmart was a dead-end job.

His escape route was a business idea you probably walk past at least a couple times a year without even thinking about it.

What’s he do?

Today, Larry McGee’s the guy who takes care of the aquarium at the dentist office and other commercial waiting rooms.

And it earns him around $70,000 a year, doing something he enjoys and working just 15-hours a week.

Larry’s aquarium maintenance business started as a lunch break side hustle with a friend while working at Walmart. More than a decade into the operation, he’s got dozens of predictable retainer clients that pay him every month.

In this episode, Larry shares some interesting tactics he’s used over the years to find new clients and keep them around for years.

I’m confident he’ll give you some food for thought as to what type of local service business could be right under your nose.

Full Show Notes: From $12/hr at Walmart to a $70k a Year Part-Time Business

359: Profitable Affiliate Marketing, Even in an Insanely Competitive Niche

Just because a niche is insanely competitive, it doesn’t mean you can’t start an affiliate site and claim a slice of the revenue.

At least, that’s what Sa El of SimplyInsurance.com has done, and the way he lays out how he’s done it will pique the interest of affiliate marketers out there.

Sa was a door-to-door insurance salesman in Atlanta. He wanted to get into the online space and build an affiliate site, and with more than 11 years’ experience in the insurance industry, it made sense to enter the insurance niche.

He took Brain Dean’s SEO That Works course to learn the ropes. But, when he told Brian he was going to build a site in the insurance niche, he was advised against it.

Did Sa go back to the drawing board and look for a new niche?

Nope.

Sa told me there were two reasons why he decided to go ahead and build his site:

1. He likes a challenge, and
2. If the niche is that competitive, most of his competition is already at the top, leaving room for him to work his way up.

That was 2 years ago.

Today, Sa’s site is bringing in 6000 visitors a month and $13k-$15k in revenue.

These numbers prove how competitive the insurance niche is. That’s a huge revenue number for 6k visitors, and Sa told me that only around 4.5k of those visitors are landing on his “money pages.” (Some examples linked below.)

Tune in to hear how Sa strategically built out his content to capture longtail traffic, how he builds backlinks (lots of them) to rank his money pages, and the tools he’s using to accelerate his efforts.

Full Show Notes: Profitable Affiliate Marketing, Even in an Insanely Competitive Niche

358: House Hacking: Live for Free and Turn Your Biggest Expense into a Profit Center

What if you could make your rent or mortgage payment go away?

Or, what if instead of paying that expense every month, your living situation actually paid you?

It’s not as far-fetched as it may sound.

In fact, that’s exactly what today’s guest, Craig Curelop, has done by intentionally “house hacking” over the past few years.

He’s even written a book on the topic, and it’s one I wish I’d had when I was 18 or 19! I would have definitely done some things differently.

The basic idea is to use other people’s rents to offset, or even profit from your own housing costs. On top of that, you’ll begin building wealth through real estate and earn tax benefits as well.

If you have a spare room or two in your home, or you’re interested in house hacking, this episode is going to get the gears turning for you.

Tune in as Craig runs through some examples of how you can do this. Whether you’re a young professional, or you have a family of your own, you can offset some or all of your mortgage payments.

But keep in mind, this isn’t a common path — this is living for a period of time like others won’t — as you’ll hear from Craig’s story.

“Typically you’re going to sacrifice comfortability with profitability,” Craig explained to me. But living for a few years like others won’t has given Craig the financial independence to potentially live decades like others can’t.

Full Show Notes: House Hacking: Live for Free and Turn Your Biggest Expense into a Profit Center

357: Productized Service Coaching: Building a Product Ladder

You’ve started a business.

You’ve created a product or a service.

You’re selling it to clients and getting great feedback.

That’s great, you’ve overcome so many of the hurdles we face as entrepreneurs. But the next step is finding a way to keep new customers coming through the doors and scaling up your services.

That’s the challenge today’s guest Matt Rudnitsky of Platypusbooks.com is facing. Matt helps entrepreneurs and other interesting people turn their ideas and expertise into books.

For this, Matt earns $30k and up per project. But, as you might have guessed, it takes a ton of work and the client pipeline is sometimes dry for months at a time. Matt has also created an online course teaching self-publishing, but hasn’t enrolled any students yet.

So, I invited Kurt Elster from EtherCycle.com back onto the show. (Some of you will remember Kurt from episode 71 back in 2014 where he talked about productized consulting).

Kurt hosts the unofficial Shopify podcast and is a leader in productized consulting in the Shopify space. He’s faced all the same problems Matt, and a lot of you reading this are currently facing.

Tune in to hear our take on Matt’s business and Kurt’s recommendations for next steps. As you listen in, put yourself in Matt’s shoes and see how a similar product or service ladder can apply to your own business.

Full Show Notes: Productized Service Coaching: Building a Product Ladder

356: 11 Simple Ideas that Tripled My Business

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective.

This post (and podcast episode) are inspired by my presentation at FinCon last month. I broke my own rule of not seeking out any speaking gigs, and submitted for a breakout session.

The idea was a bit of an homage to the conference: 10 FinCon Breakthroughs that Tripled My Business.

The powers that be stripped the “FinCon” part from the title, but I was still able to highlight some of my favorite — and most impactful — takeaways from the annual conference.

I’ve been every year since 2015, and have seen some great steady business growth since then. This chart tracks my yearly profit:

While there are certainly other factors that went into that growth, there is absolutely a concrete, positive ROI from attending. And on top of that, it’s super energizing to hang around a group of motivated, talented, and generous individuals.

So here we go with the 11 simple ideas!

Full Show Notes: 11 Simple Ideas that Tripled My Business

355: The Dream 100: Stop Building Links and Start Building Friendships

If you have an online business, chances are you’ve tried your hand at outreach.

If you want to expand and grow your business, especially from an SEO standpoint, you need good quality links pointing to your site from other websites.

The problem is that getting other sites to link to you is not easy, as I’m sure you’ve found it. The “traditional” method is to send out dozens, even hundreds of emails to other site owners trying to land a guest post.

But, as today’s guest Brendan Hufford explains, this takes an awful lot of work, has a low chance of success, and the links you do get might not actually be doing much for your site’s SEO.

Brendan is an SEO master, a long-time entrepreneur, and a master at building win-win relationships. His approach to SEO and link building is a little different.

“Build friend’s first, not links,” is Brendan’s motto when it comes to outreach. He’s come up with his own Dream 100 Strategy for SEO, and he’s seen it work wonders with his own businesses and for his students.

Tune in to hear Brendan explain how you can create your own Dream 100 list of the sites you’d like to work with to grow your business.

He explains why most outreach is awful, how you should be reaching out to people, why there is long-term value in building friendships, and how you can improve your SEO and grow your online business.

Full Show Notes: The Dream 100: Stop Building Links and Start Building Friendships

354: Turning a Service Business into a Passive Income Stream – Part 2

Sick of trading time for money?

Looking for ways to turn a service or a skill you already have into a digital product?

This is exactly what Matt Bochnak of HowtoMotorcycleRepair.com has done. He’s turned a “blue collar” service business–repairing motorcycles–into a lucrative business with multiple streams of time-leveraged income.

This is a “Where are they now?” episode. I first caught up with Matt early in 2016 when he was a guest on episode 160 of the Side Hustle Show.

Back then, Matt’s revenue split was about 50/50 between repairing bikes and selling the video guides of the repairs. Overall, his business was doing around $800-$1,000 a month.

Fast forward almost 4 years later and Matt is earning $4,000-$5,000 a month, still on the side from his day job. What’s more impressive is that this boost in revenue is mostly from passive income streams, and he’s spending less time than ever in his garage.

If this sounds like a side hustle you’d like to replicate with your own business, tune in to hear how Matt’s creating content without repairing customer’s motorcycles, and the various passive income streams he’s built up over the past 4 years.

Full Show Notes: Turning a Service Business into a Passive Income Stream – Part 2

Related: Need a website for your service business? Here’s the fastest and cheapest way to get one online.

353: Small Blog, Big Income: Recurring Revenue from a Low-Traffic Site

A small blog doesn’t have to mean a small income.

By helping a specific group of people solve their problems, Carol Tice has attracted more than 1500 members — at $25 a month — to join her community.

Carol went from working as a freelance writer, to coaching others how to become freelance writers, to building one of the largest online membership sites for freelance writers.

(I found Carol while doing keyword research for terms like “get paid to write” and “make money writing” – and Carol OWNS this space.)

The best part is that the paid membership model is an awesome way to build an online business, and it’s a model that can be applied to just about any niche.

It didn’t come without sacrifice for Carol, who was working full-time and had two preschoolers when she started her blog. “I didn’t see a TV show, I didn’t go out to a movie, I didn’t go to dinner parties,” Carol explained.

But with hard work, a laser-focused attitude towards her goals, and good communication with her audience, Carol has built something special for freelance writers.

Tune in to hear how Carol built her membership site from the ground up. She explains how she uses funnels to constantly bring in new members, and how she keeps members engaged (any paying) for the long-haul.

You’ll learn loads of actionable stuff, and how you can also apply the same tactics to develop a recurring revenue business of your own.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Small Blog, Big Income: Recurring Revenue from a Low-Traffic Site

352: 37 Things I Have Learned in My 37 Years

I wish I was half as smart now as I was at 16!

But learning everything you don’t know is part of the process.

One thing I love about my work is I feel like I learn new things every day. Sometimes they’re small little tweaks and hacks, and other times they’re broader strategies or ideas.

I originally drafted this list 7 years ago, after my 30th birthday, but decided it was due for an update.

(I updated it at 35, too, but keep learning more!)

For context, that was pre-Side Hustle Nation, pre-podcast, pre-kids, and pre-almost everything I’m working on now. I’d been a full-time entrepreneur for 4 years already at that point, but my business had seen lots of ups and downs.

Turning 30 had hit me harder than I expected it to, and I’m guessing it was because I really wasn’t where I wanted to be. I’d been battling with flaky developers, fighting with the state Assembly in Sacramento over affiliate marketing tax laws, and we were in the process of short-selling our home — which had been a major source of stress.

Seven years later, that stuff is thankfully in past, and I’m in a better place today.

That’s not to say I’m completely stress-free, but I’m incredibly fortunate to have a healthy family and to get to work on stuff I love every day. Each year that goes by makes me more and more aware of that fact.

But the life I have today didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of literally decades (well, at least 2) of entrepreneurial education, trial and error, hustle, and if I’m being totally honest, luck.

In any case, here are 37 life lessons I’ve picked up in my 37 years on this planet.

Enjoy!

Full Show Notes: 37 Things I Have Learned in My 37 Years