0:00:01 (upbeat music)
0:00:03 Two grand a month in this college semi-passive income
0:00:04 on the side.
0:00:05 Oh, what’s up, what’s up, Nick.
0:00:06 Oh, Loper here.
0:00:07 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show
0:00:09 where we’re breaking down legit ways
0:00:11 to make extra money outside of your day job.
0:00:14 Cool example of somebody doing just that this week.
0:00:16 He’s got a digital products business
0:00:18 that doesn’t rely on having an audience of his own
0:00:20 and it’s been growing 40% a year,
0:00:23 lately earning around $2,000 a month.
0:00:26 He’s a high school math and personal finance teacher
0:00:28 from PhiEducator.com.
0:00:31 Rob Phelan, welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:32 – Hey, Nick, thank you so much for having me
0:00:33 and looking forward to it.
0:00:34 – Me as well.
0:00:36 Stick around, we’re covering how to come up
0:00:39 with popular slash profitable product ideas,
0:00:40 how to tap into a marketplace
0:00:43 of millions of potential buyers and lots more.
0:00:47 Now the marketplace in question here is teachers pay teachers,
0:00:48 which I know all the teachers in the audience
0:00:49 will be familiar with,
0:00:52 but fun fact, you don’t need to be a teacher
0:00:53 to sell on there.
0:00:55 So I wanna talk through some of the digital assets,
0:00:58 some of the products that you’ve created
0:01:00 and how you’ve grown that business.
0:01:01 ‘Cause I think it’s a really cool example
0:01:03 we talk a lot about digital products on Etsy,
0:01:05 but hey, that’s not the only game in town.
0:01:07 So curious to dive into this platform.
0:01:08 And maybe we start off with,
0:01:11 I imagine there’s an 80/20 to product sales
0:01:13 with everything that you’ve created.
0:01:14 Like what are some of the best sellers here?
0:01:16 What have you seen perform well?
0:01:18 – I mean, I’m still always refining what that 80/20 is.
0:01:20 And I think we’re always trying to figure out like,
0:01:22 well, what is that 20 that’s gonna account
0:01:24 for all the 80% of everything that we make?
0:01:27 But what I’m finding is that teachers don’t want shallow.
0:01:29 They want deep, they want quality.
0:01:30 They want something that’s gonna be
0:01:31 this amazing exchange of value.
0:01:33 And we know that that’s like a core thing
0:01:35 when it comes to creating any product
0:01:37 or for any business is that the customer has to feel like,
0:01:39 yes, that was an amazing exchange of value
0:01:40 and use the seller have to feel like
0:01:42 that was really worth my time as well.
0:01:44 So I find with my store,
0:01:47 I create personal finance education products for teachers.
0:01:48 So that is my niche.
0:01:51 I’m very much focused on financial educators,
0:01:52 mostly in the high school space.
0:01:54 And what I’m finding is that
0:01:55 I don’t wanna create an entire curriculum for them.
0:01:58 What I want is for them to have their own curriculum in place.
0:01:59 And then they’re coming to me
0:02:01 when they want something extra, something better.
0:02:03 They’ve identified a part of their curriculum
0:02:04 that doesn’t really feel great.
0:02:05 Students are bored.
0:02:06 They wish it was better.
0:02:08 They wish it was more exciting or engaging.
0:02:09 And that’s when they come find my store.
0:02:11 And that’s what I try to serve is
0:02:14 I want products that are going to get students
0:02:16 talking to each other, engage with the materials
0:02:18 and using personal finance in a practical way.
0:02:21 So they end up learning a much deeper lesson from that
0:02:23 than just a teacher lecturing in the front of the room.
0:02:25 – Okay, so rather than creating something
0:02:28 for social studies and something for English writing
0:02:30 and something for math, it’s like, no, no, no.
0:02:34 My niche here is the personal finance space.
0:02:36 Do you think that’s important to build some level
0:02:38 of credibility or like niche down
0:02:40 to a certain topic inside of your store?
0:02:41 – I do.
0:02:44 I don’t think TPT is a throw your net wide
0:02:46 and you’ll end up coming out ahead kind of thing.
0:02:48 I think the more niche down you are,
0:02:50 the better you’re actually going to do it,
0:02:51 even though you do make your audience smaller,
0:02:53 which does seem counterintuitive.
0:02:55 I love the idea of like the 1000 true fans,
0:02:56 like finding that group of 1000 people
0:02:58 who would want to buy your product
0:02:59 and then really making sure you serve those.
0:03:01 For me, that was financial educators.
0:03:04 I was in the space myself, didn’t really like what was out
0:03:07 there in terms of major product offerings.
0:03:10 So from Dave Ramsey or Jumpstart or Junior Achievement.
0:03:13 And I started creating resources for my own classroom.
0:03:16 So I still teach full time in public high school education.
0:03:19 And I just was like, okay, like I use this.
0:03:20 I think it’s good.
0:03:22 Let me throw it out there and see what other teachers think.
0:03:24 And I found that if I kept creating
0:03:26 personal finance resources, teachers were excited.
0:03:27 They were coming back.
0:03:28 I ventured into math a little bit
0:03:30 because that’s also my certification.
0:03:31 And it was a very crowded space.
0:03:34 And like high school math is such a general idea
0:03:37 that it’s hard to win that market share
0:03:38 as easily as it would be to say like, no,
0:03:40 I am high school, personal finance,
0:03:43 small individual resources that are going to enhance
0:03:44 what you’re already doing.
0:03:45 – Yeah, I love this example of,
0:03:47 hey, this is something that I was creating
0:03:49 for my own class, for my own use.
0:03:51 And then maybe there’s a way to sell that sawdust,
0:03:53 to sell that, you know, to reach a wider audience.
0:03:55 I think there’s so many examples of files
0:03:57 and templates and things that we’ve built
0:03:59 in our own businesses that, you know,
0:04:01 maybe you could license that out to somebody else.
0:04:03 Maybe it’s a way to get paid over and over again
0:04:04 from that work that you did once,
0:04:06 kind of like a behind the scenes type of product.
0:04:08 I think that’s really cool.
0:04:10 The other thing that might be interesting here
0:04:14 is there was some semi-recent legislation
0:04:16 where personal finance education
0:04:19 is becoming a graduation requirement
0:04:22 in more and more states where it’s like, you know, math.
0:04:24 People have been teaching math for hundreds of years
0:04:28 in high school, but you know, this is a newer sub,
0:04:30 like the personal finance focus, maybe a newer subject
0:04:32 where maybe it’s a bluer ocean to go
0:04:33 and try and compete in.
0:04:35 – Yeah, and I think when you try and think
0:04:37 of a new business idea, thinking about what is trending
0:04:39 currently or what’s coming down the road
0:04:42 that you can maybe hop on and be an early adopter on
0:04:43 or an early creator on, personal finance
0:04:44 is sort of that thing.
0:04:45 And that was just by luck for me.
0:04:46 Like that’s what I’m passionate about.
0:04:48 That’s what I work in.
0:04:50 And it just happens to be a very growing industry
0:04:53 in terms of education because more and more states
0:04:54 are mandating it.
0:04:55 And then the problem teachers have is
0:04:56 they’re not trained in it.
0:04:58 So they often get tossed this class like,
0:05:01 “Hey, you, you’re gonna teach about money next year.”
0:05:02 And they’re a social studies teacher.
0:05:04 They’re a math teacher.
0:05:05 They’re maybe a business teacher,
0:05:07 but they’ve never taught personal finance before.
0:05:10 So there’s a huge demand for how do I do this?
0:05:13 And I need resources that really, really walk me through
0:05:15 this very simply because I don’t really know what I’m doing.
0:05:17 I’m not an expert yet at this content area
0:05:18 and I need support.
0:05:20 – Oh, and it’s such a broad topic.
0:05:23 And remember, like my math teacher in high school,
0:05:25 like, you know, he had to teach us exponents anyway.
0:05:27 So Blessus already took it upon himself
0:05:29 to teach us about, you know, dollar cost averaging
0:05:32 and index funds and, you know, going down this road.
0:05:33 And he’s like, well, in 40 years,
0:05:35 you’re gonna have, you know, $3 million or something.
0:05:37 But you’re like, as a high school student,
0:05:39 you’re like, yeah, but that’s in 40 years, right?
0:05:40 It’s like, how do you bring this home
0:05:43 and make it compelling and interesting and relatable
0:05:44 to someone’s like, well, you know,
0:05:47 that’s not the time horizon that I’ve even been thinking about.
0:05:49 – And I think you’ve done a good job with that.
0:05:51 It looks like now I’m on the teachers pay teachers store.
0:05:54 You can find it at fieducator.store.
0:05:55 If you want to check out some of his listings,
0:05:59 a lot of them look like they’re almost like gameplay based
0:06:01 where it’s maybe a multi-week unit
0:06:02 where people can kind of track their,
0:06:04 or students can track their progress.
0:06:05 Is that kind of how some of these are set up?
0:06:07 – Yeah, I mean, you start in the beginnings,
0:06:09 figuring yourself out,
0:06:10 especially if you’ve created digital products before,
0:06:11 like you have to figure out
0:06:14 like what your theme is gonna be, your niche,
0:06:15 the way you want to run things.
0:06:17 What are people gonna know you for?
0:06:20 And I found that I wanted to create things
0:06:23 that were three E’s, exciting, engaging and educational.
0:06:25 And that’s almost my mission for my business
0:06:27 and everything I create has to come back to that.
0:06:30 If it doesn’t meet those standards, I don’t publish it
0:06:32 because I don’t want anything subpar quality
0:06:32 that teachers are gonna be like,
0:06:34 oh, well, that wasn’t great.
0:06:35 Like I’m not gonna come back again.
0:06:37 So you’ll notice yet, when you look through my products,
0:06:39 like there are things that are going to get students
0:06:41 either out of their seats or talking to each other
0:06:43 in meaningful ways.
0:06:44 They’re gonna practice skills.
0:06:45 They’re gonna play games.
0:06:46 They’re gonna do activities.
0:06:47 They’re gonna do big projects
0:06:48 where the learning is almost a byproduct
0:06:49 of what they’re doing.
0:06:51 They don’t even realize they’re learning half the time,
0:06:52 which is why I think so many teachers
0:06:54 enjoy using the resources I create.
0:06:56 – Yeah, if you can sneak it in there somehow,
0:06:57 like, hey, we’re gonna play this, you know,
0:06:59 crossword puzzle game and never, never mind
0:07:00 that you’re actually learning some spelling.
0:07:01 Well, we’re doing this.
0:07:03 But, you know, if you can make it fun.
0:07:07 Was there any on Etsy or even like YouTube or vlogging,
0:07:08 there’s like this level of keyword research
0:07:11 where I want to go where there’s some level
0:07:13 of existing demand rather than trying to create demand
0:07:14 from scratch.
0:07:16 Is there any sort of keyword research,
0:07:19 you know, volume estimates, competitive estimates
0:07:21 that exist for teachers, pay teachers specifically
0:07:24 or anything like that that went into the thought process
0:07:26 before creating extra products?
0:07:29 – There’s no really useful tool like you might find
0:07:31 for Google or like when you’re writing a blog
0:07:34 and you can just like feed your article into a plugin
0:07:36 and it tells you like, oh, you’re perfect for SEO
0:07:37 or no, you should change these things.
0:07:39 It doesn’t quite exist for TPT.
0:07:41 There is a program called Your Data Playbook,
0:07:42 which I don’t personally use yet.
0:07:43 It’s one of those things that I think
0:07:45 as you grow your store, you level up to the point
0:07:47 where you will start using these sorts of tools
0:07:48 ’cause if they are quite expensive,
0:07:51 but that will give you some ideas of like products
0:07:53 that you could be doing better on if you change keywords.
0:07:55 It doesn’t really suggest the keywords for you.
0:07:57 It just kind of tells you like, hey, you could be doing better.
0:08:00 Really, it comes down to using the search function,
0:08:01 like you would for Google.
0:08:02 It’s a search engine at the end of the day
0:08:04 that leads you to products.
0:08:08 So going into the search bar and typing in like similar phrases
0:08:10 to what your product is, seeing what pops up,
0:08:11 what are the most popular resources there
0:08:14 and then building your keyword bang from that
0:08:15 and making sure that’s in your title
0:08:16 and your product descriptions.
0:08:17 – Is it a matter of looking at like,
0:08:19 well, here’s what I had in mind
0:08:21 or this is what I was thinking about creating
0:08:25 and the top results only have three reviews.
0:08:27 So they must not be selling a huge volume.
0:08:29 So maybe there’s room for me to compete there
0:08:32 versus, oh, if I see just pages and pages of results
0:08:34 that seem to have been there for years
0:08:35 and they’ve sold tons.
0:08:37 It’s like, well, how am I gonna break in as a new seller?
0:08:39 – I should be doing more of that.
0:08:39 I don’t.
0:08:41 I look at it as what do I need to enhance
0:08:42 what I’m doing in my own classroom.
0:08:44 So like every time I teach this subject,
0:08:47 I’m like, where are the weak points and what needs more?
0:08:48 And I’ll have a quick look to see
0:08:49 does anything else exist out there,
0:08:52 but I’m not even really looking at TPD that closely
0:08:54 to see what the top ranking things are.
0:08:58 I think as I start to kind of fill out my product offerings
0:08:59 and I feel like, okay, I’ve done a good job
0:09:00 at meeting the market need
0:09:02 that I will start refining what I’m doing,
0:09:04 really focusing more heavily on SEO
0:09:06 and trying to rank higher on those pages.
0:09:08 But no, for right now, it’s really a case
0:09:10 of building what I know I need
0:09:12 and what I know my audience needs
0:09:15 based on social media feedback, newsletter, feedback,
0:09:16 that sort of thing.
0:09:18 – And it seems like most things on here
0:09:22 are priced between five and $30 they’re about.
0:09:24 So it’s very much a volume type of game
0:09:26 if I’m understanding that correctly.
0:09:27 – In my case, yes.
0:09:28 If you browse through other stores,
0:09:31 you will see some teachers who go for an entire curriculum.
0:09:33 So this would be what a teacher would use
0:09:35 from start to finish to run an entire class.
0:09:37 So curriculum, if you’re not familiar with the word,
0:09:39 start to finish everything that you would need.
0:09:40 And those you can find priced
0:09:42 from like 500 to 2,500.
0:09:45 Yeah, like there’s very high ticket items in TPT.
0:09:47 I don’t have those offered yet.
0:09:48 For me, it’s always coming back to that idea
0:09:50 of I’m a teacher myself.
0:09:53 My target market is teachers who are usually the buyers
0:09:56 in I would say 70 to 80% of the case.
0:09:58 So they’re digging into their own pocket to buy this stuff.
0:10:01 And my target market’s not the most flush with cash.
0:10:03 So I always want to make sure that I’m providing,
0:10:05 you know, very one-sided value.
0:10:07 What they’re getting in terms of product
0:10:10 is way more than the five or $20 or $30
0:10:12 that they’re paying for it in terms of the time
0:10:14 that it’s gonna save them, the stress that it’s gonna save them,
0:10:16 the improvement in their classroom management
0:10:17 that they’re gonna see,
0:10:19 and also the performance of the students.
0:10:21 So on all those metrics, I want teachers to feel like,
0:10:23 you know what, that was an amazing exchange of value for me.
0:10:25 Yeah, and at that price point,
0:10:27 it’s low friction versus trying to deal with the red tape.
0:10:29 Obviously, I mean, the dollars may be there
0:10:32 to try and start selling at the district level
0:10:34 or the state level, like, hey, this is mandated
0:10:36 by your state government.
0:10:39 Now you need to teach personal finance in schools.
0:10:42 Like, hey, we’ve got the proven out system of how to do this.
0:10:43 I’ve been a teacher myself for years and years.
0:10:44 Here’s what works.
0:10:46 We could build out that whole curriculum for you
0:10:49 and license it across however many different students
0:10:50 or schools.
0:10:52 Like, I could see how that would be a much higher ticket
0:10:54 than a $6 one-time thing.
0:10:57 But also, it’s like, well, you know, if this is passive,
0:10:58 people are just, you know,
0:10:59 coming out of this website and ordering my stuff.
0:11:00 And it’s like, well, yeah,
0:11:03 this is a longer-term sales cycle,
0:11:04 much longer-term game to play.
0:11:06 – I did the other side of it.
0:11:07 I worked with Choose a Five Foundation.
0:11:10 We created a pre-K through 12, entire curriculum,
0:11:11 and we tried to get schools to adopt it.
0:11:12 Like, it’s free.
0:11:14 Just take it, use it.
0:11:15 It’s great.
0:11:18 And even then, it was such a pain to work with schools
0:11:21 because schools are very restricted in what they can do.
0:11:24 Every district is basically its own little islands.
0:11:26 It’s hard to get like a rubber stamp
0:11:27 that works across the entire country
0:11:29 or even the entire state.
0:11:30 So, yeah, it’s a big challenge
0:11:32 versus like teachers are very much allowed
0:11:34 to kind of flex within their curriculum
0:11:35 and bring in additional resources.
0:11:37 So, it’s sort of like a backdoor in.
0:11:38 And maybe eventually,
0:11:40 I will grow to offer my own curriculum.
0:11:41 And at that point,
0:11:42 I will have had so many teacher adopters
0:11:44 that on the, at least the ground level,
0:11:46 there will be some support for trying to get something bigger
0:11:49 into their school or their district or the state.
0:11:51 – Yeah, down the road, that may be coming.
0:11:53 I definitely see that as an opportunity
0:11:56 for some of the assets and content that you’re creating.
0:11:56 – I also have competitors
0:12:00 who are people like NextGen Personal Finance or NGPAP.
0:12:01 So, like, if you’re a financial educator
0:12:03 or a teacher or a parent who wants to support this,
0:12:06 like that is an amazing free curriculum that exists
0:12:08 because it’s backed by a billionaire founder
0:12:10 who wants it to be free,
0:12:12 is able to pay staff to create amazing resources,
0:12:13 teacher professional development.
0:12:15 So, like, I don’t want to compete directly with them
0:12:17 because I love what they do
0:12:19 and it’s very hard to compete
0:12:20 with people who offer free things.
0:12:23 So, being able to enhance what they do
0:12:24 or enhance any other curriculum
0:12:26 is kind of a nice way to stay in my niche
0:12:28 and be valuable to customers.
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0:14:49 What feed does the platform take in this case?
0:14:50 – So, TPT has two tiers for sellers.
0:14:51 You’ve got the free version.
0:14:53 So, unlike Etsy, where they charge a listing fee
0:14:55 to put your first product up or whatever it is,
0:14:57 TPT does not charge a listing fee
0:14:59 so anybody can create an account
0:15:01 and you can start listing products for no cost.
0:15:05 The split on a sale is 50/50 at that basic tier.
0:15:07 So, at the free tier, 50/50 split,
0:15:09 you sell something for $10, they keep five, you get five.
0:15:11 And then they’re also handling sales tax
0:15:14 if you’re in a state that does need to charge sales tax.
0:15:17 And then if you upgrade to the premium seller,
0:15:20 which I think is $60 for the year,
0:15:22 it now becomes an 80/20 split.
0:15:24 So, you keep 80, they keep 20.
0:15:26 And there’s no higher tier available.
0:15:28 There’s no way to keep more of it.
0:15:30 That’s kind of the deal if you’re gonna use
0:15:32 the marketplace platform that they offer.
0:15:34 – Right, and you have to look at that as,
0:15:36 well, that’s my marketing expense, basically.
0:15:39 I get access to these audience of 7 million teachers
0:15:42 who are proactively looking for the stuff
0:15:44 that hopefully I’m selling versus the 50/50.
0:15:46 It’s like, it’s cool that there’s no listing fee,
0:15:47 but man, I think it’s expensive fast.
0:15:49 And then it’s like, that’s when you start to be like,
0:15:50 well, if I’m moving a certain volume,
0:15:52 then yeah, it’s a no-brainer to go to upgrade
0:15:56 to this $60 paid tier and then improve that ratio,
0:15:57 improve that split.
0:15:59 – I think I upgraded within like the first few months
0:16:00 of being a seller.
0:16:02 Like I was like, I’m going to eventually make enough money
0:16:04 to make this worth it, like 60 bucks,
0:16:06 like I can take a shot on that for a year
0:16:07 and see what happens,
0:16:08 but I was like, if I’m gonna make stuff,
0:16:09 I wanna keep more of it for me.
0:16:14 – Yeah, is there a play to get people off platform,
0:16:15 if you have other product,
0:16:18 like do you get access to the email list of customers?
0:16:20 Is there a way to drive your own traffic
0:16:22 to your own digital storefront?
0:16:24 Just trying to think of,
0:16:27 is this purely a marketplace type of play for you right now?
0:16:29 – So TPT, yeah, the marketplace gives you
0:16:31 very little information about individual buyers.
0:16:33 You can get a little bit of like demographics about them
0:16:35 or location by state,
0:16:37 but you don’t get an email address when someone buys from you,
0:16:40 which is different to maybe what you would get from an Etsy.
0:16:43 So when it comes to assembling your own email list,
0:16:44 you have to think like, okay,
0:16:46 what can I embed in the product
0:16:48 that would convince someone to give me an email?
0:16:51 So a lot of times there’s a freebie inside of a product
0:16:54 or one of my best lead magnets is like,
0:16:56 I have my entire 90 day curriculum pacing guide.
0:16:58 So if you wanna see how this resource fits into
0:17:00 what I do in my classroom,
0:17:01 you can follow along with me
0:17:03 and just give me an email and it gets sent out to you.
0:17:05 So trying to find ways to get people to convert
0:17:10 from being a TPT buyer to also on my newsletter is a big one.
0:17:11 I do go to social media a lot
0:17:13 to try and harvest people from my newsletter too.
0:17:15 So giving them freebies, looking for product testers,
0:17:19 free team people and they all just kinda slowly trickle in
0:17:20 and build up that newsletter,
0:17:22 which is much more valuable than the TPT search
0:17:24 or the social media platforms can be.
0:17:26 – Yeah, hopefully they like the product
0:17:28 and now you have a way to get back in touch with them
0:17:30 when you’re launching something new.
0:17:33 Otherwise it’s like, well, I made a one-off $7 sale
0:17:36 and now I can’t get in touch with that customer again.
0:17:38 So it’s like, well, how do we improve the lifetime value?
0:17:41 And it sounds like that’s one way that you’re going about it.
0:17:43 – Yeah, and making sure that in the products,
0:17:45 like you have those calls to action to come back
0:17:47 and leave your reviews or send me an email,
0:17:48 let me know what you think.
0:17:50 And just any of those touch points
0:17:52 are enough to get me an email address
0:17:54 and then let me add them to my newsletter
0:17:57 where it does become much more of a return customer scenario.
0:17:59 I think once they know, like and trust you,
0:18:00 they’re much more likely to come back,
0:18:02 especially when a teacher’s stressed,
0:18:04 they’re short on time, they need something.
0:18:06 The marketplace is reputable.
0:18:09 So that’s a great plus and part of that 20% loss of sale
0:18:11 is for the fact that teachers pay teachers
0:18:13 is considered a reputable place to buy something
0:18:15 and that they will, they’ll make it right
0:18:17 if the product you buy is total crap
0:18:19 or it’s a dud or it’s a scam of some sort.
0:18:22 Versus like buying something off of maybe eBay or an Etsy,
0:18:23 I don’t know how good the customer service
0:18:24 would be on that side.
0:18:25 – Oh, for sure.
0:18:27 – And then each individual store
0:18:28 has to build their own reputation.
0:18:32 Reviews is gold in terms of trying to get people
0:18:35 to like first time to your store to know, like and trust you,
0:18:37 but after you’ve made that first sale
0:18:38 and making sure that you kind of nurture that customer
0:18:41 to come back again and again is huge.
0:18:42 When you were first launching,
0:18:46 did you do anything proactive to try and drive traffic,
0:18:49 drive those initial reviews to just kind of,
0:18:51 this is what we’ve seen on platform after platform.
0:18:52 It’s like, if I can give that algorithm
0:18:53 a little bit of a nudge,
0:18:57 then it starts to work in my favor a little bit more.
0:19:00 And sometimes it’s harder to get those first sales
0:19:01 than it is to get the next 10.
0:19:05 Where it’s like, if I can just, you know, seed my store
0:19:08 with a few, you know, warm, happy customers,
0:19:11 then the rest starts to work more automatically.
0:19:13 – I mean, in the beginning, like launching my store now,
0:19:16 it was like walking in the dark and spinning around
0:19:18 and just hoping that something landed.
0:19:21 Like now, for example, I just launched a product last week.
0:19:24 It’s going to be a $5 product, like a $497 price point.
0:19:25 It’s free right now.
0:19:28 So what I did was on social media, I was like,
0:19:29 “Hey, I’m launching something new.
0:19:31 I’m looking for early adopters.
0:19:32 Leave me your email in the comments
0:19:37 or send me via DM and I will send you like the resource.
0:19:38 Really what I’m going to do is I’m going to send them to TPT
0:19:40 where they can download it for free.
0:19:43 Reason I don’t have a lead page is that I want the comments
0:19:45 coming in in this Facebook group.
0:19:47 So by people leaving their email in a comment
0:19:50 or sending me a DM, it drives it to the top of this group.
0:19:51 The group’s not mine.
0:19:53 It’s a group that I am very active in.
0:19:55 And there’s actually, there’s no admin really in it.
0:19:58 It’s like a ghost admin who doesn’t really do anything in it.
0:20:01 So trying to get people to comment and engage on the post
0:20:04 so that more people see it and then we’ll send them to it.
0:20:06 And then once they buy the product,
0:20:08 I have like a whole, you know, nurture part inside of it
0:20:10 where I’m like, Oh, you know, I hope you really enjoyed this.
0:20:11 Please come back and leave a review.
0:20:14 Once you’ve had a chance to use it, if you loved it,
0:20:16 can you post a picture of your students enjoying it
0:20:19 on social media or in these particular groups?
0:20:20 And that’s for the first week.
0:20:23 So anyone who is a follower of mine who, you know,
0:20:24 gets my stuff regularly on social media.
0:20:26 So they’ve been an engaged person.
0:20:28 So it does pop up top of their news feed
0:20:29 or they’re on my newsletter.
0:20:31 They’re going to get it for free this time around.
0:20:33 And the play is that I’m going to build the reviews.
0:20:36 I’m going to get that product out there.
0:20:38 And that’s in the long term,
0:20:40 it’s going to be much more valuable to my store.
0:20:42 So if I can get 50 to 100 reviews from this,
0:20:44 like that would be huge because at the moment,
0:20:45 I’m only just hitting about 400.
0:20:48 So I’m really looking to, yeah, drive up the friendliness
0:20:49 of the algorithm to my store.
0:20:50 – Yeah, I like that.
0:20:52 That’s similar to like a free Kindle launch strategy
0:20:54 where it’s like, if I can throw some downloads
0:20:55 towards that book on Amazon
0:20:57 and collect a critical mass of reviews
0:21:00 before I switch it over to being a paid product.
0:21:03 And yeah, absolutely that can help boost it up, I imagine.
0:21:04 And there’s no cost.
0:21:06 Like yes, I’m losing out on potential sales,
0:21:09 but if I’m at like 400 free downloads now,
0:21:12 so how many of those would have been paid customers
0:21:14 if I just started at a price point of 4.97?
0:21:17 Probably like 50, that would be typical for a product launch.
0:21:19 So I’m trying something totally different to see,
0:21:21 does it yield those reviews that I really, really need?
0:21:24 And then yeah, does it yield much more sales down the road?
0:21:26 Because now it’s such a highly reviewed product
0:21:28 that new teachers can be like, oh, let me check this out.
0:21:29 Let me try that.
0:21:31 – Are you using AI at all for ideation
0:21:34 or to help fill in the blanks on some of these products?
0:21:37 – Sometimes, I mean, I love playing with AI.
0:21:40 I love ChatGBT as like just a sounding board
0:21:41 for anything and everything.
0:21:44 So usually if I’m thinking of, say I was doing insurance,
0:21:46 I did a product on insurance recently
0:21:48 where students are creating an insurance plan
0:21:49 for their cell phones in the classroom.
0:21:53 I would like use ChatGBT, like what are the main considerations
0:21:55 when someone is building an insurance plan?
0:21:58 So it’s a really quick way to do a bit of basic research
0:22:00 and then I can build a product from that.
0:22:03 So I’m not letting AI write anything for me.
0:22:08 And I don’t know if TPT is yet spotting AI generated content
0:22:10 in their results and marking them down or not.
0:22:13 But I don’t want, again, I don’t want to jeopardize
0:22:15 the reputation of my business by saying like,
0:22:17 oh, someone’s saying that this was created by AI.
0:22:20 Like you created this in 10 seconds
0:22:22 and you’re charging whatever number of dollars for it.
0:22:23 I could have done that myself.
0:22:23 I don’t want to do that.
0:22:26 So if it can assist me in some way, absolutely.
0:22:28 But it won’t ever take over what I do.
0:22:30 – All right, anything else on the marketing front
0:22:34 to try and drive sales if I’m a new shop owner?
0:22:36 – So new shop owner, big thing is making sure
0:22:38 that your thumbnails are as good as they can be,
0:22:40 experimenting with those, trying out different things
0:22:42 to see what is going to look really well for you,
0:22:44 having previews.
0:22:45 So like with previews, you want to make sure
0:22:47 that you have one first of all.
0:22:49 So products that have previews will sell way better
0:22:50 than ones that do not.
0:22:52 And then also thinking like video previews,
0:22:54 it’s worth the time doing it.
0:22:57 I find a lot of new sellers will create really cool products.
0:22:58 And then when it comes to the addressing it up
0:23:01 with the thumbnails, the previews right in the description,
0:23:03 they kind of lose steam at that point.
0:23:05 And they end up putting up a sub part listing,
0:23:07 which just doesn’t sell, even though the product itself
0:23:08 might be really good.
0:23:11 And that’s where I had to go back as a more experienced seller
0:23:13 and review some of my initial stuff and be like,
0:23:16 okay, this needs better thumbnails, better description,
0:23:19 more stuff in the preview, like changing the shape
0:23:20 of the preview from portrait to landscape,
0:23:21 that sort of thing.
0:23:25 – Right, give me, yeah, I want to know,
0:23:26 put myself in the user’s shoes here,
0:23:28 like how is this going to work for me?
0:23:30 – One thing that I’m noticing on the store too
0:23:33 is what looks like a, you know, crossed out list price
0:23:34 and then a sales price.
0:23:37 And maybe this is just for bundled content
0:23:39 where it’s like, you know, here are several products
0:23:41 all in one to increase that average order value
0:23:43 and that value for the customer.
0:23:44 – Yeah, so you have the option of taking
0:23:46 your individual products and bundling them together
0:23:47 if you have common themed ones.
0:23:49 And usually, yeah, there’s a discount on the price.
0:23:51 So when teachers are coming in,
0:23:52 they see what the price would be to buy each item
0:23:55 individually and then what the discounted price is.
0:23:57 So like I have a business project on there,
0:23:59 which has 13 products in it.
0:24:01 And I think if you added all the products together,
0:24:03 it would be like $66.
0:24:06 I have it marked down to 30, something like 32,
0:24:08 because for me, like that’s a good price
0:24:09 for what I would sell the bundle for.
0:24:11 Like very few people would have bought all 13
0:24:12 of the individual ones anyway,
0:24:13 if they were picking and choosing.
0:24:15 So I feel like that was a good price point
0:24:18 to get people in and be like, okay, I want to buy this bundle.
0:24:19 – Got it, I love a bundle deal.
0:24:20 Yeah, it makes sense.
0:24:21 – Yeah, who doesn’t?
0:24:24 – So do you remember your first, you know,
0:24:27 a few months of sale, like I’m trying to get a sense of,
0:24:29 you know, was it crickets early on?
0:24:31 How long before you’re like, you know what?
0:24:34 I can see how, you know, it might take a few years,
0:24:36 but I could see how this is going to be a thing.
0:24:38 It’s going to start to be a significant source of income.
0:24:40 – I should send you my like sales graphics.
0:24:42 You can see the chart because it was like,
0:24:45 it was a flat line for months.
0:24:47 And then I think in like September of 2019,
0:24:49 there was a little blip of 52 cents.
0:24:52 Like that was my first sales, like 52 cents.
0:24:54 And that to me was just like, that’s 52 cents
0:24:56 I did not have before.
0:24:58 And that product was put up months ago.
0:24:59 So it was cool to get that email to be like,
0:25:01 hey, you made a sale.
0:25:02 And I think that was one of the things
0:25:04 that kind of jumpstarted me going back into it
0:25:05 and creating more.
0:25:06 It was like, okay, like I find,
0:25:08 if someone finally convinced me
0:25:09 that they will buy something that I created
0:25:11 if I put, you know, the effort in
0:25:12 and keep putting myself out there.
0:25:15 And so I really came back, started creating more,
0:25:16 found that personal finance niche,
0:25:17 which really starts to take off.
0:25:19 And then you start seeing that exponential growth curve
0:25:21 that you want to see in a business.
0:25:23 And I haven’t looked back since
0:25:27 it’s definitely been a really energizing business so far.
0:25:29 We’re like every month seems better than the previous one
0:25:31 or comparing to the same point last year,
0:25:32 which is what I recommend.
0:25:33 If you’re going to sell on TP2,
0:25:35 you compare it to the same month,
0:25:38 the previous year versus the previous month
0:25:40 because teachers go through cycles
0:25:42 in terms of when they buy things.
0:25:45 So like August, September will be the best selling months
0:25:48 for most stores when it’s back to school.
0:25:51 Summer will be super quiet, getting around the holidays.
0:25:53 If you have like holiday themed things, it will go up.
0:25:55 If you don’t, it might go down.
0:25:56 – Yeah, a lot of seasonality for sure.
0:25:59 – So comparing to the same month, the previous year
0:26:00 is your best bet when you’re trying to figure out like,
0:26:02 well, how is my store actually doing?
0:26:04 – I love that motivation of that first 52 cents.
0:26:07 Yeah, I think there are so many stories of that
0:26:09 where it’s like, it was, you know, there was nothing.
0:26:12 And then someone clicked on an ad and it was 11 cents
0:26:14 or you know, somebody bought my thing,
0:26:16 a stranger on the internet bought my thing.
0:26:18 And there’s like that motivation to keep going
0:26:19 and keep putting stuff out there.
0:26:23 – Looks like you’re at around 120 products in the store now
0:26:24 and continuing to add more?
0:26:27 Are you kind of like, am I tapped out on ideas?
0:26:29 – No, I have like a notebook full of ideas
0:26:31 and it’s just fun and the time to work on them.
0:26:32 But I always have to remind myself,
0:26:35 TPT was something that was created as a side hustle
0:26:38 and it was a very intentional choice
0:26:39 of business to venture into.
0:26:41 Like I’ve done things like tutoring
0:26:43 where I’ve traded my time, you know,
0:26:45 hour for dollar kind of thing.
0:26:47 And that wasn’t very sustainable,
0:26:49 especially when my wife and I had a kid.
0:26:52 So we had that pivot point that stimulated a change
0:26:54 in what we do, which I think is also a very common thing
0:26:55 with business owners.
0:26:57 And so I was like, okay, I need to create something
0:26:59 that I can work on when I want to work on it.
0:27:01 And it’s going to be mostly passive.
0:27:03 So that once it’s made, it’s going to just keep
0:27:05 generating money and teachers pay teachers
0:27:07 just look like the most obvious solution.
0:27:09 I’ve doubled in courses too, didn’t do the same.
0:27:11 And so I was like, okay, teach me teachers
0:27:12 where it’s going to be at.
0:27:14 And yeah, I haven’t looked back since, it’s been awesome.
0:27:17 – And do you find that the products from years ago
0:27:19 still continue to sell?
0:27:23 Or is there a freshness angle to the algorithm?
0:27:24 – Maybe not to the algorithm, but certainly,
0:27:26 I think the quality of what I’m creating more recently
0:27:28 is better than what I created in the past.
0:27:30 There are still, like my best seller
0:27:31 is one of the first products I created.
0:27:33 It was called Space Quest.
0:27:35 It’s a game where students are imagining
0:27:37 they’re traveling to an unexplored planet
0:27:38 and they’ve decided what they’re taking
0:27:39 with them on the spaceship.
0:27:41 They have a bunch of items to choose from
0:27:44 and they go into debates about what stays, what doesn’t.
0:27:45 And then you tell them there’s budget cuts
0:27:47 and they now have to remove some of the items
0:27:49 that they’ve already just managed to negotiate
0:27:50 with each other to bring.
0:27:52 And that continues to be one of my best sellers
0:27:55 and that was probably my first 20 products I created.
0:27:56 – I like it.
0:27:59 It’s like, you know, organ trail, but for space.
0:28:01 – It’s funny, like, yeah, like there’s so many
0:28:03 like inspiring games from my childhood.
0:28:04 I’m like, oh, this kind of drives that idea.
0:28:06 Yeah, we went camping over the summer
0:28:08 and I was like, this gives me an idea for a resource.
0:28:10 So I made a resource about going camping
0:28:11 and friends all chipping in money
0:28:13 and now you have to divide that money
0:28:15 amongst the different items in a store.
0:28:16 So like there’s high quality, low quality,
0:28:18 high price, low price stuff and the teams again
0:28:20 have to figure out how they’re going to spend their money.
0:28:22 – Yeah, this is, this is all really cool.
0:28:25 Those were some of my favorite activities as a student
0:28:28 where it was, you know, kind of it was structured as a game
0:28:29 where like, okay, you’re, you know,
0:28:33 part of the, you know, new world colonizers
0:28:35 and you’ve got to figure out, you know,
0:28:36 how are you going to allocate your resources
0:28:39 on farming versus hunting versus, you know,
0:28:41 and all this stuff is like, oh, this is, this is kind of cool.
0:28:44 So really, really fun, what you got built over there
0:28:47 and how it will continue to grow
0:28:50 by virtue of continuing to adding new, adding new products
0:28:53 and just the, you know, maturity of the platform
0:28:54 as more and more people jump on there.
0:28:57 So really appreciate you sharing the insights
0:28:58 on how all that works.
0:29:00 And we’ve got more with Rob coming right up
0:29:04 including donate a business idea right after this.
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0:30:20 All right, we’re back with Rob from phyeducator.com
0:30:21 for round two.
0:30:23 And this is the donate a business idea around.
0:30:25 This is something that you might start yourself
0:30:26 if you had more time.
0:30:28 This is something that you think the listeners
0:30:30 could take and run with a pain point,
0:30:32 something missing in the marketplace.
0:30:34 We’ll tee it up like that and let you go.
0:30:35 – So this is one that has always been like
0:30:37 in the back of my mind like, oh, I’d love to start this.
0:30:40 And that is, I am a big soccer fan.
0:30:41 I love playing soccer.
0:30:44 I’ve played competitively, basically my entire life
0:30:46 up until like kind of a couple of years.
0:30:48 Well, COVID really is what shut it down.
0:30:49 It was playing competitively till COVID
0:30:50 and then everything stopped and then everyone back.
0:30:54 But one of the reasons I miss it is I love being part
0:30:55 of that team.
0:30:57 I love being part of that kind of group environment.
0:30:59 And the fitness part was always great too.
0:31:01 So I’m always like, I would love to start
0:31:02 like soccer fitness classes.
0:31:05 Like very much themed towards adults who used to play soccer
0:31:06 and it’s going to have a fitness component to it
0:31:09 much like going to practice would have.
0:31:12 But with a, you know, a high fitness level focus
0:31:13 and then, you know, a little bit of play as well
0:31:15 but the ball would always be involved.
0:31:16 So it’s not quite a team.
0:31:19 You’re not playing in leagues, which might be beyond
0:31:22 a lot of adults at this point, but you are getting
0:31:24 that team feeling that seems to be missing now
0:31:26 as an adult when I’m maybe playing a little bit
0:31:27 of rack and pickup.
0:31:30 And it’s not the same as like going to a group fitness class
0:31:30 at a gym kind of thing.
0:31:31 – Okay, I like it.
0:31:35 Maybe the angle is, you know, aimed at these former players,
0:31:38 you know, soccer themed fitness.
0:31:41 The reason I bring it up is we see at the gym,
0:31:43 you see like, you know, get in shape for ski season,
0:31:46 like these almost sport specific classes and drills
0:31:47 and workshops.
0:31:49 It’s like, I absolutely think something like that can work.
0:31:51 – Yeah, I like, I couldn’t see the absolute, like, you know,
0:31:52 do you miss being part of a team
0:31:55 but you don’t want to be on a team anymore
0:31:57 and just get that kind of mentality
0:32:00 that cohesive group feeling going again.
0:32:02 – What would you do first to market it
0:32:04 or get off the ground or proof of concept here?
0:32:07 – I mean, it would be so low cost and so simple.
0:32:09 Like find a park that you can use,
0:32:12 go either have everyone bring their own ball
0:32:15 or buy 20 cones and 20 balls and get yourself started.
0:32:18 But just some basic like kind of hit workout exercise
0:32:21 that are adapted to have a soccer ball involved as well,
0:32:24 market it on some of those local soccer pickup pages.
0:32:28 And just, yeah, say like, if you’re a former soccer player
0:32:30 and you want to find that team feeling again,
0:32:31 you want to get fit,
0:32:32 you want to do something with a ball,
0:32:34 this is going to be our thing.
0:32:37 So it’s going to be $10 a session, meet at this park,
0:32:40 bring your own ball and just go from there
0:32:41 and see what happens.
0:32:42 – Yeah, you get 10 people to show up for an hour.
0:32:45 Now you get a hundred bucks an hour side business
0:32:47 and who knows what comes down the road from that.
0:32:49 Maybe they decide they do want to join a league
0:32:51 and if nothing exists,
0:32:54 then you can be the spearhead of the organizer
0:32:55 for something like that.
0:32:56 – Or it looks like your kids leagues
0:32:58 where, you know, if you have a young kid
0:32:59 and you start playing soccer, they just go
0:33:01 and do like a practice and then they play a game
0:33:03 at the end of it and like, it could look like that
0:33:05 where you’ve got 60 adults come in
0:33:07 and then you divide up and play small sided tournaments
0:33:08 at the end, it can be really fun.
0:33:10 – Yeah, some level of scrimmage.
0:33:12 I think this could be a fun one
0:33:14 and anybody who’s listening could take this
0:33:16 and run with this in any number of different sports.
0:33:18 Well, what did you use to play?
0:33:19 Oh, you used to be a tennis player.
0:33:20 Oh, you used to be a baseball player.
0:33:23 Could you host classes and clinics and fitness,
0:33:25 you know, geared toward that sport for grownups
0:33:27 or could you turn around and offer that for kids?
0:33:30 I’ll give your kids swim lessons or tennis lessons
0:33:33 or, you know, basketball drills or, you know,
0:33:36 friend of ours, you know, played catcher,
0:33:38 you know, for his whole life.
0:33:39 And so he’s like, you know, here’s the catchers clinic
0:33:41 coming back to my hometown and the way to make money
0:33:43 during the off season and stuff like that.
0:33:45 So I think there’s definitely something there.
0:33:47 – Yeah, and if you do it in Maryland,
0:33:48 please let me know.
0:33:49 I would love to join.
0:33:52 – Yeah, and on top of that, I’m sure Facebook already knows,
0:33:54 you know, these people who used to be soccer players,
0:33:56 they could help target everybody
0:33:57 in that demographic for you.
0:34:00 All right, that is round to donate a business idea
0:34:02 that was adult fitness classes,
0:34:06 sport specific fitness classes for grownups.
0:34:08 But of course you can pivot that, do it with kids,
0:34:10 do it with whatever group, whatever sport that you like.
0:34:11 I think that’s a cool one.
0:34:12 Let’s go to round three.
0:34:13 This is the triple threat.
0:34:15 We’re gonna start off with a marketing tactic
0:34:17 that’s working for you right now.
0:34:19 Could be related to fly educator,
0:34:21 could be related to teachers pay teachers,
0:34:23 could be something that your students
0:34:25 can teach an entrepreneurship in class,
0:34:26 something that’s working for them.
0:34:27 – So big one that’s working for me right now
0:34:29 is when I launch a new product
0:34:30 or I wanna refresh your product,
0:34:32 I will go into a social media group and I’ll say,
0:34:35 I’m looking for 10 people to try this out for me
0:34:36 and give me feedback.
0:34:38 So be an early adopter and again,
0:34:40 leave your email in the comment section
0:34:43 if you want to be entered into the draw
0:34:45 to be one of those 10 people to try it out for me.
0:34:47 And really I don’t care that much
0:34:48 about getting the feedback from them.
0:34:50 What I really want is to have an excuse
0:34:52 to kind of put my product out there
0:34:55 and again, get the engagement on the comment section.
0:34:57 So it comes up in front of a bunch of people.
0:34:59 I get to measure who’s actually really interested in this.
0:35:01 So the ones who really want it for free,
0:35:02 I’m gonna give it away to 10 people,
0:35:04 but then I’ve got suddenly a list of people
0:35:05 who are really interested in it
0:35:06 and I can send them a nurture sequence
0:35:09 about getting the product and paying for it.
0:35:10 So that’s been working really well
0:35:11 and it’s just kind of a rinse of feet
0:35:13 over and over again every time I have a new product.
0:35:15 – And you’re looking specifically
0:35:18 in groups of teachers in this case?
0:35:19 – Yeah, Facebook groups,
0:35:22 I find the most effective place to sell.
0:35:26 Instagram is I think great for kind of just building trust
0:35:27 and maybe a little bit of awareness of who you are
0:35:28 and your brand.
0:35:30 I don’t find that people click over from Instagram
0:35:31 very often to buy something,
0:35:34 but Facebook groups, specifically teacher groups
0:35:36 and even more again, niche groups for those teachers.
0:35:38 So like for me, it’s the business educators group
0:35:40 or group called Fanatics.
0:35:42 So financial literacy fanatics,
0:35:46 those two groups are amazing for getting volunteers
0:35:48 to try stuff out and then also being very interested
0:35:49 in what I am selling.
0:35:51 And I’ll find that I’ll get a lot of clicks
0:35:52 from Facebook going to TBT
0:35:54 and I’m sure it’s coming from those two groups.
0:35:55 – Yeah, I like this one.
0:35:58 It’s going where your target customers already are.
0:36:00 It is offering something of value.
0:36:02 It is being a member of that community.
0:36:05 Like it checks a lot of smart boxes here.
0:36:06 So I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:36:09 And you can find a group for just about any target audience
0:36:10 that you want to serve.
0:36:11 And you know, of course,
0:36:13 play nice by the rules and the moderators
0:36:15 and everything else and be of service first.
0:36:17 Can’t come in and just spam up the place,
0:36:19 but it sounds like this one is leading with value.
0:36:20 Like, hey, I created this thing.
0:36:21 I think it’ll help you out.
0:36:23 If you want to be among the first to test it,
0:36:26 let me know, I’m looking for some early users.
0:36:27 – It goes down a lot better, I feel like,
0:36:30 with teachers than the buy my stuff posts.
0:36:30 – Yeah.
0:36:31 – Especially like, you know,
0:36:34 marketing materials to teachers can feel hard sometimes
0:36:36 and teachers kind of have this almost ingrained culture
0:36:39 of freely sharing and that we’re all in this
0:36:41 for the service aspect and the higher calling
0:36:44 and we’re not doing this to be paid a lot
0:36:45 or to make money from it.
0:36:48 And that’s almost like a toxic culture within teachers.
0:36:49 So you can get a lot of pushback
0:36:51 when you start trying to market products to teachers
0:36:52 and it’s not free.
0:36:55 They’re like, well, why aren’t you giving away
0:36:57 your best ideas for free and just sharing
0:36:58 and being a part of the community?
0:37:00 And I always have to look at it like, well,
0:37:03 I can give you the free stuff that I create for myself
0:37:05 and it won’t be very high quality.
0:37:06 It works well for me,
0:37:07 but if you want me to put the hours in
0:37:11 to make a turnkey for you and amazing for your students,
0:37:13 I think that’s something that I do get to charge for
0:37:15 and it will be worth your time and your money.
0:37:16 – And that’s something else
0:37:18 because if somebody is in a Facebook group,
0:37:21 they’re not necessarily expecting to be sold to,
0:37:23 but if they’re browsing on teachers, pay teachers
0:37:24 or they’re browsing on some of their marketplace,
0:37:27 they’re going in there with the expectation to spend money.
0:37:29 And so it’s like a natural fit for that audience.
0:37:31 That is the marketing tactic.
0:37:33 The second part of the triple threat is a new
0:37:36 or new to you tool that you’re loving right now.
0:37:39 – I think for me, it is a tool from AppSumo,
0:37:41 which I’m sure you are familiar with.
0:37:43 And it’s called VideoTap.
0:37:45 And it’s one where I’ve been able to take a lot
0:37:47 of my videos that I’ve recorded.
0:37:49 So I do a lot of recording guest speakers from my classroom
0:37:50 and sending that out to other teachers
0:37:51 and letting them use it for free.
0:37:54 But it lets me break that up into small,
0:37:57 bite-sized social media clips using an AI tool within it,
0:38:01 produces a caption, produces the closed captioning for it.
0:38:02 And it’s an amazing tool.
0:38:03 Like I love it.
0:38:04 It’s just perfect for taking a video,
0:38:05 breaking it up in chunks.
0:38:08 And then it’s only easy to post it as small videos
0:38:10 or a blog post or whatever it is.
0:38:11 – A very cool video tap.
0:38:14 We will link that up in the show notes currently sold out
0:38:17 on AppSumo, but you never know when it’s gonna be back
0:38:20 in stock and we can absolutely link that up.
0:38:21 Cool resource.
0:38:22 Thanks for sharing.
0:38:23 That’s new to me.
0:38:26 All right, and the last segment of round three
0:38:27 of the triple threat is your favorite book
0:38:28 from the last 12 months.
0:38:30 – My favorite book from the last 12 months
0:38:32 has to be Never Split the Difference.
0:38:35 Really good book about negotiation from a former,
0:38:38 I think FBI agent or Secret Service agents
0:38:39 who would do hostage negotiation
0:38:42 and just the overlap of how that works with business.
0:38:43 I feel like I’ve read the book twice
0:38:45 and I just, I want to keep going back to it.
0:38:46 Every time I read it, there’s something new
0:38:49 and exciting in there that I can apply to my business.
0:38:52 – Do you find yourself in a lot of negotiation scenarios
0:38:54 with students or with customers here?
0:38:56 – Every day’s a negotiation, yes.
0:38:58 – How so?
0:38:59 – You’re always trying to convince students
0:39:02 that to buy what you’re selling in terms of the information
0:39:05 and to give your attention or to give their attention
0:39:09 to you, we’ll talk about being responsible consumers
0:39:11 and haggling or the example the other day
0:39:14 was when you go in for a job application
0:39:17 and they ask you what do you want your compensation to be
0:39:19 or what are you expecting a compensation?
0:39:22 Just the human psychology aspect of give them a range
0:39:25 and make your ideal number the low end of the range
0:39:26 so that they anchor to the high number
0:39:28 and everyone’s gonna feel like they win.
0:39:29 They feel like they’ve negotiated you down
0:39:31 to your lowest amount and you feel like,
0:39:33 well, that’s what I wanted anyway.
0:39:35 So just a tactic like that
0:39:38 that I would have been unaware of until I read that book.
0:39:40 – Interesting, I’ve always seen this title pop up
0:39:42 in Amazon search results.
0:39:45 I always assumed it was just kind of a negotiation book
0:39:48 and it sounds like there may be parallels to parenting
0:39:50 and other aspects of the business.
0:39:53 It’s not always negotiating dollars and cents
0:39:55 and meeting in the middle, but maybe you’re negotiating
0:39:58 attention and chores and tasks and other things too.
0:40:01 – It’s applied to my job, it’s applied with my kid,
0:40:02 it’s applied with my wife.
0:40:05 Yeah, it’s very much about relationships
0:40:06 and money comes into it a little bit,
0:40:09 but just negotiating conflict,
0:40:11 avoiding conflict in the first place,
0:40:13 making sure everyone feels like they’ve won
0:40:14 when it comes to a negotiation.
0:40:16 Yeah, it’s got a lot of applications
0:40:18 across a broad range of things.
0:40:20 – All right, well, you convinced me, you sold me,
0:40:21 I’m gonna add it to the reading list here.
0:40:23 Never split the difference.
0:40:25 We’ll link that up in the show notes along
0:40:27 with links to all of Rob’s resources
0:40:31 like phyeducator.com, phyeducator.store.
0:40:33 We’ll get you over to the teachers pay teachers page
0:40:36 so you can check out some of his listings there.
0:40:38 If you’re wondering what to listen to next,
0:40:40 if you like this digital product business,
0:40:42 I like it, if you create something once,
0:40:44 sell it over and over again, no fulfillment costs,
0:40:44 fantastic.
0:40:47 I’ve got another couple episode recommendations for you.
0:40:49 Most recently, I sat down with Debbie Gartner,
0:40:51 she shared how she was earning around a thousand bucks a week
0:40:55 from her Etsy Printables business in episode 637.
0:40:58 Don’t have to scroll too far down in the podcast app
0:40:59 to find that one.
0:41:00 And then we had a really popular interview
0:41:04 with Becky Beach in episode 582 from late last year
0:41:06 on how she was building out this whole suite
0:41:09 of digital products and bundles and using AI
0:41:11 to help generate ideas and some of the content.
0:41:12 It was really cool.
0:41:14 And if digital products aren’t your jammed,
0:41:15 that, yeah, that’s okay too.
0:41:16 And in that case, I want to invite you
0:41:19 to generate your own personalized side hustle show
0:41:21 playlist at hustle.show.
0:41:23 Just answer a few short multiple choice questions
0:41:24 about your interests and goals
0:41:27 and it’ll recommend eight to 10 episodes to start with
0:41:29 based on your answers.
0:41:30 Again, that’s at hustle.show.
0:41:32 Big thanks to Rob for sharing his insight.
0:41:33 Big thanks to our sponsors
0:41:35 for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:41:38 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
0:41:41 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:41:42 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:41:43 that support the show.
0:41:44 Really does make a difference.
0:41:45 That is it for me.
0:41:46 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:41:48 If you find in value in the show,
0:41:50 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:41:53 So fire off that text message to that teacher friend of yours
0:41:55 and say, hey, you should totally check this out.
0:41:56 Until next time, let’s go out there
0:41:57 and make something happen.
0:41:59 And I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:42:00 of the Side Hustle Show.

0:00:01 (dramatic music)
0:00:03 10 creative side hustles that make real money.
0:00:04 Oh, what’s up?
0:00:05 What’s up, Nick?
0:00:06 Oh, welcome here.
0:00:07 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show
0:00:09 because your nine to five may make you a living,
0:00:11 but your five to nine makes you alive.
0:00:12 It’s that time of year again.
0:00:15 It’s time for our Thanksgiving tradition
0:00:17 of showcasing some of the most interesting
0:00:19 and creative side hustles that have come across
0:00:20 my desk this year,
0:00:23 starting with number one, mobile gift wrapping.
0:00:25 Is this something you could do in your area?
0:00:28 Michelle Hensley is a longtime side hustle show listener
0:00:31 and she’s grown her business Nifty Package.co
0:00:34 to a $300,000 a year business.
0:00:37 I truly started Nifty Package out of a necessity.
0:00:39 I was a pastor’s wife, homeschooling children
0:00:41 and running a nonprofit.
0:00:43 I was in a position to give things away,
0:00:45 not to have to make an income.
0:00:46 What do you do with a pastor’s wife
0:00:49 after her husband passes away when she’s 50 years old?
0:00:53 Now I was on a journey to create an income for myself
0:00:54 at age 51.
0:00:55 After I got home from an interview,
0:00:58 one of my sons said, “Mom, you had a gift basket business.
0:00:59 Why don’t you start that again?”
0:01:02 So ultimately I made an art out of gift giving
0:01:05 in order to bring joy to both the recipient and the giver.
0:01:07 My gift basket and mobile gift wrapping services
0:01:10 is niftypackage.co.
0:01:13 In 2018, while praying, I was looking out my window
0:01:16 and I noticed and realized my van was sitting there empty.
0:01:18 I thought, gosh, I already make gifts.
0:01:20 I wonder if anybody wraps gifts.
0:01:22 And does anyone go around and even do that?
0:01:24 Is there such a thing as a mobile wrapping?
0:01:27 Can I put all my gift wrapping paper in my van
0:01:29 and drive around and serve people?
0:01:30 I put up a webpage that day
0:01:32 and I got a call from a current client within a week
0:01:34 asking if I’d come out and wrap all those gifts.
0:01:36 I was so excited.
0:01:39 I piled everything into the van to take care of that job,
0:01:40 brushing my hands when I was done
0:01:43 and then I realized I forgot to label every gift.
0:01:45 I had to go back and rewrap every gift.
0:01:48 I learned a huge lesson, which blossomed into a business.
0:01:51 In March of 2019, I got a call from Two-Face Cosmetics
0:01:55 asking if I could do a large scale gift design and gift wrap.
0:01:57 I was so excited, this was right up my alley.
0:01:59 Their brand is very similar to mine,
0:02:02 which is a little edgy but still very beautiful.
0:02:04 We got a million hits on that Instagram feed on their site.
0:02:06 And then in August of 2019,
0:02:08 I got a call from the Kardashian estate manager
0:02:11 asking if I’d consider creating a design for Kim and Kanye.
0:02:13 I was not sure who they were
0:02:15 because I didn’t watch TV at all.
0:02:17 This is where I transitioned from pastor’s wife,
0:02:19 grandmother, mom to business owner.
0:02:21 I piled all my paper in the van
0:02:23 and headed out to their home.
0:02:24 My own team was there with me
0:02:26 and everyone was watching me from her team.
0:02:28 She didn’t like any of the five or six ideas
0:02:29 I presented to her.
0:02:32 I walked outside and I’m like, Lord, you brought me here
0:02:34 and I’m not going home without a sale.
0:02:37 So I walked in and I suggested a fear-shoky gift wrap
0:02:40 and created that out of fabric and she loved it.
0:02:42 And that’s what started the celebrity gift wrapping.
0:02:44 We continued to get referrals and the brand
0:02:46 continued to expand across the nation.
0:02:49 I started training on how to gift wrap many women
0:02:50 and teams all over.
0:02:54 So we have several Nifty corporate gift wrap teams everywhere.
0:02:56 Eventually becoming the number one mobile gift wrapping
0:02:57 business in the nation.
0:03:00 So although we do luxury gift baskets,
0:03:02 the mobile gift wrapping is 70% of our business.
0:03:04 I’ve had many reach out to me and ask me
0:03:06 how I ran my program.
0:03:08 So now currently I’m starting to franchise
0:03:09 and license across the nation
0:03:12 because this is absolutely a new opportunity.
0:03:15 It’s a perfect hustle, especially for the holidays.
0:03:16 You can do it with one person.
0:03:17 You can do it with a team.
0:03:21 So typical sales could be well over $200,000 for the season.
0:03:24 In reality, for one person, it could be 30 to 50,000.
0:03:27 So what’s next for Nifty and myself?
0:03:30 Well, I wrote a book so you can go to my personal brand website,
0:03:32 which is MichelleMHensley.com.
0:03:34 And you can read it, put your information in there,
0:03:37 and all that it would be is the cost for shipping
0:03:38 or you can buy it on Amazon.
0:03:41 I’m working to raise funds to start the franchise,
0:03:42 which is already in place,
0:03:43 but it just costs a lot of money
0:03:45 in the state of California to do this.
0:03:47 Also, I license and I teach others how to run
0:03:49 their own profitable mobile gift wrapping business.
0:03:51 You can join my Unwrapping Your Mobile Gift Wrapping
0:03:54 Business Masterclass, and I teach my gift framework there.
0:03:56 Thank you again, Nick, for this opportunity.
0:03:58 I look forward to talking to anybody who has an interest.
0:04:03 They can totally email me, Michelle@niftypackage.co,
0:04:06 or call 714-863-6058.
0:04:07 Happy wrapping.
0:04:08 – Happy wrapping, indeed.
0:04:11 Now, we’ll link up all of Michelle’s resources,
0:04:12 including her book, Master,
0:04:14 The Business of Mobile Gift Wrapping,
0:04:16 where creativity meets convenience.
0:04:19 She sent me a copy, which of course was very nicely wrapped,
0:04:21 in it, she says the average price
0:04:23 for a nicely wrapped gift is $25.
0:04:25 So you can start to see how the revenue
0:04:26 in this business can start to add up,
0:04:29 especially if you land a few corporate customers
0:04:31 who are sending gifts out to their clients
0:04:32 or partners, employees.
0:04:35 And you may not need even a celebrity client like Michelle did
0:04:38 to start to get some pretty serious business there.
0:04:40 Now, next up on this list of creative side hustles
0:04:42 is Print On Demand Candles.
0:04:45 Oh, sure, we’ve covered Print On Demand on the show before.
0:04:47 We’ve even made some money doing it ourselves.
0:04:47 My wife and I.
0:04:50 It’s always been T-shirts, stickers, mugs.
0:04:53 Never knew there was such a thing as Print On Demand Candles.
0:04:56 Francisco Rivera started his candle-focused Etsy shop
0:04:59 in early 2023, and according to CNBC,
0:05:02 sold over $450,000 worth of product last year
0:05:06 at an estimated 30 to 50% profit margin,
0:05:08 which is actually a really strong margin
0:05:09 for a physical product business
0:05:11 where he doesn’t have any inventory risk.
0:05:14 That was enough for him to leave his tutoring job
0:05:15 and pursue the business full-time.
0:05:18 Full-time in air quotes because the CNBC article
0:05:20 also has him saying he only spends around 20 minutes a day
0:05:21 on his shop.
0:05:24 And that’s one of the advantages of a model like this
0:05:27 in that you can make sales even when you’re not working,
0:05:29 but there obviously is work involved in product research
0:05:31 and creating and uploading new designs.
0:05:35 Francisco uses Printify as his fulfillment partner
0:05:37 and mentioned that neutral-colored organic candles
0:05:40 performed well with his witty and eye-catching labels
0:05:42 and that he uses Canva to create those.
0:05:44 Now, this made me super curious.
0:05:47 What other random products could you do print on demand with?
0:05:48 In Printify’s catalog,
0:05:50 I found some interesting options,
0:05:52 including pickleball sets that can make a good gift, right?
0:05:55 Baby onesies, kids’ shoes that look like crocs,
0:05:57 but aren’t officially crocs, of course,
0:05:58 and some Christmas ornaments.
0:06:01 Then you figure out what niche you wanna play in
0:06:05 and what kind of clever design that might make a good gift.
0:06:07 And it’s a pretty low-risk business.
0:06:10 All it costs is 20 cents to create an Etsy listing,
0:06:13 and you can see if anybody wants to buy your thing.
0:06:16 The Etsy sales system integrates directly with Printify,
0:06:18 which handles the production
0:06:20 and the shipping to the end customer.
0:06:23 Now, one downside to this and to other print-on-demand businesses
0:06:25 is the issue of copycats.
0:06:28 Pretty much as soon as you find something that sells,
0:06:31 other sellers and research tools can see that
0:06:35 and are often going to blatantly rip off or copy your work,
0:06:36 which can dilute the listings
0:06:38 and push your products down in the search results.
0:06:41 And still, Francisco says it’s best to focus
0:06:43 on creating new candle ideas rather than spending
0:06:45 too much time trying to fight with copycats.
0:06:47 Now, what’s the next big thing for Print-on-Demand?
0:06:49 If t-shirts are too saturated,
0:06:51 maybe there’s an up-and-coming product category
0:06:52 that could be a blue ocean for you.
0:06:54 Creative side hustle number three
0:06:56 is pay what you want poetry.
0:06:58 – Hi, my name is John McCollum.
0:06:59 I’m 22 years old.
0:07:01 I live in Nashville, Tennessee,
0:07:03 where I am currently a full-time poet.
0:07:06 My business is JM Street Poetry,
0:07:09 and my website is jmstreetpoetry.com.
0:07:11 My business basically consists of me
0:07:14 sitting at a table with a vintage typewriter.
0:07:15 Strangers come up to me,
0:07:16 tell me what they want a poem about.
0:07:18 I write it, they pay however much they want for it,
0:07:19 and that’s it.
0:07:23 I first was inspired to do this when I was an English teacher
0:07:25 and I was talking to one of my friends
0:07:28 and they saw a guy doing something similar in New York.
0:07:29 And I had an old typewriter
0:07:31 that someone had given me when they moved away.
0:07:33 And I was so inspired by the story of a man
0:07:36 sitting outside writing poems for strangers all day.
0:07:38 I thought it was beautiful and creative
0:07:41 and sounded like a great way to spend a Saturday.
0:07:42 So I bought a folding table,
0:07:45 went to a busy street in Nashville,
0:07:46 where there’s a lot of shopping,
0:07:50 and I wrote a sign on the back of a Manila envelope
0:07:53 that said poems for sale, your topic, your price.
0:07:55 I was expecting to maybe write a handful,
0:07:58 but the entire day I had a line,
0:08:01 people were paying anywhere from one to $100 for a poem.
0:08:03 I was writing about everything
0:08:05 and just having these wonderful interactions with strangers.
0:08:08 It was the most creative day that I had had thus far
0:08:10 and it was incredible.
0:08:13 So I started going out every weekend I could.
0:08:15 And if school ever wrapped up earlier,
0:08:17 I would be out there writing poems for people.
0:08:20 I bought a nicer chair and a tablecloth
0:08:22 and it was incredible.
0:08:26 Saturdays I’d make anywhere from $400 to $800.
0:08:29 Weekdays were quite a bit slower, but still fun.
0:08:31 And so when my school year ended
0:08:32 and I had a summer to figure out
0:08:34 what I was gonna do next,
0:08:36 I decided to try and take it full time.
0:08:39 So I’d go out during all of the busy hours
0:08:41 and figure out the scheduling,
0:08:44 figure out when people were out, when they weren’t out.
0:08:46 And all of a sudden, people started trying to book me
0:08:46 for events.
0:08:50 So we made business cards, designed a website,
0:08:53 made an Instagram and started trying to book
0:08:55 more corporate events and weddings
0:08:56 where I would just sit there with a typewriter
0:08:58 and people could come up to me.
0:09:00 It’s been an incredible journey of now
0:09:01 being a full-time poet.
0:09:04 I just can’t explain the joy of working for myself
0:09:06 and doing this thing that I care about so much.
0:09:11 My average week, I make anywhere from $9 to $1,200,
0:09:14 working 15 to 18 hours a week, which is incredible
0:09:17 ’cause it gives me time to work on my personal writing
0:09:18 and my personal poetry.
0:09:20 As far as next steps go for the business,
0:09:23 I really want to build more of an online presence.
0:09:25 And I hope to be able to publish
0:09:27 a poetry collection eventually.
0:09:30 You can follow along, find out more on Instagram
0:09:34 and JM Street Poetry or by checking out my website.
0:09:35 Thank you so much for having me on.
0:09:37 Huge fan, love what you do here.
0:09:40 – JM Street Poetry, give John a follow over there.
0:09:41 How cool is that?
0:09:43 What a fun and random business.
0:09:44 I’ve got more creative side hustles
0:09:46 coming right up right after this.
0:09:50 What if you no longer needed five separate apps
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0:09:57 I’m excited to partner with our new sponsor,
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0:11:12 Here’s a quick side hustle you can do today.
0:11:14 It’s called the substitution game,
0:11:16 and it’s an easy way to score
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0:11:20 That’s money you’re no longer spending every month
0:11:22 that goes straight to your bottom line.
0:11:24 How it works is you find lower cost alternatives
0:11:27 to the things you’re already spending money on.
0:11:29 For example, I made the switch to our sponsor Mint Mobile
0:11:32 back in 2019 and haven’t looked back.
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0:12:24 All right, three down, seven creative side hustles to go,
0:12:26 including a couple honorable mentions we’ll sneak in.
0:12:29 Number four on this list is virtual mechanic.
0:12:31 In fact, the six-figure virtual mechanic.
0:12:33 And when I think about jobs that can be done remotely
0:12:36 versus jobs that really need to be done in person,
0:12:38 car mechanic is one that fits pretty squarely
0:12:41 in the gotta be there hands-on category, right?
0:12:43 Well, Chris Pyle is provenly wrong,
0:12:46 earning an average of $14,000 a month
0:12:51 as a virtual mechanic through the Q&A site, justanswer.com.
0:12:53 Now, the site’s been around for a long time
0:12:56 and Chris has been on it for a long time too, since 2006.
0:12:59 It is a place where you can connect with experts
0:13:01 and those experts get paid for their advice.
0:13:03 On the customer side,
0:13:06 just answer charges a monthly membership fee
0:13:10 ranging from around $30 to $125 per month,
0:13:13 depending on what kind of experts you’d like help from.
0:13:15 It’s interesting to me that it’s packaged as a membership
0:13:18 when I imagine most people coming to the site
0:13:20 for the first time just have one specific problem
0:13:21 that they want solved.
0:13:23 And the complaints about just answer online
0:13:25 seem to mirror that apparent disconnect
0:13:26 with customers saying,
0:13:28 “Hey, I didn’t expect to get charged for the next month.”
0:13:29 But on the expert side,
0:13:32 you can earn 20 to 50% of what the customer paid
0:13:33 to answer their question.
0:13:35 And there are over 100 different categories
0:13:37 in which you can join as an expert.
0:13:39 Compared to other marketplaces,
0:13:41 that fee is actually really steep.
0:13:44 Normally you would see the platform taking 20 to 30%
0:13:47 as a fulfillment or matchmaking fee for new members,
0:13:49 not 80%, but each question individually
0:13:51 might only be worth $2 to $20
0:13:54 depending on the category and complexity.
0:13:56 But still, if you enjoy answering questions,
0:13:57 you can knock them out quickly,
0:13:58 you can make good money
0:14:00 as Chris’s virtual mechanic example proves.
0:14:04 Chris originally trained as a transmission tech with Ford
0:14:07 and stumbled upon this online side hustle,
0:14:08 turned full-time income,
0:14:10 while he was researching how to fix a transmission
0:14:11 he was working on.
0:14:14 It didn’t take long before he signed himself up
0:14:15 as an expert on just answer
0:14:18 and started answering questions after work.
0:14:20 He told CNBC that he liked the challenge
0:14:23 of diagnosing a motor that he couldn’t see, touch, or smell
0:14:25 and realized he had a knack
0:14:28 for virtually helping people solve their mechanical problems.
0:14:30 Chris made $500 in his first month
0:14:33 and $1,000 in his second
0:14:36 and eventually eclipsed his day job salary
0:14:38 and now far exceeding what he used to make
0:14:39 at that old day job.
0:14:41 And one drawback here is that Chris
0:14:45 is really putting in the hours in this CNBC article.
0:14:47 He says he managed to take this side hustle full-time
0:14:50 in 2012 and that it fits really well with his lifestyle
0:14:52 and pays better than his old job,
0:14:54 but that he still works every single day
0:14:57 and an average of 40 to 60 hours a week.
0:15:00 It looks like there’s a pretty extensive vetting process
0:15:02 to get accepted as a just answer expert.
0:15:05 And there are all the career categories
0:15:07 that you might expect like law and medicine
0:15:09 and finance and technology and home repair.
0:15:12 But there are also some expert slots
0:15:14 in academic tutoring and homework help
0:15:19 in veterinary care, in antiques, in dream interpretation
0:15:20 and even in etiquette.
0:15:23 So maybe there’s some less competitive categories
0:15:24 on there too.
0:15:28 So that’s just answer a wide ranging pay for advice site
0:15:29 that might make sense to test out
0:15:32 as a potential new source of side hustle income
0:15:34 even in industries that are traditionally
0:15:36 pretty hands-on like car repair.
0:15:38 I was surprised when I saw that headline
0:15:40 about the six figure virtual mechanic.
0:15:42 Creative side hustle number five
0:15:45 is the high-end dorm room designer.
0:15:47 This year I came across Shelly Gates,
0:15:49 a fourth grade teacher in Mississippi
0:15:51 who turned her eye for design
0:15:54 into a really lucrative side hustle
0:15:56 designing college dorm rooms.
0:15:58 Constraint breeds creativity, right here.
0:15:59 You got a small space to work with
0:16:01 and kind of a tight window in which to do the work.
0:16:03 Now Shelly’s rates vary based on a number
0:16:04 of different factors,
0:16:07 but can go as high as 20 to $30,000.
0:16:08 How crazy is that?
0:16:10 And you’ll hear her explain in the upcoming clip.
0:16:11 She’s got a wait list of clients
0:16:14 and has already surpassed her teaching salary.
0:16:16 Here’s Shelly explaining how the business got
0:16:17 its super fast start.
0:16:20 – Hey guys, my name is Shelly Gates
0:16:23 and I own a company called Mary Margaret Designs
0:16:26 where I focus on custom dorm room design.
0:16:30 My website is marymargaretdesigns.com.
0:16:33 However, TikTok has become quite the platform
0:16:36 for seeing my rooms and getting updated
0:16:38 on dorm trends for 2025.
0:16:41 My TikTok is also Mary Margaret Designs.
0:16:44 The idea for my dorm design business
0:16:46 really started by accident.
0:16:49 I’ve always loved design and beautiful surroundings
0:16:50 and of course shopping.
0:16:51 So when my daughter was a freshman
0:16:53 at Mississippi State University,
0:16:55 I had the most fun creating her room.
0:16:58 I put the pictures of her room on social media
0:17:00 for friends and family to see
0:17:02 and it gained a ton of attention.
0:17:05 The following year, her sophomore dorm
0:17:08 was featured on TikTok by an influencer
0:17:09 and it really took off.
0:17:13 Here in the South, especially SEC schools,
0:17:14 beautiful dorms are the norm
0:17:16 and people love to see all the rooms.
0:17:18 So this gave me the idea for my business.
0:17:20 Also, since I’m a fourth grade teacher
0:17:22 with my summers free,
0:17:26 I thought this was perfect for a little summer side hustle.
0:17:28 Little did I know that this side hustle
0:17:32 would turn into 12 to 18 hour days in the summer
0:17:33 to get everything done.
0:17:36 The TikTok exposure was really great
0:17:40 because it helped me book clients for my first year
0:17:44 and because I was advertising exclusively on social media,
0:17:48 that free advertisement made my startup cost nonexistent.
0:17:50 But that first year was rough and I learned a lot.
0:17:53 I took on far too many clients
0:17:55 and I realized that I was stretched a mile wide
0:17:56 and an inch deep.
0:17:58 So I realized I had to limit my clients
0:17:59 for the following year.
0:18:01 I’m so proud to say that my business
0:18:02 has become quite lucrative
0:18:05 and I’ve already exceeded my current salary.
0:18:07 Even though I love my fourth graders,
0:18:09 I eventually plan to stop teaching
0:18:10 and focus on this full-time.
0:18:13 I have such exciting plans for 2025.
0:18:16 I’m hiring additional designers to expand the business,
0:18:20 especially since I have such a long wait list.
0:18:23 I really want each room to be unique.
0:18:26 So I spend months interpreting the girl’s vision
0:18:27 into the perfect dorm room.
0:18:29 I really wanna provide a turnkey room.
0:18:32 So I order absolutely everything
0:18:35 from the custom pieces to the practical items,
0:18:37 like organization, even down to the light bulbs
0:18:39 and cleaning supplies.
0:18:41 But surprisingly, a big part of my service
0:18:43 is coordinating move-in day.
0:18:45 People always find it funny
0:18:47 because I hire movers for the room.
0:18:49 But once you’ve carried heavy furniture
0:18:52 up 15 flights of stairs in the 100 degree heat,
0:18:56 you quickly realize that is money well spent.
0:19:00 I also do a lot of consulting for rooms across the country.
0:19:05 So I’m planning to expand that part of my business as well.
0:19:06 After three years in business though,
0:19:09 I can really just tell everybody
0:19:12 that my favorite part is the relationship that I form,
0:19:14 especially with the moms.
0:19:16 Sending your child off to college is so hard.
0:19:17 I think how hard it is
0:19:19 to send your child to kindergarten.
0:19:21 Now multiply that, it times a million.
0:19:23 I can really empathize with the moms too
0:19:26 because I’ve sent two girls off to college
0:19:28 and my son will be starting college next fall.
0:19:30 It is a huge life change.
0:19:32 Letting your little baby bird leave the nest.
0:19:34 So with that in mind,
0:19:36 I really limit my clients
0:19:38 because I want to invest in my families
0:19:43 and encourage love and offer support during this time.
0:19:47 I am so proud of what Mary Margaret Designs has become
0:19:49 and all the exciting opportunities
0:19:51 that await in the future.
0:19:53 – And of course, when I look at some of Shelley’s designs,
0:19:56 you can check them out at Mary Margaret Designs underscore
0:19:59 on Instagram, Mary Margaret Designs on TikTok.
0:20:02 I can’t help but think back to my own dorm room experience
0:20:05 where we just thought we were geniuses
0:20:06 when we figured out how to loft my bed
0:20:09 and stack up some cinder blocks at old newspapers
0:20:11 to support a couch underneath it.
0:20:14 What a wild business and just a fun example
0:20:16 of doing something she was gonna do anyway,
0:20:19 sharing about it and getting such a positive reaction.
0:20:20 Do you ever have those moments
0:20:24 when you do something that is second nature to you
0:20:25 but other people are like, “Whoa, whoa, wait,
0:20:27 how did you do that?”
0:20:30 Or they ask, “Can I hire you to do that for me?”
0:20:31 That’s a good sign.
0:20:31 Pay attention to that.
0:20:33 Pay attention to what wants to happen.
0:20:35 That’s creative side hustle number five,
0:20:37 the dorm room design side hustle.
0:20:39 Number six is somewhat similar.
0:20:42 This is the virtual home studio design service.
0:20:44 I wanna introduce you to Kevin Shen
0:20:48 who has found a unique niche side hustle helping people,
0:20:49 I assume full-time business at this time,
0:20:52 helping people set up professional home studios.
0:20:56 And unlike Shelley, his work has done 100% virtual,
0:20:57 100% online.
0:21:00 So this is one that taps into the rise of remote work
0:21:02 and virtual content creation.
0:21:04 Kevin recognized there’s this growing need
0:21:07 for people to have high quality home offices,
0:21:09 podcast studios, video setups.
0:21:11 I mean, if you wanna impress people on Zoom calls
0:21:13 or step up your YouTube game,
0:21:14 his is the service you need.
0:21:17 And he now charges $8,000 per client
0:21:19 to do this studio design consulting.
0:21:21 And if you go through his testimonials,
0:21:23 it’s like a who’s who of online business.
0:21:26 He’s got Sam and Sean from My First Million.
0:21:28 He’s got Steph Smith, Jay Klaus, Ryan Dice,
0:21:31 Justin Jackson, Neville Madora, lots more.
0:21:33 And looking at all their setups,
0:21:34 they all look kind of similar.
0:21:36 Like there’s a consistent vibe going on,
0:21:38 but you can’t argue they look good
0:21:40 and kind of makes me wanna step up my own studio game.
0:21:44 So how it works, Kevin offers these consultations over Zoom
0:21:46 where he walks clients through everything they’re gonna need
0:21:48 to create this polished professional look
0:21:49 that they’re going for.
0:21:52 And then he provides this detailed list
0:21:54 of the recommended gear and equipment and supplies
0:21:57 based on the client’s goals and budget.
0:22:01 Obviously paying attention to lighting, decor, sound quality
0:22:03 and even we’ll help you troubleshoot any issues
0:22:05 as you go along.
0:22:06 And since it’s all remote,
0:22:07 he can serve clients all over the world.
0:22:11 Now Kevin’s customer base includes YouTubers and podcasters
0:22:13 and course creators like you might expect,
0:22:16 but also remote employees and even executives
0:22:20 who need or want more polished setups for virtual meetings.
0:22:24 Now he also sells his design expertise as an online course.
0:22:26 There’s like the high end consulting price, right?
0:22:30 The $8,000, you know, done with you type of service.
0:22:31 But there’s also the more DIY version
0:22:36 at dreamstudiocourse.com where for $500,
0:22:38 you can get the self-serve on demand version.
0:22:39 We’ll teach you how to do this.
0:22:41 And it looks like YouTube and Twitter
0:22:43 are his primary traffic drivers
0:22:46 and they appear to be working quite well.
0:22:49 Now Kevin’s business is an example of a niche business
0:22:52 that taps into a few common themes on the show.
0:22:55 First, it piggybacks on the broader trend
0:22:56 of remote work and video creation
0:22:58 and even video podcasting now.
0:23:01 And it’s got some level of built-in virality
0:23:04 because when other creators see you’ve upgraded your space,
0:23:07 they’re naturally gonna ask how you did it.
0:23:10 And I think it illustrates the power of niching down.
0:23:13 It’s not a virtual interior design service.
0:23:14 That’ll be too broad.
0:23:16 It’s specific for video studio spaces
0:23:19 and that apparently was a wide open blue ocean
0:23:20 to stake a claim to.
0:23:21 It’s kind of like Shelly.
0:23:25 It’s tough to compete as a generic interior designer,
0:23:28 but when you niche down to interior design for dorm rooms,
0:23:30 all of a sudden you’re the only game in town.
0:23:33 So the question is, is there a similar niche within a niche
0:23:36 where you could become the undisputed market leader in?
0:23:38 Remember, if you can’t be first, be different.
0:23:39 Where can you play?
0:23:41 Where you can be a market of one.
0:23:43 You can check out Kevin on all the socials
0:23:46 at the Kevin Shen S-H-E-N.
0:23:49 The one honorable mention to throw in here on the list
0:23:52 is a listener sent me this story
0:23:54 of basically being a professional tattletale,
0:23:56 which maybe makes it sound a little bit negative.
0:24:00 I guess there’s a law in New York against idling vehicles.
0:24:02 Hey, this burns unnecessary gas.
0:24:04 It creates unnecessary pollution.
0:24:05 So the city says, we’re gonna find you
0:24:07 if we catch you idling for too long.
0:24:09 And where the side hustle comes in
0:24:12 is you as the do good citizen
0:24:14 catch the idling vehicle in the act
0:24:16 and you record the video evidence,
0:24:18 New York will pay you 25% of the fine
0:24:19 that they eventually collect,
0:24:22 which could end up being several hundred dollars
0:24:24 or even more if it’s a repeat offender.
0:24:26 Like it goes up the more and more times you get caught.
0:24:30 And so naturally this has sprung up a little micro economy
0:24:32 of people going out to do this intentionally,
0:24:35 spending a few hours a day, in some cases,
0:24:36 walking or biking the city.
0:24:39 And at least in one case, hiring virtual assistants
0:24:41 to support with some of the administrative paperwork
0:24:43 required to file the cases.
0:24:45 Like it’s turned into like a legitimate business
0:24:46 for some people.
0:24:49 Now, because it is the city and bureaucracy and all that,
0:24:50 it can take several months to get paid
0:24:52 from the time you find your offender.
0:24:54 But I thought it was a super interesting example
0:24:57 of taking advantage of a local rule
0:24:59 and turning it into an extra income stream.
0:25:01 I’ll be right back with more creative side hustles
0:25:02 right after this.
0:25:05 Creative side hustle number seven
0:25:07 is a furniture repair service.
0:25:10 So here’s a cool example of taking a skill you already have
0:25:11 and putting a slight pivot on it
0:25:13 to turn it into a viable business.
0:25:15 In this case, the pivot was making it mobile.
0:25:17 As in, all come to you.
0:25:19 You don’t have to carry your bulky couch.
0:25:21 You can figure out how to transport it to our store.
0:25:23 And it reminds me of a bike mechanic
0:25:24 that I hired recently.
0:25:26 Like I called up the local bike shop in town
0:25:28 and they were booking appointments three weeks out.
0:25:29 I wanted it done faster.
0:25:32 I remembered seeing this mobile bike repair van around town.
0:25:35 So I went to their website, booked an online appointment.
0:25:35 Didn’t even have to call.
0:25:37 And instead of three weeks out, it was like,
0:25:39 hey, next day or next couple of days,
0:25:41 we can come and pick up your bike
0:25:43 and didn’t have to put the rack on the car.
0:25:44 Didn’t have to drive to the shop.
0:25:46 Much more convenient customer experience.
0:25:50 So here’s side hustle show listener Nathan Velz
0:25:52 on how he got his freelance furniture repair business
0:25:54 off the ground and turned it into a full-time income.
0:25:56 – My name is Nathan Velz
0:25:59 and my business is fresh furniture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
0:26:01 The website is fresh furniture MKE
0:26:02 if you’d like to take a look.
0:26:04 What I do is in-home furniture repair,
0:26:06 which can go in lots of different directions
0:26:08 from repairing a small dent in the table
0:26:10 to tearing a sofa apart to fix a frame issue.
0:26:13 What I found is that there are some furniture finishing
0:26:16 and reupholstery shops that offer the same service,
0:26:17 but they always want the customer to bring in
0:26:19 their heavy and bulky pieces to their shop.
0:26:21 Number one, I don’t wanna pay for a workspace
0:26:23 and most of my repairs can be done
0:26:25 in the customer’s living room in under an hour.
0:26:27 Many of my customers are really surprised
0:26:28 I even offered to do this with them.
0:26:31 I’ve been working in furniture repair for quite a while now,
0:26:33 but always working for a large retailer
0:26:35 or a national repair company.
0:26:38 What I’ve seen over and over is that if parts are needed,
0:26:40 the large companies would always source them
0:26:43 directly for the manufacturer, which is typically overseas.
0:26:45 This involves wait times for customers
0:26:47 for weeks and sometimes even months.
0:26:50 Telling this to a customer with a broken lift chair
0:26:53 that they use to help to get to a standing position
0:26:55 was heartbreaking and quite frustrating.
0:26:57 What I realized is that a lot of these parts
0:26:59 could be sourced locally or purchased online
0:27:01 and received in days, not weeks.
0:27:04 I established a relationship with a small family-owned
0:27:08 local foam company for all the seat cushion replacements.
0:27:09 Not only the great people,
0:27:12 but now they go other ways to get my foam cut quickly
0:27:15 since I’m ordering from them usually multiple times a week.
0:27:17 This company also allows me to pick up from them
0:27:19 so I occur no shipping costs.
0:27:21 That became the start of fresh furniture,
0:27:22 knowing that I could complete a repair
0:27:25 for a customer quickly and usually at a lower cost
0:27:27 than a national extended warranty company.
0:27:29 Start-up costs were low for me
0:27:31 as I had most of the tools and supplies.
0:27:34 I did purchase a van for transporting pieces
0:27:37 that were bigger projects and couldn’t be repaired at home.
0:27:39 I did spend money on making sure my logo
0:27:40 was on all my work shirts.
0:27:42 You definitely want to look professional
0:27:44 when you’re going into a customer’s home.
0:27:47 Having a great looking embroidered shirt makes you stand out.
0:27:49 I also took Nick’s advice,
0:27:52 spent money on getting high quality business cards.
0:27:53 This I found gives you an edge
0:27:55 and makes you seem way more credible.
0:27:57 My friend and I created the website.
0:27:59 I’ll be honest, mostly my friend.
0:28:00 This worked for about the first year
0:28:03 until I did hire a local firm to update it and unify
0:28:05 the website to my logo on business colors.
0:28:07 The designer used the same hosting platform
0:28:09 and that definitely cut down the costs
0:28:11 instead of creating a new one from scratch.
0:28:14 I know it’s been said on the show multiple times before,
0:28:16 but getting the Google business page
0:28:18 has been my biggest source of customers.
0:28:20 Having the business page up to date
0:28:22 and responding to customer reviews has been key.
0:28:24 I will say as well that nice jobs
0:28:26 for a review service has been fantastic.
0:28:28 The fact that they blast our reviews
0:28:30 to multiple social sites and your own website
0:28:32 is a great time saver.
0:28:33 And if you are a small business like me,
0:28:35 they charge me a lower than advertised fee
0:28:38 since I don’t have hundreds of reviews a month.
0:28:39 In price to my repairs,
0:28:41 I have standard pricing on certain pieces
0:28:43 and adjust it traveling further
0:28:44 than my normal service area.
0:28:47 I’ve already had to increase my pricing due to demand.
0:28:49 Just recently, I’ve taken the side house the full time
0:28:51 and it’s been completely overwhelming.
0:28:53 My first year I plan on making my old salary
0:28:54 and hoping for more.
0:28:56 What I’m hoping to do in the future
0:28:59 is to approach companies to offer a touch up service
0:29:01 to keep their lobbies looking great year round.
0:29:03 Also, I’m looking to send out a mailing to all the senior
0:29:06 facilities in the area to become their go-to contact
0:29:09 for any lift chair repairs for the residents.
0:29:11 I find this job extremely rewarding
0:29:13 since most of my repairs are short term
0:29:16 and fixing something that people thought irreparable,
0:29:19 especially family heirlooms, just feels great.
0:29:21 – Thanks Nathan for sharing that.
0:29:23 That is Creative Side Hustle number seven,
0:29:26 furniture repair, freshfurnituremke.com.
0:29:28 If you wanna go check Nathan out over there.
0:29:32 – Creative Side Hustle number eight is a trailer rental
0:29:34 business and so earlier in the year,
0:29:37 Justin Martin of Jacksonville, Florida reported earning
0:29:39 between $2,000 and $3,000 per month,
0:29:42 renting out this kind of flatbed trailer.
0:29:45 It could be used for hauling furniture, vehicles,
0:29:47 heavy equipment, pallets, that kind of thing.
0:29:49 Now since then, he’s added several more products
0:29:52 to his inventory, all in that same broad category
0:29:54 of equipment hauling trailers.
0:29:56 Like big picture like the wooden slats on top,
0:29:58 you’re towing behind a truck with rates ranging
0:30:01 from $300 to $750 per week.
0:30:05 You can check out his site at rcrjacks.com,
0:30:09 like rippercityrentalsjaxenville.com, rcrjacks.com.
0:30:12 I’m finding these trails tend to cost
0:30:14 between $2,000 and $5,000 a piece,
0:30:17 maybe a little bit less if you can find them used.
0:30:19 So you’re looking at seven to 10 rentals perhaps
0:30:22 to break even and then everything after that is profit.
0:30:24 I wasn’t able to get a voicemail for this one
0:30:27 but Justin said he normally spends or otherwise budgets
0:30:30 around $100 a month per trailer for maintenance.
0:30:31 You know, there’s tires on them.
0:30:34 You gotta replace straps and things get damaged.
0:30:35 Now as far as marketing, it looks like
0:30:39 Justin has focused on SEO and Google reviews.
0:30:41 He’s got over 205 star reviews at this point.
0:30:43 So he does a good job of marketing the service
0:30:45 on the trailers themselves as well
0:30:47 with his phone number and a sign that says,
0:30:49 you know, rent me or rent this trailer.
0:30:51 And even though it’s a lot of one-off customers,
0:30:54 okay, I just need to move something from point A to point B
0:30:56 Justin also generates quite a bit of repeat business
0:30:58 by providing a good service
0:31:00 and positive customer interactions.
0:31:02 The other considerations for this type of business
0:31:05 are obviously a place to store your inventory
0:31:06 when it’s not in use.
0:31:08 It looks like Justin has a good sized property
0:31:10 where he can park these things
0:31:12 and then insurance to protect yourself
0:31:13 if something goes wrong.
0:31:15 And whenever you’re dealing with physical products,
0:31:16 especially big, heavy things,
0:31:18 driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour,
0:31:19 things can go wrong.
0:31:21 In fact, Justin sent me a picture of one of his trailers
0:31:23 with a tire blown out on the side of the road
0:31:25 as the business owner, he’s got to deal with that.
0:31:27 So it’s not all rainbows and unicorns
0:31:28 and passive income all the time,
0:31:30 but as far as a rental asset,
0:31:31 it’s not a ton of moving parts
0:31:34 on these relatively simple, low maintenance products
0:31:37 and ones that probably have a pretty long, useful life
0:31:39 if they’re well taken care of.
0:31:41 You can follow along with what Justin is doing
0:31:44 at trailerhustle on the TikTok trailerhustle.com
0:31:46 where he’s starting to help other people
0:31:47 get involved in this business,
0:31:49 one that I’ll be paying attention to.
0:31:51 Hopefully you can follow along with his journey as well.
0:31:53 So naturally the next question is,
0:31:55 well, what else could you rent out for a profit?
0:31:58 We’ve done episodes on party inflatables
0:32:00 like bouncy houses for kids parties.
0:32:03 We’ve done mobility scooters, photo booths,
0:32:05 portable hot tubs, a favorite of mine.
0:32:10 Even most recently, we did moving boxes in episode 635.
0:32:13 Like here, here’s a low, relatively low overhead type
0:32:15 of product, it’s just a plastic bin.
0:32:17 Now, you might not even have to own the thing
0:32:19 you’re renting out because we talked to Gar Russell
0:32:22 from Fireside RV about renting out other people’s RVs.
0:32:24 Basically acting as a property manager
0:32:27 and splitting the income from those rentals.
0:32:28 So that is number eight on this list,
0:32:32 the trailer rental business and maybe as an illustration
0:32:35 of a broader equipment rental type of side hustle.
0:32:38 Creative side hustle number nine is TV mounting.
0:32:40 Now, I’m blown away by this story
0:32:43 because I never imagined that you could make $30,000
0:32:45 a month mounting TVs for people.
0:32:47 I mean, how many TVs are out there that need mounting?
0:32:49 But that’s exactly what Sina Omosawan has done
0:32:52 with his TV mounting business operating mostly
0:32:55 in the Washington, DC area under the brand Shine.
0:32:58 Back in 2019, Sina is, he’s working on his PhD
0:33:01 when a friend introduces him to his side hustle,
0:33:02 his world of TV mounting.
0:33:06 So he shadows the friend for a few jobs, learns the basics
0:33:09 and consumes what he called hours of YouTube tutorials
0:33:10 to really master the skills.
0:33:12 And starting out, he priced pretty low
0:33:14 to build trust and attract his first clients.
0:33:16 Sina then started using thumbtack
0:33:18 and built his own client base using the platform
0:33:22 to showcase reviews and pictures of the job
0:33:24 that he completed and client feedback.
0:33:25 And that approach definitely worked
0:33:28 and it continues to work almost as a virtuous cycle
0:33:30 because now he’s got over 1,005 star reviews
0:33:32 and that reputation makes it easier
0:33:34 and easier to book more work, right?
0:33:36 He told entrepreneur that he would initially book
0:33:37 two or three jobs in a day.
0:33:40 Each one would take way longer than he wanted them to
0:33:42 as he kind of worked through this learning curve
0:33:43 of how to do the job.
0:33:45 But as his confidence and efficiency grew,
0:33:47 now he’s able to serve more customers every day.
0:33:49 He can mount the TV in just 15 minutes.
0:33:51 Like he’s done hundreds and hundreds of these things.
0:33:53 It becomes really quick, lather, rinse and repeat.
0:33:55 And he also learned the importance
0:33:57 of being really responsive to inquiries
0:33:59 because thumbtack, like a lot of these other platforms
0:34:01 is one where speed really counts.
0:34:04 So keeping his phone on hand, answer customer questions,
0:34:05 schedule those appointments right away.
0:34:08 It is a business with relatively low startup costs,
0:34:10 really just a handful of tools,
0:34:11 some of which you might already own,
0:34:12 but fast forward a few months
0:34:14 and now Sina’s got a decision to make.
0:34:17 So he finishes up his PhD.
0:34:20 He’s got offer letters in his chosen field
0:34:22 of plant evolution and food crop production.
0:34:25 This is what he spent years studying, going to school to do.
0:34:26 But over here, he’s got this side hustle
0:34:27 that’s working really well.
0:34:30 So he makes the hard decision to go all in on the business
0:34:32 instead of this traditional career
0:34:33 that he’s been going to school for.
0:34:35 And he says, you know what?
0:34:37 I’m gonna go be my own boss instead.
0:34:39 Today the business earns around $30,000 each month
0:34:42 and appears to have expanded geographically
0:34:45 sort of customers in Chicago and Indiana as well.
0:34:46 Sina told entrepreneur that he loves
0:34:49 the control and flexibility the business gives him.
0:34:51 He schedules jobs around family commitments
0:34:53 and loves putting a smile on customers’ faces
0:34:54 with a job well done.
0:34:57 He highlighted the importance of prioritizing customer
0:34:59 satisfaction over profits in the beginning.
0:35:01 Remember he said, I got a price low
0:35:04 to attract clients to start to build a portfolio
0:35:05 and build some momentum of positive reviews.
0:35:08 He said that was really the key to growth early on.
0:35:10 I think this is another really interesting example
0:35:12 of owning a niche.
0:35:14 Of course a general handy person service
0:35:16 could handle mounting your TV
0:35:19 but as a customer given the choice between the generalist
0:35:21 and the specialist who’s done it a thousand times
0:35:22 who are you gonna pick?
0:35:24 Is there a similar niche that you could own?
0:35:26 Maybe it’s a piece of what you’re already doing.
0:35:29 You could carve out and really choose to focus on just that.
0:35:32 That’s number nine, 30 grand a month mounting TVs.
0:35:35 Number 10 is guinea pig cages.
0:35:39 This is 17 year old Bella Lynn of California
0:35:41 who is running a not so little side business
0:35:44 called guinea loft which specializes in these
0:35:47 see-through customizable pet enclosures for guinea pigs,
0:35:50 chinchillas, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, hedgehogs.
0:35:53 She told CNBC she spends around 20 hours a week
0:35:55 on the business on the side from her responsibilities
0:35:56 as a high school student.
0:35:57 Oh yeah, we still gotta go to school.
0:36:01 Last year she averaged $34,000 a month in sales
0:36:04 at roughly a 25% profit margin.
0:36:06 Now as is often the case in e-commerce
0:36:09 she’s heavily reinvesting those profits
0:36:13 into marketing, audience research, developing new products.
0:36:14 This is common where you’re not able to really
0:36:16 take a ton of cash off the table.
0:36:18 You wanna continue to reinvest in inventory
0:36:19 and grow the thing.
0:36:21 Now guinea loft launched on Amazon two years ago
0:36:24 with a startup cost of around $2,000 in prototypes.
0:36:26 Bella sold out of her first production run
0:36:27 of a hundred units in a couple weeks
0:36:29 with quote unquote no marketing
0:36:32 which I assume that meant just relying
0:36:34 on Amazon’s internal search and discovery features
0:36:35 like not paying for additional exposure.
0:36:37 And that’s interesting to me in itself
0:36:39 because I would have assumed that Amazon
0:36:42 to be probably pretty crowded in the pet product space
0:36:44 at that time but goes to show you.
0:36:46 If you can come at a problem from a unique angle
0:36:48 or perspective you can still carve out some market share.
0:36:51 Bella had had guinea pigs as pets for years
0:36:53 and didn’t love the traditional cage options
0:36:55 so she set out to create something better.
0:36:56 I love that.
0:36:59 Is there a hobby niche that you’re really into
0:37:02 but frustrated with what’s available on the market?
0:37:04 I mean this was Chris and Julia Tunstall
0:37:05 from A Bar Above.
0:37:07 They had this content business in the craft cocktail space
0:37:09 but had a hard time recommending
0:37:12 any really high quality bar equipment on Amazon
0:37:14 so they ended up creating their own
0:37:16 which turned into a multi-million dollar business.
0:37:18 One possible example from our own house.
0:37:21 The kids got a Nintendo Switch a couple years ago.
0:37:22 The controllers that come with it
0:37:25 are painfully small for adult hands
0:37:26 and since I like to play too
0:37:28 I order these larger controllers from Amazon.
0:37:30 They’re definitely better
0:37:31 but if there wasn’t even bigger version
0:37:33 I would probably go for that.
0:37:35 It’s the kind of product ideas you come up with
0:37:39 as a hobbyist or a user in a certain field
0:37:40 and that gives you an advantage
0:37:41 over people approaching product research
0:37:45 purely from a software driven or analytical point of view.
0:37:48 Well this one has a higher percentage of three star reviews
0:37:49 so there must be some opportunity
0:37:50 to improve upon the product
0:37:52 and you should absolutely do that level
0:37:54 of competitive research too
0:37:56 but you gotta know the niche.
0:37:58 I don’t think, I don’t know if this is just coming
0:38:00 into something completely blind and agnostic
0:38:02 as to what product is is really gonna work.
0:38:03 You gotta have a story behind it
0:38:05 and maybe what’s even more impressive about Bella
0:38:08 is that Guinea Loft wasn’t even her first e-commerce business.
0:38:10 She started a leggings brand in 2019
0:38:14 that brought in around $300,000 in revenue in 2020.
0:38:16 This girl knows how to move some inventory
0:38:18 but despite that revenue,
0:38:20 the leggings business had a hard time generating profit
0:38:23 so she decided to pivot her attention
0:38:24 to the guinea pig market.
0:38:27 She told CNBC I had a weird epiphany
0:38:28 where I kind of realized there were a lot
0:38:30 of other companies trying to make leggings.
0:38:31 There was no innovation there
0:38:33 whereas with Guinea Loft,
0:38:35 I could feel a really big gap in the market.
0:38:38 So one pain point or an area of innovation for her
0:38:40 was in the floor area of the enclosures
0:38:43 which not to get too nerdy on guinea pig cages
0:38:45 but these I guess apparently were traditionally made
0:38:46 with plastic bottoms and she said,
0:38:49 “Hey, they smell really bad, they’re really hard to clean.”
0:38:52 So ultimately Guinea Loft created a replaceable bottom
0:38:55 for the enclosures with biodegradable wax coated paper
0:38:58 which actually led to repeat business.
0:39:00 ‘Cause I’m like, well, okay, you sell a guinea pig cage
0:39:02 and then that’s it, you never see that customer again
0:39:04 but because of this replaceable bottom,
0:39:05 now they’ve got repeat customers,
0:39:08 customers come back in order refills of those.
0:39:10 Pretty savvy, pretty inspiring stuff.
0:39:12 Couple other honorable mentions before we wrap.
0:39:15 The first one here is turning a regular bedtime activity
0:39:16 into a side hustle.
0:39:19 This is Sam Ramsden of Australia
0:39:21 who began making up and telling silly stories
0:39:25 to his eldest daughter and eventually turned those stories
0:39:28 into a podcast called Silly Stories for Kids.
0:39:29 There’s a marketing lesson there.
0:39:31 Sometimes you don’t need a clever name,
0:39:33 you can just call it exactly what it is.
0:39:35 Sam told kidspot.com.au.
0:39:36 I’ve always loved storytelling.
0:39:38 When my eldest daughter was two,
0:39:39 I would lay on her bedroom floor
0:39:41 and make up a bedtime story.
0:39:43 He says one day my father-in-law pulled me aside
0:39:45 and said, “Hey, you ought to turn these stories
0:39:46 “into a podcast.”
0:39:48 It wasn’t something that Sam had ever considered
0:39:51 but with that level of support and encouragement,
0:39:53 he figured out how to make it happen.
0:39:56 The first episodes of Silly Stories for Kids
0:39:57 were only released a year ago
0:40:01 and the show has already generated over 700,000 downloads.
0:40:02 For the sake of reference,
0:40:05 the side hustle show took years to reach 700,000 downloads.
0:40:06 So he’s off to the races.
0:40:09 I didn’t hear any ads on the episode that I listened to
0:40:12 but Sam did make a plug to join his listener membership
0:40:14 ranging from $20 to $50 per year
0:40:16 and powered by Buy Me a Coffee
0:40:19 on the SillyStoriesForKids.com website.
0:40:22 There’s also a store with some merch for sale.
0:40:23 Here’s an example of selling your sawdust, right?
0:40:24 Hey, I’m already telling these stories.
0:40:26 I enjoy making them up.
0:40:27 Why not record them?
0:40:28 Why not put them out to the world?
0:40:29 Pretty cool idea.
0:40:30 Another one I thought was interesting
0:40:33 was Lina Pettigrew’s houseplant business.
0:40:35 I’d never heard of this site before
0:40:36 but it’s called Palm Street,
0:40:39 the number one live shopping app for plants,
0:40:40 crafts and crystals.
0:40:41 Did not know this was a thing
0:40:45 but Lina sold almost $150,000 worth of plants
0:40:45 in her first year.
0:40:48 It seems kind of like Twitch but for plants
0:40:50 like a live streaming marketplace
0:40:52 where you can follow your favorite growers,
0:40:54 gardeners and support them by buying their stuff.
0:40:58 Lina said she can sell 1,000 plants in a single session
0:41:01 and ships them out to customers all across the country.
0:41:03 Now I’m not sure how often you can do that.
0:41:05 Volume of sales because these are living things.
0:41:06 They take some time to grow
0:41:09 but I’ve also got to imagine the cost of goods sold
0:41:12 is pretty low especially if you can start to propagate them
0:41:15 from clippings from plants you’ve already got
0:41:17 even if you’re sourcing them from your local nursery
0:41:20 but now all of a sudden people want to buy from you
0:41:21 because of the brand you’ve created.
0:41:23 Maybe you can command premium pricing because of that.
0:41:26 It’s an example of riding that houseplant wave
0:41:28 looking for those trends to piggyback on,
0:41:30 filling demand instead of creating demand.
0:41:33 Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
0:41:35 Hope you take a pause for gratitude today
0:41:38 and really every day to start to build that muscle
0:41:40 to be a little more grateful and a little less hateful
0:41:42 and you’re gonna start to notice these little moments
0:41:45 of happiness and bring awareness to those.
0:41:47 I think it’s a really powerful and positive habit.
0:41:50 If you like this type of roundup style show
0:41:51 we’ve been doing it every Thanksgiving
0:41:52 for the last several years.
0:41:54 There’s a Spotify playlist for you
0:41:56 called Creative Sign Hustles
0:41:58 where you can find all the episodes in this series.
0:41:59 I think this is our seventh.
0:42:01 I have a blast putting them together
0:42:05 and I wanna invite you to send me ideas for the next edition.
0:42:07 Maybe we don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to do it
0:42:08 if we get enough that come in.
0:42:10 But if you do come across an interesting,
0:42:13 surprising, creative, inspiring way to make extra money
0:42:15 I would love to hear about it.
0:42:16 That is it for me.
0:42:18 Thank you so much for tuning in
0:42:20 with gratitude each and every week.
0:42:23 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
0:42:24 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:42:25 of The Side Hustle Show.
0:42:26 Hustle on.

0:00:02 – Hey, it’s time for Tool Talk.
0:00:05 These are 50 plus tools and apps to work smarter
0:00:06 and get more out of your side hustle.
0:00:08 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:10 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show
0:00:13 where we’ve been helping make Day Jobs optional since 2013.
0:00:16 Now this is one of the most requested topics that I get.
0:00:18 A look under the hood at the different tools,
0:00:20 apps, resources, software services
0:00:22 that I use to run Side Hustle Nation.
0:00:24 And because I’m not that great at just reading off a list
0:00:26 and monologuing for an hour,
0:00:28 I thought it would be more fun to have a co-host
0:00:30 for this discussion who’s going to bring her own opinions
0:00:33 and insights and recommended resources to the table as well.
0:00:35 She’s the host of the award-winning podcast
0:00:37 that highlights black women entrepreneurs
0:00:40 who scaled their side hustles into profitable businesses.
0:00:43 And she’s an accomplished entrepreneur in her own right
0:00:46 from Side Hustle Pro, Nikela Mathews Okome.
0:00:49 Welcome to the similarly named Side Hustle Show.
0:00:51 – Thank you, thank you so much, Nick.
0:00:52 Wow, that was quite an intro.
0:00:54 And it’s always fun to hear a fellow podcaster.
0:00:56 I’m like, oh, you rocked that.
0:00:58 – Oh, you’re so good at this.
0:01:00 – Well, very much appreciated.
0:01:02 You are no stranger to the mic
0:01:05 with over 400 episodes of the Side Hustle Pro podcast
0:01:06 running since 2016.
0:01:07 I’m excited to learn a little bit more
0:01:09 about your business and the toolkit
0:01:10 that you’ve been using to run it as well.
0:01:12 And we’ve got a bunch of different categories
0:01:13 to run through today.
0:01:16 But since the common thread here is online business,
0:01:18 we’re going to start with website tools.
0:01:21 I still believe that even in the age of social media
0:01:23 and video, I think it’s really important to have
0:01:25 that website as your home base.
0:01:27 And for me, that starts with WordPress
0:01:30 and specifically GeneratePress is the theme
0:01:33 that I’ve been using for the last seven-something years.
0:01:35 For that WordPress, of course,
0:01:37 has the advantage of being free, open source,
0:01:39 GeneratePress, pretty affordable, premium theme,
0:01:42 lightweight, loads fast, customizable.
0:01:44 And what’s cool about WordPress specifically
0:01:47 is just like the ecosystem of plugins in support
0:01:49 where there’s a little bit like any software.
0:01:50 There’s a little bit of a learning curve
0:01:52 to bend it to your will,
0:01:54 but it’s super, super powerful
0:01:55 when it seems to be the platform
0:02:00 that all of the serious website builders are using.
0:02:02 Is that what SideHustle Pro is hosted on as well?
0:02:06 – That is absolutely what SideHustle Pro is hosted on.
0:02:07 I’ve been using WordPress
0:02:09 and it’s funny you mentioned a theme detector
0:02:12 because I started out by getting a WordPress site
0:02:16 and then going to this site called WordPress Theme Detector.
0:02:21 So it’s wp-themedetector.com, I believe.
0:02:22 I will link to it.
0:02:26 And from there, it allows you to copy a URL,
0:02:30 plug it in to see what theme that WordPress site is using,
0:02:32 and then just use the same theme.
0:02:33 So when I was starting out
0:02:36 and I wanted a professional looking podcast website,
0:02:37 I went to a fellow podcaster site
0:02:39 that I thought looked really clean, really good,
0:02:41 and I just copied the theme.
0:02:41 – Yeah, I love that.
0:02:44 It was control you or something,
0:02:45 like looking at the source code,
0:02:47 see if we could find out what the theme file directories
0:02:49 are like totally done, all that stuff.
0:02:52 One of my first sites was this virtual assistant directory
0:02:54 and it was a site that I found,
0:02:57 I was like researching a wine niche site,
0:02:58 like I don’t know anything about wine,
0:02:59 I had no business being in that space,
0:03:03 but one of the sites I found was this wine club review site.
0:03:04 I was like, you know,
0:03:06 what a decent layout, decent structures,
0:03:07 and exactly the same thing.
0:03:08 Well, what theme are they using?
0:03:09 Like, okay, we could just rebuild this
0:03:12 to be about the world of virtual assistants.
0:03:13 So very cool.
0:03:16 – So much of side hustling is literally rebuilding.
0:03:17 (laughing)
0:03:19 – You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, right?
0:03:21 Yeah, and so we just spoke earlier,
0:03:23 it said, okay, this is hosted on WordPress,
0:03:24 it’s not itself hosted.
0:03:27 And for me, the hosting platform that Side Hustle Nation
0:03:29 has been on for over 10 years at this point
0:03:34 is WPX, WPX hosting, amazing customer support
0:03:37 where they like respond within seconds on the live chat.
0:03:39 They’ve helped me out of so many different,
0:03:41 you know, just technical challenges and issues
0:03:43 that come up, they take daily backups,
0:03:44 they’ve been awesome.
0:03:48 And for, it’s one of those bills that I think I pay annually
0:03:51 and up until very recently it was like 25 bucks a month
0:03:53 or about paid annually, like some Black Friday deal,
0:03:55 you know, it was like even less than that.
0:03:59 And I just recently went over my allocated disk space for it
0:04:02 and so I had to go up to the next storage tier.
0:04:04 But it’s one of those bills that every time would come around
0:04:05 and be like, I’m getting such an amazing deal
0:04:06 from these people.
0:04:09 Like this is like, you know those costs
0:04:10 where you’re like really happy to pay.
0:04:12 – Oh yeah, that is an amazing deal
0:04:14 because yeah, hosting is so expensive.
0:04:19 I thought I was hosting on Bluehost for a number of years
0:04:25 and then recently in 2023 switched over to SiteGround.
0:04:28 I’ve had a positive experience so far with SiteGround.
0:04:30 Actually, my web designer recommended it.
0:04:33 And then same thing, they give me emails
0:04:36 with updates on performance, what can be improved
0:04:37 and all these other things.
0:04:38 So I find that really helpful too.
0:04:40 – Yeah, and the other thing
0:04:42 that I still have this Bluehost account for
0:04:45 is creating these like redirects
0:04:47 and I don’t know what they’ve got a bunch of different plans
0:04:48 but like the one that allows
0:04:51 for lots of different add-on domains.
0:04:53 So register vanity domains for the sake
0:04:55 of saying them on the podcast.
0:04:58 Like one of the first ones I got was like buybuttonsbook.com
0:05:00 and that’ll take you over to Amazon for the book
0:05:03 or you want to start a website of your own?
0:05:04 Go to sidehustlewebsite.com
0:05:06 and it’ll go to my tutorial page
0:05:09 and this was a page straight out of the Pat Flynn playbook
0:05:10 back in the day where he’d do this.
0:05:12 I was like, oh, that’s really smart.
0:05:13 – You know, yeah, I’m trying to figure out
0:05:15 like how I can consolidate.
0:05:18 It’s a lot of backend work when you switch over a host
0:05:19 and you definitely, you don’t want to make sure
0:05:21 any of your old sites crash.
0:05:24 So it’s like, am I doing duplicate payments right now?
0:05:25 So I need to figure that out.
0:05:28 – Yeah, okay, so that is the hosting side of things
0:05:30 for the domain registration things.
0:05:32 Use GoDaddy for a lot of years
0:05:33 and still have some domains at GoDaddy.
0:05:37 Lately it’s been Porkbun who was a one-time sponsor
0:05:40 of the show but just I like their very simple
0:05:43 straightforward interface without trying to sell you
0:05:46 a million different add-ons like GoDaddy tries to do.
0:05:48 – I still use GoDaddy but yeah, it’s so annoying.
0:05:50 You’re like, oh, do I need this?
0:05:52 What is actually needed here?
0:05:55 – We’ve talked about like the GoDaddy conspiracy theory
0:05:58 of like, you know, checking to see if a domain is available.
0:05:59 And like, no, no, no, don’t do that
0:06:01 unless you’re ready to click buy.
0:06:03 It’s like for some, like somebody is scraping this.
0:06:04 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:06:06 – It’s happened too often to just be purely coincidence.
0:06:08 Like, well, now I go back a week later
0:06:09 and it happens to be registered.
0:06:10 Like, oh, come on.
0:06:11 – Exactly.
0:06:13 – We have, the next one on this list
0:06:17 is the Page Builder or in my case Beaver Builder,
0:06:19 which is, it turns WordPress into more
0:06:21 of a wissy wig type of editor.
0:06:23 What you see is what you get type of editor
0:06:24 where you could drag and drop
0:06:26 and manipulate it a little bit easier.
0:06:28 And so Beaver Builder’s been awesome for that.
0:06:31 – I use Elementor or I should say my website designer.
0:06:33 So I started out with WordPress
0:06:35 and after three years of podcasting,
0:06:37 I hired a website designer.
0:06:41 And so she took over and added in Elementor
0:06:42 to do all the design and all that stuff.
0:06:44 So I can’t even say that I use that
0:06:46 other than making edits anytime.
0:06:48 You know, it’s very user-friendly.
0:06:48 So that’s a great thing.
0:06:49 I’m not a website designer,
0:06:52 but after she’s done with her project and demands,
0:06:54 obviously I’m not gonna call her
0:06:56 every time I need to set up a new page,
0:06:58 make an edit, set up a landing page.
0:07:01 So Elementor is really easy and straightforward to go in
0:07:04 and do any kind of edits.
0:07:05 – Yeah, and the way these were,
0:07:08 you kind of layers on top of your existing WordPress theme.
0:07:10 And I use it to create custom pages,
0:07:12 custom landing pages that, you know,
0:07:14 you don’t wanna follow the exact, you know, default template.
0:07:18 But more often it’s like little call-outs inside the post.
0:07:19 You can use little short code for
0:07:20 and you kind of build these things.
0:07:21 And the cool thing about that,
0:07:24 you can embed that in a bunch of different posts.
0:07:25 And if that link changes
0:07:27 or you wanna highlight a different partner
0:07:29 or a different product, you can, you know,
0:07:33 swap that out in one place in the Beaver Builder saved row
0:07:34 and it updates throughout the whole site
0:07:36 versus going in and manually updating
0:07:37 a dozen different posts.
0:07:38 – I agree.
0:07:40 – That concludes our website section.
0:07:42 I’m sure there’s gonna be more website related things
0:07:44 lower on this list too.
0:07:44 – Yes, yeah.
0:07:47 Plugins might come up, we’ll see.
0:07:47 – I’m sure.
0:07:51 So the next category that we’ve got is marketing tools.
0:07:53 And one big shift for me that we talked about this year
0:07:56 was a shift from active campaign to convert kit.
0:07:58 I guess it’s just kit now for the email list.
0:08:00 Hugely important part of the business,
0:08:03 you know, to be able to take an anonymous podcast listener
0:08:04 and say, well, now I have the chance
0:08:06 to communicate proactively with them
0:08:09 instead of just whenever they happen to download the thing.
0:08:10 You on kit as well?
0:08:11 – I am on kit.
0:08:16 I am, it’s so new to me to say kit, but yes, I want kit.
0:08:16 And I like it a lot.
0:08:18 I started out with MailChamp,
0:08:20 like most people, early marketers.
0:08:22 And then it switched over to convert kit
0:08:26 when I got way more serious about tagging people,
0:08:28 subscribers as they come onto my list
0:08:31 and being able to deliver automations and sequences.
0:08:35 So if you’re not a marketer and that all seems like jargon
0:08:38 and just, you know, gibber jabber to you basically
0:08:41 when someone gives you their email
0:08:43 for a freebie that you offer,
0:08:47 I love being able to customize their experience.
0:08:48 When I’m really on my game,
0:08:50 like I can’t even lie and act
0:08:52 like I’m still not working things out sometimes,
0:08:55 but let’s say I am leading a webinar, right?
0:08:58 So I like how convert kit makes it really easy
0:09:02 to send follow-up reminder emails to tag people
0:09:04 and make sure the right people are getting that
0:09:06 or are not getting that.
0:09:07 So I’m not bothering people
0:09:10 who don’t want this info about a podcast webinar.
0:09:11 – Yeah, totally.
0:09:13 If you are sending straight newsletter,
0:09:14 you don’t want a regular cadence.
0:09:16 It could be Beehive, it could be Substack,
0:09:17 it could be any number of different tools,
0:09:20 but for the automation and segmentation and tagging
0:09:23 and all the other features that convert kit or kit has,
0:09:24 I think it’s really cool.
0:09:26 And there’s some safety in numbers.
0:09:28 Like this is what James Clear uses
0:09:29 or this is what Tim Ferriss uses.
0:09:30 You’re like, okay, well, it was good enough for them.
0:09:32 It’s probably good enough for me.
0:09:33 – Exactly.
0:09:35 And that’s how a lot of my tools started like,
0:09:36 oh, you use that, Amy Portafil?
0:09:37 Okay, cool.
0:09:38 (laughing)
0:09:40 – Yes, safety in numbers.
0:09:42 What else I like about kit is like,
0:09:46 they’ve made a lot of investment in the creator economy
0:09:49 where they’re like really rooting for the small guy,
0:09:54 it feels like, where they’ve built out their sponsor network
0:09:55 and their creator network,
0:09:57 where you could recommend other newsletter creators
0:09:59 that you might like, that might be worth a follow.
0:10:00 Like in a similar niche,
0:10:02 it’s like trying to like lift everybody up,
0:10:06 which is cool to be a part of that ecosystem.
0:10:07 – You’re so right about that.
0:10:08 It really is.
0:10:10 And I like the content they develop,
0:10:12 whether it’s on their blog.
0:10:16 And even the founder, he has a podcast as well.
0:10:17 What’s his last name again, Nate?
0:10:18 – Nathan Berry?
0:10:21 – Yeah, it does make it more approachable
0:10:22 when you hear the founder of a business.
0:10:26 I like how Nathan, he just is so approachable
0:10:28 when I hear him on his own podcast
0:10:30 and he’s talking about his experience building.
0:10:32 And that’s what I, me an entrepreneur is going through.
0:10:36 So it adds a level of trust
0:10:39 and also likeability factor to the entire brand.
0:10:42 Not to rave about ConvertKit for forever.
0:10:44 – I know, but he’s always been front and center,
0:10:46 even showing up at events,
0:10:49 even as the CEO of 30, $40 million company,
0:10:51 whatever there’s now, if he remembers your name,
0:10:53 it’s like, hey, remember when we talked a few years ago
0:10:54 about this?
0:10:56 Like he plays a part very well
0:10:58 and he’s built a cool product as well.
0:11:01 So I lied and so we were done with the website section.
0:11:02 I knew we weren’t done.
0:11:05 – The next on this list that I have is lead pages,
0:11:08 which is a landing page builder
0:11:10 that have been a customer for probably close to 10 years
0:11:11 at this point.
0:11:14 It was another recurring subscription.
0:11:15 I was like, do I really need this in my life?
0:11:17 I was like, really hesitant to buy it,
0:11:19 but within three months,
0:11:21 I tripled the size of my email list within 12 months.
0:11:25 It was like 10 or 12 X, like, okay, this is worthwhile.
0:11:28 What I primarily use it for today is,
0:11:31 it still has that landing page functionality
0:11:32 to collect emails.
0:11:34 What I originally used it for was like a double,
0:11:36 like a two-step opt-in.
0:11:37 Like you want to download this thing, okay,
0:11:40 a nice looking pop-up will come in and then you can do it.
0:11:42 I don’t use that so much anymore,
0:11:45 but now you can have these kind of landing pages
0:11:48 after an opt-in with a limited time thank you page
0:11:51 with like a limited time add-on upsell offer
0:11:53 that I’ve been doing for a couple of years
0:11:55 and it has like a little countdown timer
0:11:58 and it integrates with Stripe, with the payment processors,
0:12:00 lots of cool stuff you can do with lead pages.
0:12:02 Ooh, I think I need to be doing more,
0:12:04 but I love lead pages.
0:12:06 I would say this is one of my favorite tools
0:12:08 as a side hustler, entrepreneur,
0:12:12 because it makes it so easy to set up a quick landing page.
0:12:15 AKA, it feels like you’ve set up a quick like mini website
0:12:17 and no one will know the difference.
0:12:22 And so I use that primarily for when I do live classes,
0:12:25 live trainings and that like I have one
0:12:29 that it’s just been with me since I started using lead pages.
0:12:32 And similar to you, I tripled the size of my list
0:12:34 when I started using them right away.
0:12:37 I did like a master Instagram challenge and that,
0:12:39 and we’ve actually did a little mini case study.
0:12:43 So I love lead pages and it’s funny, back in the day,
0:12:45 I also, I saw the bill and I thought about canceling it
0:12:48 and the customer service agent was kind of like,
0:12:51 well, we’re showing that you made this much revenue
0:12:53 from your lead page last year.
0:12:56 Are you sure you don’t want to pay this annual fee?
0:12:58 I’m like, you’re right, you’re right.
0:12:59 I’ll keep it, yeah.
0:13:01 It makes it hard to get rid of,
0:13:04 but and that’s cool ’cause like if you’re doing a webinar,
0:13:06 you’re doing a live training, there’s all these templates
0:13:08 that you just, you don’t have to start from scratch
0:13:09 and that’s such a time saver.
0:13:11 So I definitely like what they’re doing.
0:13:12 Yes.
0:13:15 The next one on this list is a newer to me tool,
0:13:17 maybe in the last year and a half or so.
0:13:19 And that is a quiz builder called Interact,
0:13:21 it’s I think triinteract.com,
0:13:24 but we’ll link all this stuff up in the show notes for you.
0:13:26 We’re using all the same tools, Nick.
0:13:28 (laughing)
0:13:31 As expected a little bit more of a debate or back and forth,
0:13:32 but I’m sure we’ll get to that later in the show,
0:13:34 but Interact, super cool.
0:13:38 I feel like you’re using things in different ways
0:13:39 that like you said, like the lead pages.
0:13:42 So yeah, we can also talk about that ’cause I’m like,
0:13:45 oh, tell me how to use it, I’ll optimize my use.
0:13:46 Happy to geek out on that stuff too,
0:13:48 but Interact, a couple of different quizzes
0:13:49 that are live right now.
0:13:51 One is on the homepage of Side Hustle Nation.
0:13:53 This is like your side hustle finder,
0:13:56 answer a couple of questions about your interests,
0:13:58 goals, experience, right?
0:14:01 It’s gonna hopefully narrow down the realm of possibility
0:14:02 or point you in the right direction.
0:14:05 And then I took an idea from a guest on the show,
0:14:07 Shannon Weinstein, you can see this in action
0:14:11 at hustle.show, answer a few quick questions
0:14:13 and it’ll spit out this eight to 10 episode recommended
0:14:15 playlist based on your answers.
0:14:17 And that’s been working really, really well.
0:14:18 – Ooh, I love that, that’s a great idea.
0:14:21 So I love triinteract as well.
0:14:24 And funny enough, I just recently started using it.
0:14:26 I used to have a different landing page
0:14:28 or excuse me, website, freebie,
0:14:29 that was like the primary driver.
0:14:33 And then I finally said, let me finally try it out as a quiz.
0:14:37 And similar to you, I have a side hustle personality,
0:14:39 like, but it’s more like which side hustle is right for you.
0:14:41 So the whole premise of Side Hustle Pro
0:14:44 is about building out a side hustle
0:14:46 from passion project to profitable business.
0:14:48 So I want people to understand like,
0:14:50 hey, are you the creative type?
0:14:53 Are you a service-based consultant type?
0:14:56 So that quiz, it immediately just took off.
0:14:58 And I also kind of, I also run ads to it.
0:15:00 They’re paused right now, but I run ads to it
0:15:02 as a lead magnet.
0:15:06 And then, you know, you’re able to, as a fulfillment,
0:15:09 you get your response and then also tailored,
0:15:12 customized strategies via email
0:15:14 once you get your response from the quiz.
0:15:17 – Yeah, I think it’s a really cool level of personalization
0:15:18 that you’re able to do.
0:15:20 Plus, you get this first party data
0:15:23 that nobody else really has.
0:15:25 And so one thing that was surprising to me
0:15:28 on the homepage quiz, I think one of the first questions is,
0:15:30 like, do you want to side hustle to make extra money?
0:15:33 Or do you want to side hustle to eventually quit your job?
0:15:36 And, you know, my mentality is like, of course,
0:15:38 you know, people want to quit your job version.
0:15:40 Like, and I think the podcast listener persona
0:15:42 is probably more in that bucket,
0:15:44 but four out of five people that landed on the homepage
0:15:46 were like, I want to side hustle to make extra money.
0:15:50 I was like, oh, that’s really, that’s really interesting.
0:15:52 And so, and now you can segment those people
0:15:54 on the email list and you can do all sorts of cool stuff.
0:15:58 – So question for you, with your playlist,
0:16:00 so are you sending them to an actual,
0:16:04 like a mini episode player on your site
0:16:05 or how are you doing that playlist,
0:16:07 just linking out the episodes?
0:16:08 – Yeah, it’s done through Spotify.
0:16:09 So create those custom, I guess,
0:16:12 public playlists in Spotify and then send people
0:16:14 so they can add those to their device.
0:16:15 – Love it, love it.
0:16:16 – It’s stealing it.
0:16:17 (laughs)
0:16:18 – Perfect, let it snowball.
0:16:21 More tool talk with Nikela in just a moment,
0:16:24 including another relatively new to me tool
0:16:27 that’s helped add thousands of subscribers to my email list.
0:16:29 That’s coming up right after this.
0:16:32 What if you no longer needed five separate apps
0:16:33 for your business bank account,
0:16:36 expense tracking, invoicing, contractor payments,
0:16:37 and tax planning?
0:16:39 I’m excited to partner with our new sponsor,
0:16:42 Found for this episode because Found is business banking
0:16:45 designed specifically for side hustlers, solopreneurs,
0:16:47 and small business owners like you.
0:16:50 Under the hood, you’ll find one easy to use app
0:16:51 to help manage your money,
0:16:53 track your spending, invoice clients,
0:16:55 and even handle your taxes
0:16:56 so you can focus on more important things
0:16:58 like running your business.
0:17:00 There’s no minimum balances,
0:17:01 there’s no account maintenance fees,
0:17:05 and there’s no paperwork or credit checks when you sign up.
0:17:08 One cool feature Found calls them pockets,
0:17:10 lets you allocate income to certain categories
0:17:13 like marketing or taxes or profit,
0:17:14 which is really handy if you wanna practice
0:17:17 the profit first methodology,
0:17:19 but you really don’t wanna set up
0:17:20 a bunch of different accounts.
0:17:22 Over 500,000 small business owners
0:17:25 like you chose Found as their banking solution,
0:17:28 so stop getting lost in countless finance apps
0:17:32 and try Found for free at found.com/sidehustle.
0:17:37 Sign up for Found for free today at f-o-u-n-d.com/sidehustle.
0:17:42 Found is a financial technology company, not a bank.
0:17:46 Banking services are provided by Piermont Bank, member FDIC.
0:17:48 Found’s core features are free.
0:17:52 They also offer an optional paid product, Found Plus.
0:17:54 Here’s a quick side hustle you can do today.
0:17:56 It’s called the substitution game,
0:17:58 and it’s an easy way to score what I call
0:18:00 reverse passive income in your life.
0:18:02 That’s money you’re no longer spending every month
0:18:04 that goes straight to your bottom line.
0:18:06 How it works is you find lower cost alternatives
0:18:08 to the things you’re already spending money on.
0:18:11 For example, I made the switch to our sponsor Mint Mobile
0:18:13 back in 2019 and haven’t looked back.
0:18:17 Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month
0:18:19 when you purchase a three month plan.
0:18:21 And all plans come with high speed data and unlimited
0:18:25 talk and text delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network.
0:18:27 You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan
0:18:29 and keep your existing phone number
0:18:31 along with all your existing contacts.
0:18:32 To get this new customer offer
0:18:35 and your new three month premium wireless plan
0:18:40 for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:18:43 That’s mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:18:45 Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month
0:18:48 at mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:18:52 $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month.
0:18:54 New customers on first three month plan only.
0:18:58 Speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:19:00 Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.
0:19:02 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:19:06 The next on this list is
0:19:10 a Facebook group lead generating tool called Group Leads.
0:19:13 This has been a part of our customer flow
0:19:15 or lead flow for the past couple of years
0:19:17 where it automatically,
0:19:19 so when somebody joins the Facebook group,
0:19:20 it asks a couple of questions.
0:19:22 It’s like, “Hey, do you have a side hustle already?”
0:19:24 If you ask, tell me about it.
0:19:25 You wanna get our best side hustle tips
0:19:29 and an insider newsletter through email.
0:19:30 Put your email in here.
0:19:31 And then through Group Leads,
0:19:35 it automatically sends that data over to Kit now
0:19:37 and it adds those people to the email list.
0:19:40 And it can detect, is that person already on the list
0:19:41 or is that a new subscriber?
0:19:44 And you kind of send different messages
0:19:46 based on where they’re coming from.
0:19:46 – Ooh, I love that.
0:19:48 I need to implement that.
0:19:50 So yeah, that’s one I haven’t been using.
0:19:53 So yes, definitely want to test that out myself.
0:19:54 Group Leads.
0:19:57 – Yeah, so the Side Hustle Nation Facebook group
0:19:59 sidehustlenation.com/fb will get you over there.
0:20:01 You can see this in action as well.
0:20:02 If you’re not already a member.
0:20:06 And this has added thousands of new subscribers a year.
0:20:09 So I love the broader strategy is like,
0:20:13 have the Facebook group for your topic, for your community.
0:20:15 And then the next level is like,
0:20:16 well, how do you get people off of Facebook
0:20:18 into your email list, into your ecosystem a little bit?
0:20:21 And so Group Leads has been super helpful for that.
0:20:23 – Yep, getting people off of social media
0:20:26 and into your email list is,
0:20:27 it’s just huge as an entrepreneur.
0:20:30 Do you do anything similar for like Instagram,
0:20:32 LinkedIn, Twitter?
0:20:34 – I got to learn from you on the Instagram stuff.
0:20:36 I do almost nothing over there.
0:20:38 All right, I’ve got a WordPress plugin for you
0:20:40 at number 10 or 10.
0:20:42 I don’t know, we’re probably losing count on this list.
0:20:43 This is called Pretty Link.
0:20:46 This is a long running WordPress plugin
0:20:51 that helps you create easy to remember affiliate links.
0:20:54 So, and both for podcast episodes where I can say,
0:20:55 hey, the show notes for this one
0:20:58 are at sidehustlenation.com/Nakala
0:20:59 or you can do it for,
0:21:01 if you want to go check out courses on Udemy,
0:21:04 it’s sidehustlenation.com/Udemy.
0:21:06 So it makes it easy to say if you don’t want to go,
0:21:09 we mentioned before, creating that custom vanity domain
0:21:10 like buybuttonsbook.com.
0:21:13 Like this is a free way to do that.
0:21:15 – I use Pretty Link all the way.
0:21:17 I love Pretty Link and customizing.
0:21:21 And I also even do it for like Facebook ads, for example,
0:21:23 if I have a link in the ad,
0:21:26 I want to make sure that it’s not this whole long link.
0:21:29 So I often make sure I have a custom link.
0:21:31 Or if I want to know if you clicked on Instagram
0:21:33 to listen to the episode on Facebook
0:21:34 or what have you, I make customized links
0:21:36 for data tracking as well.
0:21:38 – Yeah, that’s a good way to do it.
0:21:40 And the next one is also affiliate related.
0:21:42 And this is the Lasso plugin.
0:21:44 I think it’s getlasso.co.
0:21:49 We had the founder Andrew on the show a year or two ago.
0:21:50 And this was another one.
0:21:52 It’s like, do I need another recurring subscription?
0:21:55 But it’s like, I don’t know what the price is.
0:21:57 It’s like $39 a month or something.
0:22:00 It’s not crazy expensive because the lift in conversions
0:22:03 that you see from creating these cool,
0:22:05 wire cutter inspired product displays
0:22:09 far exceeds the cost of the little tool.
0:22:11 So I think it looks really cool.
0:22:14 We have slowly been going through the entire site
0:22:16 and creating little product displays, little call outs.
0:22:19 And I think they look great.
0:22:22 They look good on mobile and they perform really well too.
0:22:23 – Ooh, definitely heard of getlasso,
0:22:25 but I haven’t used it yet.
0:22:27 So thank you for endorsing it.
0:22:29 So now I’m definitely going to check it out.
0:22:31 – Yeah, it’s one of these call it management
0:22:32 by looking around where you’re like,
0:22:34 well, what is everybody else doing?
0:22:35 And you’re like, oh, everybody else has these cool
0:22:36 little product displays.
0:22:38 Like I’m missing the boat for the longest time.
0:22:41 Like I tried to build it myself like in Beaver Builder.
0:22:45 It just could never get the same look and feel.
0:22:48 And it’s like, eh, you know, why stop cheaping out.
0:22:49 Just go and do the thing.
0:22:50 – Right, right.
0:22:53 Which products are you displaying when you say that?
0:22:56 – Oh, so it will be, you know, tools like Fundrise
0:22:59 or it’ll be like go check out the flea market,
0:23:00 Flipper Workshop.
0:23:04 – Ooh, that’ll be really cool to do for my sponsors.
0:23:05 – Yeah, that one is pretty cool.
0:23:08 My digital product business, my course business
0:23:10 is hosted on Teachable.
0:23:13 And this is probably going on five years at this point.
0:23:16 Teachable was one of the very first sponsors on the show.
0:23:19 So it’s always will have a warm place in my heart
0:23:21 for Teachable and their founding team
0:23:22 ’cause they took a chance, you know,
0:23:25 as a up and coming podcaster.
0:23:28 But this is a place to host your courses,
0:23:31 a place to process payments for those,
0:23:32 host the sales pages,
0:23:35 all sorts of kind of like an all-in-one tool for courses.
0:23:37 – Yes, I also use Teachable
0:23:40 and I host my podcast moguls course on that.
0:23:43 So that’s a course where I teach aspiring podcasters
0:23:45 how to launch and monetize your own podcast.
0:23:47 And it’s been really great.
0:23:50 It’s a seamless experience to go in,
0:23:51 set up the modules,
0:23:55 then you get the replays when we have our mastermind calls,
0:23:58 you can send people to the checkout sales page there,
0:24:01 or if you do another like funnel type of website,
0:24:02 which I’m sure we’ll get to,
0:24:06 you can still just send them the info to get registered
0:24:08 and get started with the course on Teachable.
0:24:09 So I really liked Teachable.
0:24:11 – Yeah, they’ve been around forever.
0:24:13 There’s a bunch of different LMS
0:24:15 or learning management system type of tools.
0:24:16 – Right.
0:24:17 – Pros and cons to all of them,
0:24:19 but it’s been working fine over here.
0:24:22 – Yeah, what you’ll find with tools is the switching costs.
0:24:24 Like you have to really make it worth it
0:24:28 for someone to wanna switch their whole workflow
0:24:31 and take their content over to another platform.
0:24:34 So I don’t think any other course provider
0:24:37 has made the switching costs worthwhile.
0:24:38 (laughs)
0:24:39 – Yeah, it’s gotta be,
0:24:42 it’s gonna have to be a significant feature improvement
0:24:45 or significant cost savings to unravel all of that.
0:24:47 And that was what it was for active campaign.
0:24:50 It was like, really, we’ve got hundreds of different forms.
0:24:53 It’s all these integrations into their credit,
0:24:55 convert kids like, hey, we’ll do it for you.
0:24:55 And they did.
0:24:56 So it’s like, okay.
0:24:59 The next one on, I guess a couple on this list
0:25:02 are gonna be SEO related.
0:25:04 And the first one for me is Ahrefs.
0:25:07 It’s A-H-R-E-F-S.
0:25:09 This is the leading keyword research tool
0:25:11 and has been for a long time for anybody serious
0:25:13 about ranking their content in Google,
0:25:15 all the serious SEO people,
0:25:17 friends, colleagues, people in the industry
0:25:18 tend to use this one.
0:25:22 And they recently came out with a starter plan
0:25:24 that was like a third of the cost.
0:25:27 And I was like, oh, okay, that’s the one that I need.
0:25:29 ‘Cause it’s like, I was always kind of
0:25:32 a little bit expensive for what we were using it for.
0:25:33 And it’s the same thing where it’s like,
0:25:34 well, the ROI is definitely there
0:25:36 if you can get a piece of content
0:25:39 that the keyword topic you discovered through Ahrefs
0:25:41 and you created that content and you got it to stick,
0:25:42 it definitely pays for itself.
0:25:44 But like, it definitely also pays for itself
0:25:45 if it’s a third of the cost.
0:25:47 And the feature set didn’t really change.
0:25:50 So I’m really cool to have discovered that just recently.
0:25:51 – Ooh, I like that.
0:25:54 Another one that, you know, I, for SEO,
0:25:59 was really doing the basic of using a WordPress plugin.
0:26:01 And I think it was called Yoast.
0:26:02 But there’s a new business
0:26:04 that my husband and I are starting.
0:26:07 So I’m gonna take it a step up and actually use,
0:26:08 what’s it called, Ahrefs?
0:26:09 – Yeah, yeah.
0:26:10 – Yeah, for that.
0:26:12 Because again, I wanna start out by knowing,
0:26:14 okay, what can we rank for?
0:26:16 What are the top searches for this?
0:26:17 What are the suggested searches?
0:26:19 So what exactly does it do for you?
0:26:20 – So one of the cool things you can do
0:26:23 is plug in a similar or a competitor site
0:26:26 and see what pages of theirs are doing well.
0:26:28 What pages, you know, what kind of keywords
0:26:30 that they have created content for.
0:26:33 And it’s kind of like this opening spark of inspiration.
0:26:34 Be like, oh, that’s an interesting,
0:26:36 I never would have thought about that.
0:26:38 And then the other kind of use case is,
0:26:42 we’ve got all of these different keyword topics now
0:26:44 or ideas, you know, that we could create.
0:26:45 And then you punch them all in
0:26:47 and it’ll tell you the approximate search volume
0:26:50 or traffic potential plus the estimated difficulty
0:26:51 of each one.
0:26:53 And so we’re naturally sorting by, you know,
0:26:55 which ones have the most traffic potential
0:26:58 and are the easiest in theory to rank for.
0:26:59 – There was something else I used for that.
0:27:03 And for some reason, oh, I’ve used SEMrush tool.
0:27:04 – Oh yeah.
0:27:05 – Yeah, I had to look that up.
0:27:07 Definitely use SEMrush.
0:27:08 – Okay.
0:27:11 The other SEO tool that we’ve been using is Frays.
0:27:13 It’s F-R-A-S-E.
0:27:16 This is a little bit nerdier,
0:27:17 but it works in a couple of different ways.
0:27:19 First, you can input a new content idea.
0:27:22 Hey, this is the article that I want to write
0:27:25 and it pulls in, you know, the top 10, 20 search results
0:27:27 that are already in Google for that topic.
0:27:29 And says, if you’re creating this article,
0:27:30 this is what Google already thinks
0:27:32 is the most valuable content.
0:27:34 So you can kind of build your outline based on that.
0:27:38 And the second way you can use it is to say,
0:27:40 well, I already have this article on topic XYZ,
0:27:42 but it’s due for a refresh.
0:27:44 And it works similarly where it’s like, well, you know,
0:27:48 your content mentions this phrase, you know, twice,
0:27:50 but the top 10 results mention it four times.
0:27:50 So you might want to increase,
0:27:53 it’s like really granular and kind of like,
0:27:54 I don’t know if that’s really,
0:27:55 if that could be considered AI,
0:27:58 but it like just kind of helps you try and figure out
0:28:00 what, where the gaps might be in your content.
0:28:04 – So you find that you need that on top of ARF,
0:28:04 that’s interesting.
0:28:07 – Yeah, so HRF’s more for the like,
0:28:09 the general seed ideas for content.
0:28:12 And then this is like helping you build out the outlines
0:28:13 or improve existing content.
0:28:16 And you could use chat GPT for this probably.
0:28:18 – Yeah, I was going to say, I think I’ve been,
0:28:19 since I’ve been using chat GPT,
0:28:21 I’ve been kind of defaulting to it,
0:28:24 but I absolutely am going to test them out.
0:28:26 I don’t know if I want to pay for all of it again though.
0:28:28 – Our next section is productivity tools.
0:28:29 And all of these are productivity tools
0:28:31 in one form or another.
0:28:34 But for me, the top one, the first tab that gets open
0:28:36 every day, probably a bad habit is Gmail.
0:28:38 It’s like one inbox to rule them all.
0:28:41 If you email me, nick@highthustlenation.com,
0:28:43 it’ll come into that Gmail inbox.
0:28:46 And you’ve got all of these filters set up
0:28:49 where newsletters go over here
0:28:53 and affiliate sales notifications go over here.
0:28:55 And then the personal stuff goes into this folder
0:29:00 and PayPal receipts go into this accounting type of folder.
0:29:02 And so it’s kind of that one central inbox
0:29:03 to really rule them all.
0:29:05 – Gmail has been holding me down
0:29:08 since the beginning of “Sidehouse of Pro”
0:29:09 and again, one inbox.
0:29:12 If you email me at hi@sidehouseofpro.co,
0:29:13 it’s going there.
0:29:17 And it usually is, sometimes I do my calendar before Gmail,
0:29:20 but yeah, that’s definitely one of the first places
0:29:21 I’m in each day.
0:29:23 – Probably a bad habit, but it’s, you know,
0:29:26 15, 20 years old at this point, it’s gonna be hard to break.
0:29:29 One tool that I layer on top of Gmail
0:29:31 is a software called Sanebox,
0:29:35 which is kind of a smart like first level filtering
0:29:38 where for everything that comes in, it decides,
0:29:39 like, does this need to go to your primary inbox
0:29:43 or does this need to go into kind of a secondary,
0:29:44 less important inbox?
0:29:46 And it’s remarkably good at that.
0:29:48 And you still have to go check the secondary inbox.
0:29:49 They call it Sane later.
0:29:52 It’s like, it’s not urgent, you can look at it later.
0:29:54 And you still need to go and clean that out.
0:29:56 And you can train stuff, you can drag it back and forth,
0:29:58 but that’s been a, I’ve been a customer of theirs
0:29:59 for a lot of years.
0:30:02 And there’s, it filtered out thousands of messages
0:30:04 at this point that were less important
0:30:06 and stopped cluttering up the main inbox.
0:30:07 – I think I need that for my personal.
0:30:10 I used to use Boomerang a lot more
0:30:12 and even for like sending later,
0:30:15 but obviously you can do that now just via Gmail.
0:30:17 And what I find with the inbox is
0:30:20 I just want to be able to see everything first.
0:30:21 I don’t want it to go,
0:30:23 like sometimes things would go to filters
0:30:25 and I wouldn’t even, I don’t know,
0:30:27 I just want to make sure that I’m seeing everything,
0:30:31 but I do have my inbox divided, start on top
0:30:32 and then on red.
0:30:35 And so it’s nice because once I’ve read and addressed it,
0:30:37 it’s blank, I don’t have a,
0:30:39 I don’t like keeping a huge inbox at all.
0:30:40 And then, but starred,
0:30:42 let’s me know what I need to get back to.
0:30:45 And that’s my simple system right now.
0:30:48 And then everything has, I have a ton of filters.
0:30:51 So I do organize by, all right,
0:30:53 this email goes to address, this goes to,
0:30:56 I even have things like email examples.
0:31:00 And I’ll do that by name of the influencer,
0:31:01 our content creator.
0:31:02 And I’m like, ooh, I like this email.
0:31:05 So I’ll save it in their special inbox
0:31:07 for me to go back to and review.
0:31:09 – Yeah, take inspiration from somebody else
0:31:11 rather than starting from that blank page
0:31:12 rather than starting from scratch.
0:31:14 – Exactly, exactly.
0:31:17 – So you mentioned Boomerang as a good Gmail add-on.
0:31:19 The one that I’ve been using for a long time
0:31:20 is called Nudge Mail,
0:31:24 where it’s like, this isn’t important today,
0:31:27 but I want to resurface in a couple of weeks.
0:31:29 You just CC or forward that message
0:31:31 to like twoweeks@nudgemail.com
0:31:34 and it like brings it back to the top of your inbox.
0:31:38 Or if you sent a note to a sponsor or a client
0:31:40 and you want to make sure to follow up with them
0:31:43 in a few days, you can say like just CC or BCC.
0:31:44 Maybe you don’t want them to see it,
0:31:47 like five days@nudgemail.com,
0:31:49 like any commonly expressed timeframe,
0:31:51 it’ll resurface that in Syrian box.
0:31:54 So that’s been a cool, helpful tool as well.
0:31:55 – Oh, I like that.
0:31:59 – Next on this list is a clipboard management tool.
0:32:01 I’m on a PC, so this is Clip X,
0:32:05 which allows you to like saves the last 25 things
0:32:07 you copied onto your clipboard,
0:32:08 which is like just one of these
0:32:10 like little desktop productivity tools.
0:32:13 I’ve heard that copy clip is the Mac alternative,
0:32:16 but this is something that I use all day every day
0:32:17 without even thinking about it now.
0:32:18 – That’s so interesting.
0:32:22 So why do you want to remember what you got?
0:32:25 Maybe I’m scared to, scared for someone
0:32:27 to keep track of what I copy.
0:32:29 – Yeah, it’s like I’m pasting the URL
0:32:32 and you know, then I copy something out
0:32:34 and then I, oh, but it was like three copies ago.
0:32:35 I want to paste that thing again.
0:32:37 It’s just like, it’s remarkable
0:32:39 how often that use case comes up.
0:32:40 – That’s true.
0:32:41 That is true.
0:32:42 Like when I’m writing an email,
0:32:45 okay, I wanted to have my podcast,
0:32:46 my Apple podcast link copied.
0:32:48 Oh, but now the last thing I did was the YouTube.
0:32:50 So, all right, okay, you’ve convinced me.
0:32:51 Maybe I will add this on.
0:32:53 Is that a Chrome extension
0:32:57 or it’s another like separate thing to do as I add on?
0:33:00 – That’s a desktop free, I think free software for,
0:33:02 for PC and then copy clip.
0:33:04 I want to say is the Mac alternative
0:33:06 that people have mentioned.
0:33:06 – Okay.
0:33:09 – I do have a Chrome plugin or Chrome extension for you next
0:33:11 and this one is called Magical.
0:33:13 This is custom keyboard shortcuts.
0:33:15 And so use this all the time.
0:33:18 Like if I hit SSS or something like that’ll,
0:33:21 you know, type W, HTTP, you know,
0:33:23 www.sideoscillation.com.
0:33:25 Like you get tired of typing this stuff out
0:33:25 over and over again.
0:33:26 – Yeah.
0:33:28 – You kind of create these custom keyboard shortcuts
0:33:30 for the stuff that you type out all the time
0:33:33 or like m, m, asterisk or something.
0:33:35 That’s like the, you know, schedule once link
0:33:39 like meet me.so/you know, use this all the time as well.
0:33:40 And so that’s been really helpful.
0:33:42 – That’s so cool.
0:33:44 You know, Nick, I thought I was productive, but you,
0:33:48 you weren’t putting me on to a whole different level.
0:33:52 I thought I was doing something with command C, command V.
0:33:55 Well, those keyboard shortcuts.
0:33:55 – Okay.
0:33:57 No, I don’t have a keyboard shortcut tool.
0:33:58 Yeah.
0:33:59 – It takes, you know, it takes a minute to set up,
0:34:02 but you feel like just a productivity ninja
0:34:05 when you bang these emails out, you know, right away.
0:34:07 – Ooh, I like that.
0:34:08 – And I think there’s free,
0:34:10 I think they probably have a paid plan too.
0:34:11 – Oh, speaking of that,
0:34:13 one thing I forgot to mention about Gmail,
0:34:17 I also have a lot of saved templates inside of Gmail.
0:34:20 So that saves me time with responding to people.
0:34:22 So, and I also have that for my VA.
0:34:26 So my VA has a sub email underside House of Pro
0:34:29 and then everything from email pitches
0:34:33 to prospective guests to responses to people who pitch us
0:34:36 and different things to say to sponsors
0:34:38 or all kinds of things.
0:34:40 We’ve made up all kinds of templates
0:34:41 so that we can just plug and play
0:34:44 and not have to keep reinventing the wheel for each email.
0:34:46 And it speeds up the reply process.
0:34:47 Yeah.
0:34:48 – Oh yeah, that’s great.
0:34:52 That’s great for sponsor requests for guest pitch requests.
0:34:54 Like, oh, you can, for the sake of sanity,
0:34:57 I’m funneling guest applications through this form.
0:34:57 You know, here’s the link.
0:34:59 And yeah, ’cause you get,
0:35:02 it’s the stuff you end up typing out over and over again.
0:35:03 – Right, right, over and over again.
0:35:06 Anything over and over again becomes a template.
0:35:08 – All right, my next productivity tool is
0:35:09 my personal creation.
0:35:11 It’s called the three question journal.
0:35:12 Every night it is going to ask you,
0:35:13 what’d you get done today, right?
0:35:16 Like kind of a mental brain dump
0:35:17 of all the things you crossed off your list.
0:35:19 It’s going to ask you what you’re grateful for
0:35:21 and it’s going to ask you how you’re going to win tomorrow.
0:35:23 What are your top priorities for the next day?
0:35:26 And this is something created last year, I want to say,
0:35:29 and has been kind of a daily habit ever since then.
0:35:32 And it helps me feel more on top of it.
0:35:35 Helps me honestly kind of do that, you know,
0:35:36 shut down routine.
0:35:38 Like, okay, you know, it’s out of here
0:35:40 and it’s onto the page.
0:35:42 And then when I get to work the next day,
0:35:44 it’s, well, this is what yesterday Nick said
0:35:45 was the top priorities.
0:35:46 So let’s go knock those out first.
0:35:47 And so that’s been really helpful.
0:35:52 3QJournal.com is a redirect link.
0:35:54 Another one of those vanity domains
0:35:56 where you can get redirected over there.
0:35:57 – Yes, I love that.
0:36:02 So I also have a tool that I use for productivity.
0:36:05 So I started this back in 2016.
0:36:06 It’s called the Goal Getter Action Plan.
0:36:08 And it’s essentially my approach
0:36:11 to managing my goals for the year.
0:36:16 So I break it down into 90 day sprints
0:36:18 and AKA, you know, 12 week sprints
0:36:21 where instead of focusing and looking at the year
0:36:25 as like this huge, oh, I gotta get all this done.
0:36:27 And I didn’t make up the concept of 12 week sprints,
0:36:31 but the way I break it down in the Goal Getter Action Planner
0:36:35 helps people who don’t meet their goal to recalculate.
0:36:38 So I think that’s the thing I’ve noticed for my listeners.
0:36:39 That’s the thing that stops most people
0:36:43 is this feeling of beating yourself up.
0:36:44 And that’s normal.
0:36:46 It’s part of the process to not get things done.
0:36:47 So how do you recalculate?
0:36:49 How do you reshift your goals
0:36:52 so that you actually get things done?
0:36:56 So that has helped me a ton to not waste time
0:36:58 on like that mental rollercoaster and just say,
0:37:00 all right, let’s pivot.
0:37:03 So similar to you, I look at my calendar.
0:37:04 That’s where I keep.
0:37:08 So once I break the sprints down into quarterly goals
0:37:11 by 90 day sprints, then I break it down into monthlies.
0:37:13 And so each night I’m looking at, okay, what did I get done?
0:37:15 What do I need to shift around this week?
0:37:18 So it just keeps me going one foot at a time,
0:37:19 just keep swimming.
0:37:21 And you can get more of that
0:37:24 over at sidehouseofpro.co/goalgetter.
0:37:27 – We’ll link up the Goal Getter Action Planner.
0:37:27 Very cool.
0:37:30 More tool talk with Nikela in just a moment,
0:37:33 including the calendar and team collaboration categories,
0:37:35 plus my favorite new find of the year
0:37:38 that’s helping me speed up video creation right after this.
0:37:42 You did mention the calendar.
0:37:44 And that’s our next category of tools here.
0:37:47 For me, two tools work in conjunction with each other.
0:37:48 First is Google Calendar.
0:37:50 And then the second one is Schedule Once.
0:37:53 This is like the booking management link
0:37:55 where somebody wants to book a podcast interview.
0:37:58 Somebody wants to book an intro call
0:38:00 where you have these different categories set up.
0:38:04 We have heard from the AppSumo crew that TidyCal
0:38:06 is a one-off, one-time purchase
0:38:09 instead of an annual subscription for Schedule Once.
0:38:11 But Schedule Once has already integrated
0:38:12 into a bunch of different systems,
0:38:14 including these keyboard shortcuts.
0:38:18 So that’s what I’ve have stuck with by Google Calendar
0:38:20 and Schedule Once for that.
0:38:21 Really the thing with Google Calendar
0:38:23 is like the time blocking
0:38:26 and Schedule Once will allow you to do this too.
0:38:28 I’m only taking meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays.
0:38:30 I want like bigger, deep work blocks of time
0:38:31 the rest of the days.
0:38:35 – Yes, I use Google Calendar and Calendly.
0:38:39 So Calendly, that’s originally I started using that
0:38:42 just to have my guests be able to book and see,
0:38:45 select from all the options I had on my calendar.
0:38:47 And now I use it for everything
0:38:49 as well as my VIP coaching calls
0:38:52 with like VIP branding or podcasting clients.
0:38:55 I use it for quick informational calls
0:38:59 when I interview people to hire them for SignHouse a Pro.
0:39:00 It’s all run through Calendly.
0:39:02 And then of course it syncs with my calendar
0:39:05 so they could only schedule when I’m available
0:39:07 because I also block off my calendar
0:39:10 for various life things or yeah,
0:39:12 deep work sessions and all that.
0:39:12 – Totally.
0:39:14 I will hand it to Calendly,
0:39:16 much better looking interface than Schedule Once.
0:39:19 If you want to care about presentation a little bit more,
0:39:21 Calendly is the one to go with there.
0:39:22 – Oh yeah.
0:39:24 (laughs)
0:39:28 – The next category on our tool list resources list
0:39:31 is for graphics and video.
0:39:34 And so the common one that everybody probably uses
0:39:37 at this point is called Canva, this is C-A-N-V-A.
0:39:39 This is YouTube thumbnails.
0:39:43 This is digital product, like making workbooks in here.
0:39:45 This is sometimes custom blog graphics.
0:39:48 This is super easy to use and they’ve added on
0:39:51 all these kind of cool, you know, photo editing,
0:39:54 image enhancement, AI type of there.
0:39:55 Like really, really powerful.
0:39:57 Like that’s another one of those where it’s like,
0:40:01 it’s really, I’m just grateful that this exists in the world
0:40:02 and makes life easier.
0:40:04 – Yes, absolutely.
0:40:05 Canva is A-1.
0:40:09 If you’re a side hustler doing any kind of creating graphics
0:40:11 for your business, you need to be on Canva.
0:40:16 I use the Canva for my presentations, for webinars,
0:40:18 for creating quick eBooks.
0:40:21 And sometimes I even purchase templates on Etsy.
0:40:24 So let’s say you’re not finding what you want
0:40:25 inside of Canva.
0:40:28 A lot of times you can go onto Etsy and say, you know,
0:40:33 eBook or you want a new slide deck, AKA presentation slides
0:40:35 and then they create a Canva version.
0:40:38 So you can just, once you purchase, download it
0:40:39 and then upload that template to Canva
0:40:43 and start working by customizing it to your brand colors.
0:40:45 And I do that a ton because sometimes I’m just looking
0:40:48 for something fresh, whether it’s graphics on Instagram,
0:40:52 you talked about Instagram growth or anything.
0:40:54 I sometimes purchase a template
0:40:55 and then move it over to Canva.
0:40:59 – Yeah, for sure. There’s a screen recording tool
0:41:03 that I use for online courses, for demo videos,
0:41:05 for tutorials, for virtual assistants.
0:41:07 I use this all the time, it’s called ScreenPal.
0:41:09 Used to be called Screencast-O-Matic.
0:41:12 I think there’s still a free plan, but super affordable.
0:41:14 This would be an alternative to Loom.
0:41:18 This is just, I don’t know, one that we use almost daily
0:41:21 to kind of create that type of process library type
0:41:24 of content that’s, you know, internal facing to the company
0:41:26 but also external facing content
0:41:28 where it’s like you wanna do a demo
0:41:30 of some tool that you’re using and put that up on YouTube
0:41:33 and it’s like really, really helpful to have.
0:41:34 And I also use their built-in editor
0:41:36 for a lot of the video tools too.
0:41:38 It’s like, it’s very basic.
0:41:41 Like if you are used to After Effects or some like,
0:41:43 you know, real official video editing software,
0:41:45 you’re gonna be like, what the heck am I doing?
0:41:47 But it’s the one that I learned.
0:41:51 – Don’t use either Loom or QuickTime.
0:41:53 QuickTime, I’ve been defaulting to a lot more
0:41:56 because Loom has been a little bit glitchy.
0:41:57 Sorry, Loom.
0:41:59 So I need to check out ScreenPow.
0:42:01 Why do you like it more than Loom?
0:42:02 Did you ever try Loom?
0:42:05 – Yeah, I used Loom up until like the limit of the free plan.
0:42:07 And the cool thing about Loom is that
0:42:09 it will provide you a transcript of the video
0:42:12 where this tool is not, or at least on the pricing tier
0:42:13 that I’m at.
0:42:16 I think I’m probably grandfathered in at some low rate
0:42:19 but Loom absolutely is a viable alternative too.
0:42:23 And similarly, I also record tutorials for my team
0:42:25 to, you know, just walk through process
0:42:26 of how to do something.
0:42:28 And eventually, ’cause I’ve recorded so many,
0:42:31 we need to go back in and probably, you know,
0:42:35 get transcripts, put those in chat GPT and update SOPs.
0:42:38 – Yeah, the other one, just for screenshots
0:42:41 and actually for like full scroll,
0:42:43 like if you wanna capture like the whole website,
0:42:45 not just what’s visible.
0:42:47 I use a Chrome extension called awesome screenshot.
0:42:49 And what else is cool about this
0:42:52 is you can kind of do real time markup of it
0:42:55 where in the editing window, you can crop that image.
0:42:58 You can add circles and arrows and text.
0:43:01 And we use that for a lot of like product review content
0:43:02 on the website where, you know,
0:43:05 when you point to, you can cash out for gift card,
0:43:07 you kind of highlight that section on the screenshot.
0:43:09 And I don’t know, that’s something
0:43:10 that ends up getting used quite a bit.
0:43:12 Or just like, even if it’s just like customer support,
0:43:13 like here’s what we’re seeing on our end.
0:43:15 You know, capture the screenshot, send it over.
0:43:16 – I like that.
0:43:17 What’s that called again?
0:43:19 – Awesome screenshot is the Chrome extension.
0:43:21 All right, next tool, video tool
0:43:23 that we’ve been loving this year
0:43:24 ’cause it’s really, really cool.
0:43:28 It’s called pictory, pictory.ai, I wanna say.
0:43:31 This is upload your script.
0:43:33 And there’s probably like different script creation tools
0:43:34 that are in there, but for us,
0:43:37 our typical use case would be upload the script,
0:43:39 upload the voiceover,
0:43:43 and then it pulls in hundreds of stock footage clips.
0:43:47 Like it turns this into a really visually compelling
0:43:49 type of video, it adds captions.
0:43:50 – Ooh yes, yes.
0:43:52 – And some of these videos that we’ve done
0:43:53 have had 10,000 views.
0:43:55 Like they’re out there on YouTube making money.
0:43:58 And this would have taken hours and hours and hours
0:44:00 of, you know, a video editor’s time.
0:44:02 – I love it, yes.
0:44:04 – Yeah, this has been a cool addition
0:44:07 just to speed up video production process.
0:44:08 The bottleneck is still in the scripting,
0:44:10 which we’ve talked about.
0:44:10 – Yeah.
0:44:13 – And working with some chat GPT prompts.
0:44:16 I wanna turn this blog post into a compelling video script.
0:44:19 Can you help me get from A to B?
0:44:21 And it’s not quite there yet,
0:44:23 ’cause it’s still me narrating.
0:44:25 And we’ve experimented around with some AI narration.
0:44:27 It’s like, ah, it’s not quite there yet.
0:44:29 – No, not quite.
0:44:30 They’re not quite there yet.
0:44:33 I’ve tried, I think it’s what, 11 labs for that.
0:44:36 And it’s scary how good your voice can be,
0:44:38 but by the time you set up everything,
0:44:40 there’s still some, you know, things to work through.
0:44:43 But what I wanted to say about what you just said,
0:44:45 the scripting part with chat GPT,
0:44:49 what I found helpful is when you really have to approach it.
0:44:51 And I got this from my sister and my husband,
0:44:53 like this is like an intern, you know?
0:44:55 And so it’s gonna be a back and forth dialogue.
0:44:57 It’s not like people think,
0:44:59 “Oh, just give me a list of great prompts.”
0:45:00 And I’m sure you don’t think that,
0:45:01 but a lot of people are like,
0:45:03 “Oh, let me just get the prompts that you got.”
0:45:05 But actually you’re having a conversation.
0:45:08 I usually start every experience of writing something.
0:45:09 And I’m like, “Hey, GP, how’s it going?
0:45:12 “It’s the Kayla here, you know, blah, blah, blah.”
0:45:14 And then I’m like, “Here’s what I wanna do.”
0:45:15 And then we go back and forth
0:45:17 and it gives me the first draft.
0:45:19 And then I’m like, “No, that sounds too this.”
0:45:21 I give it examples of my writing
0:45:23 and I say, “What I’m trying to do is this.”
0:45:25 And so it takes a while, Nick,
0:45:28 but by the time we go through this process,
0:45:30 we get to a good place.
0:45:33 And then you can take that script
0:45:35 and tweak it to what’s not,
0:45:39 or as you’re reading it, of course, adjust it organically.
0:45:41 But I can definitely say,
0:45:44 I think you can speed up your script process with AI,
0:45:46 with ChatGPT or claud.ai,
0:45:50 like check those out because it’s been really, really helpful.
0:45:51 It’s not gonna give you,
0:45:53 the first pass you’re not gonna be impressed with.
0:45:56 You still have to workshop it, like it’s a person,
0:45:57 an employee.
0:45:59 – Yeah, that makes sense.
0:46:01 And the more you can prime it,
0:46:04 and you’ve got enough body of content on the internet
0:46:05 where it knows who you are,
0:46:07 it kinda knows how you would speak in your personality,
0:46:08 and it’s the same thing.
0:46:10 – But I find it’s still faster
0:46:13 even after we’ve gone through that whole conversation
0:46:15 than me sitting down
0:46:17 and having to download what I’m thinking
0:46:19 and create a script from scratch.
0:46:20 – Yes, for sure.
0:46:23 So I’ve got a discount code for Pictori.
0:46:27 It’s nshn20, like Nick, side isolation 20.
0:46:29 We’ll get you 20% off, I think, over there.
0:46:31 We’ll also link that up in the show notes.
0:46:31 Really cool too.
0:46:33 I’m gonna try and put together kind of a demo video
0:46:36 of our typical use case and share some of the results
0:46:39 that some of those videos have gotten.
0:46:41 It’s like, well, some of them are earning views
0:46:42 and dollars every day.
0:46:44 And it was like, you know, what it will typically do
0:46:47 is, you know, me for the first five or 10 seconds,
0:46:49 hey, we’re gonna talk about the best items
0:46:50 to flip for a profit,
0:46:53 or we’re gonna talk about side hustles for introvert.
0:46:55 I don’t know, some of these examples
0:46:57 where we use these, use this tool,
0:47:00 but, you know, talking head intro for three seconds,
0:47:02 five seconds, and then, you know,
0:47:04 the rest is kind of Pictori generated
0:47:05 with those stock footage.
0:47:07 – Right, I love that.
0:47:08 And we were talking about this
0:47:09 before we started recording how,
0:47:11 as I was going through your YouTube channel,
0:47:12 I’m like, oh, you know what?
0:47:14 I can do some of these as well,
0:47:17 because there are lots of little mini things people ask me.
0:47:20 And I’m like, through looking at your channel,
0:47:22 realizing I need to do one of these,
0:47:24 just quickly explaining how something works
0:47:27 or how a side hustler can set up your email list
0:47:28 and tag people or, you know,
0:47:30 that’s just shooting out an example,
0:47:32 but I love what you do there.
0:47:34 So I think that’s so smart.
0:47:38 – Some of that Q&A content has the longest shelf life
0:47:40 where some of my best performing videos
0:47:43 are like how to keep your Dropbox
0:47:45 from taking up your local hard drive storage.
0:47:46 – I saw that.
0:47:48 – Yeah, this video is probably 10 years old
0:47:50 and it’s just, you know,
0:47:52 it was probably created with ScreenPal
0:47:55 and it’s like, here’s a two minute video
0:47:55 on how to get it done,
0:47:57 but it still answers the question.
0:47:58 So anytime people are asking you questions,
0:48:00 I think it’s important to make a note of that
0:48:02 because that could turn into content for you.
0:48:03 – Yeah, yeah.
0:48:04 – All right, real quick.
0:48:06 The other one on the graphics and video category
0:48:08 is Pexels, P-E-X-E-L-S.
0:48:11 This is just, you know, free stock photography
0:48:14 where that’s where you’re sourcing a lot of the images.
0:48:16 We’ve got a deposit photos license
0:48:19 where we bought like a 100 pack off AppSumo a few years ago.
0:48:21 It’s still working through those as well,
0:48:23 but, you know, wherever you can kind of find the image
0:48:25 to illustrate what you’re talking about,
0:48:26 sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s Pexels.
0:48:29 – Yeah, you know, I actually use Canva
0:48:30 for my images these days.
0:48:32 I used to use Pexels,
0:48:34 but nowadays I’m on the pro plan on Canva.
0:48:37 So, and oftentimes I’m looking for black women,
0:48:40 women of color, just more like niche things.
0:48:41 I shouldn’t say niche,
0:48:43 but I want specific things.
0:48:46 And Canva has actually a really good library of images,
0:48:48 even when I’m talking about podcasting,
0:48:50 different type of podcast studios.
0:48:52 So I use it for that.
0:48:55 And when I need other stock photo things,
0:48:57 like imagery for social,
0:48:59 I have some apps that I use for that.
0:49:01 Like Temply is one of them.
0:49:03 And Vixer, I’ve also tried.
0:49:04 – Well, I don’t know those.
0:49:05 We’ll link those up too.
0:49:06 – Oh yeah.
0:49:08 – Okay, our next category is team collaboration.
0:49:11 And for me, this starts with secure password sharing.
0:49:12 For me, that’s last pass.
0:49:15 Again, been a customer for years and years.
0:49:18 This company is maybe a little bit embattled with,
0:49:19 I don’t know, security breaches.
0:49:21 Anyways, it’s been fine for me.
0:49:22 It’s been good for me.
0:49:24 – Yeah, I know, knock on wood.
0:49:26 And same thing with the switching costs.
0:49:29 It’s like, at this point, I don’t know.
0:49:30 I was thinking with last pass for now,
0:49:32 but yeah, the password breaches
0:49:34 have been a little concerning.
0:49:36 – I don’t know where the tipping point was,
0:49:39 where it’s like you had so many different logins
0:49:41 to keep track of, and it’s like,
0:49:44 how are you ever gonna remember all of this stuff?
0:49:47 And so just, you know, offload that mental clutter.
0:49:48 It doesn’t have to be last pass,
0:49:50 but if you don’t have a password manager,
0:49:53 like that’s an absolute must have.
0:49:54 – Yes.
0:49:56 And for me, the password manager,
0:49:59 it wasn’t so much like I was forgetting passwords anymore,
0:50:01 but once I started working with the team,
0:50:03 I was definitely not comfortable
0:50:05 giving someone else my password.
0:50:08 So whoever invented this concept, thank you,
0:50:11 so that I can get them to log in places,
0:50:13 but they’re not seeing my password.
0:50:17 – And our next stage of this is the family share plan.
0:50:19 Mainly in like, in case of emergency,
0:50:20 is Bryn gonna be able to access
0:50:22 the stuff that she needs to.
0:50:25 And without, ’cause I think it’s like,
0:50:27 the laptop is like biometric,
0:50:29 or it’s like, hope, you know, I just wanna make sure,
0:50:32 like, you know, in one secure location,
0:50:35 you can unlock everything she needs to unlock.
0:50:37 But that’s last pass for the team,
0:50:38 secure password sharing.
0:50:43 We have make.com, which is, you know, formally Integromat.
0:50:46 This is an automation tool
0:50:50 that connects different apps and services in your life.
0:50:52 And so an example use case would be
0:50:55 if somebody enrolls in one of the courses on Teachable,
0:50:57 make will automatically send their information
0:50:59 over to ConvertKit.
0:51:02 If somebody buys one of the workbooks,
0:51:04 make will make sure that they get appropriately tagged
0:51:08 and it automatically triggers that like file delivery email.
0:51:12 If the podcast editor uploads a episode
0:51:14 to like the final audio folder in Google Drive,
0:51:17 it triggers an email to the show notes writer.
0:51:19 Like, hey, another episode is ready for you
0:51:21 to go, you know, listen to and summarize.
0:51:22 Here’s the link to it.
0:51:25 And so it’s kind of removes me from that process
0:51:26 in a lot of ways.
0:51:28 It just like, you know, makes it,
0:51:29 it makes it happen automatically.
0:51:31 – Ooh, so I’ve used Zapier for that.
0:51:33 And as we’re talking about this,
0:51:37 you just gave me an idea of new automations
0:51:39 that I need to set up for my team
0:51:41 when like I’m done recording in Riverside, for example.
0:51:45 So I love that we’re having this conversation
0:51:47 just getting so many new ideas.
0:51:49 – Yeah, Zapier was using them for a long time.
0:51:52 And then they wanted to like double or triple the rates.
0:51:54 And I was like, really guys?
0:51:57 Like, come on, you know, come on.
0:51:59 And that was one where it was like, yes,
0:52:00 there’s a learning curve.
0:52:02 Yes, there’s a switching cost,
0:52:04 but I didn’t have so many automations.
0:52:06 Where it was like, yeah, we can figure this out.
0:52:08 Yeah, I found the support,
0:52:09 the make support like pretty well too.
0:52:11 And they’ve got lots of knowledge-based articles.
0:52:13 Like if you want to do a specific thing,
0:52:16 they’re usually pretty helpful on getting that set up.
0:52:19 The next one here is Asana.
0:52:21 This is, you know, I still have my like pen and paper
0:52:23 to-do lists, but as the team has grown,
0:52:26 as the complexity of the business has grown,
0:52:31 despite trying to stick with the mantra of simplicity first,
0:52:34 Asana has been really helpful for keeping track of tasks
0:52:37 and deadlines and due dates and who’s responsible for that.
0:52:40 – You know, I’ve used Asana, Basecamp, Trello,
0:52:43 and I found that I’m really not into these yet.
0:52:45 I don’t know what it is.
0:52:48 It just kind of over-complicates it a little bit for me,
0:52:51 but I know at some point maybe I’ll revisit
0:52:54 or someone will make one that I really vibe with.
0:52:58 But right now, we have our communication via Slack.
0:53:01 We’re not using a project management tool.
0:53:03 I’ve only used those when I’m usually working
0:53:05 with a brand, right?
0:53:07 Giving them deliverables and things like that.
0:53:10 So that’s when Asana has been most helpful.
0:53:12 – Yeah, there’s a learning curve to all of these.
0:53:15 And the challenge is you open it up and it’s blank.
0:53:17 Yeah, I know this is gonna be super powerful,
0:53:20 but I gotta figure out how to make it work for me.
0:53:22 And it’s cool that it’s all customizable,
0:53:25 but it’s like, you know, some level of onboarding
0:53:27 or guidance would be helpful for sure.
0:53:29 And that’s why there’s whole businesses built around
0:53:31 selling notion templates.
0:53:32 And you know, people have done really well with that.
0:53:35 All right, I have a virtual assistant service
0:53:36 that I’ve been a customer of for years.
0:53:38 And this is called OK Relax,
0:53:42 which might be my favorite name for a VA service.
0:53:46 They do, you know, I’m on my fifth, sixth, seventh assistant
0:53:48 through them, but they’ve all been really reliable
0:53:51 for like dedicated, you know, recurring tasks.
0:53:54 Early on it was, you know, running reports,
0:53:58 installing lead magnets, doing company research,
0:54:01 blog post formatting, like they’ve been a helpful addition
0:54:03 to the team and pretty affordable service too.
0:54:06 – I also use a VA and not through a service,
0:54:10 actually through just a referral and we’ve been going on,
0:54:14 I wanna say maybe like almost five years now.
0:54:16 So, yeah, finding a good one,
0:54:19 a good person is really priceless.
0:54:21 – Yeah, keep ’em on the team for sure.
0:54:22 – Yes.
0:54:25 – The other kind of agency service or productized service
0:54:27 that helps out on the website side of things
0:54:29 is called ZenWP.
0:54:31 And I consider this kind of my on-call,
0:54:35 on-demand website insurance where if something breaks
0:54:38 with WordPress or you wanna make an adjustment or,
0:54:39 but they help out with all that stuff,
0:54:42 especially instrumental during the last redesign,
0:54:45 refresh of the site, I don’t, it’s kind of painful.
0:54:45 It’s like there’s a lot of months
0:54:47 where like I don’t bother them at all.
0:54:49 And it’s like, well, there was my monthly fee down the drain.
0:54:51 But when you do have something that comes up
0:54:52 and that’s why it’s kind of like the insurance policy.
0:54:54 If something breaks, you know, you have somebody
0:54:56 on your team who can jump in.
0:54:57 – I like that.
0:55:00 I formally would just go to like my host customer service,
0:55:02 but that is a good investment.
0:55:05 – Okay, next under team collaboration and communication
0:55:08 is Mint Mobile who has been a sponsor on the show.
0:55:11 This is the affordable wireless service provider.
0:55:13 I’ve been a customer since 2019.
0:55:16 Don’t do a lot of phone, you know, direct phone calls.
0:55:18 I use Google voice as well for some business calls,
0:55:21 but this is really handy to have at an affordable rate.
0:55:24 – So you use this for yourself service overall?
0:55:25 – Yes.
0:55:28 – Okay, so I, yeah, I do have a Google voice as well.
0:55:32 And then outside of that Verizon is who I use.
0:55:33 – And as the business grows,
0:55:36 we’ve had open phone as a sponsor on the show.
0:55:38 Like just under different use cases at a certain point,
0:55:41 you kind of outgrow your personal cell phone.
0:55:42 – Yeah.
0:55:43 – You gotta route things to different ways.
0:55:44 And you want to, especially if you’re doing
0:55:45 different marketing channels
0:55:47 and you want to make sure what channel is working,
0:55:50 well, I want to have a dedicated phone number for that
0:55:50 and everything.
0:55:54 So, but Mint Mobile has been my wireless provider.
0:55:57 I just include that on this list because, you know,
0:55:58 as their slogan says, you know,
0:56:01 friends don’t let friends overpay for wireless.
0:56:02 (laughing)
0:56:06 The other team collaboration tool that I am in
0:56:08 all day, every day is Google Drive.
0:56:10 And this is sharing blog articles.
0:56:13 This is sharing like production docs for different episodes.
0:56:17 It is kind of home base for a lot of different files
0:56:20 and reports and templates is where we house
0:56:22 our process library for, you know,
0:56:25 all the things that are going on inside hustle nation.
0:56:26 I was kind of a latecomer.
0:56:28 I was on, you know, using Dropbox for a long time,
0:56:31 but the functionality with Google Drive is,
0:56:32 is a whole lot better.
0:56:35 Even use it for collecting survey responses,
0:56:38 job applications and then sharing files
0:56:39 amongst people on the team.
0:56:40 – Yeah, I use both.
0:56:43 So primarily Google Drive for team related files,
0:56:47 but Dropbox for really large files like episodes,
0:56:49 all the backups and things like that.
0:56:52 – Yeah, it’s amazing how affordable extra gigabytes
0:56:55 of storage are, you know, just having that backup.
0:56:56 And I think, I think there’s a WordPress plugin
0:56:58 I should probably look up which one it is.
0:57:00 But like, you know, so the host WPX takes
0:57:01 daily backups of the site.
0:57:03 But we also like a little bit of redundancy
0:57:04 wouldn’t hurt, you know,
0:57:07 since that is, you know, the whole base of bread and butter.
0:57:08 And I think that gets backed up
0:57:11 to Google Drive daily or weekly.
0:57:12 – Oh, interesting.
0:57:14 – All right, we’re onto the podcasting section now.
0:57:16 And the first is, well, how do you,
0:57:18 is one question, well, how do you record remote interviews?
0:57:21 And we’re recording this on riverside riverside.fm.
0:57:24 This is a browser based recording tool
0:57:25 that allows for remote interviews.
0:57:27 It takes, I think, really clean audio.
0:57:30 It records video, it records each side independently.
0:57:33 So if there’s a voiceover IP lags, you know,
0:57:36 theoretically it’s got a good backup
0:57:38 on each individual’s local hard drive.
0:57:41 It’s been probably a year and a half using riverside.
0:57:43 Sometimes we have some technical challenges,
0:57:45 but overall it’s been pretty reliable.
0:57:48 – Same here, I’ve been using riverside now.
0:57:50 I wanna say maybe since 2021,
0:57:52 and it has been very reliable.
0:57:53 I love riverside.
0:57:56 I’m actually creating, it’s almost live,
0:57:59 a course with them called Ultimate Guide to Video Podcasting.
0:58:01 So when it’s live, you’ll go over to
0:58:05 riversidehouseofpro.co/videopodcasting, all right?
0:58:07 And I’m just going through basically, yeah,
0:58:10 everything, like my at home studio and my closet,
0:58:12 and why it’s so seamless.
0:58:16 I love it because I love virtual podcasting.
0:58:19 I am not ready to go into a studio every single time
0:58:23 I do an episode yet, and I’m able to see the guests.
0:58:24 They can join easily.
0:58:26 They don’t have to log into anything.
0:58:30 And I can see their equipment to make sure, you know,
0:58:33 their sound is okay, that the recording is uploaded,
0:58:36 and I just think it’s so, so smart and adaptive.
0:58:39 – Yeah, a couple recent guests were local,
0:58:41 and it’s like, well, I guess we could have recorded
0:58:42 this in person.
0:58:43 It’s like, no, I’m not set up for that.
0:58:45 Like let’s just stick with the process,
0:58:46 stick with the system here.
0:58:49 I also record a direct backup into audacity,
0:58:51 and that ends up being the track that, you know,
0:58:54 we end up using from my side of the audio.
0:58:56 This is audio editing too, like where I can record
0:59:01 the ad reads, the commercials, and just do that directly.
0:59:03 – I’ve been doing everything in Riverside,
0:59:08 like my ad reads, course reads, everything these days, yeah.
0:59:10 – Okay, it’s become really powerful.
0:59:12 Like they have like these AI snippets
0:59:13 that they’ll generate.
0:59:15 It does transcriptions, which, you know,
0:59:17 allows us to cancel our subscription
0:59:19 to the other transcript tool.
0:59:22 There’s been some consolidation, some tool swap,
0:59:24 like trying to trim down the commitment
0:59:25 of monthly subscriptions.
0:59:27 – Yes, it’s taken over a lot.
0:59:32 Like you said, like show notes before my social media manager
0:59:36 was writing those manually, and now we have like a base
0:59:38 to start with, and then we customize it.
0:59:40 So it’s just sped up our processes
0:59:43 so we can then focus on other big picture items.
0:59:46 – Yeah, there is another transcription editing tool
0:59:49 that we do keep on the payroll, and that is Descript,
0:59:51 and primarily for video editing.
0:59:56 And when I first used it, I think Joe from Stacking Benjamins
0:59:57 was the first one to be like, “You gotta try this.”
1:00:01 ‘Cause you first experience editing video by editing text.
1:00:03 You know, this is where the conversation went off the rails.
1:00:06 We were gonna just strike that out of the transcript,
1:00:08 and it deletes that section of the video.
1:00:09 You’re like, “This is like magic.”
1:00:11 – Magic.
1:00:14 – And it makes it so much easier for video editing.
1:00:16 If you have an interview, if you have even just
1:00:18 a talking head type of video where you wanna,
1:00:19 it’ll do the transcription,
1:00:21 and then you can start editing it that way.
1:00:22 We use that for a first pass,
1:00:23 and my video editor uses that
1:00:27 to create the video version of podcast.
1:00:30 – Yes, I love that actually about Riverside,
1:00:33 but I also do have Descript because I still like it
1:00:36 as a video editor for non-podcastings
1:00:37 when I just quickly wanna upload something
1:00:38 and do some editing.
1:00:41 – Yeah, one cool use case was,
1:00:44 we talked about 11 Labs for their professional voiceover,
1:00:46 you know, upload hours of your audio,
1:00:49 and it comes back pretty good, actually.
1:00:52 Well, Descript has something similar called Overdub,
1:00:54 and the use case for me, we were traveling,
1:00:56 didn’t bring the podcast set up,
1:00:57 didn’t bring the microphone with me,
1:01:00 and they said, “Oh, the advertiser requested a change
1:01:02 “from this script that you recorded to this script.”
1:01:04 And it was like, one line was different,
1:01:06 or just a few words were different.
1:01:08 It was like, “Oh, let me try,
1:01:11 “let me punch this into Descript Overdub.”
1:01:12 And it was like, “Oh, okay,
1:01:14 “for just a few seconds of audio,
1:01:15 “like nobody would know the difference.”
1:01:16 Like, that was really cool.
1:01:18 Like, it didn’t have to do a full setup
1:01:20 and recording and re-upload,
1:01:21 and like, I’ll hold all this other nonsense.
1:01:25 So, definitely a cool tool to have in your tool belt.
1:01:27 As far as the editing of the show itself,
1:01:29 like the, you know, after recording production side,
1:01:34 my editing service has been podcast fast track since 2016.
1:01:36 Like, since like right before my oldest son was born,
1:01:38 and it’s been a big net time saver,
1:01:40 and you know, focus your energy
1:01:42 on what you’re most excited about,
1:01:44 creating the content, connecting with awesome people,
1:01:46 like the, looking at those little waveforms
1:01:47 for the first three years of the show,
1:01:49 it’s like, “Ah, there’s got to be somebody.”
1:01:50 And on top of that,
1:01:52 like, I just didn’t know how to do it very well,
1:01:55 and like, yeah, so they help out with all that.
1:01:56 – Same boat, same boat.
1:01:58 I also outsource editing,
1:02:01 and it’s just never something I loved, I use.
1:02:04 Well, actually my editor pitched me back in 2016,
1:02:05 and we’ve been working together
1:02:07 ever since longest team member.
1:02:11 That is still crazy to think about, Chris, from Pod Shaper.
1:02:12 – Very nice.
1:02:13 Yeah, there is something to that,
1:02:16 where maybe that’s the side of the opportunity,
1:02:17 if you can figure out audio editing,
1:02:20 and maybe you use some of these AI-powered tools,
1:02:21 you get a client that sticks around,
1:02:23 if they’re going to keep doing the show,
1:02:24 that’s a very sticky customer,
1:02:27 a long, long, long, long, lifetime value.
1:02:28 – Yeah, exactly.
1:02:31 And start pitching people, don’t be afraid.
1:02:33 Like, don’t just wait for them to come to your website,
1:02:35 look for podcasters.
1:02:37 Podcasters are always looking for, you know, a good deal,
1:02:39 so, you know, work on your pitch.
1:02:41 – All right, we’ll link up Pod Chaser as well.
1:02:44 And then last one in the podcasting category is Megaphone.
1:02:46 This is the new or new-ish within the last year or so,
1:02:48 the media host for the show.
1:02:50 This is Spotify-owned or Spotify-powered
1:02:54 that allows for dynamic ad insertion across the whole catalog.
1:02:57 This seems to be the direction that the industry was going,
1:02:59 and that’s been another good addition
1:03:01 or another good shift over to Megaphone.
1:03:04 Definitely more expensive than what I was paying with Libsyn,
1:03:08 which is noticeable, but again, the ROI is definitely there.
1:03:11 – Yes, I am on the ACAST podcast network,
1:03:13 so I’m on ACAST platform,
1:03:17 which also seamlessly allows for dynamic insertion.
1:03:20 I believe they might’ve been the first ones to do that
1:03:21 for independent podcasters.
1:03:24 – Before that, I was on Libsyn for a long time,
1:03:26 and love Libsyn as well.
1:03:28 It was super user-friendly.
1:03:31 The team, customer support was always very, very responsive,
1:03:34 so I actually have a code for Libsyn, Hustle Pro,
1:03:35 if you wanna try it out,
1:03:37 ’cause it’s the first month and a half free.
1:03:39 – Very nice, we’ll link that up.
1:03:42 Yeah, Libsyn was absolutely awesome for the first,
1:03:44 you know, probably 10 years of the show.
1:03:45 It’s just, again, one of those bills
1:03:46 that comes up every month,
1:03:49 and you’re like, “I am getting such an amazing deal.”
1:03:51 You know, it’s similar to the web hosting.
1:03:52 You’re like, “Yes.”
1:03:53 – Yeah, no brainer.
1:03:56 – Yeah, I was really, like, I had no idea.
1:03:58 Like media, you need a media host?
1:04:00 What, I thought iTunes, you know, in the early days,
1:04:02 maybe iTunes hosts, like, I didn’t even think about it,
1:04:05 and it was 15 bucks a month, you know, starting out,
1:04:08 and had it been 25 or 30,
1:04:10 like legitimately, the show might not exist.
1:04:12 Like, what am I committing myself to?
1:04:15 I just have to keep paying this for forever?
1:04:17 And, you know, over time, it’s like, oh, no, no, no.
1:04:20 This is a very, very low cost to pay
1:04:22 to be able to reach thousands and thousands of people.
1:04:23 – Right.
1:04:26 – Yeah, one really important point
1:04:28 that I should have mentioned at the top of the show
1:04:30 is that neither of us started here
1:04:32 with, you know, dozens of different tools
1:04:33 and monthly subscriptions.
1:04:36 Like, we started off doing the editing ourselves,
1:04:38 we started off doing the graphics ourselves,
1:04:39 you know, very free, very cheap,
1:04:42 like, trying to do the, you know,
1:04:44 the minimum viable product,
1:04:46 and then layering on complexity and cost
1:04:49 and team members as time has gone on.
1:04:51 ‘Cause it may be intimidating,
1:04:53 you start doing the math in your head of like,
1:04:54 well, this is an annual subscription,
1:04:56 this is a monthly subscription,
1:04:58 and it might sound intimidating,
1:05:00 but it’s like, no, no, no, we’ve added that cost
1:05:02 and complexity as the businesses have grown.
1:05:03 – Yeah, exactly.
1:05:05 – Now, we’ve got the money category,
1:05:07 which I think is our last one here,
1:05:09 if not the last, but maybe one of the last,
1:05:13 the new to me bookkeeping software,
1:05:16 you know, FinTech and Plaid integrations
1:05:17 have opened up a bunch of these different services.
1:05:19 And one of the cool ones that I found
1:05:21 and actually made the switch for bookkeeping this year
1:05:24 was to kick, I think it’s kick.co.
1:05:27 – Oh my gosh, I literally just saw an email about them
1:05:30 and want to try them, so tell me about your experience.
1:05:31 – Yeah, so this, you know,
1:05:33 syncs with all your different accounts,
1:05:35 and it kind of gives you that, you know,
1:05:36 real time, you know, picture,
1:05:39 but also the monthly snapshot of income and expenses,
1:05:43 and probably will save 1,000, 1,500 bucks a year
1:05:44 compared to the other thing.
1:05:45 And the cool thing is like,
1:05:47 if you don’t have much expenses, it’s actually free.
1:05:50 And so if you have less than, I want to say 25,
1:05:51 you know, depending on when you’re listening to this,
1:05:53 and you know, it’s a FinTech startup,
1:05:55 so like your plans change all the time.
1:05:59 But if you have less than 15 or $25,000 in annual expenses,
1:06:01 I think you can actually use it for free.
1:06:02 And it’s really cool.
1:06:04 And then they have annual plans on top of that.
1:06:08 I was the person who kept bookkeeping as one of my tasks,
1:06:09 way too long, way too long.
1:06:11 ‘Cause I was that weird person
1:06:15 who got that little dopamine hit of logging the income
1:06:17 on the spreadsheet, like almost in real time,
1:06:20 like what a colossal waste of energy,
1:06:23 even though it felt good, even though it felt good.
1:06:26 – And still missing stuff, like we’re not accountants,
1:06:27 we’re missing stuff.
1:06:30 We don’t know other things we could, like that’s what,
1:06:32 I saw what that kick does that intrigued me,
1:06:34 ’cause it’s like, all right,
1:06:36 they’re catching things that you might not realize.
1:06:38 And back to our earlier conversation
1:06:39 about the Teachable team.
1:06:42 So it’s founded by another Teachable alum.
1:06:44 So that’s the other one I was talking about.
1:06:46 So you have Carrie and Kik,
1:06:49 our both Teachable alum founded business.
1:06:52 – Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Conrad, totally, yes.
1:06:56 But it’s pretty slick, really cool interface that you can,
1:06:58 what bothered me about my old bookkeeping solution
1:07:00 was you had to message your bookkeeper if you wanted to,
1:07:02 like if something got miscategorized,
1:07:04 like why on earth do they not just have like,
1:07:07 – Yeah, that’s what I’m struggling with right now.
1:07:09 I don’t like any of the ones I’ve tried.
1:07:14 And I’m like, I need to find a better, more automated,
1:07:16 more intelligent solution.
1:07:18 – Yeah, I was like, how come they couldn’t just put
1:07:20 a little dropdown menu or like recategorize it?
1:07:21 And I was like, you got to message them,
1:07:23 and it takes three weeks for them to reply.
1:07:25 I was like, really guys?
1:07:27 Like the whole pitch was like, AI,
1:07:29 intelligence software plus human.
1:07:31 Like if you’re not gonna have the human part,
1:07:32 like what’s even the point at this?
1:07:35 – Right, and I like a nice interface.
1:07:37 Like I am an aesthetic person.
1:07:39 I need a nice interface that I can drag, drop,
1:07:43 and then I’ve also tried the human bookkeeper thing.
1:07:45 And I don’t like like you going off into the dark,
1:07:47 whipping on spreadsheets, then coming back to me
1:07:49 with a spreadsheet that I don’t really like,
1:07:51 like I don’t really like how you’ve organized information.
1:07:54 So I’m still working through this process, Nick.
1:07:56 So I’m gonna give it a try.
1:07:58 – And then the other one, so that’s on the business side.
1:08:00 The one that I really like on the personal side is Monarch.
1:08:03 And this is your personal net worth dashboard.
1:08:06 This is monthly income and expenses.
1:08:08 This is historical performance.
1:08:11 And the stock market at the time of this recording
1:08:13 has been on a year long tier.
1:08:15 So of course, like it’s rewarding to log in
1:08:17 and see that net worth number go up.
1:08:19 But it’s kind of a cool interface as well
1:08:21 with a customizable dashboard.
1:08:24 And you track all the personal side of things.
1:08:27 And that’s something that my wife and I both have access to
1:08:28 where we can kind of get that snapshot
1:08:31 and get that picture of the personal finances.
1:08:32 – Oh, I like that.
1:08:34 Another one I’m taking note of.
1:08:36 – Yeah, that’s that one has been cool.
1:08:38 And a couple of guests have mentioned it too.
1:08:40 And I don’t know, maybe there’s a business,
1:08:41 I don’t know, maybe you can use it for business too,
1:08:43 but that’s on the personal side.
1:08:45 And then finally, on the affiliate tracking side,
1:08:47 affiliate income tracking side,
1:08:48 been using a tool called Affluent,
1:08:51 which pulls in, I think it got bought by Impact,
1:08:52 one of the affiliate networks,
1:08:55 but it pulls in data from Impact,
1:08:58 from Commission Junction, from Raketam,
1:09:00 from all of these different affiliate networks,
1:09:02 it kind of gives you a daily snapshot
1:09:04 of your affiliate earnings.
1:09:05 And it sends you an email every day,
1:09:06 which is always nice to get.
1:09:09 And lately that number has been like going down.
1:09:10 It’s like, well, shoot, what?
1:09:12 But it kind of gives visibility to it.
1:09:14 And my only, because I really like that,
1:09:16 and it saves time, like for a month in reporting,
1:09:19 of like, where did the income come from?
1:09:20 How did these links perform?
1:09:22 The only downside is like,
1:09:24 there’s no ThriveCart integration,
1:09:25 there’s no SamCart integration,
1:09:29 where it doesn’t give you 100% picture
1:09:31 of what happened on the affiliate side,
1:09:32 but it probably has 60, 70%.
1:09:34 – I’ll look into that once.
1:09:35 That’s the thing I’m looking for too,
1:09:36 with the bookkeeping.
1:09:39 It is so annoying to have all these different things,
1:09:42 where when you start out as a side hustler,
1:09:44 like money is coming from different places,
1:09:48 Stripe, PayPal, all these different integrations.
1:09:51 And I wish someone would just make an overall
1:09:53 that just takes it all.
1:09:54 And I don’t have to like,
1:09:56 be uploading spreadsheets from different places,
1:09:59 or also looking at this data,
1:10:02 in addition to this website’s data.
1:10:04 It’s, AI solution is needed.
1:10:05 (laughs)
1:10:06 – Yeah.
1:10:10 Now, if I’m able to get Lasso’s performance tool working,
1:10:12 I may be able to hit the cancel button
1:10:13 on this affluent tool,
1:10:14 ’cause I think there’s some overlap
1:10:16 in the functionality there.
1:10:17 But that’s it.
1:10:20 I think we threw out 40, 50 different tools, resources
1:10:21 for you.
1:10:22 – That’s it, wow.
1:10:24 Are there any favorites that come to mind
1:10:26 that people ought to know about?
1:10:28 – One last thing I’ll add is just social media management.
1:10:31 So I like using a tool called Later right now
1:10:32 to schedule out posts.
1:10:35 Well, my social media manager schedules out posts
1:10:37 across the different social media,
1:10:40 SciHouse of Pro, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn channels.
1:10:42 And we use Buffer for LinkedIn.
1:10:43 – Oh, okay.
1:10:44 What was the first one?
1:10:47 – It’s called Later, just L-A-T-E-R, later.com.
1:10:49 – Awesome, we’ll add those in to the list.
1:10:51 Well, what are you excited about these days?
1:10:52 What kind of projects you’ve got going on?
1:10:55 I know you’ve always got different things
1:10:58 following from afar and curious to see what’s coming up.
1:11:00 – Oh yes, I am.
1:11:04 I’m excited about this Riverside video podcasting course,
1:11:06 especially after our conversation.
1:11:07 I’m excited to get that out there
1:11:10 and have everyone see how easy it can be
1:11:12 to podcast right from home.
1:11:15 Like you don’t need this huge fancy setup or studio.
1:11:17 And so I’m excited to get that out into the world.
1:11:20 And also if people want to continue learning for me
1:11:24 and growing their podcast into actual revenue,
1:11:26 then I’m excited for you to learn more about podcast moguls,
1:11:30 which is my course and also mastermind group
1:11:33 where we are independent podcasters
1:11:37 who have scaled our podcast into repeatable revenue
1:11:39 through various measures.
1:11:42 So we’ve done, we’ve had people who work with brands,
1:11:45 but also people who have used their podcast as a funnel
1:11:48 for their own business and to get more clients.
1:11:50 So you can find out all about that
1:11:53 over at sidehustlepro.co for podcast moguls
1:11:56 at sidehustlepro.co/podcastmoguls.
1:11:59 And like I said, once the Riverside course is live,
1:12:03 it will be over at sidehustlepro.co/videopodcasting.
1:12:05 – I love it, in partnership with Riverside.
1:12:07 Well, now, Nikela definitely knows a thing or two
1:12:10 about podcasting, haven’t done it for years and years.
1:12:12 400 episodes of the Side Hustle Pro podcast,
1:12:14 go check it out and you won’t be disappointed there.
1:12:17 As for the links to all the resources mentioned,
1:12:20 definitely check out the show notes for this episode.
1:12:22 You can hit the link in the episode description,
1:12:23 it’ll get over there.
1:12:24 I’ll toss out a pretty link again,
1:12:28 sidehustlenation.com/nikela or slash resources,
1:12:31 both will get you over to the show notes for this page.
1:12:33 Big thanks to Nikela for sharing her insight.
1:12:35 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content
1:12:36 free for everyone.
1:12:39 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
1:12:41 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
1:12:43 Thanks again for supporting the advertisers
1:12:46 that support the show, really does make a difference.
1:12:47 That is it for me.
1:12:48 Thank you so much for tuning in.
1:12:50 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
1:12:52 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
1:12:55 of the Side Hustle Show, hustle on.
1:12:57 I’ve got another podcast recommendation for you.
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1:13:06 but good choices come from experience.
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1:13:10 like Matthew McConaughey in episode 101,
1:13:13 Seth Godin in episode 87,
1:13:16 and even Robert Green on Decoding the Laws of Human Nature
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1:14:00 from The Side Hustle Show.