0:00:03 Active versus passive income.
0:00:05 With our limited time,
0:00:06 what should side hustlers focus on?
0:00:08 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here?
0:00:09 Welcome to The Side Hustler Show
0:00:12 because your nine to five may make you a living,
0:00:14 but your five to nine makes you alive.
0:00:15 And that’s the question on the table.
0:00:17 If you’re already earning active income,
0:00:19 trading time for money at your day job,
0:00:21 doesn’t it make sense to pursue passive income
0:00:23 in your side hustle hours?
0:00:25 Well, maybe, but maybe not.
0:00:26 And what is truly passive?
0:00:28 After all, is there even such a thing?
0:00:30 And what’s the true cost of earning it?
0:00:32 Excited to dive into this topic
0:00:35 and to help me out is Mr. Passive himself.
0:00:36 Mike Hoffman is back on the show.
0:00:37 Mike, welcome back.
0:00:38 – Thanks, Nick.
0:00:39 Fire it up to be here.
0:00:40 – You bet me.
0:00:41 As well, you might remember Mike
0:00:44 from the Vending Machine episode we did earlier this year.
0:00:48 That’s number 599, I wanna say 599 in your archives.
0:00:52 If you missed it, vendingpreneurs.com is his home base.
0:00:54 We’re going three rounds with Mike today.
0:00:57 First up is that active versus passive income debate
0:00:59 to help you decide where it’s really best
0:01:01 to allocate your time, energy, attention.
0:01:04 Next up, we’re doing Donate a Business Idea.
0:01:05 Stick around for that and wrapping it up
0:01:08 with the triple threat, a marketing tactic
0:01:10 that’s working right now for Mike or his students,
0:01:12 a favorite new tool or resource,
0:01:15 and his favorite book for the last 12 months.
0:01:17 So active versus passive income.
0:01:21 Love this topic and I wanna frame it this way.
0:01:24 We know inherently that passive income is important.
0:01:27 I mean, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha
0:01:28 puts it in no uncertain terms.
0:01:29 He says, look, if you don’t find a way
0:01:31 to make money in your sleep,
0:01:32 you’re gonna work until you die.
0:01:34 And like, well, I don’t necessarily want that.
0:01:36 So let’s go back to the first part.
0:01:38 I gotta figure out a way to make money in my sleep.
0:01:39 So we know it’s important,
0:01:41 but we don’t get a lot of education
0:01:44 on how to actually set this up for ourselves.
0:01:46 And in fact, a lot of our education,
0:01:49 maybe most of our education is geared toward active income.
0:01:50 Go to school, get a good job.
0:01:52 That’s like the end game.
0:01:54 That’s the end goal for a lot of people,
0:01:55 a lot of the educational system.
0:01:57 Get a good job that pays well.
0:02:00 Go find yourself a way to earn active income.
0:02:02 And I think that’s a perfectly normal way to start.
0:02:04 It’s probably where most people start.
0:02:07 And then along the way, invest as much as you can
0:02:10 so that someday, maybe decades later in a lot of cases,
0:02:13 you could begin drawing down those investments,
0:02:14 kind of the traditional path.
0:02:16 But it doesn’t have to be that way.
0:02:17 So Mike, kick us off here.
0:02:19 How do you view this debate
0:02:22 from the perspective of somebody who is working full-time?
0:02:24 They’ve got the goal to make extra money.
0:02:26 That’s why they’re listening to the side hustle show
0:02:27 to start something on the side,
0:02:29 but they’ve got limited hours to work with.
0:02:32 Where does this conversation even start
0:02:33 on active versus passive?
0:02:36 – The first step is, where’s your passion?
0:02:38 And what’s kind of that fire in you?
0:02:40 ‘Cause the reality of the situation
0:02:43 is people’s day job is not their passion.
0:02:46 So whether that’s someone that’s passionate about,
0:02:49 I don’t know, being a mom and like being around their kids
0:02:53 and maybe they find a business idea that excites them
0:02:57 and flares their kind of entrepreneur journey on the side.
0:02:59 And they want to go down a path with that
0:03:00 because they’ve had kids,
0:03:02 but their day job just pays the bills.
0:03:04 So I think for me, it’s just aligning
0:03:05 with where your passions are.
0:03:09 And also understanding that a day job is just that.
0:03:11 It’s the stability you can use
0:03:15 to kind of explore this passion that you have.
0:03:16 – Now I’m going to flip it around.
0:03:18 Like one of your first passive income projects
0:03:19 is a rental property.
0:03:21 Can anybody say, oh, I’m passionate about owning
0:03:24 a rental property or I’m passionate about selling snacks
0:03:25 and drinks in an automated way?
0:03:27 Like I’m passionate about the income that it provides
0:03:28 and the wealth that it could build,
0:03:30 but I don’t know if I’m passionate
0:03:31 about the sausage being made.
0:03:33 – 100% Nick, and I was having this conversation
0:03:35 with one of our vendingpreneurs yesterday
0:03:37 ’cause it’s like, you don’t go to school
0:03:40 to learn about vending or you don’t go to trade school
0:03:43 to learn about the margins of a candy bar
0:03:46 that you resell or anything like that.
0:03:50 But the passion for me is to spend more time with my kids.
0:03:51 Like I was singing about it this morning
0:03:55 where there was a big kind of airlines had a freeze,
0:03:57 IT shut down, what have you.
0:04:00 And think about all these corporate employees
0:04:02 that are on their road for their job
0:04:05 and they’re just scrambling to find a way to get home today
0:04:07 to be with their kids this weekend.
0:04:08 And the reality is a lot of them
0:04:10 aren’t going to be able to get home till tomorrow.
0:04:12 And like, that doesn’t have to be you.
0:04:13 – Okay, that’s fair.
0:04:16 So if you have built up some other means of income
0:04:19 then you don’t have to do the job
0:04:20 that you dislike forever and ever.
0:04:22 – Correct, yeah.
0:04:24 It’s kind of like the Justin Walshmine site where it’s like
0:04:27 you shouldn’t just leave your nine to five
0:04:29 and then all of a sudden your business idea blows up
0:04:31 and in six months you have to go back into it.
0:04:34 You should build this passion and vet it
0:04:36 while you still have that active piece.
0:04:37 – That’s fair.
0:04:41 The challenge is having been a participant
0:04:44 and an observer in the entrepreneurial world
0:04:46 for the past 15, 20 years.
0:04:51 More hours have been spent in vain chasing passive income
0:04:54 than chasing the elusive passive income,
0:04:56 the latest and greatest strategy or tactic
0:04:59 to make money on the internet or whatever it may be,
0:05:01 where it’s like you would have been so much better off
0:05:03 had you just leveled up your skills,
0:05:04 got a better paying job,
0:05:07 or even gone the freelancing or consulting route
0:05:09 and you’ve gotten paid for your time
0:05:12 versus toiling away because sometimes this works out.
0:05:15 And this is like the case of the site isolation blog,
0:05:17 for example, like the first years of the site
0:05:19 like so far below minimum wage,
0:05:21 trying to figure out the internet
0:05:23 and trying to make that into a thing
0:05:25 and will it into existence,
0:05:27 where it’s like in the near term,
0:05:29 would have been so much better off financially,
0:05:31 just going and getting paid by somebody.
0:05:33 Like go solve a problem, go get paid for it.
0:05:34 – Absolutely, you’re spot on.
0:05:36 And that’s like that valley of death.
0:05:38 You talk about it when people are trying
0:05:42 to like build a business or do work with the government.
0:05:44 It takes eight years of red tape to find,
0:05:46 like you look at Palantir right now.
0:05:49 Palantir is like booming from a business,
0:05:50 but they went through this valley of death
0:05:52 just to break into the government.
0:05:53 Same thing with businesses.
0:05:58 Like our vending route right now is flourishing,
0:05:59 but those first five years,
0:06:03 it was like chop wood, carry water, chop wood, carry water.
0:06:07 It was boring and it was scary all at the same time.
0:06:10 – Yeah, the way that I kind of like to frame it
0:06:13 is thinking of your income as a pie chart, right?
0:06:15 And for most people, especially straight out of school,
0:06:18 like I’m trading time for money,
0:06:20 it’s 100% active income.
0:06:22 And then to get to that Warren Buffett finish line
0:06:24 of not working until you die,
0:06:27 eventually it’s going to have to be fully time leveraged
0:06:28 or fully passive income.
0:06:30 And maybe you still want to do some consulting projects
0:06:32 or maybe you want to work part-time or something.
0:06:34 But like trying to build,
0:06:35 first starting with a little sliver,
0:06:38 but then building that passive income piece of the pie
0:06:41 such that you don’t need the active part anymore
0:06:42 or it becomes optional.
0:06:45 – Yeah, I love that pie chart, that’s a great analogy
0:06:48 and you’re just trying to move those percentages
0:06:50 as far over as possible.
0:06:52 – All right, so you like real estate, you like vending,
0:06:55 what other passive or time leveraged models
0:06:58 might be beginner friendly or would be on your radar?
0:07:00 – I think even just taking a step
0:07:03 and really kind of understanding the percentages
0:07:05 of your income and not getting into like,
0:07:08 do you make enough to be able to invest in a rental
0:07:11 or invest in a vending machine or route or whatever?
0:07:14 It’s more like understanding, okay,
0:07:17 how much of your take home pay is spent on rent?
0:07:21 How much of it is going into a index fund
0:07:24 or something that is just at the simplest level?
0:07:27 You talked about earlier when you’re in your 20s,
0:07:31 you can get so far ahead if you just are disciplined enough
0:07:35 to take a percentage of your income no matter what that is
0:07:38 and start building that compounding effect
0:07:42 in whatever asset class you want to start in.
0:07:43 – You have a rule of thumb of like,
0:07:46 well, I’m going to put 10% into
0:07:49 some speculative passive projects
0:07:52 or like I never really thought about it that way.
0:07:56 – For my wife and I, we’ll do 10 to 15%
0:07:58 into more of our conservative,
0:08:01 like out of sight, out of mind index funds every month.
0:08:04 And then yeah, we have another probably 10%
0:08:06 that’s high risk.
0:08:10 Our financial advisor might not think it’s the safest play,
0:08:12 but it’s something I’m bullish about.
0:08:14 I mean, even in the vending space right now,
0:08:17 there’s so many smart machines at now
0:08:19 are adding like digital ad screens to them.
0:08:22 And there’s like these speculative opportunities
0:08:26 for revenue that have never existed in this niche before.
0:08:29 So that’s kind of where I’m going right now.
0:08:31 And then all these like unattended,
0:08:34 the Amazon just walk out technology and stuff
0:08:38 just really trying to kind of think of five years ahead.
0:08:40 And who knows, it might fall on this face.
0:08:41 – Okay, so I’m thinking of first,
0:08:45 so it starts off from a place of financial stability.
0:08:46 Like that’s got to be step one.
0:08:48 Like I got to have enough income to cover my expenses
0:08:51 and then having an understanding of where
0:08:53 that income is allocated.
0:08:55 How are my dollars going to work for me?
0:08:58 And then taking a percentage of that, of the surplus,
0:09:00 hopefully, and saying, okay, in your case,
0:09:02 I’m investing that back into the business
0:09:04 and more speculative projects and saying,
0:09:06 okay, this is like the play money.
0:09:08 Like everything else is,
0:09:09 maybe it’s not super, super comfortable,
0:09:11 but it’s like, I’m not going backwards.
0:09:14 And having a little bit of financial breathing room
0:09:16 as a baseline.
0:09:18 And so maybe this whole passive income discussion
0:09:20 is one of privilege to be even able to tackle that.
0:09:22 Like, no, I’m just trying to make ends meet.
0:09:23 I’m trying to put food on the table.
0:09:25 Like I got to go earn some money today
0:09:28 versus seeing if I can make some investment
0:09:30 or start some project that may pay back
0:09:31 in six to 12 months.
0:09:33 There’s something powerful in what you just said.
0:09:35 And I think it comes back to like your habits, right?
0:09:39 Like if you think of a book, I might recommend later,
0:09:41 but I’m going to spoil it by talking about it now.
0:09:46 Profit first, the whole concept is you pay your profits
0:09:48 before you pay off your expenses.
0:09:51 So right away, when you get income coming in,
0:09:53 it goes into your profit bucket.
0:09:54 Well, guess what’s going to happen?
0:09:57 Naturally, you’re going to really watch
0:09:59 what your expenses are because now
0:10:01 that profit first is paid out
0:10:03 and you’re only left with so much.
0:10:06 So the same concept when it comes to our personal finances
0:10:08 and investing in things like passive income,
0:10:12 when you’re a young kid, I will teach you to be rich.
0:10:13 Another book always talks about
0:10:16 immediately the day you get paid,
0:10:20 you need to direct deposit into your stock portfolio,
0:10:22 that money, so then your plate money
0:10:25 and your actual bank account is a lot less
0:10:27 than you spend too much.
0:10:30 And it’s like, “Oh crap, I forgot to invest this month.”
0:10:33 So that whole kind of, just even habits of,
0:10:34 at the end of the day, it all starts
0:10:36 with live below your means, right?
0:10:39 If you’re 20% taken out
0:10:41 before it even hits your bank account,
0:10:44 that’s the beauty of like Ross and these 401ks,
0:10:46 is you’re already pulling that out
0:10:49 before it hits what you think you can spend with.
0:10:51 – Yeah, this is super simple,
0:10:53 but like you never really heard it phrased,
0:10:53 actually before Brin’s mom,
0:10:55 before my mother-in-law kind of explained
0:10:59 that’s how she as a single mom was able to save and invest.
0:11:02 She’s like, “I would get the direct deposit paycheck
0:11:05 for pretty much exactly what I knew my expenses
0:11:05 were gonna be that month.”
0:11:08 And everything else was out of sight, out of mind,
0:11:09 in savings and investments.
0:11:11 It’s like, I just never really, whatever,
0:11:15 the automated 401k deposit out of the paycheck,
0:11:16 that was fine, but then everything else
0:11:17 was just hit the checking account.
0:11:19 I was like, “All right, this is play money.”
0:11:22 It’s still kind of inherently new to live below by means,
0:11:25 but nothing was set up and systemized and automated
0:11:29 the way that it could have been to maybe accelerate that
0:11:31 or just make it more of a habit or make it more automatic.
0:11:33 – Yeah, yeah.
0:11:35 And then it forces you to think about
0:11:37 where your big rocks are.
0:11:39 You got people these days on social media
0:11:41 that are like, “Oh, I’m gonna start doing this or that
0:11:43 or I’m gonna work on my offer
0:11:45 and I need to get my SEO
0:11:48 and all of these other ancillary things figured out.”
0:11:51 And it’s like, let’s just start posting content once a day.
0:11:54 – Yeah, I know Kagan calls it the rule of 100,
0:11:56 like post a hundred pieces of content
0:11:58 or come up with a hundred ideas
0:11:59 and then come back and talk to me
0:12:01 or Jimmy, MrBeast has the same thing.
0:12:03 Like, why don’t you post a hundred videos
0:12:03 and then come talk?
0:12:06 Either you burn out and don’t do the hundred
0:12:08 and I don’t have to talk to you
0:12:10 or you do the hundred and you figured it out along the way
0:12:11 and I still don’t have to talk to you.
0:12:14 So I was like, this is great little bit of advice from him.
0:12:16 The counterpoint that I maybe want to make,
0:12:20 especially on the passive versus active side
0:12:22 is we’ve seen some examples
0:12:24 of where near term cash flow,
0:12:26 obviously chasing active income,
0:12:29 service businesses, consulting, freelancing,
0:12:32 you’re gonna ring the cash register right away.
0:12:33 And we’ve seen some examples
0:12:36 of where that can actually transition
0:12:39 into something more passive or more time leveraged.
0:12:41 A couple of examples, we have Wes Schaefer
0:12:44 who was the sales whisperer, I think was his brand
0:12:46 on the show years ago.
0:12:49 And he was doing these kind of like sales funnel
0:12:51 automation build outs and consults.
0:12:53 Like, hey, we’ll analyze your business.
0:12:56 And along the way, so he’s getting paid to do that upfront,
0:12:59 but along the way becomes a certified reseller
0:13:02 for HubSpot for infusionsoft, now keep.
0:13:06 And oh, by the way, they pay recurring commissions to hit.
0:13:07 It’s like, hey, based on your business,
0:13:10 we found that HubSpot was the best fit for you.
0:13:12 We’ll sign you up, we’ll get it all set up for you.
0:13:16 He was able to turn that one time active income project
0:13:19 into recurring level of passive income for years.
0:13:21 One of my other favorite examples is Matt Boknock.
0:13:23 He was like the motorcycle repair guy.
0:13:25 Hey, don’t take your bike to the dealership.
0:13:26 Don’t pay dealership rates.
0:13:27 Come, you’ll bring it to me.
0:13:29 I know what I’m doing, I’ll fix it in my garage.
0:13:32 Hours for dollars side hustle after sending the kids to bed.
0:13:34 But Matt set up the camera in the court of the garage,
0:13:36 films himself doing the repairs.
0:13:39 Last we spoke, he had 100,000 YouTube subscribers.
0:13:42 He was selling these engine rebuild videos
0:13:43 as a digital products.
0:13:46 And it didn’t take long, I’m sure it felt long,
0:13:48 but it didn’t take long from the outside looking in
0:13:50 where the quote unquote passive side of the business
0:13:53 far outpaced the turning wrenches side of the business.
0:13:56 And it’s interesting that some of these like little,
0:13:59 maybe it’s selling your sawdust type of products,
0:14:01 but when you start by doing the work
0:14:04 and building skills and relationships,
0:14:06 sometimes those passive doors start to open
0:14:09 or those more time leveraged doors start to open.
0:14:11 – Yeah, I was reading an article about this last night
0:14:13 where there’s something to say
0:14:15 about the middle man and everything.
0:14:17 Like if you look at Uber and Airbnb,
0:14:21 what they have in common is they don’t have any cars
0:14:23 and they don’t have any homes.
0:14:26 They’re just the middle man of connecting someone
0:14:30 that’s looking for a home in Washington on their vacation
0:14:31 and someone that has a home.
0:14:33 Just like Uber, you look at,
0:14:34 and like the sales whisper thing,
0:14:39 he’s just that dot that’s connecting this potential person
0:14:43 that needs a CRM to hub spot or to whatever that vehicle is.
0:14:45 And the same thing I keep coming back to
0:14:46 with our vendingpreneurs,
0:14:50 ’cause you’re spot on, like you gotta reduce friction.
0:14:53 For me, like I’m trying to make it as easy as possible
0:14:55 for people to get product.
0:14:56 Like they shouldn’t have to go to Costco
0:14:58 and spend four hours.
0:15:01 If we can just get it delivered to their door once a week
0:15:05 at a bulk price that’s just on autopilot
0:15:07 based on the sales of whatever that,
0:15:09 there’s just so many levers is like just that,
0:15:11 I mean, Amazon, it’s just a middle man.
0:15:15 Anything in life, you’re just trying to be that connector.
0:15:17 And last time I had that aha moment where it’s like,
0:15:20 Uber has no cars and Airbnb has no homes, like what?
0:15:23 – Right, Facebook doesn’t create any of their own content.
0:15:26 Safe thing with TikTok, they’re just content platforms.
0:15:27 There’s something to that.
0:15:30 And this is a common path for side hustlers
0:15:31 to start freelancing on the side.
0:15:33 Yes, it’s still active income.
0:15:35 Maybe they take that full time.
0:15:37 Maybe they start to hire subcontractors
0:15:39 where it’s like, okay, now it’s a little bit more
0:15:41 time leverage is not me laying the bricks
0:15:43 or doing the day-to-day labor anymore,
0:15:46 but I put myself in a management layer.
0:15:48 So different ways to transition from active income
0:15:52 to passive income in the middle man method is similar.
0:15:55 It could be, oh, I started a house cleaning business,
0:15:56 but I didn’t want to do the cleaning.
0:15:58 So I went out and hired people who already knew
0:16:00 how to do the cleaning.
0:16:02 We’ve seen examples of that on the show
0:16:06 from window washing to graphic design and video editing.
0:16:08 You can do it offline, you can do it online,
0:16:11 but the middle man game absolutely is a viable path.
0:16:13 – Yeah, and then even you talk about that home cleaning,
0:16:17 like those product companies will fight for you
0:16:19 to buy their product to use for the cleaning.
0:16:23 You think of like Airbnb’s and all of the restaurants
0:16:26 near you, they want your business and they will pay you
0:16:29 if you promote their restaurants and your check-in folder
0:16:31 when guests come to your Airbnb.
0:16:35 – Okay, okay, interesting.
0:16:35 I never thought about that.
0:16:38 And now I will definitely pay more attention
0:16:39 to those little like welcome binders.
0:16:40 – Yeah!
0:16:43 I love those houses, like was that a paid placement?
0:16:45 Yeah, mention our offer code for 10% off your check.
0:16:47 – Side hustle nation, you get 10% off.
0:16:48 – Yeah, there you go.
0:16:49 – That’s a lot of wings.
0:16:52 – One other consideration here on this active
0:16:57 versus passive debate is related to your home life situation.
0:17:03 So for me, it was grateful to be living below my means
0:17:06 and had my wife who had this steady job.
0:17:08 And so when there were down years in the business,
0:17:11 it was okay, we could still live comfortably on one income.
0:17:15 And that freed up the time and the mental energy
0:17:19 to focus on these more time leveraged business models
0:17:20 where even in the near term,
0:17:23 it wasn’t going to have this great ROI
0:17:26 or it seemed was chasing this passive income.
0:17:30 And sometimes it took months or years to materialize,
0:17:32 but because we’re playing it as a team sport,
0:17:34 it still worked out.
0:17:35 And so maybe that’s a conversation to have
0:17:37 with your spouse or partner to figure out,
0:17:39 well, what role is everybody going to play here?
0:17:41 But that was something that worked out
0:17:42 in our favor in our house.
0:17:43 – Yeah, no, that’s great.
0:17:46 And we had the same similar situation last year.
0:17:49 My wife actually lost her job
0:17:51 and she was five months pregnant.
0:17:54 And also our healthcare was with her job
0:17:56 because I was just an entrepreneur.
0:17:58 So we took care of your healthcare.
0:18:00 And so it was like a scramble moment.
0:18:02 But as long as you’re living below your means
0:18:04 and you have those different income streams
0:18:05 for the rainy days,
0:18:08 like you said, the mind share,
0:18:10 it was just a simple
0:18:12 and could have been a very emotional roller coaster,
0:18:15 but it allowed us to stay neutral in the moment.
0:18:16 – You ever get to the point of like,
0:18:18 this passive income stuff sucks.
0:18:19 It doesn’t work.
0:18:22 How to go figure out how to make extra money,
0:18:23 just selling my skills.
0:18:25 Do you ever have that conversation
0:18:26 or does there come a point
0:18:29 where you have people trying to build websites
0:18:32 or do merch by Amazon or do dropshipping
0:18:35 or whatever the latest thing is,
0:18:37 you never quite hit it right.
0:18:40 And I feel for those people
0:18:43 ’cause all of these models can work and do work,
0:18:46 but sometimes there’s a factor of luck involved.
0:18:48 It sometimes is a factor of timing.
0:18:49 And other times it’s like, I don’t know,
0:18:51 this just isn’t the model for you.
0:18:52 That’s where I struggle with.
0:18:54 I’m in the passive income camp too,
0:18:56 but I definitely see the benefits of just like,
0:18:58 like if you’re trying to make extra money, go make it.
0:18:58 Go get it done.
0:19:00 – Yeah, I see both sides for sure.
0:19:02 I mean, I do do a little bit of consulting
0:19:04 for our special operations community
0:19:06 with human performance.
0:19:07 That’s a lot more active,
0:19:10 but I think the downside with like consulting
0:19:13 or time for money is like with consulting,
0:19:16 what you did for them yesterday doesn’t matter.
0:19:18 It’s what are you gonna do for me today?
0:19:19 – Yeah.
0:19:20 – Like that whole rat race is just,
0:19:22 to me it’s not sustainable.
0:19:23 You’re gonna get burnout,
0:19:27 you’re gonna just play that substitution of time for money.
0:19:30 And it’s just, you might do it ’cause it’s your passion
0:19:33 and you believe in the mission of whatever you’re
0:19:36 an expert in, but it’s a tough business model.
0:19:37 – Well, if the hourly rate is strong enough,
0:19:40 it might be compelled to keep going.
0:19:43 We had a guy who was doing like college admissions essay
0:19:45 consulting like a super, super niche business.
0:19:48 It was like 220 something bucks an hour.
0:19:51 Like, I’m okay with this at a certain price.
0:19:53 You can kind of just play the traditional route of like,
0:19:55 yeah, I’m gonna live below my means
0:19:57 and invest the difference versus like,
0:19:59 okay, if I’m just kind of squeaking by
0:20:03 or my current skill set wouldn’t afford a $200 hourly rate,
0:20:06 okay, now I’ve gotta figure out how to build an income stream
0:20:08 that maybe is unrelated to that or has some more leverage.
0:20:09 – Yeah, exactly.
0:20:11 I could see that side for sure.
0:20:12 – All right.
0:20:13 So is there a sweet spot?
0:20:16 So let’s say I’m eight hours a day is at my day job,
0:20:18 eight hours a day, hopefully sleeping.
0:20:19 And I’ve got eight hours left.
0:20:22 Like, is there a sweet spot of like rule of thumb?
0:20:26 What time should people allocate to a passive income pursuits?
0:20:27 – As far as like buckets,
0:20:28 I mean, I think it’s like anything.
0:20:31 You just, you gotta be balanced
0:20:33 or there is gonna lead to some burnout.
0:20:35 You gotta be balanced on all the things
0:20:39 if you’re not doing much and you’re sleeping too much
0:20:42 and you’re just on social media every night.
0:20:44 Like you’re just gonna get in a rut and feel stuck
0:20:47 and spiral and watch news all day.
0:20:50 And then the other side of it is if you’re constantly working
0:20:52 and you’re just gonna feel like
0:20:54 you’re never gonna get ahead.
0:20:56 So I think there’s always gonna be that balance.
0:20:59 And I also think for me, just like with training,
0:21:01 it’s periodization.
0:21:03 And I’m a huge believer in micro dosing
0:21:06 and doing a little bit every single day
0:21:07 versus like, oh, we’re gonna work five days
0:21:09 and have two days off, but Sunday,
0:21:11 you’re stressed out thinking, you know,
0:21:12 the Sunday is scary as you’re thinking
0:21:13 about the week ahead.
0:21:17 So like, why not spend an hour on Saturday and Sunday?
0:21:19 If you can, before your kids wake up,
0:21:22 just do a little bit every day.
0:21:23 And same thing with Friday.
0:21:25 Like you shouldn’t have to work past noon
0:21:27 if just because it’s Friday
0:21:30 and you’re supposed to work till five is ass backwards.
0:21:32 – Yeah, this is maybe the key to it.
0:21:34 Being proactive about it,
0:21:37 no matter what your starting position is
0:21:38 and being consistent with it.
0:21:40 There’s nobody else is gonna do it for you.
0:21:42 And if you don’t put in the effort consistently
0:21:46 like that passive income is never gonna come down the road.
0:21:49 So even if it’s just a half an hour a day, an hour a day,
0:21:52 like if you can carve out a little bit of time
0:21:53 for these pursuits,
0:21:56 your effort starts to compound and accelerate
0:21:58 and you start to learn more and build your skills.
0:22:00 But then you start hopefully with that little sliver
0:22:01 on the pie chart.
0:22:04 And hopefully it starts to expand and expand
0:22:06 as you move forward with it.
0:22:09 And that’s kind of how I thought about
0:22:10 even when I was working full time.
0:22:13 Like, okay, so I’m gonna spend my evening and weekends
0:22:15 like trying to build up the passive income
0:22:17 so I could scale back the active income.
0:22:19 We’ve heard from other podcast guests too
0:22:21 where they, I went from working five days a week
0:22:23 to four days a week to three days a week.
0:22:26 Like as it started to grow and grow,
0:22:27 that was a byproduct of that,
0:22:30 being proactive about it and being consistent with it.
0:22:33 So that’s our active versus passive income debate.
0:22:35 I love this topic.
0:22:36 We’ll geek out about it all day with anybody.
0:22:38 So that’s round one.
0:22:41 Round two is donate a business idea.
0:22:44 We’ll be right back with that after a word from our sponsors.
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0:23:54 All right, we’re back with Mike, Mr. Passive,
0:23:58 and we’ve got Donate a Business Idea for Round Two.
0:24:00 This is something that you’d start
0:24:01 if you just had more bandwidth.
0:24:04 This is something that you think listeners could run with.
0:24:06 This is something that auto-exists in the world.
0:24:07 It’s pretty open-ended,
0:24:09 but I’ll tee it up for you with that.
0:24:12 – What’s where everything’s going with AI?
0:24:13 I think there’s something there
0:24:16 with almost like an AI assistant
0:24:21 that organizes things for you in a more tailored way.
0:24:25 And what I mean by that is you think of the AI for Siri,
0:24:30 where it’s like, okay, a vendingpreneur yesterday asked me,
0:24:33 hey, do you have an example statement of work
0:24:36 for a property contract?
0:24:37 On your phone, you could just be like,
0:24:40 hey, chat GPT, create a statement of work.
0:24:43 I’m a vending provider, send to Thomas,
0:24:45 and off it, and it’s out.
0:24:50 Or the whole idea of a grocery’s folder,
0:24:52 and you think of something you need to get
0:24:55 on your grocery run that’s three days away,
0:24:57 and you just want to add it to the list.
0:25:00 Or AI assistant, find the cheapest flights
0:25:04 for this upcoming trip, or what have you.
0:25:06 I just think there’s something there
0:25:09 between the intent of Siri combined
0:25:11 with a chat GPT or a Gemini
0:25:16 that will really streamline efficiency into buckets
0:25:18 that will help you get things done
0:25:20 the way that you could get them done.
0:25:25 – Okay, so thinking of an assistant chatbot type of product,
0:25:27 maybe niched down in the travel niche,
0:25:29 or the meal planning niche.
0:25:31 Like we add this to the grocery list,
0:25:33 or even better, add it to the grocery list
0:25:37 that on Saturday is going to trigger the Instacart order,
0:25:40 or something where it’s like, becomes more automated.
0:25:41 Am I hearing that right?
0:25:46 – Yeah, and also just kind of taking the Siri concept
0:25:47 to the next level.
0:25:49 Like, hey, reach out to Nick
0:25:52 and schedule this podcast episode on Friday
0:25:55 with what works with my Google calendar.
0:25:58 – Okay, there’s gotta be a way,
0:26:00 and probably there’s some like no code entrepreneurs
0:26:02 or even smarter people who will be like,
0:26:03 you do that already exists,
0:26:05 or I could build that in half a day.
0:26:06 And so maybe–
0:26:07 – 100%.
0:26:08 – Yeah, maybe there’s something to that.
0:26:11 One that always has been challenging for us
0:26:12 is the travel side.
0:26:14 And it’s like, I mean, you gotta churn through
0:26:17 a lot of different data on flights and times
0:26:19 and rates and routes to do that.
0:26:21 But one of the challenges for us,
0:26:23 like trying to plan annual friends giving is like,
0:26:25 well, do we go there?
0:26:26 Did they come here?
0:26:27 Do we meet somewhere in the middle?
0:26:28 What’s the best option?
0:26:29 Well, do they fly out of Detroit?
0:26:30 Do they fly out of Toronto?
0:26:32 Like, do we fly out of Vancouver?
0:26:33 Like, it’s not a Canadian holiday.
0:26:36 It’s like half off if you just drive for a couple of hours.
0:26:39 So it’s these weird, different variations
0:26:41 that are really tedious.
0:26:43 But it’s like, oh, I mean, maybe there’s a computer element
0:26:46 that can take some of that time-searching burden
0:26:46 off our plates.
0:26:49 – Oh, and take that a step further with like kids.
0:26:52 Like think about going into summer camps
0:26:54 and how you always wanna book a summer camp,
0:26:56 but you’re always too late and it’s already filled up.
0:26:59 And it’s like, now we’re already mapping out
0:27:03 camps for the fall or fishing whatever
0:27:05 on Saturday mornings or soccer on Sunday.
0:27:10 Like that whole layer of I live in Portland, Oregon,
0:27:14 find me all kids’ camps this fall
0:27:16 that are on Saturday mornings
0:27:19 that are still open for registration.
0:27:20 – Right, that are still open.
0:27:21 That’s the key.
0:27:22 – Yeah.
0:27:23 – That was literally a business.
0:27:25 We did like a business idea giveaway show
0:27:26 probably a year ago.
0:27:28 And that was literally one that came up.
0:27:31 It’s like the kid camp summer database.
0:27:32 Maybe they have affiliate programs.
0:27:33 Maybe they don’t.
0:27:35 But like either way, it would be super valuable
0:27:36 for parents to be like,
0:27:38 well, when does registration open for this?
0:27:39 How much does it cost?
0:27:40 Like what are the times?
0:27:43 So many of them are like nine to 1230 or something.
0:27:46 Well, I was really hoping for a little bit more coverage
0:27:47 than that, but maybe you could filter by that.
0:27:49 Like, yeah, there’s definitely something
0:27:52 if you were a data scraper or data aggregator type of person.
0:27:54 – Well, and then take a step further,
0:27:55 you look at the events on Google.
0:27:59 So you can go to what are the fourth to July events
0:28:00 in Seattle?
0:28:02 Well, then you tie that in with Gemini,
0:28:04 their AI kind of bot.
0:28:08 And it’s like, okay, what are their camps in Seattle
0:28:13 for kids under four that are open for the fall?
0:28:16 And then if the camp’s 50 bucks,
0:28:18 I would gladly pay an extra 10 bucks
0:28:21 just because I didn’t have to spend an hour on Google
0:28:25 seeing all these camp timelines are already full.
0:28:26 – Yeah, yeah, just book it for me.
0:28:29 That’s like the next stage of what do they call
0:28:31 a generative AI or something.
0:28:33 Like not just giving you answers,
0:28:35 but actually doing the thing, doing the task.
0:28:39 So it’s a brave new world out there.
0:28:41 I’m playing around with some more AI stuff every week.
0:28:45 It’s fascinating what it can do.
0:28:45 Well, very good.
0:28:48 We’ll put that down as the donate a business idea,
0:28:51 some sort of niche AI assistant,
0:28:53 maybe built with some no-code tools.
0:28:54 Bubble is a great one.
0:28:56 People are building their own GPTs.
0:28:59 One thing that has kind of been on the wish list
0:29:00 or to-do list.
0:29:04 You could feed in a decade plus of podcast transcripts
0:29:08 of blog content and create the side isolation GPT
0:29:10 just for Q and A or customer support.
0:29:11 Like how would you answer this question?
0:29:12 Like, well, it’s probably been answered
0:29:14 at some point in the archives.
0:29:17 And so there may be maybe that coming down the future.
0:29:20 It’s not at the top of the to-do list, but it’s on there.
0:29:22 – Yeah, I mean, think about how many people you’ve interviewed
0:29:24 and you’ve basically been asking questions
0:29:27 to figure out the ideal customer profile.
0:29:30 Like the questions you asked about,
0:29:32 “Okay, you want to start with vending
0:29:34 “and how much capital do you need?”
0:29:37 Like if I went into your website and I was like,
0:29:39 “Okay, I’m a 22 year old.
0:29:41 “I don’t have much capital
0:29:43 “or I want something that’s tax depreciable
0:29:45 “because my W2 is too high.”
0:29:48 And it’ll be like, “Okay, scooter rentals,
0:29:50 “vending machines and car washes
0:29:53 “are the top three that fit your persona.”
0:29:55 And then go reach out to these people.
0:29:58 Like there’s so much leverage in that content.
0:30:01 I mean, however many episodes you’ve had.
0:30:01 – Yeah.
0:30:04 – You’re basically a passive income.
0:30:05 I don’t want to say middleman, but record.
0:30:06 – Library, yeah.
0:30:07 – Yeah.
0:30:09 – Dude, that’s really cool.
0:30:10 Like some sort of personalized.
0:30:12 We attempt to do this a little bit
0:30:13 with like the quiz that’s on the homepage.
0:30:15 Like, “Hey, answer a few questions.”
0:30:17 And we’ll try and point you in the right direction.
0:30:20 But if it had a little more context,
0:30:22 yeah, maybe there’s something like that
0:30:24 that would be interesting, a little more conversational.
0:30:25 Like here are some business models
0:30:27 that ought to be worth a look here.
0:30:28 So very cool.
0:30:29 That is round two.
0:30:31 Round three is the triple threat.
0:30:33 We’re going to start off with number one here,
0:30:36 a marketing tactic that is working right now
0:30:38 for you or your students.
0:30:40 – A marketing tactic that always works
0:30:42 is anything that’s going to create urgency.
0:30:46 So we’re working on a big lead for a REIT
0:30:48 for our vendingpreneurs.
0:30:49 And I just throughout this,
0:30:52 hey, I’m going to be out in your neck of the woods
0:30:56 on this date and the executive assistant for the CEO.
0:30:59 I was like, hey, yeah, he’s got 20 minutes at this time.
0:31:00 And I just literally said,
0:31:01 I’m going to be out in your neck of the woods
0:31:04 and I don’t make it out your way very often.
0:31:06 And so it just created this urgency
0:31:07 for them to take a meeting.
0:31:10 So I think anything marketing-wise,
0:31:11 that’s going to create urgency.
0:31:13 Like Nick, I know you do a great job
0:31:16 with the whole kind of urgency of listening to your podcast
0:31:18 and just that whole side of it.
0:31:20 So for me, it’s always trying
0:31:22 to create people to take action.
0:31:23 – And then you go book that flight
0:31:25 or were you really going to be out there?
0:31:26 – No, that’s exactly what I did.
0:31:27 Then I went and booked that flight.
0:31:29 I mean, that’s how we broke into the government
0:31:31 was we would reach out to these general officers
0:31:32 at the Pentagon and say like,
0:31:35 hey, I’m going to be out in your neck of the woods
0:31:37 this week or this week.
0:31:38 When can you take a meeting,
0:31:40 send it to a four-star general,
0:31:43 he’d respond and be like Wednesday the 25th at five.
0:31:44 And it’s like, okay,
0:31:46 we better book a flight for that week
0:31:47 ’cause we just locked in a meeting.
0:31:49 And now we have that anchor meeting.
0:31:50 That’s really interesting.
0:31:53 We’ve kind of seen the same thing like in years ago,
0:31:56 hosting side hustle nation meetups.
0:31:59 If there’s no outside force, we could do it anytime, right?
0:32:00 There’s no urgency.
0:32:01 Another friend is coming into town.
0:32:02 Oh, perfect.
0:32:03 Let’s hold the beat up while you’re here.
0:32:04 We’ll hang out.
0:32:05 We’ll invite the other members of the community.
0:32:07 And so there’s something to that.
0:32:09 And then to reverse that and say,
0:32:11 I’m going to be, I’m going to be at town.
0:32:13 I guess only works if you’re willing to jump on that plane
0:32:14 and make it happen.
0:32:16 – Yeah, just the whole whatever that,
0:32:17 it doesn’t even have to be a travel thing.
0:32:19 It could be like a, you know, a vending lead.
0:32:20 I’m trying to close over here.
0:32:22 And it’s just like, hey,
0:32:25 I’m coming to meet with someone next to you
0:32:27 or you around before my meeting.
0:32:29 Whatever that urgency is.
0:32:31 – Yeah, I’m using this with online course sales,
0:32:33 like some sort of bonus that goes away,
0:32:35 some sort of limited time discount.
0:32:37 Used to do it in house painting.
0:32:39 Like, hey, I’ve got an opening in the schedule in two weeks.
0:32:41 I’d love for that spot to be yours.
0:32:43 10% off if you sign on the dotted line.
0:32:46 Some reason for people to take action
0:32:47 where they otherwise wouldn’t.
0:32:49 You’re like, well, nothing bad is going to happen
0:32:51 if I punt this off another week or another two weeks.
0:32:52 So some sort of urgency.
0:32:53 I like that one.
0:32:56 That is the marketing tactic that’s working right now,
0:32:59 creating some sort of urgency for whatever thing it is
0:33:00 that you’re selling.
0:33:05 Number two here is to recommend a new or new to you tool
0:33:06 that you’re living right now.
0:33:11 – What I’ve been using probably recently is more just kind of,
0:33:12 there’s multiple tools out there,
0:33:15 but just like tracking your financial worth,
0:33:17 whether that’s like, I think in power,
0:33:18 there’s a couple of tools out there,
0:33:22 but nowadays just being able to track your net worth
0:33:24 that aligns with your bank accounts for spending,
0:33:28 it aligns with you and your worth of paying down your mortgage,
0:33:30 like all those kinds of things that when we talk about
0:33:32 earlier, living below your means,
0:33:35 you actually can see why with something showing you
0:33:36 a light at the end of the tunnel.
0:33:37 – Yeah, very good.
0:33:40 It’s really similar to somebody else mentioned Monarch,
0:33:41 couple months on the show,
0:33:42 like really similar tool,
0:33:45 like kind of a personal finance dashboard.
0:33:47 You can bring in all your income,
0:33:48 all your expenses, all your assets,
0:33:49 all your different accounts,
0:33:52 like all kind of in this one customizable dashboard.
0:33:55 They were actually a sponsor on the show earlier this year.
0:33:56 And this is really cool.
0:33:59 Like I can log in, see the stuff that’s important to me
0:34:02 and been the beneficiary of the last nine,
0:34:04 12 months of like pretty serious bull market.
0:34:07 So like every time you log in, the number seems to go up.
0:34:08 You’re like, well, that’s, that’s rewarding.
0:34:11 I probably can’t get used to that going on in perpetuity,
0:34:12 but it is a cool tool.
0:34:15 And just to kind of get that snapshot view
0:34:18 of inflows, outflows,
0:34:20 and then the net worth picture is what I’m hearing.
0:34:21 – Absolutely, yeah, that’s been cool.
0:34:22 How about you?
0:34:23 – I knew to me too.
0:34:24 The one I’m playing around with right now
0:34:26 is 11 Labs for voiceover
0:34:31 and trying to create a clone of my own voice
0:34:33 to produce more YouTube videos,
0:34:37 to ultimately compliment the huge archive
0:34:39 of written content on the site,
0:34:40 where it’s like, oh, I would love to have a video
0:34:41 to compliment this,
0:34:46 but I’m 100% the bottleneck in scripting and recording.
0:34:49 And that’s not worth bothering the editor over
0:34:51 for a 10 minute little clip.
0:34:52 And so he was like, okay,
0:34:56 can we streamline this process with a voiceover artist
0:34:58 that never screws up, that never screws up the sentence,
0:35:00 that never has to do a retake,
0:35:03 but I haven’t got any results from that yet.
0:35:05 The couple that I’ve tested previously
0:35:07 didn’t sound quite right
0:35:09 where they would mispronounce words
0:35:13 or they would say things with all weird cadence
0:35:14 or without any cadence.
0:35:15 It sounds like super robotic.
0:35:18 So these samples on 11 Labs are really promising.
0:35:19 So we’ll see what happens there.
0:35:20 – I love it.
0:35:21 I won’t even know if it’s you
0:35:24 or if it’s an actual, yeah, this will be interesting.
0:35:25 – That’s the end goal.
0:35:28 Like to make something that sounds legit,
0:35:30 like that sounds like somebody could have spoken it.
0:35:31 – Yeah, I’m trying to make it passive.
0:35:32 I love it.
0:35:34 – Yeah, how do we, how do we be more passive?
0:35:36 I will say the YouTube style,
0:35:37 I can make like 500 bucks a month,
0:35:39 like from my YouTube channel.
0:35:41 It is like the most favorite income that I get
0:35:44 ’cause it feels like totally free money from the internet.
0:35:46 Sometimes from videos we made years ago
0:35:47 that still rack up views,
0:35:50 it’s still get, you know, planting little money seeds
0:35:52 is kind of how I consider it.
0:35:54 And whether it’s a blog post,
0:35:55 whether it’s a YouTube video,
0:35:58 whether it’s a podcast from six, seven years ago,
0:35:59 it’s like a little digital asset
0:36:01 going out into the world to do your bidding.
0:36:03 And if you’re kind of in this,
0:36:04 well, yeah, sure, I’m living comfortably.
0:36:06 I’m game to chase some of this passive income
0:36:07 that we’ve been talking about.
0:36:09 Go plant some of those money seeds.
0:36:10 Maybe it’s a self-published book.
0:36:13 Maybe it’s a printable file that you’re trying to sell on Etsy.
0:36:15 Maybe it’s a print on demand t-shirt design.
0:36:17 Like there’s lots of different ways
0:36:18 and lots of different platforms
0:36:21 to start to mess around and play with that stuff.
0:36:23 But that’s kind of how I’m looking at YouTube
0:36:26 and trying to build up that presence over there.
0:36:29 But that’s the second part of the triple threat, the tool.
0:36:31 So Mike mentioned Empower.
0:36:35 Monarch is the one-time sponsor of the podcast
0:36:37 that is kind of in a similar space.
0:36:39 So we’ll link that up as well.
0:36:42 And your favorite book from the last 12 months.
0:36:43 – I think I got to go with the book
0:36:47 that really ties into the active versus passive income theme.
0:36:50 And that’s “Buy Back Your Time” by Dan Martell.
0:36:52 I think that’s a really good book
0:36:55 that when vendingpreneurs sign up for our community,
0:36:57 vending’s not passive right out of the gates.
0:37:01 But when you start to actually quantify
0:37:03 high-leveraged tasks in your life
0:37:05 and do self-reflection on,
0:37:07 should I be stocking a vending machine
0:37:09 or should I be going to close the owner
0:37:11 of 20 more properties that really–
0:37:13 – Yeah, to get the next locations lined up, yeah.
0:37:15 – Exactly, those locations
0:37:17 are worth a couple thousand bucks a month.
0:37:20 So those machines, you can hire someone for 20 bucks an hour.
0:37:21 So it just forces you to really go
0:37:23 through a self-evaluation reflection
0:37:27 on getting the time that’s most meaningful for you.
0:37:29 And it’s such an easy read
0:37:30 and it’s definitely a book I recommend.
0:37:33 – Yeah, a couple thousand bucks a month per location
0:37:36 plus the equity, the multiple that that would be worth
0:37:39 to go and sell the route, like hugely more leveraged
0:37:42 than going and piling more Snickers bars
0:37:43 into the back of the machine.
0:37:44 – 100%.
0:37:47 – All right, “Buy Back Your Time” by Dan Martell.
0:37:50 We’ll link that one up, have not read that one myself,
0:37:52 but I’m looking forward to checking it out
0:37:55 and kind of lean into this elimination automation
0:37:56 delegation framework of like,
0:37:58 do I really need to be doing that?
0:38:00 So again, buy back your time.
0:38:05 Mike is Mr. Passive_on_X, you can learn more about him
0:38:09 and the vendingpreneur program at vendingpreneurs.com
0:38:12 where side hustle show listeners graciously get 10% off.
0:38:13 Thank you, Mike, for that.
0:38:15 If you missed our earlier episode
0:38:17 on how to start a vending machine route of your own,
0:38:19 make sure to check that out.
0:38:23 Number 599 of the side hustle show in your podcast app.
0:38:25 Big thanks to Mike for stopping by again,
0:38:28 sharing his insight, big thanks to our sponsors
0:38:30 for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:38:34 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
0:38:37 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:38:39 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:38:40 that support the show.
0:38:41 That is it for me.
0:38:43 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:38:45 If you find an value in the show,
0:38:47 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:38:49 So fire off that text message,
0:38:51 let them know about this conversation.
0:38:53 And until next time, let’s go out there
0:38:54 and make something happen
0:38:56 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:38:57 of the side hustle show.
0:38:58 Hustle on.

0:00:06 $1,000 per month per client while starting a niche virtual assistant service might be
0:00:10 the fastest way to get to your extra income goals.
0:00:11 What’s up?
0:00:12 What’s up?
0:00:13 Nick Loper here.
0:00:14 Welcome to The Silent Hustle Show.
0:00:17 We’re part of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, and if you are looking for realistic ways to
0:00:20 make extra money, you’re in the right place.
0:00:23 There’s a lot of talk about thousand true fans.
0:00:27 It’s this classic essay by Kevin Kelly that argues you don’t need millions of followers
0:00:31 to make a living online, they just need a thousand true fans.
0:00:36 These are the people who support your work year in, year out, but it can take some time
0:00:37 to build up that fan base.
0:00:43 So today, I want to contrast a thousand true fans with the idea of 10 true clients.
0:00:48 This is something I picked up from the Tropical MBA podcast years ago, 10 True Clients, or
0:00:51 maybe even starting with one true client at $1,000 a month.
0:00:55 Today’s guest did just that, did it in a really unique niche.
0:01:00 He had a bit of background in trucking, so he started a virtual dispatch service, serving
0:01:04 drivers all around the country from LearnDispatch.com.
0:01:07 Roman Shmunjak, welcome to The Silent Hustle Show.
0:01:08 Hello, Nick.
0:01:10 Thank you for having me on the podcast.
0:01:11 You bet.
0:01:12 Stick around in this one.
0:01:16 We’re learning how you might come up with your unique service idea, how to connect with
0:01:19 potential customers, how to find those first true clients, right?
0:01:24 And how you might be able to scale your operation beyond hours for dollars.
0:01:29 The free listener only bonus for this week is my big list of 101 service business ideas
0:01:32 that you might be able to apply some of Roman’s tactics to.
0:01:37 That’s at sidehustlenation.com/roman, or just follow the show notes link in the episode
0:01:40 description, and it’ll get you right over there.
0:01:44 So Roman, you came at it from a unique angle with a background in trucking, having owned
0:01:46 some semi-trucks yourself.
0:01:51 But there’s this, I made it moment, this moment of, “Yeah, look, I always dreamed of working
0:01:52 remotely.”
0:01:53 And there you are.
0:01:56 It’s a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean.
0:01:58 And there’s this realization, “Hey, I’m serving clients in the US.
0:02:02 I’m living the Nomad lifestyle, working remotely.
0:02:04 Talk to me about what it took to get there.”
0:02:05 Absolutely.
0:02:10 Well, obviously, when I was getting into the trucking industry, I had no idea that it would
0:02:15 lead to a realization of my dream of remote work.
0:02:22 Around 2010, I had an opportunity to purchase some semi-trucks, and I was learning about
0:02:23 the industry.
0:02:30 It was very interesting business, especially for me, someone who is coming from a background
0:02:32 in real estate sales.
0:02:36 But I learned, as problems were coming at me.
0:02:40 But one of the most important things for trucking company, in order to make money, you have
0:02:44 to make sure that your trucks are constantly moving, because a sitting truck–
0:02:47 Yeah, if you’re not on the road, it’s similar to an airplane, right?
0:02:49 If it’s not in the air, it’s not making money.
0:02:50 Exactly.
0:02:51 It’s even worse.
0:02:53 You have to make money, because you have to pay for the equipment.
0:02:55 You have to pay for fuel.
0:02:56 You have to pay insurance.
0:02:57 You have to pay driver.
0:02:59 You are paying for all kind of permits.
0:03:03 So a sitting truck, not only not making your money, it is losing your money.
0:03:07 So it has to move all the time.
0:03:12 And that is one of the primary challenges of a trucking company owner, is to move all
0:03:13 the trucks.
0:03:17 We did an episode on trucking, and that was like, “Okay, go buy this used freight liner.”
0:03:18 She called it a freight shaker.
0:03:22 See if you can find one used for $35,000 to $45,000.
0:03:23 And then, “Oh, great.”
0:03:26 Then you book it up for $1,000 a week, and you’re like, “Okay, I’m listening.
0:03:28 That sounds like a great ROI.”
0:03:32 But it’s like that question mark in the middle of how to fill that up, and that’s maybe where
0:03:33 the dispatch part comes in.
0:03:37 I got to play matchmaker between people who need stuff shipped, and then the trucking
0:03:40 supply and the trucker is to actually do the moving.
0:03:41 That is correct.
0:03:46 With trucking companies, in most cases, either the owner will be taking care of finding freight,
0:03:53 trucking business for his company, or they will need to hire someone to do it for them.
0:04:00 And in my case, again, I have discovered, as I was trying to expand my trucking business,
0:04:06 we were advertising, looking for owner operators, other truckers with their own trucks and trailers
0:04:09 to come on board and join our company.
0:04:17 I’ve learned that a lot of them did not necessarily care about running under our license or using
0:04:18 our insurance.
0:04:23 What they did care about is having consistent freight for their truck.
0:04:25 That was their main pain point.
0:04:30 With some of them, we did start working where basically we would make a deal, “Look, you
0:04:32 can operate your trucking company in any way you want.
0:04:36 We will just help you secure the cargo.
0:04:40 We will keep your truck busy and you will pay us a percentage of your gross revenue
0:04:44 or a flat fee, depending on how we set up the agreement.”
0:04:45 Okay.
0:04:46 Interesting.
0:04:49 So it was almost by accident where it’s like, “Well, that wasn’t the initial intent.
0:04:54 The intent was to find other owner operators to kind of expand our fleet, basically.
0:04:59 But then the pain point, the entrepreneurial spidey sense starts tingling and say, “Well,
0:05:00 everybody’s complaining about this one thing.
0:05:01 How do I find enough freight?”
0:05:03 So you’re like, “Oh, shoot.
0:05:06 Maybe if I could solve that pain point, it’s another side hustle opportunity, another business
0:05:07 opportunity.”
0:05:08 Yeah, absolutely.
0:05:14 It was exactly a side hassle because I would just do it kind of in parallel with finding
0:05:15 freight for my trucks.
0:05:18 I would just look for freight for some other trucks as well.
0:05:21 And I did not think too much of it initially.
0:05:29 But as I gained more clients and kind of analyzed the whole situation, I just saw how great
0:05:33 this business model is versus trucking because with trucking, you have to purchase equipment
0:05:35 which costs a lot of money.
0:05:36 You have to hire drivers.
0:05:40 You have to find the right kind of drivers because otherwise they will destroy your trucks
0:05:42 and your business.
0:05:43 You have to go through safety audits.
0:05:49 Again, it’s a very cash-intensive business because you have to buy a lot of fuel.
0:05:52 You have to turn invoices.
0:05:59 And here all I need is really a computer, phone line, and reliable internet connection.
0:06:00 Nothing else.
0:06:02 I don’t have to buy anything.
0:06:05 I do not necessarily need to hire anyone.
0:06:10 My job is just provide this service, make sure that clients are happy, and receive the
0:06:11 money.
0:06:15 And as you already mentioned, suddenly I realize that this can be done from anywhere.
0:06:19 I can be in the US or I can be in Mexico or I can be in Europe.
0:06:23 It doesn’t matter as long as I have reliable internet connection.
0:06:25 I can do my job.
0:06:26 That’s interesting.
0:06:30 It reminds me of– I mean, trucking has been around for ages, so I don’t know if I would
0:06:35 consider it a gold rush, but it reminds me of a selling shovels into the gold rush mentality
0:06:41 rather than being the miner in this case, buying all those expensive equipment and licenses
0:06:42 and dealing with that.
0:06:46 It’s like, okay, what’s the picks and shovels or what’s the service that I could sell into
0:06:48 that industry?
0:06:51 And it came up with this patch thing.
0:06:54 To bring it a little bit broader, it might not be trucking, in your case.
0:06:58 But you might have a front row seat to whatever industry you’re involved with and saying,
0:06:59 “Well, what are the common pain points here?”
0:07:01 Like, you start to pay attention to those things.
0:07:06 What comes up over and over again, and that’s how I’ve come up with different product ideas,
0:07:10 different episode ideas, content ideas, and it can be the same thing in your case.
0:07:13 Just keep those ears to the ground and see what people are talking about.
0:07:17 So it starts out with looking for other owner operators to join the fleet, and then they
0:07:18 sign on.
0:07:22 I’m not super interested in that, but if you can help us fill our trucks with this freight
0:07:24 stuff, so what happens there?
0:07:26 How do you even go about doing that?
0:07:30 If that’s a pain point for them, what makes it easy for you, or is it easy to do?
0:07:34 Most of our clients are small trucking companies.
0:07:39 Sometimes it’s just an individual, a truck driver, who owns one truck.
0:07:42 He’s spending most of his time driving this truck.
0:07:49 He does not have the time to sit in front of the screen looking at various load options,
0:07:50 making phone calls.
0:07:55 And then once the load is booked, some paperwork has to be completed, so it’s not very convenient
0:08:02 to complete paperwork while driving an 80,000-pound machine down the highway.
0:08:06 For this type of client, it is essential that there’s somebody else who provides this back
0:08:10 office support and takes care of their business.
0:08:11 Okay.
0:08:16 And then for you, there’s freight marketplaces, there’s relationships with distributors.
0:08:22 How do you go about playing that middleman, especially if people are all over the country?
0:08:26 Knowing nothing about the trucking industry, it sounds kind of daunting to try and shoot.
0:08:27 Yeah, I can play matchmaker for you.
0:08:29 I can find you stuff to ship.
0:08:30 Absolutely.
0:08:36 Well, there are many electronic marketplaces called load boards where shippers and freight
0:08:40 brokers post freight that needs to be shipped.
0:08:42 And they basically work kind of like a search engine.
0:08:47 You can set up the origin location of your truck.
0:08:52 You can set up a destination if you want this truck to head in a particular direction, and
0:08:55 it will show you available load options.
0:09:00 Now your job, again, is to call, learn more about this option, get all the details such
0:09:05 as commodity weight and how much this shipper is willing to pay for the load.
0:09:11 And if it is matching criteria of your client, then all you have to do is book it and complete
0:09:14 all the paperwork related to the load.
0:09:15 Okay.
0:09:17 So they say, I want to stay within a 1,000 mile radius.
0:09:21 I want to be home by Fridays, kind of like that type of criteria.
0:09:22 Yeah, absolutely.
0:09:23 So I’ll give you two scenarios.
0:09:29 So you may have a trucker who will start his work week on Monday in Atlanta, and he may
0:09:32 say, look, Roman would like to leave on Monday.
0:09:33 I don’t care where I go.
0:09:35 I want to run all week.
0:09:37 I want to come back on Friday.
0:09:42 So then we’re going to set up as his original location being Atlanta, Georgia.
0:09:46 We’ll give it certain radius where he’s willing to travel to pick up the load, and we’ll look
0:09:49 at all kinds of available options.
0:09:52 Then let’s say coming Thursday, wherever he is, we’re going to be looking a lot for a
0:09:58 load that would be heading back toward Atlanta, Georgia, so he can come back home and spend
0:10:00 a weekend at home, and then restart following Monday.
0:10:01 Okay.
0:10:07 Yeah, it’s just a remote admin assistant in a very specific role, a very specific industry.
0:10:08 Absolutely.
0:10:09 It’s quite simple.
0:10:13 We’ve got a lot of our students in our online school, they concentrate a lot.
0:10:18 They say, I want to learn the load boards or the software, and I tell them that those
0:10:20 functions are very basic.
0:10:21 This is not rocket science.
0:10:23 Just about anyone can do it.
0:10:24 You set up.
0:10:28 You just basically search from where you are to where you want to go, and that’s pretty
0:10:29 much it.
0:10:31 And is it typical to charge hourly for that?
0:10:33 Is it on a performance basis?
0:10:37 Like, hey, we booked you $2,000 worth of freight, so we’re going to take a percentage of that.
0:10:39 What’s typical on the pricing side?
0:10:45 The most common is to take a percentage of the gross revenue you book for the trucking
0:10:46 company.
0:10:54 If you book, let’s say, five loads, each paying $1,000, that means you booked $5,000 worth
0:11:01 of loads for the trucking company, and you can charge percentage of this revenue.
0:11:07 The percentage currently range anything from three to eight percent, probably with five
0:11:11 to six percent being right in the middle.
0:11:18 So by booking $5,000 worth of loads for a client, you would make about $250.
0:11:21 Alternatively, you can just charge a flat fee.
0:11:28 Let’s say someone has a specialized type of equipment, and they are in a high-margin,
0:11:35 high-gross niche of trucking industry, they might be grossing $10,000 or $12,000 a week.
0:11:38 So they may not be willing to pay you the percentage.
0:11:41 So in such situation, you can agree on a flat rate.
0:11:46 We can say, okay, we will charge, let’s say, $300 a week flat fee, and we’ll book all
0:11:49 the loads you want for that one truck.
0:11:51 And that’s another model.
0:11:55 There are also some people that just charge a flat fee per load, they’ll say, I charge
0:12:00 $50 or $60 per load I book, regardless of how much it makes.
0:12:05 Gotcha, and then it just becomes a matter of booking consistently, and then growing
0:12:10 the fleet or growing the number of drivers that you’re working with.
0:12:14 Is that kind of where the marketing would start if I wanted to get in with this, just
0:12:16 connecting with owner operators?
0:12:17 Yeah, absolutely.
0:12:20 Marketing is the most important thing.
0:12:24 This is what I see a lot again with aspiring dispatchers.
0:12:28 They believe that once they learn dispatching, they are all set.
0:12:34 And dispatching is not difficult, but just learning a skill does not make you an entrepreneur.
0:12:37 Truck dispatching is just like any other business.
0:12:42 You have to market it, you have to convert your clients.
0:12:47 That will basically propel you to success, depending on your skill set and your knowledge,
0:12:50 you can implement different strategies to acquire clients.
0:12:55 And I can go in greater detail on that if you would like to hear.
0:12:59 Start with Roman in just a moment, including those specific marketing strategies and how
0:13:06 many clients it took before he took this side hustle full time, right after this.
0:13:09 That’s the sound of another sale on your online Shopify store.
0:13:13 But did you know Shopify powers in person selling too?
0:13:14 It’s true.
0:13:20 Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere, online, in store, on social media, and beyond.
0:13:23 Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store.
0:13:28 That means you can accept payments, manage inventory, and track every sale across your
0:13:29 business in one place.
0:13:33 With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that helps you drive store traffic
0:13:38 with plug-and-play tools built for marketing campaigns from TikTok to Instagram and beyond.
0:13:43 You can take payments by smartphone, transform your tablet into a point of sale system, or
0:13:47 use Shopify’s POS Go mobile device for a battle-tested solution.
0:13:52 Plus, Shopify’s award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the
0:13:53 way.
0:13:55 You can also do retail right with Shopify.
0:14:01 Go ahead, sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/SideHustle.
0:14:02 That’s all lowercase.
0:14:10 Go to Shopify.com/SideHustle to take your retail business to the next level today, Shopify.com/SideHustle.
0:14:11 Yeah.
0:14:14 Do you have an example or two?
0:14:17 I’m imagining taking flyers down to the truck stop.
0:14:21 That’s a few exits down the highway from us, but there may be a more efficient way.
0:14:24 Don’t you see effective for connecting with those drivers?
0:14:30 It’s funny because I hear the story about flyers quite often, and no, I probably would
0:14:34 not find that to be the most efficient or effective strategy.
0:14:35 Here’s why.
0:14:40 If you go to the truck stop and leave flyers there, someone may see it.
0:14:45 The question is, does this person need your service at this particular moment?
0:14:50 If they don’t, they will pay no attention to it, just like with the social media.
0:14:53 A lot of people say, “Should I advertise on social media?”
0:14:54 Yes, you can.
0:15:00 You can basically put your ad in front of a target group, which would be, let’s say,
0:15:02 interested in the trucking industry.
0:15:07 The problem is they may not be in need of your service at this particular moment.
0:15:11 Will they remember you two months later when they need you?
0:15:13 Maybe, maybe not.
0:15:18 The most effective way, when you need something and you need it now, what are you going to
0:15:19 do?
0:15:25 Well, most of us will go to Google and just go into Google, in our case, truck dispatching
0:15:31 service or truck dispatching service in Atlanta, because you will not do such search for fun.
0:15:35 You’re doing it because you need this service and you need it at this moment.
0:15:42 Really, I know it’s online advertisement basics, but just Google ads, they do the magic.
0:15:48 As long as you have a good-looking website, which looks attractive to your potential clients,
0:15:52 you can easily drive traffic to the website, and then you will be receiving emails, phone
0:15:55 calls, and you just have to convert.
0:15:56 Got it.
0:16:01 I’ve got to imagine if somebody is Googling truck dispatching service, they’re probably
0:16:05 seeing the ad results, but they’re also seeing organic results from people who’ve been doing
0:16:06 it forever.
0:16:08 There’s probably companies overseas.
0:16:12 How is a new provider competing in that space?
0:16:14 Well, you just mentioned SEO.
0:16:21 Again, if you are trying to target some specific keyword, let’s say, truck dispatching service
0:16:26 in a particular area, some trucking companies prefer to work with people locally, so they
0:16:32 will look for someone who is close by, and the keyword difficulty may not be that high,
0:16:34 so there might be some opportunities.
0:16:39 However, with Google ads, yes, you will be competing against other people, but as you
0:16:43 know, Google will just serve up a certain number of options.
0:16:49 Here what is important is to have the right kind of website, okay, with the right kind
0:16:50 of content.
0:16:52 You have to differentiate yourself.
0:16:57 You basically have to explain to people why they should work with you.
0:17:02 If you intend to work on your own, let’s say you’re not hiring a team, you’re not a team.
0:17:06 Very often it’s good to just make a website about yourself.
0:17:13 Just tell them who you are, because a lot of truck drivers, they like to work with this
0:17:15 one individual, okay?
0:17:17 You’re kind of building a relationship there.
0:17:24 They don’t want the big, huge company where you have 20 dispatchers, and every time someone
0:17:26 picks up the phone, they don’t know who that is.
0:17:29 They want this personalized approach.
0:17:36 So if you are just a guy or just a girl and you are planning on doing it on your own,
0:17:37 tell them about it.
0:17:39 Tell them, “Look, here I am.
0:17:41 My name is Joe.”
0:17:43 And anytime you call, I will answer your call.
0:17:47 If there’s going to be a problem, I will be solving your problem.
0:17:52 So this kind of differentiates you from all the other companies that are out there.
0:17:57 And if trucker likes what they see on your website, they will make that phone call.
0:17:58 They will send you an email.
0:18:01 Yeah, I think that’s true of really any solo service provider.
0:18:07 It’s like, “Why are you versus some random person on Fiverr or wherever else?”
0:18:09 If you got somebody through your website, you did a lot of things right to even get
0:18:10 to that point.
0:18:16 And now, if you can showcase your unique value proposition, I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:18:22 What did it take for you in terms of client volume or dispatch volume before you’re like,
0:18:23 “Forget it.
0:18:24 Forget it with these trucks.
0:18:25 I’m going all in.
0:18:26 I’m selling the assets.
0:18:27 I’m selling the trucks.
0:18:28 And I’m just going to do this remote dispatch thing.”
0:18:34 In my case, I think somewhere around, once I had about five clients and they were generating
0:18:39 around $5,000 in revenue, at that point, I was like, “Okay, I know I will be making
0:18:47 less money than with a trucking company, but I will also relieve myself of a lot of stress.”
0:18:52 Also, at that time, me and my wife had an idea that we could go and travel.
0:18:56 That would be definitely enough money for us to go abroad.
0:19:02 At that point, I decided to terminate the trucking business and sell off the equipment
0:19:04 and just concentrate on dispatching.
0:19:05 All right.
0:19:06 Five clients, $5,000 a month.
0:19:11 Do you have an estimate of the hourly load trying to get a sense like, “If I want to
0:19:16 go do this, what is it going to take time-wise realistically to do a good job for those customers?”
0:19:20 A lot of this depends on the market conditions.
0:19:25 So for example, if we are working in a good market when there is a lot of freight and
0:19:30 trucks are in demand, it is extremely easy to bookload.
0:19:36 You may start at eight o’clock in the morning and by 10 a.m., everyone is booked.
0:19:38 We can say, “You are done for the day.”
0:19:42 Now, there is little caveat to that.
0:19:44 You are done for the day unless something goes wrong.
0:19:50 If something goes wrong, you may have to go back to your computer and address the situation
0:19:52 that came up.
0:19:55 In a more difficult market, the situation may be different.
0:20:00 You may book some trucks right away, but you may have a truck in some sort of a challenging
0:20:06 area where there is very little freight and you may end up sitting for hours making phone
0:20:10 calls trying to find a suitable option for your client to get them out.
0:20:14 Part of that is like, “Well, if you are parked in the middle of nowhere, part of that is
0:20:18 on you, Mr. Client or Mr. Client, you’ve got to go where the goods are if you want to get
0:20:19 some shipments.”
0:20:23 It is also partially on us because we probably booked that load to go.
0:20:25 Yeah, if they’re out there in the middle of the week.
0:20:28 It just happens that sometimes market conditions change.
0:20:34 You send a truck to one location and you know that historically it’s good, but then something
0:20:38 changes and tomorrow there is just no freight there.
0:20:42 In other instance, just like you said, sometimes you will get a call and your client will tell
0:20:45 you, “Hey, I just booked myself a load to Florida.
0:20:48 It was paying great.”
0:20:52 And you’re just saying, “Well, that’s fantastic, but there is no freight in Florida.
0:20:54 So what are we going to do tomorrow?”
0:20:55 For the return trip.
0:20:56 Okay.
0:21:01 Well, yeah, so and then we have to solve the problem they have created.
0:21:08 This is an interesting logistical puzzle and part of my brain says I like that challenge
0:21:13 and all of these moving chess pieces and trying to make sure everybody is optimally filled
0:21:14 and booked.
0:21:17 And then the other part of me is like, “Dude, that sounds like a lot of moving parts with
0:21:19 a lot of variables.”
0:21:21 It’s not that difficult as it seems.
0:21:27 Once you get the sense for the market and this is unfortunately comes only with experience.
0:21:32 As you do this more, you will know where to go and what to do as you move trucks on the
0:21:33 daily basis.
0:21:38 You have a sense if you are making the right choice or the bad choice.
0:21:44 So the whole process is very simple and it’s pretty easy to learn.
0:21:46 The rest is just gaining experience doing it.
0:21:52 And do some of it become recurring where I’m picturing like a Walmart, they have probably
0:21:56 obviously they have their own fleet and they’re not dealing with independent dispatchers and
0:21:57 stuff.
0:22:02 But like if they know every week this many units of a particular item is likely to sell.
0:22:05 So we’re going to have to restock that and it seems like it might be somewhat predictable
0:22:06 week after week.
0:22:10 Like is there any sense like that where it’s like, “Okay, a certain percentage is going
0:22:14 to be booked with these like easy low hanging fruit recurring type of jobs?”
0:22:18 We need to consider there are actually two markets, two freight markets.
0:22:23 One is considered to be contract market and another one is a spot market.
0:22:28 What we’ve been talking about previously where most independent truck dispatchers work is
0:22:30 a spot market.
0:22:33 That’s someone that needs something moved today or tomorrow.
0:22:34 Okay.
0:22:36 It is not a regular freight.
0:22:41 They just need, I don’t know, a scrapyard needs a load of recycled aluminum.
0:22:42 Okay.
0:22:43 It’s not regular.
0:22:48 They just need one tomorrow and it gets posted on the load board.
0:22:49 Then there is contract freight.
0:22:51 That’s exactly what you just mentioned.
0:22:56 It’s a store that is shipping something or a plant production plant that is shipping
0:22:59 something on a regular basis day by day.
0:23:06 Now, it’s a bit different because in most cases, in order to tap into contract market,
0:23:08 it has to be a larger trucking company.
0:23:09 Okay.
0:23:14 A shipper that has a production plant and sends out a load every day, they need to make
0:23:18 sure that that load is going out every single day.
0:23:23 If Joe, the trucker, comes in with one truck, they will never give him a contract because
0:23:27 if his truck breaks down, they will not be able to ship out what they need to ship and
0:23:30 they may have all kinds of problems.
0:23:35 Also with the contract market, it’s usually a bidding system where you have to make a
0:23:38 bid for the lowest possible rate that you’re willing to transport.
0:23:44 So there is the urban myth among truckers that that’s the holy grail is the contract
0:23:48 freight, but they don’t realize that in reality, it is not.
0:23:54 Now, there is also an exception where sometimes these two things, the spot market and contract
0:23:56 market sometimes cross.
0:24:01 For example, I had a client who lived in Charleston, South Carolina.
0:24:07 Every Monday, he would leave Charleston and we would book him a load, go into Arkansas,
0:24:10 and then he would return home for the weekend.
0:24:14 And we would see the same load on the load board going to Arkansas.
0:24:15 We would book it again.
0:24:21 And after, I believe, two or three times this broker told us, look, we have this load every
0:24:22 single Monday.
0:24:24 Do you guys want to do it?
0:24:27 That made our job much easier because they would not even post it.
0:24:32 They would just email us a week before and say, are you guys available on Monday?
0:24:35 I had to do nothing and I get a percentage of that load.
0:24:37 So it was a fantastic deal.
0:24:38 Yeah, for sure.
0:24:40 You mentioned best case scenario.
0:24:42 You’re in and out in a couple of hours.
0:24:43 Everything is easy.
0:24:47 And then you said, except when things go wrong, what are some of those scenarios when you
0:24:50 get pulled back into the fray and you got to put out some fires?
0:24:56 Well, the most common scenario is for load which you have booked to cancel.
0:25:01 You’ll get a phone call an hour later and they will tell you that this load is not going
0:25:02 to be going.
0:25:07 Or even worse, your driver drives somewhere, let’s say for 80 miles, arrives at the shipper
0:25:11 and shipper tells him, well, sorry, the product is not ready today.
0:25:14 It might be ready tomorrow or two days later.
0:25:19 And at this point, you have to start over and try to get some sort of a compensation for
0:25:21 your client for the work they already done.
0:25:25 Yeah, and if you were only going to make 250 bucks on that load and you’re trying to pay
0:25:29 him for fuel and lodging potentially, how does that work?
0:25:33 If load gets canceled, you usually can’t get some sort of a compensation from the freight
0:25:34 broker.
0:25:37 A lot depends again on the situation.
0:25:43 If this driver went somewhere in the morning, spent two hours, didn’t get loaded, you may
0:25:52 get $150 to $250 from the broker for what is called truck order not used, but we still
0:25:54 have time to rebook him on another load.
0:25:56 So it’s not all that bad of a situation.
0:26:01 However, if this is happening, let’s say, in the late afternoon, then driver may lose
0:26:02 entire day of work.
0:26:08 And that is a bad scenario because a few hundred dollars will not compensate.
0:26:12 There are, I could tell some horror stories when, let’s say, driver picks up a load and
0:26:18 supposed to deliver somewhere and we have already another load planned for them, but
0:26:23 receiver decides not to unload them for one reason or another.
0:26:28 And sometimes they may say, well, I’m sorry, there was an appointment which you missed
0:26:31 and next appointment is four days later.
0:26:39 And now your client is getting stuck with cargo in their trailer and he can’t do anything.
0:26:45 And we have to salvage this situation somehow and figure out who made the mistake, why this
0:26:46 situation happened.
0:26:48 Yeah, just moving physical products around.
0:26:53 Like landing at the airport and they’re like, we made it, but there’s no gates open, no
0:26:54 gates available.
0:26:57 So we’re going to park here for a minute while we try and figure this out.
0:26:58 That’s an interesting one.
0:27:02 More with Roman in just a moment, including how he removed himself from the day to day
0:27:08 dispatch work, scaled to 15 to 30 trucks in the new side hustle that created right after
0:27:09 this.
0:27:13 Now, did you go down the path of, hey, I’m working remote, I’m living the dream, I got
0:27:18 my five clients, did you eventually go down the path of trying to scale this up as an
0:27:22 agency and hire subcontract dispatch people?
0:27:24 What was the next stage for you?
0:27:25 Correct.
0:27:30 I don’t think that I initially had a plan of building an agency, but I just wanted to
0:27:37 make my job easier because sometimes some kids would have some sort of events or I wanted
0:27:40 to travel somewhere in an inconvenient time zone.
0:27:46 So what I did initially is I hired a virtual assistant.
0:27:53 The first one was from Philippines, spoke great English, and initially I just trained
0:27:56 him to complete paperwork.
0:28:02 I would make the phone calls as soon as paperwork came in, he would complete everything and
0:28:05 that made my work much more efficient.
0:28:11 Then I decided to also assign duties of making phone calls to the brokers, getting information
0:28:13 and so on and so on.
0:28:19 And then I realized that this person can really replace my duties and then I realized I could
0:28:25 technically scale it to something greater, take on more clients as long as there is staff
0:28:26 to manage them.
0:28:27 Yeah.
0:28:29 Is that what ended up happening?
0:28:30 That’s what ended up happening.
0:28:36 Eventually I moved team to India, I would provide them with the manuals and training
0:28:41 materials so they can learn in theory what needs to be done.
0:28:48 Then we would do some practical exercises and at some point I pretty much stepped away
0:28:52 from making the phone calls and doing the paperwork.
0:28:57 So I would still obviously work on client acquisition and I would work on problem resolution,
0:29:00 but the leg work would be done by hired help.
0:29:01 Okay, that makes sense.
0:29:07 So they’re working on the scheduling, the billing, the paperwork and you turn your attention
0:29:12 to sales and it’s not just the inbound, hey, somebody found our Google listing or somebody
0:29:18 found our ad, is there any outbound of trying to find smaller fleets because it’s like one
0:29:23 to one hand-to-hand combat grassroots gorilla marketing or it’s like, okay, this guy or
0:29:27 this trucking company has like four or five trucks, like, okay, that would be an ideal
0:29:32 client because we could stack on a chunk of revenue all at once versus clawing away one
0:29:33 client at a time.
0:29:35 I don’t know, what’s it look like on that side?
0:29:36 Two things I would mention.
0:29:41 First of all, yeah, you can absolutely target, there are databases of trucking companies
0:29:46 that are available where you can basically target this specific, let’s say trucking companies
0:29:48 that have less than five trucks.
0:29:52 Those are usually your primary clients because anyone who has more than five trucks, they
0:29:57 can hire an in-house dispatcher that’s going to be working exclusively for them and will
0:30:01 be doing whatever they need this dispatcher to do.
0:30:06 So you could get an access to the database and let’s say you could target the specific
0:30:11 area if you want to go locally or you can target what I recommend when we discuss direct
0:30:12 marketing.
0:30:17 I recommend targeting new companies, the ones that just got their license because they’re
0:30:23 new to this business, they don’t have established contacts, they don’t probably freight is their
0:30:27 main concern versus a trucking company that’s been in business for five years.
0:30:31 If they’ve been in business for five years, they already figured out their way of finding
0:30:33 loads.
0:30:36 Just registered last week, they may not.
0:30:39 So it’s a good target to go after.
0:30:46 Now in terms of taking on too many trucks at the same time, it’s a good problem to have
0:30:51 and sometimes I would get a call from someone who’d say I have 20 trucks and we would like
0:30:56 to come on board and I know that it’s probably not realistic.
0:31:03 First of all, it would require four more people to efficiently handle that many trucks.
0:31:04 It would be just a mess.
0:31:08 So usually I would recommend, I would tell them, look, that’s fine.
0:31:13 We can do 20 trucks, but we will take on only three at the beginning.
0:31:14 Let’s get going.
0:31:15 Let’s see how it’s working.
0:31:17 Let’s make sure you like what we do.
0:31:20 Let’s make sure we like how you operate.
0:31:25 And then we’re going to be adding gradually two more trucks, three more trucks.
0:31:31 This way, I can make sure that I provide qualified staff to take care of your business and we’re
0:31:35 not going to have this hectic transition when we’re just suddenly trying to figure out what
0:31:37 to do with 20 trucks tomorrow.
0:31:38 Right.
0:31:44 That’s probably the predicament of any agency business where, yeah, it absolutely can scale,
0:31:49 but it has to scale almost in lockstep with that staff because there’s going to be a certain
0:31:51 number of hours required.
0:31:52 That may be the bottleneck.
0:31:53 That’s not going to change.
0:31:59 So I was like, well, if one person can handle five trucks, the math can still grow, but
0:32:01 it’s going to have to grow in parallel there.
0:32:06 And so that makes it, well, let’s ramp this up slowly, make sure it’s a win for both parties
0:32:12 and then we’ll continue to add on new staff and serve that and go find qualified dispatchers
0:32:16 or train new dispatchers to go and do that work for you.
0:32:19 You’ve shifted a little bit to there’s a great YouTube content, AlphaX Logistics.
0:32:24 You can find tons of video content about learning the dispatch business, learning the logistics
0:32:25 business.
0:32:30 So you made this pivot to the content side, what’s, I mean, this been going on for several
0:32:31 years at least.
0:32:35 So the dispatch side is still running and now as a new side hustle is like the teaching
0:32:36 other people about it.
0:32:37 Yeah, absolutely.
0:32:46 That was again, exactly a side hustle because while I was in Europe, I was thinking about,
0:32:53 okay, well, what else can I do while traveling and again, experiencing this beautiful lifestyle
0:32:59 that I had, I thought, okay, well, I could teach other people how to do this.
0:33:04 And again, I knew absolutely nothing about online education.
0:33:09 It was back 2015, where really it wasn’t a thing.
0:33:16 Now everyone has a course, everyone is teaching about anything, there are tons of platforms.
0:33:21 Back then, as I said, it was as primitive as I was trying to figure out how do I make
0:33:26 videos and upload them to YouTube, but then make sure that nobody can see them unless
0:33:27 they pay for it.
0:33:31 So it was like really, really primitive stage.
0:33:36 The advantage was, as I mentioned, I was training already virtual assistants.
0:33:40 So I had to create the manuals in order to train them.
0:33:41 Oh, dang, that’s genius.
0:33:42 I love that.
0:33:45 That’s a great selling your sawdust example.
0:33:46 That’s fantastic.
0:33:47 Yeah.
0:33:48 Yeah.
0:33:49 So I already had a lot of core material.
0:33:56 Now it was just a matter of converting it into a format that is easy to consume.
0:34:02 Because when idea was born, and I believe in 2016, we launched LearnDispatch.com, and
0:34:08 we put out the first version of our training course, and we’ve been basically working on
0:34:10 it for the last eight years.
0:34:14 We’re always trying to add more information, more content.
0:34:19 One of the main advantages I mentioned before, Nick, that you can learn this skill.
0:34:22 It’s not really that difficult.
0:34:25 What you cannot learn is experience.
0:34:32 And that, we help our students, if they get into a situation where they don’t know what
0:34:39 to do, they can reach out to our support staff and use our experience to solve their problems.
0:34:46 So that, I think, is something that helps people confidently transition into this industry.
0:34:48 Yeah, that’s great.
0:34:50 I didn’t realize I’ve been around for eight years.
0:34:55 I’ve been doing this training for quite a long time, and I love that idea of taking
0:34:56 the training.
0:34:59 Well, we’re doing this internally anyway, but might as well make some of it public-facing
0:35:02 and try and serve a different audience who might want to get into this.
0:35:05 I think that’s a really unique way to do it.
0:35:09 We had a question come through from some listeners, like, “How come every guest has an online
0:35:10 course?”
0:35:15 There’s lots of reasons for that, but it’s just kind of a natural progression if people
0:35:17 are asking questions about how this works.
0:35:22 If you already have the material, “Oh, here’s a cool new revenue stream to go about it.”
0:35:27 What does a day in the life look like today if there is such a thing as a typical Wednesday
0:35:28 for you?
0:35:34 Well, I still have to start around eight o’clock in the morning because my team usually checks
0:35:38 in and gives me an update as to what is going on.
0:35:45 So I have an overview as to which trucks have been booked already, which ones are empty
0:35:47 and need loads.
0:35:53 So basically, I take 15 to 30 minutes to see what’s going on with the dispatching side
0:35:54 of things.
0:35:57 How many trucks are you responsible for on that side?
0:36:02 Well, usually we do between 15 and 30 trucks.
0:36:06 Obviously, I’m not personally responsible for any of them.
0:36:07 It’s the team.
0:36:12 I usually only get involved if there is a problem that requires my attention.
0:36:18 So if the team doesn’t know what to do or how to solve a particular situation, this
0:36:23 is when I have to get on the phone or another scenario is when I get calls from clients
0:36:29 complaining about the team not doing something that they’re supposed to be doing.
0:36:31 Occasionally, I have to- Those are not fun to get.
0:36:32 They’re not fun.
0:36:36 But I realized it’s just part of the process.
0:36:40 People get relaxed sometimes and they forget to do things that they’re supposed to do.
0:36:46 So sometimes you have to give them a little push so they perform as they should.
0:36:50 Then usually after I’m done with that, I go and work out.
0:36:53 That’s essential for me in the mornings.
0:36:59 That’s when I listen to podcasts and generate new ideas.
0:37:03 And once I’m done with that, I go back to my office and then work on creative stuff.
0:37:07 This is when I create new content.
0:37:10 Everything is not the only ventures that I’m involved in.
0:37:17 So there’s quite a few things I have to review, read about, and so on and so on.
0:37:18 That’s cool.
0:37:23 So running in the CEO seat of this agency, like, “Hey, look, I got to have to check in
0:37:27 with the team, do the team management, the client management, the performance training
0:37:29 and evaluation and all that stuff.”
0:37:34 And then take care of yourself and then play in this content creation game.
0:37:37 I think that sounds like a pretty fun operation.
0:37:42 Anything that has really surprised you, either in the logistics side or the content side
0:37:44 over the last 10 years in the game?
0:37:53 My main surprise was that I stumbled into my dream of being able to work remotely.
0:37:55 Again, I did not plan it.
0:37:56 It just happened.
0:37:57 It was education again.
0:38:00 I did not plan to develop this business.
0:38:03 And it just, again, I stumbled into it.
0:38:05 And that was another wonderful surprise.
0:38:07 Well, Roman, this has been awesome.
0:38:08 What’s next for you?
0:38:09 What are you excited about these days?
0:38:10 Where do you want to take it?
0:38:16 Well, right now, we are working, obviously, we continuously working on the content creation
0:38:17 for our online school.
0:38:24 For the dispatching business, we are thinking about concentrating on doing more of a consulting
0:38:30 work for other trucking companies and other potentially dispatching businesses.
0:38:38 We’re developing some tools for our students now that everything goes AI, we’re brainstorming
0:38:44 on how we can bring some helpful tools that would make easier for aspiring dispatchers
0:38:49 to market their business, to organize their business and so on and so on.
0:38:50 Yeah.
0:38:53 I almost didn’t want to bring that up where it’s like, well, how long before you can
0:38:58 plug in that trucker’s criteria and then there’s an AI software that will match them
0:39:02 with the perfect fit load based on that criteria.
0:39:06 It’s like, shoot, if it’s not already in the pipeline, it’s probably coming soon.
0:39:11 I have a video where I talk about future of dispatching in general.
0:39:16 And I do point out that at some point, we’re going to have self-driving trucks and then
0:39:21 it will be certain that the algorithms are going to be picking up the optimal use of
0:39:25 those machines to basically maximize the capacity.
0:39:31 However, until we have people involved, people will be making mistakes, people will be messing
0:39:33 up.
0:39:37 So I think for a foreseeable future, we’re safe.
0:39:40 And I could see self-driving trucks being a thing, but I don’t know if they’re going
0:39:43 to be completely humanless.
0:39:47 As the example is, we’re going up skiing in the winter and the truckers are pulled over
0:39:48 on the side of the road.
0:39:49 They’re putting chains on the track.
0:39:51 I don’t see a robot doing that just yet.
0:39:57 So that’s what happens when the weather turns south and you need some human involvement
0:39:58 for that stuff.
0:39:59 But that’s really interesting.
0:40:02 Yeah, problem resolution, again, you have to get creative.
0:40:04 That’s one thing.
0:40:06 And another thing, there is a human touch.
0:40:12 You need to realize that some of the truckers, I mean, they’re on the road for weeks and
0:40:14 you become their best friend.
0:40:18 You are the person they actually talk to consistently.
0:40:25 So really, the robot probably will not do it even though I do hear about AI France being
0:40:26 out there.
0:40:30 But I think that the human touch is still necessary at the moment.
0:40:31 That makes sense.
0:40:35 Well, you can find Roman at AlphaX Logistics on YouTube.
0:40:41 Check him out over there, learndispatch.com is the home base, learndispatch.com/sidehustle.
0:40:46 If you want to learn more, there is a special discount there for Side Hustle Nation listeners.
0:40:49 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
0:40:54 Well, my number one tip would be to concentrate on marketing.
0:41:00 You can be great at truck dispatching, you can be great at any other business, but unless
0:41:03 you can market your business, you are going to fail.
0:41:10 So by learning marketing and how to sell your products and services, you will open up the
0:41:15 opportunities for success for yourself.
0:41:16 So learn about it.
0:41:21 There’s tons of resources, tons of free resources, many books, many courses.
0:41:23 Don’t be lazy.
0:41:29 Learn how to market and sell your services and you definitely going to succeed in whatever
0:41:30 field you are in.
0:41:31 Yeah, absolutely.
0:41:36 Perry Marshall calls it the tactical triangle of traffic conversion and economics.
0:41:40 Conversion and how much can you sell, how many of your things can you sell, the economics,
0:41:42 well, how much can you charge for that thing.
0:41:44 But the cornerstone piece is that traffic.
0:41:47 Like, you could have the best offer in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you’re
0:41:48 not going to sell anything.
0:41:51 So concentrate on that marketing love, that number one tip.
0:41:55 The line that I wrote down was I stumbled into my dream and it may sound like an accident,
0:42:00 but it was the result of being open to the next thing.
0:42:04 It was the result of listening to the pain points of the owner operators, the drivers
0:42:05 that you’re talking to.
0:42:10 Like, hey, we could really use some help in this area and kind of being open to say, well,
0:42:11 you know what?
0:42:12 I can help solve that problem.
0:42:15 If I may not know how to do it, I can figure that out and that’s kind of being the core
0:42:20 skill of the entrepreneurs, figuring out the next thing and same idea with the content
0:42:24 business, the education business, like being open to that, listening, well, we already
0:42:25 have this material.
0:42:28 How could we repurpose that in a unique way?
0:42:29 So loved it.
0:42:30 Took a ton of notes.
0:42:32 Roman, thanks for joining me.
0:42:33 Everybody tuning in.
0:42:37 Your listener bonus for this week is my big list of 101 service business ideas.
0:42:38 Hey, maybe dispatch isn’t your thing.
0:42:41 That’s totally fine, but there’s lots of other service business ideas.
0:42:45 You might be able to apply some of Roman’s tactics to.
0:42:50 That is at sidehustlenation.com/roman or just follow the show notes link in the episode
0:42:51 description.
0:42:52 It’ll get you right over there.
0:42:54 Big thanks to Roman for sharing his insight.
0:42:57 Thanks to our sponsors for making this content free for everyone.
0:43:02 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:43:03 in one place.
0:43:04 That is it for me.
0:43:06 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:43:10 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen and I’ll catch you in the
0:43:13 next edition of The Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.
0:43:21 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:06 Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle show, greatest hits collection.
0:00:09 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:15 Welcome to the Side Hustle show because building your own income streams, well, that’s the best way to recession-proof your life.
0:00:19 One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem.
0:00:20 Nobody knows you exist.
0:00:25 In this episode, you’ll learn the fast-track strategy to make that problem go away.
0:00:29 How to build your email list quickly and connect with your ideal customers.
0:00:31 Ready? Let’s do it.
0:00:40 I haven’t had and still currently don’t have a big marketing budget for going and getting new clients.
0:00:45 I don’t have thousands of dollars a month to run on ads and hope that it works.
0:00:52 I also didn’t start out knowing a bunch of VP of marketing at big companies or knowing a bunch of founders or anything like that.
0:01:00 You want to find yourself in this situation where you have an expertise and you can actually help a lot of brands but they don’t know you exist.
0:01:10 When going through that process of how do I grow, how do I find places to market that will actually get me real clients that isn’t going to be a waste of time.
0:01:19 This strategy of just getting in front of someone else’s established audience that already has an audience full of people who are potential clients for you.
0:01:23 They have trust built with that other brand you’re partnering with.
0:01:30 You can borrow that trust and get it placed on you when they bring you in to teach a workshop to all their people.
0:01:35 It really helps establish trust with you a lot faster between you and their customers.
0:01:43 That’s Dustin Lean from jumpxmarketing.com, an agency focused on email and SMS or text message marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:01:51 We last heard from Dustin back in 2017 and he was just ramping up jumpx after shutting down his own physical product business.
0:01:58 Since then, he’s grown it into a six-figure operation and he’s built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.
0:02:01 One of his key drivers, partner workshops.
0:02:10 These virtual lunch and learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without advertising, without bidding for work.
0:02:15 This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process.
0:02:20 So you can go out and apply it in your own business to help you keep track of the steps involved.
0:02:25 I put together a free cheat sheet at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:02:34 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and then the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:02:36 Now, back to the interview.
0:02:44 I want to replicate this thing, maybe for whatever freelance service or whatever agency service that I may have.
0:02:49 How did you go about identifying your dream targets?
0:02:53 Was it a dream 100 list? How did you go about saying, “Who should I first reach out to?”
0:02:55 That’s funny you mentioned dream 100 list.
0:02:57 Yeah, that actually is exactly what I did.
0:03:00 But I didn’t quite make it to 100. It’s a lot to find.
0:03:03 I guess backing up, there’s an avatar that has to be established first.
0:03:05 You have to know who you’re actually trying to target.
0:03:10 That’s another reason why I think freelancers or agencies that are niched down,
0:03:15 not necessarily to something so specific that literally no product exists like that.
0:03:27 If you’re trying to go so niche that you’re like, “I’m only going to help e-commerce brands that are selling garbage cans to women that are 54 years old living in Wyoming,”
0:03:29 you’re not going to find any clients. It’s impossible.
0:03:34 But niching down enough to where you can establish yourself as an expert is really useful.
0:03:39 It helps you decide who these other brands and websites that you should partner with
0:03:42 that actually is going to bring you the types of people you want.
0:03:47 And it establishes kind of this trust that you’re not trying to pretend to know everything.
0:03:50 I found myself in that position in the beginning and I kind of just niched down.
0:03:55 And that’s why now it’s e-commerce, e-mail marketing, and SMS marketing.
0:03:59 And it’s specifically for health and wellness brands. That’s all we work with.
0:04:05 And it’s really help close clients easier because when you have those conversations or you’re teaching on a workshop or something,
0:04:09 you know that those people know who you help and who you don’t help.
0:04:15 So the ones that see themselves in the category that’s the exact right fit, they get really excited because they think,
0:04:18 “Oh, that’s me. That’s exactly me.”
0:04:24 And it helps them to trust you over a competitor who’s maybe claiming they can help everyone with everything.
0:04:29 And that makes it, I imagine, an easier pitch. I would love to come and do an educational workshop
0:04:34 on the seven critical elements of a killer e-mail campaign or something like that.
0:04:37 How to grow your e-commerce e-mail list versus like,
0:04:40 “Let’s just have a workshop about broad digital marketing strategies.”
0:04:47 It seems like it’s much more actionable for the audience and for the potential audience conduit
0:04:50 or who might be your influencer that you’re reaching out to.
0:04:55 Dream 100, by the way, this comes from a book called “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Homes.
0:04:58 It’s got a bright red cover. You can’t miss it.
0:05:02 Highly recommended reading. And the Dream 100 is like your dream client list.
0:05:06 Like, who would you love to partner with, work with, connect with in some way?
0:05:10 And then you can kind of start chipping away at that and really focus all your energy on those people
0:05:14 rather than every other client, every other potential connection under the sun
0:05:17 because these are the ones that are really going to make or break your business.
0:05:22 But let’s talk about those. Like, how did you identify those and then we’ll get into kind of the initial outreach?
0:05:26 The first thing is getting really clear on who your customer is.
0:05:30 Really the biggest main question is where are they already hanging out?
0:05:36 Where are they online already? What other brand or website or company has…
0:05:41 Maybe they have a really big budget and they’ve already spent the money to acquire the customers
0:05:44 that you also want to acquire. So maybe it’s a software company.
0:05:47 When you’re filling out that Dream 100 list of who to partner with,
0:05:51 think about who has your exact same target audience but is not a competitor.
0:05:55 And that brings us back to talking about why niching down is important
0:06:01 because in my case, I’m doing email marketing and SMS marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:06:07 Now, I can go to another agency even or someone who’s a blogger with a big audience
0:06:11 but they teach about SEO, specifically SEO, for e-commerce.
0:06:15 And now we’re not competitors so they don’t have to worry about me trying to siphon their audience
0:06:18 for my business and I don’t have to worry about the same thing from them
0:06:22 so we can actually form a good partnership, do a good workshop and cheer each other on
0:06:26 instead of feeling like we have to compete because our target audience is the same.
0:06:29 They’re also providing SMS and email marketing services.
0:06:33 Like, why do we want to put this guy in front of our email list in front of our audience?
0:06:36 But that makes total sense. I remember Joshua Lysik.
0:06:40 We did an episode on the OPA plan, other people’s audiences where he was doing these
0:06:44 in-person virtual lunch and learns for his copywriting business
0:06:47 or web design, web development business back in the day.
0:06:50 And it was like, I target kind of local small business owners
0:06:54 so he would reach out to accounting offices, legal offices in his town
0:06:56 and bring people in that way.
0:07:01 It’s like, these companies don’t offer what I do but their customers need this
0:07:03 or their customers might want to learn this.
0:07:07 And so he follows kind of same strategy as on an in-person basis.
0:07:09 But let’s say, okay, now you have your list.
0:07:13 I like this, software companies, bloggers, online influencers, even YouTubers,
0:07:18 people who may have a list with some of your target customers on it,
0:07:20 even other agencies if they’re not direct competitors.
0:07:22 What’s the initial outreach?
0:07:26 Like, hey, I’m just curious to see what that email or direct message might look like.
0:07:29 Definitely varies. It comes down to a few key things.
0:07:33 One thing that I believe is that there’s no such thing as a good cold email.
0:07:35 You can read all kinds of blog posts or watch YouTube videos
0:07:37 on how to write the perfect cold email.
0:07:39 But I just don’t believe that even exists.
0:07:42 Anything that feels cold is cold and doesn’t get open.
0:07:45 The cold emails that do well are actually warm emails.
0:07:48 So if it’s someone you don’t know, which in most cases it’s going to be,
0:07:51 you have to find a way to make it feel warmer.
0:07:57 So a good example of this is when you’re making your list of people to reach out to
0:07:59 teach these workshops in front of their audience.
0:08:03 Think about what services you’ve already used or what blogs you already read
0:08:06 to stay on top of some of this stuff for yourself.
0:08:09 And then that way, when you’re reaching out, you can say,
0:08:12 “Hey, I listen to your podcast every week.
0:08:14 I love it this last episode with so-and-so.”
0:08:17 Really made me look at my business differently in this way and that way.
0:08:19 And it really helped. And I just wanted to say thank you.
0:08:24 So that’s a really easy way to give a compliment that’s genuine and authentic.
0:08:27 But that just makes it feel warmer. It makes it feel like there’s some kind of connection.
0:08:30 You know who they are even if they don’t know who you are yet.
0:08:34 And that helps that opening line get read and the email continue to be read
0:08:37 instead of it going straight into the trash.
0:08:40 Right. I’m trying to think of cold emails that I get.
0:08:43 And they do a good job of making it feel warmer.
0:08:45 “Hey, Nick. Long time listener here.”
0:08:46 Something like that.
0:08:49 Yeah, that gets my attention versus some random…
0:08:50 And now, of course, I’m going to get…
0:08:53 That’s going to be the first line of every email that I get.
0:08:55 Yeah, sorry.
0:08:58 The other element here that might be worth looking into…
0:09:00 And this is something that I try and do.
0:09:04 If there’s a guest that I want to get on is looking for mutual connections.
0:09:07 I said, “Hey, would you mind passing along an intro?”
0:09:09 So through Facebook, through LinkedIn,
0:09:14 you’re probably only one or two degrees of separation away from anybody.
0:09:18 So I imagine that may be another way to make that introduction a little bit warmer.
0:09:21 But what else do you have on this outreach and pitch part?
0:09:23 That’s probably even better in most cases,
0:09:27 is if you know somebody who can give an intro, kind of vouch for you.
0:09:29 The other thing to think about is…
0:09:32 I learned this from Noah Kagan and it just stuck with me.
0:09:36 He said, “Always remember whiffed. What’s in it for them?”
0:09:38 So I always think about that when I’m writing an email,
0:09:41 is look at how many times you wrote “I” in your email.
0:09:43 Like, how many sentences start with the word “I”?
0:09:47 Like, “I listen to your podcast. I want to partner with you.
0:09:50 I think that I will do a great job.”
0:09:54 Your email is so focused on you that it’s not even providing any value
0:09:56 to the person you’re trying to partner with.
0:09:59 Because at the end of the day, if it’s not a win for you,
0:10:02 a win for the partner and a win for their audience,
0:10:05 then it’s a lose. It has to be a win-win-win.
0:10:08 So focusing on what’s in it for them.
0:10:10 And it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about yourself a little bit
0:10:12 because you need to to establish some credibility
0:10:15 and you need to say, “I’m reaching out because…”
0:10:19 You know, there’s this specific topic that I know a lot about
0:10:22 and, you know, I get really good results for our clients
0:10:24 and I think that your audience would get a ton out of this.
0:10:27 So, like, that’s the value then is I think your audience
0:10:30 would get a lot of value out of this because…
0:10:33 And so always keep getting it there as fast as possible
0:10:35 so that they start to think, you know,
0:10:37 “Is this actually good for my audience?”
0:10:40 And so if you can establish that it’s good for them and their audience,
0:10:43 they’re a lot more likely to say yes,
0:10:46 which is kind of the third and final part of cold emails,
0:10:50 or I should say warm emails, is making it as easy as possible to say yes.
0:10:52 If you have a specific pitch for them,
0:10:55 break down exactly how it’s going to go.
0:10:57 And in this case, workshops, you know, breaking down,
0:10:59 you know, “I want to teach this workshop.
0:11:01 Here are the topics that I want to cover.
0:11:04 The way we can use my software, I already pay for it.
0:11:05 You don’t have to pay for it.
0:11:07 I will build the landing page.
0:11:10 I will create email copy that I’ll send to you
0:11:12 to send out to your audience so you don’t have to write it.
0:11:14 You know, I’ll create a graphic and send it to you
0:11:16 so you can post it on social media.
0:11:18 Put things in there to assure them
0:11:21 that this isn’t going to be a laborious project for them
0:11:23 and that you’re going to handle all of the hard work.
0:11:26 All they have to do is help you promote to their audience
0:11:29 and get the pats on the back.
0:11:31 Still to come in this episode,
0:11:34 what Dustin calls the magic sauce for his business,
0:11:36 how he structures his workshops,
0:11:41 and the soft sell way he converts attendees into paying clients.
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0:12:52 Okay, do you ever get anybody coming back to you and say,
0:12:56 “Yeah, that sounds good, but I want a 50% referral commission
0:12:58 on anything you sell off the back end?”
0:13:01 And you’re like, “Well, it’s an agency, so the margins.”
0:13:04 It’s a little more tricky than a digital product.
0:13:07 Do you get that kind of like, “Oh, I want a piece of the action?”
0:13:08 Man, you know, it’s funny.
0:13:11 I don’t think I’ve ever gotten someone reply with that,
0:13:13 but that is something that I offer sometimes,
0:13:16 depending on who I’m actually doing one next week,
0:13:19 next Thursday, where we have an agreement
0:13:21 of how much, you know, how we’ll split the commission.
0:13:24 So like you said, it’s a fine line with margins on an agency.
0:13:26 You can’t give away everything,
0:13:28 or it’s not worth it, of course.
0:13:30 But one thing that I do is I, like,
0:13:32 I also have some digital products and stuff.
0:13:35 So sometimes that’ll be a part of what the workshop is.
0:13:37 In that case, if it’s a digital product,
0:13:39 I mean, it’s pretty much 100% margin, right?
0:13:42 So I can give them 50%, and that’s no problem at all to me.
0:13:46 I’d much rather pay 50% of a $100 product
0:13:48 for everything that’s sold
0:13:51 to people that I never would have gotten in front of, to begin with,
0:13:54 or I would have had to spend $99 to get in front of them
0:13:56 to sell them a $100 product.
0:13:59 It’s still a better deal than straight advertising.
0:14:03 So on the agency side, what we do is a $500 referral.
0:14:07 So if we get a client and they stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:10 which everyone is contractually obligated to stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:13 so that’s easy enough, then we pay out $500.
0:14:17 That’s a nice way to push someone over the edge who isn’t quite sure,
0:14:20 or maybe they have a really big audience and they have a tight calendar.
0:14:23 That’s a nice way to kind of squeeze yourself into their calendar.
0:14:24 Okay, that makes sense.
0:14:27 So most people are not necessarily looking for that
0:14:29 or asking for that upfront,
0:14:33 but it can be a way to sweeten the deal.
0:14:36 Especially, like you said, if they’re giving you a warm introduction to their audience
0:14:39 and you’re making money off of that, then you make it a win for them.
0:14:43 And we’ve talked about different strategic complementary partnerships.
0:14:46 I think this is an interesting way to do that too.
0:14:52 Anything else on the outreach in pitchfront that you have seen deliver success?
0:14:55 One example is this isn’t necessarily a strategy to seek out
0:14:58 because you can’t really, it’s kind of more of an inbound type of thing,
0:15:02 but I recently had a software company set up a call with me
0:15:08 to pitch me on using their software for my clients in the call.
0:15:11 I guess just looking for opportunities to pitch also.
0:15:15 So on the call, I said we actually already do have some clients that use your software.
0:15:18 And the other ones, I will definitely put it in front of them
0:15:20 and tell them the pros and cons of using it.
0:15:23 What do you think about also doing a workshop in front of your audience?
0:15:28 That was the fastest 2000 email subscribers I’ve ever gotten in my life.
0:15:33 It was just from this software company that was pitching me,
0:15:37 just being able to say, honestly, we already use you, so this is great.
0:15:39 Let’s do something together.
0:15:41 And it was able to give a lot of value back to them
0:15:44 and teach their software to their customers.
0:15:49 So looking for opportunities to pitch where it’s kind of a no brainer, yes.
0:15:50 It really comes in handy.
0:15:53 So keeping it top of mind and not always thinking just about,
0:15:55 it’s not all about going straight for the sale.
0:15:57 Sometimes it’s trying to do these workshops
0:16:00 and keeping it top of mind how you can partner with different companies.
0:16:03 Yeah, I like this a lot, especially the software angle.
0:16:08 We’ve talked about the software with a service business model, business angle before.
0:16:13 We’ve seen people do this with Asana and QuickBooks and Salesforce
0:16:15 and your SEM rush and all these different ones.
0:16:19 Where it’s like, if I’m an Atrus customer, for example, for SEO and keyword research,
0:16:22 Atrus doesn’t have, at least to my knowledge,
0:16:25 an in-house team where they’re like, we’ll just do it for you.
0:16:28 So it’s like, that might be, if you’re an SEO service provider,
0:16:32 if you’re an agency to reach out to them as just as an example to say,
0:16:36 hey, I want to teach people how to use your software better.
0:16:39 Or so, you know, here’s seven things you didn’t know you could do
0:16:41 in this tool to skyrocket your thing.
0:16:43 Because a certain percentage of that audience is going to be like,
0:16:45 that sounds super cool.
0:16:47 I just don’t have the time to do it myself.
0:16:48 How could you do it for me?
0:16:51 And that’s like your ideal customers are like this software company angle,
0:16:56 like piggybacking on the popularity of an existing software and existing audience.
0:17:00 In your email, you say, I’m going to make it as easy for them as possible to say,
0:17:05 yes, we’ll use my hosting software, you use my landing page, anything like that.
0:17:08 What does a tech stack look like today?
0:17:12 What makes the most sense for you for email collection, for webinar hosting, all that stuff?
0:17:14 For my website, I use Webflow.
0:17:15 I used to use WordPress.
0:17:16 I still really like WordPress.
0:17:18 I think I have a couple of sites on WordPress.
0:17:23 But Webflow has been really cool as far as being able to drag and drop design a little bit easier
0:17:25 and make it look a little cleaner.
0:17:27 So I’ve been enjoying using that.
0:17:32 So I’ll pair that with ConvertKit is what I use for email capture, things like that.
0:17:37 And obviously for the email marketing side of things, which ties into the workshops
0:17:43 because in the workshops, there’s always a call to action for them to go opt into something.
0:17:48 And then there’s drip campaigns that come after that to help me close sales that way.
0:17:54 For the actual webinar, I use Webinar Ninja, which I’ve been really happy with so far.
0:18:00 Competitive on their pricing and the streamability is really strong for the most part.
0:18:04 And also when I build landing pages, I just use Webinar Ninja’s landing page
0:18:08 for signing up for the workshops when it works really well.
0:18:12 So they have good kind of automated emails after people register.
0:18:17 It sends them a sequence of emails like you’re registered, here’s your information, all that kind of stuff.
0:18:21 And I like that you can go in and edit those and you can add more or subtract.
0:18:26 So they have a lot of Webinar Ninja does a good job of getting you 90% of the way there.
0:18:31 And then you can kind of just add in the extra little parts that you want to make it personal for you and your business.
0:18:37 Okay. So the process flow would be this outreach and pitch like, hey, I’d like to host this workshop.
0:18:42 Here’s the email copy to send people out to all build the landing page.
0:18:47 People register for it on that landing page after your partner sends out that email.
0:18:50 And it’s like, here’s the date and time enter your email to register.
0:18:57 At least for my business, that’s the magic sauce is if you can be the one who hosts the workshop yourself
0:19:00 using your software and having it go to your email list.
0:19:08 That’s not always the case, especially with bigger brands or bigger software companies who don’t want you to have their customer data,
0:19:15 which I can understand a lot of software companies like really big ones, they already do workshops like they’ll do monthly workshops.
0:19:17 So they kind of already have a system for it.
0:19:21 So you’re really just pitching yourself to be one of those guest workshop people.
0:19:28 They already have it all figured out and that’s great too, because you can go on there and still get in front of thousands of people in an hour.
0:19:37 But I really like when I can control the setup process and collect those emails because then even the people who,
0:19:43 let’s say you get in front of 300 people that signed up for the webinar and maybe you get one sale out of it.
0:19:44 That’s still awesome.
0:19:50 But what’s more awesome is now you have 299 other email addresses that you can put into a drip campaign.
0:19:57 I’m explaining more about your business or teaching them so that they become more comfortable with you for when they are ready to work with you.
0:20:00 They work with somebody, they pick you, you can put them in your newsletter.
0:20:04 So it’s just establishing that relationship even stronger.
0:20:07 So if you can set it up yourself, it’s great.
0:20:13 And a lot of companies appreciate it because they might not have the internal teams to even know how to do that.
0:20:15 Maybe they’ve never done a webinar in their life.
0:20:17 So it seems daunting.
0:20:22 So to come in and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle all the tech,” is really a big win for a lot of brands.
0:20:30 Yeah, totally. That would be me. I don’t know if I’ve been on the hosting side of a webinar co-hosted lots, but never been the one to fully run and set up the whole thing.
0:20:36 Going back, especially the company that already has, “Oh, we do a monthly webinar for our customers already.”
0:20:37 That’s a fantastic target.
0:20:41 And Tailwind comes to mind as a Pinterest scheduling software.
0:20:44 You have some killer Pinterest strategy that might be worthy of sharing.
0:20:50 Or you’re like, “Here’s how to design eye-catching video pins in Canva,” or something like that might be compelling for them.
0:20:53 Active Campaign comes to mind as well.
0:20:57 Here’s the crazy, simple sales funnel that works for me in Active Campaign.
0:21:06 I don’t know. Maybe they’re already doing this, and it’s easier to insert yourself into their existing process rather than have them create a new process for you or do this totally one-off thing.
0:21:16 So that was Webflow, Drag and Drop, Website Builder, ConvertKit for the email capture, WebinarNinja for the hosting and scheduling of the workshop itself.
0:21:19 Any other must-have tools for you to make this happen?
0:21:20 A couple more I was thinking about.
0:21:23 One is just something like Keynote or Google Slides or PowerPoint, whatever.
0:21:25 It’s not something to make some slides.
0:21:28 I just find it easier to teach that way on the workshops.
0:21:37 But then for the outreach part, sometimes you can identify easily what company you want to partner with or pitch for doing a workshop, but you can’t find the right person.
0:21:38 And so that comes up a lot.
0:21:47 It’s like, “I know I want to partner with Clavio. It’s a big company. I can’t just email their CEO or founder. It’s not going to work.”
0:21:50 So a tool that I like to use is called Hunter.io.
0:21:53 You can create a free account and it does plenty, in my opinion.
0:21:56 I don’t even know what their paid one does, but anyway, I use the free one.
0:22:08 And you can just type in any URL and they will scrape the internet and see what email addresses are set up for that and give you a list of their titles if they can find it.
0:22:12 It’ll say, “Director of Marketing is this person and here’s their email address.”
0:22:19 If they can’t find that detailed information, they will help you figure out how to guess the person’s…
0:22:23 Maybe they can find the people’s names, but they’re not 100% sure on what the email is.
0:22:29 They’ll say, “Well, this is their name and we think it’s firstname.lastname at whatever…”
0:22:32 Yeah, at the company, as the common email structure at this company.
0:22:33 Okay.
0:22:34 Right. So it helps you guess.
0:22:41 And then you can just go on LinkedIn and find who the active director of marketing or whoever is, director of content, something like that.
0:22:46 And then now you have their name, you have the email structure, so you can just guess their email accurately.
0:22:53 I mean, that’s been really, really useful because trying to go through info at or something like that or a contact form, you’re never going to get there.
0:22:54 Yeah, you’re not going to get anywhere.
0:22:55 That’s actually really helpful.
0:23:00 I remember this was like long ago in the SideHustle show archives.
0:23:03 It was like, I was trying to figure out how to get sponsors for the show.
0:23:08 And so my genius idea was to have a virtual assistant go through other business shows.
0:23:12 They made this big list of companies that were already advertising.
0:23:16 And I picked the five or six that I liked and thought would be a good fit.
0:23:21 And from there, the process kind of stalled out because I couldn’t find the right decision makers at these companies.
0:23:29 And occasionally you’d get a reply back of like, “Well, you know, we buy through this agency or it was much more difficult than I thought I was a genius.”
0:23:32 Like, “Oh, this is going to be a fantastic way to sell some ad spots.”
0:23:38 But it’s a really important point is it’s one thing to come up with your target list, your dream 100 list, so to speak.
0:23:45 But another thing to find the person who has the authority to say yes, like how to find the right decision maker at that place.
0:23:48 So hunter.io, cool resource to check out there.
0:23:50 Anything else on the tech and tools front?
0:23:51 Nope, that’s it.
0:23:52 That’s what I use.
0:24:06 I’m curious about the webinar structure or if there’s any resources to learn what makes a good presentation in terms of what’s five minutes of intro and 45 minutes of educational content and 10 minutes of call to action.
0:24:08 Like, what kind of structure have you found to work best?
0:24:15 What’s worked best for me has been, well, first of all, focusing on making it a workshop and not a webinar.
0:24:26 And I mean, essentially, it’s the same thing, but the mentality of a webinar is usually like, “I’m going to use this workaround way to try to pitch people to work with me or buy my thing.”
0:24:28 It can work, sure, but…
0:24:30 Do you think marketers have just ruined the term?
0:24:31 Like, marketers have ruined…
0:24:32 Yeah, absolutely.
0:24:33 Marketers ruin everything.
0:24:35 And I know because I am one.
0:24:41 It’s like anything that’s good and pure gets distorted as fast as possible.
0:24:43 Now it’s not even a workshop.
0:24:45 Now it’s like masterclass is like the next one.
0:24:46 Yeah.
0:24:47 No, that’s funny.
0:24:49 I don’t even call my courses courses anymore.
0:24:52 I started calling them either masterclasses or I’ll call them like a mini course.
0:24:57 Like I’m trying to like find new terms so people don’t have these like weird associations from the past.
0:24:58 Yeah.
0:25:07 So I think of them as workshops and I pitched them as workshops and all of the verbiage leading up to it is saying your free online workshop is starting like things like that.
0:25:15 And that bleeds into the content of it as well because the goal is to make sure they can learn something that they can apply immediately after they’re done.
0:25:20 Where a lot of content dies is when it’s too much all at once.
0:25:27 And someone has to try to absorb what you’re telling them and you’re telling them 10 different things and they have to try to apply it to their business in their head.
0:25:31 And then they have to try to figure out how to do all 10 things and then they get the results.
0:25:40 But in this case, I like to just teach them something they can actually go use because I find the best clients come from people who are willing to take action on advice.
0:25:43 So it’s almost like a good filter for finding the right clients.
0:25:47 So structure wise, I try not to go over an hour.
0:25:52 Typically what I’ll do is about it ends up being like maybe six or seven minutes of an intro.
0:25:55 I’ll start with here’s what we’re going to cover.
0:26:01 I’ll tell them this is a workshop, not something to passively watch and I’ll tell them I want them to take notes.
0:26:08 I’ll tell them that I’ll send them the replay afterward, but I want them to take notes and I want them to write down questions because we’re going to do Q&A at the end.
0:26:12 So I make it very much feel like this is a workshop where you’re doing something right now.
0:26:15 You’re not just half listening while you’re making dinner or something.
0:26:17 I want them to be engaged.
0:26:26 And so about five or six minutes of intro and then we’ll go into teaching and I’ll typically try to start with here’s the common problem.
0:26:28 Here’s why it’s a problem.
0:26:33 If you continue to try to do it the way you’re doing it, here’s what you’ll be missing out on.
0:26:37 Here’s how most people try to solve this problem, but here’s why that doesn’t work.
0:26:40 Then here’s the actual solution of what you should do.
0:26:43 And so that’s kind of the order that I try to keep it as far as how to teach.
0:26:49 And then I try to show as many screenshots as possible if it’s something technical, because again, you know, I’m going to give them this recording.
0:26:51 So I can remind them, here’s a visual.
0:26:52 You’re going to have this.
0:26:54 So don’t worry if you’re not absorbing it right now.
0:26:57 Focus on writing what makes sense to you.
0:26:59 I ask a lot of questions too.
0:27:04 I try to ask a question at least every three slides and I ask them to kind of respond in the chat.
0:27:11 One, it helps me when I’m teaching because you kind of feel like you’re in a silo because nobody else can, you’re not seeing any other faces.
0:27:13 You’re not hearing anybody else.
0:27:16 If no one’s engaging at all, you just feel like you’re talking to a wall.
0:27:20 When really people are probably really engaged and interested, but you just don’t know that.
0:27:32 So I try to ask questions every three slides or so, and it keeps them engaged and it can help me kind of redirect if I’m getting too technical on accident or something I said didn’t make sense.
0:27:46 I can kind of ear note those questions for the Q&A section and then toward the end, every workshop I do, I give a link to some kind of bonus resource that’s directly related to how they can go do this thing right after we get off.
0:27:49 I taught one recently on abandon cart sequences.
0:27:54 So it was how to set up your abandon cart sequence in 30 minutes or less.
0:27:57 And so it’s a really specific thing we’re trying to solve.
0:28:00 It’s not a super big trying to teach them everything at once.
0:28:02 It’s one specific thing.
0:28:10 And so the bonus resource was email scripts that they could just copy and paste into their email provider so that the work was done for them already.
0:28:14 And they could just put it in there, push, go and watch the results come in.
0:28:20 That’s kind of the approach I take there is I don’t typically pitch services on these workshops.
0:28:26 My goal is to teach them something useful they can use immediately and then capture their email.
0:28:37 Those are my two goals because if I capture their email, then they go into a drip sequence for me to pitch them services later after they’ve kind of already got their feet wet and seeing that it works.
0:28:39 If they try what I say, it’ll work.
0:28:42 In the case where you didn’t collect it up front through the invite.
0:28:43 Right.
0:28:46 So yeah, if it’s already collected, then I still do the bonus thing just because it’s helpful.
0:28:51 Yeah, really the process doesn’t change whether I collected their emails, you know, whether I hosted it or I didn’t.
0:28:56 The process stays the same, but the results are just usually bigger if I can collect the email list on top of it.
0:28:57 This is cool.
0:29:06 And this is kind of in contrast to a Russell Brunson expert secrets style webinar with, you know, here are the limiting beliefs that we have to overcome.
0:29:09 It’s like, no, here’s the problem, the technical problem you’re facing in your business.
0:29:11 Here’s why what you’re doing is not working.
0:29:13 Here’s the trend line of you keep doing what you’re doing.
0:29:16 But the good news is, oh, by the way, you can do it yourself.
0:29:19 Here’s how our clients are getting it done or here’s how we’re doing it for clients.
0:29:26 I imagine kind of working in those type of soft cells, like just letting people know that it is something that you do versus by my thing.
0:29:30 We don’t buy my $10,000 thing at the end of the lesson here.
0:29:36 I still do workshops or webinars where I’ll pitch a $99 product or something or even a couple hundred bucks.
0:29:43 But I find it, I don’t think I’ve ever closed anything over 1500 bucks using the webinar in my life.
0:29:54 So trying to pitch agency services that are in the three to five thousand a month range over a webinar is a pretty tough pitch in 45 minutes to an hour.
0:30:01 But if I can be really helpful, yeah, you know, in the beginning when I’m talking about who I am so that they, my favorite line is just to tell them like,
0:30:05 you shouldn’t believe everything you hear on the internet because anyone can lie over the internet.
0:30:07 So don’t take my word for it.
0:30:09 Just like, these are the clients we’ve worked with.
0:30:11 Here are the results we’ve gotten for them.
0:30:14 Now, you know, you can probably trust me and now let’s move on.
0:30:23 And it kind of helps establish early that I’m not trying to calm them and that I recognize there’s a little bit of trust imbalance that we’re going to have to work through.
0:30:29 But that I have actual expertise and I’ve worked with real clients and that lets them know that they can work with me as well if they choose to do so.
0:30:36 But it’s in a way, like you said, where it’s a little bit more of a soft approach to where I can focus on teaching them.
0:30:44 Because at the end of the day, trying to do services for people, a good service solves one of three problems or ideally multiple of these three problems,
0:30:52 which is you’re either saving them time, you’re saving them money or making them money, or you’re improving the quality of their life in some way.
0:30:58 In this case, you’re not going to ruin your chances of closing a client if you teach them how to do one thing on their own.
0:31:01 And if they can do the one thing on their own, then they don’t need to hire you anyway.
0:31:02 It’s not a good fit.
0:31:10 So getting that out of my head early was important of not worrying if I was going to disqualify myself by teaching someone to do something themselves.
0:31:20 Because chances are they’re either going to be overwhelmed by it anyway and want help, or they are very capable and can do it themselves in which case, wonderful, great, help somebody today.
0:31:26 Or they’re going to, maybe they do understand how to do it, they just don’t have the time to do it, so they’ll hire.
0:31:31 There’s really no reason to not just full-on teach everything you can, teach everything you know.
0:31:38 It’s only going to build the confidence of people around you that you are the right person to hire for current or future projects.
0:31:40 Yeah, this is a list-building play.
0:31:44 This is a credibility and authority-building play, trust-building play.
0:31:49 I think there’s a lot to this that has really worked out well in your favor.
0:31:55 More with Dustin in just a moment, including overcoming the imposter syndrome of actually hosting your first workshop.
0:32:04 What happened when his worst-case scenario moment came true and how he successfully transitions educational viewers into paying customers right after this?
0:32:08 Tell me about getting psyched up before doing the first one.
0:32:12 I’m just like, “Oh, what am I going to talk about? Who am I to teach this stuff?”
0:32:17 I imagine some people are like, “This all sounds cool, but they’re still facing some of that imposter syndrome.”
0:32:21 I always get a little bit nervous. I feel like if you’re not a little nervous, you probably don’t care.
0:32:26 Nerves are an okay signal, but for me, what helps is just being prepared.
0:32:29 The more prepared you are with your slides and your material,
0:32:33 and ultimately, as long as you know what you’re talking about, which presumably you do,
0:32:36 if you have services for somebody that you’re going to do for them,
0:32:40 then you don’t have too much to worry about because this is kind of your zone.
0:32:44 If people are showing up to your workshop and they know what the topic is ahead of time,
0:32:48 so if they’re showing up for it, it’s because your name was already on the landing page.
0:32:54 They know that you are going to teach them this thing, and you can assume they don’t know how to do that thing yet.
0:33:00 That helps me at least to remember that I don’t have to be an expert at everything for everyone,
0:33:05 but to these people who signed up, I’m an expert to them on this one thing.
0:33:11 I can let go of the ego of assuming I have to be an expert at everything to teach anything.
0:33:14 I was going to say, even if they do end up taking action,
0:33:19 like you said, maybe I’d be afraid of, well, if I show people how to do it themselves,
0:33:23 nobody’s going to hire me, but like you said, going back to your abandoned cart example,
0:33:29 if you can deliver some wins on this one very specific email process, email sequence,
0:33:31 and they see some positive results from that,
0:33:35 it’s like, well, maybe we ought to get back in touch for what else have you got?
0:33:38 What else have you got for the rest of these emails that we should be sending?
0:33:40 How do we collect more, all this stuff?
0:33:46 Are there any surprises, mistakes, disasters along the way outside of the ever-present technical problems with webinars?
0:33:48 Can anybody hear me type of stuff?
0:33:50 Oh yeah, I had a bad one.
0:33:55 I had a bad one about, it was really kind of a worst case scenario, which was good though, I got through it.
0:33:59 But about, I think it was like three months ago, I was doing, it was definitely one of the bigger,
0:34:01 if not the biggest one I’ve ever done.
0:34:05 I think there were 11 or 1200 people on live with me.
0:34:09 That was a bit of a freak out moment just for a second because I was looking at the screen
0:34:14 and I was like, I know that the process is exactly the same, whether there’s one person over there or like a million.
0:34:19 It doesn’t really matter, but there’s a lot of people staring at me right now.
0:34:24 And so that was a little bit of a panic moment, but got past that and I was like, it’s going to go fine.
0:34:27 I’m prepared, let’s go, got into it, it was going great.
0:34:30 And then there was one part where the brand that I was partnering with,
0:34:36 they were asking me to do like a live screen share and walk through how to use part of their tool.
0:34:41 And I had practiced and it worked fine, but then of course, when it was with a thousand people watching,
0:34:46 as soon as I hit the screen share button, the whole thing crashed.
0:34:49 And I couldn’t see anything, nobody could see me.
0:34:51 I didn’t know if people could hear me still or not.
0:34:57 And then I was getting emails and texts from the brand, from their director of marketing and he was freaking out.
0:34:58 Dude, where did you go?
0:35:00 He’s like, we can’t see, we can’t hear you, where are you?
0:35:01 Everyone’s leaving.
0:35:03 I was like, I don’t know how to tell you.
0:35:09 So I just rebooted my computer, took like six or seven minutes, which is kind of an eternity when you’re on a webinar.
0:35:13 And like, of course, you assume people will drop out, but got back in.
0:35:22 And to my surprise, I think only about something like 7% of people left and everyone else stayed and waited,
0:35:24 which I thought was super cool.
0:35:27 It made me feel good about the value being provided there.
0:35:29 But that was a pretty big blunder.
0:35:32 I don’t think the brand appreciating that one very much.
0:35:37 Yeah, those types of technical challenges, especially when you got a bunch of people staring at you in the face.
0:35:38 That’s one reason I like podcasting.
0:35:39 Hey, we’re not live.
0:35:40 We can edit it.
0:35:43 In fact, if the call drops out, nobody has to know.
0:35:47 Yeah, it’s a whole new skill set to deliver anything live.
0:35:48 This has been awesome.
0:35:50 I really appreciate you sharing kind of that stuff.
0:35:56 And it sounds like just kind of leaving it with the call to action being like, hey, make sure to go grab this bonus versus press hard.
0:35:58 I only have three clients available for next month.
0:36:00 Like, you know, make sure you sign up here.
0:36:01 Is that correct?
0:36:08 Yeah, and really just making sure that that bonus is in good alignment with the service that you offer and with what you taught during that workshop.
0:36:15 It just helps keep that cohesiveness together so people know what your niche is and they know that they’re a good fit for you.
0:36:23 After the webinar, you’re sending out the replay and people who did opt in are added to kind of a welcome onboarding sequence.
0:36:30 Can you give us just a brief sense of what type of messages you’re sending those people after attending?
0:36:32 It’s really at least the one that I use.
0:36:33 It’s not super long.
0:36:42 I think it’s four emails, but it really is just doubling down on what we talked about on the workshop and reminding them like actually go use that resource.
0:36:51 And that’s a good place to work in like our clients at put a link to your website, use this and got these results in the last few months.
0:36:52 Like it’ll work for you too.
0:36:57 So kind of using a reminder method there of like we do this for clients.
0:37:01 It will work for you whether you hire us or not, but you can certainly hire us.
0:37:08 I use a very teaching heavy focus, but then making sure to have like a or this is how I do it.
0:37:16 I guess I should say I have my main call to action on sales type drip emails is just to go book an exploration call.
0:37:18 I use tidy Cal for mine.
0:37:20 There’s a bunch of them out there Cal and Lee.
0:37:21 What’s the one that you use?
0:37:27 I really liked it when I use it schedule once I bought tidy Cal because it was $15 AppSumo lifetime deal.
0:37:29 I just haven’t like fully switched over to it.
0:37:30 Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty good.
0:37:32 Yeah, I like the one that you use too.
0:37:42 But the main thing with that too is making sure people feel because just remember how many pitches people get like business owners get pitched stuff all the time from people trying to sell them on stuff.
0:37:49 So if you can be the person that’s there to be helpful and there to be a resource, you’re much more likely to get the win with that client.
0:37:52 I have a short questionnaire that they fill out just to make sure it’s the right fit.
0:37:55 And that all just happens straight through tidy Cal when they’re signing up.
0:38:00 It just asks them, you understand this is a 3000 plus dollar service.
0:38:03 Like in theory, if this was a good fit, do you have the budget for that?
0:38:04 Yes or no.
0:38:08 It kind of just helps the process move along a better and it shows transparency.
0:38:13 And then I like to have something in there that says, you know, just so you know, we’ll talk about your business.
0:38:17 No matter what, you’re going to leave with some wins that you can go back and apply.
0:38:20 If it’s not a right fit, I will tell you that it’s not a right fit.
0:38:22 But if it is, I’ll tell you that it is.
0:38:24 And then you have to stick true to that.
0:38:30 You have to actually be willing to tell a potential client that it’s a bad fit and that they shouldn’t work with you.
0:38:33 And that’s how you keep credibility in an industry.
0:38:39 Yeah. Okay. I like that using that, you know, just blog and that’s always a frustration point for companies.
0:38:40 You’re just researching.
0:38:43 If you’re not putting your pricing on the website, fine.
0:38:47 But I don’t also want to waste your time if it’s just like you’re completely out of my league.
0:38:48 Well, what’s your budget?
0:38:49 That’s like my least favorite question.
0:38:50 What’s your budget?
0:38:52 Like, no, no, no, don’t answer that.
0:39:01 As a trap because there should at least be a range because typically what people will do is what they’re really wondering is how much can I get away with charging you.
0:39:06 A service in theory, if it’s a well thought out service, should have some kind of standard pricing model.
0:39:11 Even if it’s percent based, you can say our pricing is 10% of the revenue we make for you or something like that.
0:39:16 I like to be upfront about it because it saves me time from not talking on the phone with people who aren’t a good fit.
0:39:20 It saves them time from not trying to talk to me when it’s not a right fit.
0:39:25 So just trying to be a, I don’t know, be a good of a human as you can be while you’re doing business, you know.
0:39:28 Did you do anything on a performance basis like that, 10% of revenue?
0:39:38 I don’t currently, I did though, it really saved the agency in a lot of ways when COVID first hit because there were, we lost about 50% of our client revenue in across two weeks.
0:39:40 And so that was pretty intense.
0:39:50 And so immediately I flipped it to a percent based model when reaching out to clients because it gave them the security that they’re not going to have to pay a big fee if they’re not getting any results.
0:39:54 And during a time like a crisis like that, it was really helpful.
0:40:01 And then that comes back to making sure everything’s a good fit, especially doing percent based model because you can get the bad end of the deal on that pretty quick.
0:40:09 So what I did that was useful is I did for email marketing, I would say you’re going to pay us 10% of the revenue we make for you.
0:40:16 That’s attributed to email, but there’s a $1,000 minimum or there’s a $1,500 minimum, or I don’t remember exactly what I was.
0:40:17 I think it was 1500.
0:40:24 That’s probably you give a baseline so they know, okay, this is the minimum I’ll pay, but it’s also the most I’ll pay if the results aren’t there.
0:40:36 So it can be useful, I think, especially if you’re trying to get in the door with a new client or maybe a client that’s not quite at the level to pay a higher retainer and you can kind of work them up to that and you have the space on your roster for that.
0:40:37 It can be pretty useful.
0:40:40 I think it’s really compelling from a client perspective.
0:40:51 When I’ve seen people do it with Facebook ads or something where it was like, just pay us a percentage of what you make off the ad and then there’s a whole issue of tracking and attribution and everything that goes into that.
0:41:04 But it’s from the client side, it says, okay, you’re willing to put some skin in the game, so to speak, and say, look, we trust our process, we know you’re going to make money, and that’s why we only are going to make a fee based on if you win, we win kind of a thing.
0:41:13 Dustin, this has been awesome. So this is at jumpxmarketing.com. You can check out the agency over there. What’s next for you? What’s got you excited this year?
0:41:23 I’m just really focusing on helping more young brands, people with side hustles. I really think, I mean, just looking at the statistics, e-commerce is just exploding.
0:41:40 I think in the next four to five years, personal blogs were in like 2013, 2014, where it started to feel normal for people to have those. I think we’re going to start seeing in a few years, most people have some kind of e-commerce store on the side where maybe they sell their favorite items that they use.
0:41:51 There’s a lot of different things happening now where you don’t actually have to own, you know, you can do drop shipping now, or you can do partnership deals where you’re just selling other people’s things on your site directly for them and taking an affiliate cut.
0:41:57 So I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more smaller e-commerce brands start out and they’re going to be really low risk.
0:42:04 And I’m really excited about that for entrepreneurs who are just getting started because the more of the risk you can take out, the more fun it gets.
0:42:14 I like it. Sounds like a great mission and excited to see where that one goes. Dustin, let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side-hustlation 2021 edition.
0:42:21 This has been my theme for the past few months is just shoot your shot. We hold ourselves back a lot when we say no for other people.
0:42:33 So if you have historically been afraid to pitch ideas to other brands or to try to partner with people or do things with influencers, whatever it is, if you’ve or even reaching out to a client, you know, it’d be a perfect fit.
0:42:40 But you felt a little bit afraid to reach out and get that failure to shoot your shot. You never know who’s going to say yes or no.
0:42:48 Most people are going to say no. So just know that and no, it’s not a direct reflection on you. It’s just not the right fit at the right time.
0:42:58 So shoot your shot, launch, get started and learn as you go because that’s really the only way to improve is to get started so that you can start learning.
0:43:02 It’s so true and very similar to 2017’s advice. I had to go look this up.
0:43:10 The number one tip from back then was give yourself permission to take action. So interesting to see that, you know, not a lot has changed on that front.
0:43:16 You got to get out there. You got to get started. You got to put something out into the world and see what kind of reaction it gets.
0:43:22 So Dustin, really appreciate you joining me again. We’ll have to do it again in another four years and see where you’re at.
0:43:24 Absolutely. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it.
0:43:26 You bet. We’ll catch up soon.
0:43:35 Just try to be a good human of all the actionable advice that Dustin just dropped.
0:43:40 That’s the bit that stood out to me because that’s an almost daily conversation I have with my kids.
0:43:47 Let’s just try to be good humans to each other. Be helpful, be kind, be respectful. Stop kicking your brother in the neck.
0:43:54 This is an episode I know I’ll be referring back to you for years because it’s so applicable to a ton of different businesses.
0:44:01 How do I get clients? That’s a question that every entrepreneur asks themselves and there are lots of ways to do it.
0:44:08 But I really like Dustin’s approach here of being of service first and seeking out these win-win-win relationships.
0:44:15 If you’re thinking the virtual workshop strategy is worth a shot in your business, I put together a free cheat sheet to help you get organized
0:44:20 and keep track of all the steps at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:44:29 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:44:34 Big thanks to Dustin for sharing his insight. That’s it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:44:37 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:44:41 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. I’ll see you then. Hustle on.
0:44:43 on.

0:00:06 A hundred bucks a day on YouTube with the help of AI video tools.
0:00:07 What’s up?
0:00:08 What’s up?
0:00:09 Nick Loper here.
0:00:11 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show where we can help you make day jobs optional.
0:00:19 Since 2013, last year, we met Tony Eason-Dreides on the show, with episode 565 in the podcast
0:00:20 feed.
0:00:25 We did a really interesting episode on YouTube automation where the flow was kind of like
0:00:26 this.
0:00:32 A hopefully viral video topic, send it off to a researcher/scriptwriter who then passes
0:00:37 that script off to a voiceover artist who hands that off to a video editor who pulls
0:00:42 in all these clips and makes the video all in the name of hitting that viral YouTube
0:00:47 lottery, playing the game of really planting a bunch of digital assets in the form of these
0:00:52 videos, little money seeds to go out there and hopefully work for you, and then banking
0:00:59 that enough of them hit to turn a profit on all that labor cost in the form of ad income.
0:01:04 Well, what a difference a year makes because now we’ve got AI tools to assist in just about
0:01:07 every step of that production process.
0:01:12 Tony’s been on the front lines of these changes, so I wanted to have him back on to find out,
0:01:16 first of all, is that a good thing for content creators, for YouTubers, but also Side Hustlers
0:01:20 can make some money in this new AI-powered YouTube landscape.
0:01:23 Last year, we talked about his interesting flow channel, where he had earned as much
0:01:27 as $14,000 in a month during a viral spike.
0:01:33 He’s since started several new channels, including Bible Blazing, a Bible-themed channel, which
0:01:39 was able to get monetized in just 30 days, making up to $100 a day, built using AI.
0:01:43 Now, we talked about the video production process.
0:01:47 Where is the human element, where is your value at as the entrepreneur here?
0:01:48 What stages are you involved with?
0:01:49 Yeah.
0:01:50 Thanks for having me back on, Nick.
0:01:54 Yeah, a lot can happen in a year, and there was actually a huge spike of AI in the last
0:01:55 quarter of 2023.
0:02:01 There was a huge spike of AI, and now in 2024, it’s just rolling out very fast.
0:02:07 So AI has made a significant change to the industry, and it’s been good and bad in terms
0:02:12 of good for the creators, but a bit bad for the freelancers, because a lot of the freelancers
0:02:14 have pretty much been replaced with AI.
0:02:18 There’s someone I know who I’ve been talking to about AI, and he’s been telling me that
0:02:22 AI is going to completely take over the film industry, even to the point where we’re going
0:02:26 to have full-on movies and full-on videos, YouTube videos that are going to be completely
0:02:30 made by AI 100%, because it’s not 100% there yet.
0:02:36 We’re close to there, but yeah, it’s debatable as to whether there’ll be zero human aspect
0:02:37 by the looks of how things are going.
0:02:38 I think we’re heading there.
0:02:44 What’s your role today, or is it still kind of this idea generation process?
0:02:48 I mean, I imagine you could probably cue ChatGPT, like, “Give me some viral video ideas
0:02:52 on the topic of Bible verses,” or something like for the case of this Bible channel.
0:02:57 Yeah, so ChatGPT is really good for giving out video ideas, so you can just whack into
0:03:03 ChatGPT, “Give me 10 video ideas of this,” or “Give me 10 variations of this viral video
0:03:04 that went viral.”
0:03:09 So let’s say you had a viral video that was talking about where was Jesus during Satan’s
0:03:14 Rebellion, like, you can whack into ChatGPT and just put that title and just say, “Give
0:03:21 me several different variations of that video that I can use as a benchmark to do more videos.”
0:03:26 So essentially what you’ll do in YouTube Automation that you’ll still want to do now is that you
0:03:30 would want to pivot off of an already existing viral video, so let’s give that example.
0:03:35 So one of my viral videos on that channel was where was Jesus during Satan’s Rebellion.
0:03:39 I created several different variations from that video that I’ve gone on to hit hundreds
0:03:43 of thousands of views, so instead of where was Jesus during Satan’s Rebellion, I just
0:03:48 changed up the word “Jesus” and I put the word “God,” so I did another video that
0:03:51 talked about where was God during Satan’s Rebellion.
0:03:54 Then another video where was Angel Michael during Satan’s Rebellion, and now we have
0:03:58 a few more that’s going to be where was Gabriel during Satan’s Rebellion, so we change up
0:04:03 that name, and yeah, we do use ChatGPT to help with the ideation.
0:04:07 With YouTube, ideation is the most important facet of the YouTube game.
0:04:11 Having a great idea is going to be the difference between you hitting like a million views and
0:04:13 just like 10,000 views.
0:04:16 That’s how powerful ideation is, so I don’t mess around with ideation.
0:04:21 I make sure that even though AI comes up with suggestions, I always filter through that process.
0:04:26 In terms of a lot of scripts that we do, AI has been a significant help, so a lot of
0:04:31 script writers, the cheap script writers that did very basic scripts, they’re pretty much
0:04:32 out of the water now.
0:04:36 They’re pretty much out of the consideration to be hired, because ChatGPT’s pretty much
0:04:38 replaced them.
0:04:41 If you do want a premium script with a higher level, then you’re going to have to hire someone
0:04:45 who’s experienced in that area and is really good.
0:04:48 Those guys can’t get replaced because they’re really good at what they do.
0:04:53 In terms of voiceovers, there is a website called 11Labs, and this website is phenomenal.
0:04:58 You can have all these different variations of voices, and you would never tell that their
0:05:00 AI generated.
0:05:04 You’ll think they’re real voices, and we use them for our videos, and they work pretty
0:05:05 fine.
0:05:07 I’ve had comments, people say, “Who is that voiceover?”
0:05:10 No one questions if it’s a real voice or if it’s an AI.
0:05:15 For $20 a month, you can hire an AI voiceover, all these different variations of voices.
0:05:19 You can even clone your own voice, so you can just get several minutes of your voice
0:05:23 spoken, and then it will put together your voice and it will clone your voice.
0:05:25 That’s another aspect to 11Labs.
0:05:28 I recently had one of my voiceovers reach out to me.
0:05:31 He used to charge a ridiculous price for his voiceovers.
0:05:34 I can’t remember, but he was very, very expensive.
0:05:39 He recently reached out to me, and he was offering to do work for me for a fraction of the price,
0:05:42 because I’m assuming, he didn’t tell me this, but I’m assuming AI has literally just wiped
0:05:44 out that industry.
0:05:47 Not fully, but yeah, it’s been impacted heavily.
0:05:50 Yeah, that’s frightening for anybody in that space.
0:05:52 It’s frightening for me as a podcaster.
0:05:56 How long before my job is obsolete and where somebody else can come through and do this,
0:06:01 but you’re actually the second person to recommend 11Labs just in the past week or two, is one
0:06:06 of my initiatives is trying to build out a library of video content, but the bottleneck
0:06:12 is taking an existing blog post, in my case, this evergreen piece of content, this evergreen
0:06:16 article, and trying to create a video version of that to try and double dip in SEO and serve
0:06:21 a video-first audience versus an article-first audience, but the bottleneck is scripting
0:06:27 it for YouTube and then doing that voiceover, where it’s like, okay, maybe I could clone
0:06:32 my voice and it would do the voiceover part or accelerate that part of the process, even
0:06:37 if it’s only a seven, eight minute video to narrate, but that was something that was
0:06:38 on my radar.
0:06:44 I want to go back to the idea generating phase or even the channel idea generating phase.
0:06:48 Was there some level of research that led you to the Bible niche because interesting
0:06:53 flow was in the mega construction project niche, we were talking about Dubai’s man-made
0:06:55 islands and stuff like that?
0:06:56 Yeah.
0:07:00 So the way I got into the Bible group channel or the Bible blazing channel, I was scrolling
0:07:04 through YouTube and I found a lot of this Bible content that was just going viral, and
0:07:10 the content that was going viral was this AI and Bible stuff, and it was very basic,
0:07:15 and I knew that with the use of AI, I can blow that channel out of the water and just
0:07:16 get more views than them.
0:07:23 I knew that I can leverage the already existing videos that have gone viral, and yeah, that’s
0:07:24 pretty much what I did.
0:07:27 I did similar videos and I used a lot of AI.
0:07:31 We use an image generation tool called Mid Journey AI, which is one of the most popular
0:07:35 AI softwares that is used for image generation.
0:07:39 We use Mid Journey to generate the images and we put together the images with background
0:07:40 music.
0:07:41 It looks amazing.
0:07:43 I mean, I was blown away when I first saw my video editor put it together.
0:07:44 Yeah.
0:07:45 It really looks good.
0:07:51 So, Mid Journey is not just a thumbnail, it is creating internal images for the video
0:07:52 itself.
0:07:53 Yes.
0:07:56 So, you can use Mid Journey AI not just to do thumbnails, you can use it for the video
0:08:02 itself and you can use a tool called, I believe it’s called Runaway AI and it has a motion
0:08:06 brush effect where you can actually select parts of the image where there’s motion.
0:08:11 So, for example, if you have a man on a beach, you can use the motion brush tool to highlight
0:08:15 only the sea to have a bit of motion.
0:08:19 So, in the image, it will look like a moving image because the sea is moving, the waves
0:08:21 are moving, but the man is standing still.
0:08:27 So, AI has that effect as well and you have literally zero chance of being copyright claimed
0:08:31 or copyright striked with AI because you’re generating the images.
0:08:35 You’re paying for a subscription that’s generating the images so no one can say, “Hey, you used
0:08:36 my content.
0:08:39 I want a copyright claim on your channel or copyright strike on your channel.”
0:08:40 There’s none of that.
0:08:44 That still seems like a lot of effort to create hundreds of different scenes in an eight minute
0:08:49 video individually or is it just looking at your script and auto-generating those?
0:08:50 Yeah.
0:08:55 That’s exactly what I thought, Nick, but you can whack in your script into the AI.
0:08:59 With Me Journey, you would have to do it individually, but there is another software that my editor
0:09:00 is using.
0:09:02 He uses Runaway, but he uses another one.
0:09:06 I keep forgetting the name of it, but he just puts the whole script and it generates loads
0:09:08 of images.
0:09:11 He can pick and choose which image he wants to use and that’s made it so much easier.
0:09:13 I’ve been playing around with one called Pictori.
0:09:15 There’s a few of these.
0:09:20 I think I have a referral discount code for Pictori and it will take your voiceover, it
0:09:26 will take your script, and it will pull together hundreds of stock footage type of clips related
0:09:28 to what you’re talking about.
0:09:34 I would say it’s 90%, 95% good and accurate and occasionally it’s something like, “Well,
0:09:38 that was a different meaning of that word,” or something like it just looks a little bit
0:09:43 off or random, but the time savings versus having somebody go and source all of those
0:09:49 different clips and worry about the licenses for all that is like, “Oh, shoot, this is all
0:09:50 taking care of it.
0:09:53 It really, really accelerated a lot of videos that we’ve been trying to make where I’m doing
0:09:54 the voiceover.
0:09:55 It’s not AI yet.”
0:10:01 But then we are using Pictori, the AI tool, to build out the rest of that video and hopefully
0:10:06 make it something that’s visually compelling versus just me talking head and have maybe
0:10:09 a couple graphics fly in or something like that.
0:10:10 Yeah.
0:10:13 Pictori’s really good and other AI softwares that we use.
0:10:19 So we have ChatGPT for the script, then we have the voiceover, 11 labs, and you can pick
0:10:21 male or female and it sounds real.
0:10:26 You can even clone your own voice, image generation, yes, mid-journey, but we also use Dali, which
0:10:30 is, if you have the paid version of ChatGPT, you can use Dali as well.
0:10:34 So now you don’t even need to go on Dali, you can just write to ChatGPT.
0:10:38 If you have the paid version, just write a prompt and it will come up with the image.
0:10:42 Sometimes ChatGPT AI, the Dali is actually more accurate than mid-journey.
0:10:49 In terms of the thumbnail, we use either ChatGPT, Dali, or mid-journey, and then you can just
0:10:53 whack it into Canva to just add an arrow or add some text into it.
0:10:59 Traditional faceless YouTube channels, you would need to have a scriptwriter, video editor,
0:11:02 thumbnail designer, and then a voiceover.
0:11:08 But now ChatGPT is your scriptwriter, 11 labs is your voiceover, you can have the editing
0:11:13 with mid-journey, with different, to be honest, I haven’t fully outsourced that to AI.
0:11:19 That’s one thing that AI has helped video editors to achieve better videos, however,
0:11:22 it hasn’t fully taken over yet.
0:11:26 Me personally, I don’t know how to video edit, so for me, I’ll be clueless, so that
0:11:27 hasn’t been fully outsourced.
0:11:32 I still pay a video editor for that, so that’s not in the hands of AI fully, even though
0:11:34 they use AI to help them.
0:11:38 AI can either help you or it can take away your job.
0:11:43 You choose, in a sense, where you want AI to take your life, because I’ve had people
0:11:48 who can’t really work anymore due to AI in their field, whether it be voice-overing or
0:11:53 scriptwriting, but then I have my editor who has made so much money in the past few months
0:11:54 of me paying him.
0:11:56 I told him, I said, “Get rid of all your clients.
0:11:57 I want you.”
0:12:01 He does a phenomenal job, and yeah, I’ve paid him so much money in the past few months,
0:12:04 and it’s helped him dramatically.
0:12:08 Someone like him, someone like a video editor who knows how to utilize AI, for them, they’re
0:12:14 going to benefit, but someone who pretty much does basic stuff, then yeah, AI is sadly coming
0:12:18 for a lot of jobs that don’t require a lot of effort, if you know what I mean.
0:12:25 Yeah, it’s similar to a Fiverr or an Upwork situation where everybody was kind of concerned
0:12:30 about it’s a race to the bottom on pricing, and it’s like at the very bottom of the market,
0:12:36 yes, but at people want a higher touch point or a higher level of service, there’s still
0:12:40 room for humans, but the bar is getting higher and higher, unfortunately.
0:12:43 Or fortunately, like you said, on the content creator side, it reduces that barrier, but
0:12:48 on the service provider side, it’s just like, okay, I got to level up my game to be able
0:12:50 to compete in this AI world.
0:12:54 More with Tony in just a moment, including how he picks trending topics to create videos
0:12:59 for, and how you might stand out as the cost of production gets lower and lower right after
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0:14:11 So the name of the game is still like trying to find a trending topic or a topic that’s
0:14:16 gone viral and like trying to draft behind it or write on its coattails or piggyback
0:14:19 on that popularity a little bit.
0:14:23 It’s not necessarily like search and discovery where I’m, “Oh, the keyword tool said there
0:14:27 was a search volume of 5,000 a month, so I’m going to go after that.”
0:14:31 It’s like, “I really need hundreds of thousands of views for this to pay off.”
0:14:37 In a sense, yes, there is vidIQ that you can use to see the search volume on certain keywords.
0:14:41 VidIQ hasn’t been my best friend in terms of the keyword research side of things.
0:14:47 The vidIQ have a really good aspect to their software which is called a views per hour feature.
0:14:50 I think this can work even if you have the free version of vidIQ.
0:14:54 It works like an extension, like a Chrome browser and it can actually show you how many views
0:14:55 per hour a video is getting.
0:14:59 So if you’re scrolling through YouTube and you want to know which video is popping off,
0:15:02 sometimes the data alone with YouTube is not enough.
0:15:06 So when you see like a video has gone viral in the past three weeks, yeah, that’s pretty
0:15:07 much telling.
0:15:11 If it got like a million views in three weeks, then you know it’s in the algorithm, then
0:15:15 you can model after that video, but sometimes you don’t know when a video has fully died
0:15:16 down.
0:15:22 So if a video has got a million views in three weeks, but that video has died down in terms
0:15:25 of views per hour, but you don’t know it, you’re just looking at what YouTube’s given
0:15:26 you.
0:15:30 The vidIQ software allows you to see the views per hour video is getting.
0:15:35 So when I’m looking at trending topics, I always want to look at the views per hour that video
0:15:36 is getting.
0:15:39 So I know that the trend is still alive and I can do similar videos and benchmark off
0:15:41 of that wave.
0:15:46 And then when I’ve spotted a trend, I just double down on that trend and eventually it
0:15:47 works.
0:15:49 It’s not as hard as people make it out to be.
0:15:54 What’s very important as well is understanding your audience and chat GPT can help a lot
0:15:56 with understanding your audience.
0:16:00 I was on the call with a YouTuber a few weeks ago and he had like an EV channel, which was
0:16:02 about electric vehicles.
0:16:08 And he said that his income went from like three grand a month from his channel to like
0:16:10 he went to hit his first 11 grand month.
0:16:15 Only when he started to understand who his audience was did that change happen.
0:16:18 So basically his channel was about electric cars.
0:16:22 He was getting views and it was popping off and he was making like three grand a month.
0:16:27 He thought that his audience loved electric cars, but until he started looking at the
0:16:31 comments and he started to see that his audience, they don’t love electric cars, the reason
0:16:33 why they’re watching the video is because they hate electric cars and they’re saying
0:16:38 how it’s a scam, how it’s not efficient, it’s a big scam from the government.
0:16:39 Are you understood?
0:16:40 Hold on.
0:16:41 My audience, they hate electric cars.
0:16:46 So then he started doing videos against electric cars saying how it’s a scam, how it’s an agenda
0:16:49 from the government and then his views just skyrocketed.
0:16:54 And then I was just like, damn, when you understand who your audience is, then you can just leverage
0:16:57 that and just take your channel to the moon.
0:17:00 And so that’s what I’ve been doing recently, I’ve been analyzing the data and the YouTube
0:17:04 analytics enables you to see who your audience are, how old they are.
0:17:07 If they’re male or female, what percentage are male, what percentage are female, which
0:17:09 country they’re watching from.
0:17:13 And what you can do is you can go on your most viral video or the most viral video in
0:17:14 your niche.
0:17:18 There’s a section on the right hand side with vidIQ where you can copy and paste the script
0:17:23 of the video and you can whack that into chatGPT and then ask chatGPT to give you a customer
0:17:28 avatar or a audience avatar of the people who would watch that kind of video and it
0:17:32 will come up with an avatar of your audience and that’s the person you want to speak to.
0:17:33 Dang.
0:17:34 Okay.
0:17:35 That’s fascinating.
0:17:41 And then the next phase would be to kind of include that audience profile or customer
0:17:45 avatar type of persona into your script prompt.
0:17:51 Like, hey, I want to make a video about the next topic that you have in mind, but write
0:17:53 the script for this type of person.
0:17:56 Like, is that kind of how you’re leading the tool to give you the script that that audience
0:17:57 would like?
0:17:58 I thought of it that way.
0:17:59 I might start doing that, Nick.
0:18:01 Thanks for suggesting that.
0:18:04 Actually ask in chatGPT to say, “Write me a script for this kind of avatar.”
0:18:07 That will actually work, I believe.
0:18:09 I’ll give that a shot, but I didn’t specifically do that.
0:18:16 I’ll look at the customer avatar and I’ll look for things like Bible stories that fit
0:18:18 to that avatar.
0:18:19 That’s what I was doing before.
0:18:20 Yeah.
0:18:23 Just tailoring to their needs and what they want to feel.
0:18:25 Some people want to feel joy.
0:18:29 Some people want to feel that their beliefs are being reassured.
0:18:30 They want to feel smart.
0:18:32 They want to feel like, yeah, I like this content.
0:18:36 This is making me feel that I’m right, that I’m in the right, kind of stroke in the ego
0:18:37 kind of thing.
0:18:39 So, you can just leverage that.
0:18:40 Yeah.
0:18:44 And even if one video already went viral on that same topic, that ship has sailed, it
0:18:49 means, hey, there’s clearly a hungry audience for this type of stuff, so how can we feed
0:18:50 into that?
0:19:00 Now, how do you make your video on that same topic better, different, unique in some way,
0:19:02 especially as everybody starts to use the same tool?
0:19:05 Hey, give me a script on this topic.
0:19:10 And after a while, like the barrier to entry, the cost of production goes so low that it’s
0:19:14 just got to be flooded with almost identical videos.
0:19:20 What you need to do is you need to be the person in your niche who knows the most or
0:19:25 who’s the most knowledgeable or at least be perceived as that person who’s the most expertise
0:19:26 in your niche.
0:19:31 I’ve studied the Bible and I’m pretty much passionate about my niche, which I’m in right
0:19:32 now.
0:19:36 So, I just apply the knowledge I know and I just make sure it’s perfect.
0:19:40 Like every script, I don’t care if AI has generated most of it.
0:19:45 I don’t even care if I’ve had a script writer do the script for me.
0:19:47 I fact check everything.
0:19:48 I look at it.
0:19:49 I mull it down.
0:19:50 I pretty much rewrite it.
0:19:53 I’m very fussy when it comes to this niche and this and the scripts that I’m doing right
0:19:58 now, because like you said, YouTube keeps increasing, so I’m not too worried about things
0:20:02 being oversaturated with YouTube, because YouTube has just overthrown Netflix right
0:20:03 now.
0:20:07 There’s a statistic that just came out that there’s more consumers on YouTube than on
0:20:12 Netflix and it’s been constantly increasing, so there’s always going to be more consumers
0:20:16 than producers, but in terms of different niches, yeah, you have to be good at what
0:20:17 you do.
0:20:22 So, gone are the days of doing crappy videos and them going viral when you get in a way
0:20:23 with it.
0:20:28 Right now, you have to have quality over quantity and really make sure that the content that
0:20:35 you’re producing is good, is edited well, but in my opinion, and from my experience,
0:20:39 the most important thing is ideation, so you have to master ideation and scripting.
0:20:44 So, those are the two most important things I found out in my YouTube journey, that if
0:20:48 you have a brilliant idea and then you have a brilliant script that goes with it, and
0:20:53 if you’re really, really fussy with the script and say fussy, I mean like you redo the intro
0:20:57 like three or four times and you just want to perfect it and you’re up all night and
0:21:02 you’re working hours on it, that’s the kind of fuzziness I apply to my scripts.
0:21:07 It’s actually helpful to hear because it makes for a nice sounding, hey, I came up with this
0:21:12 idea and then AI did everything else, it’s like, oh no, I still had to apply my expertise
0:21:17 here, I helped massage that script to use my own first-hand experience and expertise,
0:21:23 and I think that’s how creators can still stand out and win in an AI world is your first-hand
0:21:27 experience, no machine is going to be able to replicate that, and then creating primary
0:21:31 source material, even if the machines are going to eventually rip that off and use it
0:21:35 to train their models, like at least you came up with it first, it’s got to be worth something
0:21:39 hopefully, knock on wood down the road, but that’s kind of how we’re trying to play the
0:21:43 game, like oh, we’re going to actually go out and test these different apps and websites
0:21:48 that we talk about rather than just regurgitating what else has been said about it online.
0:21:52 Anybody can do that, but it doesn’t add any unique value, so what unique value you drive
0:21:57 into the table, hey, in your case, I’m bringing my own Bible experience to these scripts and
0:22:03 trying to make something that is better and unique compared to whatever else is out there,
0:22:07 and six months from now, the other AI tool is going to crawl that, but at least you came
0:22:08 out with it first.
0:22:09 Yeah, that’s good.
0:22:14 And going back to the whole competitive advantage aspect, it’s very important to identify whoever
0:22:19 you are, so you might not have the best knowledge in your niche, but you might have a competitive
0:22:24 advantage, and I believe everybody is unique, and everyone has some sort of competitive advantage
0:22:27 in their hands, whether they know it or not, especially when it comes to YouTube.
0:22:32 So someone might not have a lot of knowledge in their niche, like I do, however, they might
0:22:38 have a lot of money to burn, and they can just hire somebody who has a lot of knowledge
0:22:44 in their niche, and they can hire a better editor, or your competitive advantage might
0:22:46 not be money, it might be time.
0:22:49 Some people have more time than others, if you’re in high school and you have a lot of
0:22:53 time in your hands, you don’t have responsibilities, you can just learn editing, you can just become
0:22:58 the best editor, and you have all this time, you can just become the best video editor
0:23:01 like in your city, or pretty much aim for the best in the world.
0:23:04 If you have time, then that’s your competitive advantage.
0:23:06 If you have a lot of money, that’s your competitive advantage.
0:23:09 If you have a lot of knowledge, that’s your competitive advantage.
0:23:14 So you have to discover what your gift is, what your competitive advantage is, and just
0:23:16 double down on that, because that’s what’s going to make you unique.
0:23:21 Otherwise, anyone and everyone can be successful in that field, but once you understand that,
0:23:26 no, I have the gift, I’m gifted to write great scripts, I’m a writer, I love writing, I love
0:23:28 copywriting, so use that.
0:23:32 If you’re visual, if you’re good at designing, and you have an eye for things, then just
0:23:35 use that for thumbnails and for videos.
0:23:39 Or if you have a lot of knowledge in a specific niche, like electric cars or whatever, just
0:23:43 use that and apply that to your YouTube or your business journey, even if you’re not
0:23:46 going into YouTube, you can apply into any journey.
0:23:50 Or you’ve probably gone through certain experiences like horse riding or fishing, you probably
0:23:54 have an expertise, an expertise that most people don’t have, and you just think it’s
0:23:58 always just me, but I’ve always done horse riding, it’s nothing special, but little
0:24:00 do you know that most people in the world don’t know how to do it.
0:24:04 Yeah, the curse of knowledge, like it’s hard to imagine, not knowing that thing.
0:24:05 Yeah, exactly.
0:24:09 So that’s the thing I would advise, because that thought does run through my mind in it,
0:24:13 I believe it runs through everyone’s mind, who’s in business, or who’s in YouTube, where
0:24:18 they think, okay, what’s stopping a bunch of people from doing what I’m doing, but when
0:24:22 you understand that you have a competitive advantage and you have a lot of knowledge
0:24:26 in this niche, or you have a lot of money in your hands, or a lot of time on your hands,
0:24:29 then you can use that for your advantage.
0:24:34 I asked ChatGPT to give me some viral video ideas of the side hustle niche, and came up
0:24:35 with some pretty good ones.
0:24:41 It said the top 10 most profitable side hustles for 2024, passive income side hustles earn
0:24:46 money while you sleep, how I made 500 bucks in a week flipping thrift store fines, I feel
0:24:50 like some of these titles are almost word for word ripped off from vlog content titles
0:24:55 or podcast titles, from side hustle the full time, how I quit my nine to five, side hustle
0:24:58 mistakes, some of them are not that great.
0:25:02 The downsides of side hustle, it’s hard to imagine that one going viral.
0:25:08 But some of these, you could see how they might have some potential to get the creative
0:25:12 juices flowing versus, I guess I could also start on YouTube and just sort by views or
0:25:18 sort by like a view velocity metric too, to see like, oh, okay, I could add my own unique
0:25:22 spin on that topic since that seems to be trending right now.
0:25:23 Yeah.
0:25:27 So ChatGPT is really good for when you’ve kind of lost your creativity.
0:25:32 Just like what you said, Nick, you just whack it into ChatGPT, ask it a question, it will
0:25:35 come up with a bunch of answers, but then it might not give you the answer that you’re
0:25:38 looking for, but it will lead to the answer that you’re looking for.
0:25:43 It might not, like those titles that you just typed in, Nick, you might not go for one of
0:25:44 those ideas.
0:25:49 However, like you said, it gets the creative juices flowing, so it might lead to you doing
0:25:52 something similar to one of those ideas that has popped up.
0:25:53 Yeah.
0:25:54 Oh, five side hustles, you can start with no money.
0:25:56 I feel like that would be a good one.
0:25:58 It will have to do that, make that video at some point.
0:26:03 Do you spend time and effort on marketing or is it just like, I put it out there, I did
0:26:08 my homework and ideation upfront, I tried to make the best video that exists on this topic,
0:26:12 and then I’m going to hope that people start to notice it, or do you have to do anything
0:26:16 to push that viral algorithm, hopefully, to get some attention.
0:26:20 I would say hijack the psychology of a viral thumbnail.
0:26:24 If you see that there’s something being used in a thumbnail, which is like, for the listeners
0:26:28 who don’t know what a thumbnail is, a thumbnail is like an image that, before you click on
0:26:32 YouTube video, it has the title, and then you have the thumbnail, which is like an image
0:26:34 of what portrays what the video is about.
0:26:38 I would say hijack the psychology of an already viral thumbnail, so if you look in your niche,
0:26:43 if you see like MrBeast, for example, he uses this a lot, where he uses a lot of bright,
0:26:46 vibrant colors in his thumbnails and a lot of emotion.
0:26:51 So there’s always like him screaming, or him like underwater, or something crazy is going
0:26:52 on in the thumbnail.
0:26:57 So if you’re in his niche, then do something similar, and you can even ask ChatGPT to do
0:27:04 an analysis of your thumbnail, just screenshot it, throw it into ChatGPT, tell it to give
0:27:07 you an analysis and ask it how you can improve it.
0:27:08 And actually does that for you.
0:27:13 It’s very, very smart, ChatGPT, just things that anything you throw at it, it pretty much
0:27:14 does it.
0:27:15 It’s weirdly amazing.
0:27:20 But one thing I would say when it comes to YouTube, most of the times it is a numbers
0:27:21 game.
0:27:24 So I was saying this to one of my clients, I’ve been coaching him on how to run YouTube
0:27:25 channels.
0:27:27 You can push out 10 videos a month.
0:27:30 Not all 10 videos will go viral.
0:27:37 However, if three videos go viral, then that will pay for all of the seven videos that
0:27:38 didn’t go viral.
0:27:43 So you can invest money, and you can invest time into 10 videos a month.
0:27:49 And even though seven videos don’t make you any money, the whole purpose is you would
0:27:54 want at least three of those videos, which will make you money and will pay for all 10
0:27:57 of those videos plus profits.
0:28:00 And the good thing about YouTube is you just have to post the video once, and once you’ve
0:28:03 posted it once, it will remain on there forever.
0:28:06 And as long as it’s getting views, it will pay you pretty much as long as it’s getting
0:28:07 views forever.
0:28:11 And that’s the good thing about having these digital assets or digital real estate with
0:28:12 YouTube.
0:28:14 You upload the video once, it pays you passively forever.
0:28:15 Is that where you like to be at?
0:28:19 If I’m batting 300, if I have a 30% hit rate, then I’m happy.
0:28:21 I know I’m doing something right.
0:28:22 Yeah.
0:28:23 That’s the minimum that you would want to accept.
0:28:26 And all you pretty much need is three videos a month to hit decent numbers for the whole
0:28:28 production process to be paid for.
0:28:33 What kind of minimum view count is considered good or is considered a hit?
0:28:37 I would say the current RPM we’re working with right now is around $4.5.
0:28:43 So if we get a million views, then we’ll get $4.5,000 USD.
0:28:51 So essentially, I would say a good number for us to break even for 10 videos will be
0:28:57 around 150K, 150,000 views to 200,000 views.
0:28:58 Okay.
0:28:59 Gosh, that’s a lot.
0:29:04 I think in 10 years of my YouTube channel, I’ve had one or two go over 100,000.
0:29:06 Clearly not using all the tools to my advantage here.
0:29:08 What’s the typical production cost for you these days?
0:29:10 It’s around $10 per minute.
0:29:12 That’s the production cost right now.
0:29:15 So for like a 10 minute video, it’ll be like $100.
0:29:19 And to break even on a 10 minute video, which is the average view duration.
0:29:24 So we invest like $100, we’ll need 22,000 views to break even.
0:29:25 All right.
0:29:27 We’ve got lots of different channels going on.
0:29:31 We will link up Tony’s seven steps on how to crush it on YouTube.
0:29:33 That’s an email opt-in over at his site.
0:29:35 We’ll link that up in the show notes.
0:29:40 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation 2024 edition.
0:29:43 Never ever give up.
0:29:47 And I know it sounds like a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason.
0:29:52 Never give up and find out what your competitive advantage is.
0:29:54 And I know I mentioned it earlier.
0:30:01 It’s important to understand who you are, what you have experienced in life and what
0:30:02 you bring to the table.
0:30:07 So whether it be YouTube or any type of business, it’s very important to see what is your competitive
0:30:08 advantage?
0:30:10 What have you experienced that most people haven’t?
0:30:11 What do you have that most people don’t have?
0:30:12 Do you have a lot of time?
0:30:13 Do you have a lot of money?
0:30:14 Are you young?
0:30:15 Do you have a lot of energy?
0:30:16 Are you good at remembering things?
0:30:18 Are you photographic?
0:30:22 Use that to your advantage because that’s going to be what makes you different from everybody
0:30:23 else.
0:30:24 Yeah, absolutely.
0:30:28 In an AI world, you figure out what’s going to make your channel unique from the next
0:30:29 guys.
0:30:30 It’s you.
0:30:34 You got to be that extra ingredient and sprinkle in your own personality expertise, whatever
0:30:39 it may be, to really drive results and to make something unique in the world, make something
0:30:40 stand out.
0:30:46 So again, fascinating stuff on the YouTube and AI revolution on the video front over
0:30:47 there.
0:30:51 So as we mentioned, this is Tony’s on-core visit to the side hustle show.
0:30:54 So make sure to check out his first appearance if you missed it.
0:30:58 That is episode five at 65 in your podcast feed.
0:31:02 But again, we’re talking about making money on YouTube, planting these little money seeds
0:31:06 and maybe a good one to pair with this one and see what all has changed over the course
0:31:07 of a year.
0:31:10 But if you’re new to the show, you’re wondering what to listen to next, I want to invite you
0:31:13 to do what thousands of listeners have already done.
0:31:18 Please do in it and that’s to build yourself a personalized playlist of the side hustle
0:31:21 show episodes that will be most relevant to you.
0:31:26 All you got to do is go to hustle.show, answer a few short multiple choice questions and
0:31:31 the little quiz will spit back out this cool curated money making playlist recommendation
0:31:33 based on your answers.
0:31:37 So that’s at hustle.show and you grab your playlist over there.
0:31:40 Big thanks to Tony for sharing his insight.
0:31:43 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:31:48 You can hit up side hustle nation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:31:50 in one place.
0:31:51 That’s it for me.
0:31:52 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:31:55 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen and I’ll catch you in the
0:31:58 next edition of the side hustle show hustle on.

0:00:03 – Nine rules to level up any side hustle.
0:00:05 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:06 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show,
0:00:10 helping you take back control of your earning power
0:00:12 so your income doesn’t have to stop when your day job does.
0:00:15 Today we’re talking about scaling up your side hustle.
0:00:18 We’ve got a lot of episodes on zero to one
0:00:21 part of the equation, which is honestly probably
0:00:24 the harder part, wheeling something into existence
0:00:26 and getting it off the ground, not an easy key,
0:00:29 but today we’re talking about the next stage.
0:00:31 We’ve gone from zero to one, now it’s time
0:00:33 to go from one to two to 10.
0:00:34 Well, how do you do it?
0:00:36 We’ve got nine rules to go through.
0:00:38 Listen in to see which stage you’re at today
0:00:41 to see where you need to focus your attention next.
0:00:43 To help me with these is a special guest
0:00:45 who knows a thing or two about scaling.
0:00:47 He’s done it with multiple businesses,
0:00:50 including flipping over 100 houses a year,
0:00:52 sometimes without even seeing the houses,
0:00:56 scaling, automating and selling an online education business.
0:00:59 It is the latest venture and online platform and podcast
0:01:03 from MillionaireUniversity.com, Justin Williams.
0:01:04 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:01:06 – Hey, Nick, what’s going on?
0:01:08 What’s up, Side Hustle Nation?
0:01:10 Before we dive in real quick, Nick, I just wanna say
0:01:13 I started listening to your podcast just over a year ago.
0:01:16 We had taken some time off, we sold our business,
0:01:19 and honestly, it was hard to get back into
0:01:21 the business world after taking some time off.
0:01:22 There was a lot of demons in there,
0:01:25 and I found your show and started listening to it,
0:01:27 even though your show was for Side Hustles,
0:01:31 and in a way, people getting started and getting going,
0:01:33 it gave me a lot of inspiration to keep going,
0:01:35 and I just appreciate what you’re doing.
0:01:38 So being here is pretty exciting.
0:01:39 I mean, you’re one of the rare podcasts out there
0:01:42 that both get the guests to really share
0:01:44 everything that’s going on in their business,
0:01:46 but it’s also real down-to-earth.
0:01:47 You never get that icky feeling
0:01:48 when you’re listening to you,
0:01:49 and I just recommend it to you, everyone.
0:01:51 You’re like a mentor to my kids.
0:01:54 So anyway, huge fan, thank you for everything that you’ve done.
0:01:55 – I’m gonna put that on a bumper stick.
0:01:57 You don’t get that icky feeling.
0:01:58 If that’s an endorsement, I don’t know what to do.
0:01:59 – No, it’s so true, right?
0:02:01 Like, you just don’t get that,
0:02:02 like a lot of times I’m listening to something,
0:02:03 I get a lot of value,
0:02:04 but there’s kind of the back of my mind.
0:02:06 I’m like, what’s really going on here?
0:02:07 And you’re just so down-to-earth,
0:02:09 and I just really appreciate what you’re doing.
0:02:11 And on behalf of everyone,
0:02:13 I’m sure who’s listening feels the same.
0:02:15 You’re doing a great work, so thank you.
0:02:18 – Well, very much appreciated that makes my day.
0:02:20 So if you’re listening and we’re doing three rounds
0:02:22 with Justin today, we’re doing the nine rules of scale,
0:02:23 or nine rules to scale.
0:02:25 We’re doing a donate a business idea.
0:02:26 He says he’s got a good one for us.
0:02:27 Stick around for that.
0:02:29 And then we’re doing the triple threat,
0:02:31 a marketing tactic that’s working now,
0:02:33 a favorite new or new to him tool,
0:02:35 and the best book of the last 12 months.
0:02:37 But let’s kick it off with these nine rules.
0:02:38 What’s rule number one?
0:02:42 – So the first rule that we have is intent.
0:02:45 Now, I almost didn’t use this one because it sounds obvious.
0:02:46 Like, of course you have to have intent,
0:02:49 but what I found is the number one reason
0:02:51 and the way that we have scaled,
0:02:52 all the business we scaled is because
0:02:54 it was our intention to do so.
0:02:56 In our minds, we were always asking,
0:02:58 how can we do this better?
0:03:00 How can we do more of this?
0:03:01 How can we automate this?
0:03:04 How can we get more done with less time?
0:03:07 And what I found is most people who haven’t scaled
0:03:08 their business or aren’t scaling their business
0:03:12 for side hustle is it’s not their intention to do so.
0:03:15 Kristin Armstrong, who’s one of the best women cyclists
0:03:18 that’s ever cycled, she said we either live
0:03:21 with intention or exist by default.
0:03:24 And I just see so many people going throughout their lives
0:03:26 and they don’t have an intention to change things.
0:03:29 And they just kind of are reactive
0:03:30 to things that are going on in their life
0:03:33 and they don’t really get the places that they wanna go.
0:03:35 So number one is intent.
0:03:38 Your brain is an insanely powerful tool.
0:03:39 If you give it a problem to solve,
0:03:41 it’ll usually go to work doing it.
0:03:43 So first of all, you gotta have that big vision.
0:03:44 You gotta know where you wanna go.
0:03:48 You gotta have the intention to want to grow and scale.
0:03:50 And that’s rule number one.
0:03:52 – That’s a really powerful one.
0:03:53 I’m kind of with you.
0:03:54 Do you even include that?
0:03:56 ‘Cause it’s almost so obvious
0:03:59 and almost woo-woo of the power of positive thinking.
0:04:01 If you believe it, it’ll start to come true.
0:04:02 – Totally.
0:04:04 – But we’ve heard from so many entrepreneurs,
0:04:08 if you don’t have this vision of where you wanna go,
0:04:08 how are you ever gonna get there?
0:04:11 I’d like trying to do Brian Scoodemore
0:04:12 from “1800 Got Junk.”
0:04:14 He called it his painted picture vision
0:04:16 of like, hey, five years down the road.
0:04:17 This is what the business is gonna be doing.
0:04:18 This is what it’s gonna look like
0:04:19 from a branding perspective.
0:04:21 And then just kind of working backwards
0:04:24 to get from the reality that is today,
0:04:25 how do we make that happen?
0:04:27 I love this line of we live with intention
0:04:30 or exist by default.
0:04:32 And I find myself guilty of this as much as anybody.
0:04:34 So this is not like preaching from on high,
0:04:38 but like you’re going through the motions day to day
0:04:40 and you feel like kind of just in maintenance mode
0:04:42 and like you described it reactive
0:04:44 versus driving your own agenda forward,
0:04:46 living with intention.
0:04:49 I often feels like, well, I’m too busy chopping down trees
0:04:50 to sharpen the saw.
0:04:51 And she kind of gets stuck at that.
0:04:55 Like anything that has worked for you exercise-wise
0:05:00 or other resource-wise to get clear on this intention
0:05:01 or where you wanna go.
0:05:03 – I always start with the goal.
0:05:05 Often it’s a money goal, it’s a number goal.
0:05:08 For example, when we started flipping 100 houses a year,
0:05:10 I remember we were at a wild buffalo wings
0:05:12 with a bunch of other investor friends.
0:05:14 And together I started counting up how many houses
0:05:16 we had all flipped collectively that past year.
0:05:17 And it was just over a hundred.
0:05:22 And I said, I wanna flip 100 houses just my business alone.
0:05:23 Everyone laughed at me.
0:05:24 They thought I was crazy.
0:05:26 – Yes, like a house every three and a half days.
0:05:27 Like how does this even happen?
0:05:27 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:05:29 And up until that point,
0:05:31 we definitely hadn’t done that many, right?
0:05:34 But I just thought, why can’t I do this?
0:05:35 So I started thinking about it, how can we do it?
0:05:36 How can we do it?
0:05:37 It started with a goal.
0:05:39 Also wanted to get to a seven figure income.
0:05:41 So it was constantly just working those numbers.
0:05:42 How can we get there?
0:05:43 How can we get there?
0:05:45 And then I mean, we’ll kind of go through,
0:05:47 I don’t wanna like, we’ll go through the rest of the rules,
0:05:48 right?
0:05:50 We’ll share like what,
0:05:51 how we’re gonna help them get there essentially.
0:05:54 So rule number two, should we move on to it?
0:05:55 – Yeah, let’s do it.
0:05:56 – Okay.
0:05:57 Rule number two is eliminate.
0:06:00 Essentially, the way this works is you wanna write down
0:06:02 everything that you’re currently doing
0:06:05 in your business and your life.
0:06:10 And you just wanna start getting rid of anything you can.
0:06:13 I’m all about having multiple streams of income.
0:06:15 But if you’re spending a lot of time
0:06:17 doing some things that you’re not getting great results,
0:06:19 you might wanna just let those things go.
0:06:22 Peter Drucker said, there’s nothing so useless
0:06:27 as doing efficiently that which shouldn’t be done at all.
0:06:29 And I don’t know about you, Nick,
0:06:30 but there are a lot of times where I’ll find myself
0:06:33 working on this project and it’s taking a ton of time
0:06:35 and energy and I’m getting frustrated.
0:06:36 And I just sit and think about it.
0:06:38 And I think about my long-term goals.
0:06:41 And I’m just like, do I need to do this?
0:06:43 Like, is this even something that matters
0:06:44 or is it important right now?
0:06:47 And sometimes I’ll just eliminate it completely.
0:06:48 – What was an example for you?
0:06:52 – When we started Millionaire University,
0:06:55 Tara and I were doing everything.
0:06:58 We thought we had to have our social medias dialed in.
0:06:59 We were doing the podcasts.
0:07:01 We were trying to collect emails.
0:07:03 We were doing blogging.
0:07:05 We were doing Twitter threads,
0:07:07 which now you have threads, threads.
0:07:09 Like, we were trying to do it all.
0:07:12 And it was fun for about a week.
0:07:15 And then it started to get exhausting and overwhelming.
0:07:17 And we were like, what are we doing?
0:07:19 We don’t even have to have a business,
0:07:21 but we’re doing this business ’cause we got bored
0:07:22 and we weren’t fulfilled.
0:07:25 So we started a business and now we were just working
0:07:28 and working and working and not enjoying
0:07:30 anything that we had done.
0:07:31 So we just came to the realization,
0:07:34 okay, what is the one thing that we wanna focus on?
0:07:36 And it was the podcast.
0:07:38 We still did some social media stuff,
0:07:39 but it was very limited.
0:07:41 We didn’t worry about any other metrics.
0:07:43 We just worried about growing our podcasts.
0:07:46 We weren’t getting traction in anything.
0:07:49 Here we had Bill, other successful businesses.
0:07:51 We had pretty good cash flow coming in
0:07:53 and we were just working our guts out
0:07:56 and not getting any traction because we were spread too thin
0:07:57 and weren’t really getting anywhere.
0:08:01 – Is that the deciding factor of if I’m not seeing traction
0:08:05 in the combination of I really don’t enjoy doing it
0:08:06 because the counter argument would be like,
0:08:08 well, I’m not seeing traction, but I only gave it a week.
0:08:09 I gotta put in some breaths.
0:08:11 I gotta put in some time here to grow an Instagram audience,
0:08:13 to grow a Twitter audience or something like that.
0:08:17 – So I think it’s a combination of both, right?
0:08:18 We decided what are we best at
0:08:20 and what do we enjoy the most?
0:08:21 And let’s put everything else on the back burner.
0:08:24 Doesn’t mean we’re not gonna go back to it at some point,
0:08:25 but let’s put it all in the back burner
0:08:28 and really double down and focus on what we enjoy the most
0:08:30 ’cause it gives us the most energy
0:08:32 and what we think we’re the best at
0:08:34 so we can really focus in on it.
0:08:35 And that was the podcast.
0:08:37 And the truth is, even at the beginning,
0:08:39 we weren’t getting a lot of traction in the podcast.
0:08:41 We had done several podcasts in the past
0:08:44 and we thought this is like our fourth podcast.
0:08:45 We’re gonna kill it.
0:08:48 And we published it and it was crickets.
0:08:51 Like, we had several episodes ready.
0:08:52 We built this website.
0:08:54 We were excited for having to reach out and be like,
0:08:56 yeah, a million university guys are gonna change the world
0:08:58 and nothing happened.
0:09:00 It was so disappointing.
0:09:01 And even after we limited other stuff,
0:09:03 it was still crickets.
0:09:05 But after focusing on that one thing,
0:09:09 just growing the podcast numbers in any way we could,
0:09:11 creating the best content we could for the podcast,
0:09:14 we did start to see traction to the point today
0:09:16 where we now in the past 30 days
0:09:19 have over 260,000 downloads.
0:09:21 And it’s just, everything has changed.
0:09:22 Now we have traction, we can go back
0:09:25 and start to do some of those other things over time.
0:09:27 – Yeah, I feel like there’s a certain pressure
0:09:30 to be everywhere and try all these different channels.
0:09:33 But the brands and creators that you see doing that
0:09:35 likely have a team in place.
0:09:36 So they’ve been doing this for years
0:09:38 where they really honed in the systems for it.
0:09:39 – 100%.
0:09:40 – And if you’re trying to do that as a side hustle,
0:09:42 you’re just like, oh my God.
0:09:44 And then that’s the reason I’ve had such a hard time
0:09:49 indicating the time to short form social platforms.
0:09:52 It’s like, I’d so much rather to create long form content
0:09:53 that’s gonna be around for years.
0:09:54 – 100%.
0:09:56 – Than come up with this thread
0:09:59 that may or may not get any traction or eyeballs
0:10:00 that is gone tomorrow, even if it does.
0:10:02 I guess it’s just kind of a weird,
0:10:04 and one of the things that I eliminated early on
0:10:07 that I felt was very necessary in the business
0:10:08 was the email opt-in form.
0:10:10 I had like first name, email, right?
0:10:12 And some people would not fill in the first name.
0:10:14 It was like an optional field.
0:10:16 But I would, I still remember doing this in Aweber
0:10:18 copying and pasting this email.
0:10:21 And sometimes it would be like John Smith at yahoo.com.
0:10:22 It’s like, okay, I’m gonna guess
0:10:23 that this guy’s name was John.
0:10:24 So I’m gonna put in John.
0:10:26 And like, just so it would show up
0:10:29 like more personalized in their broadcast emails.
0:10:31 It’s like, if somebody didn’t care to put in their name,
0:10:34 like, I don’t know, the cumulative hours
0:10:35 I’ve probably spent doing this
0:10:37 in the name of a more personalized experience.
0:10:40 But that was something that has long since been eliminated.
0:10:41 So that’s rule number two,
0:10:44 eliminate what is not getting results
0:10:46 or driving you towards that intention.
0:10:47 But what’s number three for us?
0:10:50 – Rule number three is automate.
0:10:52 So you want to take that same list
0:10:53 that you had all those things on,
0:10:54 you eliminate everything you can
0:10:57 and also eliminate things in your personal life.
0:10:59 They say the average person consumes
0:11:02 about eight hours of media per day.
0:11:04 So imagine if you can just cut that in half.
0:11:06 But if you’re at four, cut it to two.
0:11:08 I’m not saying don’t watch any TV
0:11:10 or like I would be a hypocrite, right?
0:11:11 Or Netflix or anything,
0:11:13 but just cut that in half.
0:11:15 It’ll buy back a lot of your time.
0:11:18 So then you’re gonna take that list of what’s left over
0:11:21 and number three and four kind of go together.
0:11:22 You’re gonna write down,
0:11:23 you’re gonna figure out what you can automate,
0:11:25 which is number three and then number four,
0:11:27 which is delegate.
0:11:28 So you’re gonna look at this list
0:11:29 and you’re not gonna think,
0:11:31 can I automate or delegate these things?
0:11:35 You’re gonna think, how can I automate and delegate
0:11:37 everything on this list?
0:11:38 Now you wanna start with the things
0:11:41 that take the most of your time
0:11:44 and you feel like would be the easiest to automate
0:11:46 or to delegate.
0:11:49 So for us, for example, when we were flipping houses,
0:11:53 we spent most of our time making offers on houses,
0:11:58 fixing up houses, managing contractors, that sort of thing.
0:12:00 So some of the things that we did
0:12:03 was we hired an assistant and we trained her
0:12:05 our exact criteria for making offers.
0:12:08 And then she later trained our agents
0:12:10 and we had all these agents out making offers,
0:12:12 which we gave them authorization to make offers
0:12:15 on our behalf based on our criteria.
0:12:17 And they were making hundreds of offers
0:12:20 without us even knowing anything or seeing the house
0:12:23 or seeing that number until one got accepted,
0:12:26 then we would briefly go over it and review it,
0:12:27 make sure it was good.
0:12:29 We had a 14 day inspection clause.
0:12:30 – Yeah, I was gonna say,
0:12:31 there’s a certain level of trust in there,
0:12:32 but as long as you have like-
0:12:33 – Oh yeah, 100%.
0:12:34 – Yeah, get out of jail free here.
0:12:37 – Yeah, and then we had just a couple of contractors
0:12:40 that we worked with and they had the people they worked with
0:12:44 and we would use the exact same materials for every house.
0:12:47 The decision making went out the door.
0:12:49 We were buying similar types of houses
0:12:53 and we’d use the same color paint, same type of finishes.
0:12:54 And then another thing that we did,
0:12:56 we realized we were spending a ton of time
0:12:59 working with contractors and coming up with
0:13:01 the beginning would have like three people
0:13:03 go to the property and come up with these different bids
0:13:05 and would haggle back and forth.
0:13:07 And I was sitting down one day and looking at these bids
0:13:09 and I was like, you know, at the end of the day,
0:13:11 they’re all ending up about the same place.
0:13:13 So why don’t we just start there?
0:13:17 And we came up with a list that had every line item
0:13:20 that the contractors would do
0:13:22 and we came up with a pre-agreed price
0:13:25 and we had our contractors agree to that ahead of time.
0:13:27 So we no longer had to do multiple bids
0:13:29 or it’s no longer any haggling.
0:13:31 We knew exactly what we were paying for a house,
0:13:33 for paint, for like the square footage of the house.
0:13:35 We knew what we were paying for flooring
0:13:37 based on how big the flooring was.
0:13:40 It was all laid out, it made it very simple
0:13:42 and really stayed a lot of time in that way.
0:13:45 – Okay, yeah, so rule two, three and four,
0:13:47 eliminate, automate, delegate in that order, right?
0:13:50 There’s no sense in automating or delegating stuff
0:13:52 that doesn’t need to be done in the first place.
0:13:53 – 100%.
0:13:55 – By figuring out, and even if it’s something as simple
0:14:00 as sending an email, like I have found certain triggers
0:14:01 would necessitate sending an email
0:14:03 to another member of the team.
0:14:05 It’s like, okay, well, the trigger is
0:14:08 that file is delivered back from the editor.
0:14:09 So now I need to send a note to the writer
0:14:11 that it’s ready to summarize.
0:14:13 Like, oh, if they’re uploading it
0:14:15 to a specific folder in Google Drive,
0:14:18 like, okay, make used to be Zapier, but like make.com,
0:14:21 like can automatically send that email trigger,
0:14:23 that task notification system,
0:14:25 or it could automatically add tasks to Asana.
0:14:27 Even if it’s just individually,
0:14:28 it only took a couple of seconds,
0:14:30 but like now you just don’t have to think about that.
0:14:32 And then delegating that to somebody else on your team,
0:14:35 the combo platter of automation and delegation
0:14:37 can be super powerful for me.
0:14:41 It was bookkeeping tasks years later than I should have,
0:14:43 where it’s like every PayPal notification
0:14:44 would come through.
0:14:46 It was kind of like the dopamine hit of like,
0:14:48 I made some money, I got paid, I better go log this
0:14:51 in my up to the minute accounting spreadsheet, basically.
0:14:53 It’s like, oh my God, the task switching costs
0:14:54 of all this sort of thing.
0:14:55 – 100%.
0:14:58 – Just having a bookkeeper that can tap into your accounts
0:14:59 and just create that summary for you.
0:15:01 More with Justin in just a moment,
0:15:04 including how he’s delegated himself off his own podcast
0:15:08 and more rules to scale your side hustle right after this.
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0:16:18 So in our house flipping education business,
0:16:20 essentially the way it worked out,
0:16:21 it was like, what were all the main things
0:16:23 that we needed to do?
0:16:24 We needed a tech guy who needs someone
0:16:27 who was constantly making offers and funnels
0:16:28 and sending out emails.
0:16:30 So we brought on a guy to do that.
0:16:32 And then it was essentially coaching.
0:16:35 So I initially did the coaching myself,
0:16:38 but then brought someone on to help with the coaching.
0:16:40 And over time, brought on other coaches.
0:16:44 Eventually, our COO was one of our first
0:16:46 high level students.
0:16:47 We got to the point in the business
0:16:51 where I was no longer needed in my house flipping business
0:16:53 or my education business or my coaching business.
0:16:56 And I would show up to events and just kind of talk
0:17:00 a little bit and record stuff and just kind of hang out.
0:17:02 And eventually when we were ready to sell the business,
0:17:06 it was an easy exit because we weren’t needed anymore.
0:17:09 – It makes it more sellable or makes it sellable
0:17:11 in the first place, it’s not reliant on you.
0:17:13 But it’s interesting too with the podcast,
0:17:15 in fact, it’s rarely you behind the mic
0:17:17 from how it started to where it is today.
0:17:20 – Yeah, so the same thing with our podcast now.
0:17:22 It’s like, what are the main things that we focus on?
0:17:26 What are the main levers and it’s create podcast content?
0:17:27 I always use you as an example.
0:17:30 I’m like, is our content as good as Nick Loper’s content?
0:17:33 If it’s not, we got to keep working on it, right?
0:17:34 So that’s kind of the gold standard
0:17:36 is we’re always trying to improve the content
0:17:39 and then we’re trying to grow our numbers, right?
0:17:41 And I’ll get into that in the upcoming ones.
0:17:42 But yeah, you’re right.
0:17:44 We’re to the point where Tara and I,
0:17:45 who Tara’s sitting over here,
0:17:48 but we rarely even show up on the podcast.
0:17:50 So we’ve created this podcast
0:17:53 that has over a quarter million downloads per month.
0:17:55 If I want to show up, we show up.
0:17:56 But my goal is to create businesses
0:17:59 where I don’t have to be a part of.
0:18:01 If something happens to us, ’cause the truth is,
0:18:03 there are some days where I don’t want to do anything.
0:18:05 There are some days where I feel super motivated
0:18:06 and want to talk.
0:18:08 And I like to run businesses in a way
0:18:11 that I don’t have to be involved if I don’t want to
0:18:12 or I can’t.
0:18:13 And that to me personally
0:18:15 is kind of like the ultimate true freedom.
0:18:16 – Yeah.
0:18:17 Was there any pushback from listeners?
0:18:19 It’d be like, who’s this new guy?
0:18:20 Ask him the questions.
0:18:21 – No, so the way we did it,
0:18:23 and this was pretty similar to how we did our coaches,
0:18:27 was the first person I brought on was Brian Gehran,
0:18:28 who–
0:18:29 – Side hustle show guest, yeah.
0:18:31 – Yeah, I heard on your episode.
0:18:32 So I reached out to him.
0:18:34 I was like, hey, you are awesome.
0:18:35 Can I interview you?
0:18:36 So we kind of built a relationship.
0:18:37 And then I asked him, I said,
0:18:39 hey, do you want to help me interview people on the show?
0:18:41 And of course he was excited to do that
0:18:42 ’cause it gives him notoriety.
0:18:44 We pay him a little something.
0:18:45 We give him a little bit of equity.
0:18:48 You know, we kind of made it this win-win situation.
0:18:51 There wasn’t pushback because they had already heard from him.
0:18:54 And then I think I, I don’t know if I interviewed him again
0:18:56 or the first couple of times that he interviewed someone,
0:18:58 I did the intro and outro.
0:19:01 So I helped the guests kind of get warmed up to him.
0:19:04 You know how you watch a TV show or a series
0:19:05 and if a new person just comes in
0:19:06 and you don’t know who they are,
0:19:08 you’re like, hey, who’s that?
0:19:09 What’s going on?
0:19:11 But if you kind of get warmed up to him over time,
0:19:13 you’re like, okay, I like this person.
0:19:14 I can jive with that.
0:19:17 So I did the same thing with the other two hosts that we have.
0:19:20 I was people, you know, Eric Fisher,
0:19:22 who he’s been on the show a couple of times.
0:19:23 I’ve been on his show.
0:19:26 – Long time podcaster, beyond the TV list.
0:19:28 – I know, long time, man.
0:19:31 So I usually like to have the audience hear them
0:19:35 a few times before I let them just kind of go on their own
0:19:36 and do their own thing.
0:19:39 We have not had any pushback.
0:19:41 I still listen to every episode.
0:19:43 I’m kind of like quality control.
0:19:45 There have been some episodes that I’ve sent back
0:19:50 and said, hey, we got to get more details on this one, right?
0:19:52 But the goal is eventually where
0:19:54 I don’t have to do that quality control.
0:19:56 – Okay, so that’s rule number four, delegate.
0:19:58 How do you delegate the items on your list?
0:19:59 How do you make the business?
0:20:01 Ultimately, it doesn’t have to be today,
0:20:04 but someday in the future run without you.
0:20:05 What have you got for number five?
0:20:08 Number five is come up with your de-riskify plan
0:20:10 or your risk mitigation plan.
0:20:13 De-riskify is just kind of a fun word I came up with.
0:20:15 So this was actually pretty huge for us.
0:20:16 And it’s something that I don’t think
0:20:18 a lot of people think about.
0:20:20 I think the first few are kind of a little more obvious,
0:20:23 but I think the main thing that holds people back
0:20:25 from taking action on their dreams
0:20:28 and starting their side hustle or their business is fear.
0:20:31 It’s the fear of what people are going to think of them,
0:20:32 the fear of failure,
0:20:34 the fear of what if this doesn’t work out.
0:20:35 And I think the thing that keeps people
0:20:40 from growing or scaling their business is fear of risk,
0:20:43 fear of what am I going to lose?
0:20:45 So one of the things that happened
0:20:46 before we started scaling our business
0:20:50 was when we first started in the real estate game,
0:20:52 it was in May of 2007.
0:20:55 And for those of you who know your real estate history,
0:20:57 that was not a good time to get into real estate.
0:20:59 But we started out doing a thing called wholesaling,
0:21:02 which essentially was we would put houses under contract
0:21:05 and then we would sell the rights to that contract.
0:21:06 We never actually bought the house.
0:21:07 So we weren’t risking any money,
0:21:10 we weren’t risking any repairs or anything like that.
0:21:12 A couple of years later,
0:21:14 when we went to flip our first house,
0:21:16 I was scared to death.
0:21:18 The thing is we weren’t even using our own money,
0:21:20 we’re actually using one of our investor’s money,
0:21:22 but I was so afraid to lose his money.
0:21:23 And we made it through that deal,
0:21:26 but it caused me to not want to buy any more houses.
0:21:28 So we got into rental properties.
0:21:30 And I learned rental criteria
0:21:31 and learned how to understand cash flow.
0:21:33 And we just went to town.
0:21:34 And in a four month period,
0:21:36 we ended up buying 12 houses,
0:21:38 which was more houses than we had bought
0:21:39 in that shorter period of time.
0:21:41 It was really exciting.
0:21:42 But we got to a point in our life
0:21:44 where we were way out of money.
0:21:45 Our investors were out of money,
0:21:47 we didn’t know how to pay the bills.
0:21:49 So kicking and screaming,
0:21:50 we had to sell some of those houses.
0:21:52 And we ended up selling four of those houses.
0:21:56 And from selling those four houses within a couple of weeks,
0:21:58 we made more money than we needed to pay our bills
0:22:00 and all our expenses for over a year.
0:22:03 I’m not just changed everything for us.
0:22:05 I was like, wow, what if we could do this every month?
0:22:07 What if we could make more money
0:22:10 than we need for an entire year every month?
0:22:11 So we ended up selling the rest of the houses.
0:22:14 At the same time, we started buying more houses,
0:22:17 but that also met that rental criteria
0:22:18 and it just helped us go to town.
0:22:20 I no longer had that thing in my brain,
0:22:22 that limbic brain, that lizard brain,
0:22:25 the fight or flight that was getting so afraid
0:22:27 of taking action because I didn’t know
0:22:28 what the end result was gonna be.
0:22:29 I was afraid of losing money.
0:22:31 So I was stuck in my tracks.
0:22:32 I didn’t have that anymore.
0:22:33 ‘Cause I was buying houses,
0:22:35 I was flipping rentals essentially.
0:22:37 I had a plan B, I had a plan A, plan B.
0:22:39 If something didn’t work out,
0:22:41 then I would end up with the hundred rental properties
0:22:43 that I initially wanted in the cash flow
0:22:44 that I was looking for.
0:22:46 So that combined with the systems
0:22:48 and all the things that we’ve been talking about
0:22:51 just allowed us to really take off in scale.
0:22:53 From there, we got a JV partner who put up,
0:22:54 this guy had deep pockets.
0:22:56 It wasn’t like the other guy that I was borrowing money from
0:22:58 who this was his retirement.
0:23:00 This guy understood the risk
0:23:02 and we were able to go to town.
0:23:03 – Okay.
0:23:05 I have a plan B that is still acceptable to you.
0:23:07 I think probably makes sense.
0:23:09 First is like the Warren Buffett thing,
0:23:10 you make money when you buy.
0:23:12 Like I’m gonna do the forced appreciation thing
0:23:15 and sell this to another investor.
0:23:17 Let them be the long-term holder of this thing.
0:23:18 But I’m gonna get my money out quickly
0:23:20 as a way to de-risk the whole operation.
0:23:23 I think about what’s probably on a lot of people’s mind
0:23:26 for the last nine to 12-ish months
0:23:28 in the world of online businesses,
0:23:31 algorithm updates and AI and stuff.
0:23:33 Like how do I de-risk my business from AI?
0:23:35 Whether it’s diversifying traffic sources,
0:23:37 whether it’s building an email list,
0:23:39 whether it’s selling your own product,
0:23:41 how you get to compete in an AI first world,
0:23:44 the answers may look differently for person,
0:23:46 but that’s number five here is this de-risk plan
0:23:48 or come up with your de-risk if I plan.
0:23:50 – And it’s gonna be different for everyone.
0:23:51 The truth is I don’t know about you,
0:23:53 but the number one thing people tell us
0:23:55 ’cause we ask our audience like,
0:23:56 hey, what’s the number one thing you’re stuck with?
0:23:57 And it’s always money.
0:23:59 They’re like, I don’t have enough money.
0:24:01 And you know this, I know this.
0:24:03 You don’t really need a lot of money to start a business.
0:24:04 There’s so many different ways
0:24:06 you can start a business with little no money.
0:24:09 So it really depends on your situation.
0:24:11 And we could talk about this for hours, right?
0:24:14 You love service businesses, I love service businesses.
0:24:16 There’s not a whole lot of risk in going out
0:24:18 and trying to get these clients for a service business.
0:24:21 – In most cases, right, it’s like the startup costs
0:24:24 for almost anything that we talk about
0:24:27 would be sub $500, or there’s some creative way
0:24:29 to make it such that it is,
0:24:31 that it’s within reach where you’re not having to take out
0:24:36 a second mortgage or something to get something off the ground.
0:24:39 And when you’ve kind of minimized your downside exposure
0:24:42 and you’re taking a swing at something with some upside,
0:24:44 with some scale, it’s only a matter of time
0:24:47 before something hits and erases all the losses.
0:24:49 ‘Cause the first thing may or may not be the one
0:24:52 that actually works and having the wherewithal
0:24:54 to be like, well, that doesn’t make me an abject failure.
0:24:56 It just means that idea didn’t pan out.
0:24:57 So okay, on to the next thing.
0:24:59 So definitely keep your risks low,
0:25:01 keep your goals high and get after it.
0:25:03 So all right, that’s number five, the de-risk plan.
0:25:05 What have you got for number six?
0:25:08 – Number six is what I call the $60 an hour rule
0:25:09 or the three X rule.
0:25:12 If someone can do something like a service business,
0:25:16 whether it’s cleaning, I know you did painting,
0:25:18 whether it’s gutters, curbs, trash cans,
0:25:21 car detailing, yard, tree removal, all that stuff,
0:25:23 power washing, parking lots.
0:25:24 I’m just naming all kinds of stuff.
0:25:29 If you can come up with one of these businesses
0:25:32 and you can make at least $60 per hour,
0:25:34 you can scale that.
0:25:37 Because then you just hire out the labor
0:25:40 at $20, $25 an hour, then you focus more
0:25:44 on getting the new clients, you hire out the labor
0:25:46 and that’s how you can scale those businesses,
0:25:48 also known as nail it, then scale it, right?
0:25:51 – Okay, so this would be like an agency model,
0:25:53 like this is the cost of labor ratio
0:25:54 that you would like to see.
0:25:57 You wanna have the final price be triple your labor cost.
0:26:00 – Exactly, so my son, for example, he just turned 18
0:26:02 and he’s trying to figure out
0:26:04 what he’s gonna do in life, right?
0:26:06 And he’s been fixing phones
0:26:07 and he’s been doing a few different things,
0:26:09 but he’s gone to the point where
0:26:12 he can make $100 an hour fixing phones.
0:26:14 So now he just has to improve his marketing,
0:26:16 he has to be able to get more clients
0:26:19 and then he can hire people to do the driving
0:26:21 and to do all these different things,
0:26:23 like all the different things that we’ve been talking about
0:26:25 that will allow him to focus on
0:26:27 his highest and best use of time
0:26:30 and ultimately be able to scale the business.
0:26:32 – Yeah, this is one where in the context
0:26:35 of SEO and online business, like, okay,
0:26:38 based on this projected keyword volume
0:26:41 or traffic volume, if it ends up hitting
0:26:43 and this projected affiliate ad,
0:26:45 it’s like really hard to kind of try to figure out,
0:26:46 well, what’s this page you’ve gotta make
0:26:48 if it gets to the first page of Google,
0:26:53 let’s say it does and say it is gonna make $1,000 a year.
0:26:55 Best case scenario, like, okay,
0:26:57 so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to pay somebody $300
0:26:59 to write that article for you and then
0:27:00 allow them to repeat. – Exactly, yeah.
0:27:02 – And it’s like a timing of cash flow, in this case,
0:27:03 like you’re gonna earn that $1,000
0:27:06 over the course of 12 months, hopefully, you may not.
0:27:08 So that’s where the risk comes into play,
0:27:10 but that’s where you can kind of pencil in,
0:27:12 well, okay, what’s my labor cost
0:27:13 or what’s my potential labor cost
0:27:15 for whatever model that I’m in?
0:27:17 – And then you start to buy back some of your time
0:27:19 and then you’re able to do the whole
0:27:21 think smarter, not work harder, right?
0:27:23 You go from labor to leadership
0:27:25 and that’s how you really go.
0:27:27 You become the rainmaker, that’s what you focus on.
0:27:29 And then you eventually can hire someone
0:27:30 to help you with that marketing,
0:27:34 but you’ve increased your customer base pretty significantly
0:27:36 and then hopefully you have repeat customers
0:27:37 and so on and so forth.
0:27:40 – Rule number seven is the marketing flywheel.
0:27:43 How can you creatively get customers for free
0:27:45 or even get paid to acquire customers?
0:27:47 That’s coming up along with Justin’s business idea
0:27:49 donation and more, right after this.
0:27:52 – Yeah, so this one, I have lots of titles for it,
0:27:55 the marketing flywheel self-liquidation offer
0:27:56 or break-even funnel.
0:27:59 Russell Brunson often refers to the break-even funnel
0:28:01 and that’s kind of how he grew ClickFunnels,
0:28:06 was he created a webinar and spent X amount of money
0:28:09 to get people to register for the webinar,
0:28:12 sold the webinar for like $1,000
0:28:14 plus six months of ClickFunnels.
0:28:17 And the whole concept is you are,
0:28:18 you’re making money by acquiring customers.
0:28:21 You’re acquiring customers for free.
0:28:23 And he talks about how he would sometimes talk
0:28:25 to venture capitalists and they would ask him,
0:28:27 what’s your cost to acquire customers?
0:28:29 Like, oh, no, we acquire them for free.
0:28:31 We make money when we acquire customers.
0:28:33 I’m like, wait, this doesn’t work for my numbers
0:28:36 and my algorithm and it totally throws me off.
0:28:38 But understanding this concept,
0:28:40 once again, I think so many people
0:28:42 who want to get into business think,
0:28:44 oh, I got to have this big, huge tech idea
0:28:47 and invest millions of dollars
0:28:49 and most businesses fail and all this stuff.
0:28:52 And it’s like, no, like you just have to figure out
0:28:55 one of these models that work for you.
0:28:58 And for us right now, we’re just focused on
0:29:01 how much does it cost us to acquire a new listener?
0:29:04 And it took us a year to build up to this,
0:29:06 but we’re at that break-even point.
0:29:10 That it cost us about six to eight cents
0:29:12 to acquire a new listener.
0:29:14 And we’re making about six to eight cents
0:29:16 for every new listener.
0:29:19 So if someone listens to just one more show,
0:29:21 we’re spending a dollar to make $2.
0:29:23 And the goal is to keep growing that.
0:29:25 I have these different numbers where
0:29:28 I know we could make 10 cents per listener
0:29:31 and even up to like 15 cents per listener.
0:29:32 If and as we continue to do that,
0:29:34 these numbers get better and better.
0:29:37 And then over time, you could add on programs,
0:29:38 different things you’re selling.
0:29:40 We don’t have any of our own programs at this point,
0:29:42 but we’re all ready to that break-even
0:29:44 or make money point, right?
0:29:47 There’s a thousand different add-ons you can make to that,
0:29:50 to where you got your money making machine essentially, right?
0:29:52 And that’s the whole goal of business.
0:29:54 For every dollar you put in, you’re making $2 back,
0:29:58 $3 back, how can we make that number bigger and bigger
0:30:01 that every dollar we invest, we’re making more and more back?
0:30:02 – Yeah, that’s fascinating.
0:30:04 We’ve heard from newsletter operators.
0:30:09 Well, if every, I mean, there’s very elaborate equations
0:30:10 that could start to go into it.
0:30:12 But it’s like, well, what’s a new subscriber worth to us?
0:30:14 Does it make sense to pay $2 for a subscriber
0:30:16 if they’re gonna open 50% of the emails
0:30:18 and they’re gonna stay on the list for nine months
0:30:20 and they’re gonna be exposed?
0:30:21 Like, oh, okay, we’re gonna make $5
0:30:23 from that one subscriber on average.
0:30:25 So yeah, we’re happy to pay two bucks for it.
0:30:28 And so this is, on terms of the podcast downloads,
0:30:31 this is just, on average, we have two or three,
0:30:34 four ads per show at this CPM.
0:30:36 So every download is worth to us,
0:30:38 six to eight cents or six to 10 cents.
0:30:39 – Yep, yep.
0:30:41 I’m constantly looking at the numbers
0:30:43 and analyzing numbers and just seeing,
0:30:46 oh, if we pull this one lever
0:30:47 and we spend this much money,
0:30:49 what does that do to our bottom line?
0:30:50 – Yeah, that’s really interesting.
0:30:52 Like, only very recently started doing
0:30:54 any paid podcast promotion.
0:30:57 And it’s interesting to look at like,
0:30:58 the cost per download metrics
0:31:00 or cost per subscriber metrics.
0:31:03 Yeah, I never really thought about it that way.
0:31:04 And then, yeah, if you have a potential guest,
0:31:06 could you share the cost with that?
0:31:08 ‘Cause they’re getting some promotional benefit out of it.
0:31:10 But yeah, what platforms do you like
0:31:11 in terms of going out and buying listeners?
0:31:14 – So at the beginning, we had an agency that we hired
0:31:18 that was connecting with a lot of other podcasters,
0:31:20 but it was costing us like several dollars
0:31:22 to get a download.
0:31:25 Then we started going to the podcast players
0:31:29 and we started to get a lower amount.
0:31:31 But one of the gotchas, something you wanna watch out for
0:31:33 is what we didn’t realize,
0:31:35 ’cause we just didn’t know what we didn’t know,
0:31:37 until we were starting to work with an agency
0:31:39 to get sponsors for us,
0:31:41 was one of these podcast players,
0:31:42 a lot of the places they were promoting to
0:31:45 were in countries that sponsors just being on it,
0:31:48 they just weren’t paying for those areas.
0:31:51 So we got to a point where we had like 20% in the US
0:31:53 and our agency was like, that’s not gonna work.
0:31:55 So we had to go back to the drawing.
0:31:57 – It’s like Facebook ads, like, oh yeah, it’s cheap
0:32:00 if you wanna advertise to a non-US audience.
0:32:01 – Totally.
0:32:02 – Gotcha, gotcha.
0:32:03 – But then we found the right players
0:32:07 and if you invest enough, certain players,
0:32:09 the amount just goes up depending on
0:32:11 like how many people are bidding on it, right,
0:32:13 or buying the ads.
0:32:16 And then there are other players that you can negotiate
0:32:19 with the podcast player.
0:32:21 We’ve done such a high volume at this point
0:32:24 where we’ve gotten some of the players to come down
0:32:27 or like, hey, we’ll keep buying in volume,
0:32:28 we just want a good deal.
0:32:30 We mainly buy like the US,
0:32:31 but then they’ll throw in other places
0:32:34 like Canada, Australia, UK.
0:32:37 So we’ve been able to literally like 3x
0:32:40 the amount of listeners that we would be getting with them
0:32:42 because we’ve worked out deals, we’re buying in bulk.
0:32:43 We know they’re good listeners,
0:32:46 we know we’re getting paid well for them.
0:32:47 But yeah, another one I really like,
0:32:51 this isn’t a podcast player, but it’s called Podroll.
0:32:55 Podroll is amazing because you can get a great CPM
0:33:00 by allowing other podcasters to do what’s called a feed drop.
0:33:02 I don’t wanna get too technical too into the weeds here,
0:33:06 but doing a feed drop is where another podcaster
0:33:10 can put their episode in your feed.
0:33:14 And Podroll has a platform that facilitates doing this.
0:33:16 So initially we got doing Podroll
0:33:20 ’cause we’re like, oh, you can make $50 to $100 CPM.
0:33:22 But what we realized is we wanted to be
0:33:24 on the other end of that,
0:33:28 where we’re paying $50 to $100 CPM
0:33:31 for people to listen to our show
0:33:34 because it sounds like a high CPM,
0:33:36 but they’re actually listening to your show.
0:33:38 It’s not just someone hearing a one minute ad
0:33:42 on someone else’s show on your podcast,
0:33:43 they’re listening to your show.
0:33:44 So you get the downloads
0:33:47 and then you get some people that stick with you
0:33:48 and that’s how you can grow.
0:33:51 So that’s been huge for us.
0:33:52 It gets pretty exciting.
0:33:54 Man, I know we’re talking about podcasting,
0:33:56 but you can do this like you said with an email list.
0:33:59 You can do it with, I know I would say a blog,
0:34:01 I know there’s been a lot of stuff with the updates
0:34:04 and whatnot, but it’s just all about,
0:34:06 and I guess that gets us to our last one,
0:34:07 which is, oh no, there’s two more.
0:34:08 (laughs)
0:34:11 I’ve been talking too much.
0:34:13 Anyway, I’ll save that, but you can do this with anything.
0:34:15 – Yeah, figuring out what that marketing flywheel is,
0:34:18 what that self-liquidating offer may be,
0:34:21 if that may be possible in your industry or your niche.
0:34:23 Like how can you acquire customers for free?
0:34:25 I think it’s a creative marketing thought experiment,
0:34:29 if nothing else, to figure out where our customers at,
0:34:31 how can I set this up in such a way
0:34:33 that it doesn’t cost me anything
0:34:34 to get that next lead into the funnel,
0:34:36 that next person into the pipeline there.
0:34:37 All right, that’s number seven,
0:34:40 the marketing flywheel or the breakeven funnel.
0:34:41 What have you got for number eight?
0:34:43 – So number eight is you wanna understand
0:34:47 the velocity of money and returns and how they work.
0:34:48 And this might sound simple,
0:34:52 but I’m telling you, most people do not understand it.
0:34:55 In fact, I read something earlier that said,
0:34:59 two thirds of American adults cannot pass
0:35:02 a very basic financial test.
0:35:04 We just don’t learn this stuff in school,
0:35:06 but the velocity of money basically says,
0:35:09 for example, we started flipping houses,
0:35:13 we were making anywhere from 15 to 20%
0:35:16 on the money that we invested into a particular house,
0:35:19 it would take us about four months to flip a house.
0:35:21 So there’s 12 months in a year,
0:35:24 we could essentially turn that money three times.
0:35:27 So essentially, if you’re making 10 to 15%
0:35:29 and you’re doing that three times a year, that’s…
0:35:30 – It’s probably more than that.
0:35:32 – I think, yeah, I messed up these numbers.
0:35:33 – 45 to 60.
0:35:35 – Yeah, 15 to 20% are the numbers.
0:35:38 You make 15 to 20% on your money
0:35:40 and you do that three times a year,
0:35:44 you’re making 45 to 60% annualized.
0:35:46 – Yeah, nominally, I’m sure there’s like
0:35:48 some other velocity time component
0:35:50 or time value element to it too.
0:35:52 But right, it’s like, okay,
0:35:53 how quickly can I get a return on it
0:35:56 and how often can I lather and repeat?
0:35:57 Is that my understanding?
0:35:58 – Yeah, exactly.
0:36:00 We were making 15 to 20% per house,
0:36:02 we were doing that three times a year, given money,
0:36:06 and that was 45 to 60% for the year.
0:36:09 So what we did, I mentioned this JV partner,
0:36:12 I went to this guy, this guy had deep pockets,
0:36:14 millions of dollars, knew the real estate game,
0:36:15 was just kind of retired.
0:36:17 And I said, hey, here’s our track record,
0:36:19 here’s all the houses, here are the numbers we’re getting.
0:36:21 Would you be interested in putting up the money
0:36:22 and we split the profit?
0:36:24 And he took a look at it and he’s like,
0:36:25 heck yeah, it took a little more than that,
0:36:27 but essentially that’s what it came down to.
0:36:29 And he essentially gave us a blank check.
0:36:32 So we now knew we had the systems to buy the houses,
0:36:34 we had the systems to fix up the houses,
0:36:37 we just needed more money, and that was our money.
0:36:39 And that’s the other thing that helped us really grow.
0:36:42 ‘Cause his return, all he did was he’s like, okay,
0:36:45 so I’m gonna make anywhere from 22 and a half
0:36:48 to 30% annualized, that’s a heck of a lot better
0:36:50 than what I’m making and anything else I’m doing.
0:36:53 Since that time, I’ve talked to a lot of different people
0:36:55 and done this with a lot of different businesses.
0:36:59 We talked to a guy that had like a grass-fed beef business,
0:37:01 so he raised cows essentially.
0:37:04 And he was like, oh, I wanna do more of this,
0:37:05 I just don’t have the money.
0:37:07 And I’m like, okay, how much does it cost you to buy a cow?
0:37:09 How much does it cost to feed the cow?
0:37:12 Like, what are all the expenses that go into that cow?
0:37:14 How long does it take till the cow gets slaughtered?
0:37:17 I hope anyone listening, it gets too offended by this,
0:37:20 but how long does it take till you’re able
0:37:21 to essentially sell the cow?
0:37:23 We broke the numbers down
0:37:26 and it was like 100% annualized returns.
0:37:28 I’m like, dude, I’ll give you all the money you want.
0:37:31 And I said, a better thing to do though
0:37:33 is now that you know that you can make 100%
0:37:36 annualized return on the money invested,
0:37:38 just go borrow it at 10%.
0:37:39 – Okay.
0:37:41 – And then you’re essentially making 90, it’s arbitrage,
0:37:43 right, you’re taking other people’s money,
0:37:44 you have the system in place
0:37:47 and you’re making a killer return on that money.
0:37:49 – Yeah, this is an interesting one.
0:37:50 And I think about it,
0:37:53 most often in the context of an e-commerce business
0:37:55 or a physical product business,
0:37:57 okay, I’m gonna buy 500 bucks of inventory,
0:37:59 sell it next month for 600.
0:38:01 And now I’ve got $600 worth of inventory
0:38:02 and I can sell it for 750.
0:38:05 And then kind of like, continue to level up
0:38:06 and multiply your money.
0:38:08 But like, how, you would think about it
0:38:11 in context of inventory turns coming from the car business,
0:38:13 like how much inventory is in our parts department right now?
0:38:15 It’s always like the dealers wanted to know
0:38:17 like how many millions of dollars are we sitting on parts?
0:38:18 Like, what has it sold lately?
0:38:20 Do we really need this sitting on the shelf?
0:38:23 Like, could that money be better deployed elsewhere?
0:38:25 And it’s like, okay, this could really apply
0:38:28 to any business that has an investment component
0:38:31 to a cost of labor or a cost of goods type of aspect to it,
0:38:33 like cost of houses in a flipping type of business.
0:38:36 – You’re right, e-commerce is a great example.
0:38:37 You just essentially run the numbers.
0:38:39 If the numbers make sense
0:38:41 and you can either bring on a JD partner,
0:38:43 if you don’t wanna take on the risk,
0:38:46 but usually you’ll find that the cool thing about business
0:38:49 is if and when, like you said, it’s hard to get started.
0:38:50 It’s hard to get that inertia,
0:38:51 hard to get that thing going,
0:38:53 put that thing up into orbit.
0:38:56 But once you do, a business typically will pay you
0:38:59 significantly more than you’re ever gonna make
0:39:02 in any other kind of investment,
0:39:06 which then allows you to get the investors coming to you.
0:39:07 That’s what I believe.
0:39:09 And I don’t think most people should go out
0:39:10 and raise a ton of money
0:39:13 unless you’ve experienced in that kind of thing.
0:39:14 But if you’re not that experienced in raising money
0:39:16 and growing a huge business,
0:39:18 now at first, then scale it, right?
0:39:20 Go start that e-commerce business,
0:39:24 go start that SaaS business, whatever that thing is,
0:39:26 and then start to get some proven numbers.
0:39:27 And if you can come to someone like me
0:39:30 and you can show, hey, these are the things I’m selling,
0:39:33 this is how much I’m making, these are the returns,
0:39:35 I’ll give you the money, no problem.
0:39:36 No problem all day long.
0:39:38 – All right, well, you may be getting some calls after this.
0:39:39 – Sounds good.
0:39:42 I’ll collaborate Velocity of Money number nine
0:39:44 on the nine rules of scale, go for it.
0:39:48 – So number nine is the aggregation of marginal gains.
0:39:51 Also referred to as like the compound effect,
0:39:53 but essentially the aggregation of marginal gains,
0:39:56 many people know about it from the book Atomic Habits,
0:39:58 James Clear and his blog.
0:40:02 It essentially is from the British cycling team
0:40:05 back in the day for like a hundred years, they were horrible.
0:40:08 They only won like one gold medal in that time
0:40:11 and they brought in this guy
0:40:14 to be the new manager of the cycling team.
0:40:17 So his name was Dave Brelsford.
0:40:18 The way he did things is most people came in there like,
0:40:21 all right, we’re gonna make this huge improvement
0:40:23 by doing this one thing, it’s gonna change everything
0:40:25 and it just wasn’t working out.
0:40:28 So he was all about this thing that we’re talking about,
0:40:31 the aggregation of marginal gains.
0:40:34 And he just said, if we can take every little component
0:40:37 of what it takes to be good at cycling
0:40:40 or to make you faster, whether it has to do with the bike
0:40:42 or the athlete, then we’re just gonna do that.
0:40:45 We’re gonna make 1% improvement each day
0:40:48 as much as we can in all these different categories.
0:40:50 And within five years,
0:40:52 the British cycling team just started dominating.
0:40:54 They started winning almost every gold medal.
0:40:57 They started winning Tour de France’s,
0:41:00 which they hadn’t done previously in that hundred years.
0:41:01 And it just changed everything
0:41:04 and he was just focused on the one small thing.
0:41:09 That’s what I would invite everyone who’s listening to do.
0:41:10 We’re in the information age.
0:41:12 You’re literally listening to a podcast.
0:41:14 There’s so much information out there.
0:41:17 I love like swipe and deploy, see what people are doing
0:41:19 and just be like, oh, let’s try that.
0:41:21 It’s the different industry, but I can try it here.
0:41:23 We try it out, we test it out,
0:41:24 we keep going with what’s working.
0:41:27 We keep trying to improve the things that aren’t working.
0:41:29 I’m constantly talking to my team
0:41:31 about how can we improve the podcast?
0:41:33 How can we get more numbers?
0:41:34 How can we improve everything that we’re doing
0:41:36 just little by little?
0:41:39 And as you do those things over time,
0:41:41 you’ll see a huge difference in your business.
0:41:43 – Yeah, there’s 1% improvement every day.
0:41:46 It’s like, it doesn’t make a huge difference.
0:41:47 It may not even be noticeable,
0:41:50 but you know, over time, it really does start to compound.
0:41:53 And that’s like Einstein’s eight wonder of the world,
0:41:54 compound interest and all this stuff
0:41:56 where it really does start to lead
0:41:59 to some exponential growth over time.
0:42:01 But the trick is doing it consistently,
0:42:05 making it a habit, some, the compound effect for number nine.
0:42:08 Let’s move on to round two,
0:42:10 the donate a business idea round.
0:42:11 What have you got for us here?
0:42:13 – So I have business ideas every day.
0:42:16 As I’m sure you do as well.
0:42:18 But the idea, and it’s related to all the things
0:42:19 that I’ve been working on combined
0:42:21 with different things that have been happening in my life.
0:42:23 So recently we traveled the world for nine months.
0:42:28 As you know, we were in Rome just a couple of months ago.
0:42:30 And as we were in Europe and these different places,
0:42:32 we were doing all these tours and some were okay,
0:42:34 but some of them were kind of long and a little boring.
0:42:36 But it was almost like a necessary evil.
0:42:38 I felt like I’m glad I’m doing this tour,
0:42:40 but I’m kind of bored and it’s a little long.
0:42:43 And I thought, you know, there needs to be something
0:42:45 called 10 minute tours or something like that.
0:42:47 And I know they have audio tours,
0:42:49 but I was like, what if there was like a podcast
0:42:50 that had like a tour,
0:42:53 then my mind got going to like a history lesson.
0:42:54 And maybe it’s longer than 10 minutes.
0:42:55 ‘Cause now that I’m thinking about the ads
0:42:57 that you can put in, maybe it’s a little longer
0:42:59 so we can put more ads in.
0:43:02 But you have 30 minute to 40 minute lessons
0:43:05 and there’s so many lessons you could do on history,
0:43:06 just in Italy alone.
0:43:08 ‘Cause we were in Italy for like 38 days.
0:43:09 I’m like, you could do a lesson on that,
0:43:11 on that, on that, on that, on that.
0:43:13 Part of the reason why I had this idea too
0:43:15 is I know another guy who has a history podcast,
0:43:17 but he does it himself.
0:43:20 And his returns are bigger than ours.
0:43:22 Just because there’s a lot of business podcasts
0:43:25 and he invests in his podcast
0:43:26 and the amount of people that stick
0:43:27 and the amount of money he has to spend
0:43:30 to get more listeners are significantly higher
0:43:32 than what ours are.
0:43:33 So I was taking all these ideas.
0:43:35 I was like, I don’t know a lot about history,
0:43:36 but I know there’s a lot of people out there
0:43:38 who do know a lot about history
0:43:39 and they’re probably not making a ton of money.
0:43:42 I thought you could reach out to them
0:43:45 and then Tara made an ad for our podcast the other day.
0:43:47 And we got this great guy with a great voiceover voice.
0:43:51 Just, you know, just sounded amazing.
0:43:53 And I was like, you get the person who writes these things,
0:43:56 get the person who’s gonna record them
0:43:58 and then just work with different podcast players
0:44:00 and promoting these.
0:44:03 So this guy, once again, he spends all day creating this.
0:44:05 You could tell he works really hard on them.
0:44:07 I was like, man, you could put this thing together,
0:44:08 bring the people together.
0:44:11 You could pay them equity, so there’s no cost.
0:44:12 Or if you have a little bit of money,
0:44:14 you could just pay them whatever they would get paid.
0:44:16 It didn’t ultimately make more money.
0:44:19 – Yeah, or it may even be like an AI voiceover artist.
0:44:21 – 100% yeah, I was thinking of all that too.
0:44:24 I was like, you could probably do some AI stuff.
0:44:27 You could probably do, especially like AI online
0:44:29 is kind of tough because you have Google
0:44:31 like crawling it and everything.
0:44:34 But podcasting, no one’s crawling podcasting, right?
0:44:37 So you could even create these lessons through AI.
0:44:38 You could record them yourself
0:44:40 or you could have someone else record them.
0:44:43 But then the same idea, like for every dollar you spend,
0:44:44 you could easily make two back.
0:44:47 And you could essentially have this thing be,
0:44:48 you could be a big part of it
0:44:50 or you could just kind of outsource it to different people.
0:44:53 And anyway, I’m just sitting there at the Coliseum
0:44:57 at the forum and I’m like, this guy’s kind of boring,
0:44:59 but people need these lessons.
0:45:00 They’re incredibly valuable.
0:45:02 And I think it would just take off.
0:45:05 Anyway, if I had more time, I’d do it, but.
0:45:07 – Yeah, that’s the business idea donation
0:45:10 audio history lesson or audio walking tours.
0:45:12 We’ve been on some that were incredible.
0:45:14 We had this British guy in Barcelona
0:45:17 who was just like so into the history of the city.
0:45:20 And here we’re going from the fifth century to the 15th.
0:45:21 – That’s awesome.
0:45:22 – Right across the street from, you know,
0:45:23 and he was really into it.
0:45:26 And he told us that the FCE Barcelona logo
0:45:27 was like those four red stripes.
0:45:30 He’s like, that was like the king’s bloody fingers,
0:45:31 like running down a-
0:45:32 – Oh man.
0:45:35 – Dude, I will never look at that logo the same way again.
0:45:37 And then we’ve had other ones where you’re kind of like,
0:45:39 yeah, I’m getting something here,
0:45:41 but he’s the bar now that everything else
0:45:42 is measured against.
0:45:43 And it’s interesting.
0:45:45 But yeah, this could be an interesting one
0:45:48 hiring historians to write or repurpose lessons.
0:45:49 Maybe they already have it.
0:45:51 Could I license these from there?
0:45:52 And then hiring a voiceover artist
0:45:55 or using some AI voiceover to, you know,
0:45:57 be the voice of your podcast
0:45:58 might be interesting to play around with.
0:46:00 – And you could do the same thing with science
0:46:01 or any subject, right?
0:46:05 It goes on and on, but just, yeah, look into mine.
0:46:06 – Yeah, yeah, you gotta scratch your own itch
0:46:08 from these boring tours.
0:46:10 – Yeah, exactly.
0:46:11 – All right, round three is the triple threat.
0:46:14 This is, first off, a marketing tactic
0:46:15 that’s working for you right now.
0:46:16 Could be this pod roll stuff,
0:46:18 could be something else you got in mind.
0:46:20 – Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve kind of went through that.
0:46:23 It’s just working with the podcast players
0:46:25 to promote the show.
0:46:27 And we have our numbers pretty dialed in.
0:46:29 Like I’m pretty aware of what it costs us
0:46:30 for each pod player.
0:46:31 If that doesn’t work, I reach out to them
0:46:32 and try to negotiate a better deal
0:46:34 or we focus on other ones.
0:46:36 And then from that, like I said,
0:46:38 we’re gonna leverage it into working more
0:46:40 with podcast swaps and all that.
0:46:42 So that’s kind of our main focus.
0:46:44 At some point, we do wanna launch a program,
0:46:47 but we’re just trying to hang in as long as we can.
0:46:48 ‘Cause once we do that,
0:46:49 it’s a whole nother thing to take care of.
0:46:51 We’re just trying to generate a bunch of cash
0:46:54 ’cause cash will allow us to hire more people
0:46:56 and just keep that flywheel going.
0:46:57 – Right, yeah, if you can get somebody to tune in
0:47:00 for multiple episodes, they join the email list,
0:47:02 maybe they eventually buy the to be determined
0:47:04 future product.
0:47:04 – Totally, yeah.
0:47:05 – There’s a lot of good things that can happen.
0:47:07 – And it could be an affiliate marketing
0:47:07 at the beginning, right?
0:47:09 There’s so many different options.
0:47:12 – A new or new to you tool that you’re loving right now.
0:47:15 – For me, this might sound kind of boring
0:47:17 and not that exciting.
0:47:19 I just love my Google calendar.
0:47:22 That is my second brain.
0:47:24 Anytime I have an idea, a thought,
0:47:25 I put it in my calendar.
0:47:26 If I have to do, I put it in there.
0:47:28 And then I just either delete them,
0:47:30 like eliminate, automate or delegate.
0:47:32 That’s my list, right?
0:47:34 So every day I’ll have my list of top priorities.
0:47:36 I’ll check it out the day before,
0:47:39 make sure it’s what I wanna do for the next day.
0:47:39 And I’ll either delete it,
0:47:42 I’ll move it over like sometimes months away.
0:47:43 Sometimes it felt like a great idea
0:47:45 and then it’s not anymore.
0:47:46 But I’m always trying to figure out
0:47:48 how can I systematize this, how can I do it?
0:47:51 But I use the Google calendar but not that sexy
0:47:52 but I use it all the time.
0:47:54 It’s my calendar of where to go,
0:47:56 where to be, what to do.
0:47:57 It’s what I live by.
0:47:59 I never wake up and don’t know what to do
0:48:01 ’cause it’s always there.
0:48:01 – Very good.
0:48:04 Not a new tool but a very useful one at that.
0:48:05 So I like that one as well.
0:48:07 It’s like, and I find myself too.
0:48:09 I’ll block off that time and be like,
0:48:10 it’s not important right now.
0:48:12 I’ll punt that off until next month.
0:48:13 But it’s in there.
0:48:13 It’s kind of a reminder.
0:48:14 – Yes.
0:48:15 – You thought this was important at one point.
0:48:16 – Exactly.
0:48:17 – Is it still?
0:48:20 All right, so that is the tool
0:48:22 and a favorite book from the last 12 months.
0:48:24 – So in getting ready for this,
0:48:29 I re-listened to the book Procrastination on Purpose
0:48:31 by Rory Vaden.
0:48:33 He also has a good TED Talk on it
0:48:35 and he kind of talks about the focus funnel
0:48:38 and he does go over, I don’t know about you
0:48:39 but sometimes I’ll teach something
0:48:40 or talk about something
0:48:43 and I almost forget where I learned it from.
0:48:44 So as I listened to that again,
0:48:48 I was like, oh yeah, he talked about the eliminate,
0:48:51 the automate, the delegate
0:48:54 and then he goes as far as to procrastinate on purpose,
0:48:58 right, if it’s not a priority now and then concentrate.
0:48:59 That was a pretty good read, I thought.
0:49:03 He talks about ROTI return on time invested,
0:49:06 which is a lot about what we’ve been talking about
0:49:09 and how that’s like the best investment you can make
0:49:11 is working on your business instead of just in your business
0:49:14 and it’ll pay you back dividends for time to come.
0:49:15 – Yeah, return on time.
0:49:17 You start off doing the 10 dollar an hour things
0:49:19 and you graduate to the $100 an hour things
0:49:22 and then hopefully you graduate to the $1,000 an hour things
0:49:23 and I like this.
0:49:25 I have not read this book Procrastination on Purpose
0:49:28 but we’ll link that up in the show notes for this episode.
0:49:30 You can just follow the link in the episode description
0:49:32 and I’ll get right over there.
0:49:33 Millionaire University.
0:49:35 Justin Williams, thank you so much for joining me
0:49:37 and be sure to check out the podcast,
0:49:40 check out the website at millionaireuniversity.com.
0:49:44 Any parting words of guidance before we wrap up here?
0:49:46 – I would just say take action, that’s what everyone says
0:49:50 but take action and then after you’ve taken action,
0:49:52 don’t just keep taking action.
0:49:55 Start to think about how can I use leverage?
0:49:56 How can I grow?
0:50:00 How can I implement the things that we’re talking about today
0:50:01 so that you can really get to the point
0:50:04 where you’re making more money with less time
0:50:06 and once again, I want that to sound like cheesy
0:50:09 or like woo-woo or fake, but you really can.
0:50:11 The same things that helped us get to the point
0:50:13 where we were flipping 100 houses a year,
0:50:15 also gave us more time because if we were the bottleneck,
0:50:16 if we were the one doing it,
0:50:18 there was no way that would have happened,
0:50:20 same with our education business.
0:50:22 So just take action but then start thinking about
0:50:25 how can I take that next level of action
0:50:27 that will give me to that next level
0:50:29 and just keep living a life on purpose?
0:50:32 – Yeah, it’s such an interesting distinction between
0:50:33 how can I make extra money, right?
0:50:35 I’m gonna go solve this problem
0:50:37 and then flipping the switch to be like,
0:50:39 how can I be a business owner?
0:50:43 And trying to fire yourself from the doing stuff
0:50:46 and promoting yourself to the CEO role
0:50:47 and it’s a different set of questions.
0:50:49 I think it’s really interesting stuff.
0:50:52 So again, MillionaireUniversity.com, check out the podcast.
0:50:53 I was an early guest on there.
0:50:56 Brian was my interviewer for that one.
0:50:58 I think that’s a good one to start with.
0:51:01 But big thanks to Justin for sharing his insight.
0:51:02 Big thanks to our sponsors
0:51:05 for helping make this content free for everyone.
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0:51:11 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:51:13 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:51:14 that support the show.
0:51:15 That is it for me.
0:51:17 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:51:18 If you’re finding value in the show,
0:51:21 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:51:22 So fire off that text message.
0:51:24 Hey, I think you’ll like this episode.
0:51:25 Hey, I think you should check this out.
0:51:27 Until next time, let’s go out there
0:51:28 and make something happen.
0:51:29 And I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:51:31 of the Side Hustle Show.
0:51:32 Hustle on.