The Side Hustle Show

The best advice from my last 49 guests. At the end of nearly every episode of The Side Hustle Show, I ask my guests for their #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation. There’s always a great variety of responses, and I wanted to take some time today to go through some of my favorites from the past 50-ish interviews. I first did this for episode 50, which was my first-ever solo podcast recording, and then again in episode 124 and episode 177. If you like this short-and-sweet meta-style show, be sure to check out those ones from the archives as well. And even though my primary motivation is to extract helpful tactics for you, the listener, I can't help but learn from my guests as well. You never know when inspiration will strike or where you'll hear the one insight that has a huge impact. These episodes are a lot of fun to put together, and give me an excuse to revisit some of my favorite moments and wise words from the show. From the last 49 guests, the 3 most common #1 tips I heard were: Get started. Take action. Build your audience. While those might sound overly generic, don't be quick to dismiss them. If all these really smart and successful people keep saying these episode after episode as their “#1 tip,” I think they’re worth paying attention to. What action can you take today to apply those tips? My #1 Tip? Find your WHY. Why side hustle? What are you trying to build? What will that afford you? At the end of this episode, I share a new #1-ish tip: if success is owning your calendar and being free to spend your time how you like, start doing it today in some small but meaningful way. Full Show Notes: What I've Learned and Applied from 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs - Part 4

As one of several side hustles, Ryan Dowd runs HomelessLibrary.com, a training program that teaches librarians how to confidently and compassionately deal with their homeless patrons. It’s something a little different from the business-to-consumer model we usually see with online course sales and comes with some advantages over the B2C market — namely potentially higher prices and the ability to perform direct outreach. By day Ryan is the executive director for a homeless shelter in Illinois, but on the side he’s also an adjunct professor, a practicing attorney, and he’s writing a book — in addition to the 3-15 hours a week he spends on HomelessLibrary.com. (And he’s married with a couple kids, so it’s fair to say he’s a busy guy.) Ryan was working at the homeless shelter when a friend asked if he would speak at a local conference about homelessness to a group of librarian executive directors. His talk went so well he started receiving offers to deliver training in person at libraries. Not having the time to travel to different locations, Ryan recorded a 30-minute video, posted it on YouTube, and sent people the link. Now with over 13,000 views, his video has become a staple training tool for librarians across the country and there was a demand for more. Ryan capitalized on this by recording a longer, more in-depth training. He broke it up into modules and began selling it to libraries across the US. Tune in to hear how that first conference speaking gig Ryan did for a friend turned into a successful side hustle selling B2B online courses and started what he calls, “A crazy wild ride with a completely accidental start.” Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Selling Digital Products to Business or Government Clients: An Online Business Success Story with a Twist

Listen in on a real-life side hustle coaching call with customer acquisition and retention strategist David Hutcherson (he's the client), and sales pro Brendan Alan Barrett (he and I share the coaching duties). On the heels of last week's sales-themed episode, I invited Brendan on because of his sales background both with companies large and small. We're joined by our "client" David, who's seeking to grow his freelance/consulting side hustle and build on his decade of experience in customer service. We dive into where David is at in his business today, how he got his first few clients, and where he'd like to go from here. The good news is he's not starting from scratch. He's had a handful of clients for community management and customer market research gigs, including the world famous improv theater Second City, but nothing recurring and not much in the pipeline at the moment. We do our best to point him in the right direction and get him to try and figure out what exactly is the service he offers and who he offers it to. And we just might have a breakthrough on that front about 20 minutes in. Tune in to hear the types of questions you'll have to ask yourself in a service-based side hustle. Put yourself in David's shoes as you listen and think about what you'd do in his position -- and your own. Full Show Notes: Side Hustle Sales Coaching: What Do I Do and Who Do I Do it For?

“People don’t buy intellectually, they buy emotionally,” Jim Brown told me. By taking a unique approach, understanding your demographic, and identifying the pain points you can solve, you can attract clients and increase sales. Jim is a former professional wrestler, a Marine Corps vet, a sales coach, and is the founder and host of the SalesTuners podcast at SalesTuners.com. In this year’s survey results, a lot of Side Hustle Nation readers said they needed help growing their business and attracting new customers. This is exactly what Jim does with his clients, and he shares his tactics and processes in this episode. As entrepreneurs and side hustlers, we are all the VP of sales for our own businesses. The only person driving a company forward in the early stages is the founder, and nothing happens until someone sells something to someone else. Tune in to hear how you can 10x your service business by setting a revenue goal, breaking down the numbers and planning out a step-by-step approach, and making outreach calls the way Jim does with his clients. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to 10x Your Service Business in Under Two Years

Ben Foley started writing about how to use mindfulness to reduce stress and anxiety at FullyRichLife.com a little over 6 months ago. Since then, his little side project has generated over 6000 email subscribers and $10,000 in revenue. His secret sauce? Tapping into the big audience of readers on Medium.com. Having overcome stress and anxiety issues himself, he knew this was a niche he could enter and help others. And, with a different approach to using mindfulness in the modern world to help reduce stress working for him, he knew he had a unique angle to blog about. Before starting his site in December last year Ben had never even written a blog post. However, after finding a passion for writing and encouraged by positive feedback, he “tripled down” on content and started getting huge exposure almost right away -- something new sites often struggle with. Related: My free video series on how to start a blog. Tune in to hear how you can use Medium to growth hack your new or existing site, and how Ben is turning those readers into subscribers and revenue. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Going Big on Medium: How a New Blogger Got His First 6000 Email Subscribers (and Made $10k) in 6 Months

Perrin Carrell is a senior contributing editor at AuthorityHacker and well-known within the internet marketing community for building niche/authority sites. He has built several successful sites from scratch, including one recent project that went from a valuation of $0 to $200,000 in just under 20 months. Perrin started learning about internet marketing and SEO while working a day job at a global communications consulting firm. Desperate to escape the day job and turn his side hustle into a full-time business he started building sites and learning from his failures along the way. He now has the blueprint nailed for building profitable sites with several different income streams. From planning the site structure, ordering content, carrying out keyword research, to link-building, Perrin shares exactly how he builds his sites in this episode. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Affiliate Marketing the Authority Hacker Way: Build a Profitable Website from Scratch

What's the story of your first job-free income? To celebrate the 4-year anniversary of The Side Hustle Show, the Side Hustle Nation community joined me in creating a really fun episode. I asked people to tell me how they first started making money on the side, and got 25 different voicemails! In this episode, you'll hear first-hand the steps your fellow listeners took to put themselves back in the driver seat of their own financial well-being. And no matter how you shake it, that first sale is a powerful one. Full Show Notes: How 25 Side Hustlers Made Their First Entrepreneurial Income

Steve P. Young is a side hustler turned full-time entrepreneur. He has hosted more than 500 episodes of the AppMasters podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping app makers get more downloads and sales of their apps. Steve was working full-time when he decided to start his podcast interviewing app developers and putting out content for the app community. Using lunch breaks, early morning, and late nights, Steve found the time to put out two episodes a week and start building up authority and an audience in the app space. Within four months he had his first consulting client, and within seven months he was handing in his notice at his day job as AppMasters became his full-time business. Tune in to find out how Steve built up several income streams around his podcast: The apps (how it all started) Consulting Podcast sponsorship Digital products and courses A private mastermind group A live in-person event You'll hear the hacks he used to grow his audience in a short time period, and how interviewing influential people in the app space helped double sales on his own apps. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How a Part-Time Podcast Turned into Multiple Streams of Income

Don't you just love a good outsmarting the casino story? Bring me an Ocean’s Eleven, bring me a Bringing Down the House -- I’m all about it. Colin Jones is a professional card counter whose blackjack teams won almost $4 million, and he earned over $500k himself. Now a father of 6, Colin's playing days are mostly over, but he's turned his unique skill into a profitable online business at BlackjackApprenticeship.com. Did you catch the Holy Rollers documentary about the Christian card counters? Yeah, it was about Colin and his team. When we met at a Side Hustle Nation meetup in Seattle over the holidays, Colin explained that card counting -- though glamorized by Hollywood -- is "a hard way to make easy money." He also pointed out that the math involved is elementary-school level, and done right, it really can be seen as an investment and not a gamble. Today, his Blackjack Apprenticeship site has more than 500 members and in this episode, you'll hear how he's grown this business, how he's priced his different offerings, and how he keeps customers sticking around for more. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How a Professional Card Counter Beat the Odds in Online Business

Scott Voelker is the host of the super popular Amazing Seller podcast, where he’s recorded more than 300 episodes about the Amazon FBA business model. He's a family man and a serial hustler, having been involved with a number of businesses ranging from construction to photography to ecommerce. His latest project is the 1k FastTrack Challenge, where he takes a group of students through the paces of making their first $1000 selling online. One of the biggest challenges people struggle to overcome is deciding on, or even finding a side hustle they can start and take those important first steps. In this episode of The Side Hustle Show, Scott takes you through the 5-steps he uses when guiding his students to earning their first $500 online in just 7 days. He also shares some powerful words of motivation and some success stories he’s been part of, helping you to see just how easy it really is when you follow these 5 simple steps. "You’re probably sitting on a few hundred, if not thousands of dollars in your possession right now that you’re not even aware of," Scott explained. Tune in to find out exactly what Scott is talking about, and how you can start your own challenge today to earn $500 in the next 7 days. No investment needed, no prior experience selling online, just the motivation and willingness to stick to a deadline. Sound good? Join the free SH Nation Facebook group and look for the #7daychallenge thread to post about your results. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Earn Your First $500 on the Side in the Next 7 Days - No More Excuses!

Derek Murphy's book portfolio is bringing in $5k a month. He's is a world traveler, book cover design extraordinaire, and the author of a dozen different books, mainly in the young adult fantasy genre. A lot of the self-publishing content and interviews on the Side Hustle Show has been related to non-fiction books, and to me, it's a more straightforward process: help someone solve a problem. Fiction is a bit of a different animal, and something Derek covers in detail over on his site at CreativIndie.com. Derek started out editing books and designing book covers while completing his Masters and PhD in literature. Having an interest in reading fiction and wanting to get away from client work, Derek started writing fiction books. He explained there's a lot more demand for fiction than non-fiction, and because of that it can be easier to make more money. It’s not as competitive as you may think either. Although there are literally millions of fiction books available, when you cut through to the books that are being marketed and targeted to the right audience, Derek says it’s not that difficult. Tune in to hear how Derek starts by finding keywords and researching what the readers want based on what's already selling, then testing the market for demand before committing to a series of books. He also shares the methods he used to grow an email list of more than 32,000 as well as advice on how to launch a book with an email list of zero. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: $5k a Month as a Self-Published Author - in Fiction

Jacques Hopkins is a former full-time engineer who turned his passion for playing piano from a side hustle into a full-time business at the end of 2015. With more time and energy to devote to Pianoin21Days.com, the business continued to reach new heights. It was after reading the entrepreneurial handbook that’s inspired a generation to start side hustles – The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss – that Jacques knew he wanted to start "something on the side that could make money." That was back in 2007, and after several failed ventures, each of which has played a part in getting him to where he is now, Jacques is crushing it with his YouTube videos, ebook sales, and online course. Tune in to hear how Jacques realized there was a market for teaching “regular people learn to play modern songs on the piano in as little time as possible.” You'll hear how he used YouTube to generate lots of free traffic and build his email list, how he doubled his conversions by picking up the phone and talking to potential customers, and how he now lives the lifestyle wants and spends his time promoting the business. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Turn Your Hobby into an Online Business

Chad Carson is a 30-something semi-retired real estate mogul, who together with his business partner, oversees a portfolio of 90+ rental units. In fact, he and his wife are in the middle of an exciting adventure — a year abroad in Ecuador with their two daughters. But of course he didn’t start there. Fresh off the football field at Clemson, Chad’s real estate career started more modestly by “bird dogging” and house hacking — two of the tactics he shares in this week’s show. You can learn more about Chad and his real estate business at CoachCarson.com, where he writes about using real estate investing to retire early and do what matters. In this episode, Chad walks me through 5 real estate side hustles you can start on the cheap. Tune in to hear: How to use house hacking to earn rental income and live for free How to take advantage of tax-free live-in flips How anyone can start master leasing How to become a leasing agent How to start “Bird-dogging” Chad proves that you that you don’t need a large down payment to get started in real estate. You can even learn “how to do one of the more important parts of the rental business on someone else’s dime” if you’re smart about it. This episode is packed with actionable advice to help get you started with a side hustle in the real estate market, as well as some long-term options to set you on the path to building long-term wealth. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: 5 Real Estate Side Hustles You Can Start on the Cheap

Dan Meadors is one-half of TheWholesaleFormula.com. He and his partner Eric Lambert began selling on Amazon as a hobby with an original investment of only $600. They would work nights and weekends buying products on clearance at local retail stores and selling them on Amazon for profit. It took only a few months before they saw the potential to turn this hobby into a business and they both left their day jobs to sell on Amazon full-time. Since then they have been able to generate over $13,000,000 in total sales on Amazon. Most of Side Hustle Nation will be familiar with the Amazon FBA program, but Dan's strategy is a bit different from the retail arbitrage and private label strategies we've covered in the past. In Dan's case, he's buying inventory at wholesale prices from a brand or manufacturer, instead of trolling the clearance section at Walmart or having a product built specifically for him by a manufacturer. Then, like the other Amazon FBA business models, it's on him to list and sell it through Amazon. In this episode, Dan talks me through everything you need to know to get started with wholesaling on Amazon, including how to target potential products and brands to sell, and how to reach out to them in a helpful way. Full Show Notes and Full Highlight Reel: Wholesale on Amazon: From Part-Time Hobby to $13 Million in Amazon FBA Sales

Joseph Hogue is a Marine Corps veteran, a former investment analyst, an author, a blogger, a freelancer, and an all-around super-smart dude. We met through FinCon and hit it off right away. Maybe because we have the same haircut?? He blogs at MyWorkFromHomeMoney.com (and several other sites) and his latest book is called Google SEO for Bloggers: Easy Search Engine Optimization and Website Marketing for Google Love. Joseph runs a number of blogs, and through smart keyword research, great content, and some techniques he uses to attract lots of high authority backlinks, Joseph has seen his traffic, and more importantly his revenue increase quickly in the last two years. Search engine optimization (SEO) doesn’t need to be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. Joseph uses a simple process to find keywords with “buyer intent”, optimizes his content with on-page SEO, and uses some innovative, but simple techniques to generate powerful backlinks that Google will love and in turn boost your posts in the search results. Tune in to hear Joseph’s SEO tips, techniques, and hacks. He shares examples of his own link building techniques, loads of useful tools to help you gain that competitive advantage over others in your niche, and ultimately ways you can increase your blog revenue. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: SEO for Bloggers: How to Get More Free Traffic to Your Website

It’s time to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week's edition of The Side Hustle Show. It's been a few months since the last Q&A show I did and I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since then. I picked 20 to talk through in today's show. A common piece of advice you'll hear is to take audience questions and turn them into content, so here's a meta example of that in action. I'll cover questions about my daily routines, driving traffic, growing a subscriber base, staying motivated, making sustained sales, and what I'm struggling with today. Full Show Notes: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More: 20 Questions with Nick

Kendell Rizzo made over $100,000 in profit in 18 months part-time selling services, workbooks, and other downloadable products on Fiverr. In addition to being a 6-figure Fiverr seller, Kendell is a crowdfunding expert, a world traveler, an ironman triathlete, and runs her blog at leadandlaunch.com. It’s been more than 100 episodes since our last Fiverr episode where Mark (AnarchoFighter) talked me through how he was the first person to make a $10k sale on Fiverr. Fiverr is still going strong, and it’s a great example of a Buy Buttons platform – there's no bidding for work and no outside marketing necessary. This is what attracted Kendell to Fiverr after being frustrated with other freelance endeavors that sap time bidding for jobs or submitting resumes. Within a year and a half Kendell turned over more than $100k in profit, and went from the $5 gigs everyone starts out with to averaging between $500-$900 an order. And with digital products for sale, this was all possible while working part-time. Tune in to hear how she made her gigs stand out from the crowd in the competitive Fiverr marketplace, and why “over-delivering” is a fast-track to Fiverr success. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Build a 6-Figure Side Hustle on Fiverr

Nathan Chan is the founder of FoundrMag.com. The digital magazine started as a side hustle in 2013, and has since transformed into a multi-million dollar media company. Nathan is perhaps best-known for growing his business through Instagram, a platform where Foundr now has almost a million followers. But today I want to dive into a different angle of Nathan’s business, and that’s crowdfunding. Time, money, and ideas are the big 3 challenges I hear from Side Hustle Nation over and over again, and this conversation attempts to address one possible answer to the money question. Nathan and his team are fresh off a $200,000 Kickstarter campaign for the first volume of Foundr books, a really high-end, beautifully designed coffee table book, which you can find at foundrmag.com/book. In this episode, Nathan shares why Kickstarter is such a powerful platform -- even if you don’t have a big built-in audience, and everything he did to make their campaign a hit. Stay tuned for his advice on why you might consider crowdfunding, how to make the most of your Kickstarter exposure, and some examples of other side hustler’s products that have taken off. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Crowdfunding 101: How to Raise Money for Your Next Project

I’m excited to introduce you to a new Buy Buttons opportunity under the Amazon ecommerce umbrella called Merch by Amazon: it’s a print-on-demand service for t-shirts now (and perhaps other merchandise in the future). My wife and I have already made our first sales on this platform and it's become our latest side hustle obsession. To help me explore this business model, I invited Elaine Heney on the program. She’s an app entrepreneur, a former Amazon FBA seller (a biz she actually sold), and last year she sold over $128,000 worth of t-shirts through Merch by Amazon program, of which $53k was profit. You can follow along with Elaine's Merch adventures at MerchEntrepreneur.com. The advantage Amazon has over other print-on-demand sites is their massive daily organic traffic. Elaine doesn’t even need to do any marketing to promote her shirts, and using their interface is as easy as uploading a design, choosing colors, and clicking a button to list your shirts. There are no monthly fees, and no inventory risk. In this episode, Elaine takes you through the steps you need to take to start an account on the Merch by Amazon program. She shares how she finds graphic designers to help with her t-shirt designs, how to use the Merch by Amazon platform, and some of her best tips for creating designs that will sell well. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Merch by Amazon: $53k in T-Shirt Profits in 10 Hours a Week

Mark Wills is a professional notary public loan signing agent. It's something he started doing as a side hustle that eventually turned into a full-time business. While his friend Roman Rosario was between startups, Mark showed him how to do loan signings to make extra money. Loan signing agents are the people who walk you through the final paperwork when you are buying or refinancing a home. The signing agent is required to make sure you understand all the paperwork, answer any questions you have, and sign off the documents. These appointments take around 1-2 hours and the signing agent can earn anywhere between $75 and $200. Mark's system worked and Roman had his first signing -- and his first payday -- right away. And that sparked an entirely new business idea. If Mark could teach him how to do this in just a few hours, he could probably teach others online as well. Although Mark had no online or social media presence or audience to speak of, he and Roman set out to validate, create, and sell an online course teaching other people to do what he does. That became LoanSigningSystem.com. Fast forward a year and the guys are making $4k a month selling their course. In this episode they talk you through the steps they took to validate their idea, how they built their course using content from free webinars, their marketing techniques, email responder series, and more. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Quickly Build an Online Business When You Don't Have an Audience

John Lee Dumas is the undisputed king of productivity, discipline, and focus--the guy is a machine! John is the host of EOFire, where he interviews today’s most successful entrepreneurs 7-days a week. (I was a guest on episode 932!) JLD has grown EOFire into a multi-million dollar a year business with over 1,500 interviews and 1.5 million monthly listens. His latest project is The Mastery Journal: Master productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days. You can learn more at TheMasteryJournal.com. Longtime listeners may remember hearing John way back on episode 15 of The Side Hustle Show. Three and a half years and 199 episodes later, I’m excited and honored to have him back on the show. In this episode, John takes you through some of his top productivity, discipline, and focus tips that anyone can incorporate into their day, business, and lifestyle. He explains why planning your day helps you avoid OPA (Other People’s Agenda) and keeps you on a productive and focused path. These are the things I struggle with at times--especially focus--and things I constantly hear as challenges from Side Hustle Nation. In fact, I’ve asked thousands of subscribers “what’s holding you back?”, and the lack of time and focus are among the most popular responses. John has developed The Mastery Journal based on his own success building his 7-figure business, and in this episode he shares some of his top tips and gives an insight into the habits and routines that got him where he is today. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Become a Master of Productivity, Discipline, and Focus

Possessing creative powers beyond those of mere mortals, Don "The Idea Guy" is back to help talk through a common but tricky situation side hustlers run into. You might remember Don from episode 170 of the show, where he gave us his 7 rules for business idea brainstorming and took a few live listener calls as well. This week I invited Don back to help wrestle with the dreaded "conflict of interest" that might arise between your day job and your side hustle. Inspired by an email from someone in the Side Hustle Nation Community, Don offers some suggestions on how to deal with this at your place of work. He covers how you can test ideas in your day job within a lower risk environment, and perhaps even leverage a raise from your boss based on the results. Tune in to hear what options you have if your side hustle overlaps a little too closely with your day job. It's a little bit of a different style of episode, so I'm curious to hear what you think? Would you like to hear more of this "talk show" style show? Or should I stick with the regular interview format? Full Show Notes: How to Avoid Conflict of Interest Between Your Side Hustle and Your Day Job

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." That line from Aristotle may be one of the most overused quotes in history. But it's overused for good reason; it's a good quote. At least the first part. Aristotle was onto something for sure: we are what we repeatedly do. I agree with that 100%. The issue I have is with the second part: Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. There’s no such habit called excellence; you can’t wake up tomorrow and start your morning routine with a quick session of excellence before you go grab breakfast. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about setting new year’s resolutions or goals for the year, which I think is only natural when the calendar flips, but I’m had a hard time coming up with a SMART goal or set of SMART goals for the year I was really excited about. It’s easy to pick a number out of the sky, like I want to make $1 million, or I want to reach 100,000 subscribers, or I want to become a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and those kinds of goals are great -- if they motivate you and you can reverse engineer a path to get there. But on the flipside of Big Hairy Audacious Goals like these, to borrow a phrase from Jim Collins, is the micro habit. And that brings us back to Aristotle: we are what we repeatedly do. I’ve seen the power of consistent execution first-hand; this podcast is probably my best most recent example of that. It started out as an experiment, it cost less than $100, and over the last 3.5 years, I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s been life-changing. So if you’ve found yourself in kind of the same boat, with everyone around you sharing their resolutions and their ambitious goals for the year and not quite knowing what you should be aiming for yourself, I invite you to consider the micro habit as an alternative. Full Show Notes: Micro Habits: The Too-Small-to-Fail Plan for Big Results

Perhaps what we need isn't more hours in the day, but more energy in our hours. That's ultimately what this episode is about: feeling better and more alive so we can get more results from our businesses. Yuri Elkaim is a former professional soccer player, a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, the author of The All-Day Energy Diet, several other books, and you can find out more about Yuri and his health adventures at YuriElkaim.com. Yuri promotes "energy through tranquility rather than stimulation," which is an ideal that resonated with me. In this episode, Yuri runs through 7 energy commandments to be aware of going into 2017 if you want to be your most energized self to-date. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Double Your Energy in 7 Days

Nagina Abdullah turned her weight loss blog, MasalaBody.com, into a 6-figure side business. By day, she works for a large consulting company, and with a busy work schedule, a young family, and limited time to work on her side hustle, Nagina has been very smart about her marketing and pricing. After struggling with her weight for all of her adult life, she finally hit on something that worked and dropped 40 pounds! With friends, colleagues, and neighbors asking how she did it, she started her blog to share recipes and tips. But she soon discovered that people didn't want recipes; they wanted to lose weight! Quickly, Nagina adapted and used her own success story as a catalyst to begin helping other women make some serious lifestyle changes. Her sales funnel process is applicable across a broad range of industries and business models, and I think you'll find a way to put some of her tactics and strategies into practice for your own hustle. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Steal This Process: A Step-by-Step System to Consistent $10k Months

As a private label seller on Amazon, Andy has seen his revenue grow from $400k in year one, to $900k in year two, and he is closing in on $1.8 million for year three! I last spoke with Andy "Slamazon" Slamans on episode 84 of The Side Hustle Show. Back in 2014, Andy was wrapping up his first year as a full-time Amazon seller and on the podcast he shared all his best tips for product research and getting started as an FBA private label seller. I was excited to have Andy back on the show along with his Amazon FBA business partner Liran Hirschkorn. Both Andy and Liran are now running 7-figure Amazon private label businesses! In this episode, they share how the FBA landscape has changed over the last couple of years, and how they have moved with the changes to build successful businesses. Tune in to hear Andy and Liran explain the process they are currently using to perform product research so they know they are sourcing products that will sell. You'll also learn how they create “bundles” and unique products that separate them from their competitors, and how they launch their products and gain initial traction within the Amazon search engine. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Amazon FBA Private Label Strategies for 2017 – Featuring Two 7-Figure Sellers This episode is packed with everything you need to know to start your own FBA private labeling business or start taking your business to the heights that these guys are at. You can find out more about how they run their businesses at AmazingFreedom.com/hustle.

Josh Bauerle is the CPA on fire at cpaonfire.com. Josh specializes in tax preparation, tax planning, booking keeping, and general consulting services to take the accounting side of your business to the next level. Just 30 minutes with Josh about a month ago saved me thousands of dollars, so you owe it to yourself to listen to this episode and see if you can put some money back in your pocket too. In this episode, Josh goes into detail about the tax implications with each type of business entity you can form, as well as how you can potentially save thousands of dollars by registering as an S-Corp. Josh also covers which expenses are deductible to your business, how to include health insurance as a tax-deductible, and how you can reduce your tax bill by investing more into retirement accounts. He also spends some time explaining the often confusing issue of how much sales tax FBA sellers should be paying and under which state tax laws, as well as recommending a service to automate the process. Tune in as Josh answers several questions from the Side Hustle Nation community and shares some of his best tax saving tips and advice. This isn’t another one of those dry conversations around tax, it’s packed with actionable tips and advice to help you put more money back into your pocket. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Pay Less Taxes - Your Side Hustle Tax Questions Answered

Thomas Frank is the College Info Geek and you can find him at collegeinfogeek.com. Thomas also has a podcast, and a YouTube channel with an impressive following of over 400,000 subscribers and over 14 million views. Thomas’ blogging journey started back in 2010 when he applied to join a team of writers working on a blog in the college/student niche - but he was unsuccessful. He decided to publish his post on his own site, started introducing different forms of multimedia over the years, and stumbled across a love for producing entertaining YouTube videos. “There wasn’t a whole lot of really compelling content for how to study, how to take tests, how to read text books, all the kinds of questions students were asking me about as a blogger.” Thomas told me. This was an open door for him to produce high-quality informational videos in his niche and provide the kind of content his audience wanted. Thomas is now a “YouTuber”, and although he has many income streams his YouTube channel ad revenue makes up a large portion of his monthly income. Tune in to hear how Thomas grew his YouTube channel to 400k subscribers in 2.5 years. He shares his marketing hacks, tips he used to write more compelling titles that perform well in YouTube’s search algorithm and attracts more clicks, and how he developed a lead magnet that not only attracts email subscribers but earns decent revenue too. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Use Video and YouTube to Grow Your Business

I’d like to introduce some of the characters in my latest book Buy Buttons, and also give you a sample of the audiobook version I recorded. I knew I wanted to create an audiobook for this title, because Audible is yet another “Buy Button” marketplace for me to test out, and because I’ve heard audiobooks can actually perform really well for authors. Note: If you’re new to Audible, you can get Buy Buttons and another title of your choosing free! But even for someone who’s been editing audio for the last 3.5 years on this podcast, it was quite a challenge to get the book recorded and approved for sale. In fact, it was rejected by Audible 4 or 5 different times for various reasons. Just reading my own words without messing up and with intonations that made sense was hard enough! That put a little damper on my timeline, as I’d hoped to get it out much closer to the launch date of the Kindle and paperback editions. Still, now that the audiobook is approved, it’s already been selling well with very little promotion. In this episode I share the full introduction to Buy Buttons plus you’ll meet a few of the side hustlers I connected with during the writing process. As you know, most business books follow a familiar format: big picture thesis, supported by case studies and examples. Feeling no need to reinvent the wheel, Buy Buttons follows this formula as well. The big picture thesis is that the fastest way to earn extra money is to go where money is already being spent: the hundreds of peer-to-peer marketplaces. I was able to source several stories from The Side Hustle Show archives and the blog archives to back that thesis up, but still had a bunch of gaps to fill in. For those, I turned to HARO, the Side Hustle Nation Facebook group and email list, and even reaching out to the marketplaces directly to see if they had any successful sellers I could potentially feature. Full Show Notes: Go Where the Cash is Already Flowing

Gabe Arnold is the founder and chief pencil sharpener at CopywriterToday.net, a subscription based article writing service. In his early 20’s Gabe saw his construction business hit by the downturn in the property market to the tune of a $1 million bankruptcy, and began freelancing to support his family. One common hold-up on his website projects was the words to paste into the pages, which gave him an idea. Tune in to hear how he took that idea from zero customers to $20k in monthly recurring revenue. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: From a $1 Million Bankruptcy to $20k in Monthly Recurring Revenue: A Productized Service Case Study

As a small business attorney, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein helps entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches, artists, etc, get all their legal affairs in order so they can focus on their businesses. In this episode, Elizabeth agreed to answer some legal questions from members of the Side Hustle Nation Facebook Group. We cover disclaimers, business registration requirements, entity selection pros and cons, trademarks and copyrights, and licensing. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Your Legal Questions Answered

Nothing gives me a shot of inspiration more than when I look at my podcast feed and see episodes like “Zero to 20K a Month” or “Building a Multi-Million Dollar Ecommerce Brand on the Side.” Those are some incredibly sexy and enticing titles, aren’t they? Then, you dive deep and you listen in. You hear Jon Haws say, “Once a book is out there, you’re always making money,” and think to yourself, “Damn, Why aren’t I doing that? Why him and not me?” Full Show Notes: How to Stop Just Listening to The Side Hustle Show and Start Taking Action

In 2011, Joshua Lisec landed his first freelance gig--on Fiverr of all places. He said he wound up making $1.67 an hour from that job, but it sparked his entrepreneurial journey. Since then, he's gone from "dumpster-diving for clients" to consistently landing 4- and 5-figure contracts and earning $167 an hour on one recent project, effectively 100x-ing his hourly rate. In this episode, we take a deep dive into what I'll call the OPA Plan: borrowing other people's audiences to grow your business, a strategy that's earned Joshua $9000 in just the last couple of months. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: The OPA Plan: How to Borrow Other People’s Audiences to Explode Your Sales

As co-host of the #1 marriage podcast in iTunes, the ONE Extraordinary Marriage show, Tony DiLorenzo speaks to a worldwide audience about sex, love, and commitment. Along with his wife Alisa, their goal is to reach as many couples around the world as they can, equipping them with the tools and strategies they need to create an extraordinary marriage. With a hugely popular blog and podcast, Tony is a little modest in saying, “that’s consistency over 7 years.” Tony and Alisa sell coaching services, their own products, promote affiliate products, and have sponsorships as some of their income streams. Over the last 7 years they have come a long way with their brand from a side hustle hobby to a full-time business. Want to start an online business of your own? It starts with a website, and my free 6-part video series walks you through how to set it up without breaking the bank. Tune in to hear Tony taking me through the steps he took to build up his podcast to over 150k downloads a month, the tools and techniques he uses to drive traffic to his lead magnets, how he has a tiered upsell funnel, and how he and his wife have built up profitable and diverse income streams. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: From Content to Cash Flow – Affiliate Marketing and Automated Sales Funnels

You may remember Rosemarie Groner from episode 142 of the Side Hustle Show last year. She revealed how her blog Busy Budgeter was just a year old and receiving around 400,000 pageviews and making around $5k a month — primarily through Pinterest traffic. It’s almost a year later now and I had to have her back to see how things were progressing. Rosemarie is now regularly making more than $20k a month, and while her pageviews are still at a similar number she has improved her ROI and diversified her traffic and income sources. Rosemarie is still getting a ton of traffic from Pinterest and explains how she has moved with the changes on the platform to maintain her numbers. She also talks about how she has started focusing on SEO, has built different email lists to sell different products to, and why calculating the ROI on a project should be one of your first considerations. Her first appearance on episode 142 was one of the most popular shows of last year and I expect this episode to be just as popular. It’s packed with actionable tips and information you can use to increase your own traffic numbers and earnings, along with some of the new tips and tricks Rosemarie has implemented in the last year. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Building a Blog to $20k a Month and Beyond Related: Want to start a blog of your own? Check out my free step-by-step tutorial series on how you can get up and running in no time.

It’s time to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week's edition of The Side Hustle Show. It's been 3 months since the last Q&A show I did and I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since then. A common piece of advice you'll hear is to take audience questions and turn them into content, so here's a meta example of that in action. Full Show Notes: Blogging, Branding, Book Writing, and Finding the Right Side Hustle for You: 20 Questions with Nick

This week’s episode was something a little different as I was joined by three of my favorite productivity podcasters, Erik Fisher, Mike Vardy, and Paul Minors. Combined they have more than 300 productivity-themed podcasts under their belts and represent 3 different countries! Since getting the most out of our limited time is a ongoing struggle for side hustlers, I invited them on the show for a unique roundtable format to see what's working today and what wisdom we can glean from their archives. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Prioritization, Elimination, Automation, and Delegation for Side Hustle Nation: A Productivity Roundtable

Last month I compiled a killer round-up post with book launch and marketing tips from 25 authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the self-publishing space. When I sent my weekly newsletter out about it, one subscriber replied and said something to the effect of, "That's cute, but let me show you how it really works." As you might have guessed, that subscriber was this week's guest, Adam Houge. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How Book Marketing Really Works: Tips from a 6-Figure Self-Published Author

"Find a hot trend and piggyback on it," Toni Anderson told me. And that's exactly what she did in launching her ecommerce business last year in the jewelry niche. It's not just generic jewelry, but jewelry designed to specifically ride on the "essential oils" trend. Toni said 90% of her business comes through Amazon vs. her own storefront, but that she and her partner did $190k in sales in their first 7 months! Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: A 6-Figure Amazon FBA Business in 7 Months

On any given weekend in San Francisco, out of earshot from the barking harbor seals at Pier 39 and the clang of the cable cars, a small group of urban hikers are exploring the city from a different vantage point. For three hours, they walk, climb, and even slide their way through historic neighborhoods and scenic outlooks. They’re led by Alexandra Kenin, or one of her carefully selected guides, and have paid $49 apiece for this unique travel experience. Alexandra runs UrbanHikerSF.com on the side from her day job as a content writer and editor. More than 1000 people take her urban hikes each year, and she now oversees a team of 4-5 guides that can lead the hikes in her place. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Getting Paid to Show Off Your City: How to Start a Tour Guide Side Hustle

Kara Lamerato is a work-at-home-mom of 2, but runs a successful business in her spare time. Kara's Vineyard Wedding supplies brides with wine-themed wedding decorations, and has shipped thousands of orders. Kara started the business before having kids while she was still working full-time in private banking. The idea came from her own wedding and thinking there might be other brides out there looking for similar DIY-style items. She put a listing up on Etsy, and a couple of weeks later, she had her first order! Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Starting an Ecommerce Empire on Etsy

Tom Morkes has worked on the book launches for a number of previous Side Hustle Show guests, including John Lee Dumas, Dan Norris, Taylor Pearson, and Neil Patel. What I wanted to do in this conversation was reverse engineer some of the steps that go into producing, launching, and marketing a bestselling book, even if you don't have thousands of fans waiting for it. And selfishly, I wanted to get some insight on what I could do to make my latest book project, Buy Buttons, hit the top of the charts. Tune in to hear Tom's top tips from more than a dozen different bestselling launches. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Reverse-Engineering a Bestselling Book Launch

Rachel Pedersen was using social media to bring customers to her hairdressing chair, but never really imagined it would turn into a full-time business of its own. One of her hairdressing clients owned a popular restaurant chain, but was struggling with online marketing and social media. Rachel offered to help and the rest is history. Today her little social media management side hustle is a 6-figure business and she has even built a training program to help other people follow in her footsteps. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How a Former Hairdresser Turned Her Side Hustle Into a 6-Figure Business, with Rachel Pedersen

Dropshipping is also a topic we haven't really covered in depth in the past, but many listeners have been requesting to learn more about it. I reached out to Anton Kraly, who's one of the most successful people I know in this space. He's been selling online for almost 10 years and he and his team have built out an impressive portfolio of drop-ship stores. Dropshipping is where you sell a product and the manufacturer or supplier ships it directly to your customer. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Start an Online Store – Without Touching Any Inventory (Drop Shipping 101)

Matt is a former Air Force pilot who was looking into various side hustles to support his family after some salary cuts at work. After hustling and selling used books (among other things), he realized it really wasn't sustainable and took up too much of his time. That's when he found a gumball vending machine for sale on eBay for $36. The seller was local in Houston so he drove over with two of his kids and picked it up. Filling it with candy from Sam's Club, he knocked on doors of businesses until he found a home for it at a local karate studio. A couple weeks later, he went back and it was filled with quarters! Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Matt’s Passive Income Empire Started With Just $36 … and a Bag of Gumballs

Before people can do business with you, they have to know about you, and before they know about you, they have to find you. And that’s universal, whether you’re running a brick-and-mortar shop, an ecommerce store, a blog, or a virtual consulting business. Neil Patel is a master at solving the first step in that equation: getting people to find you. Through SEO, content marketing, and social media, we go through the traffic generation tactics that are working today. Neil runs a handful of online projects, including NeilPatel.com, QuickSprout.com, and the heatmap software tool CrazyEgg.com. His latest project is a book called HUSTLE (a title I can definitely get behind), due out in September and all about how you can (and must) make your own luck in an economy rigged against you. This episode is all about how new and experienced content creators can get more visitors to their work. Don’t have a blog yet? My free blogging course shows you step-by-step how to get started. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Traffic Hacks for 2016 and Beyond, with Neil Patel

Dan Harris had me at "meditation for skeptics." In the last 5 years, it seems like meditation has gone from a weird woowoo practice to a daily staple of most top entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders. But so far, I haven't been able to get into it. Have you? I've tried a few of the guided meditation apps, including Headspace and Calm, but when I tried meditating in the morning, I had this impatient feeling like I should just get on with my day and start work. Full Show Notes: Happiness is a Skill, and This 5-Minute Habit Can Help You Get Better at It

Eight years ago this month I pulled out of the parking lot of my corporate job for the last time. It was a weird moment, filled with hope and excitement, but also nervousness. Sure, I'd built my side hustle to the point I was comfortable taking the leap, but it was still a leap. The responsibility of cutting your own paycheck each month is stressful! In this episode I attempt to pull out 8 of the most important takeaways from the last 8 years. Full Show Notes: I Quit My Job 8 Years Ago! Here Are 8 Lessons I’ve Learned Since Then That You Can Apply Today

Teaching what you know in the form of an online course has become the bread and butter for many online entrepreneurs. You can see the appeal: package all your best stuff into a logical and well-presented lesson plan, record it, and sell it over and over again. Course creation has the potential to be a fantastic passive income business, just like book sales or software. Build an asset that has low-to-zero incremental costs, and sell as many copies as you can — sometimes for $1000 or more. In this episode I’m chatting with Bailey Richert and her advice for budding “infopreneurs.” In her words, you don’t need a huge audience to start building a successful business, but you would be wise to follow a few important steps. Related: To build an online business, you need to get online. My free video course will show you how to quickly and affordably set up your first website. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Create, Market, and Sell Your First Online Course – Even With a Small Audience

Last fall, Chris Deardorff had a passion for startups and entrepreneurship, but wasn't sure which direction to go. He had -- and still has -- a good job doing product marketing. But as he studied the local startup scene, he noticed a common problem. Many startups struggled to gain traction for the products and services; a problem an experienced product marketer could solve. In this episode, you'll hear how Chris landed his first clients, the suite of services he decided to offer, and how he's delivering the work in addition to his full-time job. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Zero to $30k on the Side in 6 Months