Notes from Chris

Episode 541

Healthy eating isn’t exactly sugar, spice, and everything nice. It’s kale, quinoa, and protein pancakes, too! At least that’s what Ashley Drummond, a personal trainer from Tampa, Florida, believes.

The full-time personal trainer spends her days hitting the ground, running—from client sessions to the gym for her own training, to more clients, to the grocery store, and back again, all while needing to stay on top of her food intake at the same time. For a lesser human, it would be absolutely exhausting, but breakfast, the notorious “meal of champions,” was her starting point...and in more ways than one, it was her best-kept secret!

Prior to launching the side hustle that is now a full-time business, Ashley spent the last seven years whipping people into tip-top shape as a personal trainer. She had always had a passion for helping people feel better about themselves as they reach their fitness goals, but she still felt a pull to add something else to her life. Something bigger. And something that would allow her to have a little more free time too...

But Ashley, a self-proclaimed foodie, just didn’t know where to start.

Now, something you should know about Ashley is that she firmly believes that you should be able to eat the foods you want every day without it having to be a “cheat meal.” And one of the things that she craved on a regular basis was pancakes. But the mixes available out there were full of less than fantastic ingredients, so she made her own version that was high protein, low carb, and incredibly tasty. She even bragged that she got her abs eating pancakes!

As she made her usual breakfast of protein pancakes one morning in 2014, she started to think about how she could combine her goals in the form of a side hustle. As she folded some chocolate chips into her pancake batter, she thought more about how to help people reach their fitness goals, without actually having to personally train them in the process.

With a steaming stack of pancakes on her plate, an idea suddenly popped into her head—the solution was right in front of her the whole time!

Protein pancake mix could be packaged, sold online, and made at home by other people. It was an easy way for Ashley to help others reach their goals without having to be in the gym with them. Of course, a few details would need to be whipped out, but it felt like a weight had been lifted. Ashley’s side hustle was quite literally in the pan!

In the four years since she began ABS Pancakes, Ashley’s been able to build a side hustle that brings in around $25,000 each month. That’s a lot of flapjacks!! She did require a heavy investment of $20,000 to produce her first run of inventory through her co-packer and build her Shopify website, but she was able to pay for that by saving her profits from the initial year of sales from her kitchen-made products, and a bit of credit card investment, too.

Looking back, Ashley says that her side hustle would have fallen flat had she not trusted her instincts. In her words, “in the end, only you know what’s best for your brand, so it’s important to take other people’s advice with a grain of salt… even if they’re successful entrepreneurs.” Above all, Ashley says that it’s the daily things she does that keep her moving forward. The small details, like invoicing, making phone calls, website maintenance, and regular social posts might feel boring sometimes, but like the grams of protein in her pancakes, each step adds up.

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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• ABS Pancakes: Get your abs eating pancakes—snag a bag (or two, or three...) of protein packed pancake mix over on Ashley's website!

• Shopify: Ashley used Shopify to set up her store for ABS Pancakes, and they're offering a 21-day trial and exclusive discount for all Side Hustle School listeners!
• ReCharge: The subscription platform that Ashley used to help manage ongoing customer subscriptions

SEE ALSO:

• Hungry, Hungry Hustlers Earn $25,000/Month Selling Paleo Bars: Frustrated by the lack of real food bars devoid of added sugar and weird ingredients they couldn’t pronounce, two hungry fitness enthusiasts create their own tasty paleo bars and hustle their way to multiple six-figures
• Private Chef Turns Performance Food Into $30,000/Month Hustle: A California-based professional uses her autoimmune disease to learn about healthy performance food, creating two businesses in the process
• Full-Time Mom Ships $35,000/Month in Frozen Bread on Amazon: The busy mother of a child on a specialized diet decides to take action and ‘liberate’ parents like her with her allergen-free food side hustle

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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