This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, hello and welcome. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. We have just finished week number 43 of season three of the program. This week featured a mom who finds love as a dating profile ghost writer. Pretty cool business, she actually builds that to six figures, an unplanned plus size modeling career, and a cultic coffee shop in Scotland.
Let's look today at how to review and grow your list of assets. Now, in case you missed it, a few episodes back I encouraged you to make a list of all your assets. And I said at the time that an asset is anything that holds or increases in value over time. That's what we're looking for. So there are such things as assets that depreciate or lose value over time, but let's not worry about that for now.
So traditionally when you hear asset, you might think of real estate, you might think of stocks and bonds. You've got a retirement fund, mutual funds, whatever, and that counts for sure. But it can also mean all kinds of other stuff. And kind of the stuff that we focus on with Side Hustle School, a product that you sell, a service that you provided, royalties you earn for something, passive affiliate income, or any other number of things, including everything that you hear about, just about every day, or let's say at least four or five days a week here on the program. Now, I often say that everyone needs more than one source of income.
And that's kind of the genesis of this whole project. And that's true, right? Like even if you don't want to be an entrepreneur, there is something out there that you can do to make extra money, which can go a long way in terms of providing security, giving yourself more options at backup plan and escape route, perhaps, you know, just all good things. Now, ideally, it's not just another job. It's bringing you that extra paycheck.
It's something that's helping you get ahead, not just work harder. That's why I'm talking about assets. And when we started, I said that it's my goal for every person who listens to side hustle school, at least regularly, to be able to earn at least $500 a month in addition to whatever their job brings in. Whenever I do a workshop or a talk, that's also my goal for every participant. Like you're gonna come into this talk and be able to learn something to where you can go and apply it and be able to make at least $500 a month from it.
Now, it's not gonna be like a life changing amount of money, but it is something that's significant. I can actually pay a lot of bills, et cetera. And then also it can be very empowering because you're like, wow, if I could earn $500 a month, I wonder what I could do to earn $1,000 or $2,000 or more. Now I wanna go back to that because the point of all these daily stories is to provide a model, one that's different than what you may have heard elsewhere. I know we're gonna be going into holidays soon, and that's a crazy time for a lot of us, of course.
So if some things need to be on hold until January, I understand, but I would also encourage you, you don't have to wait for new year, new you. You don't have to wait for a new year's resolution or whatever it is to get serious about your goals. So I encourage you to set a goal of having some kind of new digital asset within the next 30 days. We'll be talking about this a bit over the next coming weeks. It can be anything, a product, a service, an app, affiliate income, or something else.
And I'll give you just a simple step here. If nothing else, if you've got a project you're working on already, that's great. See what you can do to move that forward. If you already have an existing side hustle, is there something you can do to create a new asset from that? Whether it's a new product, a new service, a new something else.
Look, if nothing else, go and sign up for an Amazon Associates account. I've mentioned this before. Anyone can be an Amazon Associate, which is their affiliate program. So that way you can earn a commission whenever you shop there or when you share a link with friends. I'll include a link to that in the show notes.
And also some other ideas, some other options based on some previous episodes. So my encouragement, my challenge is to set a goal for having some kind of new asset within the next 30 days. All right, in a moment, we're gonna go on to the audio update from a previously featured side hustler. This one features David, who actually sells pubic oil. That's correct, pubic oil with his business partners in Ottawa.
Guy featured his story in 100 Side Hustles book as well because it was just so unusual. So David's coming up, but first a message from our sponsor. Really appreciate them allowing us to keep the lights on, feed the cat, and provide all this content to you every single day for free. So message from our sponsor, and then David. [Music]
Hey, this is David from Ottawa, Canada.
My side hustle is Bush Bomb Skin Care, and it was featured on episode 326. Since the episode aired, we've tripled our wholesale accounts, doubled our product line, and invested over $100,000 into packaging and manufacturing. We may only make pubic oils and exfoliating scrubs, but it took us over six months to find the right suppliers. We made custom printed boxes, bottles, and even found a brand new cosmetic manufacturer to help us scale. We couldn't be happier, even though we still are over $50,000 in debt.
We know this forward investment is worth it because sadly in 2019, we were sold out for over two months. We're fully stocked and perfectly positioned to have a real breakout year in 2020. Overall, this process has taught me how important it is to deeply understand your customers and what they truly want. Since we made these changes, our repeat sales numbers are through the roof. It's a really big deal for us.
For other listeners out there going through something similar, I'd start by plotting your future failures. For us, as we succeeded with marketing, we quickly failed with manufacturing. As we failed with manufacturing, we quickly failed with fulfilling orders. Most of these issues are really simple to map out, so just go ahead and do it. This will help you and your business partners resolve any of these issues as you hit them, as you've kind of prepared mentally.
Next up, we're planning on getting 500 wholesale spa accounts and have already started conversations with large retail stores. More to come from the Bush Bomb team, so talk soon. - Awesome, thank you so much, David. Appreciate what you guys are doing up there. And this whole advice about plotting your future failures, that's so interesting.
I'm just kind of looking ahead and seeing what the minefields are, what potential pitfalls, challenges, et cetera might be, and then how you might be able to respond to them. That's gonna help somebody out there. And also, I just want to mention to everyone, David talked about being in debt for their business. Be careful with that. Obviously, these guys know what they're doing.
They've been very strategic and intentional, learning from their mistakes as they go. They really do have a goal of scaling this business, which is great for them, but for most people, I think you can start without debt. And then when you see if your business is gonna work, that's when you might come and face that question of, do I choose to invest more in it or not? All right, more of these to come. And of course, if you have a question or comment, we'd love to hear from you, feel free to give us a call.
The number is 8449-HUSSELL, 844-948-7853. Or you can just send us an email at podcast@sidehustleschool.com. [Music]
I'm excited to bring you a new set of stories next week, including one by three brothers, or one story about three brothers, rather, in Southern California that have turned frozen treats into a hot business. So these brothers are actually quite young. I believe it's 9/11 and 13, I'm not mistaken.
And they are making real money. So that was a fun story to work on. And it should be available to you tomorrow, actually. I look forward to having it out there. And before I wrap up for the week, I just wanna say a few thank yous.
First of all, to you, our listener. If you're listening, you're the reason we make this show. I said in the first episode, how many episodes ago was that? 10, 29, 1,029 episodes ago. That if you make the commitment to make this part of your daily routine, then I too commit to supporting you in your quest to create that new source of income.
We could call it an asset. In fact, that new asset that perhaps you've thought about for a while, but haven't turned into reality until now. You wanna make those dreams a reality. I'm also grateful to our producer, Chuck Reed, community liaison, Jed Chang, content manager, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, of course, Libby Gillibow. All of us on the team are part of the Onward Project, which is curated and led by best-selling author Gretchen Rubin.
Be sure to check out her program, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, as well as Happier in Hollywood, and the program from Melissa Urban, Do the Thing. All of these shows are free and listener supported. If you're enjoying this one, well, I guess if you're enjoying all of them, but this one in particular, since you're listening right now, I'd be so grateful for your quick rating in Apple Podcasts. It just takes a second. It helps other people discover the show.
You can also tell your friends or even better show them how to subscribe. If you know somebody out there who needs another source of income, send them to us. We'll do our best to take care of them. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow and every day next week for more inspiring stories and actionable ideas. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself with episodes that go online every day at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
