Twelve Months of Experiments Leads Coach to Clarity

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Oh my gosh, we are almost at the very, very end of 2019. I hope it has been a positive transformative year for you. Whatever the case may be, a new year is coming up in just a few days. So that is exciting, new and fresh. Now listen, when you are out there trying to figure out what works for you, you're trying to set up your side hustle, your small business, whatever it is, what is the best approach?

Okay, you're trying to figure it out, you've done an inventory of your skills, you've asked yourself what you like to do, et cetera. Well, you could get lucky. And the first thing you try is a big success. That does happen sometimes, you know, and I think nice work if you can get it, all right? But if it doesn't work, you could take the management consultant approach and do a lot of research, investing your time on the front end to avoid wasting time later.

Nothing wrong with that at all. But you could also try a series of experiments. That's what we're gonna look at today. Is a YouTube channel or a blog or a podcast the best fit? What about an online course or a dedicated social media effort or something else altogether?

Now, it is true that you can't do it all, of course, but when you're learning, this series of experiments might help you find what you enjoy and what's most effective for you. Then you can stop doing those other things and focus on what works. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau and what I just explained, that's what happened in today's story. After 12 months of these experiments, this career coach will look at found her ideal clients with a resume writing service.

12 months of experiments leads coach to clarity. That story is coming right up. [Music]

A self-proclaimed mild-mannered librarian, Sammy Gardner had a bit of a quarter-life crisis that shook everything up. She went from working in the library to working in a homeless center after she shaved her head and got really into terror. She knew she wanted to keep working with organizations that helped people.

So after the library and the homeless center, she shifted to working for an AIDS foundation. But she was still feeling restless and had to do some soul searching to figure out what was missing. One day it hit her. As someone who had always dreamed of getting out of her hometown, she had only made it 30 minutes up the highway. That same day, she started looking for an online job, one that would make a difference in people's lives but also give her more flexibility to travel.

Sammy ended up working for an online school that offers user experience and web development courses for adults. Her new full-time gig was as a senior career specialist, which meant that she got to help students with resumes, portfolios, and networking. This also allowed her the freedom to hit the road as long as she was able to email and Skype with her students. Within the first few months of starting with the company, they asked her to create a course on cover letters and resume writing. It became one of the most popular courses that the school offered, making over a million dollars in revenue over the first six months.

But like so many online gigs, Sammy quickly found that she would need to do something else to supplement her income. And since she already knew she could create an entire course that people would want to buy, she wondered, "Why am I earning all this money for someone else and not for myself?" She started with what she calls the low-hanging fruit, reaching out to her network to see if anyone would be interested in hiring her on a freelance basis to help them move their careers forward. Most of her initial consulting work was rewriting resumes and helping her clients navigate professional networks like LinkedIn. Even with this focus, she made a cardinal mistake the first time she tried to grow that freelance coaching business. She followed what other people told her about building a brand, instead of asking if it really worked for her.

Most online marketers were singing the praises of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to build a following. The name of the game was to make a name for yourself as an influencer, and the promise was that money would just roll in after that. Now, of course, the money didn't just roll in. Because Semi was trying to market her professional career services on networks that were mostly for fun and entertainment, she wasn't reaching her ideal audience in a space where they wanted to talk about careers and work. Feeling frustrated while struggling to find leads, she decided to get serious and try some ideas of her own.

She invested in an online course and set up a new brand called Career Kickstart Academy. After she built the website, she wrote a short guide as an email incentive to grow her list so that she could start marketing outside her network. Still unsure what the best method would be to attract new traffic to the site, she set up a 12-month challenge for herself. Each month, she would launch something new to see what reactions and feedback she got. Semi tested a podcast, an online summit, new courses, and any product or media that her competitors had as well.

Some things flopped, like her first online course, and other things found traction, like her podcast. Most importantly, she raised her profile and learned what worked for her audience and what didn't. Through the experience, she found her best success in advising tech professionals on career advancement, a group she'd become more familiar with through her latest job. Her audience was savvy and appreciated when she introduced automated systems. She also focused more on her LinkedIn outreach, but rather than the old formulas she had been taught using cold messages and scraping emails, she made her new mantra, serving, instead of soliciting.

After all that work finding her ideal clients and developing a brand while staying true to herself, Semi made an extra $25,000 during her 12 months of experiments. She still works in her online job with the career school and has implemented more revenue streams into her business. This way, she always has some income coming in and doesn't have to panic when there are slow seasons. She also recently started publishing fiction on Kindle. Now traveling frequently while helping people kickstart new careers, Semi has brought herself a lot more than 30 minutes up the highway from the life she used to know.

[Music]

Well, I love the concept of experiments, especially when they're in this kind of format of a series, the 12 month series of experiments. What could you do for that? What kind of experiments could you begin in the new year? Or it could be any time, of course, if you're listening later, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't have to be 12 months either.

It could be quarterly. It could be like, I'm gonna do four different projects, four different experiments in 2020 or whenever it is, or maybe I'm gonna do four entirely different side hustle ideas. I'm gonna try one for a while. I'll try another one and we'll see at the end of the year or however long the time period is, which one I wanna focus on going forward. Sometimes it really does take trying out a bunch of different stuff before you figure out, okay, here is where I'm gonna find traction.

That is absolutely how it's been in my life and career. So I'm not surprised to hear that this process worked for Semi as well. But of course it takes courage. It takes courage to try something that you know might fail or it might not work out the way that you want, but hopefully it's going to eventually get you closer to your ultimate goals. And that's why you try it.

Okay, so what are your goals? One of mine is to serve you every day in 2020 through the all new year of interaction, which is coming up in just a few days. At least it begins in a few days and it's gonna go for a long time, 365 days to be precise. Okay, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1092.

That is 1,092 for episode 1,092. Enjoy the rest of your year and take care of yourself. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Sidehustleschool." [Music]

from the Onward Project.