This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome to the classroom episode. This signifies the beginning of a new week. We are actually not just at the beginning of a new week, but we are almost exactly halfway through the year, halfway through the year of 2020, which, you know, in a lot of ways we could say 2020 might prefer to actually skip ahead to 2021, but hopefully not in all the ways because I tend to think, well, regardless of circumstance, what can I do to better myself? What can I do to make a difference in the world?
No matter what's going on, right? So halfway through the year, I thought it would be good to look back at the classroom series of what we have done so far in the past six months. I also want to make a few changes to it, just based on conversations and feedback from many of our listeners. Pretty much everything I do here at South Russell School and a lot of my other work as well is kind of a co-creation process in the sense that I am trying to share something, like I have a message, I have something I want to teach, but I'm the first to recognize that it's made better because of this community. So thank you for being part of that.
Thank you for your emails. Thank you for any social media interaction we've had. Even if we haven't interacted at all, just thank you so much for listening because as I've said several times, you're the reason why I make this show. It really is true. Every day, that's why we work on these features and try to consider what we need to do next and such.
So if you go to southuelschool.com/classroom, you can see this newly updated page. You'll also be able to scroll back and take a look or a listen to anything you might have missed or that seems particularly relevant to you. Again, that's southuelschool.com/classroom. And I always encourage you to use your time well because the thing about this series, like I know we have people in different places and I don't just mean geographically, I mean in terms of your side hustle journey. Like, so if you are a bit further along, we'll just, you can skip some of those topics.
That's okay because every week we've still had two new stories or case studies along with all the interactive new features such as questions and answers and throwback Thursday episodes that we introduced at the beginning of 2020. So of course, always do what's best for you. So a lot of what we looked at in the first couple months of the year was about what makes for the right idea. And when I say right idea, I mean a profitable one. And how can you develop the skill of identifying lots of ideas?
And this is because people tend to have one of two challenges, especially in the beginning of this process. They either don't have an idea or they don't know how to bring that idea to life. So some people are like, "I just have no idea what I would do," which is a big reason why I'm trying to share lots and lots of ideas through the podcast. But then also a lot of people are like, "Okay, I get it. Now I have some ideas.
Maybe I've got my own idea. Maybe I've borrowed one or modified it. But how do I bring that idea to life?" Like, that's where I'm struggling. That's where I tend to get stuck. So first couple of months of the year, we're all about those topics.
Like, how do we find that right idea? How do you develop that skill of identifying ideas? And then dealing more with the second part of the problem, how do you get your idea ready? Everything you need to do to create that product or service. And that includes both practical logistical steps as well as some psychological ones.
Some mindset steps, kind of understanding why people make purchasing decisions in the first place, which is really helpful to know about once you start getting into writing copy for your offer and actually creating an offer in the first place. And then of course beginning to think about how you're going to get that offer out into the world. So on the practical logistical side, we had classroom episodes such as number 17. And this is number 17 of the classroom series, not episode 17. But again, on that page classroom, you can see all of them.
So that episode 17 was, if you end up working with a manufacturer or an overseas factory or some other vendor, what do you need to know? Like, what questions do you need to ask in advance? How can you try to see off any problems that might occur? And then another logistical issue is, how can you fulfill orders? Like how can you create a simple workflow for delivery of an item or a session upon purchase?
When someone chooses to give you money, which is what they're choosing to do when they buy something, right? What then happens next? How do they receive their purchase? What do you need to do? What do they need to do if anything at that point, et cetera.
And we also get a lot of questions about really sexy topics like taxes and business licenses and bank accounts. So classroom episode number 12 was entitled, don't listen to this boring episode, which was all about those really exciting topics. So that stuff is all practical and logistical and the psychological preparation or the psychological knowledge, I guess you could say, included topics like how to create a powerful origin story. Like, what is your origin story? Why are you starting this project of all the different things you could do?
And why is that going to then be interesting to somebody? As well as the six factors of persuasion, part one and two, which I split into two episodes just because there was a lot there in terms of how to introduce these characteristics or factors or elements of what causes someone to make a purchase. So that's where we've been so far and going forward, this series will focus a lot more on marketing. I'll tell you a little bit more about that in just a moment. Quick little shout out to our sponsor, Sponsor Break, and also when we come back, I'll give you your assignment for the week.
[Music]
Something else we looked at about six weeks ago was the topic, give the people what they want. Give them what they really want, not just what they say they want. So as you move from choosing an idea and then developing your product to focusing more on outreach and marketing, you'll wanna make sure you're well positioned to do that. Again, giving people what they really want, not just what they say, which can often be different. How can you reach the right people?
That's something else we looked at. Your ideal customer, who is that single person out there who best represents many others who are gonna line up around the block to buy from you. They're gonna crash your website with so many orders, or maybe it's not gonna be quite like that, at least at first, but hopefully buying, signing up, registering, whatever they need to do in a way that allows you to grow and do more of what's important to you. Because of course, that's what it's all about. So going forward the second half of the year, we're gonna talk a lot about that in much more detail.
These classroom episodes beginning in July will switch to every other week. And the reason why I'm doing that is I'm still really excited about this series, but I'm also back logged on so many listener questions that I wanna make sure I'm trying to answer as many as possible. So we're gonna do some more questions and answer episodes every other week. And then on the opposite week, the either week, that will be a classroom episode. Of course, if you're subscribed, you'll get all that when it comes.
You don't need to worry about the details of the schedule, just letting you know now in advance. And your assignment this week is to regroup and evaluate. Just kind of sit back and take a look and see where you're at. Where are you at? What do you need to do to keep moving forward?
What's your next step? You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. Now this has been episode 1262. So you can also just go to sidehustleschool.com/1262 to read notes for this one specifically. I am so grateful that you've been around this year.
It has been quite the year as mentioned briefly in the beginning. And we've talked about it a couple of times as well. But I hope you will continue to join me for the rest of the year as well. I'm excited to continue building and sharing your stories, answering your questions, doing whatever I can to highlight positive change in this community, because I think you're amazing. All right, you're amazing.
You're a rockstar. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and you're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
from the Onward Project.
