This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. If you are looking for a less obvious way to make money, which can often be less competitive, right?
Because not as many people are doing it. It's less obvious. It can be helpful to think about transferring your skills in some way, like taking a skill and applying it to a different industry perhaps, or adapting one industry to another. So this whole art of skill transformation or industry adaptation is important, or at least it can be beneficial. And if any of that sounds vague, well, we're gonna make it very specific in this question and answer episode.
A listener has an idea to become, I forget how she describes it. We're gonna hear in just a moment. I think it is a wedding consultant who is effectively a claims adjuster helping couples to pay less. So she's kind of an advocate, or at least wants to be an advocate to help people pay less at weddings, which of course can be expensive. So she'll explain a bit more.
I think it is certainly an interesting idea, but of course the question is, is it viable, right? It can't just be interesting. It has to be viable. Your idea has to be able to make money if it is in fact a side hustle. So that's the question.
It's coming up along with my detailed, but concise answer in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, Chris, this is Caroline, and I've been listening to the show for a couple of years. You once profiled a freelance medical claims adjuster who helps people negotiate lower hospital bills. It got me thinking, could there be room for this kind of role in another industry? The one I was thinking of was weddings.
Anyone who's ever had a wedding or paid for one knows that they get expensive. In fact, an event planner told me that lots of service providers charge a higher price for weddings than for other events just because the whole industry does it so they can get away with it. That's crazy. Therefore, what do you think about a side hustle that helps people pay less, perhaps by negotiating bulk rates with venues, photographers, flower shops, and so on? Looking forward to hearing what you think about this.
Thanks, Chris. Caroline, thank you so much. As I said, interesting idea. I think it does have some potential. Of course, the proof is in how it actually works.
So first, a medical claims adjuster, that role, that profession, at least my understanding, that person typically works for the people authorizing the billing. So they tend to be working on the corporate side or the hospital side, the healthcare industry, but there are indeed people on the other side, those freelance consultants that I think Caroline mentioned, who are effectively one-part auditors, one-part advocates, basically helping people get their hospital bills lower. And they can do this and be successful at it because medical bills, especially in the US, can be ridiculously expensive. It's not just that they're expensive. The pricing is often variable depending on who's paying, which not to get sidetracked, but that's actually one of the reasons why it tends to be expensive, because the pricing is not standardized.
It depends on who's paying. So a number of these freelance consultants can make a good living, helping people lower their hospital bills. They typically get paid a percentage of the savings, which can be substantial. So as Caroline said, could you apply this model in other industries? You know, medical works so well because of those factors I just mentioned, high prices, there's some room for negotiation, there's also a lot of confusion.
So those factors all kind of create this sub-industry of consultants. It's also true that the wedding industry is like that as well, like all the same factors, maybe not quite as extreme. It's not quite like those $100,000 hospital bills, but it's true that some things cost more for weddings than other events just because they're weddings. Whether that's crazy or not depends on what you believe about free markets and enterprise and so on. But I can understand if you're getting married and you realize, wow, I could be paying a lot less if this wasn't a wedding for essentially the same vendors, that would be frustrating.
One challenge with the business idea is that this is part of what an event planner already does. Like if you hire a wedding planner, theoretically at least that person has your back and is trying to get you a good deal. But I think they're also not totally free from bias because they tend to be working with the same vendors over and over. So they have a relationship they want to maintain with all these vendors and that's in the back of their mind, if not the front of their mind as they're negotiating prices and setting budgets and so on. Maybe for an expensive wedding, there could be room for someone else.
It has to be expensive because there has to be enough profit margin to work for this idea to be viable. So I'm not sure about that, but I think it's worth exploring if you have the contacts and an idea of how to start. Let us know of course what you do, how it turns out. Good luck. And listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
We will continue to feature them throughout the year along with updates from listeners as they launch their projects. I am cheering you on wherever you are in the world, whatever it is you're working on. I will be here again tomorrow with a new episode. And I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
