This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to a new month. I'm excited to welcome you here to side hustle school. Today is the 1st of May, 2020, at least on the day this episode's going out. Of course, we design all of our episodes to be evergreen. You could be listening at any point in the future.
But just in real time, this is episode 1,947. I'm excited to make this podcast for you every day. And guess what? You know how it goes. You have way too much money, right?
Like, isn't that the reason why you listen to side hustle school? Because you've got too much money to keep up with. Too many sales, too many customers, too many clients. You just kind of want to turn it all off sometimes. Okay, well, maybe most of the time that's not actually the problem for most people.
And for today's caller though, part of it is the problem. Not necessarily too much money, but too many inquiries. Too many inquiries, taking a lot of time, taking their focus from actual client work, their business is going well, which is great, yay. But like all of us, there's only so much they can do. So what do you do in this situation?
I'm overwhelmed with too many inquiries. Business is going so well that she is feeling a bit stifled. Let's hear her question after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]
Hello, Chris. This is Kristen, and I recently found your show after a friend recommended it.
I have a different sort of problem than most people who struggle to get off the ground. My business is going so well that I'm feeling overwhelmed with the work. I started offering interior design services earlier this year, and I'm now booked up for the next two months. Almost every day there's new inquiry, and each project takes at least a couple of days. Is it time to raise my prices?
I'm worried that if I do, it will all come crashing down. At the same time, I'm also worried that I'll never catch up if I don't do something. What do you think? Thanks. - What do I think?
Well, I think first of all, yes, it is time to raise your prices, but let's talk about a couple other points of this. So do raise the prices, don't forget that. But as for everything else, like feeling overwhelmed and the too many inquiries, there are a couple of other ways to solve this problem, or at least two big actions that I think are gonna help. The first is to work a bit on the systems of your business. And let's just say congratulations.
Congratulations that it's going so well. To go to the next level, which of course can mean more money, but it's also maybe just more of a systemized process, better quality of life so that you're not overwhelmed, you wanna create more of a process. You want to write a document that answers a lot of initial questions that people tend to have. You might wanna set up a time each week, or maybe two times where you answer correspondence and deal with those inquiries, instead of having them interrupt your workflow all the time, making you feel stressed out. And because the business is going well, potentially look at getting a virtual assistant or some other kind of outsourcing to triage that first line of queries.
And the second thing you can do is to start charging for some of these initial consultations. Maybe not just for a back and forth email, but charging for an actual consult that may or may not lead to future work. And by doing so, you'll likely have fewer people coming into the funnel, like you might still get a bunch of emails, but it is going to reduce the amount of unpaid time you spend at least. And those people will also be more serious, if they're willing to pay for an initial consult. Now you might tell them like the fee is a deposit, if we end up working together, I apply that fee, but I don't think that's always necessary.
You can deliver a lot of value in a short consult, and you don't wanna be in a situation where you have to work with someone just because they paid that small amount of money. So a few things there. And lastly, remember why you started this business. Just to go back to quality of life, like you started this business, presumably because you wanted to go out on your own at least part time. You wanted to have extra income, build some security and all that, and that's great.
That's wonderful. So do everything you can to make sure it doesn't become overwhelming, so that it can instead be sustainable over time. So this is a good problem to have, but I do think it's important to focus on solving it. Let us know what happens. And listeners, if you've got a question of your own, something you're working through, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Let me know what you're up to. I'm excited to bring you so many more episodes, and just to kind of encourage people along. I hope you do find it encouraging and helpful, and I hope you'll come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
