This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Thanks for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. Today's episode is part of a new feature we've been doing in 2022 called your first $1,000.
Now, as you might guess, an intelligent guess would in fact prove to be factually correct. It's all about how someone makes their first $1,000. How do they get to that point? Not their first $100,000, which is cool, but also a long story. And how do they actually go from idea to income?
How do they, in many cases, make the leap from day job to self-employed or entrepreneur or freelancer, agency owner in this case? But whether it's quitting your job or not, how do you get to that first $1,000? So with that in mind, today's feature comes from Josh Straczynski. We first featured his remote Airbnb rental empire back on episode 1506, where he learned to operate a series of Airbnbs in Australia while he was living in the Caribbean. So the Airbnbs were on one continent far away, Australia, while he was living it up in the Caribbean.
I think he actually lives in Mexico now, if I'm not mistaken. That's what his LinkedIn says anyway. But what about his first $1,000? How did he make that happen? It just so happens he's got a story for us.
So let's hear it from him. [Music]
My name's Joshua Straczynski. I'm the managing director of J Marketing Advertising Agency. And this is the story of not only how I made my first $1,000 as a side hustle, but how that then flourished into many different successful businesses and ultimately the agency that I just referenced as well. It's really important to master something, to really be good at it.
If you try to jump into, "Oh, I'm just gonna do this and make money," you haven't seen all the angles. So how I made my first $1,000 was I was working for Fairfax at the time, big media agency. And I took a big pay cut to go there. In fact, I halved my wage because there was this emerging technology called Google Pay Per Click, also known as SEM or search engine marketing. Nowadays it's very offay, everyone does it.
But back then it was cutting edge and I knew it was cutting edge. So I took an entry level role to learn it inside out. And I spent every moment doing it. I got to was the first person in the office. I would work all day looking at the desk and thinking about different ways to do things.
I'd take the train home, that was my relaxation. And the first thing I would do when I get home was look at the results and see what had happened. That got me close to my 10,000 hours of practice, if you're familiar with the concept. And so I then started being able to branch out and freelance, moonlight. And I started approaching friends that I knew would benefit from it.
I started to have old clients come to me personally through social networks. And I kept the blog. The blog is really, really important. 'Cause I was explaining what was happening in the industry and how to do it. And back at that time, 'cause this was a technology that was taking off.
I was in Google and back then Yahoo's offices all the time learning direct from them. So I was taking that information and I was putting it on the web. And people who were interested in this idea of things that nowadays are common, like retargeting, and the concepts of the psychology behind ads, they were reading it and calling me and saying, "Hey, would you mind freelancing to us?" Now, of course, your first $1,000, you make a mess of it. But honestly, the point was that I was an expert in that area already. And so I was able to solve people's issues really, really easily.
And over time, I got better and better at running that for myself. So that naturally transitioned into bigger clients, more clients, and I was both very attractive as an employee for people to hire, but also able to run my own agency on the side until eventually I was able to go out on my own. So that's the story of the side hustle. And the matter of this is very, very clear. Whatever you do, focus on knowing it inside out.
Make sure you have as many conversations with clients as you can. Don't tell them what you do. Focus on what their problems and reservations are. The more of those you can get and truly understand, the more you can craft a solution, which is going to solve it and charge money for it. I don't care whether you're doing advertising or renting out Airbnb properties or anything.
Understand on a deep, deep, deep level, every problem, reservation, and anxiety point that your customer has, and create a solution specific to those. Then you don't need to crowbar someone into your good product. You're just filling a need in the market. And believe me, that can be for a product or service that already exists. You just tell it better.
Your business is all about optics. I'll be very, very happy. If anyone wants to talk about it, to jump on a podcast and go through it with them. All the very best, good side hustle. Cheers.
[Music]
- Awesome, thanks to Joshua for sharing that story. Way back in the day, I also did Google pay-per-click. I was kind of involved in that industry as it was starting. So kind of fun to hear some stories from that time. It's been quite a while.
And I like Joshua's advice here. Learn something inside and out. Don't tell your clients what you do. Focus on what their problems and reservations are. That is very helpful sales advice for a variety of topics and industries.
If you're trying to build an agency or perform some other freelance service, think about your clients, think about their problems. And what are they hesitant about? And let's lead with that as opposed to what you do. Hope you found this story interesting or encouraging, or perhaps even both. Check out Josh's website, jmarketing.agency, jmarketing.agency, or follow him on Twitter @joshstraw84.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, let me know that too, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you'll subscribe or follow. Come back tomorrow. New episode every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
