This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? What's up? This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. This is our weekly recap. We have just finished week number 32.
It's funny how that works. Every single week, the week ends, and then a new week begins. Very consistent. And I mentioned the other day that I have been in Asia this week, Hong Kong, Bali, and Bangkok. This is actually my last international trip before the side hustle book comes out in 36 days.
Not officially freaking out yet, but that's coming soon, stay tuned. Still putting together a pretty epic tour, which is now 70% locked in. Definitely needs to be locked in by that one month point, which is coming up in just, what, six days? Five days, depending on how many days are in the month. So as soon as that's ready, I would love for you to be part of signing up for that.
Most of the stops will be free. If there's a ticket price for some of the stops, it's usually very affordable. And I'll tell you more about that very soon. Now I've been thinking about something else as I've been traveling this week. I really believe in the concept of legacy work or building up a body of work, an archive of work.
It's kind of the model I had for about eight years with my blog and then the books I write and now the side hustle school podcast. And I'm really attracted to the kind of work that just builds over time. And I've seen that with this podcast. Like a lot of folks are coming into the community. They just heard about it from one of their friends.
And I get these emails from people who are like, "Oh, I just listened to the past 60 episodes." Or some people are like, "I went back to episode one. Now it's three days later and I went through a hundred episodes." And I think that's totally cool. Like I love it, think it's super awesome, respect it. What I've been thinking about recently is this notion that even though it's good to build that kind of work over time, it's also an interesting model to think about what if the work you do now, the things you do today, it has value today, but then it disappears. It's like an Etch-a-Sketch toy.
Did you ever have one of those? And some people actually do really detailed work with them, but then you shake it and it's gone. I guess what I'm coming to, and this may not make perfect sense, but I'm trying to get in this mindset of every day when I make the show or when I do my other work, to try to think about what value it has right now, not just for the future, but I'm recording this here in Asia. Our great production team will make it sound better. And then you, wherever you are in the world, you're gonna hear this at some point.
I wanna do a good job with it. I want it to matter. I want it to have some value for you. And just thinking about that has helped me. What if the work you do today has value now, but then it disappears?
You have to make it count for something. So think about that wherever you are, whatever you're working on. If it resonates great, if not, no problem. Lots of other stuff is on the way. Speaking of that, in the recap today, gonna do a throwback to the episodes we've covered in the past few days.
A brief look ahead. And I've got two awesome listener questions for you. One is from Austin, Texas. One is from somewhere else. I'm actually not sure where that second caller is from, but we'll jump right into those listener questions right after this quick shout out to our sponsor.
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Hey, Chris, this is Tom Gibson. I'm calling from Austin, Texas. And I am actually a medical, math, and robotics teacher by day. And I do freelance voiceover work by night. And my story is pretty similar to one of your earlier stories where a guy did voiceover work on fiverr.com.
And I've gotten to the point where my prices are relatively higher on Fiverr. And I'm able to get several, maybe $400 to $600 a month, just with maybe 10 to 12 orders. And I recently got an order through my website, which is primarily a teaching blog, but I do have a section on there for some filmmaking and work and voiceover work. And someone ordered a voiceover to the website, which was a first for me. And I ended up charging them through PayPal invoicing services.
And I was wondering what's the pros and cons of going through a site like Fiverr, where they're taking 20% of my revenue as a service fee versus going through PayPal, where I don't necessarily have the guarantee of the payment 'cause they, I don't know if they've paid PayPal yet. And I have to go through milestones where when I pay, do half the order they pay, and then when I do the full order, they pay the rest of the amount. But yeah, could you talk about that? The pros and cons of invoicing through a website like PayPal, are there other options versus going through a website like Fiverr where you get a little bit less. Thanks so much for the show.
And I will look forward to, hopefully hearing this question on the air. - Hey, man, thanks so much for listening. Congrats on your voiceover success. For anybody out there who wants to hear that episode that Tom refers to, it is episode five, way back in the beginning of Side Hustle School. In that story, much like you heard from Tom's message, there's a guy who was able to do voiceover work through the platform Fiverr and earn an extra $500 a month or even a bit more without spending a ton of time on it.
Anyway, Tom, to your question, generally speaking, it's gonna be better to take orders through your website, do your own invoicing through PayPal or some other system, than it is through the Fiverr platform or through some other third-party service. Like if it were me, whenever I had a choice, I would do it myself. The issue is that it's not always possible because the main benefit of a service like Fiverr is the marketplace that it provides. And so you are able, as you know, to create a profile, to bid on different projects, or just have people come to you based on what they see in your profile. And that's why that platform is successful.
Now I call it a starter platform because for a lot of folks, it's better to do exactly what you've done, which is create a website and try to establish clients off of the platform. It's just not always possible because especially when you're getting started, the exposure that a site like Fiverr gives you is usually more than what you could do on your own. And that's the benefit. But yeah, short version, if you have a choice, definitely invoice people yourself, definitely do it off that system because then you will of course make more money. I think you said the Fiverr service fee was 25%.
For PayPal, it's gonna be like two to 3%. So huge difference there. Anyway, good luck and I hope to see you in Austin. - Hi, Chris. I've been listening to your podcast since day six.
Thanks for putting it out there. Since then, I have started two blogs using the affiliate program and I seem to be getting click-throughs and people ordering things, but about 80% of the click-throughs don't seem to be generating even a single penny of income for me. Is there somewhere you can direct me so I can better understand the Amazon affiliates program? I've tried reading through their website, but I just don't understand why some things are generating income and most aren't. Thanks.
- Hey, Aaron, thank you for listening all the way from episode six. And thank you for the great question. I'm just gonna flip this a little bit because you said that 80% of people you're sending to Amazon are not generating any income for you. To me, that sounds like 20% of them are generating some kind of income, even if it's small. And 20% is a pretty great conversion rate for all kinds of industries.
It literally means that if you send 100 people over to Amazon, 20 of them are making a purchase and you're gonna earn a commission from it, that is definitely not bad at all. The rest of the people are probably just not checking out right away or they're just browsing on Amazon, like most of us do throughout the week at different times, or maybe they come back and purchase later and because of how Amazon does their cookie system, you may or may not get credit for that. So without knowing a bit more about your blogs and the specific products that you're referring people to, my inclination is to say that the bigger problem is getting more people to your website and then getting more people to click through. Because again, if you can earn some sort of income on 20% of the people that you send to Amazon, unless I'm missing something, that seems pretty good. The only other thing I would suggest is to look at the specific items you're sending people to.
Like when they click your links, are they going to purchase something? Are they gonna go read about something you've written about? If you can look on your Amazon analytics, which they give you some pretty detailed information, can you see if some products convert more than others? That might help you get that conversion rate up even higher. But again, to me, it sounds like you're on the right track.
Let us know how things continue to go and thanks for being a huge part of Side Hustle School. [Music]
Looking back this week, beginning with episode 219, continuing through episode 224, we started with two friends who start a $25,000 a month paleo bar business. Two hungry hustlers, as I think we call them. There's lots to like about this story. I especially love that they are still running this as a side hustle.
Even though it's obviously very successful, they've devoted a lot of time and patience to kind of getting everything right and making sure this business doesn't compromise. Personally, I tend to come from the done is better than perfect philosophy, which is why I'm able to produce this show every day. I think if I was a perfectionist, I would never get it done. But I also really respect and admire when people are just so committed to a vision. They're like, we're gonna take our time.
In this particular venture, they're like, we're not gonna have preservatives in these bars, even though it would probably be cheaper and would allow us to store the bars for longer. They're gonna stick with those principles that inspired their project in the first place. Anyway, good work. Next episode was about someone who had helped his day job crowdfund a lot of money. Think of something like several million dollars and then begins working as a consultant to help other crowdfunders.
Obvious need there. You can see not only the need, but also how it's matched with his expertise, his authority. Not surprised that it's successful. Wouldn't be surprised at all if it gets much more successful. That was followed by episode 221, a TV producer who sells monogram scarves and earns $1,000 writing the subway to work one day.
Now she actually earns a lot more than that. It's up to something like $20,000 a month. But I focus on that story of earning $1,000 while writing the subway 'cause I think it illustrates the concept of passive income. And she had created these monogram scarves and one day I think it was a radio show or something featured her. And on the way to work, she makes $1,000 before she gets settled in, another $1,000.
She actually runs out of inventory and has to apologize to people and say, "Sorry, it's gonna be two weeks before you get your scarf." It's projects like these that I want to encourage our listeners to use as a model for their own side hustles. Not just working harder, although I totally believe in working hard, but creating an asset for yourself, something that allows you to make $1,000 one day without doing anything for it. And when I say that, I don't mean to suggest that it's easy. Like obviously you have done something for it. You have taken actions to build that foundation.
But once that foundation is built, then it's a matter of maintenance or maybe focusing on growth or maybe just kind of letting it work for you while you focus on your day job or your family or whatever your other responsibilities are. After that, we had an episode focused on a guy who goes to Bali, comes home and imports 100 animal skulls. I think they were cow skulls. Turns $10,000 into $60,000. We have a subset of very active listeners who are into reselling.
I always try to highlight those stories for you guys. Some people really take to this notion of buying something in one place and then reselling it somewhere else. I did that for a long time myself when I was first getting started. So there are definitely some lessons for you there. Then we have a German family who makes money from memorable mementos and a cat lover who creates cat-devading portraits, also known as how to pay your way through school by painting cat portraits.
Funny story, we actually have something coming up next week that's similar. There's an animal lover who learns to breed rabbits and actually goes on to graduate college debt-free. So another very creative way to pay for your education, coming up soon. There's also a Starbucks employee who creates a six-figure hustle helping breweries. He eventually quits his job, but just like most stories you hear, started that project as a side hustle, did it for a couple years before he felt comfortable in making the leap full-time.
Also the story of a marketing coordinator who realizes her lifelong dream of starting her own magazine and a man who grows a beard and then makes $500 a month from it. True story, you never know what you're gonna hear on Side Hustle School. Try to keep it light, try to keep it fun, try to keep it helpful, and I wanna keep improving and raising the bar, especially for our faithful long-time listeners 'cause you guys make it all worth it. [Music]
Now before I wrap up, speaking of people who make it worth it, just wanna say a big thank you to our production team. This is not a one-man operation or even a one-man plus cat operation.
We record the show on location at World Domination Headquarters in Portland, Oregon. It is then transported to Brooklyn, New York to be produced at the Panoply Studios. Production team is led by A.C. Valdez, also featuring Adelia Rubin. Show notes are by my assistant, Whitney Karinek.
And my cat, Libby Gilavo, has not had her portrait professionally done. But now that I featured that story in episode 223, maybe I'll need to place a commission. Stay tuned. Side Hustle School is part of the Onward Project, curated by Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen also has a book coming out this fall.
It's called "The Four Tendencies." I saw an advance copy and it's awesome. And last but not least, I wanna thank everybody who left a review, especially over the past week or two. We are now at more than 800 reviews or ratings on iTunes, Apple Podcasts. Those really make a huge difference and I am grateful to you. So thanks to everyone who took the time.
And if you haven't done so yet, I'd still be grateful. Yes, there is still time to do that. In every episode of the show, I always say inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is even better. Just as I hope to keep improving, I hope you do too. If you've been working on your hustle this year but have been frustrated, I understand that happens to me too.
You're not alone. There's a whole community of awesome people out there doing it too. This fall, I'll be beginning a tour to 100 cities. I would love to be able to say hi to you. And I would also love to connect you with other like-minded people who share the same vision.
We'll have a new way of doing that soon called "Sidusle Society." More on that later. For now, thank you so much. You are awesome. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week. Episodes go online at 6.01 AM Eastern time.
I'm Chris Guillebeau and this is "Sidusle School." [Music]
