This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Can you turn negotiating discounts into a side hustle? I love this listener question. We're gonna explore a unique side hustle idea in today's episode, Negotiating Subscription Discounts on behalf of others. Welcome, by the way, to Side Hustle School, a new episode, episode 2,747, to be precise. Every day, we dive into creative and practical ways to earn extra income without giving up your day job.
Whether you are just starting out or looking to expand your current side hustle, we're here to inspire and guide you. Again, every single day, seven days a week. Now, this listener today, they have a knack for negotiating incredible deals on subscription services. Well, actually, they just have learned a little trick, which they're gonna share with you. So you're actually gonna learn a couple things here today.
We're gonna hear about their side hustle idea, but also if you wanna save money on subscription services, all those things that you pay for, for business, for lifestyle, for consumer, for tech, everything you're paying for on a monthly or annual basis. There's a little trick you can use. It actually works for so many different services. So you'll hear about that from Jeffrey, our caller, and then we'll talk about whether he can turn this into a profit center for himself. So all good things.
I love this detailed question from him and my answer coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hey, Chris, it's Jeffrey calling in from Duluth, Minnesota. I've just covered a way to save 50% or more on popular subscription services like streaming platforms, software tools, and all kinds of other things. By using live chat and negotiation tactics, I've been able to secure incredible deals and discounts for myself. Now I'm thinking about turning this skill into a side hustle by offering a service where I negotiate these savings on behalf of others and take a percentage of the money saved as my fee.
Do you think this is a viable business idea? How can I structure my service offerings and pricing to make it attractive to potential clients while still being profitable for me? [Music]
All right, Jeffrey, thanks for being out there. Thanks for the question. Thanks for tuning in.
And listeners, just to be clear, what Jeffrey's doing here, he's talking about using live chat and negotiation tactics. I'm pretty sure what he's saying is, when he's got a service that he wants to save money on, he just goes and uses the live chat on the website and says he wants to cancel. And very often they will offer you a deal that is 50% off or at least some pretty big savings. I have had that happen to me a couple of times and I'm starting to notice this is common practice for subscription businesses. They want to do everything they can to recover, to recover customers who are leaving or have left.
So you can be proactive and get that offer before you actually leave. Basically you just go and tell them, hey, I'm gonna change or I'd like to cancel. Is there anything you can do? You might not even have to ask. They might just do it for you.
So what he's trying to figure out, I mean, so first of all, use that for your own benefit, your own savings. What Jeffrey's trying to figure out though is can he do this as a service for other people and then take a percentage of it? And I think he can. It's just how do you actually do it? How do you connect with customers, right?
So you need to have like a business that's like, okay, I'm going to be you or be your representative. I might need access to some of your accounts or at least to the ability of being able to communicate on your behalf. And then what is the percentage that you take? How do you invoice for it? I think the one tricky thing is it would be nice if it was automatic, if you could just automatically go and save people money and then you get the cut.
But I think just because it's gonna be different services and people are putting this on their credit cards, I think you're going to need to have some sort of invoicing where you follow up afterwards and request payment. And then there could be some shrinkage as part of that. You could lose some customers, like some people might not pay basically is what I mean. But I think that's just a risk that you take. So offer a satisfaction guarantee.
Like if you don't save a client money, they don't pay. That's a risk-free approach. I would try, you could try doing this just on a network like Twitter or Reddit, posting up like, hey, I want to try this out. I'm looking for 10 customers. Maybe that initial batch of customers doesn't even pay much.
They just pay like a small percentage. And you do that to try to figure out a process, like a standard operating process to proceed from as well as what is the best fee to charge and so on. But I think it's really interesting. And hopefully if nothing else, a lot of our listeners can save money on their subscriptions. So good luck to our listeners.
Good luck to you as well, Jeffrey. And of course, new episodes coming up, sidehustleschool.com, notes pages for every episode, some free resources, email list and more. Thank you for listening today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
[Music]
- From the Onward Project.
