This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Weekend Workshop, frame your first dollar. Welcome friends, welcome to Side Hustle School. This segment, Weekend Workshop, it's all about helping you learn the key steps to a new side hustle, one step or concept per week. We're using the book, Side Hustle, from idea to income in 27 days, which is available wherever books are sold. I'm gonna be taking you through the key steps along with listener stories and examples throughout the year.
Now, today's episode comes from day 22, which is all about celebrating your milestones and framing your first dollar. Our learning objective is to understand why celebrating small victories is crucial for long-term success and how to mark these important milestones. So I use this concept of framing your first dollar. It's a bit of an allegory. If you walk into almost any local shop, maybe not almost any, but lots of local shops, pizza parlors and so on, you'll see the first dollar they ever earned proudly framed on the wall.
And this might change in the future because we're in less and less of a cash economy, but I think with lots of small businesses, you can still see that dollar or that first check, or maybe it's a hundred dollars or something, but it's the small amount. It might seem kind of silly because you're like, what's one dollar to a business? But that framed cash or check or certificate, whatever it is, it represents something powerful. The moment someone first paid for a product or service that the business owner made, or the side hustler. There's a story in the book about this guy, Max Robinson, who wrote a blog about fish tanks, and he got paid for fish tank reviews.
And he received his first $200 check from Amazon. He had written these reviews mostly out of interest, just adding a few product links at the bottom. He was really into fish, that was his thing. And when the check arrived, his partner didn't believe it was real, at least until he took her out for a nice dinner with the money. So that first payment wasn't just about the amount, it validated his effort.
It showed that his work had real value. Even though Max ran a successful construction company, that was his day job, he regularly dealt with much larger sums, but that $200 felt special. Like it was proof that he could create something from scratch that people found valuable. So in his case, he didn't actually frame the $200 payment, he deposited it and had a nice dinner with it. But still, it was like that moment of validation that gave him motivation and momentum to keep going and eventually earn a lot more money from this fish tank blog.
It became passive income where he was earning $700 to $1,000 a month without even updating the site, which is pretty fun. And it all comes from that small beginning. So celebrating your milestone is very important. Let's take a quick break. And when we return, how can you celebrate milestones and make your first or next side hustle meaningful?
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Success in side hustling often comes down to momentum. Like these are projects that we do apart from our main career often. And sometimes it ends up becoming a main career, but that's almost like a secondary consideration. When you're starting a new project, by celebrating early wins, you build confidence and motivation to keep going whenever something gets challenging. So some ways to mark your milestones might include documenting the moment.
So maybe you don't get cash for your business, but can you screenshot your first sale? Can you save that email from your first payment notification or first customer who wrote to purchase it? You know, whatever that looks like. Can you share the win with someone who supports you or someone that you're close with? Ideally someone who is proud of you.
And as I said, supportive, not someone who is critical of your venture, which I know a lot of us have those people in our lives too. So share the win with someone who supports you. Maybe also do something special with your first earnings, just like Max Robinson did with that $200 check from Amazon. And then as well, set your next milestone goal. Okay, so you made your first dollar.
You got your first payment, client, customer. What comes next? Do you want to achieve a certain dollar amount? Do you want to achieve some other milestone or touchpoint to whatever it looks like? Just make a determination, like here's my next goal.
And I'm gonna celebrate that when it comes as well. So your action exercise, think about your first meaningful business achievement. It might be your first sale, first positive review. It could also be your first repeat customer or your first profitable month. Whatever that looks like, plan how you will celebrate that milestone when it happens and make it meaningful to you, whether it is the nice dinner out, like the fish tank guy, or simply taking a moment to appreciate how far you've come.
Look, this is really important. I know I'm often talking about what kind of website you should have and such, but honestly, the emotional connection that you feel to the work you do, and especially to something you create for yourself, really matters. And so when people reward you for that and determine that it is valuable for them, that is something that is worth celebrating and internalizing so that you can go on to do much more from there. So every successful business starts with a single sale. Your first dollar might not seem significant to other people, but it represents the moment your idea became a real business.
And I want you to recognize that. That's my encouragement for you today. And as always, better to have a simple idea. You can start immediately than a brilliant idea that never launches. Thanks for tuning into this week's weekend workshop.
Next one comes out in seven days. And in the meantime, of course, a new episode every day in between. That's all for now. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
