This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Weekend Workshop, grow what works, let go of what doesn't. That's what we're gonna talk about today in the Weekend Workshop segment. It's a new segment we've been doing this year all about helping you learn the key steps to a new side hustle, one step or concept per week. And we're using the book Side Hustle from idea to income in 27 days, available wherever books are sold. I'm taking you through the key steps along with listener stories and examples throughout the year.
So today's episode comes from day 24. It's all about really simple growth, how you can grow what works and let go of what doesn't. This is one of the key decisions you have to make as your side hustle starts to work and you're making money and that's great, but most likely as you're making more money, you have more work to do. And you've probably been doing a bunch of different stuff and then you start doing more stuff and then more and more and you just, you know, it can get a little bit overwhelming, can lead to burnout. And meanwhile, you do want to actually grow like you'd be happy to do some more work if it contributed to growth.
So how do you actually identify the most effective parts of your business, double down on those while pruning what's not working. That is in fact our learning objective today. We're gonna break it into two parts. Part one is focusing your efforts. So the big idea here is that successful businesses, side hustles doesn't really matter the size, they don't try to do everything well.
They focus intensely on what works best. And this often means letting go of product services, strategies that aren't delivering results even after you've invested time and energy in them. So the example comes from Ana Ramirez. She experienced this firsthand with her photography business. She was downsized from her corporate job and started selling images on stock photo websites.
Now, despite uploading hundreds of photos, she earned very little. The market was kind of oversaturated. Her work was lost among millions of other images. It just didn't work and it's okay to try stuff. Of course, that's how we learn, but the outcome was it just didn't work.
So she then tried another approach, listing her art on print on demand websites. And again, minimal results. Second version didn't work. Those sites had too little traffic to generate meaningful sales. So rather than continuing to push both strategies, Ana made a crucial pivot.
When a major retailer expressed interest in licensing her work, she realized, okay, that's where the real opportunity is. So she shifted and began focusing entirely on retail partnerships. Her photography now generates about a third of her total income while taking very little of her time. That sounds like a good thing, right? So the key principle is iteration, the process of trying things, seeing what works and doing more of that.
A lot of us do this iterating thing, but we don't stop doing stuff. Like we start doing things, we add something else, but then we still have the first thing. I've been very guilty of this in my life. I've been trying really hard to get better at it. So true iteration is starting stuff, evaluating what works and then stopping what doesn't work before you go on, try something new.
It sounds easy, but it's psychologically challenging, especially for anybody like me who is ADHD or otherwise neurodivergent or just likes to do more than one thing. We often get attached to ideas or projects and continue investing in them long after evidence suggests we should move on. So part one, focusing your efforts. Part two is going to be making the hard choices. I'll bring you part two after this quick ad break.
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All right, making the hard choices. So letting go of what isn't working requires some honest assessment and sometimes difficult decisions. As I said, it does not come intuitively to some of us. So here's how you approach it. You first begin by identifying what is actually working by looking at your metrics.
Hey, we just talked about that last week, how to track your progress using a couple, maybe two or three simple numbers. So in this case, you might look and be like, which products sell best? If I'm selling five different products, most likely they're not going to be distributed equally. Most likely there's probably one or two that sell much more than the others. And that is really important information.
You could also say which marketing channels bring in customers. Are you spending lots of time posting on social networks that don't actually produce customers? Well, that's also important information. Where do you see the highest profit margins? Questions like that will essentially give you the information you need to then make hard choices.
And next, look for opportunities to expand these successful elements. Of the one or two products that are bringing in the majority of the sales out of the five, let's say, can you create similar products? If one marketing channel is crushing it, can you increase your marketing there? Can you find ways to serve your best customers even better? And that's always fun.
Like this is where growth comes from. It's by focusing on these things. And then lastly, you want to make decisions about what to stop doing. This might mean discontinuing some of the products that are not selling as well, abandoning ineffective marketing channels, or saying no to certain types of customers. That's okay.
In fact, that is desirable. It's going to help you. I've got an action exercise for you, like we do every week in this segment. Today's exercise is to conduct a business audit. That sounds kind of fancy and difficult, but it's actually pretty easy.
Just ask yourself some of the questions I've been talking about, and I'll give you a few more here. What aspects of my business are most profitable? Which activities bring the most joy or satisfaction? That's also important. It's not all about money.
It's also about your enjoyment. What could you double down on in the next month? And what's one thing you should stop doing immediately? If you can come up with concrete answers to those two last questions, what can you double down on, one thing? And what's one thing you could stop doing immediately?
You have a very practical step that's going to help you save time and hopefully grow your business. And maybe a quick note, growing a business is not just about adding more, it's about focusing your limited time and resources on what works best. Sometimes the fastest way to grow is to do less, but do it better. Hope that's helpful to somebody out there today. As always, it's better to have a simple idea.
You can start right away than a brilliant idea that never launches. Thanks so much for listening today. I'm excited to bring you much more in the days to come. The podcast is always free. You can listen wherever you like or get the complete archive of 3,000 plus episodes free at www.sidehustleschool.com.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From The Onward Project.
