This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What if you could build a thriving business based on a simple rule, never have a boss and never be a boss? So lots of people never want to have a boss, but have you ever thought about the opposite, like not having a boss, but also not being a boss. So effectively being a solopreneur, or you can just think of it as not having employees. That is what Brandy Agarbeck accomplished when she created a graphic facilitation practice that gives her complete autonomy while serving clients worldwide. Welcome to Side Hustle School.
Chris Guillebeau here, your host. This is the weekend workshop segment as we come to the end of the year. We did something all year, basically like a segment helping you learn the key steps to a new hustle, one step or concept per week. It includes activities, examples, and more. And we've been using the book Side Hustle from idea to income in 27 days, which is available wherever books are sold.
The first half of the year, we went through the 27 steps of the book. In the second half, we've been looking at more detailed case studies so you understand how people apply the framework. Let's talk today about this concept of the never boss philosophy as applied to Brandy. Now Brandy, since age 22, she has lived by this deceptively simple philosophy. It defines both her business model and her lifestyle.
Again, never have a boss, never be a boss. It's not just a slogan, it is a deliberate strategy that has shaped every decision about how she structures her work. Brandy recognized early in her career that traditional employment would limit her creativity and autonomy in some ways she wasn't willing to accept. So rather than climbing corporate ladders or building teams, she chose to become what she calls a company of one. And her business model eliminates the complexities and compromises that come with both employment and hiring.
In short, she practices graphic facilitation. And this is really cool, I've had graphic facilitators at my events before. They come out and they do these cool visual documentations of like a meeting a conference, some kind of session. Participants are having discussion, talking about making decisions and Brandy captures key ideas, connections and outcomes through visual mapping. So basically she's creating this visual artifact using images, quotes, little connection points, design elements and so on.
And it's just a fun kind of thing. So this service, at least from a business sense requires a combination of listening skills, artistic ability, and just an understanding of like what people are hoping to accomplish from a meeting or a session or a talk. So she's got to follow a detailed discussion while creating a visual representation that captures both the content and the context. So it can be a little bit of a challenge, right? Because she hears like a talk, for example, and somebody explains a concept or tells a story.
And so she starts drawing something that represents that story. Let's say the story is about a turtle, for example. So she starts drawing a turtle. Maybe this represents, you know, something about the speed of business or whatever else. So as she's drawing that turtle, the speaker of course is continuing the talk going on to new topics, connections, ideas.
So she has to be actively listening, maybe thinking about what comes next at the same time she's drawing. So it's a real skill that has to be developed over time. And then there's the part about developing a client base, which in Brandy's case, it's primarily corporations and nonprofits that are running sessions, retreats, conferences. These organizations understand the value of professional facilitation and documentation. Of course, she has to find companies and organizations that are willing to pay for her service and pay a pretty good rate because she's very experienced at this point.
So that's Brandy's business model. Let's take a quick break, talk about how this could apply in different businesses or different ideas. How can you take the positioning strategy, think about where to find clients and so on? What are the advantages or disadvantages of this kind of business? And if you want to never have a boss, never be a boss, what does that look like for you?
Coming up right after the quick break. [Music]
So Brandy has learned along the way kind of how to pitch her service just 'cause it is a little bit unusual for someone who hasn't heard of it before, especially an executive or an HR person making that hiring decision. So she starts with this pitch, I have a fantastic, strange job. And that creates curiosity while also preventing prospects from feeling embarrassed. Like if they don't know about this field, you don't want them to feel bad about that.
You want them to be interested and curious. So that's something that has helped her. And she also discovered that her ultimate clients aren't always the ones who hire her. She's actually more often hired by professional facilitators, like people who are actually facilitating the meetings, who need visual documentation support. So basically, this is a little bit of a win-win partnership.
Accordingly, she has learned to network with the facilitators and then that person either hires her directly or advocates for her in the process of negotiating with the client. So this never boss philosophy, it creates several advantages. Brandy maintains complete control through personal delivery. She doesn't have management overhead. She has full scheduling flexibility, creative control as well.
Her integrity and reputation are never compromised. She doesn't have to deal with employee performance issues. So that's all pretty great. And I guess you could also say she deliberately sacrifices scalability. Like she could grow by hiring other facilitators, turning this into a bigger business, 'cause she can only be in one place at one time.
If there are two big opportunities, one weekend, for example, she's not able to capitalize on that. But she's just decided that's a choice that she's willing to make. So she maximizes the value and pricing of her personal services rather than expanding through additional people. And what if you wanna be a service professional who doesn't have a boss and is not a boss? Well, you probably value autonomy as well.
Like you probably are not trying to create a scalable, sustainable business or something that works without you. I just heard a presentation from somebody who's like, I travel for four months of the year and my business operates completely independently. So that's very attractive in lots of ways, but it doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen without a great deal of strategic planning and inevitably without having other people in the picture. So it's like, which benefit do you want the most?
Like how do you decide for yourself what is important? But basically this philosophy can work for just about any service professional who values autonomy and is willing to do most of the work themselves. You just have to identify markets that appreciate individual expertise and are willing to pay a premium price 'cause you need to make sure you're getting paid well since you are effectively trading your time for money. So a premium price for direct access to a skilled practitioner such as yourself. Sometimes I think the best strategy in business and really life in general, the whole integrated concept is to be exactly who you are exceptionally well.
Like to understand like who is the authentic you? You've got the counterfeit you or you've got the projected you or like the you that you present. And like we all have to do that in different ways, but who is like the true authentic you? How can you lean into that more? How can you be exactly who you are?
But then also develop that version of yourself to where you're just doing a really good job and creating something that has value. So I'll leave you with that today. The never boss philosophy. As always, it's better to have a simple idea. You can start right away than a brilliant idea that never launches.
It's been fun to produce this segment this year. I think we've got what two or three weeks of it left. Of course, new episodes come out every single day in between as well. So I hope you will continue to listen. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
