Charismatic Coaching Duo Earns $50,000/Month

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Let us consider today a values-based teaching partnership business that grows from one of the guys Airbnb-ing his own bed to pay for groceries all the way to it now earning up to $50,000 a month. When this partnership begins, the two guys are selling $10 eBooks and now they're selling $600 courses every single day. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Now in the story I'm gonna tell you today, these guys have been pretty smart and strategic, which is not surprising since they're making $50,000 a month.

It's not really a business model or an approach that I use myself, but there's no doubt it's highly successful and clearly a lot of people appreciate it. On top of that, I believe you can always learn from what other people are doing even if you maintain your own approach and perspective. That's why there is such a range of stories on this show. That is by design. Because I know not everybody out there wants to sell on Etsy.

Not everybody out there wants to write an ebook or sell a course. Not everybody out there wants to be a reseller or a dropshipper or have an online e-commerce store. You know, whatever it is. But there are lessons in every story or at least that is our goal. So today's story about the charismatic coaching duo is coming right up.

Right after this quick little thank you to our sponsor. [Music]

In the world of investment banking, it pays to be outgoing and assertive. It's a dog-eat-dog world. And if you don't have the ability to stand out, you can quickly find yourself lost in the system or without a job at all. This pressure combined with the desire to connect with more people is what led Ben Altman and Charlie Halpert to study the psychology of charisma.

They believed relationships, both with yourself and the people around you are the key to being a successful person. If you're gonna make the right decisions and end up in the right places, you had to have trust and confidence in yourself. So the pair delved deep into books, attended seminars and took courses to help them become the most charismatic versions of themselves. They tried everything they learned in their day-to-day lives and slowly but surely, they began to transform. They saw their dating lives improve, their social circles expand, their bosses take a shine to them and people would openly comment on how positively confident and charismatic they were.

Confident, not arrogant, there was a difference. After a while, their desire to work in the corporate world faded and was replaced with a passion for helping people. They wanted a more flexible life and to do something they felt was more meaningful. So Ben and Charlie packed their bags and moved to the sandy beaches of Brazil. This move didn't just mean a new life for them, it meant a new business.

Now their first attempt was a failed one. They called it BCX Parkour, a fitness product based on the popular P90X regime, but no need to remember that because it failed. They decided to try something new. They wanted to teach the charisma skills they'd learned to people who needed them. They figured if they did it right, it would allow them to travel and work from wherever without affecting their income.

Ben and Charlie weren't exactly convinced this idea would work. They cared about charisma and confidence, but they weren't sure the rest of the world would. So they started slowly and intentionally. It began with a blog called Charisma on Command. They offered a cheap $10 ebook to people who joined their mailing list and they put together in-person seminars also for a low cost.

This allowed them to test the waters without over-investing, both financially and time-wise. They figured at worst they would get some practice writing and talking about a subject they enjoyed. Building this iteration of the business did require some sacrifice. Ben had enough savings to cover the rent in Brazil, but Charlie wasn't in the same position. He spent many of his nights sleeping on Ben's floor.

When he finally had a place of his own, he would Airbnb his bed to tourists and sleep on the couch. But thankfully, the work and the sacrifice began to pay off and people bought into the Charisma on Command brand. The more they created and shared, the more copies of their books they sold and the more people attended their seminars. They decided this was the future business both of them wanted. So they began to be even more intentional and they carefully expanded.

One of the major changes they made was starting a YouTube channel. They felt that some of their presence was being lost in writing. So they decided that getting in front of the camera was the next logical step. They began to create videos touching on the topics they cared about and YouTube quickly became their main source of new customers. Most of their initial outreach to find subscribers was done manually.

They required hours of looking at forums and message boards to find relevant conversations where they could answer. Whenever possible, they'd leave a link to a video or article and let people choose whether they wanted to engage with it. This landed them their first batch of loyal subscribers. Their YouTube success since then, Ben says, is based on two factors. The first is creating great content, which is laser targeted to that loyal audience.

And the second is learning how to get attention on the platform, which is all about creating clickable headlines and choosing your thumbnail image to entice people to watch. If you're gonna focus on only two things with YouTube, choose those two. Now the second major change was in creating their flagship product, Charisma University. They wanted to capture everything they teach people in seminars and on YouTube in an easy to follow course. The course is broken down into a number of modules covering all the major aspects of charisma from storytelling and leadership to conversations and first impressions.

And it currently retails at $597, that's right, almost 600 bucks, and it gets signups every day. Now again, they started with $10 eBooks and now they're selling $600 courses every day. So it's been a lot of growth. It's been tremendous growth, in fact, because they're currently generating income of up to $50,000 a month. Ben has come a long way since giving up his bid to Airbnb tourists in Brazil, and both of them consider themselves to be extremely lucky with their partnership.

From early on, they were able to establish clear boundaries to dictate who is in charge of the different elements of the business. They also maintain honest and open communication, especially focusing on their values to make sure that they're happy and moving in the right direction. Business-wise, they have invested in translators to create their content in multiple languages, including Russian, German, and Spanish, and that in turn helps them attract people from different markets. Charlie and Ben are now looking to take on more speaking events and in-person seminars. They love the feel of connection to a crowd and they do their best work when they can interact and react to the people around them.

It's a confident, charismatic, and unstoppable partnership. All right, I just want to pick up on one thing from the story. There was this sentence about how building the first iteration of their business required some sacrifice. Now let's talk about sacrifice for a minute, because you don't actually have to sacrifice a lot, or at least the sacrifice can be different from what you hear in more traditional entrepreneurial stories. Okay, so what I mean by this is, if you've been listening to Side Hustle School for a while, and you know that I'm trying to help people think about risk differently, and the message of Side Hustle School is not go out and quit your job, go jump off a cliff, invest your life savings in some business that may or may not work.

It's all about taking safe risks. In a lot of cases, it's about not spending any money, or spending very little money, let's say, remaining in the job you are, but starting something on the side so that you can build up the confidence you need and the security you need to do something different, or at least to have the option to do something different. So good news there, at least for some people, you don't have to sacrifice a lot to do this. Or, as I said, the sacrifice can be different than what you might expect. So I don't mean to say that you never have to give something up.

You never need to choose to invest your time in your project, because most likely you will. Most likely you will have to give something up, but that thing you have to give up is maybe watching the third episode of your favorite show at night, or using your lunch break to work on your side hustle, or using your commute to listen to podcasts, or trying to think about how to use your commute productively. So I think of those things as more like investments than sacrifices, because you're investing in yourself when you do those things. And I do know we have a lot of listeners out there who are making much bigger risks, and I totally respect that, but just to speak to the rest of our audience who's not in that place, not in that situation, again, you don't need to make a huge sacrifice. Just as you can choose your own adventure in life, you can also choose your own sacrifice, let's say.

That is my encouragement of the moment for you. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/628, 628. And in speaking about confidence and charisma, I wanna give a shout out to a good friend of mine, Vanessa Van Edwards. She is the first person I think of when I hear those words.

She has a wonderful project, business, mission in life, called Science of People. And we're gonna link that up in the show notes as well. Vanessa also has a book called Captivate, which I read and really enjoy. Okay, that's it for me. I'll be back again tomorrow.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]