This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Well, hello friends, listeners and community. What's up, it's "Sidle School." I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau, bringing you the weekly recap. And we have just finished week number 48 of season two. I cannot believe that 2018 is coming to a close, at least for those listening in real time. Who knows, maybe you're listening three years later, in which case you're like, wow, that was a long time ago.
But in any case, here I am in the booth, just kind of thinking about some stuff that we have done throughout the year and just bringing things to a close, for this year at least, for season two. And if you've been wondering, hey, what happens next? You know, like is "Sidle School" going away? We've been doing this for 700 days. Like surely Chris is not gonna keep doing this every single day on into year number three.
Well, just hold that thought, because I'm gonna have a update for you very soon, kind of a state of the union. I mentioned this last week, but it's actually coming in about, I think two days or so, just a short little check-in. I'll let you know what we're doing in terms of going forward and maybe even a special announcement, who knows? I guess I know technically, but soon you will too. Over the past week, we have looked at Whoopie Pies, a multiple six-figure dog clothing hustle, a UK book club baron, and so much more.
This week, I'm also off to do my annual review, a little bit more of that reflection process, as well as more planning for next year. I'll keep you posted on that. If you're interested, you could follow me on social. Don't wanna spend too much time on a podcast talking about it. And then last but not least, I wanna say Happy Hanukkah, because I believe it starts tonight for those listening in real time.
So a joyous Hanukkah season or a joyous holiday season to everybody throughout the whole month of December. Now, also, if you are wondering what to get someone this holiday season, I've got a recommendation for you, and the good news here is it's free, all right? So you can give people a podcast. My friend Gretchen Rubin has put together this little project because she has often noticed the same thing that I've mentioned maybe a couple of times about how there are a lot of people out there who still do not know how to access podcasts, still not part of this wonderful world. And so she's created a website called giftofpodcast.com, and you can go to this website and essentially send a podcast to a friend or family member.
This is especially great for all those people who want experiences, not stuff, all right? Or people who don't spend any money on me. You're like, okay, I'm not spending any money on you, but I'm thinking of you, and I thought you might appreciate, whether it is Side Hustle School or something totally different, give them the gift of a podcast. Again, that is giftofpodcast.com. Today, I have an update for you from someone we featured on the show a while back.
I want to also read you a quick little note or I'll summarize a note. Got a long note here, but I'm just gonna read some highlights. I love getting listener email, by the way. I love hearing from our listeners and just kind of keeping up with what you're doing and hearing updates on your projects, questions, comments, even constructive feedback. I am grateful to everybody out there.
So it got this note from Simon, who I believe is in the UK. And he says, "Hey, Chris, I've emailed a couple of times before I came to say hi when you did your side hustle book tour in rainy old London. We don't really do Thanksgiving in England, but I get the idea. So this seems like a good time to say thanks to you and the rest of the side hustle school team for the podcast. I'm so happy it's still going." So thank you, Simon.
I appreciate that. And he goes on to say, "What I like most is that they are real stories of real people doing real things that all of us can relate to. And my own news is eight weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our second child. He's great, he's lovely, and we're getting three hours of sleep a night. I started writing this at 3 a.m.
It's hard to do anything with a newborn around, but since he's been born, with very little spare time or sleep, I made, recorded, and launched my very own Udemy course. It is a children's slash family drawing guide. And how it works is if anyone ever told you you can't draw or you're not creative, I'm afraid they're wrong. Because if you can write your own name, draw a square or a triangle, you can use them to draw anything. I got the idea for this from the story of the lady who made her own how to bake sourdough bread course.
I read the story, looked her up, and the filming isn't the most professional, but it works. So I thought, could I do something of my own? And so sure, I did. And here's the last part. Simon says, "I'm not expecting a course "on how to draw Christmas characters "will mean that I never need to work again, "but if it doesn't work out, I'll switch to something else." The important thing for me has been that with absolutely no spare time, no sleep, no resources, and not really knowing how to do this, I recorded it on my phone.
I used royalty-free music and free software to clean up the audio. I have made something of my own, and it feels so good. So I love that email. I wanted to share it with you as well. And when I responded to Simon, I pulled out this one point of his message about how he looked up this woman's course about baking sourdough bread, talked about her a few times on the show, and he said the filming isn't the most professional, but it works.
Listen, this is key. He's absolutely correct. Like the filming is not the most professional, but nobody really cares, you know? And she's selling all of those courses on sourdough bread, and lots of other people have done something of their own topic. If you're teaching a topic like that, it's a little bit different than teaching how to get the most professional camera angle, or how to do basic videography, or whatever it is.
Nobody cares that the filming isn't the most professional. And in fact, if you spend all your time thinking about how to improve your filming, or whatever the technical, logistical characteristic is, without actually having an offer that works, or a product that converts, or something that's truly making a difference in people's lives, you're not gonna be that successful. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try to improve, of course, but what is much better, what's more important, is to do something like Simon is doing, just use the resources that you have. Record it on your phone, if you're trying to make a course. Use that royalty-free music, or whatever the equivalent is.
If you're not trying to make an online course, it could be something else. The point is, the technical stuff is not nearly as important as what you're actually trying to do. And also the technical stuff sometimes inhibits people from getting started. And so if you can just push that to the side, or learn a little bit, learn whatever you need to learn without trying to master some technical tool that is not that relevant to your actual business, that's what you need to do to move forward. And if Simon can do it, with the getting no sleep, the newborn, getting up at 3 a.m., and not having any free time, then I would suggest that a lot of other people can do so, too.
So the encouragement of the day comes from across the water in the UK. Or I guess if you're over there, then it's from the homeland. So I promised you an update from a previously featured side hustler. We've been doing these each week, and people have been enjoying them. Today's update comes from another Chris.
I believe his name is Chris Wilson. I'm gonna hand it over to him. - Hey, this is Chris Wilson from San Diego, California. My side hustle is teaching drawing and business techniques to artists online. And it was featured in episode number 81.
Since then, I haven't added any new course offerings, as online training is just one of the many branches of my art business, apart from licensing, art sales, and commissions. Courses haven't been making it to my to-do list because I've been giving more priority to sharing my art process once a week to my email list. Specifically, what's going on in my sketchbook, rather than fully fledged articles related to my courses. But courses continue to sell, with just a few links at the bottom of my emails and casual mentions to my courses. In the past year, I've earned $24,000 without any launches or hard sells of my courses, which is less than when my episode first aired.
I don't consider it a loss, as I've only spent around 60 to 80 hours in the past year working on course-related activities, which is mostly answering questions for my students over email. The best advice I can give to anyone selling anything online is that your email list will drive more sales than any other activity. Don't be afraid to email your audience at least once a week. Looking back on my records, I can see a direct correlation between sales and my email schedule. The weeks I received the least amount of sales were the weeks I didn't send any emails.
Consistency pays off. Right now, I'm really fascinated with making weekly cinematic videos to share my sketchbook and journey as an artist. Over 10 years, I've only used photos and words to market my business. Making videos is quickly becoming my new favorite way to put my work out into the world. - Awesome, thank you so much, Chris.
It is true. Consistency pays off. A lot of lessons in that little message from Chris. If you're an artist, you might wanna just maybe rewind that or listen to it again. In addition to consistency, being willing to embrace a new medium, like he talked about at the end there, 10 years of sharing through photos and words, now trying something different with the video.
That's actually very similar to my experience of maybe eight or nine years of sharing primarily through words and then starting the podcast almost two years ago now. When I first started, it felt a little bit weird. It felt a little bit like, oh, is this the right thing? But pretty quickly, I realized like, yes, this is the right thing. And I'm actually enjoying it as much as I enjoy anything else that I do now.
So don't be unwilling to embrace a new medium. Also, did you hear that his courses sell primarily through casual mentions? This is really cool. He said something like $24,000 over the past year and of course, sales without launches or hard sells. So this is largely passive income at this point because it's already out there.
He's not developing a new product or at least he hasn't been for those results. And based on his numbers, he talked about the number of hours that he'd worked on it. Sounds like he's earning a rate of $300 to $400 an hour for that particular part of his work. So I think a lot of artists would be pretty happy with that. Of course, he's built this up over time through diligence and that consistency.
Last but not least, I wanted to mention that he's also an actual artist, okay? So he's not someone who's primarily trying to sell resources to artists. I sometimes hear from people who worry, from artists who worry about over-commercializing their art, if that is a word, or losing their artistic process and doing something more businessy. I really think Chris is your model for how to do it the right way. So if you're an artist and you have not heard of him or you've not seen his work, definitely follow along at chriswilsonstudio.com.
And naturally we will link him up in the show notes as well. So more of these to come. Also, if you have a question or comment, always happy to hear from you as mentioned by email is great, podcast@sidehustleschool.com, or you can call us at the Hustle Hotline, 844-9 Hustle, 844-948-7853. And that just goes to a little voicemail box where you can leave a recording, which we may or may not use on the air, but we're always happy to hear from you either way. [Music]
So what is coming up?
Well, I've got a great set of stories coming in next week, a strong set. I've actually been through a lot of the notes for them and done some pre-recordings already. I really feel like it's a particularly good week as we kick off the last month of the year. Gonna tell you about, well, I was trying to think how to preview this story for you. The title is Air Force Veteran Turns Sweet Compulsion Into Obsessive Candy Hustle.
I thought that was a really interesting story. One of our most obscure stories that I've seen in all 700 episodes so far. So check that out tomorrow. We've also got something about a spousal birthday gift that becomes a $40,000 card game, a hedge fund manager who rocks on with a diamond algorithm. And this one was also fun for friends who foster a Korean face mask frenzy.
Maybe you've seen something about Korean face masks on YouTube or Instagram, or I don't know, somewhere in a local store. If you've not, well, you're gonna hear about it soon. Korean face mask frenzy, a very successful and new subscription box service. So all kinds of fun stuff coming up. That is just a few highlights.
Obviously, we're gonna keep going through the end of the year and perhaps beyond. As I said, I'll have an update for you about that very soon. Well, my friends, before I take off, I wanna say a couple of quick thank yous. First of all, my first thank you is to you, the listener. You are what makes this community endure.
I make this show every day for you. If you commit to listening just 10 minutes a day, my hope is that over time, you're gonna be able to get a lot of good ideas and you're gonna get some reinforcement, get some motivation and support, some practical support for that freedom generating project that you know you need to make. You know you need to make this even if you love your job. You know you need to do this, but you might not necessarily have a lot of time. You might not know what to do next.
That's the whole point of the show. I make it every day, as I said, for you. It's not just me. I've also got a whole crew behind me, senior producer, A.C. Valdez, content manager, Whitney Karinek, community liaison, Jed Chang.
Recently, I've been working with Tina Hart as well on the special ship station series we've been doing each week and the official show cat, Libby Gilbout. All of us at Team Sadistle School are part of the Onward Project that is led by Gretchen Ribbon, mentioned her earlier with the gift of podcast.com. You can also check out the onwardproject.com. If you are enjoying the show and you wanna do something that will help us, that just takes a minute of your time, go and leave us a quick rating and review in Apple Podcasts. I hope we have earned your five stars.
Like I said, it's really quick and simple. You can also tell your friends or even better show them how to subscribe. If you know somebody out there who needs another source of income, who wants to create the kind of freedom that I talk about every single day, again, whether they leave their job or not, that's not the main point. The point is a different source of income. Send them to us, we will take care of them.
So that's it for me. I hope you have been having a good week. Do take care of yourself this holiday season and look out for others as well. Over here, our episodes are gonna go online every single day at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
Hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Sadistle School.
