This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up? Hello and welcome. This is Sadistle School. I'm Chris Guillebeau. We have just finished week number 15 of season three.
I think it's week 15. Is that right? Let me see. Oh, yes it is. Wow, week 15, crazy.
This week featured the 10-year quest for "Must Have Mustard," a seven-figure curly hairbrush empire, and a woman who starts her own series of boutique hotels. And she does this as a side hustle with no outside funding. All right, anything is possible, my friends. Anything is possible. You got your mustard, you got your hairbrushes, you got your boutique hotels, all kinds of other stuff.
And that's just in one week. All right, so in this recap, I wanna talk about why you are worth more than you're paid in your job. Whatever it is that you're paid in your job, I'm gonna argue that you're actually worth more than that. Also a tool about how to calculate the value of your time, which, you know, is directly connected to the first topic. And I'll also bring you an audio update from a previously featured side hustler.
So lots of good stuff. Let's just jump right in with this topic. You're worth more than you're paid. Okay, so when I say this, I'm gonna talk about how you're compensated by your employer and why you're probably worth more than whatever that amount is. I just wanna be clear, disclaimer, I'm not saying that your company is dramatically underpaying you.
You should ask for a 50% raise tomorrow and quit if you don't get it. This is strictly a practical observation. I mean, you might be dramatically underpaid, I don't know, but just generally speaking, for everyone, your employer keeps you around because your value exceeds what you're paid. Okay, if you're working for a company, the whole point is like they're paying you a certain amount, it's not just your salary, but they're also paying for whatever benefits you get. They're also paying taxes on your salary and maybe on those benefits as well.
So whatever that total compensation number is, there's an assumption that you're bringing value at least that much and most likely bringing value several multiples, if not a lot of multiples more than that. In fact, if you're in sales, you know, that multiple could be 10 to 20x, for example. You could have a total compensation package of $100,000 a year, let's say, you know, whatever your salary is, plus again, those benefits, plus again, the tax that they pay. And you might be expected to generate a million dollars in profit a year for that company or $2 million, not unusual at all. And if you're in a support role, then the correlation might not be as direct and it might not be as high of a multiple, but the same principle generally applies.
Again, this is just a practical observation. It's not like, you know, every corporation is evil. It's just like whatever they pay, presumably they are receiving more in value, at least if the system is efficient, at least if things are operating as they should. So why I mentioned this is because when you move to the side hustle world, now a lot of people ask like, what should my, you know, rate be if I'm side hustling? If I go and start a side hustle as a service, how do I know what to charge?
And we've looked at this numerous times throughout the podcast. There's a whole chapter in the side hustle book about it. And there's a lot we could say. So it's not always a simple topic, but there are some just basic rules of thumb you can use to kind of help you make that decision. And one of them, which I talked about in the book, you should have kind of a floor or a minimum, like your minimum hourly rate.
And that should be no less than whatever the rate for your job is. So if you kind of work it out and you're like, oh, I get paid $50,000 a year, making something like, you know, $25 an hour, essentially, well, I don't want to, you know, whatever the side hustle that I go into, I don't want to be paid any less than $25 an hour. Because obviously my time is worth something to me. And I'm essentially taking, you know, time from my free time where I could be doing something else and investing it in this income generating project. So I need to earn, you know, at least that amount.
Okay, so I just want to be clear. That is the floor. That figure is the minimum. Like ideally it should be more. Because as I said, like if you're making a shift, whether it's a slow gradual shift, whether it's just a temporary shift, whether it's ultimately like a full-time shift to going to work for yourself, you should actually be making more and working for yourself than you would in working at a job.
Because again, you're bringing a lot more value to that company or that organization or government, you know, education, whatever it is. So when you shift, you should be shifting some of that value to yourself. You understand, you should be shifting and saying, well, okay, I made $50,000, you know, at the job, but I, you know, I brought them half a million dollars in value or whatever the number is. These are kind of approximates. But the general principle again is, you know, you're bringing more value than what you're actually being compensated for.
So when you shift to the side hustle world, you need to extract some of that value and transfer it to yourself. And that's your goal. Your goal is to actually, you know, take whatever your floor is, your floor, your minimum, and increase that, right? You want to get more than your floor because again, it's all about building something for yourself. And one way to do that is through additional income.
It's not the only way, but that is what we focus here on side hustle school because additional income gives you more options and possibilities to do whatever is important to you. All right, so you're worth more than you're paid. That's the point, just remember that. [Music]
Okay, so a logical transition to my next topic here. Episode 830, earlier this week, bilingual insurance agent translates problem solving into profits.
Interesting story about this woman who becomes proficient in Chinese after living in China for a while, comes back to the States and is helping native Chinese speakers do things like navigate the world of insurance and navigate the world of education and lots of stuff that's complicated. Immigration, all that stuff. Really need a native speaker to help you out. So she's doing that. And when she started building out this project, she had some difficulty in figuring out what her hourly rate should be.
So I mentioned in the episode that she ultimately came up with her ideal hourly rate using an Excel spreadsheet. And she also had a premium rate for anything that was difficult or high stakes. So as I was working on the episode, I was like, oh, that's interesting. Wonder what that spreadsheet looks like. So we asked her, her name is Jennifer.
Hey Jennifer, can we get this spreadsheet to share with anybody else? We can remove your data from it or whatever, but just provide that template for people. And she said, leave me alone. Why would you ask for that? That's personal.
Oh, actually, no, that was somebody else that said that to me. I won't get into that now. No, actually Jennifer said, no problem, here you go. Take a look and I hope it's helpful to somebody. So we will link that up in the show notes.
If you're interested in getting this calculator, well, it's not really a calculator, but it's an Excel spreadsheet on which you can do calculations. And maybe it'll help you figure out your ideal hourly rate. Go and check it out. So you're worth more than you're paid. And here's a little tool to help you find your ideal hourly rate.
Show notes page for today will be situstleschool.com/834. And now it's time for our blast from the past. I've been getting a lot of these coming in recently. Pretty soon we might start doubling up just because we're hearing from lots of people that we've featured in the past with all sorts of updates. And I think you'll find today's update interesting.
He's talking about some big successes he's had, but he's also talking about some challenges he's had, which is how we like to do it on the show. I don't always say that everybody's gonna be successful with every project. And often you're gonna learn more from the missteps or the obstacles you encounter than when everything goes right. Okay. So without further ado, I'm gonna hand it over.
This is an update from Jack in the UK. - Hello there. This is Jack Bramhall from Manchester, England. I am the co-founder of Mug Pods and Espresso Compatible Pods featured inside Hustle School's episode 280. Since my last update, I am very pleased to say we've continued to grow.
Our monthly revenue has increased to around 21,000 US dollars per month, which represents a 50% increase with millions of pods now sold. Our products have now been featured in the UK's Which Best Buy magazine and British Vogue. Although this is obviously great news for us, since my last updates, we have seen a significant number of competitors enter the market, clearly backed by huge investments. We saw an immediate and what felt like attack on our search engine rankings. Even our own trademarked keywords competitors were bidding on, which is apparently completely allowed.
This was particularly challenging for us as it feels like years of work was being taken away bit by bit. And it was obvious these other players had dedicated teams or agencies working around the clock to seemingly knock us off our positions. We therefore had to really knuckle down and come up with a plan. Our learning from all of this was not to focus too much on competitors, but understanding that if you build a fast, optimized website with quality content, you can maintain and improve your positions regardless of how small you are. I would personally recommend tools such as SEMrush that will really help you understand the problem areas of your website to work on them.
In the coming months, we have some quite exciting things coming along. Taking into account our environmental impact, we are moving to 100% biodegradable pods. On top of this, we are now working on our own label packaging on all of our products to truly position us as our own brand rather than technically reselling. All of these changes do come at a slight cost, but thanks to our continued growth, we are excited and very positive about the future. And if anyone is listening and has an espresso machine, we would love for you to give us a try.
Jack, I appreciate that, man. Thanks so much for calling in and thanks for the detailed, very transparent and open, honest report. Really, really appreciate that. I know our listeners do too. Jack's episode, as he mentioned, was 280, 280.
Boring desk job leads to $14,000 a month coffee pod biz. And you heard at the beginning of his update, he's now up to $21,000 a month. He's actually in the UK, but we're using US dollars here. Along with millions of pods sold and a shift toward making the pods biodegradable, which I know has been an issue for those espresso pods for a while. So good for him.
And it's also interesting to hear about that battle with the deep pocketed competitors. I mean, that is the thing. When you start being really successful, it's not so much an issue when you're getting started, right? But if you find a way to exploit a market and you're all of a sudden doing $14,000 a month and there's no competitor, somebody's gonna try to do the same thing. And it's not always fair, right?
Because they have more money, they have the agencies, et cetera. But good for him on Standing Is Ground, working on the branding and everything else he mentioned to remain strong. And I forget what the tool was that he mentioned in his update, but whatever it is, we were gonna link it up on the show notes page as well. Whenever there's a tool or resource or link, you can usually find it there. So if you're in the UK or actually if you're anywhere, you can go and check out mugpods.com.
And if you're in the UK, you might wanna go in place and order. Next time I'm over that way and I need to order myself some espresso pods, that's exactly where I'm gonna go. I'm not gonna go to those deep pocketed competitors. I'm gonna go to Jack. More of these updates to come.
I hope you've been enjoying them. And of course, if you've got a question or comment, you can reach out to us, podcast@sidehustleschool.com. I've got a phone number 8449 Hustle, 844-948-7853. If you're working on something, you got a question, you got an update, I would love to know. Again, podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
[Music]
Coming up on the show, we got some more great programs coming out. I'm excited, like I said, at the top of the show here, this week we had Mustard, we had the boutique hotels, we had the seven figure hairbrushes. Coming up next week, we've got a guy who starts by renting out spare rooms in London and ends up growing that to a million dollar business all the way from side hustle with no outside investment, et cetera. A cake artist that does a hundred thousand dollars in making these beautiful wedding cakes, building a really sustainable business, something that nobody can take away because she is number one in her market 'cause she's done a great job. We'll talk about how she's been able to do that.
Also something about guitar chalk and a New York City dog walker. These are what I see in my notes, so I look forward to learning more about this along with you. It is the end of the week. I just want to say a couple of thank yous to everybody who makes this show possible. On our team, that would be producer Chuck Reed, content manager, Whitney Karinek, community liaison, Jed Chang, Cat Herder, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, no relation, Libby Gillipo.
The last person on this list and also in many ways the first person is you, our listeners. I am so thankful for you. I said in the first episode, "Upsided School", 834 days ago, if you commit to make this part of your routine, I commit to supporting you and your quest to create that new source of income. There's something out there that you need. There's something out there that you need to create or discover or find, recapture, whatever it is, recast, re-envision.
I'll think of some more verbs for next week. Whatever it is that's been on your mind, but you haven't been able to turn it into reality until now, or maybe you already have the hustle and you're like in next stage, how do I grow it? How do I protect my asset? How do I create additional products and services? Man, whatever it is, like I am cheering you on.
You are the reason I make this show, true story. The podcast is completely free along with probably 80 to 90% of my work. I do my best to make everything as free or as accessible as possible. I mean, I'm an author, I sell books, but books are really low cost. I'm also happy for people to read at the library or go and sit in the bookstore cafe and read.
I am just thrilled to be able to speak to and connect with this community and I hope to keep doing it. So if you wanna do something for me, it's actually pretty simple. You can give me a little five-star rating in Apple Podcasts. I'll leave a quick little review, maybe mention something specific about what you've learned, why you listen to the show and then tell your friends. That's it, it's pretty simple.
Tell your friends, support our sponsors. If you hear an ad for something that could be interesting to you, they often have really good deals or free trials. Go and check it out. There's never any pressure. I never want you to do something that's not a good fit for you or that you're uncomfortable with.
I want this show to be a resource for you, an affirming, empowering, and practical resource. I want you to learn through this process and hopefully go away and do something for yourself. That is my number one goal. So I hope you'll join me tomorrow, every day next week with more stories and ideas. Consider it an investment in yourself.
Episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern time. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
