More Money Podcast - 013 How to Start an Online Side Hustle - Sarah Peterson, Business Coach & Blogger at Unsettle

Episode Date: August 12, 2015

Sarah Peterson from Unsettle and Suburban Finance and I talk about starting an online side hustle to make extra money or to eventually develop a full-time business. Long episode description: Many of you personal finance blog readers may already know Sarah Peterson from when she ran When Life Gives You Lemons Add Vodka, or maybe you read her current personal finance blog Suburban Finance. Or maybe you know her from her new project Unsettle.org. This girl even has her own podcast! She's everywhere! I've known Sarah for a number of years. I actually met her at the same time I met Liquid Independence almost four years ago. I don't know if I've ever told this story on the blog before, but around that time myself and Sarah and a few other personal finance bloggers in Vancouver decided to meet up in person for the very first time. We coordinated everything over email and I just prayed to God that at least one of them would be normal. It's hard to tell how a person really is just by their online persona, and meeting people off the Internet is still kind of sketchy. Luckily everyone was normal, well as normal as personal finance bloggers can be, and I've kept in touch with Sarah ever since. When I first met her I believe she was just graduating from post-secondary and was about to start her first full-time gig in HR. Well, a lot has happened in Sarah's career since then because she's now a full-time freelancer, business coach and online marketing maven! In this episode I pick her brain about her new life as a solopreneur and what she does to make all of her money online. Whenever I come across someone who has quit their full-time job to start their own business, I'm always in awe of them. In awe because I think it's super courageous to work for yourself, and also because I find it a bit crazy. But Sarah knows her stuff, and even after we finished recording I continued to pick her brain even more over sushi. Don't worry, I paid (it was the least I could do!). Thanks so much Sarah for being on the show, and man do I have a lot of ideas for online products now! Blog Posts Sarah Mentioned 10 Actionable Steps to Discover Your Unique The Ultimate Guide to Selling on Etsy: How I Turned $0.30 into $5,000 in 4 Months The Website Launch Checklist: What to Do One Week Before Launch How to Launch Your Website for Instant Success: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide Get a Discount on Your Website Hosting We talked a lot about starting a website on the show, and in order to have a website, you need website hosting. Don't try to do something crazy like me and host it for free via Tumblr. It was one of the biggest blogging mistakes I've ever made and wish I'd never done it. Instead, I suggest you sign up with a hosting company like BlueHost (a hosting service I 100% recommend). And for a limited time, if you use my affiliate link you can get yourself a special discount! Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/13 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to episode 13 of Mo Money Mo Houses. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. And today I'm very excited to interview my next guest. I've known this wonderful woman for a number of years, and you may know her as Sarah from Suburban Finance, a personal finance blog. She used to also run another blog. I don't know if any of you know it. It's called When Life Gives You Lemons at Vodka. It used to be a huge favorite of mine back in the day, but now she's kind of moved on and she has this new awesome website called unsettled.org. And I'm going to talk to her about that and her new role as a business coach as well. And we're also going to be talking about how to make money online. So thank you, Sarah,

for joining me on the program today. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. So let's kind of start from the beginning. I've known you for several years, which is awesome to see kind of where you started from and to where you are now. Because I met you back when I think you maybe just finished school and then you start you had like got your first job I think that was like right when I met you and you had the blog when life gives you lemons add vodka which is an awesome name um and yeah we all I just remember we all you and Jeremy from modest money and uh Kevin from liquid independence and was it maybe maybe that was it a couple from the outlier model yeah um yeah we all met in

vancouver and it was super scary because we just all like coordinated over email we're like that's all me and we're like oh i hope we don't get murdered by one of these people because we don't actually know who he's who we are but anyways long story short we met and we liked each other and we've been following each other ever since beautiful relationship story um so yeah so when you so you no longer have the blog ad vodka you actually ended up yeah yeah yeah so you ended up selling it which is pretty cool that fyi if you ever start a blog and you make it really popular you can sell it for money pretty cool oh it was not really popular well it was popular in my mind it was just an og and been around for forever um but so i yeah

when i met you you were like kind of a work for a company and you're an employee and you're into that and now you've kind of made a huge life transition recently i guess in the new year you made that you want to let's kind of do you want to go from the beginning about like when you started your blog and to how that kind of helped you lead to where you are today as like a solopreneur absolutely so I started um at vodka in 2010 so that was August so yeah that's forever ago with the internet so yeah I started in 2010 and I really started because I was bored. I just moved to the lower mainland and we didn't have that many friends yet. I hadn't started school yet. So I was just like, what am I going to do with my life? So I started a blog and I've always been a writer.

I've always loved writing, but I had always had this sort of theory that people should only really, I hate this term, but follow their passions and do what they love on the side. So I was like, okay, just put in your time, retire at 55 or 65, get a job with a pension, and then bide your time until you can retire. And doing what you love really should just be a hobby. And that was just, I don't know where that came from. I think lots of people have that idea, honestly. So it's probably just came from everybody. Yeah, society for sure. I think we get this like idea that we can't get paid to do what we love because that just sounds too good to be true, maybe. And that was just like the assumption that I operated under for years.

Then I realized, well, I was blogging for forever and I sat down and I hadn't, I was anonymous. So I hadn't told my family and friends about my blog. That's right. I forgot that you were anonymous. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was anonymous up until last fall. Wow.

Yeah. That's right. I mean, it was loosey goosey. Like everyone, everyone that I met knew who I was and everything like that. But my mom discovered my blog. So she just found out about it. Like not from you? Not from me.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then a coworker found out about my blog, put she just found out about it. Like not from you? Not from me. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then a coworker found out about my blog, put the two and two together. His wife had been reading for years. Wow. Yeah. That was in the new year, actually, I think, or late December. And I was like, okay, well, this is silly.

Why am I even anonymous? This is ridiculous. Like, let's just, and I love writing and I think I'm pretty good at it. So let's just put it out there. So when I was kind of coming out to my friends and family and saying, hey, this is what I do. I was having a conversation with a friend one day and we were talking about work and I was talking about my career in HR. And, you know, I was just kind of chomping at the bit to do something different. And I had kind of been maxed out with the challenges that my current job was giving me. And then I started talking about my blog and we were just kind of talking everything career.

And she looked at me and she's like, why are you pursuing a career in HR when clearly you absolutely love blogging and writing and like, you know, creating communities? And I kind of looked at her and I was like, well, that doesn't pay the bill. She's like, you just told me it does. Okay okay like oh wait I don't know if it's sustainable and back then like I wasn't I mean I was advertising mainly and that's how I was earning money so that's not really sustainable but I started looking into okay well if I'm not advertising can you really make a career out of blogging and really doing what you love? And it turns out you can. And I was just kind of like, and I started an Etsy store and I was just kind of creatively at my peak.

And I realized that everything that I was learning, a lot of people didn't know about. So I started Unsettle based on helping people really kind of find their way in their careers and doing what they love because I just think it's so sad that people hate their jobs. Yeah, it's the worst feeling. I've been there. I'm sure most people listening right now are probably listening to this podcast because they hate their job and they just need something to preoccupy their time. But yeah, it's a terrible feeling because you look at how many years you have to work and if

you're going to retire at 65, that's most of your life working something that you hate. And I'm definitely the believer. It's like, yeah, I hate the term follow your passion. But, yeah, life's too short to do something you hate, right? So true. You spend so much time at work. Yeah. So eight hours a day if you're lucky.

So most people spend like 10 hours a day and then they spend an hour each way commuting or half an hour each way, whatever way you cut it. You're spending so much time thinking about work, getting ready for work, sleeping so that you can go to work with a fresh mind. Like your life revolves around your work. So why not make it revolve around work that you love so that the lines kind of blur between work and life. So I kind of just totally swapped my thoughts around that when I kind of realized that, you know, you really can make money doing what you love. And for me, that was writing and now podcasting

and just community building in general and being able to influence people. And being like an online entrepreneur. And I think that's one of the things that I think is super cool because, you know, for my day job, I work in digital marketing. And it's, I think, something that people don't really know or they're kind of afraid of they're like oh is that sustainable making money online actually yeah it is you just have to be smart about it and do your research and that's kind of part of I guess what your whole Unsettle is about is just

like there's so many different ways you can do it you don't have to just do one way like make a blog and have advertising you can do this this and don't have to just do one way, like make a blog and have advertising. You can do this, this, and this. Exactly. Yeah. So I started Unsettled.org and that would be like my new site, the one that I'm teaching people. It's like my business. When did that launch?

It launched on January 5th. January 5th. Yeah. So fairly recently. Yeah. So it's like just, you know that you've hit your sweet spot in anything that you're doing, whether it's writing or anything creative or even your career, when your growth just happens. Like I have been working my butt off,

but I was working my butt off with everything that I've done. Like I am a hustler. Yeah. So like I've been working probably just as much with Unsettle as I did with my previous blogs or whatever, and it's just exploded like 10 times the growth. My first day doubled my best day in traffic on my blog that I had for four years or five years. Why do you think that is? Is just you kind of figured out the niche that was right for you or the right, you know, or, or, or. I think it's something to do with that.

So it's a topic that I'm clearly very passionate about, interested in. Also, it's something that I kind of fully embrace. So it's like, okay, well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. So I'm going to put all of my energy and effort toward that. So I really put a lot of research into building buzz around the brand before I even launched and building a following before I even launched and everything like that. So that, and then, you know, just, I think that when you're writing like a blog post, for instance, if you're not convinced on the topic yourself, or if you're not enthusiastic about the topic yourself, how can you expect your readers to be?

Right. So for me with personal finance, like I love money. I love my own money. I love money too. Isn't that great? I just love money. But like, I love my own money and I'm not super interested in helping other people get on top of theirs. Like I'm okay. I like to talk about, you know, my own money, like earning more or whatever yeah you're more interested in the whole like how can i make more than how can i create a budget spreadsheet exactly so teaching people you know five ways you can save money on groceries or even like a really good in-depth post about you know whatever it is financially it was just like

it wasn't my jam so and and it just like became evident as this the day I launched on so yeah right so you know different strokes for different folks I guess yeah totally very cool um so did you find so I guess what I'm really curious is it's awesome that you you know took that big leap and you know, quit your full-time job to start this online business and work for yourself. Like how did that, what was your kind of game plan beforehand? Like, did you prepare several months in advance or like, that just seems like a crazy idea to me. So like, how did you start? What was your kind of strategy beforehand? It's just, it is crazy. It's crazy to me. Like, I don't even like, what am I doing right now? Totally.

It's working out. It's working out. I didn't even. Like, what am I doing right now? Totally. It's working out. It's working out. I didn't even, when I started on Settle, I did not want to quit my day job. Like, I quit my full-time day job back in July so that I could take a contract, give myself a raise, give myself, like, a better position. And I really loved where I worked. Like, I loved it. I loved the team that I was working with. I loved the work that I was working on.

So, I do think that you can definitely, quotation on quotation, follow your passion within a day job. I think that's completely possible. And I loved where I worked. Um, but I wanted to take a trip. So I love to travel as well. And I kind of got bit by the travel bug. And so I went to Nepal on my honeymoon with my husband. Um, And then we went to Bali. And then I got back and I was like, you know what? I want to travel again. I can't just stay here and do three weeks of travel a year whenever my employer says I'm allowed to go. Exactly.

Which is probably going to be in the summer. And I hate traveling in the summer because it's hot and sweaty and there's mosquitoes or whatever, bugs. Yeah. Gross. No more freedom. Totally. And I'm a control freak so i like to be able to control you know when i'm off and on or whatever and my employer was super flexible back then because it was a contract so i was able to say hey i want to

like take a break from a contract for these four weeks when i went to nepal or whatever um but they just couldn't swing the whole seven weeks. I actually didn't know how long I was going to be gone for. I booked a one-way ticket to Portugal with a fellow blogger, Marissa, from 36months.com. So we did that. And so I approached my employer and I was like, hey. So they wanted to extend my contract. And this was the same meeting when they were handing me a piece of paper saying we want to extend your contract. And I was like, you know what?

I'm going on this trip, and I would love if I could come back to my job because, I mean, in HR, you're doing really similar things to what I'm doing with Unsettled. It's helping people with their career. Exactly. Right? So it was very in line with what I'm doing. I had so much flexibility there, and I loved the job. But she said, you know, we really can't hold off on hiring another contractor for how we don't even know how long right so so yeah it made the decision for me yeah it was kind

of simple you're like well it's just not meant to be then I guess I'm gonna do do this you know my own business come on fall in yeah awesome so that's the story behind why I quit when I quit. Um, and then, yeah, so I was gone in Europe for six weeks. Um, and then I had to come back from a, for a family emergency kind of unexpectedly, but yeah, so now I'm full-time entrepreneur. So one of the things I remember last time we, I was in Vancouver and we hung out, um, you told me about kind of one of your venturesures because you talk a lot about the different things you can kind of do to, you know, start your own online business and everything. And one of the things, like you mentioned before, was that Etsy store, which I find super fascinating because it seems like something you sort of fell into it. So how did that kind of start? Did you have that for a while, the Etsy store?

Or was it that something that happened with the wedding you had? Yeah, you know what? People are fascinated by the Etsy store. I am. I'm just like, how? Because honestly, I remember right after we met, I'm like, Josh, I think I'm going to make some coasters. And I think I'm going to sell them on Etsy.

And he's like, do you know how to make coasters? I'm like, I don't know how to make coasters. I will learn. I think I should do that. I don't know. I just got really pumped about Etsy. Did you? No. How were you? I know. I have a really great idea make coasters but I think I think I should do that I don't know I just got really pumped about Etsy did you no I know I have a really great idea for coasters so do it make one that's all you gotta do I know we should talk later yeah for sure get some tips on how to do this because I'm like I kind of just want to see if I could do it you should um so the the whole

Etsy story is that I had a very DIY wedding back in July, and it was probably May or June, and I'm obsessed with popcorn. So if any of my listeners or readers are listening to this in the future, just know that I – Send her some popcorn. Yeah, send me some popcorn. I'm obsessed with popcorn. Like, you will be in my good books. It's a food source. I actually think I wrote an article on Advoca at one point that was literally called how money is like popcorn.

I love it. It's kind of dry, you know, anyway. So I was obsessed with popcorn and I wanted to have a popcorn bar at my wedding. So we hired, or we not hired. Yeah, I guess we hired. We hired a popcorn machine, like one of those vintage ones. Oh, I love those. Yeah, right.

And I was like, okay, well, how can I make this like more DIY and like custom? we hired a popcorn machine uh like one of those vintage ones oh i love those yeah right and i was like okay well how can i make this like more diy and like custom and then i was like well why not print on paper bags with like um something kind of like branded our wedding or whatever yeah i kind of like what people do with like wine bottles they put their own label on them right totally yeah so i just like and i'm i'm a total designer, but I made a very simple design in Photoshop and then, or Illustrator or whatever it was. And then I printed off a copy at work just because I wanted to take a picture and send it to my mom and ask her, like kind of crowdsource her opinion on which of the two bags were

the best. So I sent her a picture. I took a picture and then I went to the gym and I'm on a treadmill and I'm thinking like, hey, I've got this picture and I have my phone and I know there's an Etsy seller's app. So like, why don't I just try to list it and see if there's any buyers. So I'm literally on the treadmill. I think at this point it was like five in the morning. I don't even know why.

It's too early. Sweating for the dress girl. All right. All right. So 5 a.m. on the treadmill, phone in hand. And I'm like, I've got this iphone photo i'm just gonna list it so i listed it and probably five days later i got three orders in one day oh my god so i had made yeah after three months and one of those months we were on vacation because

we were on our on our honeymoon but our wedding vacation so we put the shop on vacation too so it was really two months of active shop we had made five thousand dollars and it's really like cost 30 cents to list something on etsy yeah and it was amazing so and this is like a brand new shop so we are doing way better even now because we have reviews and everything like that and more products um and this was an iphone photo so and i didn't change the photo or anything like that. Really? Wow. Yeah. So it was like one bag. I just printed it off. That was easy. It was easy.

Yeah. I need that staples button that says that was easy. Yeah. And yeah, so it just kind of like blew up and we still have the shop now. My husband prints everything and I just like change the designs because we just have like, you know, basic designs that we put their names in and stuff. And yeah, like it's just, it's such a fun side hustle. And it's not, it doesn't take too much of your time.

Like it seems pretty low maintenance. Very low maintenance. Yeah. Because we have like the basic designs. We don't really have to do much. There's a lot of people that are like, oh, hey, will you do this special order for me? And I usually say no.

Cause I'm like, no, like this isn't my full-time job. Yeah, exactly. It's just something that I like to do on the side. It's really fun and earns us some extra money. And even though there's a lot of bridezillas, I've never worked with one. So it's so much fun. Everyone's so happy. They're like, I'm getting married.

Honestly, and it's like, I remember when I was planning my wedding, I was just so, I would go on Etsy like a maniac just trying, because I'd be like, I just need a freaking chalkboard thing. i cannot find it and so i just go on etsy and it's crazy like there's so many times where i'm like i'm about to spend like 150 bucks on some stupid chalkboard thing but brides they want like they will pay the money like that's such a great i don't know like props for you that is like such a great idea like and it wasn't even like well thought out or anything but it's like you found a need yeah you find a need you fill it and i think it also goes to say that and this is something i say

to my community all the time is just do it like don't think too much about it the analysis paralysis is a real thing and it will like set in and you know grab you by the feet and take you down so don't overthink it just do it it. Take a risk. It costs 30 cents to list something on Etsy. So if you want to take that route, it takes five minutes to set up a blog. So if you want to just like start writing. I mean, I go like I have this like crazy long launch series. I think I've written 10,000 words on it by now. Oh, wow. About how to like launch a blog on the right foot if you're sure about it. But if you're not sure that that's the right path for you, then just do it.

Exactly. And see if it is. Because you'll never know unless you try. Yeah. And I always say you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. And that applies to side hustles too. That's amazing. Yeah.

From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone. so the story starts better man now playing in select theaters you still have the etsy thing and you've got your um unsettle which is a blog with resources and you also sell like you've got products on there sort of is that right or just resources or you will that's something in the future yeah so i'm making a full-time living from Unsettle um and I think we're only five months in so that's really cool um but I do it mainly from affiliate marketing so part of Unsettling is you have to have a website like I think the entire world is going in a direction where if you don't

have an audience yeah specifically an online audience because I mean nothing is not online yeah exactly exactly yeah um but if you don't have an audience, then you're going to be, you know, like just flat broke, irrelevant, just, you know, pointless. So you need an audience and to have an audience, you probably need a website. So part of like the unsettled roadmap is building your thing. And part of building it is, building it is finding website hosting and things like that. So I make quite a bit of income from affiliate marketing, from hosting and things like that, email service providers. Because I just say, this is what I use. And I have a couple of tutorials showing people how they can set up their blogs and start.

I don't know if it's not a blog, whatever. They can set up their websites. So I make quite a bit of my income from that. And then I also am a coach. So I help people do pretty much everything that I'm talking about right now. Like a business consultant or? Sort of, except for I don't do it for people. Like I will help people find the idea that's right for them, but it's all inside them. Like you, I can't, I can't tell you what

you're good at. You need to discover it yourself. So I help support you through that process. And we go through, you know, I think everyone should have a coach and I think it's really powerful to, I mean, you know, that saying, um, the shoemaker's son runs barefoot. No. Okay. Well, it's a saying. But I believe that's a saying. Sure it is. It sounds like a saying. So, um, I think it's true. Like my It's a saying. But I believe that's a saying. Sure it is. It sounds like a saying. So I think it's true. Like my husband's a carpenter and our house is constantly in a

state of construction. Like nothing ever gets done. So people are like that with themselves. We have a really hard time seeing gaps in ourselves. So coaches really just help you see where you need to go. So you can say, and lots of the times I'm like coaching my clients and they'll like, you know, a month later or whatever, I'll be like talking through something with myself and I'll be like, why don't you just follow your own advice that you told your client? Like just, you know, so it's easy to like, it's not easy to self-coach. So I think that coaching is really good. Um yeah, so that's what I kind of do other than that. And then I'm kind of building my first product right now. So I don't have it yet.

Yeah. Well, maybe you'll have it in time when this episode airs. And if so, I will put it in the show notes. I'll let you guys know. So if someone is listening to this right now, it's like, hmm, this might be something I want to do either on the side or as a full-time job. What kind of, like as a starting point or what kind of tips could you give them to like, you know, test the waters or, you know, see if this is something that I want to do, you know, by doing like, you know, an Etsy store or some kind of online business? Sure. So I think the first step is really to just find out where your skills are. And we're all skilled in something, but I think we tend to think that we are not skilled in anything. Like I know for the longest time I thought, oh, I just don't have any unique

skills. And, you know, there is definitely a skill set that you have that you bring to the table that nobody else in the world has. So find out your skills are um and you know there are so many ways to do that but and i have a whole blog post about it and there's like 10 ways that you can do it but just you know ask even asking friends or family members what they think your skills are because they know you better than you know yourself believe it or not if you think about it you probably know your best friend's skills and she probably doesn't. Right. So even just asking your friends and family members, that's a great place to start to find out what your skills are and then really just thinking about what you're interested in. And, um, and then that'll kind of help you find

your topic of whatever you want to start it. So it doesn't have to be a blog and it doesn't have to be like a YouTube channel or podcast or whatever. It could just be a product or like an Etsy store, but you're going to get, I mean, it's not going to be for you if you're not interested in it and if you're not good at it, right? So we don't love anything until we're good at it or we don't love anything that we're not good at. So knowing what your skills are and knowing what you're interested in are really just the first places to start. And then really thinking about the medium that you want to take. So Etsy is great. But if you're not a product person, if you can't think of a product to sell, then maybe just starting a blog or whatever it is,

even if it's just a Instagram account. Like there's so many people that have just, you know, have started side businesses on Instagram, posting travel photos or whatever it is. So just kind of try to think of the platform that you want to use to start building an audience, because no matter what you do, you have to have that audience. And then, yeah, so whatever way you choose, you can, I mean, I think it's really powerful to start a website. Even if you're starting an Etsy store, you probably want a website as well. And I think it's just a good skill set. And I could be biased because I work in digital marketing, so I love that kind of stuff. But I think it's just such a good skill set that our kind of generation needs to have.

You need to have some web savvy. So I feel like no matter what you're going to do in the future, you're going to have to know how to do some of these website stuff. Like really, if you don't know how to use WordPress, you should probably watch a video tutorial right now. Absolutely. Yeah. There's like 500 million websites on WordPress. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. And I think that's in like North America alone. Wow. Yeah. So it's huge. You have to know WordPress.

Yeah. So yeah, just like start a website. You're going to need a, I mean, seriously, in all honesty, in 10 years, if you don't have a website, you're just going to be like living under a rock. You need a website. Like even if it's a resume. At least make it mobile friendly, people. Yeah. Like what's wrong with you?

It drives you bonkers. Like now there is like the whole mobile get in thing that happens. So your website legit has to be mobile friendly. Otherwise, Google won't index it. But please don't do that. Don't mess around with people like that. No, it just drives me bonkers. That's just a rant on my part anyway.

And that could just be a theme. Yeah. Just make sure that your theme is mobile-friendly. You can buy themes. I don't know if anyone knows this, but from my blog, for the first, I guess, two and a half years, I actually had my older sister, who is a really good web designer, design my site from scratch. And oh, my God, I can't believe I actually made her made.

She made she made a total website theme, but I was hosted on Tumblr. Terrible idea. I was literally too cheap to pay for hosting. So that's why we did that. Yeah. And then I switched to wordpress and then she kind of rejigged some things and then after i'm like i kind of want to refresh it and so i bought a theme for fifty dollars fifty dollars people it really doesn't even cost and for like a brand

new website that makes you know lets me do everything that i want so it doesn't actually cost you it won't have to cost you a lot of money to get a website up and running totally like blue host which is what i use cost 65 a year yeah. And then another thing that I always say to people who are kind of like hesitating to spend that money, I'm like, you spent like $50,000 on your degree for a job that you do not even know whether you're going to like or be good at or even get a job and you won't even spend $100 to start something that you know you're going to love. Or guaranteed you spend that much on coffee this whole month. Totally. Cut back the coffee. So you won't even notice that you... And it's true. It's like I bought several things for my blog and this podcast, and I haven't even noticed it in my budget. I'm like,

oh, it's fine. I made up the money somehow or I cut back somewhere. It's not a big deal. Exactly. And I think mostly people that complain about that stuff or that don't do it because of the money, that's just a procrastination tactic. It's an excuse. For sure. Because I mean, frankly,

it's in the grand scheme of things. That's not a lot of money. It is. No. You need to have a self-hosted website regardless of whether or not it's a blog or resume or portfolio or whatever it is, you need to have one. So get on that train right away.

And then if you are serious about it, I have a whole series about launching. Unsettle.org forward slash launching or launch. I'll include that in the show notes. Yeah, include it in the show notes. I don't remember. It'll be easy to find, yeah. So yeah, you can kind of do it the right way or whatever,

but just start somewhere. Just start. That's all you got to do. Just do it. I almost want to, and I think i'm going to include this in the show notes i don't know if you've seen it but it's a video that's circulating with shyla booth and oh my gosh i'm going to send it to you it is the funniest thing it is the most motivational video ever it's just it's an art piece and he's just yelling at you saying do it just do it and you do it. And you're like, I think I will. I love it.

Sometimes you just need someone to yell at you and say, just do it. Totally. And you need to kick yourself in the butt sometimes. Yes. So I recently actually started this project with my community where I'm like, you know what? I am not taking enough risks. And like all of your growth happens outside of your comfort zone. So true. Get out of your comfort zone. So I'm trying to encourage my community to do this, but I have to lead by example because I wouldn't be a good leader if I weren't. So I've started to take like these really uncomfortable risks every day where I'm like.

That's kind of terrible. It's awful. Uncomfortable risks. No, so like. Every day? Yeah. So for the month of June, so I'm only three days in, but I'm writing down these really uncomfortable situations. But that will benefit me.

So they're like growth opportunities. Not just random acts of randomness. Okay. Totally. So I would ask somebody to, like an influencer that had reached out to me before who has a huge following, for instance. I asked him to send me an endorsement so I could use as social proof. That was my todays, and I haven't heard back from him yet.

So knock, knock on wood. Boop, boop wood. But there's no wood around. So yeah, let's pretend that was a wood sound. And then the first day I pitched a very popular podcaster to be an interviewer or interviewee on my show. And he said yes. So like the two previous days it's just it's been so good so like you have to take a lot of that you just yeah you just have to do you have to try if you don't you know and sometimes you think oh i can't ask that person because they're too you know big or popular or whatever actually they're most likely fine because if it benefits them in some way why wouldn't they want to do it and uh like just as an example like josh does that a ton for his freelancing business and he actually did something very similar. I think when we first

moved to Toronto, didn't know anyone. So I did grow his network and find new clients every day. He would do something, yeah, kind of uncomfortable and send out an email to someone that he didn't know and kind of be like, Hey, do you want to meet for coffee so I can pick your brain? Or, you know, I think you'd be really good for this or blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, two years later, you know, we're looking at his kind of network of clients and people he's worked with or just friends in the industry. It's like, wow, it's grown. And I'm pretty sure most of those people, lots of them were connections from connections that he like emailed randomly when we moved to Toronto. So it's like, huh, if he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be in the spot now

where he has this big network of clients to work with. Totally, and the worst they can say is no. Exactly, and then move on to the next person. They may say yes. Yeah, exactly. So my emails are always, I'm so nervous when I send them and I'm like, oh my goodness.

I know, you reread them, you're like, oh my God. Totally, but I'll always say in it, just to kind of save face, I'm always like, this is actually part of a project. So if you are, and then it just kind of, like, makes, I think it makes people be like, oh, I kind of want to support her or whatever. But, like, for instance, reaching out to people who are, like, way above you. I had Jeff Goins on my show a couple of weeks ago. And he said to me, and he is a huge influencer.

Like, he has a huge following. He's a best-selling author author. Like he's amazing. And he said to me, like, you just need to reach out to people because you never know, like those influencers that you think won't have any time for you more than often than not, everyone thinks that. So they just don't. Yeah. And so no one contacts them. So no one contacts them. So he's like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So like the people that I've reached out to, I've gotten an amazing, like I think I'm sure that tons of people contact them. That's not the issue.

But like if you're just genuine and you actually want to have a relationship with this person and you're like, you know, you're just like a nice normal person. Yeah. They're going to be like, oh, sweet. And if you're not asking them for the moon, if you're asking them for like a quote about how they liked your work, then they'd be like, oh, sure. Why not? Exactly.

Like people are good. They want to support each other. Yeah. As long as you're just not weird about it. Like I get some of that, like the people that email me about like, hey, let's do this partnership or whatever. The people that I respond back to just seem like real legit people. And they'll always say like, this will benefit you in this manner. The people that I ignore immediately or, you know, they'll just email me and be like, this is what we want. I'm like, okay. And? Like, what the hell?

Why would I help you if you're not going to help me? Yeah, what's in it for me? Why would I just help you for no reason? Totally. Sometimes you just have to, you know, think about it from their perspective. If someone emailed you asking for something, what would you want in their email to you? Exactly. And probably just don't cold email them with a request for something.

No, I get this all the time. It drives me bonkers. Like, or they just, they'll just start with a hi. something. No, I get this all the time. It drives me bonkers. Or they'll just start with a hi. I'm like, my name is on my front page of my blog, guys. Or when they're like, I also blog at a personal finance blog called Suburban Finance. And I'll have people say, hi, suburban blogger. And I'm like, that's not my name. It's on the sidebar.

Well, yeah. Or it's like there's most likely an about page or a contact page. Like how long does it take like to find that? Like just to use your diligence. What's wrong with you? I don't know. It's just. It's absurd.

It drives me bonkers. Riff raff. Yeah. Totally. Well, thank you so much for being on this show. I feel like I've learned a lot and I think I'm going to like go make an Etsy store right now. Do it, Jess. I think I actually did create one a while ago. I can't remember the name of it. I'm going to have to do something. It was for like sassy coasters or something.

One day I'm going to make all the coasters. I just have to learn how to make them. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. If you'd like more information about this episode, find out some of the links that we talked about. Make sure to check out the show notes at momoneymohouses.com slash 13. And one of the things that Sarah mentioned was website hosting. So if you're interested in starting your own website from personal experience, go self-hosted right away. Don't try to find another way to do it. I did it and it was awful. So there's a lot of different hosts out there. I personally recommend one called Bluehost. And if you're interested, I do actually have an affiliate link in the show notes that will

actually give you a special deal for a limited time. So you may want to check that out. Momoneymohouses.com slash 13 or check out momoneymohouses.com slash Bluehost. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. And make sure to check back next Wednesday for my interview with Catherine from the personal finance blog Plunged in Debt. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.