Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPSnacks: 5 Steps To Start a Side Hustle with Hala | Entrepreneurship
Episode Date: December 11, 2020Hoping to start a side hustle this New Year? Today on YAP Snacks, Hala walks through the misconceptions of a side hustle and how to start one. She started YAP Media while working full-time, and kno...ws the ins and outs of designing a lucrative side hustle. YAP Snack is a series of bite-size digestible and actionable content hosted by Hala Taha. This episode of YAP Snacks is sponsored by SnackMagic! Head over to www.snackmagic.com to buy WFH snacks for your team! Social Media: Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at Hala@YoungandProfiting.com Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey everyone, you're listening to YAPSnax, a series of bite-size, digestible, and actionable content hosted by me, Halataha.
Today on Yapsnacks, I'll be talking about everything side hustles. Are you craving more money and freedom and flexibility outside of your 9-to-5 job?
Then you should consider pursuing a side hustle. In fact, 63% of Americans have had a side hustle at least once in their career.
So what's stopping you? Tune into this episode to learn.
more about how you can identify a lucrative side hustle, how you can manage your time, and how to
reduce the risk in starting your own business. So why side hustles? The phrase side hustle has gained
so much popularity over the years, and it started as a term referring to making a little money
outside of your day job, and now it's turned into a way of life. And something to also note is that
when side hustles first really started gaining traction, it was known as moonlighting.
and it actually had a very negative connotation.
It was something that people considered was wrong to do
to work somewhere else while you worked at your day job.
But things have totally changed in the 21st century,
and that's not the case anymore.
The labor market has changed.
And now a lot of people, like I mentioned earlier,
63% of Americans have had a side hustle in the past.
And that's because things have changed.
Wages are stagnating.
We're afraid that robots and automation are going to replace our jobs.
corporations are outsourcing our jobs overseas and pension funds are non-existent and drying up.
It's become more and more challenging to save for retirement.
People are having trouble paying their student loans.
Housing prices are on the rise.
And with all these things considered, the normal 9 to 5 job just isn't cutting it anymore.
We need multiple income streams to be successful in 2020 and beyond.
There's no guarantees anymore for you to keep the same job for 30 years.
It used to be that you got a job, you stayed there, you were tired, you got a pension, and life was good.
That doesn't exist anymore.
You never know what's going to happen.
There's layoffs.
Look at everybody who got furloughed and laid off during COVID.
You never know what's going to happen.
And that kind of uncertainty is a really scary thought.
And so there's many reasons why people start a side hustle, even if they can live comfortably off their primary income.
The first reason, and I think it's the most obvious reason, it's making more money.
Making more money never goes out of style. And that's probably what draws most people to creating a side hustle.
Whether it's paying off debt like I mentioned before or saving for your kids' education or putting money aside for a special vacation,
money is obviously the number one reason and you can always find a reason to spend more money.
Other benefits may include wanting to learn a new practice or new skill, wanting to explore a passion of yours,
or just wanting to empower yourself to find economic value outside of your day job or paycheck.
And lastly, my personal reason for starting a side hustle and my favorite reason for starting a
side hustle is to design a job that you love.
When you start a side hustle, you really have the freedom because you have the stability of
your day job.
You have the freedom to do what you love, right?
Or do something that you love better than your day job.
And so I think it's everyone's dream to make money.
doing something that they love. So for me, that's my number of reason why I started a side hustle.
I wanted to design a job that I love. So let's talk about why I consider myself to be a side hustle expert
now. I launched Yap podcast back in 2018 as a hobby. I worked at Hewlett-Packard, and although my show
has seen lots of growth and I've secured lots of sponsors, the hard reality is that I definitely
invested more in my podcast than I made money off of it in about the first two years. There,
Therefore, even though at the time I thought I was starting a side hustle, my podcast was really just a
very popular and visible hobby up until recently.
Now I use Young and Profiting podcast as a lead generation tool for Yap Media, which is my
full-service podcast production and marketing agency.
And that's when things really turned into an actual side hustle and when the game really
changed for me.
So I launched Yap Media while working full-time at Disney Streaming Services.
just about three, four months ago. And today I have five major clients. Some of them are top
podcasters, major bestselling authors, and a team of 30 people who I pay. And I'm running a
business that's already made multi-six figures in revenue in contracted business with just the last
three, four months without any advertising. And just using leads, the guests who come on my show
end up becoming my clients. And I've never had to pitch anyone. I've never had to
advertise. It's just business that has fallen in my lap. And things have been so beyond crazy.
And, you know, it's been really tough managing a podcast, a business, a full-time job. I know that I can't
keep this up forever. It's not healthy. But, you know, I designed a business that runs on its own.
That's the beauty of starting a side hustle. Because I was working every day nine to five,
I needed a team. I needed processes so that I didn't have to be involved in every single. And
single decision and so that things could move when I was at work. And so I essentially designed a
business that can run on its own and that's why I'm still able to work full time. So more on that
later, I love to dig deeper on that because I think it's really important. And honestly,
sometimes I can't believe how well things worked out and how I literally just get to do what I
love most. Podcasting and marketing, my two most favorite things in the world is now going to be
my profession in the near future. It's going to be my full-time career. Every day is so fun.
It barely feels like work. And I hope that everybody out there listening can learn a thing or two
in this episode so that you can enjoy the same satisfaction in your life. Okay, so I want to start
off this episode with some misconceptions about side hustles. When thinking about starting a side hustle,
it can seem very overwhelming. So right off the bat, I want to knock down some common misconceptions about
starting one. The first one is that your side hustle has to eventually become your full-time job.
For a lot of people, the goal of their side hustle is to take it full-time. But that's not always the
case. If your side hustle isn't bringing you the same amount or more as your full-time job,
then chances are you won't be able to make it your full-time gig. And so many side hustlers
balance their full-time and part-time gig, and they find both extremely satisfying for their needs.
So if both make you happy, then you don't need to quit one or the other.
It doesn't need to become your full-time thing.
It can always be your side hustle.
It's really up to you.
Up until I launched Yap Media, I thought that Yap podcast might always be my little side project.
But then once I started making more money than I do at my day job,
now it's a different story and I have some decisions to make.
Misconception number two, your side hustle needs to take all of your time and attention.
So first of all, it's impossible to give your side hustle 100%.
of your time when you're balancing a full-time job. But the good news is that it doesn't need to take
all your time and attention. The average side hustler spends about 12 to 15 hours a week on their
gig. But every job is different. So for example, starting an online store at Etsy to sell vintage
clothes could only take a few hours on the weekend. So try keeping a time diary for a few weeks to keep
track of where your free time goes. Once you do that, you're going to see different activities that are not
productive, like watching TV or scrolling on social media. And you're going to take those blocks
of time that you spent doing those nonproductive things and you're going to utilize them to
create time for a new successful side project. Side hustles are all about taking advantage
of the different short breaks in your daily and weekly routine. If you can find a few hours to
spare, you can start bringing your ideas to life. When I started Young and Profiting podcast,
I would work on the train on the weight of my full-time job.
So that was an hour each way.
And I would do all of my LinkedIn posts on the train.
That's how I built my LinkedIn following.
I have 67,000 followers.
I probably built it to 50,000 followers just on my two hours a day on the train ride.
I would write my post in the morning and then I would do all my engagement on the ride home back.
So that's 10 hours a week right there that you can work on your side hustle if you've got a one-hour commute and you get to ride a train.
Now it's COVID, it's a little different, but you don't have a commute, so there's your time right there.
Then you add in the occasional lunch hour or four hour chunks on the weekend, a couple hours at night or every other night.
And you could rank up like 25 hours a week to work on your side hustle.
You would be surprised how much free time you have.
Just quit TV, quit social media, quit things that just don't do you any service and will not move your life to the next level.
quit those things. It doesn't have to be forever. And starting a side hustle is a sacrifice.
But you should find some time. And if you're unable to find time, you can't start a side hustle.
If every single thing that you do is absolutely productive and necessary, then you don't have time to start a side hustle.
But if you can find 15 hours a week, 12 hours a week, 20 hours a week, then you have enough time to start a side hustle.
And you don't have to do it all at once. It can be over time.
Yeah, we have a super unique company culture.
We're all about obsessive excellence.
We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers.
And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees.
My team is growing every day.
We're 60 people all over the world.
And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate,
even though I'm so picky because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.
Stop struggling to get your job post noticed.
Indeed, sponsor jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidates.
Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones,
according to Indeed data worldwide.
I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now.
In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed,
according to Indeed data worldwide.
Plus, there's no subscriptions or long-term contracts.
You literally just pay for your results.
You pay for the people that you hire.
There's no need to wait any longer.
Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit
to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com.com.
Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need.
Hello, young improfitters. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
But I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute.
I'm not really good at that kind of stuff. I'm really good at marketing, sales,
growing a business, offers.
But I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting
an official business.
I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting YAP Media.
And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwest Registered Agent is.
They've been helping small business owners launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years.
They literally make life easy for entrepreneurs.
They don't just help you form your business.
They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements and thousands of
how-to guides that explain the complicated
ins and outs of running a business.
And guys, it can get really complicated,
but Northwest Registered Agent just makes it all easy
and breaks it down for you.
So when you want more for your business,
more privacy, more guidance, more free resources,
Northwest Registered Agent is where you should go.
Don't wait and protect your privacy,
build your brand, and get your complete business identity
in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes.
Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Yap free
and start building something amazing.
Get more with Northwest Registered Agent
at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Yap free.
What's up, young and profitors?
I remember when I first started Yap,
I used to dread missing important calls.
I remember I lost a huge potential partnership
because the follow-up thread
got completely lost in my messy communication system.
Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities,
and that starts with your business communications.
A missed call is money and growth out the door.
That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications.
Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer.
The way Quo works is magic for team alignment.
Your whole team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, and everyone sees the full conversation.
It's like having access to a shared email inbox, but on a phone.
And also, Quo's AI can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive, even when you finally
off. It makes doing business so much easier. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer
slips away. Try quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com
slash profiting. That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers.
And so time management is super important because you're juggling other responsibilities.
One way to save time is to have a virtual assistant. And this can be a blessing. This was
one of the things that really accelerated my podcast and side hustle is having a virtual assistant
who is in there able to respond to fans in my comments and in my DMs and took a lot of the
stuff that really wasn't moving the needle for me that somebody else could easily replicate
and do on my behalf in a quality way. And so they can schedule appointments, they can send
follow-ups, they can manage your inbox, whatever it is. Don't discount the value of a virtual
assistant when you're starting out. They're a very inexpensive way to save time. And I think the going
rate, if you get somebody international from the Philippines or India, is like $5 an hour. And so most people
can afford $5 an hour to save them that hour of time and instead work on something that's going to
actually bring revenue and make a meaningful difference for your side hustle. You could also consider
hiring interns or part-time contractors. I think in general, just sort of
starting to build a team, if it makes sense for you, will really save a lot of time.
And I think that's definitely one of the reasons why I'm able to still work full time and that
I have run such a successful side hustle.
It's because I have a team.
I have a team that's helping me and I appreciate them.
And I set the standard.
I set the processes and then they run with it.
And I think that's what helps make my side hustle very successful.
And so systems are really important.
Like I just mentioned, you need to make sure that there's a thought out process.
can be executed efficiently each time and make sure that you can guarantee consistent and quality
work when you start building your team. And then the last thing I'm going to say is that you really
need to be organized. When you have a lot going on, the last thing you want to do is go search for
an image or go search for whatever you need to have ready for your client or whatever it is.
You need the proper folders and storage systems in place to keep running an efficient business.
So I can't underestimate the importance of being organized and having some proper folders and storage systems in place.
And the third misconception is that it's going to put your full-time job at risk.
So in an economy where 39% of millennials have started their own gig on their side, a lot of smart, modern employees just understand that bands on outside projects can stifle,
creativity, they can push employees underground, and it can also create a culture of distress.
So most companies are cool with side hustles by now, but if you're with a really conservative,
outdated company, then you do need to take some precautions when starting a side hustle.
The first thing you're going to want to do is know your guidelines.
So you want to review your employment contract for any stipulations that might interfere with
freelance or side business work. And so the most common are non-compete clauses.
So these really prohibit outside employment or consulting work that is competing or conflicting
with your employer's business.
So as long as your side hustle doesn't conflict, then you're good to go.
Exclusivity clauses.
So that prevents you from engaging in outside work, competitive or otherwise.
So this is basically a showstopper.
If you have an exclusivity clause in your contract that you basically can't work anywhere else,
then that's really a showstopper for your side hustle and you can't have one unless you quit your job.
The next is a non-disclosure agreement or NDA as it's called.
And basically what that means is that as long as you don't use what you learn at work in your side hustle,
then you're in the clear.
You just can't use any intellectual property or sales models or build on any knowledge that you learn in your day job
and then use it in your side hustle.
It needs to be something that's separate from what you do in your day job and then you're in the clear.
So as long as what you do is allowed by the company,
then there's really no reason why you need to disclose your side hustle.
But even though it's not legally necessary to tell folks,
it's more than likely, especially with social media,
that somebody's going to find out.
And the simple, no-mess way to avoid any potential conflict of interest
is to set up a meeting with your HR resource and your boss
and let them know about your side hustle plan.
So that's what I did with Yap.
When I first got hired, I made it super clear that I had a podcast.
I had to sit down with the legal team and let them know about it.
I had to give them some information.
And then once we cleared that up, I was good to go.
And, you know, I never got asked anything ever again.
And I just got to continue on with my podcast.
So you definitely can do it in a smart way.
It doesn't need to put your job at risk.
I think if you approach it in a smart way,
if you are smart about it from the start and think through what you want to do
and make sure it's not a conflict with what you do at work,
then I think it can work out.
And it shouldn't be an issue.
This episode of Yap Snacks is sponsored.
by snack magic.
I love working from home.
There's no commute.
I don't have to wear stuffy clothes.
And I'm getting much more sleep
because half the time I can just roll out of bed
and hop on my first call.
But there's one dreaded downfall of working from home.
The lack of snacks.
If you're like me, you're missing those in-office snacks a lot.
I keep finding myself thinking,
damn, I just wish I had a snack to munch on
while I work. And it's so much trouble to go outside nowadays with the cold and of course,
COVID. Well, snack magic is the work from home park that brings office snacks directly to your home.
They provide a simple way for your team, no matter where they live in the world, to customize
and build their own snack stash from a menu of over 500 snacks and beverages. In fact,
I'm sending a snack stash to all 30 members of my Yap team and my clients for Christmas.
It all happened when I was searching for a gift that I could send to my team who's based all over the U.S., India, Philippines, and the U.K.
I couldn't find anything cute, affordable, and available internationally except a boring digital gift card.
The shipping situation was impossible and nothing seemed economically feasible.
That is until I came across snack magic.
Snack magic is the perfect holiday gift sent to your team.
You just set the budget, enter email addresses, and invite links are saved.
sent off to your team so they can customize their own snack stash and enter their addresses to get it shipped,
aka it's easy, fast, and stress-free to set up for you. And to top it all off, the snack stash comes
in a super cute branded box that you can customize. It's no wonder that Netflix, Google, Spotify,
Pinterest, and Salesforce choose snack magic for their work-from-home snack perks. I'm so excited to
throw my virtual holiday party this year with my team while we all enjoy our snack stashes from
snack magic. And you can bring the holiday cheer too. Head over to snackmagic.com to order work
from home snacks for your team today. That's snack magic.com and I'll stick the link in my show notes.
So let's now talk about the five ways to start a side hustle. First, identify your strengths and
skill set. Think about all the things that you're excited about. What do people always compliment you on
or say that you're good at? Is there something that you secretly long to do? What ignites the passion
inside of you? Do you like to write? Do you make grandma's envious with your crocheting skills?
Do you like to tinker with and fix gadgets? Turning your passions into a side hustle might be as simple
as just looking at the things that you already spend your time doing and then commercializing it
and making money off of it. So if you have a hobby that you like to do, think about how you can
make money off that hobby and if what you're doing is valuable to you, it might be valuable to
someone else. When I launched my podcast, the one thing that everybody always asked me was
who does your marketing, who does your graphics, how did you grow so popular on LinkedIn,
how did you launch a successful podcast, how do you make videos?
people would ask me the same things over and over and over again.
And it never clicked.
It wasn't until Heather Monaghan came on my show and like forced herself as my first client
that I realized like, oh, I have a business that I've been doing this as a hobby this whole
time and I literally could flip the switch and scale and turn this into a business if I wanted
to.
And it never clicked before that.
But looking back, everybody always asked me the same questions.
How do you do videos?
How do you promote yourself on LinkedIn?
How do you launch a podcast?
People wanted that from me.
So now I've turned all that demand that I just was kind of oblivious to and just kind of ignored
and just provided this free advice all the time.
I turned that demand into an actual product.
So what is it that people are always asking you?
Try to think about that.
And try to just start to monitor the questions that people ask you or the compliments that you get.
And you'll start to generate some ideas in terms of what value people see in you.
I personally think that aligning your passion to your side hustle is a great idea, but there are some
considerations to take. You may get tired of your passion after you spend too much time on it.
So, for example, if you love to write, having it be a job might like take the joy out of writing.
So like you need to kind of test that.
Like if you like it so much that you want to do it every day or is it something that you
just like to do once a while with no pressure?
So it's like having the pressure on your passion may like take the joy out of it.
And so that's something that you need to consider.
The other thing is that there may not be any market demand for your passion.
But we'll get to that later.
We're going to be able to test that in a way where you can launch your side hustle with very little risk and decide, you know, if it's something that has demand or not.
And if it doesn't, then you need to switch your idea.
And if it does, you can go full force.
And to that point, not every passion really deserves to be a side hustle.
So just keep that in consideration.
Nevertheless, I would definitely start by making a list of your passions
and then also make another list of the products and services you could provide
that people are willing to pay for.
Any overlap between these two items, make like a Venn diagram,
is fertile ground for a side hustle idea.
So a list of your passions, a list of the products and services you could provide to people.
And if there's any overlap, then that may be a good side hustle.
idea. And also, just something to keep in mind is that there's really no pressure to come up with
a 100% original idea. Most successful businesses started by improving or putting a new spin on an
existing product or service. You just have to pick an idea in which you can use your skills
to deliver something uniquely valuable. Is there something that you can do better or differently
than others? Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about
fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been
thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now.
2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control
over your career. And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify,
including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop. People buy their tickets on Shopify.
And then my mastermind subscription is also on Shopify.
I built my site quickly in just a couple of days, payments were set up super easily, and
none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so intuitive.
And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over $500,000 in revenue in our first year.
And I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify.
Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power.
You can build your dream story using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up as fast with built-in
AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos. Plus, marketing is built in so you can
create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your
business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month
trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's
Shopify.com slash profiting.
Yap, fam, hear your first.
This new year was Shopify by your side.
Hello, Yap, gang.
I know my young improfiting listeners
want bigger businesses and a better life,
and the new year is the perfect moment
to reset and commit to your growth.
But let's be real.
You can't build an empire
if your finances are all over the place.
That's why getting into it QuickBooks
is one of the best first moves you can make this year.
They've got powerful money management tools
built right into their platform.
and they have them for every stage of your business, whether you're a solopreneur or a small
business. And I love that QuickBooks helps you get paid faster, pay bill smarter, and even gives you
access to funding when opportunity pops up. So QuickBooks can help you with bookkeeping, can help you
with getting paid, can even help you with projections and understanding where your business is at financially.
Plus, QuickBooks Money Solutions reduces manual work by half and keeps your money and your books
perfectly synced. That means less time staring at spreadsheets and more time actually building the
vision that you started with. That's the upgrade that every profiting entrepreneur needs.
Start the New Year's strong, take control of your cash flow with QuickBooks Money Tools.
Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply.
Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter
by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Next, you want to start to define your offer.
See if you can pull some profitability data in relation to your idea and estimate how much it's
going to cost to do and how much people would pay for it.
If you aren't going to make money, it's not a business.
It's just simply a hobby and you don't want to spend a lot of time on something and charge
too little for it.
And on the opposite side of the spectrum, you also don't want to overcharge for your skills
and get no customers.
So I would recommend charging at least 30 to 50% margin on your products and services.
and do not forget to bake in your own time when it comes to your pricing.
That's definitely the first mistake that I made when I first started.
I forgot that it's not just the subscriptions, the contractors,
and the value of the marketing services that I should bake into my pricing.
It's my time, too.
I make a great amount of money per hour at Disney.
And so my time and the time that I'm going to put in my client's work should also be baked
in the pricing.
And I think a lot of people forget that when they're building out their pricing.
The next thing you want to do is validate your idea as quickly as possible.
The only surefire way to know that you aren't wasting any time is to get your first customer
as soon as you can.
So don't worry about having a website, having a logo, having a pitch deck.
You don't need any of those things.
The only things that you need, the bare minimum requirements to get your first paying customer
is having something to sell, a willing buyer, and a way to collect money.
That's all you need.
And that's all you should start with when you're first figuring out what your side hustle is going to be.
This is your test period, right?
So you have your first side hustle idea and this is your test period.
You want to try to get your first customer.
And once you prove to yourself that somebody's going to buy into your idea, it's easier to stay motivated
and figure out how to continually improve.
And also getting your first customer and starting right away, you'll get instant feedback.
So you'll get instant feedback to know like if your pricing is too high, if somebody is countering you at the pricing.
If people are just accepting your pricing, then you probably priced really well or you may want to try testing pricing a little bit higher next time and see like what's the highest range that you can go before people just kind of say, oh, no way, I can't afford that or no way that makes no sense.
So you definitely want to test and try to get that feedback from your customers, that real-time
feedback. And like I said, like don't invest in a website, a logo, all that upfront capital,
you don't want to waste that until you know that you have a business that's going to generate
demands. So start with your existing contacts, start with your social media following,
go knock on local businesses doors, and don't go invest in a fancy website.
If nobody is willing to pay for it, then it's a hobby, not a business. And you want to figure that
out before you go make all these investments. So in summary, don't invest more than like $100 for
each idea, test it out for a week or two, see if anybody's going to buy from you. And this lean
startup approach will get you making money and get you real world feedback as fast as possible.
And those are key elements in making your side hustle work. And like I said, if your first idea
doesn't work, pick another idea and keep it moving. The next step is to really start to
further define your target market and your marketing strategies. Unfortunately, having everyone as your
target market is going to get you nowhere. So the more clear and specific you can be about who your
side hustle will serve, it's going to really help you. So creating a niche not only allows you
to simplify your product or service, but it also allows you to simplify your messaging and your
targeting in your marketing. So a good test to follow is the That's Me test. If a potential customer can say
that's me when you describe your audience, then you know you have a detailed enough market.
Once you reach that point, you can get creative with your marketing and find out where those
people hang out. And so when it comes to marketing your side hustle, it's a whole lesson in itself.
But the best thing I can tell you is to focus your chips on where your target market hangs out.
So if you're targeting professionals, you want to be on LinkedIn.
If you have something very visual, you want to be on Instagram.
figure out where your target market is spending their time online or in the real world and go meet them there.
You don't want to try to pull the few people who are in the different places and spread out too thin.
You want to market where your audience is hanging out.
So for example, when I first started Young and Profiting podcast, I was equally spending my time on Instagram and LinkedIn trying to figure out what was going to work for me.
I quickly realized that people on LinkedIn liked my content.
They wanted self-improvement content.
People on Instagram just wanted to see me in a short skirt.
Pretty much.
And so I decided I was going to focus all my chips on LinkedIn.
And I literally ignored my Instagram profile.
I still only have like 3,000 followers on Instagram.
I'm just getting into it now.
I ignored my Instagram for like two years,
literally didn't really post and focused everything
on LinkedIn and it worked for me now I'm one of the biggest influencers on that platform I figured it
out I figured how to get traction I learned it on my own I experimented I posted every single day I was
consistent and I didn't spread myself thin by trying to win on Facebook Twitter Pinterest and all these
other platforms I focused on LinkedIn and that's how I grew my following and then now I'm able to
take my following and point them to Instagram and start to grow with that and so on so I think it's
starting in one place and really focusing on that and figuring out where your target market
hangs out and putting all your chips on that. Step 5. Build a team. Assuming you put in the work to
follow the steps I outlined previously, there's a good chance that your side hustle is going to be
a success. And as your bank account grows, so will your responsibilities. In the beginning, you just
had to think about your passions, your offering, and now you're going to run into issues like order fulfillment,
voicing, customer support, and you have real high stakes deadlines.
So if you insist on doing everything yourself, you're going to get overwhelmed.
You already have a 9 to 5 job.
You certainly have other relationships to manage and other things that you need to spend your
time on.
So don't be afraid to get help.
Use some of that income to reinvest into your side hustles.
So focus on getting better tools that are going to make you more efficient.
Focus on outsourcing with virtual assistance like we talked about earlier.
building a team, hiring interns, hiring an accountant, whatever it may be, find those things that are
going to help you free up time. You do not want to waste your time with mundane tasks that are not
going to move the needle for your side hustle. You want to outsource all of that and start building a team
so that you can do what you love and what you're truly good at because that's why you started your
side hustle in the first place. You probably didn't start it to do admin work. So eventually you're
going to reach a point where it's time to decide whether to turn your hustle into a full-time thing
or keep your day job. And that's where I am today. And it's an incredible feeling. So the last thing
I'm going to say before I close this out is that success doesn't happen overnight. You've got to
think about it. You're not working the side hustle 40 hours a week. You're probably going to work
less than 20 hours a week. So it's going to take twice as long to get any measurable result as it
would as if you were working full time. So you need to really be in it for the long run. You got to have
grit, determination, and a passion for your side hustle. Having a passion is so important because you
need to, you know, in the ups and the downs, you need to still continue on and do things even when you
don't feel like doing them. And so you need to know your why. You need to understand your motivations
for starting a side hustle. Write all of that down. Understand that you're going to be
sacrificing time, doing things that you like to do, like TV, social media, hanging out with
friends, all that kind of stuff may have to go on the wayside to make room for your side hustle.
So you need to kind of accept that, own that, and then be in it for the long haul.
While I hope this information will be helpful to you, this is by no means all the information
you could ever have.
It's just a good start.
On Young and Profiting Podcast, we have the pleasure of interviewing marketing experts,
entrepreneurs and very skilled professionals.
So here are a few episodes you may want to listen to
if you're craving more side hustle tips.
Number 10, this is the obvious one,
the art of side hustles with Nicolaoper.
Number 26, the laws of selling with Richard Moore
has so many gems in terms of how to sell your product.
Also, number 37, go gig or go home
if you want to understand the gig economy
and why people are moving towards side hustles.
Number 87, the practice of creativity with Seth Godin.
We really talk about the need to always be a professional even when you're doing creative work.
And lastly, number five, getting shit done and improving your productivity with David Allen.
So thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yap Snacks on Young and Profiting Podcast.
I hope you enjoyed this episode on How to Start a Side Hustle.
Until next time, this is Hala, signing off.
