2022 was the worst year of my life. I was in a full spiral with my depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn't want to be on Earth anymore. I cried almost everyday on the bathroom floor. This part of my story is important, and I can't miss this piece. We'll touch base on why this is relevant later. Flash Forward to 2023...
I had started an events business side hustle at the end of 2022.
I went full time on my side hustle around March of 2023.
I initially set a goal to make X amount in my business and surpassed it by 2x.
My husband went full time and left his job because the business needed more attention and was doing well.
I didn't have an insane amount of capital prior to starting my business, crazy connections, or a large social media platform to leverage. I didn't come from money, or a family well connected. I had no hand-downs. Here's how I turned my Side Hustle into my full time business. I'm going to cut the fluff here and tell you what ACTUALLY helped: 1. Tapping into my "disadvantages".
Remember that story I told you in the beginning? Well, I never thought I would say this but I leveraged the bad-times towards my advantage. When I started my business, I was at the LOWEST point of my life.But something in me told me my life was meant for more. You see, I had a lot of shame and guilt inside of me. Part of starting a business meant having some sort of radical confidence that it COULD work out. I encourage you to look at any "disadvantages" you might have and tap into that. There is beauty in it, I promise. My depression made me VERY resilient in business. It made me become friendlier in general, which in turn helped my service based business. 2. Sticking to the highest ROI method, one funnel, and improve.
When you're deciding on how to funnel business to your side hustle, try to stick to one method to acquire sales. I see so often that people quit their side hustles because they're stuck in analysis paralysis from doing TOO MUCH. Figure out what gets you the biggest bang for your buck (your time and $$). For example, if you're starting a babysitting side hustle, you could focus on just promoting in your local mom Facebook groups. Continue sticking to this one funnel, and see what works and doesn't work. Does posting on Fridays' work better? Does it work better when you post on Saturday mornings for moms' looking for help last minute? Take notes of what works in your funnel. The goal here is to optimize your systems.
3. Stop overthinking things in business, and just do it. Overthinking is the silent killer. I see so often people overthink everything and that leads them down a path of inaction. "My website needs to be perfect."
"My logo sucks." "I need to read 3 more books before I start implementing X in my business."
"Idk what side hustle to do." Does this sounds familiar to you? Now, I'm not saying that thinking things through is a bad thing. I'm saying spending 99% of your time overthinking, and 1% of your time taking action isn't good. I came up with a method that works for me which is "95% in action mode, 5% in strategy/thinking mode." This allowed me to take steps in my side hustle which eventually turned it into a full time business. I used to be the biggest over thinker and that lead me towards years of getting nothing done. I started my blog yesterday after 1 hour of debating whether I should do it or not. I already wrote 2 articles within 24 hours. Someone else could be spending days, months, years thinking about it and never doing anything. Do you see what I mean here?
4. NOT treating my side hustle like a job I hate.
I've tried other side hustles in the past and they have failed. If I am being honest here, they failed because I treated them like a job I hated going to. Here's the reality; motivation is great but it's discipline and love for what you do that keeps you going. There may be times where you aren't feeling motivated and that's NORMAL. But just like a job, if you don't show up, miss work constantly, you aren't going to get paid. That's why it's so important to jump into a side hustle that you love. My business now is in the events industry and hospitality. I feel fulfilled every-time. That is what has kept me going even during the "slow seasons."
Now that you've read all of this advice, my advice to you is START implementing this right away. Knowledge is bronze, action is gold. In the next 5 hours, start implementing at least one thing you've learned. I say 5 hours only because that gives you urgency to start getting to work.
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