business | Beyond Your Side Hustle

How To Prevent Being Discouraged

Question from Hustleburg’s Episode 2, Answering Listener Questions: How can the solopreneur who is trying to keep up with their 9-5 while also starting their side hustle keep from getting discouraged? How did you do it?

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready to ditch your 9-5 and embark on your entrepreneur journey, you need to keep giving 100% at work, but limit it to only 100%. You can’t give your day job free space in your head outside of the time you gave at the office. Outside the office, that space is for you and your dreams.

The Question, “Why?”

Then, think about why your side hustle is your passion. Why is this “it?” You’ll notice in the interviews on the Hustleburg podcast that I start each of them with “Why?” That’s because I want to know what drives the guest. When I consult with a potential client, I ask it as well. Repeatedly. It’s likely maddening in the moment, because they feel like they are answering an inquisitive 5-year-old who only has one question in his toolbox. In interviews and consultations, I have to know.

More importantly, YOU need to know what drives you, why you’re passionate about it, and you need to share that with yourself and others. Everything becomes about the mission of what you do. Why? Why? Why? It usually takes the third or fourth Why to truly understand your underlying meaning in doing this. This is your vision of the dream you have for yourself.

Make Your Vision Your Mission

When you make that vision the focus of everything that you do it makes all of your business decisions, it makes all of your conversations, all of the things that you do regarding your side hustle and eventually your business, about your why. When you can serve your why you’re not likely to get discouraged, because you have made that vision a mission. You’re not likely to get burned out, because you have a purpose.

Focus on Your Mission

You will always be focused on the real reason why you’re doing it. That’s how I did it. I started with asking why I needed to get rid of the nine to five so that I could help other people do exactly the same.

This listener question was a part of Hustleburg’s second episode. If you have a question you’d like to have answered, please join the community here.

Top Podcasts for the Budding Entrepreneur

It may seem like self-development in business and entrepreneurship means a lot of reading, but there is a world of podcasts that we consume. Here are our recommendations of the top podcasts for the budding entrepreneur:

Akimbo: A Podcast by Seth Godin

On Tuesday mornings, we’re probably looking most forward to Akimbo: A Podcast by Seth Godin it gives you a marketer’s view of how we can act to change the culture. We’re not just talking about the culture at large, but the culture specifically around what we do, the culture around the people that we serve, and the community that we are. Every week, when Akimbo comes out, it is it definitely goes to the top of the queue. There is just something amazing about how Seth Godin can look at something and talk about it in an engaging way.

EntreLeadership Podcast

The EntreLeadership podcast offers you some of the top minds in business. Formerly hosted by Ken Coleman, and now hosted by Alex Judd, it’s primarily an interview podcast based around the leadership philosophy that Dave Ramsey used to build his entire business network. That philosophy governs all of the things that Ramsey Solutions does, and they do a fantastic job providing some amazing resources for small business leaders. In addition to the podcast, they’ve built a community that serves small businesses, often giving away excellent resources completely for free to podcast listeners. This podcast publishes weekly on Mondays, which makes for a great start to the week.

HBR IdeaCast

The Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast publishes on Tuesdays and offers listeners an opportunity to hear about emerging trends in business. The really cool part about the IdeaCast is that you get to experience the best interviews from each of their magazine’s issues in full when listening, rather than what they’ve pared down for the article they sought to publish in that month’s issue. The full-fledged interview, between one of the two hosts, both senior editors for Harvard Business Review, and the business or thought leader, provides you with a lot of data and findings surrounding what’s happening in business today. It’s terrific to hear from the study researchers and professors about the things that they’ve learned and share.

The John Maxwell Leadership Podcast

John Maxwell has written many books on the subject of leadership, and it’s amazing that none of them made the top books article, but we wanted to keep things solely focused on small business. The John Maxwell Leadership Podcast gives you lessons, insights, and candid conversations about how to be a leader. When your business grows beyond “solopreneur” status, you’re going to need to be able to lead your team. The podcast takes a deeper dive into the lessons he’s written about and Mark Cole, Jason Brooks, and John himself discuss how you can bring those ideas to work in your own life. Regular episodes publish on Wednesday, and the occasional “candid conversations” usually appear in their feed on Fridays.

The GaryVee Audio Experience

This daily podcast is the absolute holy grail of marketing knowledge. You’ll hear me frequently talk about looking for attention, and this is where that idea came from. The GaryVee Audio Experience is a daily dose of drinking from the fire hose of marketing. At first, I didn’t like Gary Vaynerchuk. His larger than life personality and style turned me off, but I listened beyond that first impression. As part of panels, on other podcasts and as part of other programs, the fact that he really understands what we’re all looking for in business, and that is the attention for our brand. We’re looking for the attention necessary to sell what we sell and to do what we do. The audio experience is a variety of different ways for you to consume that, whether it’s a keynote and Q&A that he has given, an interview that he’s done for radio or television and had the audio stripped, or his sage advice in conversations with celebrities and up-and-comers, it is an awesome documenting of the process. In it, you get to see an aspect of what he does in a way that is is very useful and very educational for every businessperson.

Would you rather read? Check out this article detailing our favorite books for budding entrepreneurs.

As we’ve shared on Hustleburg, we love Castbox as a podcast listening app, and the image above is a screenshot of my favorite podcasts in that app.

Hustleburg Episode 5 – Interview with Red Hot Tiki’s Robynne Swanson

Listen to Hustleburg

In this episode, Brett sits down with Robynne Swanson of Red Hot Tiki, a spicy gourmet market in Gulfport, just south of Saint Petersburg. With over 1500 spicy products, such as hot sauces, pepper extracts, pickled products, jams, jellies, jerky, and spicy snacks, there is surely something to attract your spicy side.

Brett and Robynne discuss her journey from the corporate world to becoming a solopreneur, running the tiki filled to the brim with hot sauce, selling in the retail space in 2020, and how she’s moving to add a direct to consumer web component to her business. They also talk about the shop’s Scorpion Shot Challenge, an activity for those ready to tackle some of the hottest peppers on earth.

Red Hot Tiki’s 🔥 Links

Find out more about Red Hot Tiki:

Website
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter

If you enjoyed what you heard in this episode, please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your favorite player. Each episode is available on its own post, with the entire catalog here. It’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast catcher. We listen to this show and our favorites on Castbox. It’s hosted by Podbean. We appreciate your attention, and we can’t wait to have you back for the next episode.

Want to be on Hustleburg?

If you have any questions you’d like to have answered on an upcoming Q&A episode, please take a moment to visit beyondyoursidehustle.com/podcastquestion and ask there. If you’re a St. Pete businessperson who’d like to sit down for an interview, please reach out to us here.

Hustleburg Episode 3 – Interview with Kara Wright Photography’s Kara Wright

Photography Lessons

In this episode of the Hustleburg podcast, Brett Bittner meets with Kara Wright, photographer and owner of Kara Wright Photography. Kara Wright Photography focuses her lens on weddings, engagement shoot, and real estate photography in Saint Petersburg and Tampa, Florida.

Brett and Kara discuss her photography business in its infancy after a move from the DC area, her favorite shoots, and how exciting it is to find the perfect angle for every shoot.

Connect With Kara Wright Photography

Find out more about Kara Wright Photography:

Website
Facebook
Instagram
The Knot

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Tell More Stories

A very effective way to convey your message persuasively is to tell a story that offers a solution in action.

As we lead by example, we continue to demonstrate the principles we espouse.

By showing before we tell, we add credibility to our words.

When we listen, we understand the issues and outcomes important to those with whom we speak.

Now that we’ve demonstrated our principles, made ourselves credible, and understand the issues and outcomes, we can talk about our ideas.

It is very easy to jump to facts, figures, and studies to make the case for what we believe. Reason, logic, and philosophical principles are what likely grabbed our attention, but they are not particularly persuasive to those who are not yet on the same page in their thinking. So, how can we reach them?

Tell The Story

A very effective way to convey your message persuasively is to tell a story that offers a solution in action.

Telling stories helps connect the listener to details, important points, and outcomes that are not found in citing statistics and studies.

Think about the last time you went to an event where there was an in-depth Powerpoint presentation with lots of slides, filled with statistics, facts, and figures. You likely took copious notes to keep up with every last shred of data.

When you left the presentation, how much did you retain without those notes? And six months later? A year later? A decade later?

Very few adults are blessed with an eidetic memory, like Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, so recalling these details does not come naturally.

What’s something we all remember?

What We Remember

The stories we learned at a young age. Fables from Aesop, movies by Disney, and silly rhyming books by Dr. Seuss. Why do we remember, sometimes in amazing detail, something we heard, read, or watched twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago?

When did you last read or hear the story, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” one of Aesop’s fables?

If asked for a synopsis, we could easily give an accurate retelling of how the hare was beyond confident in his abilities to defeat the tortoise in a foot race. He was so confident that he sped off to an early lead and took a nap. When he awoke and hopped to the finish line, he found that the tortoise had beaten him by staying the course.

The lesson that we can all recite in unison? “Slow and steady wins the race.”

It’s probably been twenty years or more since I’ve heard that fable, but I remember what occurred due to the structure of the plot, characters, climax, and resolution involved in storytelling.

Twenty years ago, I would likely have been sitting in Chemistry class, but I don’t know that I could tell you what Avogadro’s number is or why it’s important, despite its repeated use.

If you’re interested in the science behind why storytelling is effective, here is an article about how stories activate our brains.

So, how many stories are you going to have in your repertoire?

Do What You Say You’ll Do

Carl Jung is quoted as saying, “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

What you do, or don’t do, is the foundation of your reputation to others. We’ve all heard that someone’s reputation precedes them, and a reputation can often tell others more about you than any words you may communicate. Shouldn’t you be a shining example for who and what we are?

Credibility

When we can’t live up to doing what we say we will do, we lose our credibility. It’s like putting a question mark at the end of every promise we make and every position we take. Would you really want to take a chance on losing that trust? We have many other things to overcome without having to rebuild credibility.

So, how can we make sure we live up to our reputation?

Reputation

First, don’t take on too much. Often, we see a void and we step up to fill it. As a former leader in the service industry, I realize that we often over promise and under deliver, but if we flip that, we can make sure we meet our commitments by setting reasonable expectations and wowing with our results. Switch to an “underpromise, overdeliver” approach and see the results of keeping things under control.

Next, honestly evaluate the level of effort or time necessary to do a good job meeting the commitments you make. Something may seem to be quick or easy on the surface, but it can really bite you when it’s more complex than you first thought. Being honest about what it will take, along with not taking on too much will help you to do what you say you’ll do.

Explain, Don’t Excuse

Finally, when you can’t make things happen on the timeline you’ve set, make sure you offer explanations, not excuses. Excuses are flimsy, and the real reason is often the better route, especially if it’s humbling.

Are you ready to do what you way you’ll do?

How Millenials Will Save Your Business

I have led millennials in the workplace, and that experience makes me optimistic about how they will save your business… If you adapt it to becoming a more sustainable endeavor.

It’s 2019.

Three years ago, millennials became the largest generation in the American workforce, making up more than 35% of American workers. While you may see “hit pieces” on millennials, poking fun at them with stories about avocado toast, laziness and mooching, and participation trophies, these stereotypes don’t live up to my observations of the millennial generation.

The list of products, businesses, and industries millennials are “killing” grows with each writer and blogger’s need to put words to page. Any businessperson worth their salt will recognize that some of these killed items are simply the inevitable outcome of creative destruction, an economic idea that industries change for the better by destroying the old to bring about the new. It’s why we no longer have buggy whip makers in an age of automobiles.

I’m not a millennial, writing to defend my generation here. Even by the most generous timeline, I miss being one by about two weeks. I have, however, led millennials in the workplace, and that experience makes me optimistic about how they will save your business… If you adapt it to becoming a more sustainable endeavor.

Millennials take over as dominant generation

As millennials overtook Baby Boomers as the dominant generation at work, a Gallup poll found that only 34% of American workers are engaged at work. That means that nearly seven of the ten sitting just outside your office are likely not. This disengaged workforce certainly isn’t helping productivity, though there is hope, and it rests on the shoulders of our largest segment of the workforce, the millennial generation.

Luckily, I’m not alone in seeing the high-quality attributes of this cohort. Millennials excel when working as part of a team. They use the latest technology and adapt to innovations with ease. Most importantly, they want their efforts to have meaning and purpose. They value their work with as much or more importance as their family, when thinking about their dream. To not tap into this passion is a big mistake.

After decades of management practices focused on reports, endless meetings, and performance reviews, we find ourselves unable to tap that potential in this generation. They feel ground into dust by the aforementioned interactions with their boss. Their desire for meaning and purpose in their work requires that we move away from the WHAT that we do to focus on the WHY that motivates us to do it. If you’ve read Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why,” you already have a head start on understanding how to lead your team, especially the youngest players on it.

Vision, Mission, and Purpose

By sharing, exemplifying, and leading the mission and purpose of the work, you motivate them to buy into the vision of your team, rather than seeing it as a quick stop on their journey to their ultimate career. Their buy-in leads to a stronger affective commitment to the organization. Couple that commitment with their blended work and social spheres and the skills they bring with them, and you can build a company swimming with talented millennials onboard for the long term. Their desire for the work they do to have meaning is met when you cast the vision of your mission.

Luckily, this desire for purpose goes beyond the workplace into purchase decisions. In addition to having your team unified behind your mission, you will also have an edge when marketing your brand to the millennial generation. Not only that, the rock star millennials on your team will also be your greatest evangelists. This is key to a demographic who doubts the advertisements they view and hear, preferring the recommendation of someone within their network.

So, when do we start outlining your mission and communicating that to your team?