Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my co-host. Let's get started, all right. Welcome back everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast. We've got Kyle Stevie. He is remote. He just recently got kicked out of his little podcast room to. It looks like maybe the what is that? a sun room or living room? Where are you?

Speaker 3: 0:46

at Kyle Uh sun room. Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Oh, we're getting your vitamin D, but guess who's back? Monica Tuck, monica Tuck, welcome back.

Speaker 4: 0:56

I'm in my summer office.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Yeah, you're like, you're like our third, you're like our third co-host. Now You're like our, you're like a guest up here. Yeah, like the Ed McMahon kind of that just shows up.

Speaker 4: 1:09

With good guests, but I bring my people, that's right Well well, this time you brought Hannah Chapman.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Do you want to introduce Hannah?

Speaker 4: 1:17

Yes, um, so today, hannah, thank you for coming on. Um, i really wanted her to come on. Hannah is a financial wealth coach and advisor. A lot of the time, the coaching component piece is missing and there's just the advisor role, and her and I got connected. Now It's been well over 12 months ago, she at that time I was actually working with a very still dear friend of mine as an advisor, um, but I realized like I needed a lot more coaching in the middle with my business, and Hannah has been to come in to like rapidly, i would say, transform my mindset and like the direction on things of like. There's just so many wheels turning on my personal business finances, personal, the business I have my finances, my husband has his finances, i have my spending, he has his spending of the business spending. There was just so many layers to it, um, for me to even wrap my head around of like, how to organize it all.

Speaker 4: 2:15

She's like really, totally transformed me and really gotten us on a path in a good direction. So, Hannah, thank you for coming on Um, I really think you could educate a lot of others on financial coaching and then also the overarching wealth planning and advising. I had the direction. You can take it there, but then sometimes the missing steps in the middle that people get lost in um, how you can really come and collect a lot of pieces in the middle to get them to really move forward with investing and not feel like A financial illiterate person who has no clue what to do. That's basically what she's doing.

Speaker 5: 2:51

Thank you, monica. Um, i so appreciate that reflection because you know I what I'm doing. What I'm doing, you know I'm just I'm working with each individual the way that they need. Um, so it's really, it's really nice to hear the reflection from you of what's been most impactful in our, in our relationship together beyond, you know, just being friends and loving you to death. So there's all that.

Speaker 5: 3:17

But, yes, i am Hannah Chapman. I am the founder and CEO of X squared wealth planning and expansive CEO on. X squared wealth planning is an independent financial advisory firm and um an investment management house. And uh, expansive CEO is money mindset business coaching. So I get to really help people um with their money mindset, both in a um you know, working through how you feel about money, but then also what are the practical implications when it comes to not only investing, which is extremely important I, which most financial advisors would talk about, but how do your finances actually work in your business and how do we bridge the gap between your business and your personal finances, which is kind of what Monica was talking about too.

Speaker 2: 4:07

I love it. See, and guys, you got to listen to this episode because I'm pretty sure I bought the state of Ohio like a tank or an arsenal or something when we sold our business and I didn't really have to like, if I was smart about it I probably would have moved to Tennessee two years before we sold our business. But of course, here I am guy from the hood. I have no idea how money works. Nobody ever taught me these things, Nobody ever knew had any money. So you know, it just went down like that.

Speaker 2: 4:36

So Hannah explained to people some of the things that might be a good thing to think about now. While they're saying, okay, they're listening here, They're like Hey, you know what I might want to start a side hustle, Maybe. That side hustle. The hope is that it turns into your main hustle at some point, And then the hope after that is is that you're not working in it until you're 65, that you sell it at some point, build processes, things like that, And somebody else comes in and buys it. And then you got to figure out what am I going to do now with this money I got? Or how do I avoid paying all these ridiculous taxes? Or you know how do you plan for that stuff up front? What do you tell people when they're planning a business to keep in mind and to look out for?

Speaker 4: 5:25

Can I chime in first? Oh, hannah, go ahead, i'm not speaking on your behalf. I started my side hustle like 10 years ago And I same business that I'm doing now. But this is my third iteration of my business model and how I do things, and my first two iterations of how I set up systems and processes and all that were just totally out of whack and not to my benefit.

Speaker 4: 5:53

And like now, knowing like that exactly what you just said, adam, to be able to like force someone to plan that up front, if I would have known this auction was here back 10 years ago, i think I would probably be catapulting now with my business. Then, as far as, like, financials are cranking in, because I was so busy paying everybody else before I paid myself like all these kinds of things on a lot of things, and so now it's like I really do know how to set up all of that. So I think for her to chime in on that, but it's like crazy what a window of opportunity is lost and how paying her will help you so much quicker to not have to figure this out.

Speaker 2: 6:31

There you go. Yes.

Speaker 4: 6:33

Thank you.

Speaker 5: 6:35

So, monica, i mean the way that you just framed that was so good, because a lot of times people don't have that direct experience, right Like you have had, where you have gone through these different iterations like a Phoenix through the flames, right Like, no, we're, we're taking it down and we're going to build it back up again.

Speaker 5: 6:54

We're going to do it a different way, and that's a really, really powerful experience that now you can.

Speaker 5: 7:00

You know you're moving forward with more, with more confidence and more peace around your financial picture.

Speaker 5: 7:06

So, for anyone who is starting, one of the main things, one of the most important things that I get to talk to people about who are in that initial stage of business is starting with sound financial structures, and so that looks like literally paying for QuickBooks, right, like as simple as that, like actually getting accounting software, actually attaching your accounts and your credit cards, actually having separation between your business finances and your personal finances. So if you have a side hustle that you're making enough money that you should have to pay taxes on it, that needs to have its own business account. That is like one of the fundamentals, truly, so that you are starting to, from the very beginning, treat your business like a business and not like another little, just little purse or something Like just a little bit of money going into your personal accounts or you've got a Venmo and you've got Zell and people are just kind of like putting money wherever This actually happened to me because I rent my car out on Turro and actually I just actually got it out of.

Speaker 2: 8:25

There was a recall on it so I couldn't rent it for like three months but I just had as soon as I put it back up there. I had two people this week order the car And that can be. It's not like it's a little bit of money? I mean, it could be a significant amount of money just from that one little side hustle. But I have a completely separate bank account that I opened up. So I went down to PNC. I opened up a bank account just for the car. The money comes out of Turro goes into that bank account. The money comes out of it goes to Genesis, rodney J�-Yi. Wait a minute, you got a PNC, rodney J�-Yi. Yeah, well, i don't go to fifth. Well, you know the other one, rodney J�-Yi. Yeah, rodney J�-Yi.

Speaker 3: 9:03

The PNC is a big Pittsburgh bank. Rodney J�-Yi.

Speaker 2: 9:05

I know that's the only problem, but I started with Glenway Savings and Loan and Price Hill when I was five years old, rodney J�-Yi, as soon as PNC took them over.

Speaker 3: 9:13

that's just like you're paying for the sealers right now, rodney J�-Yi.

Speaker 2: 9:17

I've considered that. I've considered that It is kind of a sellout move. So, hannah, i mean that's the right move. though, right As you go and you open up a bank account, you, you, you know the money comes in, it comes out from whatever it is. In my case, money's coming in from Turro, it's going back out to Genesis Rodney.

Speaker 5: 9:33

J�-Yi Yes, exactly exactly, because, again, you're treating your business like a business And you are creating financial processes from the beginning that will allow you to grow and scale with more ease. So if you start, literally if you start your business and you sign up for QuickBooks online, and then in two years you're like, wow, there's a lot going on. I actually don't have the capacity to do the bookkeeping anymore. Now you can hire a bookkeeper and your books are already good. You don't have to go through the nightmare of like, what were all these things, what were these receipts for? Where were things going before?

Speaker 5: 10:14

You actually have insight into your own profitability as a business from the beginning. And so one of the other things that Monica had mentioned earlier was, you know, looking at pricing as well, and looking at, you know, are the things that you're doing, whether you're, you know, selling a service or a product, or you know manufacturing something. whatever it is that you're doing, are you charging an amount that is actually appropriate? Are you actually making money or are you breaking even, or are you losing money? You don't know that for like, really, unless you have good bookkeeping processes in place from the very beginning.

Speaker 2: 10:56

That's one thing I've had to learn. The hard way is you know if you've got everything going into one bank account, you don't know where you need to improve. You don't know if that business is even worth running anymore. You know, depending on what you, what else you've got going on.

Speaker 2: 11:09

If you've got a million things going on, like I do, i mean, it's hard to isolate one business unless you set that up the right way in the first place And you do not want to get yourself into a situation where you're come tax time, you're sitting here sifting through stuff and then you got to pay an account and do all this. I mean QuickBooks even has bookkeepers that you can hire as part of the service which I do, and I have a. I have a person here who does our taxes and everything else and front desk work and all that. But we still need somebody to reconcile those books every month and help us with things so that I can go into the analytics, i can go into the balance sheet and see what's going on, the profit and loss. All that stuff is accurate. Nothing's more frustrating than paying for QuickBooks and then none of the numbers in there being right.

Speaker 5: 11:54

Exactly, exactly, and so there's there is a learning curve to it. If you're making enough money right away that you can hire a bookkeeper, then that's awesome. I also want to make sure that everyone understands I am not a bookkeeper or an accountant or a CPA. I'm a wealth advisor. But it's so important to have clean books that it's almost a non-negotiable for my clients, because I work with entrepreneurs and when they don't have clean books, we also, like I, can't help them as well either. It's like it's a constant battle of how much money are you actually making? Like we have to have insight into what the business is doing, the health of the business, in order to make any of these decisions about you know what makes sense to make these bigger financial investments investing in your business, investing in yourself, investing for your retirement, investing in more employees, investing in new equipment Like there's so much that's tied literally just to clean bookkeeping and accounting, so that feels like one of the biggest ones.

Speaker 4: 13:01

So for me, i started my business I guess I could speak on behalf of the mom mom's out there as like a mom cash business 10 years ago. It's like how can I make this business work around my small children out of my home? And at that time I was. It was more just like how can I do that to make them extra money for our family while I'm with the kids and everything. But then now down the road it's well, 10 to 12 years later, it's just kind of switched. Last year where I was like you know, no, i need to really and I should. Where have I looked at what? it looked at it differently back then and started from ground zero? it's like no, plan this as a business now make the extra cash off of the after I plan how the business works and the cash model and with all of that, with all the financials it just would have, i could have aligned that too much better than.

Speaker 4: 13:59

And then, even now, when you say you're not a bookkeeper, cpa and all that stuff, i had to start thinking about this past year. Okay, i didn't have a CPA, i didn't have a financial coach, and well, i didn't have any of that. I did have the tax person that I did help help, have helped me first, but now even this year, like I haven't hired the bookkeeper this year but I'm hiring the bookkeeper next year. But like the check-ins with you has been okay. Let's take reconcile your QuickBooks like just like that to keep them clean.

Speaker 4: 14:30

Where I can right now has been like even a good little in-between until I do hire next year the ongoing bookkeeper that just does it for me every month. So I think it's like the incremental steps too, of like some people get overwhelmed with what you should be hiring for financial services. What can you afford? who should be hired to do what? first? And I think, if you just kind of look at it, as I've actually found you to be more beneficial to pay for first and then like you're kind of seeing over that and then I'm hiring the other little pieces out as I go- No, thanks, i think that's just something that helped me.

Speaker 4: 15:07

I think, for you being on this call and like other people listening on here, that I feel like you can get so overwhelmed with it, but like you can't. As a small business owner, you can't hire every single person all at once, but like what can you? but then what can you do? check-ins with yourself to keep clean books In the meantime until that person does the job for you.

Speaker 5: 15:29

Yeah, i love that And it's really true, like for where you're at in your business, like there are some things that will need more attention. Like Monica, you can chime in if this was true for you, but for a lot of times it is the money mindset And so, like, when I do start with people in x-squared wealth planning, we do start with the comprehensive plan that looks at all the data for the business, all the data for your personal, and turn it into these big beautiful projections. But what I know from my 17 years of experience in the financial sector, doing financial planning, is that if we just like leave it at the charts and graphs, like if I give you here's all the data, here's your beautiful graph that shows if you do this, you will get here. And if you save more, you'll get here. If you save less, you'll get here.

Speaker 5: 16:24

If you retire, you know, at different ages, this is what happens. That's beautiful and important, but if we don't address how you're like feeling about those numbers, if I don't check in with you, like when you see that graph and understand how you're feeling about it and what emotions are coming up, you won't actually move forward on those goals. Adam, you mentioned before, like getting that big check from selling the business and being like oh like, afraid to do anything with it. That's the money story coming up right. If you haven't grown up with millions of dollars in your pocket and you suddenly have a check that's like more than you've ever seen, your nervous system is going to go into a flight or fight response Literally over a crack.

Speaker 2: 17:09

You get scared, you don't know what to do. It's like it's wild. when you get like that big, you know you have like one big payday, like what Monica's talking about is. you know these, you know you could go that route. Maybe you get your big payday. you know, 20 years, 30 years, after you start your business, you grow it. Somebody wants to buy it off you for a couple million bucks or whatever. You know that's that would be awesome. Then you retire and you're happy.

Speaker 2: 17:33

But you know, building up to that one thing, since you've seen a lot of small businesses, i just want to set people's expectations.

Speaker 2: 17:42

Not, you know, there's a lot of people out there that have this like nine to five job that may not be as cushy as Kyle Stevie, who's, you know, bathing in gold coins over there And it doesn't need to start any other business because his company's taken such good care of him. But if you're just a regular old schlep who's got a nine to five job and you're sick of your boss and you want to start a side hustle, just let's set people's expectations. What do you think? maybe the average business you know, service-based business or whatever makes the first year, the second year, the third year, the fourth year I would almost imagine the first year you're, you're in the negative or you're trying to build, you're spending a lot of money on advertising you're, you're doing a lot of favors. And then the second year you start figuring out I can't be doing people favors. You know what? what have you seen? first year, second year, third year, maybe up to five years, just set people's expectations for what they can kind of expect, what the average is.

Speaker 5: 18:41

So it's going to depend on the industry that you're in and the what skill or product, right, that you're, that you're selling. So if you're selling you're, if you want to create jewelry and sell earrings on Etsy, you're likely going to be a lot lower than if you, you know, or a copywriter like Monica, right, and you can use like a professional skill in that way and do like kind of as a freelancer. So I'll start with that caveat, with the other nuance of if you love making earrings, then go make earrings, like absolutely, if it's something that you want to do and you're passionate about, like do that thing, especially if you want it to be a side hustle. But, that said, if it's something that you were like, oh no, i'd like I can actually make some pretty good money doing this, then you're right, there's a lot of upfront expense that can tend to come with advertising, setting things up, setting up the business. If you actually go through and you know, set up your business with the state of Ohio or wherever you're at. If you're in Kentucky, right, like, go through the whole process. There is startup costs involved there And if you're, it's going to depend on how many hours that you're spending as well, right. So if you're spending 10 hours a week on your side hustle, you might expect in the first couple of years that you maybe you're going to make 10,000 or less.

Speaker 5: 20:07

I would say for most people it could, like you said, it could very well be in the negative as well in that first year, until you start gaining some traction and figuring out who your ideal audience is, or your ideal client. And it takes some practice to figure out who that person is that is ready and willing and happy to pay for your product or service. And so once you figure out that piece, once you get that ideal client going, then it can start to feel easier. I have experienced this I know, monica, you've experienced this as well Like once you like hone in on, like oh, this is the person that really benefits from what I can do for them. And at that point then maybe you are seeing you know 15, 20,000 dollars coming in in a year And then, oh, but now you actually probably have to pay a little bit of tax on that as well. Until in the first you know three to five years, depending on how much time you can put into that, you can see it grow. So there does tend to be like a tipping point.

Speaker 5: 21:08

I would say, maybe in that three to four year range where people will start to like can I go? can I go all in? You're like, i can feel it. I can feel that I'm more passionate about my side hustle than I am about my main job. I don't like going there anymore. I really want to lean all in. But that's there's like this inflection point I'm going to say of I know I can make money at this. What happens if I do it full time? Can I support myself fully? And that is a that is definitely an inflection point where having good financial data to support that you know, hey, you're already doing pretty well when you're working 20 hours a week. Yeah, let's let's look at what that projection looks like. If you do 40, right, if you go all in and make this your main job.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Yeah, what's that point where people are just kind of okay with things? I see a lot of small business owners that once they get to a certain point maybe at the $100,000 or something like that a year that they're pocketing, you know, they kind of just the growth thing isn't there. Maybe they're a little scared to hire people to scale up or do whatever that is to get to that next level. Do you see that a lot? Do you see, like some of the people you work with they're just kind of like ah, you know, my business is bringing in 350 grand a year, i'm pocketing a hundred of that. I'm good.

Speaker 5: 22:29

So I choose to work with people who I call visionaries. So those are the people that are like, constantly thinking about growth. Right, so there. So in my own experience with clients, i do tend to draw more of those people to me for, like, i can and want to keep growing. That said the actual average. I've looked up these statistics so many times. The actual average like small business in America I think makes right around $60,000 a year.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Oh, is that that net, or is that gross?

Speaker 5: 23:08

Yeah, the figures aren't like super clear there, but I think that would be net. You know, that would be like the income that they're taking home from their business.

Speaker 2: 23:17

Yeah, that they're claiming, yeah.

Speaker 5: 23:19

Exactly Yeah, on taxes. And what's even more interesting than that, in my, in my actual experience working, you know, in a few different areas, i have had conversations with people who they might make 60 or $70,000 gross, but their goal is to spend as much of it down so that they don't pay any taxes at all.

Speaker 5: 23:42

Oh yeah, and so they're looking for like a net zero type situation. So they're not paying any taxes, not understanding that, hey, if you plan for the taxes ahead of time, you can make more money and pay your taxes easily and still make decisions that will help you minimize the taxes that you have to pay. So that's a very it's a very interesting question to think about. That, you know, like it's not even that $100,000 mark. It's like a lot of people want to get there but it's almost it's not impossible to get there by yourself. But it is a lot harder, right?

Speaker 5: 24:23

If you don't have collaborators or if you don't hire help in some way, shape or form. It doesn't have to be an employee, but it could even be, you know, hiring a virtual assistant at this point, or hiring, you know, help at home to, you know, a housekeeper to help keep the house clean, so you're not spending time doing that. Or hiring a financial coach to help you like, go through these different mental gymnastics of what it means to actually make money and how to be profitable. But when you're doing all of it yourself, that's where I tend to see people having, you know, having a hard time. Getting to that six figure mark is when they're dead set on like I have to do this all by myself And that's exactly where.

Speaker 4: 25:07

Go ahead. I'm sorry, keeping earth, you know. I feel like. I feel like that's exactly where I landed in your lap, cause like I was like comfortable making an average amount out of my expenses and all that. But then I'm like, no, i want to go further than this. But then it's like all the other stuff, that life and work and everything. It's hard to do it all And then and I'm not going to be the one to do it all and just figuring out how to juggle all of that and what makes sense to pay out for what and what should I be keeping percentage wise on certain things? and all of that is just like there's so many little wheels at turn to even get you to move that needle.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Well, and I also, monica, I think there's people like you who are like, hey look, i'm going to pay you You mentioned it, i think you're going to pay yourself last kind of. And I've got people that have left and they've gone and done their own thing And they're definitely pay myself first but they have like unreasonable expectations on what they were going to make, like they thought they were just going to be doing work all day, like, oh, i'm going to go do design websites all day and blah, blah, blah. Well, no, you're going to spend half the day in QuickBooks. You're going to spend part of the day chasing down clients to pay their invoices. You're going to be writing emails that you're not making money on. You're going to have meetings discovery meetings that you're not making money on. You're going to be writing proposals. You're going to be doing all that Maybe 10, 20% of your day. You're actually going to be doing billable work.

Speaker 2: 26:31

And somebody like you you could go in the private sector right now or go, you know, go work at a business, a PNG or one of those with all the skills you have and make over $100,000 a year. Why would you want to be like an entrepreneur? I mean, at this point you're good, but you know you struggled for a while is what it sounds like. Well, why do that? Why not just, you know, be cool and go, and you know, go work at Proctor and get your little stock options and do all that. Make yourself 100 plus a year, 200,000 a year, whatever it is For you personally, why keep going and doing this? Why keep fighting and reinventing your company?

Speaker 4: 27:14

Freedom and purpose. Because I can have the freedom to work my business around my life anywhere that I want. I have 100% control of that. I can have time with my kids for anything that I need. I can run out in the middle of the day My home-based office it's still out of my home. I can go up to school for the parties. I can do all of that and still come. It's still a mind game, like anyone has, even in working for a larger company or not. But then the purpose too of being able, my ideal client, who I serve, which are independent startup scaling business owners And you hear a lot of the time too, even here in Cincinnati.

Speaker 4: 27:54

I mean, i get people all the time. Am I too little for you to work with or will you work with me, or are you gonna take on bigger clients and not me? And I feel like a lot of the time here in Cincinnati too that size person feels lost and they need someone to help and guide them. And I feel like it's my duty and my calling, my purpose, to help startup scaling business owners, because if I wasn't helping them, who? the number of people, the number of people doing that goes down, because then people wanna go back to the corporate agency world or they wanna go to the big corporation and take the job, or then I'm helping the PNG or I'm helping agency and everything in that. Where the little guys feel like the one on one, attention gets lost And it's the freedom and purpose of who I serve and why I serve them And it works around my life as being a mother.

Speaker 2: 28:48

And is that a pretty common answer, Like do you think that's something that you hear from a lot of entrepreneurs?

Speaker 5: 28:55

Oh yeah, the freedom. The freedom is the most important part for most entrepreneurs, i think, and for me that I was part of a larger group for almost 14 years, so my entire career has been in finance and I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. My parents were entrepreneurs. They owned two different businesses When I was growing up. My aunt's, uncle's, grandparents, on both sides all entrepreneurship small business ownership runs through my family And yet I was terrified of the fluctuations that we experienced.

Speaker 5: 29:37

Money was not talked about. it was just like it was just stress really. When I was very, very young And the story that really came up around money over and over again throughout my entire family except for one uncle and his family who were really successful was that being self-employed is really difficult. Money is hard to make and hard to hold on to. It's gonna be a struggle for a really long time. That was the story, that was the family's story, and so I wanted stability. I wanted to work at a bank and that's where I started And that felt like bankers hours and it felt really stable.

Speaker 5: 30:21

Then I moved into financial services and that also felt really stable for a long time, and it wasn't until I started budding up against the feelings that were put in place for me at the place where I was. It was like you're probably not ever gonna be a partner here And we don't really wanna talk to you about what your equity portion is gonna look like or when you can buy your book or when you might have more of a say over how you would do your own work. And when I started realizing like, oh, this box is like getting tighter and tighter around me and I can't even be myself and go out and get clients in a way that feels good to me And I'm building a business for somebody else right That? all the work that I'm doing. I see how much they're making because I'm part of the team that looks at all of that And yet my portion is like this tiny sliver and I'm doing so much work And I know there are so many people who are experiencing that same thing and whatever industry they're in, where you're pouring out your heart and you know you're doing something that you're really good at. But it's not even about not feeling the appreciation. It's about, like you know, you're building for someone else rather than building for yourself, and building for your own family and building for your own, like Makka said, on your purpose and in a way that will benefit your family.

Speaker 5: 31:49

And so when I saw So clearly, i didn't want to see it for a long time. But when I finally looked at it and realized that I was not going to be able to build a business that really supported me and my family the way that I wanted to doing the thing that I love doing, it was so clear Like I had to go. There was no other option that even made sense. I interviewed at a few other places just to make sure, but it was like, yeah, no, i have ideas And I have something special about me that I know is in there that I want to bring out and that I want to help others in a different way that doesn't exist, that I don't see in my industry yet, and so I'm going to be the one that goes and creates it. And so a lot of my clients are that same way. They've felt burned, they felt traumatized in some way shape or form from an employer, from someone in their own office who was somehow in competition with them.

Speaker 5: 32:53

Oh yeah, like where they're just really like office drama that you're like, wow, we don't have to do this.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Yeah, why am I putting up with that? Yeah?

Speaker 5: 33:01

Right, and that's a lot of times that's one of the triggers to go. But then, once you're out, you're like, oh man, never again, i will never work for someone else again. I hear that so often, and that doesn't mean you can't ever shift. But the freedom that you feel when you're like, oh, i can, i can do this, i can support myself, i can do the thing I love and do all the other stuff that doesn't like you're saying it's not in your wheelhouse right this second. You have to do the invoicing, you have to do the emails. You got to do all that stuff, but I can actually do the thing that I love also and make money at it. That's the piece that people latch onto.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Well, i can't even imagine going and working for somebody anymore, like I'm unemployable, i think, at this point.

Speaker 4: 33:47

I say the same. I say that same word all the time. People are like how are you unemployable? I'm like, i'm just unemployable. I have no one.

Speaker 2: 33:55

I don't think I mean outside of graphic design. I don't think there's one thing in, maybe, marketing strategy There's not really anything that I would put my finger on and say that I would go and look for. Like what job would I go do? I don't even know. Like I was struggling the other day figuring out. When somebody says to me, adam, what do you do, i'm like I don't know. Like a million different things. I don't want to rattle off like 10 things. I need a list on a business card that I could just hand them or something. But I said at the end of the day I'm like a side hustle expert. Like that's what I am.

Speaker 2: 34:26

I do side hustles. I got a bunch of them And I do them a lot of times just to kind of be the first kid in the pool and tell everybody else how warm it is. You know, and that's just that's kind of my role, that's kind of how I see myself And that's why I do the Turro thing, that's why I got this podcast, that's why I just created a YouTube channel, the Etsy channel. You know all this stuff that I do And you know you talk about this idea of people hating the fact that they're making other people rich. Kyle here is almost single-handedly made Ken Oaks a billionaire. I mean at least half of his wealth. Kyle is probably because of you, i would say.

Speaker 3: 35:03

You're going to get me fired. I have never once said that and I will never say that. We probably have the one company that's you're so close to being an entrepreneur inside of the actual employment that it doesn't. We don't have the same issues as we would have, like a proctoring gamble or Kroger or somewhere along the lines where you're capped at what you can make at each level And you're, if you don't achieve that level, you're pretty much looking for another job that you can get to that level. I've never had to experience that aspect of it.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Because you're kind of your own boss when you're doing the sales stuff there.

Speaker 3: 35:43

Right, I mean you're, you suffer the losses If your paperwork's not done correctly. you know you your percentage of the loss and you get your percentage of the game when you do it right. Yeah, i've never, it's never been anything like that. But as you guys have all talked about, i mean I didn't have that kick in the butt like God I got this place at the box is closing in on me. But I mean I watched it happen to my parents and I watched them. you know they were raised by baby. they were raised by depression era babies and their baby boomers and they were taught.

Speaker 3: 36:15

you know we're lower, we're working class to lower middle class people. That's just who we are. This is what we do. We just find a safe place to work and you just work and you work And I watch. you know my mom kind of gets played around at Delta And my dad go from job to job with what he was doing with the meeting. You're job, job. you get a few jobs You had to have And I thought, well, this isn't any safer than going out and trying to do something on your own. I mean, either way you're at, you're at the mercy of fate, you know. but my fate is, customers won't like my pitch and I won't get any customers. Your mercy is they're downsizing because they didn't get the quarterly earnings that they thought they were going to get And now their stock prices starting to go down 15%. So your job is on the chopping block.

Speaker 2: 37:04

Yeah, that's what I was always afraid of, especially in advertising, monica. So it's so, your, your. It's probably one of the easiest industries to just get let go from, because the fluctuations are so crazy around so much. Yes, yes.

Speaker 4: 37:20

Everyone. It's just not consistent at all. Not at all. I know it's funny that.

Speaker 4: 37:26

Going back to what Kyle was just saying, my story is a little different. So I was raised by my dad, but my grandpa was a business owner. My dad was a business owner. It's a little different one, but they were very. They were small town business owners, local, small town, lightly used car dealership, and my grandpa was like a cash quarter. He was that era like where you like put all this cash in like shoeboxes under his bed Because my grandma has been living off of it for I don't know how long after my grandpa passed away, but he never. And but I now I know the value of cash like as inflation goes and all this, it's like, not, it's nothing gonna be like it used to be for the cash quarter, nope, and My dad, i feel like kind of got stuck in that mindset. But then he got stuck in the inflation like and so he never really came out of that And then he never really knew how to balance the business, the personal, and he was doing it all so much himself that He actually had to sell the business to get out of so many debts that he got into to to finally get on the other side and With that, when I started I was naturally an entrepreneur, because I've been an entrepreneur since I was 23, but I never I was fall.

Speaker 4: 38:43

I thought. I thought the money story I was. I'm not saying that I was gonna fall right back in my dad's trap, but I felt like I was gonna fall right back in the same cycle because the Financial like literally planning and coaching and everything to get me to where I needed to be, to think about taking the cash that I need to now, at age 42, in order in the next 20 to 30 years, be you know, living a somewhat nice lifestyle with my grandchildren that I had to. Really. That's really what made me think about it too, because it's like I Can't, it's not like it can be a cash order, living that type of mindset. I don't want to go back and with Hannah and the money minds mindset stories Her stories are similar to mine in many ways that it's just like how do you like have someone there to like Sort all this out and really help you think ahead of how to plan the business to make money and be profitable?

Speaker 2: 39:37

Yeah, totally makes sense. Hannah, explain to me the this, i guess, the stages a business like Monica's or somebody's goes through. You're at that beginning stage. You're working by yourself, you're doing everything yourself. Then you decide to hire some people. Maybe you're making a little extra money. You're like I'm gonna bring on an assistant. Then you're like, hey look, i can afford to hire another person to take over some of these tasks that I do To make money.

Speaker 2: 40:05

Now you're making money off of other people's time, not your time, because times of commodity and you've only got so many of it, so many hours, in a day, that you can actually bill for your hours. But what is the point where you really see these businesses take off? Is it when? is it when they hire like a salesperson, when they bring somebody on to to really get serious about sales? They're not just pulling, they're not just pulling leads in from their personal network. They find somebody or you know Service that they can bring on that actually helps them find things like when is that point where where it stops being? It stops being a personal business and actually starts turning into like a real thing?

Speaker 5: 40:51

so you, you went straight to it and There's also a nuance as to what you need. But it's when you start to replace yourself, right, so that you're not spending, you're not trading your time for dollars. So when you can get out of the spot where you are trading your time for dollars and that's the only thing That actually brings money in, that's when you start to scale. So the reason I say it depends on what side you're at is because for I'll give an example one of my clients They're building an awesome business and one of the one of the partners is Amazing at sales, like that's what he does, but he's also like the operations of the team. So do they need to hire a salesperson? No, they just needed to hire someone to replace the tasks he was doing so that he could go out and sell more. And the same the other partner for her it was, you know, getting out of the Day-to-day tasks. That even I mean. I think they ended up hiring someone at a good, like thirty five dollars an hour, like a, like a good job, to take the things off of her plate, because when she builds clients it's at a hundred and fifty dollars an hour, right, so taking those, those tasks that are important, that the, the customers and the clients need done, but that can be done by someone else and done well, so that you can be in your zone of joy and genius, which is typically at a much higher rate.

Speaker 5: 42:32

So when you stop trading all of your time for those you know, 10, 15, 25, 35, $50 an hour tasks Like that's kind of, that's kind of how you accelerate So you get the lowest prior, lowest dollar tasks off your plate first, right. So start paying someone for the stuff that you can get off your plate easily. Or automating is another way to do it right. Automate the things might cost $10 a month, right, to automate something if you have the right software. Or pay someone like Monica to do like a strategy session and get things in place. So your marketing and your all of that stuff is on autopilot, right. You pay for the lower Dollar tasks that are lower than what you can actually charge if you are doing the thing that you're best at most of the time, and so that's where I have seen the most gross, the most rapidly as well.

Speaker 5: 43:26

So it's when people hang on to those lower dollar tasks because they're like, oh, i want to save the business money. So I'm not gonna hire someone to do these things. They're literally spending their time on a piece of the business. That is not Their zone of genius, it's probably not even their zone of excellence. It might be their zone of competence Yeah, you can do this, but Just barely right. Or they might even be doing things in their zone of incompetence, which is like you really shouldn't be doing that, like if you really shouldn't be doing your bookkeeping, then I got that you should be for me, monica's pride, not for you either.

Speaker 2: 44:02

We're creative people. We're both the same E&T. No, and I will screw something up, and I know that. So let me, let me just not Do that and just give that to somebody else to do. And you know, i always tell people in my wife's shins are in business too. I, you know, the thing is, is work on your business, not in your business, right, and that's what she's learned to do. but she has a problem in Monica. I bet you have the same problem. I have the problem. People want to work with you. They're coming in, they want to work with you. They're like I want Monica, i want Melissa, i want Adam. I don't want to work with some Shlep that I don't know. I came in here to work with you. How do you combat that?

Speaker 4: 44:46

How do I? or Hannah, oh, how would you?

Speaker 2: 44:50

recommend. How would you recommend people respond to that?

Speaker 5: 44:54

You phrase your team so much.

Speaker 5: 44:59

You present yourself as we. You present yourself as, yeah, this is what I do in the business and then you're gonna get, you know, this person that's gonna take care of all this stuff and you're gonna get this person that's gonna help with all of this stuff. So you present it as a package that you are more powerful because You come with these awesome people that are here to support your clients fully like, and that's that is the. That is the most powerful way for people to be introduced to your team is not like, oh, now you're gonna hear you know from my assistant and you're like Bad mouthing anything or like complaining about someone.

Speaker 5: 45:40

Right, like when you, when you as the leader of a company, when you want to Elevate yourself to the CEO spot and you have, you know, team members with you, the more that you cherish and praise and Present that like unified front to your clients, the more your clients will then receive that it's not just you, it's you plus The teams. Your face might still be important for a while until you grow big enough to where you can lift all the way out, but it is a a growing process from it's just me to now it's us, now It's a bigger us, and now you can lift out right. So it's like growing through those stages.

Speaker 4: 46:22

I've also figured out to To Definitely exactly what you're just saying. However, don't lift out so much until you're really ready to lift out, because when you do lift out, people still want your face so much. And if you still have time to spare to do, if it's your level of genius in the areas, then that's why even now there's more execution that I'm taking back on. With copywriting. I'm like, actually people want that of me and they don't want me to take my toes out of that. That I do the strategy and I do the copy, but then I delegate out the rest And I just learned like, and I enjoy and it's things I enjoy and they might use in a genius. So I have learned to just stay in those areas, because then also, too, the money that I have coming back to the business now to continue the growth of the business Now, when I take on what I can as far as execution goes, it works for me for now Like figuring out exactly how to do that.

Speaker 3: 47:19

I love it.

Speaker 5: 47:20

Well and with the, with the added Piece of that, you actually enjoy it that you get into like a flow state, like that's I mean, that's the way you've spoken about it to me. Right is that when you are, when you're taking on the copywriting and you're like Like getting yourself into someone's voice, that it actually it flows really easily. And if you have to disjoint yourself and like give it to someone else, it's you're still spending time trying to communicate that rather than just like letting it flow.

Speaker 4: 47:49

And so I find my creativity to. I feel like it stops my creative process And what I need to do to feel like I finished out the full creative process with the With them business or brand, right Yeah.

Speaker 5: 48:02

And so that honoring your energy, honoring where your energy is flowing, is just as important as the other pieces, right, and so that's that's super important. There's a lot of shoulds that we get into when we think about hiring or we think about you know. So if anything is like well, people say I should be not doing this, so I'm not going to, but I really love it, that's a conversation you need to think more deeply about. Like, if anyone is shooting on what you do, or you need to do this because that's what worked for me, or you should do that because everyone's doing it, that doesn't mean it's the right path for you.

Speaker 2: 48:38

specifically, Yeah, yeah. Well, hannah, this has been awesome. I want to. I want. a lot of people are going to eventually need your wealth management services, but at first, i mean just you're consulting the things that you do with your expansive CEO method, the some of the services you offer. You've got that CEO program. You got the mastermind. You've got classes that your people can sign up to teach these sessions, these live sessions that you're doing. Talk a little bit about that and how people can can reach out, how they can find you and how they can get started.

Speaker 5: 49:15

Yeah, thank you for that question, adam, because I do find there there are people who are ready for to jump in with the comprehensive wealth planning and investment management Right. And so if that's where you're at, if you're already making multiple six figures, seven figures in your business and ready to like know more about how you can feel at peace with your finances, x squared might be the right place for you. But there is an entire segment of people and business owners who haven't got those financial structures in place yet or are noticing all of the money stories I call the money stories that are coming up that are really blocking them from making progress in in their business and with their finances. And so I created expansive CEO to be that, that initial structure place for the inner game of money and the outer game. So literally talking about what you want to create and where are you right now financially And what do you want to be doing and how do you want to feel while you're doing it. And also, where are you pricing your, your offers, where, how are you niching to your ideal client, how are you budgeting for your personal and your business?

Speaker 5: 50:34

And so we go through in the expansive CEO program, we go through all of those pieces and we talk about how you're feeling about your money, what's coming up and what are you actually implementing with your finances as well. So that's a really, really good program where it'll be available as six modules, that you'll go through the modules and then have live sessions to go through all your questions, to go through your specific needs with me, and it's just a really it's a really awesome program that I'm excited to be offering. And then the mastermind is for people who are ready to like continue that, continue that conversation, to be in weekly communion, basically with other other business owners who are at a similar place to you and support one another and talk about expansion and alignment and discovering what you want to do next and all of that. So, yeah, that money mindset work paired with the actual implementation is where, where I differentiate myself really on both sides with x squared and with expansive CEO, we have to look at the intergame and the outer game together always.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Well, yeah, and I just get the sense just from listening to you You're an easy person to talk to, you listen, you have really good advice, but it's condensed into a form that people can understand. So, if you don't have an MBA, you didn't go to Harvard University and you're trying to run a small business, it almost seems like you're one of the people that would be great. I don't feel any like ego from you, like I do with some of these financial people. I mean you, you, you donate a portion of your profits to women, helping women, which is really cool, and I think you know you're, you're, you're doing the things that you should be doing as an advisor And I appreciate it And I, monica, thanks for having Hannah on the show today. That's awesome. And, hannah, do you want to leave us with anything in particular?

Speaker 5: 52:44

Yeah, i would. I love connecting with people on social media and online And if anything felt like, oh, i really want to know more, i want to get to know you. You can go to my website. You can go to either one either ex squared wealth planning That's X than the new world to wealth planning dot com or expansive CEO dot com, and you can book a virtual coffee with me on either side, and we can have 25 minutes just to talk about your situation a little bit, get to know each other.

Speaker 5: 53:13

And if I am a super connector that's one of the reasons I met Monica I love connecting with people And you know, if I, if I can help you, i'll tell you, and if I know someone else who might be able to help you, i can probably connect you there as well. So, love connecting with people. And the last piece is that I always say that there is enough. There's enough for everyone, there's enough for all of us to do the thing that we love, and there are enough people out there who need what you can do to build a life, to build the life that you really want to build.

Speaker 3: 53:47

I love it.

Speaker 2: 53:48

Well, Hannah, thanks so much. Monica again, Thanks for being on the show and being our Thank you. Yeah, our third co-host here.

Speaker 4: 53:56

Thanks everyone. I'll be back again soon.

Speaker 2: 53:58

Yes, all right guys, i got to check out the calendar.

Speaker 4: 54:01

who's coming next?

Speaker 2: 54:02

There you go, sure, there you go, keep sending them.

Speaker 4: 54:04

Thank you, hannah, thanks guys, bye, see you, bye.

Speaker 2: 54:08

Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests, now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.