How Krista Neher Built a Successful Social Media Consultancy and Professional Brand

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 Today's special guest, kristen Neer from Boot Camp Digital, a Canadian originally. Former nine to five or well, nine, I don't know what they had you doing at P&G. I don't know if it was nine to five or nine to nine or eight to nine or what kind of hours they had you working, but former corporate person turned entrepreneur.

Speaker 3: 0:55

Yeah, hi, I'm a Canadian, obviously. I'm super nice, so get ready for that.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Well, hey, you moved to Cincinnati at one point. Yeah, we're pretty nice. I would say we're not as bad as some places.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Yeah, that's totally true, cincinnati is great. I love Cincinnati.

Speaker 2: 1:09

What made you want to go down to Florida? What was the thing there? Was it just the weather? Or what were you guys thinking? Because you got a whole family.

Speaker 3: 1:17

Yeah, correct. So I'll give you like the short backstory, which is I'm Canadian, moved to Cincinnati to work at Proctor Gamble, but my husband, eventually I was in Cincinnati for like 12 years and then, when we had our son, the question was like, okay, when you have kids it's harder to move, it's harder to change things, right, you just there's more pieces to think about. So when my son was born, I was like, you know, we had talked about leaving Cincinnati just to experience somewhere different. It wasn't like, oh, we hate this place and got to get out. We loved Cincinnati, you know, we lived in over the Rhine, it was great, but we both are into like boating, beaches, so we really both had an interest in living in the beach somewhere. And so when my son was told we decided to move, because we just said, heck it, you know, let's do it. We had a vision board, literally, of like boats and beaches in Florida that we each had on our desk to just keep us, keep the eye on the prize Right, what is it we really want for ourselves? And so the opportunity came up where I had a key employee leave and I thought, you know, look, let me shut down my office and we can move and so put our house up for sale. And then I had a client in Holland that asked me to go work for them. So they had asked if I would work on site and previously I was like I'm not going to like live in Holland, but at that point like well, why not do a little detour? So we ended up being there five years and when we decided to come back to the US it was like we still didn't get our beach life. So we headed to Florida.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Yeah, well, it was wild because I remember when you were, when you moved to the Netherlands and it was, it was like that's a big transition for somebody. I mean nowadays they probably would let you work remote because of like the post COVID remote work thing Maybe, you know. I mean you were in a pretty high up position so you know it might be tough for somebody like you to be remote in another country on a different time zone. So living there and that must have been a fun transition. And your kids, do they still remember it? Do they still remember the time?

Speaker 3: 3:25

They do. They can't speak Dutch anymore, but they we're at a rubo which is Dutch speaking, which confirmed they know Zero Dutch. But they still remember living there. They still like to do zoom calls with their friends. The problem is they can't speak Dutch anymore, so they can't actually talk to these kids.

Speaker 2: 3:41

But oh wow, how is the English there, though? I mean as far as, like, I mean every time Everybody, that mean you're super close to England, so I would assume the English is decent.

Speaker 3: 3:50

Well, it's not because of the proximity to England. If that were the case, all the French would speak English. It's just because it's a small country. So, as an adult living there, I didn't need to. I didn't learn any Dutch. Everyone spoke English. Most services are offered in English but, like, kids don't learn English. They start learning English in school and they pick it up from YouTube, but, like any adult I encountered could speak English. Children could not speak English.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Interesting. Okay, so for your kids that was a definite issue.

Speaker 3: 4:21

Well, they learned they were. My daughter was born there and my son was 10 months old, so they just learned Dutch at school, so they never really they didn't think of it as a difference. You know? Yeah, it's just how it grew up.

Speaker 2: 4:33

So while the other kids were learning English, your kids were learning Dutch, so you bounce around a little bit. I mean, you did have a long stint in Cincinnati here with with Proctor and with your own business. You started bootcamp digital, which is a social media agency consultancy, here in Cincinnati. Went really well. And then that's when you moved over to to the Netherlands, but you, you kept your company going Correct.

Speaker 3: 5:00

Correct. So, essentially, like, I had started bootcamp digital in 2007 and we moved to Holland in like 27, no 2018 maybe so I already had an established business, processes, everything else. So when we decided to move, we basically virtualized the company, and so that was, like you know, pre COVID. We've been virtual since 2018. And so the time zone kind of worked out in a strange way, because during the day, I would be on site with the client for the most part, and I wasn't 100% dedicated, but mostly, and then, because it's a six hour time zone difference, I could pick up afternoons in the US and the evenings on my time, so I was still able to run my business from there, even though there was a time zone difference.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Yeah, the digital, the digital business, the digital agency seems to be one of the most popular side hustles. You and I have been doing it. Before side hustles were like before the term probably even existed side hustle, it's just, people just did it right. And now I'm seeing that the government, maybe the IRS, whoever's involved in it they're starting to crack down on this, like freelance or culture, and I just looked at the numbers and I think it was 80% of millennials have a side hustle or work freelance of some sort, which is scary. If they start cracking down on this and I don't know what their crackdown looks like, but it's almost like they're coming after this, this culture, and it's kind of scary to think about because people are probably paying their car bill with their freelance income, you know, and they're going to want anyone who is getting paid as a 1099 to be a full-time employee now, which is what they've been trying to do. I've heard them talk about this for a long time. I just don't know how they're going to make it happen. I mean, if you're only doing two hours of freelance, you know, are they going to make you be a full time. So there has to be some guideline.

Speaker 3: 6:58

There are guidelines on if somebody can be a contractor or an employee, and those already exist. What I would assume is the IRS is cracking down on enforcing it, but like that's not really a bad thing because those rules exist, believe it or not, to protect the employees more so than the employers. Because, as an employer, if I can just convince you to work for an hourly rate, that's better for me, because you have all the tax responsibility right, et cetera. But if I don't meet the right requirements that you can be a freelancer and not an employee, I just have to pay you as an employee and then I'm paying payroll taxes, I'm contributing to your 401k, et cetera. So you know, to me it's like it's a little bit semantics of whether you're on payroll two hours a week or paid freelance two hours a week. It shouldn't make a difference in the end. But I do think it's about making sure that I mean, if it's the IRS is really about them getting their money, but also as an employee, it's not the worst thing. As long as you're getting paid. I don't see why it would matter. It's not something that I would lose sleep over if I was doing freelance.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yeah, so you don't see it as a big problem for the side hustle culture, the freelance culture at all. It just kind of yeah yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:14

And the people who run into issues with this tend to be more like where you're almost operating, it's intended to like, if you're operating as an employee but they're only paying you as a freelancer and you're really evading taxes and responsibilities that way right. I know a big company we work with that uses freelancers almost as employees. The freelancers cannot work for them for over two years because then they have to convert to an employee. So I don't think it'll impact most people because, generally speaking, people who are operating as employees are probably paid that way Side hustle. People don't want the whole employee thing right. Exactly. Whether they control where you work, when you work, et cetera. So as a freelancer, I'm not going to take a client that's like, well, you've got to come into my office and work here for two hours, nine to 12 every day, Like I don't think it's going to be an issue.

Speaker 2: 9:07

No, but for you having that P&G job, having that corporate job and then being able to build an agency kind of on the side, I don't know, were you doing P&G and did you kind of like blend your corporate job eventually into a full time at boot camp digital?

Speaker 3: 10:00

Well, there was a step in the middle. So I was full time at Proctor and Gamble, working in finance and like I liked it well enough, right, good job, you're paid well, you can continue to progress if you want. Like I was a top performer, so like life was fine for me there. But like I looked at my boss, I'm like I don't want this guy's job. Yes my job, but worse. That's what I told him I was like. Your job is like mine, only worse than everywhere, and even remember the general manager I worked with. So imagine a general manager at Proctor and Gamble, the guys in his mid 50s. He's worked there for ages, he's super high up the ladder Like general manager, is like really, really top of this huge company. And he got into a position where he was kind of like forced to retire and I was like, oh, that must be amazing. And he was like, well, I still have to work. I'm like you got to be kidding me. Like I can imagine what this man has made every year. And he still has to work. And he's like, yeah, but now as I made more and more money we have horses, my kids go to boarding schools I'm like dude. So like that was not oh, money no problems, yeah Well especially if you spend it like that right. So you're just expanding your lifestyle to meet your money, so you're trapped for life. So when I looked around, I didn't see models of a life I wanted for myself. So I started working part time for an internet startup actually, and that was like in 2006. And at the time we did all social media and online marketing like it was before Facebook. We did MySpace marketing, we use blogs, like all this stuff, and I really liked that because I felt like it had so much more impact being able to do things for a small business where you could just like get things done real quick, and I loved it. And so then eventually that got funded. I got my green card. Also. I couldn't leave PNG. I didn't have a green card, so my green card came through, but I wasn't looking to leave really. But it was like my green card came through and a few months after that the startup got funded so they could pay me. But you know, I probably took almost a 50% salary hit. I mean, sure, I got options and whatnot, but it's like a get. You can't really count on that with a startup, right? No, but I didn't. I didn't live at my salary right. So it didn't matter to me that I was making less. It didn't change my lifestyle day to day, just less than my savings accounts. But that company got acquired within maybe a year or two and then I was trying to decide what to do next and I got offers to go work at ad agencies and I thought like that could be cool because it was the beginning of digital and social. So they were offering me like VP of social media and I'm still in my 20s, so that was like a really big could have been a big title. But I was just thinking like man, I do not want to go and be stuck in this like everything is urgent, working a million hours about this stuff. That, like, doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2: 12:54

I was in that world. I get it.

Speaker 3: 12:56

Yeah. So at the same time, like I was evaluating it, but I wasn't excited. And at the same time, somebody who worked at PNG followed me on Twitter and he asked to meet with me and he was like hey, we're getting ready to switch our digital agency. Can we hire you as a consultant in the meantime? And I'm like yes, yeah, Google, and how much do you charge? I was like extra money, yeah, I had no idea what I was doing, right, but I was like, yeah, of course I'll onboard you to my process. Like I have no process, I'm going to go Google it. But I made it sound like I do this all the time. Right, and PNG became like my first consultant client I got hired by. At the time the biggest digital marketing conference was called AdTech. They hired me to do their social media. So people were coming directly to me and I just thought why would I want to go get a job when this quality of people obviously sees value in what I can do? And that was really how I started my business was people were coming to me and that signaled to me like okay, I can do this, and then I can figure out how do I scale and grow from there.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Well, that's a very important point you just made and I think people overlook that. You know folks I get on YouTube. I look at these side hustles these people are doing, and I got these 25 year old kids or whatever, however old they are on on YouTube saying I built a $60,000 a month digital agency and you can too, right. And I'm like, okay, let me look into what this guy's doing. Right, that's not really for everybody. Like, you and I both had to go work in corporate for a while to build our network. So you know, your first client was PNG. That allowed you to do your thing. I worked in the ad agencies for a long time and started freelance and inside of the ad agencies and then everybody just recognized me as a freelancer at some point and I was like, why don't I just do turn us into a company, you know, and it sound like that's kind of what you did too. But those original leads, those kind of like I call them like pillar clients, right You've got. If we were in the mall they'd be like the, the Dillards and the Sears. I don't even know if Sears isn't around anymore. Well, some of these clients aren't around either, but but, yeah, the big ones. Right, you got the big staple stores and then you got the guys selling gold chains in the middle, in the, in the, in the Dead Sea face cream and stuff. Right, you got some of those clients. Every once in a while you're going to have them, but but it's like a mall, right. You've got these big clients and you've got the ones that kind of have their own little stores and then you got the ones in the middle. But you had that pillar client. You had that procter and gamble that was like, hey, I want to bring you in, and then that could lead to something else. And then you had ad tech. Call you people at ad. Tech in the marketing world is so incestuous too. It's especially around Cincinnati. Everybody bounces around, nobody sticks around. They're here, you know they're at a company for a couple years and then off they go to another company. But if they worked with you at the previous company, they remember you at the next company. Well, now you got your claws into the next company and it just kind of goes like that. But you had to get that original business and you had to build your personal brand, the Christian near brand, outside of the bootcamp digital brand.

Speaker 3: 16:11

Yeah. So, like there's two ideas that come to mind right. One is you know, because we do training and consulting and social media and digital marketing, I work with a gazillion different types of businesses from, like, the biggest businesses in the world that you've heard of. You know, we work with the US Army, procter and Gamble, nike, us Senate all these big companies to like, the smallest businesses you've never heard of. And one thing I see with a lot of people who want to start a business is they come up with this idea and it's like oh, I'm going to start a business, I'm going to like consult with people on their home entertainment systems. I'm like, look, if you don't have people you already know asking you for this, if they don't see you as the expert in adding value and wanting to pay you money, it's going to be super hard to build a business from it. So if you can't put out there what you do and get some level of traction, I think that should like sound a little bit of an alarm bell. Maybe that like maybe you're not playing to your strengths, you know, because I think people get hooked on these ideas through YouTube or whatever, but that doesn't mean that you personally are the right person to deliver on that, for whatever reason you know. And I think the other thing is there's so much freaking noise in the system about ways to make money and 98% of it is BS. I'm sorry, but if somebody made $2 million on their own agency, they're not sitting there making YouTube videos to tell you how to do it. $1 million and $200 million, they would keep scaling and keep doing it. Anyone who claims to tell you how to make a bunch of money the way they did is completely lying. The people out there making money are making more money. They're not telling you about it on these stupid YouTube videos. And you know you do need to be a little discerning because there's so much nonsense. Somebody who one of the people we work with, who I really respect she said to me oh, I think, like she, she had gotten a lot of success on TikTok and then it kind of plateaued right. So she's like trying to figure out her next thing because she was like a legit TikTok influencer, right. And so she's like oh, I think I'm going to go to YouTube. And she's like I was reading if you pick the niches right, you can make $60 CPM. So some guru telling her how to make money. I said that can't be right, because for you to make a $60 CPM, somebody would need to pay $120 CPM for YouTube. Nobody's paying that it's just, it's math.

Speaker 2: 18:34

Yeah, it doesn't work and you and I know this stuff because we're in the industry. But a lot of people are just going to watch this stuff. And the people what they're trying to do is they're trying to build their brand on YouTube, they're trying to build their influence or trying to build their subscriber base. They come out and they say really smart stuff, which I mean you could look a lot of this stuff up on on Google and just create a framework out of it that you can create a YouTube video for. Right, Like they may not have even done any of this stuff. They just go look up how to do something and then turn it into a fun video with a cool background and awesome lighting. But, like I don't understand, these kids are like 19, 20 years old in some cases. Right, I'm like, and they look like they probably came from a good family because they got good hair. The skin looks good, right, I'm like they ate their vegetables. Growing up, they didn't eat ramen and, like you know, saltine crackers with peanut butter, like I did.

Speaker 3: 19:23

So I love this judgment. They look nice.

Speaker 2: 19:25

So they must be a. I'm telling you, yeah, they're dads. You know somebody's funding this lifestyle of theirs and they're they're. You know. Don't worry, you know, I want to be an influencer dad. Okay, well, here's some money to do that over the next couple of years. Let's see what you can get done. You know, I mean, didn't Taylor Swift dad fund her music career with like 400 grand or something at first?

Speaker 3: 19:46

Or like yeah, right, first of all, anyone, not anyone, but like even you. Look at, like Gary Vee, and I think you know there people have polarizing opinions on him, I think on the one hand I find him annoying, on the other hand, he has value to add, right Like. I see both sides of it all. But the thing is, in no way is this guy self made right, despite his whole old college. Doesn't matter, do whatever you want. Look, he came from a wealthy family who owned a big business and they gave him a job right away. Yeah, he got famous, not doing social media. He got famous working for his dad's wine company. He did wine library TV and then he parlayed that. Because he got so much social fame and it was right at the beginning of social he parlayed that into an agency. So he's smart. I'm not trying to take away from that, but this is not a replicatable model for normal humans, no, and to act like hustle harder work, more hours is kind of nonsense.

Speaker 2: 20:44

Work smarter, not harder right.

Speaker 3: 20:47

Work on the thing that's right for you, and I think if you work on anything right, there's videos out there that are like how to become an influencer on Instagram or like we get consult requests sometimes for somebody saying, oh, I'm going to become a YouTuber, can you help? I'm like no. Like you can just like use free resources and figure out how to make good YouTube videos and if people seem to like them, then make more. And if they don't stop, you don't need someone walking you through this step by step and if you do, this is probably not your pathway to starting a business right. Like the people who are there's influencers I see, especially now on Instagram reels most of them started it really authentically, like they didn't sit there and say you know what? I want? To make a bunch of money on TikTok or let me figure out how to be a travel influencer. Those are the people who usually fail. The people that have the big channels and the big numbers are the ones who started sharing their journey authentically. They are passionate, they love what they're doing and they're great communicators and storytellers, naturally, and then they tweak and optimize and build a business, but it's not replicatable to average people and it may not be something that plays to your skill sets or passions. So I kind of think you've got to be really discerning in figuring out where to invest your time and money and energy if you want to build your own business or side hustle, because there's just so much nonsense out there.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Well, a good example. So Melissa watches all these YouTube influencers, disney influencers, right, she loves Disney. Crazy about Disney, crazy about Universal, crazy about amusement parks. She just loves that stuff. Like she doesn't want to live in, like the reality that you and I live in of, like crazy business owners and stuff. She owns her own business and she does facials and she loves her guests and everything. She does not like owning a business, she does not like managing a business, and people don't understand this. But there's so much more to owning a business than just showing up and doing whatever work that is. You're supposed to be doing every day. It's it's accounting. It's banging on clients doors asking them where your money is, you know, keeping track of the fact that you haven't gotten paid. I mean you can automate some of that stuff, but at some point you're going to have to, hey, where's my money? Or at least hire somebody who's going to say, hey, where's my money? I mean it can be very, very stressful. And she said now she wants to be in her soft girl era, which means not own a business and just go to Disney every day. This is our plan, krista, by the way. She's going to go to Disney every day and she's going to be when he's influenced. She shows me the videos that she watches and I'm like, how are these people at Disney every single day in their 20s and 30s just filming videos? And you look into their background like you mentioned Gary Vee and you're like, oh, this dad, this guy's dad, who's married to this woman, who's an influencer he was the CEO or something of Rogers up in Canada. So, oh, okay, now I'm starting to make the connection right. So this dude's got money, his dad's got money, probably, and that's how they're doing it. But they come off as just like, oh, I did this, whatever it was, it was one of those like advocate type of things and made a bunch of money doing that, and then I flipped that into being financially independent or whatever. And it's like, of course they're not going to tell you their whole story, they probably don't have time to do it, nobody really cares. They just want to hear that this person's successful, they made a bunch of money and now they're financially free and doing this fun stuff their whole entire life. Like that's what people want to live in that world. They want to live that dream. They, in a way, people are naive and they think that that can be them too. But to your point, do what's right for you. If owning a business in general is not right for you, if you don't have the personality type for it, it will. The reality of owning a business will hit you really quickly.

Speaker 3: 24:47

Well, and you have to be realistic about how much money you can make at something. Right, because, first of all, a handful of people making a bunch of money doesn't mean that that's something that you can do. You look at a lot of the TikTok influencers that were well paid. I mean right time, right place. There's a lot to it. There's very few people that could start today and make a bunch of money as a TikTok influencer. It would be tricky, right Tough. So again, it's about repeatability. It's not that somebody can do something well. It doesn't mean it's a repeatable system or process or that you personally could do it. But the other thing is there's a lot of I don't know what the word is there's a lack of transparency about how much money people are really making at any of these things. Right, because even if I think of the early days of blogging so blogging was one of these first like gold brushes right, where people are like, oh, I'm going to be a blogger, and there were all these blogging conferences and 90% of the people at these conferences did not make meaningful money. They were thrilled they would get free products, they would get invited on trips, but when they got to a point where they needed to think of it as a business, where they're like, okay, well, free trips, don't pay my bills, and in fact, oh, I'm away from my business for five days, then they can't make a business out of it, they can't make a living. Is it a nice hobby? Yes, are there perks that they really like? For sure, is it something that can be a business? Most people can't make it one, and so that's the key is, like you look at Disney Great, who's literally paying your bills, though, even if you're making videos with a bunch of views, who's where? How is that getting money to you? How much money, and how are you going to scale that to afford the lifestyle that you want? So I think you know, even when you see people doing things where they seem successful, it doesn't mean they're making any money at it, right, like when people don't understand who you are like.

Speaker 2: 26:44

I don't think people. We didn't really talk about it, but you know, right now, guys, we are talking to someone who does social media, who's who's built a social media agency and does this for the big brands, for big companies, not for just. You know, your regular influencer type of person. I mean, if there was a get rich quick scheme or a, you would know it, because this is your life, like you are, you don't. You don't. You don't go to school all day and then come home and try to figure out how to be an influencer. You don't go to a nine to five job every day and then come home and try to figure out how social media works. This is you are embedded in this world.

Speaker 3: 27:26

Right, well, and again, anyone telling you how to make a bunch of money. If they really knew how to do it, they would just be out there making more money. And there's this huge difference in the signals that we look at to value someone's success and reality. Right, so it's funny. So, like you know, I've been doing this for a long time. You know I have a seven figure business at this point and it's funny because I have a friend who has a big following on social and you know they try and monetize it, etc. And they're semi successful. I think, at the end of the day, monetizing a social media presence is way harder than just getting paid to do some kind of work, but anyway, so they're kind of monetizing it. They also have like an actual business. They're a business owner. But they said to a mutual friend they're like I'm shocked. They don't know how much I make or how big my business is. Right, it's not something I broadcast, but they were like. They said to a mutual connection Like I'm shocked that you know Krista seems to be really successful but like she doesn't really have that many social media followers. And I'm like, do you know how many clients I have that care about social media.

Speaker 2: 28:37

Okay, you got Nike, you got. I mean you literally have PNG, nike, like you've got all these businesses. Nobody cares, you could buy social media followers. Come on Like we know somebody who used to buy social media followers. Is we yes.

Speaker 3: 28:52

And like the thing is. But people look at someone with a lot of followers. They're like, oh, they must be so successful. Most people with followers can't translate that into making money very well. It's difficult. It's a hard way to make money. To translate a social audience into sustainable revenue. It's hard. To me that's one of the harder ways to make money you're going to encounter. But at the end of the day, that's what people think of as success. Oh, this guy must be successful. Oh, krista doesn't have a lot of followers. How does she run such a successful business the most successful people out there making the most money? You don't even know who they are and they certainly aren't making YouTube classes telling you what to do. Anyone making real money would just do more of what made them all that money. They wouldn't start launching these stupid YouTube video.

Speaker 2: 29:33

No, you're right, I mean your alarm bell go.

Speaker 3: 29:37

Look to the people who are doing this and not trying to sell you on a system.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Yeah, like we don't make money doing the Side Hustle City podcast, like I've already done. I've made my money, you know, and now I essentially do this to help other people talk about their businesses, talk about their experience being a business owner and help other people who are out here trying to figure out how they're going to survive in this economy. And when you look at what's going on like you've got credit card debt going through the roof, I mean this isn't a new thing. Every generation seems to get poorer and poorer, in a way, like there's less and less you can afford. Like, yeah, I mean there was a time when, you know, one person could go out and work, the other person could stay home. You could still afford a house, a car, you know, have a decent life, put food on the table three times a day, but there was a time when that was a possibility. Now it's getting harder and harder for people. Not only do both partners have to work, sometimes the kid, the kid's working, sometimes you got multiple side hustles on time for that and it's really stressing people out and it's like how can we find a way to get people to go out here? Start a side hustle, turn that into a full-time hustle, hire people, treat their employees right Like that's really the goal of what I'm doing at this point. But in order for me to get to this point and help other people, I had to help myself first, and you were in that position too, and you do. You give a lot back when it comes to information, helping other people. I mean anyone who's a successful entrepreneur wants to just help people. We're not necessarily out here selling a course or something to make ourselves more money.

Speaker 3: 31:19

I'm not trying to monetize you to help you, right, like this is just not how it works, and, in fact, most of the things that you're going to buy that are teaching you how to make money, it's not going to work. Like I can't tell you how many people are like, oh, I read this, blah, blah, blah, and it just didn't work. I'm like, yeah, of course not, but it all sounds good, right, the thing is, I think it's hard work and the biggest advice, I think, when I think about the dynamic you talk about with debt and people struggling. I think also, though, a part of it is live below your means, and I'm not going to pretend I'm a financial expert and that not buying Starbucks will change your life, but not spending so much money on stupid crap will, because what I feel like is I'm a successful business owner and when I look at some of these kids out there, they're wearing Lululemon, they have the Stanley Cubs, they go get their nails done with these offensive fake nails all the time, like they have lifestyles that certainly exceeded my means most of my life. Yes, and by living below my means, it opened up opportunities for me to do new things, like I could not have left P&G. If I had a lifestyle that matched what they paid me, I would have been trapped there because I would have needed to keep that money, because I lived on less than half of my income. I had the opportunity to take a risk on something else. Even now, I live well below my means because, hey, if I wanted to stop working tomorrow, I probably could. If I don't want to take on a client, I don't need to lose sleep over it. I don't need to worry about paying my employees. Money causes a lot of stress and I think, if you do want to be able to have to me, for me personally, entrepreneurship is about lifestyle design. What having my own business lets me do is create a life that serves me and my needs. So I pick up my kids at school up to every day. We just got back from our room, but we probably travel eight to 10 weeks out of a year. It's a lot. I also will work till 2 AM, so it's not like my life isn't all vacation and fun. There's a lot of stress in moving parts. I work a ton of evenings, but I don't mind. I like what I do. It's not a complaint. What I'm saying is I can design my life to match what works for me now and that could be different Before I had kids. It was a different kind of lifestyle I was designing. But if you always live at your means and you have a lifestyle that look, when I was in college, I didn't eat out, I didn't get my nails done. I went to the drug store and bought hair dye, and I'm not saying everyone needs to live in poverty. I mean, I grew up. My family was on welfare most of the time when I was a kid, right, so I did not grow up in an affluent environment. I didn't have these habits that I grew up with. I grew up with very, very little and I have always needed very little to be happy. But I think a part of it is if you're always spending to your means, you're going to have a harder time of it, and a side hustle or transitioning to entrepreneurship should be because that's what you want to do with yourself. Ideally, it shouldn't be to make ends meet because you want to have a lifestyle where you're living within your means and that will free you up to then take that plunge to create the opportunities that you want.

Speaker 2: 34:41

Well, and you're 100%. I mean we live in a house that cost my wife $75,000 10 years ago. We essentially live in the hood. We're in Mount Auburn, which is right. People all know that aren't from Cincinnati but it's in between UC's campus and downtown Cincinnati, which was a war zone at one point, and our little pocket still kind of is not the greatest, but it's convenient to everything. I love just being a walk up to UC's campus. I love being a walk down to Finley Market. It's a perfect location. It's quiet. And what I love living in those types of neighborhoods and still living well below my means is I don't have to keep up with anybody. Nobody cares Like literally nobody in a neighborhood cares. Like you could have an engine in your front yard no, while saying anything to you, because there is no HOA, nobody's, and I've always lived in a city, so I'm not used to being in the burbs where I've got rules that I have to follow on top of everything else I've got going on my life. Now I got Karen or whoever, coming over telling me my grass is a quarter inch too long. Like it would drive me crazy, krista, like I can't do it. And I was in college. I was frying cheese in a pan and just eating the crunchy cheese, like that was my lunch and stuff. I mean, it was not these kids. Now, like when I do go up to Clifton and I'm at UC's campus, I'm like they keep upgrading the housing and these kids are walking around, some of them with designer bags, the supreme outfits, like I'm like who is subsidizing the lifestyle of these kids? And I get that. A lot of the boomers, the younger boomers, did really well in their lives, right, they lived in a time when you know they could make a lot of money and everybody was really competitive and there's people out there that did really well for themselves and good for them. But now it's almost like they're supporting these kids and these kids become adults and they're still supporting them.

Speaker 3: 36:30

Because they're not creating a lifestyle that they can afford, right? I mean, I look around at what the middle schoolers have where I live. They have better phones than I do. Well, I just upgraded, so maybe I have an OK phone now, but like they have better phones and a phone is your business.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Like you have to be on the phone right.

Speaker 3: 36:49

But they have, like, all the latest and greatest, and which is fine, you know, if they're parents, that's how they want to spend their money, so be it. But the problem then is that you know you used to be able to support yourself with an entry level job, and I believe you still can, if you make different choices. The problem is that people have more lifestyle expectations. You know, like I remember, I was too cheap to pay for cable. I didn't have cable in any of my houses. Oh, actually, I've never had cable since I've lived on my own. I've never once paid for cable, right?

Speaker 2: 37:22

Well, in our 20s, christy, you went out too. You were out and about in the city Like I didn't have time for it. I wasn't at home watching TV.

Speaker 3: 37:29

I was out like we were doing stuff there was like internet, right, but like I wasn't getting my nails done, I wasn't getting my hair done, I wasn't, you know, buying design or anything. It just wasn't even on my radar. And I think part of the problem is that a lot of people are just raised with different expectations. You know, sure it's not the $5 Starbucks coffee, but it is the frivolous nature of how people spend. Now, I think, because you know I never ate out it just wasn't part of my lifestyle. I didn't have a budget that supported it. You know, I had a student loan and a part-time job and I only had so much money, so it didn't support a lot of these things anyways. But because of that, when I got my first job, I was making all this money but I was living down here, so I always was able to save a lot and that supported me to make really good financial moves and have a lot more comfort now, whereas I think what you see is the opposite. Someone's graduating from school now with a $100,000 lifestyle, earning $50,000. $50,000 should be a great income for someone out of college. It should be more than enough to get a mediocre apartment and a mediocre car.

Speaker 2: 38:37

When the expectations you mentioned that, the expectations, for I mean you've hired employees. I've hired employees the expectations they have, especially when they have no experience and it's like they think they're gonna come out of college with their basic marketing degree and make $100,000. And the way they present themselves and I get confidence right. You understand that. You know there's got to be confidence in everything else, but I think even the expectations that I don't know if it's the university or it's their peers or it's what we're talking about earlier, the online influencer, you know, telling them that this is what they should be, this is what they're worth, when, in fact, once you get out into the real world, reality hits and your expectations I would say more times than not are going to get reset.

Speaker 3: 39:25

Well, and it's not just salary. Like I was shocked during the toward the end of the pandemic, we were hiring a number of roles and you know we are hiring not fresh out of college but maybe someone with five, five to 10 years experience for these types of jobs. But they're more junior roles, right, and not specialized skill sets. So what shocked me, though, with a lot of the candidates, it wasn't so much salary. Sometimes the salary you're like huh, but like their expectations are so out of whack with how the world even works. You're like you don't have that in your current job. There's like I don't know where you think this comes from. So like I interviewed someone and when we did the final interview it was like a Friday and I was living in Holland, so to me six p, or it was like 8pm for me, which was 2pm in the US, and it was a Friday and I was at a campsite with my family because we had gone away for the weekend but it was night time on Friday, right, anyways. And this girl in her interview she was like oh, you know, I love to hear that you're working for my campsite, because one of the things that excites me about remote is I could work from campsites and all over the place. I'm like no, you need a professional zoom background. You need, like, what, what, what on earth would make you think you're going to have a comfortable professional setting to conduct business in a tent? Give me a break, right. There's no jobs that would tolerate it. You're not going to be active. You're not set up for success and, trust me, I can work from anywhere. I could go sit on a couch somewhere and focus and get a million things done, but that environment is not setting someone up for success. You can't take phone calls Like part of the role was customer service. I'm like what you think? You're going to be talking to a client at a campsite? You're going to be on a zoom call at a like are you nuts? But I don't know where you would get this idea from, except YouTube, because I guarantee they don't know people like this, because this isn't how business is done. There's some people that can make it work right. Again, like I have a long-term employee. If she was like hey, I'm going to work for my RV, here's my plan, great, but it's, that's the, that's the exception. It's not normal. You know, I had somebody else who was like oh yeah, she was pregnant, which would not an issue, and but she said well, you know why I'm interested in remote is so that way I can be at home with my baby while I'm working. I'm like are you insane? Caring for a child is a job. Like you can't do a job with a baby there and see, I can't say that, but you can say that. Caring for another human is a job. Yes, and what I'm saying for you is you, for it's also a job, and you know how I try and explain it is look, I want to pay you fairly for your best and highest work. Yeah, and if you have distractions, whether it's your kids, whether it's working in all these different locations, you cannot deliver to me what I'm paying you for, which is your best and highest work. And I think what shocked me through the hiring process at that time was these expectations that are not being met in their current jobs are not how the world works and somehow this is what they're asking me for, Right? So I don't know. I think there's going to be a reset, though I feel like people. Just it's going to take some time for people to realize like this is not realistic and yeah this is not. You know you can't. It's not normal that somebody would be able to do it. It's an exception and a few people can happen to make it work right.

Speaker 2: 42:49

People have to understand too. If you're going to start a business, these are the, this is what you have to deal with. I mean you're going to have employee issues, you're going to have all this other stuff. So I mean, in my life too, I think it's really important to find the right partner to go through life with that understands your life. And you you have that. I have that, both of our, our, my wife, your husband, I mean we're all entrepreneurs and you know, having somebody who understands that struggle and employees and being able to ask questions to that person and sometimes actually in your case, you're, you know he's creative, it's an entrepreneur, so it actually helps your business to have someone like that. You know, and I think a lot of people, especially young people, nowadays, the way with the you know from what I hear from friends of mine that are younger, the dating scene is a hot mess right now and you know, finding a good partner that is it brings stability to your life and actually helps, helps your business and understands what you're doing, is important.

Speaker 3: 43:56

Well, and I think also, like you, have to be on the same page in terms of what balance looks like, right? So there's people who would say I'm a workaholic and I, like somebody said a couple of people said this to me over time and I'm like, I actually love working, like I've always. I like to throw myself into something. I've been this way since, like grade school projects, right. Like I like to get involved, throw myself into things. I get personal gratification from it, not all the work I do, but you know when I'm doing the stuff I really like. But the thing is like to me, especially as a business center, balance isn't about trying to sit here. Balance is out, here and out here, right, meaning it's rare for me to go on a vacation and not have a few. You know, usually I have to do a webinar here and there and I often I'm bringing my backdrop and my lights with me. But that's not a problem for me because I travel like I vacation like I travel personally eight weeks a year, maybe nine, so to me it's fine. I don't mind that I'm, I don't feel like, I quote, have to work. How I view it is, I can enjoy my life better when I integrate things like that, and so, even though I may be working crazy sometimes, I'm also then crazy going all into, you know, enjoy my life, like when my kids started school and we moved back to the US. They finished at two and it took me a long time to work out what I wanted to do about that. Right, do I want to have them in aftercare, where I can work until five uninterrupted, but then I see them two hours every night.

Speaker 1: 45:29

What did I have kids for? For me personally, right and most people don't have a luxury.

Speaker 3: 45:32

I have to make that kind of decision, so I'm very lucky that I can. But that's my pendulum, right. So to me, if my husband were to complain you know, you're all, you always have to do some work when we travel I'd be like, yeah, but we travel eight weeks a year. Would you rather travel two weeks than I never work? Because that could be doable. That's not what I want, right? And it's the same with picking up my kids at two. I pick them up at two and usually if they have lessons or something, I'm nailing things out. I probably end up working over 40 hours a week anyways. It's just in a way that I can make it work for me. You know, on Monday night I literally was up until two. I probably worked literally all day, except for two hours between nine and two AM, but then yesterday I wrapped up at two. So to me it's like a pendulum where I can make it work for my life and that's what balance looks like. But I think you need to have a partner that's on the same page, because I've also dated proper workaholics and I'm like get me away from this person, right. Like if we take a boat for dinner and you're on your phone the whole time. That's not to me. That's not the pendulum, that's only workaholic-y right To me. There's times when I'm going to work super hard but look like my phone is not on through. Most of the time I'm with my kids and that's how I find balance.

Speaker 2: 46:51

And it gets wild I mean me too and then sometimes I think you end up because you work so late a lot of times, like I do too, and now it's become a problem, I think in my 40s, where I just don't go to sleep, like I went to bed last night or two nights ago. I went to bed at 4 AM and I had to get up at 6 AM, drive up to Montgomery, which is 30 minutes from my house, and do an interview on one of the radio stations because I'm running for state rep or I'm running for not state rep, I'm running for county commission. So I do that. Then I drive all the way back, I do another podcast for and I had to get this thing launched and everything and put into this newsletter before the end of the day because I had another meeting at that. But I had like six meetings in between then and I'm like just chugging coffee, like hitting, you know, espresso shots out of mind, espresso all day, and I'm like how am I still alive right now? You know, and it's, you have days like that and it's it can be super rough. But I think too and I don't know if you've ever read the Millionaire Mind, the book the Millionaire Mind, but it talks about how people who come from underprivileged backgrounds, like we did, end up doing the best as entrepreneurs. And I think it's because we do set luxuries aside. We don't need luxuries. I'm actually afraid of getting too comfortable. I feel like it would make me soft. Like it would make me soft and things. If you have the ability to buy things, you all of a sudden find out that you don't buy things. Like you don't even want them anymore. Like you're just like I don't need that extra crap in my house. Like what do I need that for? Like I got a couch. I know it's 25 years old, but I don't feel like pulling it in and out and dealing with it. I got too much of our stuff going on. You end up not buying as much stuff and living a more frugal life anyway and at some point in your life you're going to be older. I mean your kids are going to leave the house, you're going to want a downsize. Maybe you're going to be like oh, why don't we just get a condo and Fort Lauderdale and you know one bedrooms, all we need, you know, and then people don't come over. You don't have to host people anymore. You got a one bedroom.

Speaker 3: 49:04

I kind of view like there's a time and place for everything, right. So it's like right now I literally I drive a 2011 Kia Soul that's manual. It's like a car made for poor college students. I love it Actually. I have no car person, I rent mine on.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Turro, I literally just rent it out just to see if I could rent it out, and then I talk about it on the on the podcast, like there you go.

Speaker 3: 49:30

But like the thing is maybe in 10 years that you know I'm going to actually want something that's comfortable, where I feel happy getting into it, or who knows, right. Like there's different times and places for everything and I think if you want everything now, you're never going to be happy. But to me it's kind of like what you're saying, like if I wanted a nicer car, I could buy one right now. But I don't. Am I not having a nicer car right now? You know, maybe I'm going to get a boat next year, right? So I kind of think about what do I really care about? When's the time and place for different things? But also, you know, the other thing I think an entrepreneur mindset is that when I'm working hard, it's for me, right. So like I don't really love traveling for work which is ironic, I'm gone constantly but like I would prefer not to travel. I like my house, I like where I live, I like my family, but the nature of what I do means I'm on the road all the time, yeah, and the thing is, when I get on a plane I'm like, look, they're paying me, you know, 15K to keynote this session for an hour. Easy to justify that time away from my family.

Speaker 2: 50:38

Well, and that's another point, that's 100%. Another point Like you've reset what time and money is. Like. What is good money? Like when I was a kid I thought $10,000, man, that's a lot of money, you know. And then I was thinking, oh okay, I can work at this job, I can design, I can design a website in a day. It'll take me about eight hours to do a homepage. I'm going to charge $150 an hour for that. And then eventually you realize that you have to scale your time. Like you have to figure out a way to hire people to do those things for you or Automate something. Like you know, we were. I was making fun of the people that do the classes and stuff online. But there are people that will teach or not the classes online, but do this like fake. You know influence or stuff. But you found a way to teach people how to do social media, but you were able to automate that. Like, once you build it, built that product, you can sell it a million times, true, but it's so, yes, but it's hard, right.

Speaker 3: 51:40

So, like this is the thing right now. One of the popular side hustles is like everyone should be a course creator, and I can't tell you how many people in my network are like I'm gonna create a course, because then it's this whole narrative that you said. In theory, that's true, but you know what? The hardest part is, not making a course, it's selling a course.

Speaker 2: 51:56

Yes.

Speaker 3: 51:57

Super hard. And I have a friend. She's super smart, she has written books, she speaks all over the place. She made a course. She can't sell it and she's like it's just sitting there dying and she came to me and said could I, could I add it to your Library? And I said you know, we don't have this. Like, that's not how we're set up. She's like no, like, I'll just give it to you for you to add. You don't need to pay me because at this point I just want more people exposed to my ideas, right? And I feel like there's so many false narratives around course creation. Yes, you can scale yourself and that should be your goal, but just make sure the way you're trying to go about it is realistic because, again, 99.9% of course creators are not making meaningful money from it. Very few are making good money. The hardest part is selling what you do, whatever it is, whether it's a course, anything else. Selling it to humans that give you money. That's gonna be your hardest part and focus on that first. Is this something I can sell? Do I have an audience that wants it? You know, one of the things that we did a couple years back when we were trying to figure out. Like we were more in building mode and we were looking at new courses. We would just put up a landing page for a course we wouldn't build it and after someone bought it we would build it. Oh smart, right, cuz the the hard part isn't building courses. I literally could build 20 courses a month if you wanted me to. The hard part is selling courses, right. So focus on what you can sell first. You can build it after someone buys it. We do a lot of that kind of stuff because then you know whether you can do that hard part.

Speaker 2: 53:30

Well, it's awareness, right, and when you're a PNG or you're living Cincinnati and everyone here knows what awareness means and marketing and you know everybody here knows you could throw a rock and hit a brand manager around here somewhere and Everybody knows kind of the stages and life cycles of products and things like that. But I mean it's great if you build a course, but it's just gonna be sitting out there in the middle of nowhere unless you've got the money to advertise it and build that Awareness that it even exists, or you have to have some SEO skills or you have to have, you have to understand Paper-click or you. I mean that's the way you really start out, because if you wanted to pay somebody to promote your course for you it's gonna be expensive and you just got to be prepared to make to be able to spend that money. And you know you got some people are like oh, I'll give you every bit of the train, I'll give you a piece of the trains up. People don't got time for that, people aren't gonna do that. You know it's, it's tough, it's a tough business to be in. But another thing you mentioned too is you can go speak at something. Now You've got a skill that's in demand, that corporations want. They're willing to pay 10, 20, 30 thousand dollars to have you come out and speak to a big group of people all at once and that you spend two hours, three hours or whatever it is doing, that you could spend a whole day doing it. You're gonna probably charge $50,000 or something for that, but you, you are one person. You spend an eight hour day at a conference or whatever in the world it is Given this presentation, or four hours, and you're able to make 25,000 bucks, you know.

Speaker 3: 54:56

It's figuring out the well. I think to me it's two things right. Can you scale? But scaling isn't for everyone. And scaling is also a Tricky model like that's why. So we do training right. So we're not really an agency. But the reason I didn't go the agency route is because I'm like, damn, if I'm gonna scale this and get a bunch of clients, I'm gonna need to have a whole bunch of employees. I'm gonna have to manage them. It's gonna be a pain. That's not what I wanted, right. So scale is one path. I think it tends to be what everyone goes to right away, because Somehow we're ingrained to think growth, growth, growth. But it's not for everyone, and I know a lot of business owners in their 50s that have gone the opposite route. They're Closed down their agency or sold it and are going back to you know things where they can charge a high hourly rate, and it's only them. So scale is one option. Can I scale this somehow? But the other thing is how do I just increase my hourly rate? How do I get paid more for my time? And I think that's a big part of it is looking for opportunities where the hourly rates are higher for you, like speaking, pays them a tire hourly rate, then you know consulting or agency work. I just strangely got a gig as an. I'm writing an expert witness report for a big lawsuit. Yeah, involving like one of the biggest tech companies is kind of neat. Oh like they're the starting hourly rate. I've never done it before and I was really transparent. I was like I'll need you to send me a sample report because I haven't done this, but they're starting. Hourly rate was 300 an hour. If I had more experience I probably could bill out at 600. So you know, it's looking for these opportunities a little bit to to figure out. How can I just elevate what I'm charging, right Like so, in things like digital and social people are like oh, ai is taking over. Or People in India are all doing social media, right Like we've heard this nonsense forever. But you know, my point of view is like look, if AI is a replacement for what I'm giving you, please use AI, and I shouldn't have a job.

Speaker 2: 56:58

Yeah, do it, please do it yeah.

Speaker 3: 57:02

Elevate yourself, your brand and your expertise To get yourself to these higher earning levels and then, if you don't want to scale, you can make a great living without adding that scale. You may need some creativity around how you package yourself like a Speaker. I spoke to you at a professional speakers event. One of the things he does is so his keynotes are really expensive. He's that I think the 40 to $50,000 range for a keynote, that's super, super high, right, but he'll sell a company and be like look, if you want a workshop for your team, it's hosted on my zoom, it's one hour and it follows this agenda. I don't customize, but it's only $3,000. Well, he's going himself out at $3,000 an hour. It's not bad.

Speaker 2: 57:45

Not bad at all. Not bad at all.

Speaker 3: 57:48

Well, he's not getting 10 of him. No, he's figuring out how to make his time worth more money to people, and I think that's an that's something nobody talks about, because we're also caught up in scale.

Speaker 2: 57:59

That's right. That's right, and I mean you can make a great living just being a solopreneur, like like that, and just doing Keynotes or doing any kind of speaking at events, conferences, things like that. I mean you are typically, you are the brand and they are selling tickets because you are there and that's why they pay these people so much money to do this kind of stuff, or your corporation, and you don't want to have to have each individual employee take a bunch of classes. You just want Chris to come in for an hour or two hours, maybe a half a day and do do a whole thing, and Everybody here's the same thing and everybody has to be on the same page. Were you not paying attention? Because Christa said it to everybody and half the room Heard exactly what she said. You seem to not understand. So everybody should be on the same page after something like this. So so, chris, to tell us you know how do people reach out to you, who's your client, how do they find you and and what do you want them to reach out to you about?

Speaker 3: 58:55

Yeah, so we specialize in digital marketing training, so we help businesses to get the results they deserve from their digital marketing efforts. Right, we probably all know, especially if you've tried any kind of side hustle if you can't market it, you can't have a business. And if you're the largest business in the world, if you can't market it You're not going to meet your growth goals. But with digital, you know there's a way to do this stuff correctly and it's not rocket science, but there's a formula. So we teach the formulas. We teach what you should and shouldn't do to grow your results. So our clients we work from the biggest companies in the world. We have global companies that are certifying, you know, thousands of marketers worldwide through our online certifications, and we also, you know, have small businesses that can sign up through our website to get access to our training as well and the best way to find you know how we acquire our clients. I've done this a long time now, right? So some of it is like search website, just like the legacy things that you build over time reputation, etc. But really it's a common. It's mostly digital marketing and I think part of it is. You know, gary Vanderchecks has this a lot and I do think it's true is that the more value you give and show to people, the more you'll attract the opportunities you want to yourself. And that's where I kind of said at the beginning if people aren't asking you for what you do, like really rethink it. If all your friends know you're a hairdresser and none of them are like, hey, could you cut my hair, like maybe that tells you something about how they perceive you and what you've chosen to get into right. So so that's really been a lot of it, but digital marketing is probably our number one thing that we've done To grow over time, and then a lot of it is just relationships and networking too.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

Love it, love it, so bootcamp, digital comm.

Speaker 3: 1:00:38

Yeah, go to bootcamp digital comm. You can, of course, connect with me on any social network. I'm my name on LinkedIn, instagram and Facebook, so you can connect with me anywhere. My very open networker and I love growing my network and meeting new people, so feel free to reach out love it, krista, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:55

Thanks for coming on the show. It's been great, and enjoy Florida.

Speaker 3: 1:00:58

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:01:00

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.