The Power of Lifestyle Businesses

Business Brain, episode 563 for Wednesday, July 3, National Independent Beer Run Day and National Fried Clam day. These are two tastes that go great together. 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea or six, we crunch them, we dissect them, we use them to tune our business brains every single week. Actually, every single episode. Sometimes, often twice a week when we get together. Our sponsor for this week is fastmail.com businessbrain. That's where you can go try it free for 30 days, and then because you used our Link, you save 10% off your first year of my favorite email service, the one I actually use and pay for. I'll talk more about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in blistering hot Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean.

Yeah, you're having the hot weather we had a couple of weeks ago. I mean, not the same hot weather, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little different the rest of the week. Supposed to be crazy, you know, but we'll deal with it. Stay by the pool.

Yeah. You'll be all right.

It'll be good. Yeah. I'm all for this beer. National Beer Day. I don't know about the clams. I'm. I'm a fish. I like clams, like for bait, but I'm not a clam.

That's because you don't live in New England, probably. I think.

Sure. They'd be different. It would have grown up with them.

Maybe you would have grown up with them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Clams are absolutely.

It's just like. I like oysters, but I like them when they're cooked.

Yeah. Well, this is fried clam day. If you've never had fried.

Fried clam.

Fried belly clams. Like, I don't know what that is. That's the clams. So you either get clams.

Is it kind of clam?

Well, I mean, kind of, but not really. It's either you're either getting just the clam strip or you're getting the whole clam with the belly on it. On it, too. Some people don't like the belly because it's a little squishy or whatever, but yeah, the belly clams. That's. The whole clams. That's. That's where. That's.

It's fried. Yeah, fried is. I like most fried things.

Right. So you got fried clams and beer. Like it's a good day.

I don't. That's. That's a good day.

You'd probably be all right. You know what? Have a beer, then get a second beer with your order of fried clam. You're going to be all right.

Yeah, that's. I'm sure I'll be okay. Hey, before we get into our. Our topic, I thought we were there. Yeah, no, it's not a beer and clam show, although I wouldn't mind. So I'm building this new website or having somebody build a new website for me. Time to upgrade and all this kind of stuff. And so, hey, you know, we need headshot. And. Oh, man, you know, I don't. It's like, okay, take one with my phone. They're like, that's not good enough. We want something looks better. So I like, okay. I look around. It's like, well, if I go to the photographer and do the whole thing, it's. It. I don't mind, you know, maybe about 200 bucks to have a couple. A bunch of shots done. Like, I don't mind that at all and everything. But it's like, there's got to be a better way. Got to be a way to save some time.

Yeah. How has the head shot thing evolved in the last. How has technology helped us get good headshots? Okay.

Yeah. So I'm thinking. So I do some research, and the one I come up with is the headshotpro.com, i think is what it is. Let me check. And yeah, it's. Yeah. Headshot Pro.

Okay.

Dot com. And so I'm gonna share. So they. It was kind of cool. I'll tell you the process. They, they.

You.

You do take some selfies.

Okay.

Or you can upload existing photos of yourself. And they take a few hours. So there's different versions. 29. I paid the 39 maybe. No, I paid 29. 29 bucks. And I thought I'm gonna try it because they have this. Hey, if you haven't done it, they've done 13 million of them. It's crazy. You can pick your. Like, here's what I want. Like, I don't want to be in a suit because I don't wear suits. Right.

Yeah, that would be off brand for you, right?

Off brand for me. So I'm a polo shirt guy. Whatever.

Sh.

T Shirt. But I wanted something that looked a little cleaner, so I uploaded like, they want, like 14 selfies, you know, do all around your face. And then they tell you whether they're good. Pretty good process. And you can do it on the web or you can do it on the on your phone, whatever it is. So I'm gonna. I got back like 50 pictures, right? What?

Oh, they get. Right. For 39 bucks, you get a hundred headshots.

I got a hundred headshots. And some of them. I don't know who they were.

Right.

They didn't look anything like me, but enough of them did. And I was like, wow, man, that's pretty good. So you can. The cool part about it is you get to edit. You open it up and you say, okay, well, I like this face, but I would not wear that shirt. Or, I want a different background. And they just go, okay, change. So you can change your outfit, you can change the background, you can do all this kind of stuff, and it doesn't do it instantly. Like, every change, you pick like 10 of your favorite. And then if you want to tweak it and change it, like, I found one I like the best, which I'm going to share here with you in a minute. And so you get your take on it.

Okay.

Matter of fact, I'm going to. Can you share it if I put it in slack with our audience here?

Yes, I can. Yeah. If somebody's watching. But. But also, like, you'll make it part of the. Make it part of the episode image today, too.

Yeah, I'll put it.

Because most of our audience is not watching live.

Or I'll put it in the show. I'll put it in the show. Notes at Business.

Businessbrain Show.

Thank you.

Go ahead and put it in Slack while we're talking here.

Yeah, so I put it in Slack. It's up there now. It's in the random channel that we have. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I thought they did a pretty decent job with this one. So I. What I did was I saved, like, 10 of them and I shared them with my wife, and I was like, okay, so do you think this one looks like me? And she was like, no, no way. That's not you. Oh, yes, that's you this, that, and the other. And then you can kind of tweak it. You can change the face, you can change the angle, you can change your look. It's. I. I thought it was pretty cool. And I am gonna. You. I'm gonna use this headshot on my website. Do you see it in there?

I see it. I'm trying to, like, figure out a way to, like, drag it into here.

Maybe I can just hold it up to the.

No, I got it. I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'll do it the easy way. What I will say in looking at this, so here is a little like.

AI it looks it.

You're not going to like what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.

It looks way better than I actually am.

No, it makes you look older.

It does make me look older. I agree with you. I do look a little older and.

I don't know why that is.

Well, my hair isn't quite that gray now.

It's something about your, it's your teeth. I don't know why. Your teeth look different than your teeth. And, and it makes it look like.

You finally had dental work done and like implants.

Correct. Yes.

Yeah. I thought my teeth looked a little bit too, but I thought it was an interesting experiment and for what I'm going to use it for, you know, for my, my coaching website. You know, it's only just one small.

Picture plus maybe making you look a little older, a little more seasoned maybe. That's coaching website.

Yeah, yeah, maybe that's okay. But I thought it was kind of interesting and I, I, I would recommend it. It was quick, it only took a couple hours and I'm still tweaking because you can go up and do up to 14 edits.

Yeah.

After you get them. And you know, I, I think that it'll get better and better. Now I deal with AI imagery every single day. Same this show and yeah, social media stuff. So I look at it and go, yeah, I can tell that's a little AI but for someone that's just scrolling through or doing a quick. I don't think they'll notice it.

No, it looks like you like. Yeah, that's pretty, pretty good.

It looked maybe a little more presidential. You never know. That's what somebody told me. They're like, looks like you're running for office. I'm like, well, I'm not, but you know, but anyway. Headshotspro.com check it out, let me know what you think.

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They're awesome.

They're awesome. Now it's interesting because what a lifestyle business is or what makes a good lifestyle business for you is not what a lot of people think. People say, oh, if you do what you love, you know, then it doesn't feel like work. And I love that. That's true. But sometimes it's not what your business does it's what you do in it. For example, I just interviewed this woman, Lara Supan, on giggab, my podcast for musicians. She is a booking agent. She's also a musician, but she found that she really enjoyed all of the things that went into being a booking agent. And one of the things that doesn't go into being a booking agent is putting butts in the seats. That's up to the artist to do. Right. The booking agent does the logistics and spends time in spreadsheets and calendars and becomes a, you know, logistics like route mapping person and remembers the right clubs in the right markets and all those things. But the one thing they don't do is put butts in seats. That's up to the artist. And in her career, that was something she always struggled with, was like putting butts in the seats. But she liked the rest of it and she found she could stay music industry related or stay in the industry and do all of these things. Now booking the gigs is what a booking aid. That's the service a booking agent provides for someone else. But what a booking agent does all day is more than that. Right. It's the spreadsheets. It's figuring out what clubs are right for this. You know, any given, you know, she's got like 14 bands on her roster, which she says is too much. So FYI, if you're going to be a booking agent, bear that in mind.

Yeah. Yep.

But you know, she's like, I love spreadsheets. I know that's weird. I'm like, it's not weird to me. I love them.

Yeah. I can do she the booking agent get a percentage correct or is it.

It's commission based.

So is it a commission on how many butts get in the seats or.

It is, but she won't take a ban. She has all. If you're. You folks listening to this will probably love this episode. It comes out on Monday the 8th. It'll be@giggabpodcast.com and she talks about all of this. So she. Yeah, there's a minimum level, several be interested in. Yeah, several minimums that, that you kind of need to have already hit on your own for it to make sense for you to give some of your money to her.

Oh yeah, like that makes sense.

Right? You know, and also for it to be worth her while too, of course. But, but yeah, it's, it's. And so as she was explaining this, I'm like, okay, so you found a lifestyle business. She's like, oh, absolutely. And like you could Sell it. Like if she delegates all of her jobs out and has a healthy roster of bands, like that's something you could easily sell to somebody. If you just show profit, you're good to go. But that's not her current plan. Her current plan is to do it because she loves all the little things that she does. But.

Yeah, but lifestyle business, right?

Yeah, but like, as she was describing it, I was like, yes, this is a lifestyle business. But she stumbled on the key that a lot of people miss, which is you need to enjoy what the work is going to be, not what the end result. I mean, you should hopefully you're going.

To work your ass off, so you might as well to be successful.

Yeah, correct. You're going to work your butt off. So, yeah, make sure you like, you understand the little things that you're gonna do. And then of course you can. And she does, she has an assistant and all these other things. And so, you know, the, the lessons that we talk about here, where you build your org chart, you put your name in every box and then you find the box that you don't like the fact that your name's in it. Cause you don't like doing that job and that's the first person you hire. Right. You know, like.

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, exactly.

But enjoy the, the actual work, the day to day, the grunt grind work that has to be done. That's the stuff that I think is most important to enjoy.

Yeah, I always use this phrase, you know, fall in love with problem solving. Right. If you can fall in love with problem solving, man, you're, you're unstoppable because there's nothing to complain about. That's business. No, no problems, no business. So you're, you're solving problems for your customer, you're solving problems for the employee, your employees that need work and they're exchanging, you know, their expertise and time to get paid and you're solving, you know, even your own problems. So if you think about that, and I love lifestyle businesses, I've ran them all our life. I would consider this podcast a lifestyle business.

Correct.

You know, does it make a huge amount of money? No. But do we make a little bit of money that gives us some kind of reward where you're like, oh cool, I can go buy this or I can do some fun thing at the end of the quarter. Awesome. Yep. And you know, my twist on the lifestyle business is that I'm super restless and I get bored and if I stick with one thing, I often destroy it because I get bored And I.

So I'm laughing because I'm the same way. Yeah.

So what I have done is I have lifestyle businesses, but I stack them. Yeah. So I get going with something that I like. And I mean, I got into the Mac and Apple because I. I wanted to be involved in that technology. Yeah. That lifestyle. But once I was kind of out of my realm, it's like, okay, what's the next thing? Because I've already. I figured that out. And then the next thing. And the next thing. So you can have a whole stack or a stable or whatever analogy you want to use of these small lifestyle businesses. And like, to your point, another thing that drives me nuts is when they say, well, that business will never scale. Well, maybe it doesn't have to.

That's okay. If it's meant to support one or two or three lifestyles, whatever it is, five lifestyles. Okay.

Yeah. I know some very wealthy people that own businesses that, quote, don't scale, or that are not heading towards an exit. One of the great exercises is to talk to somebody who sells businesses because they'll very quickly rip your business apart and tell you why it's worth nothing, you know, And. And you have to really kind of guard against that. And the first couple times I did it where you build up this thing that you're really proud of, and it's provided for you and your family, but from an outside perspective, you may get.

Somebody to come in, say nobody wants it but you. You're the one.

You created yourself a job. And it's like, well, yeah, yeah. You don't think anybody else would want this job or to hire somebody to do this job. It's still generating all kinds of money. And, you know, okay, so when I started to hit those or have those conversations with people that were basically telling me that I wasn't successful because I was just. Just building lifestyle businesses. I was like, okay, whatever. I'm just gonna go build another one. And another one.

Yeah.

And another one. And I've had a great time.

And it really is fun. I've done the same thing. Yeah. Like, it's fun having a lifestyle. It's. It's fun having one lifestyle business. It's even more fun, like you said, stacking them and having three or four going at a time. Yeah. Right.

Because you. Your lifestyle makes less demands on when you have more of them. Because, you know, business is all up and down this kind of thing. So you can. As things ebb and flow, you get to take well when things are really good with business. X You can pull out money from that or put more time into that if that's what you're doing.

If that's what you want.

Yeah, that's what you want. Or if business slows down for, you know, revenue slows for business. X, you go, that's okay. I'll. I'll take. Or I'm going to invest more in. In this to grow that part of it. It gives you a lot of flexibility. You're not reliant on one revenue source.

I always say if you have. If you have one client, if you have one job, business line. Because I know some businesses basically stack internally. Right. It's one structure and they do a lot of different things or whatever. But if you have one line of business, one job, one customer, inevitably, no matter how many you have, inevitably, at least one of those is going to fire you. You know, it's gonna. The money's gonna stop flowing in a positive way from at least one. And if you only have one, well, you're in trouble. There you go. So have more than one.

Yeah, yeah. It's the same concept of having a thousand bosses instead of one. Exactly. You know, it's far riskier to have one client, one boss that issues you a check every two weeks that you think is safe, because you've been taught that and, you know, programmed by society to believe that. But that's a whole nother show.

But no, I think that's the nine and a half years of this show, Shannon.

Yeah. And it's going out and starting different revenue streams, whether it's like, oh, I'm going to start a business. I sell some stuff on ebay. Oh, we're going to publish a couple of books. And then, oh, we're going to start another business that does this and maybe do some consulting. And then we're going to start. That's awesome. Because you're building over and over and over. And, you know, now when I look back and I know, Dave, you're the same way when you say, oh, yeah, I've started 10 companies. And people are. People are like, what? It's like, well, I didn't start out that way.

No.

And.

And I also didn't start 10 companies that each are doing $50 million a year in business.

Exactly.

Like, it's okay for a business to do $10,000 a year in business as long as.

Depends on what you want.

Right. As long as it fits what you want from that business. That's all. That's the only metric that matters, or at least the first one. That matters.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and you know, I, I often have, and I think we've said it here too, small amounts of money can dramatically change your life.

Yeah.

$1,000 a month, I mean, you know, it's not sexy. We're not, you know, millionaire, first million, whatever, that's great. And I'm all for that, I love that. But you know, if you can figure out how to make an extra thousand bucks a month, that's a huge.

Ask anybody on the street, anyone, would you like an extra thousand dollars a month? Yes. The answer will always be yes. And it won't just be, yeah, I guess, you know it. Like they already know what difference that's going to make in their lives. And you know it too. If you're listening to this.

That's right. And once you, the, the power lies in. Once you understand how to make that thousand, it changes your whole framework and you start to understand that reality is truly flexible and that you can push against it to build whatever you want. And so maybe you build, you know, companies that kick you out a thousand bucks a month, but then all of a sudden you're going to build one that kicks you 10,000amonth.

That's right.

And 20,000amonth.

It happens. And it won't be the one you think. No, it never is. It's a lovely surprise.

Yes. But it's not going to happen if you don't get out there and build that first lifestyle business. Lifestyle side hustle. Selling Legos on Amazon, flipping stuff on Facebook, Marketplace, whatever it is that other people may poo poo and say, well, that's a waste of your time.

That's not going to make enough money.

Not going to make enough money to make it worthwhile. Well, that's for you to find out. And once you, you, you get that, it energizes you and helps you build a great foundation. And something I'm, I want to talk about on our next episode is it starts to build confidence and that's crucial for your long term success. And I want to dig in more of that on our next episode on Friday.

Amazing. Love it. Yeah, make sure you come back Friday, folks. But let us know what you think about this. I know there's a lot of people that don't. I think it's a lack of understanding of what, what the lifestyle business is and can be. And, and let's, let's let us know if we got it wrong too. Feedback at BusinessBrain show and then if we got it right or even if we got it wrong. Share it out there. Tell people about it. Like, this episode is your tool to educate people. Use it that way. Yeah. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks for everything you do, all your feedback that comes in when you share the show. It means so much to us. Check out our sponsor, fastmail.com businessbrain. Keep living that charmed life and we'll see you on Friday.