4 Ways To MONETIZE Side Hustles That NO ONE Is Talking About For 2023 | Lewis Howes & Rory Vaden

Somebody watching right now, it could be like, okay, well, like, how to make the money? You know, like, how do I get the lead? Yeah, but this is how you get the lead. The first thing is find your uniqueness, figure out what you're good at, then extrapolate that into a product, you know, create your service, your product offer. You may already have that.

And then how do we start the process of monetizing our side hustle?

Dude, this is such a good. A good. That's such a good question because that's the thing, right? It's like, We want to make money, we want to help people. We don't want to be the desperate salesperson.

Please buy my thing out of pity.

Yeah, we don't want to be the needy guy. And this is something I've spent my whole life doing. I went door to door. So I worked in retail sales when I was like, from the time I was like 16 years old. And then I spent five years going door to door, 14 hours a day, six days a week, interrupting people.

14 hours a day, door to door.

14 hours a day, door to door, you know, interrupting people and like, you know, pretty intrusive, as I sometimes say, that being a door-to-door salesperson is like being the human version of email spam. Right.

Telemarketer.

Yeah, telemarketer. Yeah, it's like telemarketers are, you know, then us. We bug telemarketers when they're eating bitter. And then, you know, we built a sales coaching company to eight figures. Teaching salespeople how to sell, how do you generate leads? And then brand builders, we do more like marketing and digital lead generation. But whether you're like a Fortune 100 company, a personal brand, a professional service, or just a person with a dream for a side hustle, this is the question. How do you make that first sale? Like how do you get money? Where do you find the people?

Before you answer that, What was the greatest lesson you learned going door to door for five years? About yourself and about selling in general?

You know, there was this thing that we used to say all the time that the answer's behind the next door.

You never stop. There's always another door. You'll find the answer in the next place.

Yeah, it was always like, but that part of it I think actually is good. 'Cause this is true about sales. I mean, a part of the good news for both marketing and sales is that they are both a numbers game. They are a numbers game. It's not like it won't work, right? Like you have the fear like, Is anyone gonna buy this? No, somebody will buy it, no matter how bad you are or how crappy your thing is.

Right, right, right.

If you talk to enough people, which is not what the goal is, but that people will, they really will buy if you keep going. The truth about most sales is it's people think of it as like combat, like, you know, I either have to put the magic marketing words on the page or I need to say like the voodoo mind trick to like convince you to buy something and then it's kind of like this battle. And it's more like an Easter egg hunt where it's like there is some number of eggs out there in the field that have candy in them. and no matter if you did anything or not to deserve candy being in there, they're just there, you just have to go find them. And there's a lot of empty eggs along the way. There's a lot that you're gonna open and it's empty. And so that is one part of it, but the biggest problem, the biggest problem that people have in selling is that they're self-centered. The reason we don't sell more is because we're focused on how do I make money? You know, how do I convince people? And it's, it's, it's, we approach it wrong. And I would say that sales has been taught wrong, done wrong, promoted wrong. I mean, you know, we're big fans of cleaning this up and changing the way that people think. I think we're also self-sounding the fact.

That we're afraid of people saying no and how to make us feel about ourselves when they say no. Absolutely.

Yeah. When I say self-centered part of that is kind of like the I don't necessarily mean selfish, like I'm gonna take for me instead of you, although there's a part of that where it's like, you know, the sale is convincing people to buy something they don't want. That's not what we're into. But it's also fear is self-centered. Fear is extremely self-centered. Oh, man. You only feel fear when you're thinking about yourself. You know, we say there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. When you're focused on helping someone else, you're not worried about it, right? I mean, it's like if there's a car accident, someone's on the side of the road, you run up to them, you're not thinking about how does your hair look and your clothes, or your outfit, you're going to help somebody. We're always at our best when we're serving others. And one of the magic, one of the magical powers of service is that being focused on service releases our insecurities.

It's so true. This is something I learned speaking on stages. I say there's different levels to my speaking life. There's the 13 years ago being terrified to speak in front of three people without stuttering and sweating and being nervous. And me saying, okay, I need to go learn how to get some reps speaking in front of people so I'm not nervous. So I joined Toastmasters. which you famously got second in the world for. I love how you... Toastmasters.

Famously bring that up every time we talk about second place in the world.

Second place at the world... Second place at the World Championship of Public Speaking.

True story.

No big deal. And I did that for a year and I gained confidence through the actions of repetition, of showing up, of preparing, of reviewing my speaking film, and just improving through reps over time.

Yeah.

And I remember for about seven, eight years, I was getting now paid to speak for my credibility, for my expertise through LinkedIn and everything else.

And.

I would still get nervous for a week before a big speech. Then I got better over time and it was like, okay, it's only two days before I'm nervous. Then it was a day before. And I remember it stayed a day before. But it wasn't nerves of excitement. It was nerves of insecurity. It's like, I'm afraid of what people are gonna think about me. And I remember asking a coach of mine that I had hired for a while. It was a good friend of mine. And I said, I'm about to go on stage in an hour. I don't know why I'm still so nervous. Like, I've been doing this for 10 years. Shouldn't I be over this by now? And he said, Because you're focused on the way you look, not on serving other people in the audience.

Yeah.

And the moment exactly what you said. The moment you start focusing on service, knowing that you will probably forget something, you might make a mistake and not worrying about those things. Know that something might happen that's not perfect, but when your heart's on service, it's hard to be nervous, as you say.

Ah.

Isn't that something you said?

Uh-huh. Yeah, years ago on our very first interview together. But yeah, that's it. And so, you know, somebody watching right now could be like, okay, well like, how to make the money, you know, like how do I get the lead? Yeah. But this is how you get the lead is you serve first. So in a, in a, in a digital world, you provide value for that.

Value, value, value, value, value, value.

Give out. And it's, it's the three E's, right? You, you're putting out content that is either educational, encouraging or entertaining and typically some mix of all three. educational, encouraging or entertaining. And the digital marketing strategy that we employ at Brand Builders Group for Rory Vaden Personal Brand.