On the twelfth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, throws out some tips, tricks, and strategies for making your side hustle your full-time hustle. She also talks a bit about some of the tools and programs she utilizes that help maximize her efficiency at work.




Check out the book Latesha mentioned, The E-Myth Revisited, on Amazon!




Below is a list of programs and services that Latesha herself uses to run her business:

Scheduling: Calendly

CRM: Dubsado

Task Management: Trello

Client Storage: G Suite

Marketing: Canva, CreativeMarket

Accounting: PayPal, Bench Accounting




TRANSCRIPT

Latesha: Today we are talking about making your side hustle your full-time hustle. I know so many entrepreneurs who are hustling on the side and working a full-time job, but their goal is to be their own boss. Now, there are some that like doing both the side hustle and the full-time hustle, and to be honest that's what I thought I was going to do. It didn't happen like that. A part of me being able to take my side hustle and make it a full-time hustle was a lot of crying [laughs] and praying and strategizing and believing. I would say that believing, for me, was the hardest thing, and then once I actually really started to believe in myself, in my business and what I was doing, and I was starting to operate at a higher level, that really changed the mold for me. So I thought this would be a cool topic to talk about. A lot of my coaching clients actually have side businesses or are looking to transition from a side hustle to a full-time hustle. I also coach entrepreneurs, and so, you know, I know that I speak mostly on career development and I'm big on career empowerment, career ownership, but I love talking about entrepreneurship, and I thought "Why not start to talk a little bit about business, building a business?" I know some of you all are listening to this podcast where, yes, you are working a corporate job, but you also have your business on the side. I've been there, and I know how that felt, and I just thought I would come on here and share with you all my story of how I was able to turn my side hustle into a full-time hustle, and then just kind of throw out some tips and tricks and strategies that you can start to implement if you do have that side hustle and your goal is to turn it into a full-time hustle. So just to tell you all a little bit about my story - I honestly started my business as a hobby as a career coach. It was something that I was passionate about doing, and the reason or how it came about was that when I was in college I had five internships. I grew up in a single-parent household, so we didn't have a lot of money, so I came to college with a goal in mind that I was going to work my butt off and I was going to take advantage of every single opportunity because I didn't really feel that I had that safety net. There was--for me at least there was no going back home, and so I got really involved on campus [and] had a lot of internships. I went straight into grad school and had a job offer waiting for me post-grad school, so, you know, from I guess the outside looking in, a lot of folks kind of looked at me and said, "Okay, this chick kind of knows what she's doing. She has this internship. She has a job offer, school, everything." Then I would start to get questions. [laughs] Once people kind of caught on to just what I had started to--the brand, I guess... I didn't even know I was building a brand, but the brand that I was building, the reputation I was building for myself, and people started coming to me for career advice. They started coming to me for assistance with getting into graduate school, with help with getting a job, so I started looking at resumes, giving advice, and I realized that this was something that I could monetize, and I said, "All right, the next person to ask me for help, boom, charging them." [laughs] So that's how my business started. It started as a hobby, a passion. I realized I could monetize it, and so I did. Now I've learned so much along the way in terms of getting the skills and the trainings and the experience, the lessons, and just expanding my own skill set or diversifying my own skill set to be able to run a business. You know, those were thing that I of course had to be extremely intentional about as I was building my business. If I could recommend one book to anyone that is really thinking about entrepreneurship and taking that thing all the way, The E-Myth Revisited. For me, it was such a game-changing read, such a game-changing book, because it talks about how a lot of us may start businesses based on a hobby, based on a passion, based on just doing something, and we realize "Oh, this is something that I could monetize," but you don't really learn the fundamentals of actually growing a business, of running a business, and so that book really breaks it down on how to actually do that, how to scale your business, how to really run your business as the CEO that you are. Now, I mean, there are many people as well that don't just start businesses based off of a passion or a hobby. You know, some folks are extremely intentional about solving a business need or solving a business problem, but The E-Myth, such a really great read, you know? We don't learn a lot about entrepreneurship, really nothing at all about entrepreneurship in college, so it is important to think about all of the different skills that are needed to run a business. So kind of going back to, you know, my story, that's how I started my business. Over the last 4.5 years, we've worked with close to 900 professionals in a variety of industries. Business has grown from just a team of one, me, [laughs] to a team of five. Everyone on my team are resume writers, career coaches. I have an assistant. I have someone that helps with business development as well, and, you know, I have so many clients that I've coached over--not just domestically, but also overseas, in Paris, in France--or Paris, France, [laughs] and in Ghana, in Canada, and all over, you know, the U.S. And so in terms of my revenue goals, you know, I have been able to--huge accomplishment on my end, but to exceed six figures last month and, you know, still the goal for my business--I'm being extremely transparent at this moment--the goal for my business is to hit 150K. You know, could I do more? Yeah, but I think that's pretty good, you know? Fourth, fifth year, you know, getting into it. My goal next year is to focus on profit and then cutting as many expenses as possible. Anyways, going back to the first thing that I really had to adjust as I was really thinking about taking this thing all the way in terms of my business. First thing was mindset. It was--you have to think about it in terms of "Is this something I really want to commit to? Am I ready to be fully committed to doing this?" You have to be sure. You know, this really isn't a trial-and-error thing, meaning going from just side hustle to full time is--you know, you want to be pretty sure about it if you are anything like me. Now, I've had friends that have just taken the leap. They've taken the jump. [laughs] But I was really strategic, and I had a plan in place. I am a planner. I've always liked to kind of be in control of my future and, you know, I don't like surprises. [laughs] So I had a plan in place. For me, I knew this was something I had to be fully committed to, and understand that, you know, going from--I think the biggest change for me going from a side hustler to a full-time hustler is that, you know, your lifestyle fundamentally changes. Everything about your lifestyle changes. When you are in charge of yourself, you are in charge of your schedule. You have to decide when you work, where you work, who you want to work with and who you meet with. There's also a lot of decision fatigue that goes into entrepreneurship, so that's something to think about. It takes a lot of energy to run a business, not just from, you know--let's say you are someone that is in, you know, marketing, right? You know, you are developing marketing materials. You may be even doing marketing strategy or SEO strategy for a company, you know? They are likely--maybe you're doing it in-house for a company, or maybe you are working with a company that serves different clients. You know, either way, the company has those processes, systems, tools in place for you to get the work done, or even if you are, you know, managing communication with different teams and groups and clients, you know, these things are being managed by your company. When you are out on your own, there is no middleman, you know? You have to think through those processes and getting all of that in order in terms of dealing with clients, you know? Dealing with, you know, your team. And as an entrepreneur, you're not just doing that work anymore that you were doing with said company. I mean, you are doing--you are the operations person. You are HR. [laughs] You are legal. You are finance. You are customer service, you know? You are the communications person. I mean, of course you will most definitely want to for sure get a lawyer or an attorney, and also make sure you get an accountant, for sure, but there are times where you will need to--you have to know all of the things that are going on with your business until you get to a point where you are starting to hire talent to take on some of that work for you. So what I'm saying there is it takes a lot of energy, maybe a different level of energy, a different level of discipline and motivation, and also self-accountability that goes into entrepreneurship. Now, when you get to a point where you have decided--maybe you started your business on the side [and] you're getting it to a place where you have steady income coming in and you're really thinking about leaving your current workplace. One thing that I want