648: The 10 Best Side Hustles of the Year

24:11A four-sided thing or it's like one of these mechanic rotating type of deal? Yeah, it was a top and a bottom on both sides. So it was a good old-fashioned, there was four static billboards. So we call them static. So in billboards, there's static, there's digital, and then there's actually TriVision. But most are static or digital. So you have just the ones that are flat. They don't change. They stay the same 24-7. And then you have the digital that actually then rotate in as a LED screen. The one that's closest to us that I can think of, I think it, so it's two-sided, right? So you get people going both directions.

24:42And I want to say there's two different advertisers on each side. Like it somehow flips and then every now and again. Yep. So then there's a TriVision. So those actually flip through. Yeah, the slats get broken. It's just like half of one and half of the other and stuff. Okay. So about four signs, 600 bucks each. We're at$2 ,400 a month in income there. Okay. And so then penciled that against the acquisition costs. And I have learned to not do math on air, but that's close to$29 ,000 for the year, which pencils out. ROI is about three. Yeah. Three years and you're breaking even on that purchase cost.

25:16Total purchase cost. Yeah. Paid back in three. I promise you'll never look at billboards the same way again. Again, that was episode 608 with Chris Brown. Really interesting side hustle. That's equal parts real estate and media. Next on my list is one that I shared with a ton of people just because of the novelty factor. I never knew this was a thing. And that was Cheryl DeFrank's photo organizing business in episode 619. In that episode, she said she had more than enough work to keep herself busy full time and that the average rate is around$100 an hour, and that the average project could be 20 hours or more.

25:50It seems like a relatively low competition side hustle, like there simply aren't that many service providers doing this yet. And there's a novelty factor when you strike up a conversation about it. Cheryl did her first project for free to get the hang of it, which gave her the confidence to go after paid photo organizing work. Here's how she described getting the business off the ground. I just started talking to friends, and my first actual paying client was another friend who just said, hey, can you help me out with the photos on my phone? Because they're such a mess. I know I've got so many duplicates.

26:20Everybody has tons of duplicates. It was a relatively small project, but I helped her out and she was grateful. And then she just started talking to other people. A lot of people would say to start with friends and family. And that's a good idea. I mean, they obviously will already kind of have a certain amount of faith in you and already want to support you. But it can also be a little bit hard to work with friends and family. So I kind of started spreading the word as quickly as possible. I'm on a neighborhood listserv, so which is kind of like Nexo. It's basically an email listserv. All the families in my kids' school are on a listserv.

26:55All the people that belong to our pool are on another listserv and so on. So you've got all these different kind of groups. Either I would post something about my services, and sometimes there's rules about self-promotion, but either I would post something or a friend would post something for me, kind of maybe even a scripted thing like, Like, hey, you guys wouldn't believe this person I found to organize all your photos and give her a call. And of course, now, years later, my previous clients will post things on their own listservs. So just the word kind of spreads. And the phone hasn't really stopped ringing in 10 years based on just kind of word of mouth.

27:30I always say, like, someone told me early on, and this is probably true in every business, someone told me early on to put your company name and kind of a little tagline of what you do at the bottom of every single email you write, no matter who you're sending it to, whether it's a business email or not. Yeah, and it's not a new concept. But in my case, because it is so unique, I'll send an email to somebody about my son's lacrosse game or something or lacrosse team, and they'll see what I'll do. And they'll write me back having nothing to do with lacrosse, but say, wait, what is that you do? I see you're a photo organizer.

28:03Like, what's that? And then it might turn into a job, might turn into a project. It's a conversation starter, if nothing else. And we've talked about that. It absolutely is. That email signature space, underutilized marketing, real estate, in some cases. I was assuming this was going to be almost all digital. But when starting locally, I guess maybe it is in person. So it's that box in the attic. It's like the physical pictures. And so does it need to be kind of a local radius for it? It's both. It's really both. The three main areas of photo organizing. Number one is the print photos. These are usually maybe older families that still have print photos in the attic.

28:39It's a mess. They've been hiding up there for years. And so they'll give me the boxes of print photos for me to organize and sort. And usually it's chronologically. For the most part, because there is a physical exchange there, those are usually local clients. But I've had people mail me boxes and boxes of photos from other places. So that's one area. And then the other area is digital photo organizing, which is, again, the photos on the phone and the hard drives and all those little camera cards that we have in all kinds of drawers around the house and so on, that the clients also have no idea where everything is or what's on these hard drives.

29:14So in that case, again, it certainly can be local, but then you can have people either send me hard drives or sometimes, for instance, and we'll log into their online storage. So for instance, I can log into a person's iCloud or a person's Google Photos or something obviously with their permission and organize straight online and never meet the client in person. And then the third aspect, which is kind of one of the main areas is scanning or digitizing photos. There's certain photo organizers that just do that. So they just do scanning and they don't really even do the sorting process. So there's lots of different aspects.

29:50And then there's other kind of offshoots like just creating photo books. There are certain organizers, their specialty is creating photo books for all kinds of different events or slideshows, kind of anything having to do with photos that a lot of people either just have no idea how to do or don't want to spend the time figuring it out. Or the other thing too is working with your own photos, whatever you're doing, whether you're sorting them, whether you're creating a slideshow, trying to pick the photos for the slideshow is a very emotional process when you're working with your own photos. So what I tell clients, which is true, is there's no emotion for me.

30:26So I can do it much, much faster. And I'm not reliving my son's three-year birthday party in the process and so on. What do you think? Is this a side hustle you could take action on? Would you hire a photo organizer yourself? Again, episode 619 with Cheryl to get the full scoop on her unique service business. I selected the next side hustle on this list because it's the one I probably tell more people to start than any other, and that's software consulting. The specific example I want to highlight from this year is Christy DeSilva from DeSilva Life. Christy's built a really strong brand and business specializing in support for two different software tools, HoneyBook and ClickUp.

31:03The reason I like this model so much is you don't have to create demand from scratch. If you find the right software, maybe it's one you're an early user of, you're a fan of, they'll likely be heavily investing in growing their user base. A lot of times these companies have raised venture capital and they're investing in user acquisition, customer acquisition. So if you can create content to help those people, those new customers, it's easy to get found or at least easier than shouting into the void of the internet without piggybacking on some built-in search volume around the name of a specific software like Christy does with HoneyBook and ClickUp.

31:39The other reason it's so powerful is by niching down and becoming a sought after expert in a specific software is the pricing power that comes with it. I started my rates a lot lower than other people may have been charging because I'm like, I'm not like a top tier expert yet, but I know that I know a lot more about these products than the people that I'm serving and these softwares than the people that I'm serving. And so I was still able to charge more technically hourly, except a lot of our stuff is flat right now. For example, yeah, making about 30 to 40 bucks an hour as a VA, where now I charge$300 an hour for a strategy session.

32:21Like so crazy, that jump. But now being an expert in this for four years, it's really cool to see. It is really cool to see. She 10X'd her hourly rate by niching down from generalist to specialist. And how does she find customers? Well, in most cases, they find her. That's what's cool about this. She creates helpful, keyword-targeted Q &A content for YouTube and invites viewers to take the next step, either scheduling a call or downloading some free resources. Here's how she described the YouTube strategy. We get the majority of our leads from YouTube, and I will say like probably 80 % of the time people come on, they're like, oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you.

32:57I've been subscribed to your channels for like two or three years and they feel like they already know me, even though I have no idea who they are yet. It's funny because it's a huge thing in sales is that like no like and trust factor. And we already solved that piece before we even ever get on a sales call. Yeah. You know, you're showing your face, your voice. Yeah. You build a lot of trust that way. deciding what type of content to make any sort of like keyword research tools or search volume that goes into it. I'm just looking at like broad Google searches, you know, 400 ,000 monthly searches for ClickUp and then 60 ,000 for HoneyBook.

33:36And so there's some decent like top level search volume, but then I imagine it kind of goes into that long tail for like how to run your agency in HoneyBook, like more specific type of searches. We actually really love VidIQ. We were using TubeBuddy for a while and then we started getting into vidIQ. They have some really cool things with like AI and their platform is a bit more robust, I feel. We look at our channel and we do quarterly content planning. We do yearly at a high level and then we do quarterly. And we try to do like themed content, like themed months. And now we're starting to get into like different series.

34:14And we'll look at what performed best on our channels or like what's ranking highest. Like for example, our ClickUp dashboards video was ranking highest for like a long time, our how to use HoneyBook and ClickUp yearly videos. Like in 2024, those always do really well as well. So we're like, okay, we'll always do those in the beginning of the year. But we'll look back at our previous content, what's highly ranking, knowing people want more of that. And then we'll really just start doing long tail keyword research in vidIQ, you know, kind of going down a rabbit hole of like, okay, how are these ranking in terms of search volume and things like that?

34:54Is there a minimum search volume that is interesting to you or worthwhile to make the video about? It's more like how it scores in vidIQ. I think we're looking over like a 60 or 70 ranking. Which is a combination of volume and competitiveness. Yeah, exactly. And so we also, speaking of competitiveness, we'll definitely do competitor research as well because we have like a few competitors. We're very niche, but we absolutely have competitors. And so we'll look at their channels, what's ranking high on their channels. And by no means do we ever just copy their video, but we'll be like, okay, cool.

35:32They did something on this specific topic. how can we do something similar but have our own spin? And so we'll do that research as well. Again, this is something you can replicate across any number of different niches. We've seen examples of people doing this with Asana, with QuickBooks, with FreshBooks, with Salesforce, with Excel, with different WordPress themes and plugins. It's one that is ripe for replication. Be sure to check out the full episode number 627 with Christy to learn more. The rest of our best side hustles of the year are coming up right after this. There are less than 100 days left in 2025, which means less than 100 days left to hit those goals that you said or to refocus your energy on what really matters.

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36:47There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. Side Hustle Show listeners get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show. Just go to Indeed.com slash SideHustleShow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash SideHustleShow. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring. Indeed is all you need. A lot of side hustlers suffer from what-if-itis. What if it doesn't work? What if I don't have the skills? What if I pick the wrong path? But one thing 100 % of our amazing guests have in common is they took their shot.

37:26They phased down those what-ifs and they got their answers through taking action. Our partner Shopify helps turn what-ifs into why-nots. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, from household names to the very guests on this show. What if I can't design a website? Shopify's got you with ready-made templates to match your brand style. What if people haven't heard about my brand? Shopify helps you find customers with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns. And what if I get stuck? you can tap in to Shopify's award-winning 24-7 customer support. Let's turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify.

38:04Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash side hustle. Go to shopify.com slash side hustle. Shopify.com slash side hustle. This year, I was lucky enough to connect with a pair of Jacks, Jack Fleming and Jack Leimbach, both really inspiring young college-aged entrepreneurs. Jack Fleming had built up his lawn mowing and yard care service to 70 grand in profit as a teenager and ended up selling off a portion of the business. It was a great story, starting out pushing the lawnmower up and down the sidewalk, I think starting at 13 years old, and then continuing to level up and bid bigger and more complex projects.

38:46That was episode 610. And a little bit later in the year, in episode 630, we met Jack Leimbach, who had a similar local service business, only instead of lawn mowing, it was window washing. When we recorded, Jack was about to start his sophomore year in college, but was already selling 10 grand worth of window washing every month. Now, like the other Jack, the business started out by going door to door, and that worked, but it was tedious. And if you've ever gone cold calling, you know you deal with a lot of rejection and sometimes just flat out rude people. So it was when Jack layered on a level of online advertising and combined that with some better equipment when the business really started to blow up.

39:25I made my first Instagram ad and I posted it on Facebook. I posted it on Instagram. Facebook didn't do very good. So I just, I took it off Facebook, kind of put all the money towards Instagram and I was just spending$10 a day, like really nothing. And then I was knocking on the side of it. But just that one ad after spending$600, it generated me$10 ,000 in revenue just from the ad. And that doesn't even include the word of mouth I got from it or recurring customers, whatever it is. But the return on investment on online advertising is huge. Wow. That's crazy because it's probably like super location targeted.

40:00Probably, I imagine you'd like want to target homeowners, above average income level. You probably set it really, really targeted. Yeah. There's a bunch of little, little things you can add in. I want it to be a woman that's 35 to 65 and I want it to be right in my area. But in all these ads, the super important part is, so I made a video. They were all super funny. I tried to make them like super entertaining to listen to. But the most important part was right at the beginning, I'd say, Hey, Evergreen or Hey, Auburn. That way people know I'm talking to them and they're not just going to skip it because they see the send message, which shows it's an ad.

40:35So they're not just going to skip it right away. And they actually might listen because they know I'm targeting it right to them. And then I'm going to throw in a joke a little bit after. So for example, for my Auburn ad, I posted this one about six days ago and I've just, I've put in 60 bucks into it. I've already booked$2 ,500 worth of jobs with it. It's been doing super good. But what I said, I said, hey, Auburn, there's a huge epidemic going around the Auburn and Opelika area. Your windows are looking like this or this or this, and it's going to cause some serious permanent damage that's going to seriously lower your property value.

41:07And then, you know, I did this funny little transition where I did a little jump and I went from my normal clothes to like my uniform with my belt on. And people love that. But then I have all these moms texting me and they're like, or DMing me and they say, Hey, like I love a quote. And then you get there and then you do your spiel. Okay. Okay. So that's the call to action. I love that. There's a huge epidemic if there are any windows going around. And then you show the visuals, you're like, and then you can see people looking up at there. It's like, yeah, when was the last time those were clean?

41:35So then the call to action is message me for a quote or message me to schedule an appointment. Yeah, so at the very end, I tell them all the services I do. And I say, I know you need at least one of these done. So give me a text. And I point up and then my number pops up. But most people just DM me and it says at the bottom, like the whole time you're reaching, it says send message. And then they can just send a message and it's super duper easy. Most people just say, hey, I'd love a quote. And then maybe they send their address and I say, okay, I'll be there tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, oh, that's super easy.

42:05Okay. How cool. What a great return on investment on that. And then while you're out on the job, of course, there's opportunity to go get some warm or semi-warm leads from the neighbors. Hey, we're working on so-and-so's house next door and try and turn one job into two. Yeah. So typically how we structure our business plan for the day is we schedule one house from an ad or that we've knocked on a previous day. And we schedule one house per day, like per morning or whenever we start working. And then when we get to that house, normally one person starts cleaning while the other goes knocking to line up the rest of the day.

42:36And that's how we're able to fill up our schedule so often, just because we already have that name. And so we can say, oh, Michelle down the road, like that's where we're at. And that builds that level of trust. And you're more likely to land the client. Yeah. Leaning on the job that you were able to book And then being able to say, as soon as we're done there, we'll come over here versus, well, let's book it. Well, you know, the motivation might wane if you wait too long. We're only going to schedule one per day and then trust and hope that we can get some more jobs to fill up the schedule. Yeah.

43:05When people are calling you out, usually they got a couple people that are asking for a quote. And so you're trying to just beat those other people. But when you're doing door to door, you know, there's that appeal of the homeowner to just like get it done right away. And so, you know, you're not really competing with other people. And the homeowner just loves the fact that like, okay, these guys can do it in literally an hour. They can get me a price in 30 seconds. Like I might as well just hear the price. And then, you know, if I want it done today, like that'd be great. What both the Jacks showed me was that the money's out there if you're willing to go and get it.

43:34And maybe they had the advantage of youth when knocking on doors. But I still think there's a big opportunity in local home services, lawn care, window washing, house cleaning, car detailing, gutter cleaning, you name it. Another side hustle I just couldn't help but tell people about was Wayne Seminoff's junk land flipping business, highlighted in episode 629. Wayne holds the record as the most experienced side hustle show guest at age 81 when we recorded, and he said he's been doing his unique land business for the last 40 years. Now, the name of the game here is to find these unwanted, unloved, vacant parcels.

44:08Maybe they've got title issues. Maybe they're too small to get a building permit. Maybe there's no sewer or septic. Wayne picks a handful of these up every year at the tax auction and or sometimes is able to make a deal with the seller before the public sale and then opens up his bag of tricks and works with City Hall to make the lot buildable. It's more like legal and red tape work than it is bulldozers and hammers. But if you can get that stamp of approval for a building permit, all of a sudden that lot is worth 10 to 100 times what he paid for it. And the key to it is pretty simple. Generally, junk land is junk because you can't build on it.

44:45But I found there was like seven tools you can use to change junk land into buildable land. And one is like variances. You get a variance from the building code. Or let's say you need a boundary line adjustment or title problems or whatever the problem is on the property, if you can isolate that problem and then correct it, your value dramatically increases a hundred times. I mean, like literally a hundred times. I'll give you an example of that. I bought a property a year ago in Issaquah, which is a really hot area, bought a half acre lot with water, sewer, power, road access right across the street from Target, and I paid$1 ,000 for it.

45:29And then the reason I bought it for$1 ,000 is the guy who had owned it for like 20 years couldn't sell it to anybody because he had a title problem. He couldn't get clear title from the title insurance company. So he was going to let it go on the tax sale. So I called him before the tax sale, and I said, hey, are you going to let it go on the tax sale? And he says, yes, I'm going to let it go on the tax sale. And I go, well, I'll buy it from you, you know, and don't let it go on the tax sale. And I said, I'll give you$500 for it. And he goes, no, no, no, no, no. You think I'm crazy? And I say, well, how much do you want for it?

46:02He goes, I'll take$1 ,000 for it. I need to pause and say like, you know, any piece of land just given the path of development in this area is worth significantly more than even$1 ,000. So you're thinking he's like, hey, dude, don't lowball me. Come on. I know what I'm sitting on. But he's like, I didn't really want that much more. It always shocks me. And I always come back, do that lowball thing. and they always come back with low, low counter offers. And so he said, if you send me$1 ,000, I'll sign over the deed to you. And so him and his sister owned it. So I got his sister and him to sign it.

46:38And I just sent him the deed electronically. And then I Venmo'd him the money. So he had the money immediately. And then he just sent it back to me. And I had a deal. So then I took this gorgeous piece of land. Right now it's owned for one unit. In that area, one unit of land is worth$500 ,000, one housing unit. And so I went to my attorney, and I said, I need to do a quiet title and clear this title. And I looked into what the problems were on the title, and I found some supporting data to give to the attorney to make the quiet title action go smoother. And it took him four and a half months.

47:16And at the end of four and a half months, he gave me clear title. and I got a title report that says, I'm the sole owner of the property and nobody else can challenge it. And now today, that$1 ,000 property is worth$500 ,000 right now. Yeah, so you have$1 ,000 into it plus some legal fees. Yeah, they cost me$15 ,000 for clearing the title. So for$16 ,000, I'm going to make$500 ,000. Right, wow. That sounds pretty good, right? That would get people on their toes, right? then that's not enough. Okay. So this lot is subdividable. So I'm applying for a short subdivision. I'm going to split the lot in two and two lots in that area are worth a million dollars.

48:01So in four months from now, when the short subdivision is over in Issaquah, I'll have two separate lots and I'll have a million dollars worth of land for about$25 ,000 total investment. I'll have a million dollar property. Now there's a lot to unpack here, but it was such an interesting conversation. And Wayne just happened to be local to me. It definitely got me looking at some vacant parcels nearby. I think the side hustle might be best if you've got a little bit of legal background, maybe a little bit of real estate background, you enjoy a little bit of a treasure hunt. And I got the impression that at this stage of his life, Wayne's just in it for the game, the thrill of the big win.

48:38And I could be wrong on that, but that was my impression. Episode 629, fascinating one, definitely check it out. And I think what I love most about my job is even 11 years into the show, I'm still coming across people like Wayne, people like Cheryl, people like Chris with the billboard business who've got businesses I've never heard of, never thought about before. Number nine on our list of the best side hustles of the year is Debbie Gartner's digital products business on Etsy. This is episode 637. This episode stood out to me for a few reasons. First, it's low risk, low overhead. It's a business where you can sell the same product to multiple different customers.

49:14That always appeals to me. Second, it wasn't an overnight hit. It took Debbie a couple years of admittedly very part-time effort to build the business to$1 ,000 a week or around$4 ,000 a month. I think a lot of people will see that result, but not the slow, consistent asset building effort that it took to get there. And third, what was maybe most interesting to me was her product idea generation methods, which went all the way back to her as a kid thinking, well, what did she really like to do? Just like with blogging, you start with, what do you know? What do you like? And how can you leverage that?

49:49So the simplest thing, like a blood pressure, one page tracker is all I did. I did other things like that. And then I started getting into games because I've always loved games. So I created a July 4th trivia game just because I had a blog post on my website that was for July 4th fireworks, you know, in my county. So I did that. And of course, it was, I don't know, November. So it wasn't very relevant. Okay. You got to skate where the puck is going, right? Okay. Come July, there's going to be some demand for this. Okay. Exactly. So then I said, okay, I made it done, but it proves to me that there's an opportunity here.

50:31So now let me do another trivia game. So I did a trivia game for Thanksgiving. And then I said, okay, well, there's Hanukkah and there's Christmas. And you just keep going through all the different holidays. I would do that. I would do different games. And I just had fun with that because it was really interesting. I just enjoyed it. There was the solar eclipse this year. So I did several solar eclipse games. So whatever is kind of of the moment or coming up, let's call it two to three months in advance, I would do it. And then I would just keep doing different things I was interested in or that I wanted to learn more about.

51:11And that's kind of how I did it. At some point, I had this realization that when I was younger, like in high school, I had this conversation with one of my friends in math class. You know, like, what do you want to do when you grow up? and I told them I wanted to be a puzzle master. Okay, okay. You know, like Will Shorts does, except at that point in time, Will Shorts, I didn't know who he was. He wasn't anyone famous, but I'm like, I want to do something like that, but there's no such job. So I just went to college and had a regular job. Yeah, like a virtual escape room coordinator or that's a really interesting one.

51:51I had a similar, because now you're making money doing that, taking it back to high school, I had, you know, my job shadow day would have been junior, senior year, was going down to like the sports broadcast office for Channel 5 in Seattle. And I was like, yeah, it's super irrelevant to what I'm doing today. And then my buddy was like, you're kind of in media, you know, that seems actually pretty relevant. So I was like, oh, it's kind of this weird full circle moment of, yeah, I guess that it's kind of is broadcast media in a way. Exactly. There's so many things I've done in my life in different jobs and different courses I took in college or high school or just, you know, continuing ed courses or hobbies or anything.

52:33And so then I just kept going through my brain like, what do I like? What am I interested in? And then I would try to understand, is there a need for whatever that is? Do a little bit of keyword research, try some stuff out. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. then do more of what works, like rinse and repeat. And that's basically what it is. So I'm picturing like a trivial game, like Trivial Pursuit, where I've got a bunch of these cards, I got these, you know, question cards that people are cutting out at home. It's just like a big list. Tell me just like a little bit of the structure of what the product looks like.

53:06Exactly. So you can't use Trivial Pursuit because that's a trademark, but you can take games like that or something else and call them something else and make sure you don't use the trade colors of them or anything like that. But yes, that's exactly the idea. And what happens is when you make some products, Etsy recommends other products that are like this and you kind of can't help but notice other games. So as I start creating more games, I see more games that are available. And then I try those. And then some work, some don't. And then whichever ones of those work, I make more of those. And then I get more suggestions.

53:47And then it gets my brain going because I am not naturally a creative person. Like not at all. I don't know. Give yourself some credit. You've been creating content on the internet for 14 years here. Well, you get better at it. So the point is you don't need to be creative. My mom would always say, you're so creative. I'd say, no, I'm not. Really, honestly, I'm good at creative problem solving, but I'm not a creative person. But it doesn't matter because you can just learn it because as you do it, you become more creative. You know, just like I did not know anything about flooring, but you learn it.

54:21And then I became good at home decor. So you just, as your interest level increases, your curiosity does too. And then so does your knowledge. They all work together. and then ideas, they just come to you. It's like, I don't even try anymore. I can, I mean, you've seen one of my things where I wrote like, I have 1 ,014 ideas of things I can create on Etsy. I hope that little sample sparks some inspiration to start thinking about what kind of digital products you could create or even a little bit broader, what kind of side hustle might be in your wheelhouse. Episode 637 with Debbie, the flooring girl, Gartner.

55:01All right, let's bring it home with number 10. To round out this list, I want to highlight Skylar Sullivan's remote cleaning business. And let this be an example of or a lens into any number of drop servicing style businesses where you're essentially playing a matchmaker between qualified service providers and people who need that work done. You've got a little more skin in the game than with Meow's website rental model, but I would say they're cousins. Business models are related. In Skylar's case, it was super impressive building Nebraska Elite Cleaning to$60 ,000 a month as a side hustle in episode 645, just aired a couple weeks ago.

55:38The premise here is to build a strong online brand and presence, nail the operations and logistics, and then find people who are excited to do the delivery for you. In fact, that's where Skylar recommended starting. After all, if you book a job and you don't have anyone to go out and do it, it's going to be you. And that's not the end of the world, but that wasn't his ultimate goal. I asked him how he sourced and onboarded new cleaners so then he could go out and market the business Yeah, well everybody's cleaned i've cleaned before, you know Don't love it, but everybody's clean and so cleaning to me is like you don't have to be a star or machine Yeah, we can all learn tips and tricks and be more efficient be better But if you're just detailed and diligent, anybody can do it if you're high character detailed and diligent You probably anybody can do it and then after that I mean there's tips and tricks for different chemicals, but so that's what I knew That's what I knew is that it doesn't take a master.

56:28I just need to find some people who are probably good. And maybe they've worked in a hotel or something like that. So I would use Indeed, Facebook a little bit, but Craigslist, Indeed. Indeed was really, really helpful at first. And then after I found a couple, we would use referrals from cleaners who knew other cleaners who had worked out. So what's that pitch like though? The pitch is like, hey, I just created an elite cleaning company. A company that I'm looking for pros. We are pros. We have a professional mantra. And I'm looking for pros like you based on your resume and who you are. You know, does this sound like something you'd be interested in, you know, making some more money and taking more jobs?

57:01And most of the time it's yes. Not always, but most of the time. Okay. So it's like the pitch is we'll, you know, we're building this elite culture. We'd love for you to be a part of it if that's a fit and we'll help you fill up your schedule. We'll help you get more hours. Absolutely. Yep, exactly. We'll help you fill up your schedule. All you have to worry about is doing the cleaning. We'll do the, you know, the scheduling. We'll do the notes. All you have to do is just show up, do the cleaning. You don't have to worry about reschedules and collecting payments. We'll take care of all that for you.

57:30Got it. And so it appeals to the people who want an easy button way. I mean, of course, it's still manual labor, but they don't have to be the entrepreneur. They don't have to be the marketer. They don't have to be the administrator. They can just show up and do the work. I think a lot of people are looking for something like that. Yeah, exactly. Advertising. They don't have to worry about sales. negotiation with customers, customer cancellations, getting payments, you know, and the communication with customers, it can be literally 24 seven, like we'll get calls, texts from people and all day, all night.

57:59And so if you're not an entrepreneur, don't have that mindset, you can get walked over by customers as well, or taken advantage of. What's typical in terms of an hourly rate or a payment per clean? Or how do you have things structured with the cleaners? We like to be around that$25,$25 an hour ish, because they're also supplying equipment of their own equipment as well, their own cleaning supplies and driving there. So$25 and then they get tips as well. And it can be a little bit higher around that. Skylar went on to explain that he typically would aim for a 40 to 50 % margin on the residential jobs he'd book, lower on commercial cleaning work because it's more competitive and more frequent, like lower margin but higher volume, if that makes sense.

58:39And I highlight Skylar's business because it's another one like Christie's where you could replicate it in any number of different niches. The key is looking for an industry that's pretty fragmented, like cleaning, where there really aren't any single companies that you could probably think of that command a big chunk of market share. On top of that, like we might have talked about in that episode, it's an industry where the pie keeps getting bigger. It's a chore that more and more people are choosing to hire out. So you don't necessarily need to conquest business from another provider. Again, episode 645, remote cleaning business.

59:10That's number 10 on our list. To recap, number one was the$100 a day challenge with Jackie Mitchell. Number two was the website rental business, the rank and rent model. Number three was vending machines. I think we could all use a money-making robot in our life. Number four was the billboard business. You'll never look at billboards the same way again. Number five was photo organizing. Number six was software consulting, highlighting the piggyback principle. Go where there's already some level of demand and establish some credibility and expertise there. Number seven was window washing, one of our college side hustle examples.

59:44Number eight was the super, super interesting junk land flipping business, looking for those unloved parcels and making them buildable. Number nine was digital products on Etsy, an example of creating something once, selling it over and over again. And number 10 was Skylar's remote cleaning business. If you want to learn more about any of these individual businesses, make sure to check out those specific episodes. Again, I will link those up in the show notes. And for the sake of convenience, I put them all into a Spotify playlist for you, which is also linked up in the show notes, sidehustlenation.com slash best of 24, or just hit the link in the episode description and it'll get you right over there.

1:00:23Big thanks to all our incredible guests for sharing their insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.