Episode 75: 5 Tips for Starting Your Side Hustle While You’re Still Teaching

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Happy Tuesday ladies! Before we jump into today’s episode, which I know y’all are going to love. I want to invite you to the free workshop, The Virtual Assistant Breakdown. In this workshop, I’m gonna be teaching you what services a virtual assistant can offer, where to find paying clients so you can start working from home faster, and the three mistakes that new virtual assistants make so that you can avoid them. You can register for this workshop at ariannavernier.com/virtual-assistant-workshop, or click the link in my show notes.

(01:27):
So a lot of my students in my program start their virtual assistant businesses as a side hustle while they’re still teaching, at least until they’ve mostly replaced their teaching income. I know that many of y’all listening are interested in doing the same thing. So today I’m sharing my top five tips for starting your side hustle while you are still teaching. Tip number one, y’all have heard me talk about this before, is time blocking. It’s time to bust out that paper planner and get really, really clear on what timeframes you have available to work on your side hustle. If you want a really in-depth look into time blocking and being really consistent with this, I highly suggest going and checking out episode 65. It will break this down so, so clearly for you and give you a lot of tangible tactical steps for time blocking out your week.

(02:38):
Tip number two is to prioritize the top three money making tasks in your business each day. So, I highly recommend the cake method. This is not something that I created, but I’m not sure where I heard it from, but I love it. So think of three layers of a cake as your three big money making tasks for the day. So you need to get those three layers built before you do anything else, because anything else is just sprinkles. So it’s really important to look at what tasks will lead to more income in your business. For example, following up with someone. That’s more likely to land you a paying client than creating a new Instagram post. So think about what tasks are more likely to bring new income into my business and prioritize those. And you don’t need a never-ending to-do list. We already have enough of that as teacher. So stick with your three tasks for the day. And if you get anything else done on top of those, it’s just sprinkles. But those three need to be top priority.

(03:51):
Your tip number three – and this is a hard one for some of y’all, I know it was for me – is to ask for help. Ask for help from your spouse, get a mother’s helper. Y’all mother’s helpers, if you don’t know what they are, they’re just usually a younger teenager that comes into your house while you are there and watches your child while you’re in another room working. And so since you’re still there and still available to help if needed, they don’t cost as much. And that was a really great solution for me when my daughter was young. You can also get a full-on babysitter, which is a little more pricey. If you’re wanting to go the very cheap route, you could even swap child watching with a neighbor. So say, they watch your kiddo on Saturday for a few hours. You watch their kiddo on Sunday for a few hours. By utilizing other people to help you with tasks around the house, tasks for your teaching job, and even tasks in your side hustle business, that’s going to allow you to really have the time and you to scale this, to become your full-time thing if that’s what you want.

(05:07):
Now, tip number four is eliminate distractions. So when you’re working on your business, make sure that your phone is in airplane mode. You can even set it to focus mode where only certain people’s calls will be able to come through. So if you need your husband’s calls to be able to still come through, you can set that. You can also, in the focus mode, you can make it so certain apps on your phone will not work.

(05:38):
Social media is a huge distraction. We all spend way too much time on it. If you look at your phone time tracker, you’ll see that the amount of time we spend on social media is kind of sickening. Turn it off while you’re working, do not get distracted. Whatever’s on there can wait. Okay? Focus on those big money-making tasks.

(05:57):
Tip number five, focus on getting everything done, not perfect. This is something I really, really, really emphasize with my students. Get something done. Get your portfolio created for your business and start pitching clients. Do not spend hours and hours and hours and hours perfecting that portfolio. You can always tweak it later, but get that first draft done and start applying. Creating the perfect portfolio is not what’s going to land you the clients. Sending that portfolio out to potential clients is what’s going to get you someone paying you. Again, focus on the money-making tasks, and put that perfectionism to the side. We do not have room for that. If you want to really scale your side hustle so that you can quit teaching for good.

(06:53):
Okay. Let me recap these tips for you. Number one, gotta make time blocking a priority so you really know where those pockets of time are, that you can work on your business. Tip number two is prioritize those top three money-making tasks in your business each day. Tip number three is ask for help. Tip number four is eliminate distractions. And tip number five is done, not perfect. I hope this was helpful for y’all. If you’re loving this show, I would be so grateful if you take 30 seconds to go and leave a review, that’s how we get the show out to more people. We get more amazing guests on the show for y’all. This is just the way that the podcast can grow, and I can continue serving y’all as much as I do ’cause I just love being here for all of you. So I love you so much and we will see you next Tuesday.