Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Do you know how to make money Or JUST DO A JOB?
There is a subtle but important difference between making money and earning a salary.
If you can understand this difference, adapt and explore the possibilities over the next few years, I believe you can capitalise on the remote, globalised and connected world to make money and live the kind of life you want to live.
There is a fundamental shift taking place in the world of work right now.
It’s a shift towards skilled people learning that they can make money on their own.
It’s a shift away from salaried employees waiting for their employers to pay them every month.
It’s a shift towards financial freedom and a shift towards globalised earning for a lot of people.
“We need to learn how to make money.”
This shift was always going to happen but pre-COVID, it was going to happen much slower. Since lockdowns kicked in worldwide, people have had to adapt and have realised that they need to figure out how to make money, not simply earn a salary.
There is a subtle but important difference between making money and earning a salary.
If you can understand this difference, adapt and explore the possibilities over the next few years, I believe you can capitalise on the remote, globalised and connected world to make money and live the kind of life you want to live.
For decades we have been told that in order to live secure financial lives we must receive formal education at traditional institutions and then graduate into a job that pays us a salary for a skill that we acquired which cost us our sanity, health and loaded us with student debt.
The problem with this thinking today is that traditional educational institutions are preparing us for jobs that don’t exist. They don’t exist because the coursework is slow to respond to the changing world but also because there literally aren’t enough jobs being created.
Globally, 73 million young people are registered as unemployed and 600 million jobs need to be created over the next decade to quell the storm. It’s rough out there and I believe it’s getting more difficult to rely on big business to employ more people and provide for those who are coming up into the working world.
We need to learn how to make money.
When you get a job you are hired to do work. That work is ingested into a larger organisation and then the business makes money according to their revenue model. Very rarely are you specifically responsible for earning a dollar. You are hired to be responsible for your work, your job, the tasks assigned to you every day.
Making money is different. Making money is a skill that you learn. Making money means never having to rely on a salaried job alone to provide you with income. Making money helps you diversify your finances and take control of your potential to earn.
Entrepreneurs know how to make money.
Entrepreneurs can spot a gap in the market or identify a unique product or provide a service that people might require and then sell to a customer base.
Salaried employees are more likely to work on a small piece of a large plan, never sell anything, never get to know their customer and usually never worry about profit or the bottom line. That’s a problem.
I run an Online Side Hustle Academy (OSHA) where I teach people how to start their own side hustles in 6-weeks. The skill that I teach, really, is to figure out what you can sell to a specific group of people in the shortest amount of time. This is a skill that I believe everyone will need to know in the coming decades.
So, the question is; do you know how to make money or simply do a job?
To get started ask yourself if you have any skills that people need, any assets that you can sell, trade or leverage to make more money or any products that you believe a specific customer base might want to buy.
I have also created a free workbook to help you get over the five common roadblocks that hold most people back from making their own money. Download it now and sign up for the five-day accountability email program too!
Relationships are choices
One of the major roadblocks that people put in their way when starting a side hustle or business is their relationships.
“My partner doesn’t agree with this business.”
“My husband doesn’t want me to work on the weekends.”
“My father/mother/friends think I should forget this idea.”
One of the major roadblocks that people put in their way when starting a side hustle or business is their relationships.
“My partner doesn’t agree with this business.”
“My husband doesn’t want me to work on the weekends.”
“My father/mother/friends think I should forget this idea.”
Or one of the most popular excuses: “People will laugh at me if I fail.”
Let me get straight to the point: You are using these people as excuses for your own fears.
Your fears are driving you away from the life you want and the side hustle that could change everything. The people who drag you down are pulling you away from your success and you tolerate them. You tolerate them. You enable them. You allow them to belittle you and your ambitions because they happen to be your family, your friends or some random person that you told your idea to. That is batshit crazy.
You can choose different friends. You get to choose your family, especially if they’re assholes. Especially if they’re dragging you down to their level and beating you with experience.
You can choose to stop engaging with your family if they are bad for you. It’s OK to admit they are bad for you. All across the world, there are people who have siblings, parents, friends and extended family who hurt them, disappoint them or damage them. You don’t have to be a part of that.
I have had some difficult relationships in my life; an uncle who turned out to be a child molester and drug addict. Friends who I thought were close to me but never really cared about me. A business partner who betrayed my trust and sold a business behind my back.
These are meant to be relationships that uplift you and make you a better person. They didn’t for me and that’s actually OK.
It’s OK to walk away from relationships that are bad or even ones that are just not good enough.
At one point very early on in my entrepreneurial career, I was 19 years old and at university studying journalism. I started an online student publication with two friends. We slaved away building the site called StudentWire. It was a news aggregator for student news and after about 10 months of building this business, gaining traction and doing the hard work to get it live and get ten university campuses to provide us with weekly news stories I realised that my two business partners wanted the business to be a non-profit.
At university, there is always this undertone of saving the world and doing good and this message is often mixed up with anti-capitalism rhetoric that suggests that you cannot do good and make money. I believe you can do good and make money. We were at an impasse. We had fundamentally different ideals and there was really no way around it. I took the lead and decided that I believed the business could go all the way if we made if a for-profit entity. I stood my ground and took over the business from the two partners who were willing to give up their equity for their ideals.
That’s completely acceptable. That’s how things go. You sit down, you have a conversation and you decide if you stay together or move on. In truth, I don’t think our relationships were every the same but that’s also OK. I made a decision based on my world view and I stood by it. Not every partnership is going to work out. Not every friendship remains and not every person in your life is meant to be there forever.
You only have a finite amount of time each day, week, month, year to engage with other humans. You get to decide if you engage with humans that make you better or make you worse.
I choose to surround myself with friends who are the best people I know. They make me better, they support my side hustles, they push me every day to be a better version of myself and they hold me accountable.
Sure, sometimes we get smashed and have a party. Sometimes we talk about nothing and send each other random memes but these are people who I want to be more like and who will help me at the drop of hat and ask for nothing in return.
Everyone deserves this kind of person in their life. If you even have to second guess your relationships then it’s time to really analyse that relationship and decide if it’s more effort to stay in it than to get out. Is it better for you to be involved with these people or to walk away? Do they want the best for you and are they actively trying to help you get there?
Believe it or not, you get to choose. You get to decide who you spend time with. You are not obligated to see people just because they’ve always been around or you share some DNA.
To start a business, a side hustle, a new career or job you need the best people in your corner and if you don’t have them then your task becomes orders of magnitude more difficult.
Find the best people and get close to them.
Building A Personal Brand Side Hustle
Authenticity is key. It’s so much easier to consistently be yourself than to try and be someone else. If you think about your favourite celebs, they’re just being themselves - and it’s so much easier to invest in them and like them.
Authenticity is key. It’s so much easier to consistently be yourself than to try and be someone else. If you think about your favourite celebs, they’re just being themselves - and it’s so much easier to invest in them and like them.
If you are wanting to start a side hustle, one of the first things to consider is how to position yourself, whether you are the “brand” or your product is the brand. For side hustles, where you are brand, the only way to make it work is to put yourself (and not someone else you are pretending to be) out there.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
This quote comes from Jeff Bezos. And as much as he is controversial, he is a business mind and he’s managed to make a pretty massive success, starting Amazon as an online side hustle.
Your personal brand is what you do and how you do it. Since it’s centred around you, it’s not something you can (or should) try and fake.
The best side hustles that pay you to be yourself
YouTube Video Streaming
More and more people are interested in making and consuming bite-sized content. This means authentic homemade videos have skyrocketed in popularity.
Vlogging and YouTube channels are now sitting on potential pots of gold with niche, loyal followers available for each industry. With a little effort (and a lot of consistency), it’s possible to start a pretty lucrative side hustle with a focus on video production.
Consistency is key if you want video content to be a serious income stream. You also need to be comfortable behind a camera and have some skill editing video (but that you can easily learn “on the job”).
For example, Casey Neistat is one of my favourite YouTube vloggers. His authenticity and consistency won me over completely.
Even though Casey does things which are simple in practice, the fact that he does them daily is what makes him impressive. He often messes up, stumbles over words, slips, slams doors, cuts open packages that end up cutting through his products. Whatever. Push on and be consistent.
Remember, with all content-related side hustles: Done is better than perfect.
With video streaming, revenue is possible through ads (either paid through the platform or by partner advertising), selling products or merchandise or by crowdfunding in your video content.
Instagram Influencing
So many people grow up dreaming of a life of fortunes and fame. It’s what the media shows us as glamorous, so we’re obsessed with the potential of the razzle and dazzle. The hard truth: So many people want A-lister fame, but so few people get it.
Luckily, you don’t need to have to be in the Hollywood spotlight anymore to have a profitable personal brand. With the world living on social media, the stage is set for you to make a profit from your personal brand from behind your screen. Using Instagram to market your side hustle with a business account, you can monetize the platform by finding the right niche, building a good following and creating a consistent strategy.
Part of the side hustling process is developing the right voice and targeting a loyal customer base or audience, so building (or harnessing an existing) following on the social platform also acts as a great way to focus up and promote your side hustle product.
Blog Writing
Content is king, but it’s not easy to sell, not itself at least. While you might not be able to monetize just the content of your blog easily, you can make use of the platform where it lives.
If you have a blog which you update regularly with authentic educational, informative, and entertaining content and are able to drive readers to it, you’re already on your way to make it a side hustle income. A blog which gets traffic is a fantastic way to generate extra revenue because there are a couple of strategies you can use to make money with it. There is space for advertising, selling merchandise, books, products, services, and coaching on blog platforms. You can also diversify and have affiliate links to make money if you partner with a relevant company to your industry and offer discount codes on your blog’s site.
Twitch Streaming
Like with all content-specific side hustles, consistency is the key to unlock the potential revenue.
Avid gamer and Twitch streamer Jordan Slavik commented on building a following on Twitch: “Successful channels — like companies — are built up over years, not over days or weeks. The most important thing is to keep producing materials.”
Twitch is a platform which has many supportive fans tuning in to watch their favourite gamers. And that support can come in the form of steady revenue. Starting a side hustle through Twitch streaming requires a niche and consistent hard work, but once you’ve got a loyal following - even if you’re not the best gamer - you’re on the path to profiting from your time. Top tips: Make sure you stream with a regular schedule too, so your fans know when to tune in. Once you have a following, don’t pretend they’re not there for you. They are, so engage with them! Ask questions, make jokes, reply to their comments. Provided you stay consistent - and if you’re authentic, this should be pretty easy - they’ll stick around to watch you.
Your Side Hustle Should Be Additive Not Subtractive
It’s so easy to start something that you end up hating:
Start something new without much thought behind it
Do it for a short time
Watch vanity metrics only and become frustrated with your lack of likes and followers
Keep going but hate the work because your goals are not defined or badly laid out
Eventually quit but not after pain, suffering and loss of capital
That’s it, that’s how easy it is to start something and hate it very quickly.
It’s so easy to start something that you end up hating:
Start something new without much thought behind it
Do it for a short time
Watch vanity metrics only and become frustrated with your lack of likes and followers
Keep going but hate the work because your goals are not defined or badly laid out
Eventually, quit but not after pain, suffering and loss of capital
That’s it, that’s how easy it is to start something and hate it very quickly.
I believe that side hustles are a fantastic way to make some extra money and also live a bit more of life. Find project, problem or business that interests you and then slowly start turning it into something that other people might want to spend money on. That’s the dream but it often doesn’t work out that way.
Here’s a small tip that can make a huge difference to how you build out your side hustle income streams:
Side hustles should be ADDITIVE to your life and not SUBTRACTIVE.
When you build anything of value it should add more to the life that you live, not subtract from it. Yes, of course, it will be difficult but ultimately it should not be bad or subtractive.
If you decide to start a side hustle and you commit the time and attention to do so you should also be patient and consistent without adding negative pressure to your day to day life.
To make your side hustle additive you should consider the following:
How much time do you really have to commit to your side hustle?
Most people believe that they live full lives and don’t have any extra time in their day to allocate to a new project. The litmus test for this statement is to count how many hours of your day you spend watching TV. For the average person, that figure is anything between 4hrs and 8 hrs PER DAY!!!
If you watch two hours of TV a day then you have two hours a day to build a side hustle. If you can only afford two hours per week, that’s great, segment that time out, put it in your calendar and spend focused, dedicated, non-distracted time building that bad boy out! But remember, do this consistently and be patient. Work in the allocated time and don’t let yourself get distracted.
Have you defined your success triggers?
What does success look like for this side hustle? Are you trying to make a shitton of money or just a little? Are you trying to build an empire or a small and steady stream of income? This part is so key to allowing your side hustle to be additive.
If your goals are too lofty and unrealistic then every minute spent on it will seem like it’s not enough and that you’re letting yourself down. Make sure to scrutinize your success triggers so that they fit in with your life.
Do the people in your immediate life know you are starting this project and understand how much of your time it’s going to take away from them?
If you don’t tell anyone in your life that you are starting something new and big that is going to sap your time then they are going to flip out when you disappear. And that’s on you.
Communication is imperative when it comes to your side hustle so do me and yourself a favour and talk to your kids, your friends, your partner, your parents and whoever else you have commitments with and let them know what you’re planning. They don’t have to like it but you do have to talk to them.
Are you mentally and physically fit enough for this new challenge?
Sure, the main reason most people start a side hustle is to make money but that goal alone isn’t enough to drag you through the mental and physical anguish that a side hustle might cause you. There is no quick way to make extra money (if anyone tells you there is then they are probably trying to sell you Herbalife or Amway pyramid schemes) and if you come to terms with this fact then the most important thing you can do to make your side hustle additive is to get your mind right and treat your body with care.
You can’t stay up until 2 am every morning, eat shitty food and never do any exercise but still expect to stay healthy, mentally fit and ready for the stresses of an extra project on the side.
Take care of yourself first and the rest becomes much easier.
Three reasons you haven't started a side hustle
You’re scared of failure, you’re scared of what people will think, you think you don’t have enough money. These are the three reasons you haven’t started a side hustle yet. Here’s how to overcome those problems…
Absolutely everyone has an idea that they think could become a side hustle that makes money. Shockingly few people actually take that idea and turn it into a side hustle. Why? What makes us so scared to venture out of our comfort zones and try something new, start something different and potentially improve our financial situations? We seem to have society that scared of starting.
I want to change that.
Over the past 20 years I have built many side hustles, some succeeded and became a fulltime gig for me, many did not but thanks to these attempts I realised that there are three main reasons that I and other people don’t start a side hustle. They are not complicated reasons but they are real and scary for most people.
I want to talk about them so that we can address them and let them go.
1. You’re scared of failure.
Fear of failure is the number 1 reason people don’t start a side hustle. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that fear of failure is the number 1 reason people don’t do anything exciting, scaring, new, difficult or risky.
“What if I fail?” is the question that keeps you up at night, that you wont bring up with your partner or friends and that eventually makes you want to crawl into a little ball in bed, cover your head with the duvet and rock yourself to sleep.
Failure is a bitch. It hurts, it’s a blow to the ego and often you believe it’s the thing people are waiting for or expecting of you. But you’re wrong. As much as it hurts, failure is a fantastic way to learn and if your frame failure as a method of teaching then you never lose! You actually gain. You gain experience. You learn what not to do the next time. You have lived. If you never start then you have definitely not experienced a full life.
I like to ask people to test out their idea in the following way:
If your side hustle fails will you die?
I’m serious.
Will you literally die? No? Then fuckit, do the thing.
If all that happens when you fail is that you feel bad, learn something new and move on then what the hell do you have to lose? NOTHING!
2. You're scared of what people will say.
Do you know how many people are thinking about you right now as you read this sentence? None.
No one is actively thinking about your achievements this very minute. That means that while you sit and worry about other people, they are not doing the same. No one does that. Do you?
Do you sit and think about the people you know throughout the day hoping they’re failing at what they do? Waiting for them to update their LinkedIn profile that they have quit their new side hustle? No, of course not! That’s insane.
When I was running Nic Harry (a fashion side hustle that I started with $350 and turned into a full-time six figure business before selling it) I would tell people that they shouldn’t worry about what people think of their outfit because everyone is only worried about how their own outfits look.
Same thing with your side hustle.
But let’s say that you do actually give a shit what other people say. Why do you think the people in your life would berate you for failing? If you truly believe they would then you have the wrong people in your life. Before you consider starting your side hustle you better get your house in order and find the right people to support you through this experience.
Starting a side hustle is no joke and the people you surround yourself with can make or break your ability to survive the beginning stages of a side hustle.
Take a good look at the people you call your closest friends and family, anyone who would mock you for failing or starting should be gone, soon.
3. You think you don't have enough startup capital.
It’s strange to think that people believe the only way to start a side hustle is with startup capital. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses all over the world that start with a sale, a thought, a product that took years to build because money was tight.
Lack of funding is a roadblock that you put infront of your path to success. It’s strange how much we sabotage ourselves with roadblocks. It’s like we hate succeeding.
Let’s break out some figures:
If you save $50 a month for 12 months you’ll have $600.
At the start of the 13th month you can take $600 and buy product you believe in and then sell it for $1200.
You get where I’m going with this, right?
You need to build something small before you can build something big and we all think too big when we start out.
You don’t need a lot of money and most often you don’t need any money at all to start a business.
What do you need?
A product or service to sell.
A customer who wants to buy.
If the product you want to sell costs money then start saving right now and work out how long it’ll take you before you can buy stock.
There are ways to make it work. Think laterally, talk to people and probe the problem from different angles until you’ve found a way to build the side hustle you want.
But don’t rush.
Very often people want capital because they believe that they need to start TODAY or it’ll never work. That’s bullshit. There are very, very few side hustles that are time sensitive and I am almost certain that yours is not one of them.
Be calm, save money and then get started.
If you are serious about your side hustle but think you need some help then you’re at the right place.
Click the button below to find out more about my book, online course and coaching. Let’s #StartSomething together.
Think like a Founder - Important Habits You Should Adopt
If you are launching a new venture, starting a side hustle or thinking about making a big shift in your life then you are probably considering what it takes. What does it take to start something new? What does it mean to your life to commit to building something and succeeding?
I have been a founder many times over the past twenty years and I surround myself with the best founders, business builders and leaders out there. There are some things that business founders do that I think are imperative to your own success if you are starting something new. Here’s a breakdown of what I think founders do that other people should adopt when building something.
1. Obsess
There are problems everywhere. That means that there are solutions waiting to be turned into money everywhere. My favourite founders choose to work on problems that they are obsessed with.
Talented people can work on just about any problem and can likely make it a success of some kind. But it’s when founders obsess over the problem or the solution that they really turn up the heat.
It’s perfectly OK to obsess for one day a week or one hour a day. Your obsession can start out slowly and come up in a nagging sort of way. If you are obsessing then you want to work on the business or venture wholeheartedly. If you’re obsessed with food and eating the right kind of fuel, you’re likely to be a fit and healthy person. If you don’t really care too much about what you eat and how it affects your training then you’ll probably struggle to get into the best shape of your life.
The best founders obsess and that’s a good place for you to start: What are you obsessing over and is that what you are working on every day?
2. Focus
You can’t build multiple side hustles at once. You think you can. Other’s will tell you they did. You’ll really want to but you shouldn’t.
Saying “no” is an indication of obsessive focus. The more you say no to, the more you can focus on the thing you are obsessed with.
If you try to take on every opportunity then you’ll lose out on all of them instead of capitalise on the most lucrative or unique one.
Start saying NO more often, even if it feels like you might be losing out on something.
If you consistently feel like you’re losing out then maybe you’re working on the wrong thing and it’s time to rethink your obsession.
3. REVENUE
Early on in a startup or side hustle every action should lead to revenue. If it isn’t something that will take you a step close to earning money then it shouldn’t be your focus.
Sales and revenue matter more than just about anything else.
This means that if you need your product to improve to make a sale, then that’s a focus. If you need your YouTube channel to hit 100 000 subscribers before revenue, then that’s your focus. Figure out what your triggers are for revenue and then double-down and focus, obsess on hitting revenue.
4. Deliver
Don’t faff around trying to make whatever it is you’re working on perfect. PERFECT DOESN’T EXIST. You are never going to get to perfection and if you think you will, you’re in lalaland and need a hard reset in your thinking.
Stop. Assess what you have. Launch. The first thing you launch is never going to be the best version of your vision but at least it’ll be out there in the world. Deliver something to someone and listen to what they have to say. Put your work out into the world, it only counts when other people can use and critique it.
Many have said it before me: Ideas are fucking worthless, execution is everything.
5. Listen
It’s easy to start something new or make a change when it’s just you on your own. You essentially run your own little dictatorship of one. You decide what to build. You decide when to build it. You decide how it works, what it costs, where it lives and when you make changes.
Then you launch.
And then everyone has an opinion.
It’s difficult to take on every opinion you hear but the best founders listen and know how to curate who they listen to. You can’t take on everyone’s opinion but often when users are telling you something it wont just be one person with one opinion, it’ll be multiple users reporting the same feedback and that’s when you listen and then follow steps 5 and 6 below.
Build, launch, listen, iterate, adapt.
6. Iterate
The first version of whatever you’re selling is going to be good enough to get out there but not good enough to use forever.
Deliver the next feature. Add the next service. Upgrade the product. Listen to feedback (see point 6) from customers and implement the most relevant and practical suggestions.
The faster you can create a flywheel of iteration the better your product will be and the happier you’ll keep your customers.
Build something. Release it. Gain customers. Watch how they use your product. Listen to their feedback. Build the next version. Release it. Repeat.
That’s a simple flywheel that most founders I know use.
7. Adapt
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Mike Tyson’s famous quote applies to the start of something too. If you think you know how people are going to use your product you are sorely mistaken. You have no idea what’s coming at you until you release your baby into the wild and see if it can survive as you planned or if you need to adap, change and rethink the plan.
This is why point 4 above is so important. You have to get over your need for perfection. You need to overcome your fear of what other people say. Founders don’t give a shit what their critics say. They build, deliver, release, listen and adapt.
If you are afraid of making small tweaks, tiny pivots and slight adjustments as you go then you’re likely going to cling on to a sinking ship and drown.
Obsessing is great but do not obsess over the perfection of your initial idea or product. Be prepared that whatever you are building or launching is going to change, even slightly, over time.
8. Be You
In a world of infinite information and personality-overload it’s very easy to find someone to copy. We see the success of the Kardishians of the reality TV stars of the people who do nothing, contribute nothing but have a personality and we think we can do what they did.
You can’t be a better version of Kim Kardashian than she can be. You can’t be a better version of Casey Neistat than Casey. You can’t beat Jordan Peele at his own game or take Trevor Noah on at being Trevor.
But you sure as shit can beat them with your own brand of insanity, skill, dedication, obsession and focus. You can beat anyone in the world at being the most version of yourself that you can be. Founders know this intimitaly and it’s a hidden super power. Everybody reads about Steve Jobs being an asshole and the founders I know who tried to be like Steve - even I did for a brief and devastating period in one of my businesses - suffered greatly because we’re just not built like Steve was.
You need to figure out who the fuck you are and want to be and then you need to be that person as much as you can be.
Be yourself, relentlessly. It will pay off.
The Best Way to Sell Is to Tell a Great Story
A question I get asked a lot has to do with selling. People who are starting their own side hustle or business ofter aren’t comfortable selling. In the minds of most people selling is a hard, forceful act that involves being brave enough to sit in front of a complete stranger and sell them a product or service by talking about the product features, price and then closing the sale. That’s not how I sell. That’s not how I’ve ever sold anything because I don’t have the guts to do cold sales.
I am not a salesperson. I am a person who likes to solve problems and that’s where the story starts.
If you have a side hustle and you’re wondering how to sell your product or service without irritating your friends, family and the fools around you (what I call the “3 F’s”) then you need to get your story straight. Literally, you need to work on your story.
Selling is a form of storytelling.
You probably sit on Facebook all day telling small stories. Moaning about something or someone. Talking about your children and their experience at school (pre-lockdown) or some other tiny little gem you feel the world of Facebook needs to know.
Let’s translate that storytelling skill into a sale.
Here’s the basic structure of any good story sell:
Present your problem statement
Love your product or service (people can tell when you do)
Truly believe in your solution (people can tell when you don’t)
Talk about your solution
If you’re struggling to sell, just tell a story about the problem and why you believe in your solution so much.
That’s really what I have been doing for the last 19 years in each business I’ve ever built. I find a problem that I want to solve, I tell the world why the problem needs to be solved, I solve the problem and then I tell the world about the solution.
Many years back I realised that there was massive interest from Western businesses to work on the African continent. The key markets were Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. The problem was none of the Western businesses wanted to send their staff to work in the continent without having any experience. The solution was to use an intermediary, my company called Forefront Africa, to engage in an initial tour of the city and introduce the business representative to the local market.
The story was simple:
Problem statement: You don’t know Nigeria (Kenya/Ghana/South Africa) but want to do business there.
I love travelling on the continent and doing business in Africa.
I believe I am best positioned to take your businesses into key markets through my network and experience.
Solution: Talk through the incredible countries, businesses and people that Forefront Africa can introduce to the company.
If you can't break your sale into these four simple steps then you don't have your story right and won’t be able to sell anyways.
The middle two steps seem like the most obvious but are often the ones that trip most people up.
If you do not love and believe in your solution then your story is going to lack the enthusiasm and authenticity required to make this method of selling really work. You can’t fake authenticity, people can tell. If they don’t notice upfront they will notice as soon as they scratch below the surface and realise how little you care for the problem and the solution.
So if you’re struggling to start selling your side hustle just use the template above and work on your problem statement, your belief in your product and the solution you present.
Happy Side Hustlin’!