Today’s interview is with fellow sidepreneur, Alex Barker. I met Alex through some Facebook groups I’m a member of. He’s a hard guy to miss because he’s very active in the groups which is awesome. Alex is a pharmacist full-time, but he has a lot going on with his side hustles and I’m excited to feature him on Sidepreneurial.
On to the questions!
What Is Your Day Job And What Is Your Side Business?
By day, a pharmacist. By night, I hero to my wife and daughters. And from 4 AM to 7 AM, I’m a side business hustler.
I have two businesses. The least time-consuming and most profitable is my content creation business. Essentially, I get paid to write content for websites. The other business, and the one I enjoy more, is online business coaching. I help people find a business idea and launch it.
How Did You Choose Your Side Business?
The content creation business chose me. An online editor reached out to me and offered me the “position.” I expanded this side hustle by finding more opportunities to write content for large websites.
Coaching was one of the first business models I tried over three years ago. I was hooked ever since then. I once heard on the topic of choosing a business idea, “Find something that you would do for free for someone else, because you love to do it.” Coaching was my “free” thing. I had been coaching people all my life (I’m somewhat of a know-it-all). Now, I ask for money because I’m effective at what I do.
How Do You Find Time To Work On Your Side Business?
I discovered two turn key solutions in the last year. The first was early rising. When I first started hustling, I spent too much time working on my business in the evenings. That put a strain on my marriage. So I experimented by waking up early every day on my business. I found that not only was I more effective on the things I was working on but I was also getting more done.
The second turnkey solution was outsourcing. The first month I used a virtual assistant for my content creation business, I saw a 300% increase in profit. So not only did I make more money with an assistant but I also saved hours of work.
What’s Working For You Right Now In Growing Your Side Business?
The ultimate secret: never stop learning. Every week I’m reading new books on how to improve my craft. I recently spent 66 days reading a book a day and recorded the lessons in a daily podcast called the 66 Day Experiment. During that time, I saw a 40% growth in profit because of the new tactics and created one article that made me over $4,000 profit.
But you know what else is working on my side? Time.
I spent over three years working on my online business. It was only until the last 10 months that I’ve really seen hard my hard work payoff. I spent years trying to crack the code of what works online. I failed at so many things. I don’t want to support the message that overnight success happens. Success takes time and hustle.
What Advice Can You Give Someone Who Is Thinking About Starting A Side Business?
The best advice I can give is to validate the idea before you build anything. If you haven’t started yet, the worst thing that you can do is start a business that no one wants to buy from. I made that mistake too many times to count. The best way to validate something is to just make a sales page using PayPal and ask for money. If no one wants to give you their money, then why would you want to make a business around that idea?
