Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast

Are you thinking of starting a side hustle with Carrie Bohlig and Craig Clickner

October 05, 2021 Pete Mohr Season 1 Episode 21
Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast
Are you thinking of starting a side hustle with Carrie Bohlig and Craig Clickner
Show Notes Transcript

Carrie Bohlig and Craig Clickner join me today to discuss their newly released book, “So you Want TO Start A Side Hustle”. They should know, they’ve had several which have turned into millions of dollars of revenue! 

Not only that, they do it with a young family!

 Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from our discussion in this episode:

  • What are some of the most important things to consider when starting a side hustle?
  • What are some of the biggest time wasters?
  • What are some of the biggest money wasters?
  • Their concept of setting up your Lifeset

For more information and to learn more about Carrie and Craig you can go to their website at https://www.tandemconsulting.co/

Here’s a link for their book: https://www.tandemconsulting.co/our-book/

If you’re ready to transform your entrepreneurial frustrations into freedoms by cutting through the chaos and using frameworks that help you run an even better business and enjoy an even better life, simply go to:   www.Mohr.Coach

Take the free assessment on the top right-hand side of my website and we’ll set up a time to chat!

I'd love to connect with you on my
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Craig  00:00

we call life set your way of living in your choices. So a lot of people can watch the Gary Vaynerchuk video or whoever and be like no, that's awesome intellectually comprehend but if we fail to apply those principles in our daily life with our decisions, then there's a disconnect. And so we see a lot of people start side hustles but then their life set is all screwed up. Their job is messed up maybe a relationship health. The first thing that gets put on the backburner when you have a side hustle is the side hustle. Yeah, right. Like you have a job situation marriage situation boom, side hustle backburner, right. So in terms of finances, the best thing that we recommend it in the side hustling game is to get a good job, you don't have to win any awards. be stable at work, deliver for the pay that you're getting. And then guard your time on the evenings and weekends and slay building your business. Because interestingly, the challenge with a side hustle is most people treat it like one.

 

Pete Mohr  00:56

Hey, it's Pete and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. It's that series designed to help provide the tips and tools that will cut through the chaos and create the clarity that will transform your business in life as a leader. After all, you lead your business and it shouldn't be leading you and today we're going to talk to Carrie and Craig and Carrie bowling and Craig Kleckner, their husband and wife duo. They run tandem consulting and I've written a book recently called so you want to start a side hustle, build a business that empowers you to live your life your way. And it's one of the things I certainly talked a lot about on the podcast and to my coaching clients is the idea that it's my belief that we start businesses to provide us with what we want out of life. And our businesses should be designed to give us that freedom, not take it away with overwhelm, and frustration and all these other things. And Craig and Carrie, get into a little bit about how to recognize some of those time wasters and money wasters. And what you can do to get your side hustle rolling, we'll get right into it. Carrie and Craig, it's a pleasure to have you this week on the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. Welcome.

 

Craig  02:09

Thanks for having us. We're looking looking forward to a robust discussion. Cool. I

 

Pete Mohr  02:13

mean, I love your topic, and I've been a lifelong entrepreneur, it really hits home for me when thinking about side hustle and proud of you guys for having your first book launched recently. And we're gonna get into that a little bit today. Talk a little bit about so you want to start a side hustle. Tell me a little bit about how you came up with that topic. And tell us a little bit about yourself before we dig into the conversation here today.

 

Craig  02:39

Yeah, sure. So I have a corporate background in finance economics and was working for you know, Deutsche Bank and GE early on in my career, but just realized, I did not want to be confined to that lifestyle. Right. And it was going well, I had a great career. And it was like, Okay, what am I going to do? So I've ventured, tried to do real estate, tried to do investments, but I didn't have the capital to scale those. Yep. And so then I was in this point of frustration in MBA school, and eventually ran into some business owners who actually successfully built side hustles to several million in revenue, stepped away from corporate. And I was like, I want to do that. Nice. I want to be able to travel the world and have that autonomy and all those things. And so that was really the rabbit hole that that opened the doors for us. So we use basically like a independent franchising or direct sales network marketing platform to create several million. That worked out quite well. Then we started an educational company where we started doing public speaking to, you know, 1020 30,000 people a year and then started getting into investments and now have like a tech startup that we're helping co found and properties and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we've just slowly expanded over time, which ultimately brought us our freedom, but Carrie's backgrounds that touch different if you want to,

 

Carrie  03:46

yeah, so I studied sociology and women's studies, very liberal studies background, I went into preschool teaching and youth athletics coaching. So for me, I always wanted to make an impact. I wanted to feel fulfillment and reward. So it was never like, I want to be an entrepreneur to make a ton of money. It was how do I use business as a tool to create a really special life and be able to have that connection and long term impact? So in terms of where the book stemmed from, I do a lot on LinkedIn and social media and just connecting with a lot of what we call moderate entrepreneurs, not the Die Hard extreme live in your parents basement got out of startup, but also not the people who are satisfied with like nine to five cubicle life into their 60s that like intermediate entrepreneur. Yep. Yeah, that needs a little bit different content. And a lot of content books, podcasts out there more designed for the traditional business owner, the front hustler, as we call it, and so I just, yeah, I just felt like people need more of that curated content specifically with a moderate entrepreneur in mind, and we've lived it through and through, you know, with all the different ways we've made money, everyone you listed has been a side hustle. So we feel like our journey can hopefully be a neat bridge for other people to get mine And life said, as we call it to help enhance their chance of success. So

 

Pete Mohr  05:04

yeah, I like that. And I like kind of what you were saying, you know, it's one of my things that I talked about a lot. But it's my belief that we start businesses as entrepreneurs, to provide us with the life that we want. And our business should be designed to give us those freedoms and not take them away, right as overwhelm, and all the craziness that can happen. So I love that sort of take on things. So why don't we dig in and talk a little bit about your book here today? Again, I'm sure you can get it on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble and all those great ones. So you can start a side hustle. So why don't you start off by telling us what are some of the things that people need to do when they're thinking of starting a business on the side,

 

Craig  05:44

we talk about this everywhere we go. But it's really hard to hit a target, if you don't have a target. Yeah, it's like you don't get in your car and punch in south in your GPS, you punch in a specific address. And so for us to play off what you were already talking about. We wanted our business models and our systems to take us to a higher level in terms of how we lived. And therefore we had that get some metrics around what that looked like. So we could create a side hustle that went for that. And what we see is a lot of people start something because they have an interest, they'd like to make more money, and they're just kind of aimlessly like making a little extra cash or revenue. That's okay, if that's all you want. But if you want something more specific, then you have to go Be specific. So that's number one. And then the second thing is find people who are already successful, right? I mean, it is so simple. If you want to learn a foreign language you learn from people who are good at it. But somehow when it comes to starting a business, we think we should watch YouTube videos, and then gut it out in our home office or something and be a hero and like, No, just go find someone who's built 1,000,002 million dollar 10 million $50 million business in your specific niche and go Humble yourself. And you might have to pay them, you might have to do some fancy footwork to get their attention. But yeah, those two things for us are probably our biggest recommendations that we see a lot of people fudge, but there's several more if you want to add one or two that comes to your mind.

 

Carrie  06:59

Yeah, in the book, we talked a lot about your brand set, like really learning how to brand yourself as a business owner, exactly pitfalls to avoid, because we've seen a lot of people succeed, but even more fail, entrepreneurs are tough. And I think that's one thing people underestimate. It's so glamorized, which is cool in some way, because more people poke their toe in the water. But at the same time, it leaves people with like, not great expectations. And if expectations aren't realistic, it sets a lot of people up to fail, unfortunately. So there's quite a few different pitfalls we talked about. You talked about funding, Craig's finance background really tees off on like the funding aspect, which is fun, and then also marketing your business actually creating revenue using social media. For the first 10 plus years of our business growth. We didn't use any social media at all, which I'm not sure that that's something to be proud of, or embarrassed by. It's just the reality. It was Yeah. But the last few years, we've really picked that up. And that's been a really fun learning curve. So I'd say there's a wide range on like, logistical and tactical, but also kind of philosophical and more overarching thought process to set someone up well, to create significant results,

 

Pete Mohr  08:08

talking on the finance side of things, what are some of the biggest money wasters that you're experiencing? Maybe you talked about them in the book, or that you've seen when you're coaching and working with your clients?

 

Craig  08:19

Yeah, so the first thing is, you want to have a good what we call life set. So if mindset is your way of thinking, which everyone's talking about now, which is great. We call life set your way of living in your choices. So a lot of people can watch the Gary Vaynerchuk video or whoever and be like, no, that's awesome, intellectually comprehend, but if we fail to apply those principles in our daily life with our decisions, then there's a disconnect. And so we see a lot of people start side hustles but then their life set is all screwed up. Their job is messed up, maybe a relationship health. The first thing that gets put on the backburner when you have a side hustle is the side hustle. Yeah, right. Like you have a job situation marriage situation boom, side hustle backburner, right. So in terms of finances, the best thing that we recommend it in the side hustling game is to get a good job, you don't have to win any awards, be stable at work, deliver for the pay that you're getting, and then guard your time on the evenings and weekends and slay building your business. Because interestingly, the challenge with a side hustle is most people treat it like one. And so even though it's on the side, you want to think how am I going to grow this to a million dollar business and kind of guard that time and getting an extra 510 grand at your job isn't going to be huge. So so those are kind of more around the business when it comes to like actually running the business revenue. Yeah, revenue, revenue revenue. If you have enough top line revenue, you can fix most things. Not everything, but like most things, right? So too much time, you know, strategizing, working on your logo, I mean, all that kind of stuff. That's good. But in the end, like man, you need customer sales. And I think sales gives you momentum and you can gives you credibility and so many other great things. So

 

Pete Mohr  09:57

yeah, I love that. And did you want to add to that, Carrie

 

Carrie  10:00

Yeah, I would just say over investing in the things that are not actually going to help create revenue for you. And I think one thing that trips people up is not knowing how to price themselves. So that's something we speak to a little bit, but also not being willing to experientially learn a lot of people self sabotage, because they think, well, I don't know, 100%. On How To serve this client, well, do you know, 90%? Do you know more than they do? Can you price yourself appropriately? And like, get out there and do some good work with clients and build on that expertise? Especially if you're new to the game? That's a huge suggestion.

 

Pete Mohr  10:32

Yeah, I love that. And you know, some of those things that you were talking about to earlier on a little bit about the time wasters. I see that in so many different entrepreneurs that I'm working with as well. What are some of those other time wasters that you have experienced? And you can call out that people who are listening may be saying, Oh, my gosh, I do that all the time. Like, what? What would a couple more of those be?

 

Carrie  10:55

We have a segment on the book called The personal development abyss, and we are diehard personal development people. I mean, that was a big part of my journey was growing myself, I launched my businesses at 22, I had to grow a lot. But it can be to your detriment to if you only are doing that, not actually doing the physical manual, roll your sleeves up work to create revenue and do what you need to do to actually build your business. So that's one thing I urge people is like, put that in proportion. And please keep growing but not at the detriment of your business. Also scaling?

 

Craig  11:29

Yeah, I think that's a great one. Yeah. And the best learning is experience, right? As long as the risks don't totally mess you up, send you bankrupt or in jail. It's like, Hey, give it a go. Yeah, I think for me, just I was a risk analyst when I got started in the game of business owners for General Electric, right. So my profession was analyzing risks. So I have a propensity to overthink and overanalyze, especially metrics are spending money, right? So it's like, oh, I'm gonna buy a camera for our podcast. It's like, I'll spend more time trying to save $50 on Amazon. And it's like, oh, like, we're millionaires. Like, we don't need to do that. But it's like this conditioning that I've had my whole life, right. And so I would say, for the analytics, you have to learn how to appropriately assess what's necessary. And then what are your actual risks, and then take more action, because sometimes going to bat three times is way better than trying to perfect the perfect swing, you're more likely to get a hit, right? Yeah, yeah. But those are a couple of things that come into mind. I mean, what about from your side, and we could probably go off on this for a long time. Oh, my

 

Pete Mohr  12:28

gosh, yeah. So many different things. And one of the things that just kind of caught my mind, we're talking about development, and all that sort of stuff. But one of the coaches that I really admire, his name's Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach. And he and Ben hardy wrote a book recently called who not how, and that idea that you were saying, like, don't spend so much time on your logo or those different things about, you can actually find specialists to really help you out through these things. And it doesn't cost as much as you would expect. Because a lot of times, what I find is that the entrepreneur, the leader of the business, wants to know exactly how everything is done. But most of the time, they really don't need to know exactly how everything is done. Yeah. And you know, you can hire people who are going to be better than you at that sort of stuff. And it's best off just to take that and let them go with it and stay in your unique ability so that you can then create and craft and work on your business and let them do those specific things. So that's I find a lot of times, the business owner is bogged down in the minutia, when their job is to clarify and communicate what the vision is, and to roll with that sort of stuff. And let the other who's in the business, take it. And even if you're a solopreneur, then it's a matter of finding the right who's that can help you. I don't produce my own podcasts. I mean, we're having this conversation, but I don't do the production of them. I hand it off to somebody, right? So there's those kinds of things, whether it's design work, whether it's social media, all those different things, people get bogged down, like you were saying earlier, instead of going out there and working with a client, they're bogged down on all this other stuff. And it puts them behind the game.

 

Craig  14:04

Yeah. And I mean, I think there's a budget to play into it. Right? Yeah. If you're 19 years old, and you're trying to start something, yeah, for sure. Different than if you're established professional. And, you know, same thing for us. Like we didn't start a podcast and try to produce anything. I don't even know how it works. Yes, we just cut the episodes. It's awesome it off, right? But but that's the financial position we're in. If you don't have a super strong financial position, look at you know, getting a virtual assistant from the Philippines, or wherever, for $5.

 

Pete Mohr  14:29

What can you automate, you know, all the different things, use the tools that are available? Right, 100%. We are running out of time already, Carrie and Craig, I want to throw it back to you guys. It's been a quick conversation, but a good conversation. So you want to start a side hustle and your book and I encourage everybody to go and dig that up and find it read it. Tell us a little bit about how everybody listening can get a hold of you and where they can get the book just to be sure.

 

Carrie  14:58

Yeah, so no on all major retailers our book we also have our website tandem consulting. co. Cool. We're big on Instagram tandem consulting, and then we do a lot on LinkedIn. So you can find us at Carey bowling and Craig Kleckner, independently on LinkedIn and we look forward to connecting anything we can do to help support people in their journey is is definitely the focus.

 

Craig  15:18

Yeah, I mean, even if somebody just has a question, I mean, we love helping people power through the different kinks in the hose as they're driving. Yeah, they're driving along, right. Yeah, I'm trying to elevate,

 

Pete Mohr  15:27

love that. And I think we have that in common. You know, we've only known each other now for a half an hour or so. But certainly resonate with some of the stuff you guys have said, want to thank you, again, so much for being a part of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast here today. enjoyed your conversation. And let's try to hook up again in the near future. Absolutely. Thanks, Pete. Thank

 

Carrie  15:47

you, Pete.

 

Pete Mohr  15:51

Well, thanks so much for spending some time with me here today. And with Craig and Carrie, it was my first opportunity to have two people on the podcast here today and really enjoyed having them both really interesting husband and wife duo, small kids, lots of stuff going on, still getting it done every day. And I love to hear the successes. So think about how you can apply some of those things that they talked about today. You know, the biggest time wasters we talked about and the biggest money wasters, we talked about some of those different things. If you're looking at getting started in business, or even if you're already going in business, hopefully you're recognized a couple of those things that it's like, Oh, I got to tweak that a little bit. Make that a little better set up a framework. Always remember that clarity creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum when you look at this sort of stuff. So think about how you can use some of those tips and tools so you can have an even better business and entrepreneurial life. If you like the podcast today, share with your friends, invite them to listen, and most of all, subscribe to the podcast so you can hear future episodes just like this one. For more information on my coaching and leadership programs, visit www.Mohr.Coach, or you can email me directly at Pete@Mohr.Coach. I deal with a lot of this sort of stuff every day, we set up all sorts of different things around visioning your future, your goals, all of the different frameworks that help you create a better business, whether it's better products, better people, or better positioning of your leadership and communication. So if that's something that sounds interesting, you want to reach out to me with regards to my programs. Always happy to have a chat there too. So until next time, make it a great day.

 

17:41

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