Amy Knight on Starting a Side Hustle Without Losing Your Nerve

This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.

[0:18] Sammie Ellard-King: If someone is struggling, then a potential thing for them is side hustles. And you have started four businesses, with one of them becoming a little successful income generator for you. Yeah. Um and another you’re still running as a side hustle. Yeah, I think I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak. And probably the same. Uh people that have business ideas will know that you can kind of have a go at something and it doesn’t quite scratch the itch, and you need to go and try something else. And every every business that I’ve started, I’ve learned something really helpful along the way. And for me, the the income generating business was a side hustle that I created because I really needed extra income. It was a time in my life where I was a single mum. So I had a full-time job, but I was I had financial goals and I really wanted a little bit of extra cash. So I set up a communications agency alongside my day job, and I was supporting small businesses with digital marketing, social media, communication strategy and PR. And it meant working a lot of evenings and weekends, but it was a really nice way to top up my income. And it was great for my self-confidence at that time in my life as well.

[1:40] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah. And I love that because you’re just like you’re utilizing time and using it as a positive thing to do. And you’re actually utilizing skills perhaps you, you know, you knew that you already had or that you were happy to like very quickly upskill on certain areas. Yeah. And I, you know, that’s what when I was going through my debt journey, like freelancing alongside for businesses, like almost like a mini agency in itself as well, was was like my actually ended up being like over 50% of the contributions to get rid of that £24,000 of debt. Because it just like it does actually bring in like really good money if you’re putting yourself out there and providing services. And as long as those companies are fine with you working whenever, because as long as you deliver, yeah, it doesn’t necessarily matter, right? Yeah. I love that for you. And your other one.

[2:25] Amy Knight: Yes. So the side hustle that I still have ticking over. In the pandemic, I wrote a children’s book. And this was something that I’d always wanted to do. I knew that I had a story inside me and I wanted to share it with the world. And COVID and lockdown just created this perfect opportunity where I got furloughed from my job at the time in a university, and I had this time to actually produce this book. And I actually got a life coach at the time just to hold me accountable because I knew that I was very unlikely to get this opportunity again. I was like, I really want to do this. I want to take this passion and this skill and turn it into a product. And actually monetizing it was almost secondary to that. But it’s been amazing to create this passive income stream. And I’ve posted books out all over the world, Australia, the Netherlands. It’s so lovely. And I went down the self-publishing route. So I did I didn’t spend huge amounts of money. I had a friend illustrate the story for me.

[3:36] Amy Knight: Oh, lovely. And yeah, it’s it’s on it. See, and it’s yeah, like I posted one yesterday. It’s just nice to keep that little passive income stream that you can dial up and dial down. And if you’ve got something, uh, a passion, a hobby, a skill that you can monetise, yeah. It’s there for you in times of financial need, and you can kind of increase the amount of time that you put into it according to how much extra income you need. Obviously, you’ve been through this as a single parent. Like you juggled parenting, full-time job, and side hustle. So it’s possible. It is possible. I didn’t have a TV for a year, so I I didn’t do I didn’t do some of the things that are people would think of as like normal life. I was very workaholic for that for that period, and I don’t think it’s something that’s sustainable for a long period of time.

[4:32] Sammie Ellard-King: Seasons. Exactly. Yeah. Having said that, I have interviewed a couple of ladies this week who are running very successful Etsy shops alongside a full-time job, and they are they’re like massive sales, they’re doing the marketing, they’re doing the paid advertising. It’s a full-on second career for them. Yeah. And I think side hustles have that potential. I know people who’ve started side hustling and then they’ve gradually transitioned. So they’ve got a full-time job and then they’re going on to four days a week so that they’ve got a day for their side. What we needed for this. And you just gradually move it across. And that’s a really safe way to make the transition to self-employment without putting yourself in a vulnerable situation financially.

[5:20] Sammie Ellard-King: 100%. And I love you said that. Yes, exactly what we did for Up The Gains. We scaled down, ended up selling my shares in the business and just like went for it when it was ready. And like they didn’t put that kind of pressure of like, in January, I’m leaving, and this business must work. Because then you make really, really bad decisions. And so, like, having that little buffer point. But what I love about what you said there is the possibilities of like making money online selling products. That’s not something we’ve covered a lot on there. And you mentioned Etsy, it is quite buzzwordy out there. And I think having done tests on this myself with multiple stores and just to see how difficult it actually is, it isn’t easy. And I think YouTube and social media will have you feel like it is, like buy my XE course, you know. And I think that there’s a trap there and a crutch, like to get to those levels, you have to be very good, and you also have to find like the right product to fit within that market because it is getting vastly saturated quite quickly, especially with digital products on there. A lot of people have already thought of the things that you might have thought of, and there’ll be 30 versions, and it becomes like a price war.

[6:32] Amy Knight: Yeah. Um, in your opinion, like, is it still the best out there, or is there other ones out there on there that you think people should look at? It is a matter of opinion. Etsy holds this reputation for being the go-to place for handmade and personalized and craft. So it’s really about what your product is, your business values, because eBay or Amazon might be where your customers are looking for whatever it is that you’re selling. So understanding your audience, you’re right about it being quite difficult in terms of learning SEO. But as you say, there are courses online and there are some great ones, by the way. I will say that as uh it’s another thing that if you if you you you get out what you put in.

[7:18] Amy Knight: So if you invest the time to upskill yourself, uh so it yeah, for people that are really keen to turn it into more of a moneymaker, it probably is worth investing that time to to learn about SEO and do some experimentation. So one of the earlier business ventures that I started was a bakery. So I was yeah, I was making uh cakes and what kind? Uh so mostly celebration cakes, like wedding cakes, christening cakes, birthday cakes. Brilliant. And the the gap in the market I was going for, and this was this was back years ago when I was sort of 24, 25, um, was for dietary requirements. Because back then the gluten-free and the dairy-free were not as widely available as they are now. And yeah, that was that I did a whole load of experimentation to find out whether people would buy my products if I partnered up with a local business delivering groceries. Do they want some muffins in there, for example? And that business did not turn out to be particularly successful. But I learned a huge amount on the financial aspect of running that business. But probably the most important thing was learning that I don’t work well on my own in the kitchen all day, every day. And I need to be around other people. So I think that’s something that until you until you try it, until you give uh a business a try, you you learn about yourself as you go through that process of experimenting with products and who your market is and where’s the best place to position your brand?

[8:53] Sammie Ellard-King: 100%. Like start with a time evaluation. Usually look at your phone screen time as the starting point. This is what we say to everyone when before they get started on any of our programs, it’s like do a time evaluation. Okay, this is what a current week looks like for me. I’m not really happy with that. How do I find three to four hours, maybe eat upwards of 10 hours? We try and get them to get to 10 hours. Like if you really want to start a side hustle business, usually 10 hours is kind of the good benchmark period where you can do some damage. Um, and that quickly adds up. You know, it’s a full working week over a month. So that’s a that’s a you know, a lot of a lot of weeks of the year. I can’t do the maths right now off the top of my head. Um, but it makes a massive difference, and then that’s your starting block to then go out and actually try something with the pressure’s not necessarily there because you have your nine to five in place and you can experiment, you can make mistakes, you can try the bakery business, and if it works, fantastic. If it doesn’t, it’s not been the end of the world. Or you can hopefully land on something that you really enjoy doing and you could double down and become the best at it. And I think if you have that mindset, it really sets you apart when it comes to side hustles.

[10:03] Amy Knight: Yeah. But not everybody does, and and that’s usually because they kind of um miss but I can’t think of the word, but basically they think that it’s gonna take them a lot less time and a lot less effort than it actually does. Yeah. But when it comes to business, it’s not easy, and you do get out what you put in. Yeah. And that’s why it’s so important to find something that you give a shit about. Yeah. Like, yeah, if you’re gonna put all that time in, yeah, it has to be something you care about because that’s what’s gonna drive you at the end of a working day, right? I’m gonna put my other hat on, I’m gonna start my other job now. I do like we do it guy with everybody. So it’s so powerful. What’s your purpose? Like, what do you really love? What are you good at? What does it actually the world need? And what you know, what can you be paid for? You bring it all together, and that’s your business right there. And if you can get that right, you uh will never work a day again. Nothing will be work. Obviously, yes, there’ll be little tough times and tough periods that you go through, and you’re gonna have to learn a load, of course, but your North Star, back to that, same with your finances is exactly the same for your business as well. If you get that dialed in, I personally think so.

[11:14] Amy Knight: I would say though, we go through seasons of our lives, so your passion may change. Oh, yeah. And so having two, three, four, however many businesses over the course of your life, there should that be acceptable. Yeah, and it should be, yeah, totally. I think probably in 10 years’ time, if you ask me what type of business that I asked, would it be a personal finance education business? Probably not. But who knows where we’d be by that point. Yeah. And that’s totally fine too, you know. And and you know, I’ve started so many side hustle businesses over the years, possibly in the 20s now. And some of them still going, some of them are not. And I’m totally cool with that. And I’ve learned so much. So when I actually did go and do the big one, I was ready. And like I’d made every mistake in the book before. So it set me up for the one that actually mattered. But if you’d I if I’d have just started the one that actually mattered without doing any of that, I guarantee you I wouldn’t be sitting here today.

[12:13] Amy Knight: Yeah. So it’s uh it is one of them things. Try it and see how it works. You know, what have you got to lose? I suppose is the big thing in that. And if you love it, then isn’t that what’s uh why we’re here as people, I think.