Side Hustle 2.0
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Or…
Side Hustle Support Group, my signature course, my bread and butter, ain’t broke.
Yet I knew I had to make some changes to it. I just KNEW that I had grown past what was in the program and I was no longer pushing myself to work harder, learn faster.
I was in the comfort zone, and while I could have easily stayed there, I decided to challenge myself.
Why? Because challenging myself would mean better results for my students.
How did I know now was the right time to make these changes? And how did I discover what changes were the right ones to make? I’ll take you through all that and more in this episode:
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Learn all about the NEW version of Side Hustle Support Group:
Full Show Notes (Transcript)…
Hey, Risers! Welcome to episode 83 of Empathy Rising. I have been excited to record this episode for a while and it's been planned for, I would say, close to six months now. Wanting to share this message with you guys and having to keep it secret and waiting and waiting and waiting has been hard for me, but I'm just excited that it gets to come out now!
If you couldn't tell by the title, Side Hustle 2.0, I'm excited, which I've said 17 times. What I'm sharing today is all of the changes that are coming to Side Hustle Support Group. So this is the stuff that has been in the works for six to nine months, more than half the year, and it's just really a pleasure to be able to share it with you guys and to be able to finally reveal all of the details.
I'm gonna tie in the message from last week a little bit too, and the fact that on last week's episode we talked about evergreen programs and passive income. One of the things that I shared was the fact that if you go passive too quickly, if you take your course, your membership site, your in-group program, if you take that evergreen too quickly, you might not be getting the best results for your clients. In that episode we leaned into the idea of progress over perfection because I do believe there's something to - there's a lot of weight and credibility to testing your program over several rounds, gathering feedback from your students or your members as well as gathering feedback from yourself.
I want you guys to be checking in with your students every round of your program and asking them questions like, what did you enjoy most? What didn't work for you? Were there any assets that you underutilized? What was your favourite part? What lessons did you enjoy? What lessons did you not enjoy? All of those things. I want you to be gathering that data from your students or your members, but I also want you to be asking yourself the same questions.
Did you like offering so many calls? Did you not like offering so many calls? Did you like the level of touch with your members? Did you not like the level of touch? Did you wish that things were at a different time of day? Or did you wish you had things in the evening?
I want you to be asking not only your students for feedback, but I want you to be checking in with yourself for feedback. That's what happens with this feedback is it allows you to make the adjustments that feel in line with what your market, what your audience is demanding for you from you, but also allows you to make adjustments that are aligned with the values that feel right for you so that the side hustle continues to be something that's enlivening and fulfilling, new and different, and exciting in your life, rather than just another chore or just another job or something that drains you.
Checking in with them and checking in with yourself continues to make your product, your program better from both standpoints. And that's really what I'm going to be sharing today is not only all of the changes that are coming to the program, but how it fits my lifestyle better and why I decided to make these changes so that it was serving my students better, but also serving me better.
You guys know that I've always said learn from me, watch what I do, learn how to do all of the technical skills, learn how to market, learn how to brand, learn how to come up with your side hustle ideas, right? Learn all of those skills from me, but also pay attention to what I'm doing.
Pay attention to how I launch, pay attention to when I launch, pay attention to what I'm doing so that you can see for yourself, not only an example of how it works for me, but you can extrapolate from that and apply it to your lives as well. Apply it to your businesses as well.
That's why I always share these episodes that reveal not only how things work or how to accomplish something, but also what's going on behind my business and just giving you a real taste of what's going on. That's what we're going to be talking about today is the fact that the upcoming round of Side Hustle Support group is the fifth round, which I just can't, it just boggles my mind when I rewind to two years ago and think about the fact that I didn't even know if this was going to be a thing. I didn't know if it was going to sell. I didn't know if I could fill the program and here we are going on round five with stronger demand than ever. It's humbling and it makes me so grateful.
As we're coming up on the fifth round, Side Hustle is getting a major upgrade. I've been wanting to share some of this for at least six months, if not nine months so these are just dreams that I have had for this program for a long time and I'm just really excited that they're starting to come through. Each round I've tweaked and I've incorporated that feedback based on what students had to say and based on what worked for me. I could have just kept going this way and left the program the same, but I knew in my bones that it could be better. It could better serve my students and it could better serve me so I'm excited to jump into all that's coming up and all the changes and as we do that, I want to remind you that applications for this brand new version are open. So head over to marissalawton.com/side-hustle, and that's where you can apply.
You can also read about all of the changes that are coming up because I know that some of us are multimodal learners. So listening here with me might pique your interest, but if you go over to the Side Hustle page, you'll be able to read all the differences as well. So you can soak it up both ways, but, when you're ready to apply, just head to marissalawton.com/side-hustle. That's where you can go ahead and get the process started to join the Side Hustle family.
Before I dive into what is changing I want to share a little bit more about why things are changing. I think that's important to explore as well because I think quality and integrity are things that are important to all of us. We want to truly help the people that we work with and guide them towards transformation and Side Hustle has always done that.
There have always been people who have gotten success from the program. But, as I said, I just knew deep down that there were things that could be better. The thing that makes me think about that is when we flashback to internships or those very first clients that we had when we were associate-level licensed or whatever. It almost makes me cringe, the quality or the level of therapy that those clients were getting compared to the people that I serve now.
I imagine you kind of have the same reaction when you think about your early clients too. Years later, to be able to sit in a clinical setting and just have the confidence and the know-how that you can help people and you can help people transform. I think that notion not only applies to us in the clinical setting, but we need to think about that same concept of growing, of becoming better at developing our skillset when we think about moving into coaching or courses or group programs or membership sites.
The first round of your group program is not going to compare to the seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth round of your group program. That is really what I'm starting to feel. I started to feel it a couple of rounds ago, but I knew that this was the right time to make the changes.
I have just grown so much as a leader, as an educator. My skill set has grown and most importantly, my confidence has grown, and this new version of Side Hustle 2.0 feels like it's what I should be delivering at this level now. For those of you who are just starting, those of you who are listening and thinking about your side hustles, I don't want that to discourage you because the old version of Side Hustle was perfect for two years ago, Marissa.
It was exactly what I needed. It was enough of a stretch. It felt hard and difficult in the best way then. And it feels easy now.
Two years later I’m in my comfort zone whereas back then it was in my growth zone. I have grown and now this new version of Side Hustle feels like it's in my growth zone. It's a program that's going to help me get to my next level.
Not only that but it will help my students get to another level.
I want to remind you guys and go back to the concept of progress over perfection. If I had tried to launch the program that Side Hustle has grown into, two years ago, I would have never had the competence to put something like that out on the market. The old version kicked up imposter syndrome, the old version felt like a stretch.
If I had gone straight for the upgraded version, if I had gone straight for a Side Hustle 2.0, it just would've been a different experience. I wouldn't have felt confident, but I don't believe that my students would have gotten the results that they got in the old version, let alone results that I know they're going to get in the new version. That's why it's about starting.
Progress over perfection. Both of those are cliches, but it's just so true. Start with what feels just a bit beyond the comfort zone now, so that when you are two years down the road, you can have the same conversation with your audience and say, “Guess what? It's time for a major upgrade. I've grown, and so the program is growing and I can't wait to pass that growth on to you.”
The old version felt like I was taking my students three feet from the finish line and then being like, “All right, sayonara, good luck, hope you have fun. There's the end. I'll see you when you get there.”
It was like, I'm going to give you three-quarters of the tools that you need, I'm going to show you the shiny city on the horizon, and then I'm going to make you walk the rest of the way, which if you guys have ever heard me talk about the guru and the guide example, didn't feel in alignment with my values. I didn't feel like I was being the full guide that I could have been because the full guide would have walked someone all the way. The full guide would have pointed out the potholes and pointed out the detours and the pitfalls all the way, not just three-quarters of the way.
That was what was starting to feel unsettling for me as much as a year and a half ago, thinking, ooh, I don't like that I am not guiding them as far as I know I can guide them. It nagged at me for a while. It nagged at me for about a year. And then in each round, I started to ask questions of students.
What if this was included? What if we did this as well? What if I could offer this? And at each round, I got the validation. I got the, Oh, that would be so awesome. Oh yeah. That would be so much better. I would feel so much more supported.
So I had an idea. I validated that idea by paying students with current students. I slowly, over time started to allow that idea to congeal, to come together and to sit with it and to be able to say, what will this look like when all of this comes together? And each round, I added little pieces. What I could do at that time, what was feasible for me to deliver at that time.
I've made little tweaks along the way, of course, but this going from round four to round five is a huge change. I think it's always a risk to change something that's working. This is where integrity comes in. This is where the values come in because I could have just let it keep going.
It was selling. People were happy. Students were thrilled. I was getting positive testimonials. I could have just kept on going. So it's a risk to look at something that's working and say, this can be better. It's like that whole, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Idea. It wasn't broke.
I had this conversation with my husband and I said, okay, it's not broken. So why am I treating it like it is like, why am I revamping it? Why am I changing it? The other corny analogy that comes up is like, why am I going to wake the sleeping baby? The baby is asleep. Don't wake the thing, right?
Let it sleep, leave the room, shut the door and go take your shower. Leave the baby asleep. But ultimately it boiled down to the fact that I knew I could serve in a more impactful way. I knew it could be better. I knew that my students could get more from me. I knew they could get more from themselves if I led them correctly.
It just had to happen. It became a have to. I have to make these changes. And so that's when I was checking in with my good friend, Lee Chaix McDonough, you guys have heard me talk about her a bunch of times, but I remember I was like deep in the throws of this and I reached out to her and I asked, can you help me understand the difference between fear and intuition? Is this fear a sign that I should be stopping? Don't do this. This is a bad thing. Turn around, run away. Or is this something that is really intuitive, but I'm just scared?
There's a difference. Biologically fear serves us. It says, there is a mountain lion over there. Don't go over there. You're going to die. Fear serves us in some ways, but also I think there's a difference between a real deep knowing fear of there's a significant problem here, or just being scared and just being uncomfortable and just being nervous.
That's really what Lee helped me see is this deep knowing. It’s almost compulsory like I have to do this. Immediately when she said that I was like, yeah, that's exactly what it is. I have to make these changes. I have to do this. This is the right answer.
Then she said where are you feeling your fear? Are you feeling it in your head? Are you feeling in your heart? Are you feeling okay in your gut? And she just helped me walk through this whole experience. And that's when I made the decision. I have to go all-in on this.
It could burn my business to the ground. Side Hustle is my signature offer. Side Hustle makes up 80% of my income. I don't know if that's the right number, but it's close. I made it up, but it's close. It makes up the vast majority of my income. It's what I'm known for. It's my signature program and I'm going to change it and it doesn't need to change.
It was a mind fuck. It still feels like that a little bit.
But at the end of the day, the old version was not a complete program. It was not a complete transformation. And now with this new version, I truly believe that it is. It's complete.
Now that doesn't mean between round five and six I'm not going to make tweaks between six and seven. I'm not going to make tweaks, but I feel like it's finally fully realized, it's finally fully actualized.
I think that there are a few things that happened that I realized as I was going through this whole, like almost identity crisis. It was the identity of my program crisis. And what started to come up for me is that if you don't adapt your program, if I would have just stayed, if I would've just kept it as it was because it was working fine, it would have become stale.
It would have become stale for my students. Oh, I've seen this before, but it would have become stale for me. I had grown. So if I had grown and then I was still delivering a program that was a fit for me two years ago, it would have felt stale for me. So stale for both sides. And then it would have been out of touch.
I'm not the only podcast that you guys listened to, as much as my ego would like to tell me that I am. I'm not. So if I wasn't making changes I would have been out of touch with you guys because you guys are continuing to learn. You guys are continuing to gather knowledge and if I didn't grow and if my podcast hadn't grown, if my program didn't grow, then you guys would outgrow me.
I would be out of touch. I also would be out of date, right? If I'm not upgrading my tech tutorials, if I'm not upgrading the systems that I teach, the software that I teach, I'd be out of date with what's working on the market, with what are the best solutions that I can pass on to you guys.
So I need to make those upgrades. And so that's really what it brought me to is that I needed to push out of the comfort zone and I needed to get from my comfort zone into growth zone again, and nobody likes growth zone. The growth zone's uncomfortable. I could have just stayed in the cushy comfort zone, but instead, I leaned into the fact that my students are going to feel more seen and more heard if I'm able to make the adjustments that they need. And this goes with gathering the feedback from the current students that helps them feel seen and heard opportunities for them to be able to like, just say, “Hey, this isn't working.”
I would like to see a change here, and especially if you're hearing the same message from multiple students, then it's something you need to pay attention to because it's gonna help them feel appreciated. It's going to help them feel seen and heard. And ultimately if you’re new or your future students know that you make those adjustments for current students or current members, the new and future members are going to say, dang, that means they're going to listen to me when it's my turn.
By getting out of my comfort zone and getting into my growth in making changes to the program. I knew that I was serving those students and meeting their demands for things that they wanted to see different. I was being present to their requests. I was being present to their needs. Also, you get to put out a message and you get to appear that you are innovative.
You recognize that things need to be adapted. You recognize that the world moves on. You recognize that things change, and you're not going to let that pass you by. And you're also not going to let it pass your students by. Be willing to adapt your program to the times, or to what's new and different. Make sure that you are innovating and you're serving at the best level.
I think that's what it's all about is that higher level of service. And remember, this is progress over perfection. This is something that's taken me two and a half years to get to. And it's something that you can build into your program as it's getting better each round, it's about listening to your students and what they need and working to match that with the new iterations of your program.
Not allowing it to become stale, not allowing it to become out of date. But innovating and staying present to what your audience needs.
Now we're going to get into all of the changes that are coming to the program. This first one is the one that I was the most terrified about. I was really scared about this. I was scared that it was not going to resonate. I was scared that it was going to be the opposite of what people wanted and needed.
But in fact, as people have been enrolling in Side Hustle and as we've had new people joining, that's not been the case. People are really happy with this change and it has just made me. It's been validating and affirming. It's made me feel like my intuition was right on and that is the fact that Side Hustle is moving from a six-month mentorship to a nine-month mentorship.
It is becoming a longer program. When you see everything else on the market, getting shorter and faster, and your signature offer that 80% of your business is built on is getting longer, it's terrifying. It's like all the girls have straight hair and I'm going to wear curly hair. I know that sounds trivial, but that's what it felt like.
It felt like stepping out and saying, no, I'm going to go the exact opposite of the way that everybody else is going. It still freaked me out, but I wanted to look into my values and my values are slow growth. My values are progress over perfection. My values are sustainability. A business that's going to be around for the long term.
I'm investing in my students' progress and my students are investing in their own progress and it doesn't happen in six months. It just doesn't. What we saw happening in rounds three and four of Side Hustle is that people were trying to launch within six months. The original idea behind Side Hustle was in six months. You would go from your offer to your waitlist funnel and you would have a complete marketing plan to fill that funnel. And then it was up to you to get sales from the waitlist. That's what I was asking you to do by yourself was to go to a group of interested people and say, okay, now it's time to buy.
People wanted help with that part, so instead of building a waitlist, they were going straight to sales, which is not a problem. We had several people have success with that and go straight to sales, but I felt like then they had to go back and build a waitlist. They chose either-or; either build your waitlist or launch.
That was one of the biggest catalysts for going from six to nine months is I want people to be able to do both. I want you to learn how to build a waitlist with me, and I want you to learn how to execute an effective profitable launch with me. That's what we're going to be doing. We're bringing it into three phases instead of six months, we're doing three phases over nine months.
Phase one is still an okay idea to funnel, you will have your waitlist funnel built within three months. The second phase is driving traffic through that funnel. This funnel has two purposes. Or this phase, I'm sorry, has two purposes. Hey, building your waitlist. We want people to get from your opt-in to your waitlist, but it's also a testing phase, right?
Because if you skip this phase and you go straight to passive income, you have everything that happens. We mentioned that in the last episode. Your students aren't getting results, you're not selling well, your conversion rates suck. So in phase two, we test everything. If you've had a hundred people go through your funnel and no one's on the waitlist, then we need to make some tweaks and some edits here before we're selling, before we're launching.
So it's basically like having dominoes in place early in the process. If the dominoes fall, if you have people getting on your waitlist, then that's awesome. That means your message is good. That means you're in front of the right people. If your Domino's aren't falling, if people are not getting on your waitlist, I don't want you to rush.
I don't want you to start launching. I don't want you to start pushing through because we have an indicator here that is telling us that we're not ready. And so I want everybody to have that part of it because that's what sets you up for a sustainable business. That's what sets you up for long-term income.
And then in phase three, once all the dominoes have fallen from phase two, then in phase three we launch. I'm teaching all the popular launch methods where we're going to cover a webinar launch. We're going to cover a challenge launch, a summit launch, and a video series launch. And that's not with the intention of you launching all of those ways. That doesn't make sense. What it is is for you to match the launch mechanism to your offer and you.
If you tell me I'm never doing a summit, I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole then I'm never going to make you launch with a summit. I might suggest it as an opportunity based on the type of offer that you want to sell, but if you tell me, heck no, then we will figure out a strategy that works best for you.
That is the biggest change is this three-phase approach, the funnel, the testing, and then the launching. And I think that is what's honestly going to set people up for success. People don't have to make the choice anymore between going straight for revenue or for going for a wait-list. We're doing both. And I think that I just really feel strongly that makes a huge difference.
The other thing that we're adding is cash injections at each phase. So you don't have to wait nine months to make any money, because people are like, Oh my God, it's getting longer. Now I have to wait even longer before revenue comes in. And that's not the case. I'm going back through all of the previous rounds and looking at the ways that people have made money throughout the six months. Many people have booked coaching clients while they were doing interviews and validating the market. I'm teaching that as an actual strategy so that it doesn't just feel like a fluke anymore when it would happen. I would tell people, I would tell students, Hey, this is a possibility, and they'd all be really surprised.
Now I'm going to say, Hey, this is a possibility, and I want to teach you how to do it. If you so choose to want to inject some cash as early as month one, in each phase, there are multiple cash injections. So there are opportunities for you to make money in phases one, two, and in phase three.
Again, they're optional. You don't have to take advantage of them, but I understand that people, some people want revenue sooner. So we build that into the program. The other thing that's new is that there are copy and design coaches. This is something we added for round four as testing for round five.
We now have an in-house copywriter and an in-house designer. What these people do is they there are on coaching calls where they coach you how to write good sales page copy, how to write good social media copy, how to write good promotional stuff, all the stuff that feels hard, how to write good emails, and they teach you how to make them pretty. How to make pretty graphics, how to make pretty opt-ins, how to make pretty branding.
I know that was one of the things that were important to my other students is I want this to look good. I want this to be an actual visual representation of who I am and who I stand for, what I stand for and what this program stands for.
We have brought on a copywriter and a designer. They do not let your stuff go out if it's not good. They are kind of like the stopgap. They will not let you publish things if it's not up to their standards. So I'm excited about them and the work that they've been doing with the program and that work is only going to get more involved in the next program because in the fifth round, what else I'm providing for you guys is all of the templates.
So you don't have to go out and build pages anymore. You don't have to go out and design graphics from scratch anymore. All of those are provided for you. So it used to feel like I made you go out and hunt your food, bring it back to the kitchen and cook all of your food. Now I'm giving you all of the ingredients. I still think it's important for you guys to learn how to cook your food, on your own, because I don't want this program to be enabling.
I still want you to be able to do things on your own. That's why there are tech tutorials. You still have to learn how to do it. You still have to be, and you still have the opportunity to bring your flare and your voice and your aesthetic to things.
But I'm just not making you go out and kill the food. I'm giving you all the ingredients and all you have to do is cook the food. So the templates are going to range from everything from a fully built Squarespace website. I heard time and time again, that one of the biggest objectives from starting a side hustle was not having a website or having to have a separate website from your therapy website.
I’ve taught for a long time that you don't need a website to get started. And I still really believe that. However, I said, if this is an objection for people, why not just give it to them? So you have a full Squarespace website included in Side Hustle. You have sales page templates. You have social media templates, all of the graphics are included, promo copy templates, email templates. So all of the things that we're contributing to analysis paralysis, or just felt like so many decisions, how do I pick a logo? How do I pick fonts? How do I pick colours?
Inside the program, your logo is given to you. Your colours are given to you. Your fonts are given to you. Again, these are adaptable. These are tweakable and changeable based on your aesthetic, but you're not starting from scratch. And again, I think that is a huge piece of this. I think being able to have that leg up, and having the templates provided to you, just takes out so much of the worry that you can't do it.
It takes out so much of the fear of being able to make something that looks and sounds good while we've taken care of that for you. I think that's ultimately what this new version of side hustle does, is that it gives you all of the time savers. It takes away all of the decisions and all of the barriers that have been keeping you from making your side hustle a reality, and it guides you through the process.
It has measurable benchmarks. That helps you decide if you're ready to move on to the next phase. And it has time accountability trackers, due dates, all of the things inside that you need to make sure that this is a reality and this is going to happen. I've poured a lot into making this program even better, this 2.0 version is the culmination of everything that's been going on for the last two years. My current students have been so gracious to point out where they would like things to be different, what they would have wanted, what they've needed.
Alumni have allowed me to pick their brains on what they've wanted and what they've needed at different stages. And I feel like I'm finally putting together notebooks and sticky notes and post-its worth of feedback all into this new version. I'm not going to say the final version because that's not true, but this new version of the program, and it's just, I'm like beaming from ear to ear right now because it finally feels like what it should feel like at this point.
Right now in this current zone of growth/scariness. But finally, I feel good about sharing this. I wouldn't have felt this good even three months ago. I still was in the fear zone. I still was in the nervous zone, And I've pushed past that, and I'm just really glad to be bringing these changes in these updates.
We already have such a great group enrolled inside hustle so far, and I'm just looking forward to all the rest of you who are about to apply and all the rest of you who are about to join this journey because Side Hustle is a family. I think the fact that alumni keep coming back to offer guidance and keep passing on things to current students, and that everybody still has shown up for the program and still has so much to give and so much to learn, just really warms my heart.
So I want to remind you guys about the open house for Side Hustle, if you want to see all these upgrades for yourself, that's where we're going to do that. I'm going to be sharing my screen and showing all of the curricula. You will get to see all of the lessons before you enroll in Side Hustle.
So you can see phase one, phase two, phase three. You get to see all the cash injection strategies, all of that stuff. I'm excited to be able to share my screen and show that with you.
We also have alumni from each round and the current students who are just about to finish there and representatives from all four previous rounds.
I told them, I want you guys to come and share honest feedback. I want you to share what worked in your round, what didn't work in your round. What is new? What has changed, how the program has adapted and evolved? So that you can speak directly with them and get their honest take on what they've been able to bring to life through Side Hustle. What's worked, what hasn't worked, all of that stuff.
Our graphic designer is also coming and she is going to be sharing all of the templates. So you guys will get a sneak peek at what these branding kits look like. That includes logos, fonts, colour, palettes, stock photos, graphics, all of the things that you need to make the brand look the way you want it to look when you present it.
She's going to be sharing all of that. And of course, I'm going to be there so you can ask all of the questions that you want to ask me about the program, just to see if it feels like the right fit.
The only thing that I ask is that I want you guys to RSVP for the open house if you're interested in Side Hustle. This has been a labour of love. All of the alumni have committed their time to come back, the graphic designer has committed her time to be there. and then just the presentations that we've put together for you, I've taken a long time and they've been a labour of love.
I want you guys to come to the open house if you're interested in learning about Side Hustle. We can't wait to meet you guys! And we can't wait to just open up the Side Hustle family to everybody else who is going to join us.
Until then guys, keep on rising.
