EP354: How Do I Deal With the Uncertainty of Shifting My Biz From a Side Hustle to One That Pays the Bills with Marissa Hess
When you start a successful side hustle, there comes a point where you have to decide if you want to keep it that way or take the leap and turn it into a full-time business that pays the bills.
Marissa Hess is ready to take the leap.
Marissa is one of the incredible students in our Laying the Foundation program, and I’m so excited to have her as a guest for this week’s live coaching session.
She started OSO Design Lab with her husband in 2018. They’ve built a solid business over the last four years selling modern, laser-cut wood jewelry.
They hit a major milestone this year when her husband was able to quit his job and work on the business with her full-time. With an 18-month emergency savings tucked away, the two of them are now working hard to rapidly scale their sales so it can support their lifestyle.
However, if they can’t reach their goal of increasing their revenue by 4X, Marissa’s husband may need to return to a traditional job.
Marissa sat down with me for a live coaching session to discuss the best strategy to transition OSO Design Lab from a successful side-hustle to a full-time creative business.
Here’s my advice to her…
Reverse Engineer Your Sales Goals
Marissa is in a great position, because she has a very clear goal in mind: increase sales by 400%.
The easiest way to meet a sales goal is to reverse engineer it.
Let’s say you need to bring in $150,000 in annual sales. You can break that down into $12,500 per month.
That’s a much more approachable number. Ask yourself, what can you do to sell $12,500 worth of jewelry in one month? Or $3,125 per week?
From there it’s much easier to create strategies to hit your sales goal, whether that means increasing your prices, reaching new customers, bundling products together, booking wholesale clients, etc.
Optimize Production, Even If It Means Stepping Away
Marissa and her husband create all of their jewelry in-house with one wood-cutting laser. It’s gotten them this far, but if they really want to grow, it’s time to start looking at outsourcing production.
Production can be a huge bottleneck for your sales if you’re making everything yourself. For example, let’s go back to the sales goal of selling $3,125 worth of jewelry in a week. Could one person realistically handle all of that production on their own, every week?
Usually, the answer is no.
Stepping away from your production can be really difficult as a jewelry designer, because the making process is probably what inspired you to start a business in the first place.
However, it’s vital to optimize production so that you can free up more of your time to focus on tasks that grow your business.
Clearly Define Your Roles and Systems
Running a business with your romantic partner has a lot of pros and cons. Trust me, I do it every day!
What really helps to streamline the process is to clearly define each person’s roles and responsibilities in the company so each person can focus on their strong suits.
On top of that, it’s critical to document everything you do.
Documenting your responsibilities and systems feels unnecessary when it’s just you and one other person running everything. But, as the business grows, you’ll need to outsource work to other people, and you won’t be able to train them if all of your systems are just “in your head.”
Marissa brought so much value to the table in this coaching session, and we covered a lot of ground in only 30 minutes! Listen to the full episode above to hear more about what it takes to transform a side-hustle into a full-time biz!
xo, Tracy
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