441: How to Make More Money

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and I'm smiling right now. My son just left my office and my daughter was here secretly videotaping me through the door. It's one of the benefits of working from home, right? You just get to see your kids whenever you want. It's also one of the challenges, of course, that your kids are interrupting you whenever they want but I'll take the benefit over the challenge. That's what we're talking about today. We're talking about how to make more money. And this is a topic that's relevant to just about all of us. And today, we're actually going to cover it from kind of different angles, if you will. Today is a little bit of something for everyone. If you're struggling financially, early on, I'm going to share, number one, how to make this a priority, how to schedule time to figure this out, and why it’s a must. And then I’m going to give you just a buffet of resources that can help you quickly to generate income. So, that's one area we're going to cover today.

 

The other angle that we're going to cover it from is if you are already doing well, you have a career or a business that's doing well, I'm going to talk about diversifying your sources of income. I'm a big believer that we shouldn't keep all of our eggs in one basket but we should have multiple sources of income so that we are diversified, so that if our business or our employer, they're affected, our industry is affected by the recession, etcetera, etcetera, we have options. We can pour our energy into other avenues, other streams, other sources of income. So, we're going to talk about that today. And I'm also going to talk about how if you have a successful business, how you can actually scale it, how you can serve more people, especially in a difficult recession. I will start by saying I am not a certified financial advisor. Disclaimer, I'm not a financial expert. I am someone who has, I guess, you could say real-world experience in financial gain. Well, first, I had a six-figure sales career back in the day when I was younger, my early 20s, and then I left that and kind of took the risk of becoming an entrepreneur, starting a business from scratch.

 

I grew that within about six months to $80,000-a-year income and then the recession hit. The Great Recession hit and I lost over half of my income. My business nearly failed. I turned that around and then grew the business to six figures and eventually seven figures. And so, what I'm sharing today is just kind of real-world experience of what I've learned over the years that I've applied that's worked really well. Now, if you missed the episode we just did on 4 Strategies to Thrive in the Next Recession, I encourage you to listen to that in addition to this because they are very different. That was episode 435. So, HalElrod.com/435 and that will give you the four strategies that I used at the height of the recession to double my income in a matter of two months and turn things around really quickly. So, I encourage you to again go and listen to that at HalElrod.com/435.

 

All right. Before we dive into the episode, I want to take just a couple of minutes to thank our sponsors. First and foremost, our long-term sponsor that brings you this show every week, Organifi. If the last couple of years have taught us anything, it's that stress and anxiety can cause a lot of harm to us, both mentally and physically. You bet I can relate to that. And stress can take a perfectly healthy person, and almost overnight they can suddenly be afflicted by poor sleep, weight gain, fatigue, mental fog. So, the question is, how do we prevent or reverse this? Well, cortisol, the stress hormone, is supposed to spike when we're in danger but the modern world has our cortisol spiking all day long. The good news is that there are some rare superfood adaptogens that have been shown to help us reduce cortisol quite quickly. And that's the premise of Organifi’s signature product, their Green Juice. It has 11 superfood ingredients that have been shown in multiple studies to reduce cortisol and stress. It's a great way to start the day for some natural detoxing, more energy, and even healthy weight management through reducing cravings. Head over to Organifi.com/Hal and then use the code “HAL” at checkout for 20% off your entire order. I use their protein powder every day, their Green Juice, their Red Juice. I use their Pure, which is for cognitive, all sorts of great products that Organifi makes, organic whole food supplements.

 

And then last but not least, I want to thank our newest sponsor, CUREDNutrition.com/Hal. There's two of their products that I use that I really like, I get a lot of benefit from, and I was using them before they were my sponsor. One is Rise. It's a nootropic that helps you start your day with enhanced mental clarity and cognitive function. And then the other is CBN Oil, which I take 30 to 60 minutes before bed and I sleep like a baby. It's actually got a combination of CBD and CBN. And CBN is a minor cannabinoid which has been shown to have stronger sleep support properties than even CBD. So, it's the best of both worlds. Head over to CUREDNutrition.com/Hal and then use the code “HAL” at checkout for 20% off your entire order.

 

All right. Goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, friends, family, let's talk about it. How can we make more money?

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community. Welcome to today's podcast. We are going to talk about how to make more money and the reason that I chose that topic, there's a lot of topics I could have chosen but I actually came across a survey that I sent out a while back where our community shared their biggest challenge. In fact, I think I'm going to send that survey out again because it's been a few years and I want to know how I can best serve you. And I am almost ashamed to admit that I had lost sight of the survey and I have not been using it for what I intended, which was to be able to keep coming back to it and help you in the areas that you have described, help our community in the areas that have been described to being the most pressing, the most important. So, I apologize for that. But here's the thing I saw. So, I'm actually going to just read right off the top. There's 3,300 responses. So, we got a lot of responses from this survey. But in terms of the question, what's your single biggest challenge right now? I got procrastination, weight loss, I need more money, time management, money, motivation, focus, motivation, procrastination, weight loss, consistency, self-confidence, my relationship, time management, I need more money, depression, more money, self-confidence.

 

So, there's a lot of different topics. The one that I saw stand out quite a bit was I need more money. And so, I decided to cover that today. This is something that is a challenge in the society that we live in meaning that we live in a society that requires money. You know, it's not like it was hundreds of years ago where we just lived off the land in villages and supported each other. There's a part of me that yearns for that time, although I wasn't around then, so I don't know. Maybe there's a reason that we evolved beyond it. I don't know. But when it comes to how to make more money, we have the economy right now in a pretty volatile spot. We have a recession that is upon us unless you pay attention to the White House, which last week, they changed their definition of recession so that we're not in one now, which is interesting. We were in a recession according to what a recession is. So, they changed the definition of a recession so that now we're not in one anymore. Interesting how that works. You just change the definition of words and then it changes reality, apparently.

 

Although it doesn't change reality because you're still feeling the effects. We're still feeling the effects of the economy. And when it comes to making more money, there is a lot of fear often around that when it comes to the economy declining. It's like, oh, how am I going to make money if companies are laying people off, if customers aren't buying as much, if there's just even a general feeling of economic uncertainty that causes consumers to hold onto their dollars and not spend money, which you might be able to relate on either side of that? If you're a business owner, maybe you've felt the effects of that. If you are a consumer, maybe you're experiencing. Yeah, I'm not spending as much. I'm being much more cautious right now, much more frugal, if you will. So, today's episode is really designed to bring this to your attention, to give you ideas, maybe some solutions but really help you make this a priority, if it is important to you, making more money or sustaining the income that you currently make.

 

Here we go. Let's dive in and we're going to keep this as simple as possible. The first strategy, the first thing I want to share with you is that you've got to make this a priority, meaning wanting to make more money isn't going to make you more money. You actually have to schedule time to figure this out. All right. So, literally, that might seem obvious but I think that it's not implemented by most people, meaning how many people actually have a block of time in their schedule each day to work on increasing their income? I would imagine that it's a very small percentage of people. And what we fail to schedule, we tend to fail to do, right? If we’re not scheduling time to exercise and we just want to be healthier, we want to be more physically fit, not much usually happens. You have to actually make it a priority. You have to make it a commitment. You have to schedule time to ensure that it happens. That's the first thing that I want to encourage you, invite you, challenge you to do is if you want to make more money, if that's something that is important to you, if it's something that's necessary for you right now, make it a priority.

 

And how do you do that? You schedule time to figure it out. You schedule time to figure it out. Doubtful that this episode, this podcast is going to give you everything that you need to make more money. I wish I could do that but I doubt that I could do that. It's something that will be an ongoing evolution for you, learning, exploring, listening to other podcasts on increasing income, maybe reading a book on the topic, maybe doing some online research, maybe talking to people in your network, maybe applying for jobs. Right? There's going to be a variety of activities that are going to lead you to the result of actually earning more income versus just the intention of wanting to earn more income. Very, very different things. So, number one, make it a priority.

 

Number two, now some of you are going to roll your eyes when I share this. You might even be concerned with, "Where is Hal going with the podcast?” Number two is google how to make more money. I get it. You could figure that on your own but let me ask you this. When was the last time you did that? One of my mentors used to say that common knowledge is often not common sense. Or no. How did he say that? Common sense… I forgot how he said it but it was basically that we take for granted things that we already know. And one of the biggest hindrances to us making progress in our lives is when we subscribe to the voice in our head that says, “I already know that. I already know that.” And what happens is we tend to immediately shut down any possibility of learning or growing or taking a new action because we convince ourselves that we already know. And if we already know, then we don't need to do anything with it.

 

But the reality is if you're not implementing what you know, if you're not actually googling how to make more money and then spending time that time that you've scheduled to figure this out, that would be the first thing that I would do is I would google how to make more money. In fact, I did that. I googled how to make more money as I was preparing for this podcast. The first two articles that come up, you can go read them yourself. In fact, I encourage you to do so, 34 Ways to Make Extra Money from RamseySolutions.com and 44 Ways to Make More Money from Forbes.com. So, there's two articles that between the two of them they give you, what is that, 78 ways to increase your income. And there's definitely some overlap on those two articles. But I'm going to read through some of the suggestions and we're going to talk on there was 78 of them. I think I took the nine that I resonated with the most, either that I had experience with and that I want to talk about today.

 

The first is to change jobs. “This is the best way to boost your earnings as you have the most leverage at the moment that a company wants you but isn't sure whether it can get you.” That's a quote from Forbes and I'll tell you that, for me, when I go into my history, I look at, okay, I was in sales. I sold Cutco Cutlery for six years from age 19 to age 25, six years. And of course, you come to know your profession, your career. it's the way you know how to make money and it's always scary to change jobs, to change careers, especially if you're starting your own business, which we're going to talk about that later today. But in terms of changing jobs, so for me, it was I went from being in sales to deciding to start my own business as a coach, as a professional coach. We're going to talk about that as an option here in a bit, too. But this is a little different in terms of this isn’t starting your own job. This is changing jobs, it's changing careers. And according to Forbes, you have the most leverage during that moment, that time period when a company wants you but they can't get you.

 

I would say that if you've been considering changing jobs, which by the way, when I read through that survey, as I got further down into the survey, there were a lot of answers that were talking about to find a new job. And so, that also seems to be very common whether it's finding a career that pays more or it's finding a career that is more fulfilling that you enjoy more. Hopefully, it's both, right? Hopefully, that if you're going to pursue a new career, it's one that earns you more money but also that you can look forward to going to work every day. In a perfect world, it's both of those things. That's part of the beauty of starting your own business, which, again, we're going to get to because you get to choose, right? What business do I want to start? What business do I want to start and how much money do I want to earn? And you get to actually direct your future a little bit more than if you are choosing to work for someone else and only be paid what they're willing to pay you. And in that Forbes article, there was a link to an article on how to negotiate your salary. So, again, I'm encouraging you, go read those articles, google “How to make more money” and go do your own research.

 

Number two, request a raise. And a key person on my team just did this. So, you might be thinking, “Oh, well, I can't request a raise right now. The economy, we're not in a good spot.” Well, I'll tell you, one of my key team members just requested a raise and made her case as to why she felt she was deserving of a raise. And I did not disagree. I thought, yeah, you're absolutely deserving of a raise. And so, that is something that you don't get what you don't ask for. So, you have to be willing to ask. And getting a raise is an excellent move because it doesn't require you to trade more time for more money. You don’t have to work more. You don’t have to get a side hustle, which is an option for sure. But you're putting the same amount of time and just pulling in a bigger paycheck, right? So, that is one of the benefits, of course. And it's always a bit tricky to ask for a raise when your company already has you at a current salary. But again, google how to ask for a raise, how to negotiate a raise. All of it is available to you. All of that information, knowledge is available to you.

 

Number three, become a driver. This is something that I always talk to Uber drivers when I'm in the Uber. I ask, "How do you like it? How do you enjoy it?” Most of them like driving so that's kind of the cool part. They’re like, “I just drive around all day. I love driving around. It's great.” So, it's not work that they detest going to their job every day. It’s something they actually enjoy doing. Now, if you don't enjoy driving, then you'd be giving up the enjoyment part of the job, maybe just to make a little extra money. And I've met people too, of course, that they just Uber on the weekends or on the side if you need to make a little bit of extra money. Some other suggestions, I'll just read some of these off. I won't go into detail on them but get paid to run errands. You can sign up for TaskRabbit or Instacart. Now, I can't speak on those. I don't know what the income level is but those are options, right? You can sell things on eBay. I have a friend who sells. You know, that’s his side hustle is he goes to garage sales, buys stuff, and then resells it on eBay for a significant profit. So, you can actually make a decent amount of money selling on eBay. Of course, you can become an Amazon seller as well. I'm speaking at an event. It'll be the second event I've ever spoken at to Amazon sellers, meaning that's the audience that I'll be speaking to. But there are a lot of folks that make a lot of money selling products on Amazon. And similar to eBay, they'll buy products from one resource, and then they'll find a really good price and then they will mark them up and they will sell them on Amazon.

 

You can also rent out your car. So, another idea of just adding an extra income stream. If you have a vehicle that just sits in your garage for long stretches of time, you might find a car rental service like Turo. It's one of the easiest ways to make some extra money because you just put your car up and then people, you meet them, wherever. You drop off the car and then they rent it for a day or for a week. And on average, you can make an extra $10,000 plus per year based on the average car rental. That's what Turo provides data on is that the average person that rents their car on Turo makes an extra $10,516 a year. And if you're worried about what if somebody wrecks the car, Turo offers, it's a $750,000 liability insurance, as well as offering theft and damage insurance. So, essentially your car is taken care of. Some more serious options around and I say serious because in terms of like career options, you can become a virtual assistant. That's something that can pay really, really well. I use different virtual assistants for different parts of my business.

 

You can also become a social media manager. That's another area. One thing about being a social media manager is depending on your capacity and I have a social media manager on my team. I actually have two, kind of one that deals with inboxes and one that deals with posting my content. But that business you typically can leverage tools like there are certain websites. I'm trying to remember what they are because I haven't used them in so long but where you can schedule posts, that sort of thing. And so, what a lot of social media managers do is they don't just work for, they don’t just have one client. They have multiple clients. You can kind of scale your business where you have multiple clients and then you're leveraging these different online platforms and you're scheduling your posts for all of your clients. So, you might spend an hour a day scheduling posts for all your clients throughout the entire day, and then you can go work your other job or go start your business or take the rest of the day off or whatever. But being a social media manager has become a very, very realistic career that can become a really lucrative career.

 

You can become a coach. You know, that's something that was my first transition. I transitioned from a salesperson to a coach. And here's what I want you to think about with this. When it comes to coaching, that was essentially what I determined I was qualified to do. As I was leaving my sales position, I thought, “What have I proven? Where are my skills?” I thought, “Well, I’m in sales. I could go sell something else but I don't want to do that.” That was kind of my purpose was I was leaving my sales position to pursue my dreams of becoming an author and becoming a keynote speaker. That was why I was leaving the sales position, so I didn't want to start up a new sales career and have to start at the beginning in terms of building a clientele and so on and so forth. I wanted to just have a - I needed an income that I could create to then sustain me while I built up my speaking career and got my book out there. And so, I asked myself, “What am I qualified to do?” I thought, “Well, all I've really done well is sell a lot of Cutco.” And so, then I went, “Oh, I could coach other people on how to sell Cutco.”

 

In fact, the specifics of the story are I was in a networking group called BNI, Business Networking International, and the president of that chapter asked me, he learned about my sales experience and he asked me if I would coach him and I said yes. And actually, this is actually a fun story and there's a lesson in this, there's value in this. He asked me at the end of one of our BNI meetings, “Hey, do you offer coaching?” And I said, “I'm open to it.” And he said, “I've been looking for a coach. And based on your experience, it seems like you've been a Hall of Fame sales rep and I need to increase the sales in my business. Sales is not my strength.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, "Let's have a call.” And I scheduled a call a couple of days later because I needed time. Literally, I can picture it. I got into my car and I went to Amazon, I searched “life coaching.” I didn't even know what coaching really was like I kind of had a vague understanding but I had never coached anyone. And so, I ordered the Life Coaching Handbook. I shipped it overnight, got it the next day, read it before I had my call with him so that I knew what the hell I was talking about.

 

But the lesson there, right, is just to like, really, we often limit our opportunities by saying no to things versus saying yes and then figuring it out, right? So, say yes to an opportunity and then figure it out. Build your wings on the way down as it's been said. And so, got on the phone with him. I was very honest. I said, “Hey, I've coached a lot of people informally, meaning I've been in sales for six years and I've been a manager and I've mentored people.” I said, “I’ve coached a lot of people informally but,” I was totally honest with myself, “I've never formally been paid to coach.” I said, “So, I'm totally confident that I can coach you, that I can help you achieve your objectives.” I said, “And what we'll do is if you'll sign on for a year of coaching, the first six months I will do at 50% off what's going to be my normal rate.” And at that point, I had done some research and decided that kind of the average coach was charging $500 a month. A coach that had experience or expertise in some field was charging $500 a month. This was back you know, it was, oh my God, I can't believe this was 17 years ago. It was 2005.

 

That was what they were charging 500 a month. I said, “For the first six months, I will do half price. So, half off since you're kind of my guinea pig.” I was just being honest with him. And it would be $250 a month for six months. I said, "At that point, you'll have the opportunity to either end our agreement or if you want to continue, if you're getting value from the coaching and you want to continue for the next six months, it would be at my regular rate of $500 a month.” So, I think it's a little clunky, right? It was my first time. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to quote somebody like a coaching fee. And so, he said yes. And then that's when I realized I am qualified to coach Cutco reps over even though he was a financial advisor, he wasn't a Cutco rep. I thought I'm qualified to coach Cutco reps more than anybody else. And so, I then reached out to all of my colleagues. I just wrote a text message to one of them and then copied and pasted it and said - and here's a little bonus tip for you if you're thinking about coaching. I said, “Hey, I've started a coaching business and I really am passionate about helping my fellow Cutco reps to increase your sales.”

 

Right now, I'm going off memory. I don't think this was the word-for-word approach that I sent out but you get the gist. I said, "So, do you or anyone you know, would you be interested in having a coach that would help you to increase your sales, make more money, work more efficiently, better manage your time, overcome procrastination?” I just listed all the benefits, the things that I had excelled at, at that point that I felt I could help them do as well. And I think that, I don't know the exact number, but I mean I think within a week of sending out that text message I had calls with like a dozen or so reps. I think six of them or maybe it was 12, I don't remember the number, hired me to be their coach. And it was at $500 a month, right? I charged, actually, it was $300 a month. Sorry. I'm going off memory here.

But basically, within a matter of months, I had enough income to pay my bills as I left my Cutco career and transitioned into coaching and writing and speaking. And then I continued to increase the number of coaching clients that I got. And I think that I peeked out at like 16 clients at $500 a month and I was doing weekly calls. And then eventually, I decided I don’t want to work every single week.

 

So, I scaled it back to three calls a month and I just basically determined, three calls is enough to give people consistent accountability. That was one of the benefits of coaching, was holding people accountable, helping them identify what were their top priorities for the week, for the month, for the year, etc., and then me writing those down and saying, “Okay, when are you going to follow through on these priorities?” And then they would get really clear on that.

 

Then I would have them schedule it in their schedule and then I would say, “Okay, are you 100% committed that you’re going to follow through with this?” And then I would actually ask them, “What if you don’t feel like it?” And I would ask them, “What in the past has held you back from following through? What has caused you to procrastinate?” And I would actually help them to like, in ways they had never really self-diagnosed. Like, I guess, this is what happens when I procrastinate. Like, I would ask, “What do you tell yourself? What do you say to yourself? What are the excuses that you make? Why are you okay with that?” And they would really come to be clear on what was holding them back from following through so that it wasn’t just a matter of giving me their word that they were going to follow through which that in and of itself can be enough sometimes. If you had a personal trainer, when you give your word to someone, well, we tend to want to live in alignment with our word.

 

So, anyway, I’m kind of going off. I’m going a little too deep into the coaching realm. Well, if you want to be a coach, that’s all really valuable for you because you’ve got a lot of strategies and ideas and tips on how to effectively coach people. So, being a coach is a great opportunity because if you’ve been successful at anything, whatever you’ve been successful at, there are likely people that would be willing to invest money for you to shorten their learning curve, for you to hold them accountable, for you to essentially help them get to where you’ve gotten and do so faster.

 

So, something to consider is coaching. I think that, and again, for me, I’m particular of that because I did it for many years. And then I also want to invite you to consider group coaching. So, this is a way to scale your income, meaning if you’re doing one-on-one coaching, you are limited by the hours in the day. You can only have so many calls with so many clients.

 

Now, to be fair, you may be able to, if you had, for example, let’s say you had four calls a day with clients five days a week, that’d be 20 clients a week that you would be having calls with. And if you’re charging $500 a month, which, by the way, that’s what I was charging in 2005, 17 years ago, and imagine with inflation, probably could earn more than that. And I did raise my rates eventually to $3,000 a month. So, $500 is a good starting place, but you can scale beyond that.

 

But here’s the point. In one-on-one coaching, you’re limited on how much you can earn, but that may be more than enough income for you if your 20 clients are at $500 a month, $10,000 a month. And you could do four calls a month, one call a week, or you could just do three calls so some things to think about. And think about that before you start anything.

 

When it comes to making more money, I believe that you really want to design your income-producing activities around your lifestyle. So, ask yourself, what do I want my life to be like? What do I want my schedule to be like? What do I want to do that brings me joy and fulfillment? Start there and then find a way to get paid for it. Something that I learned when I was really young was find something you love to do and then figure out how to get paid for it.

 

So, group coaching, this happened by accident, kind of like it’s interesting. Isn’t it interesting you look at your life and how Michael Singer says that when he looks back over his life that of all the significant things, like meeting his wife and finding career opportunities, most of them happened by chance? Like he didn’t actively pursue the person he married. He just met her randomly, a friend introduced them, etc., etc. Often, he has business opportunities, etc.

 

So, a lot of the things that happen in our life, we might not have intentionally pursued, but they showed up. And group coaching, for me, a friend, or not a friend, well, he was kind of a friend, but a manager in the Cutco company said, “Hey, I want to coach with you, but I’m a new manager. I can’t afford $500 a month.” He said, “but I have talked to four other managers who are also new managers, and they would like to coach with you as well, and we’re wondering if you can do two calls.” At that point, I was doing two calls a month for $500 a month. “If we can do two calls a month with you and you’ll still earn the same amount of money, and we just will each pay $100 and we’ll all be on the call.” And I said, “Sure, yeah, yeah. Okay, I’m open to that.” Once again, just saying yes to the opportunity and figuring out how you’re going to coach five people at once. And I’ve always said, yes, and then figure it out.

 

And so, we did our first call, and it went well. I came to the call with a plan of how I was going to coach five people. I just had them all share, what’s the number one thing you want to get out of this call? And that took five minutes. And actually, I had them sent out ahead of time now that I think about it. And so, they all sent what they want to get out of the call, and then I came to the call prepared to deliver what it was that they all wanted.

 

And what happened was a few weeks later, after our second call, somebody asked, “Hey, we have some other managers that we’ve told about the call. It has been going really well, and they would love to join it. Is there any way that they could each pay $100 and they could join?” And that’s when the light bulb went off and I went, wait a minute. The way that I kind of was doing this group coaching, it was scalable where I could have five people on the call or 50 people or 500 people.

 

And so, the light bulb went off and I reached out to every single one of those– at that point, it was like, I think, eight of the group coaching clients and I asked for referrals. I said, “Hey, who do you know that could benefit from this, either they could be a rep or a manager?” And I ended up with 30 referrals or 13 referrals, I don’t number the number, but I reached out to all those people and I jumped on a call with them and I said, “Normally, coaching is $500 a month, but we’re doing this group coaching program where the value is arguably the same. In some ways, it could be greater because there’s collaboration and kind of masterminding amongst multiple people. But instead of $500 a month, it’s only $100 a month.”

 

And within two months, I had 70 people that had signed up. Every day, I was asking for referrals, signing new people up, delivering value, and rinsing and repeating that process. Deliver value, ask if there’s anybody else they think could benefit from this, reach out to those people via text, schedule a call with them, and round and round and round. And within two months, I had 70 members at $100 a month.

 

But I want you to think about that for a second, I want that to get your wheels turning, especially if you’re a business owner. How can you serve more people at a lower cost? That’s a question that– I did a call a few months ago, I forgot what the topic was, but I shared that, that that was the way I was, oh, it was the four strategies to thrive in the next recession and I talked about how during the last recession. That’s when I launched my group coaching program, by the way. It was how can I serve more people at a lower price point?

 

And again, if you’re a business owner, think about how could you pivot your business to serve more people at a lower price point. Of course, the alternative to that is how can you find the people who are thriving in any economy? Because even in a complete, disastrous recession, like the last Great Recession, there were still businesses that were thriving. So, there are two ways to approach it. And you could do both, which is how can I serve more people at a lower price point? Meaning how could you adjust your offering to serve more people at a lower price point? And that’s what I did, is I went from $500 a month for coaching and actually ended up being $97 a month. I chose that number, right under $100, $97 a month for two 45-minute calls a month in a group coaching setting.

 

And so, at 70 members, that was $7,000 a month for those same two calls. So, again, let that get your wheels turning. Think about how that becomes scalable. So, normally, I was earning $500 a month for two 45-minute calls with clients. Again, I went from four to three to two calls a month just to clarify that, started at four but scaled, brought it back but kept the fee the same. I just decided, okay, can I deliver as much value in two calls as I was in four?

 

And again, that was partially a lifestyle choice as well. I don’t want to have to do a call every single week. It just became a little monotonous, a little tedious. And the mindset that I had with the clients was, oh, having a call every week is almost– and that was the feedback I got from my clients was that can be too much. It’s like I need some breathing room. And that every other week format, two calls a month instead of four, gave clients enough consistency but also enough breathing room to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-accountable, and really develop where they weren’t reliant on my call week after week after week after week.

 

So, translating that to a group coaching program, it was two calls a month, 45 minutes, but instead of earning $500 a month, I was earning $7,000 a month for the same amount of time. Now, granted, there was time spent, a good amount of time jumping on calls with prospective clients who had texted me back and said, “Yeah, I’m interested.” And those calls were about 15 to 30 minutes for each one, and then each person I signed on was a new $97 a month client.

 

So, yes, there were new hours that were spent marketing and prospecting, connecting with prospects to tell them about the coaching program. I did a lot of that over email, though. I ended up getting the system real fine-tuned where I would text a referral. If they were interested, I’d say, hey, I just– or what’s your email address? Then I would send them an email that I had already written out and just copied and pasted that told them all about the coaching program, had testimonials. So, basically, when I jumped on a call with them, they were already kind of sold on the value of what they were getting. They knew what the program was about. So, then all I did was get on, answer some questions, handle any concerns they had. And then it was either a yes or a no.

 

And then I ended up growing that just with the same process once I refined it. I had 220 members on this program at $97 a month. So, it was earning over $20,000 a month for two calls. We’re still just those two calls that were once earning me $500 a month for one-on-one coaching. So, I really want to share that with you because I want you to think it helps, I want you to think outside the box, I want you to think about how your business that serves 1 to 1 customer, how might it be scalable so that you can serve more customers, whether that’s using technology or some other means for you to serve more people at a lower price point, which during a recession can be an invaluable strategy.

 

And of course, like I said, there are also always people that can afford whose businesses are thriving during a recession, and if you can find them, then you can still charge top dollar. And you can also have a hybrid. I mean, I did one-on-one coaching and I did group coaching for a long time. I did both of those together.

 

All right, a couple there are thoughts. Another one is to write a book. I’m doing a webinar with Chandler again on August 2^nd. I don’t know the actual place where you can sign up for that, but I’ll send out an email here shortly. Oh, no, wait. Is this podcast come out after August 2^nd? All right. Well, either way, you would have gotten the email inviting you to the podcast. Yeah, I think this podcast comes out on August 3^rd, not the podcast, the webinar, anyway.

 

But writing a book is– sorry, that was really confusing. I was very jumbled up there at the last minute. But Chandler Bolt is my good friend who’s the founder of Self-Publishing School, and twice a year, I have him come on for our community and talk about writing a book. And the reason for that is writing a book for me was the best decision I ever made, other than like marrying my wife. But professionally, it was the best decision I ever made. And I always had to deal with imposter syndrome, initially. Who am I to write a book?

 

You might be thinking the same thing, but I believe everybody has a book in them. You have a life story, you have strategies, you have things, mindset, approach, different ways of looking at things that people would find valuable. And writing a book, if you commit to promoting that book, most books don’t earn very much money because most authors don’t promote it very much. I promoted the Miracle Morning for six years before we hit critical mass, and the sales really started to take off.

 

So, now, let me clarify that because some of you are like, I’m not going to wait six years, I’m not going to invest six years to earn money. The Miracle Morning began earning money right away, but my goal was to sell a million copies in the first year. That’s what took six years. I promoted it and promoted it. I did interview after interview after interview after interview. I literally did over 400 podcast interviews during those six years to share the book with as many people as I could.

 

So, I just want to be really clear about that because writing a book and putting it on Amazon will not make you much money, very rarely will that make you much money. Writing a book and believing in the message so much that you’re willing to promote it for as long as it takes can create a fortune for you, that can literally earn you millions of dollars, as it has for many authors.

 

Now, if your book, if you don’t have a message that is compelling, it’s got to be a message that people need. And ideally, it solves a problem. I want you to think about that. Whether you’re a business owner, an author, you make money by solving people’s problems. People pay to have their problems solved. If you’re a car wash, they have a dirty car, they pay for you to solve the problem of their car being dirty. When I was a coach, Cutco reps, their problem was they weren’t selling as much as they wanted to so they were willing to pay money to solve that problem.

 

And you look at any book, if your marriage is struggling, that’s a problem. So, you buy a book on how to solve that problem, you’re willing to pay for that, or you hire a relationship coach, a marriage coach, etc., etc. So, that’s what I can think about when it comes to writing a book. What problem do people have that they want solved that you are qualified to help them solve? And you might start by asking, what problems have you had in your life that you’ve overcome? What have you accomplished? What have you achieved? What have you overcome?

 

And then, last but not least, become an entrepreneur, start a business. In the worst economies, this is where more millionaires have been made because the problems that people face are exacerbated in a down economy, in a recession. And it’s been said that when the Great Depression from 1929 through the ‘30s, more millionaires were made during that time than at any other time in history.

 

Now, was that a coincidence? Was that based on unique factors of that time period? Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that, in fact, if you follow Patrick Bet-David, if you don’t know who that is, I encourage you to follow him, subscribe to his YouTube channel, Patrick Bet-David. He hosts Valuetainment, which is a cheesy name, but he’s a pretty brilliant guy and he’s talking about this a lot right now. He’s talking about the recession, the economy crashing, and how to approach it.

 

And this goes back to number one of what we talked about today, which is make this a priority. If you want to make more money, you have to make it a priority, you have to schedule time to figure it out, schedule time to relisten to this podcast, schedule time to read books on the topic of making more money or Google search, it’s free, just search it. There are countless articles. There’s everything you need to know to start a business, to increase your income, to invest the money you have, to trim your budget. Everything that you want to accomplish in your life is a Google search away.

 

When people ask me for advice, I mean, number one, of course, I always give it, but oftentimes, they’ll ask something and I go, why don’t you Google that? Like, especially if they go, oh, I’ve really been struggling with this area for a long time and I just don’t know where to start. And my advice is often, start with a Google search. Like I can give you a tip, but one tip or strategy is rarely going to transform your life. It’s that daily, consistent time that you invest that will transform your life.

 

And so, if you want to make more money, make it a priority, schedule time to figure it out, Google how to make more money, and then consistently– in fact, before I answer consistently, start a document in writing, create your strategy, start my strategy to make more money, to increase my income, to serve more people, whatever. Start a document and start formulating your own plan.

 

This is the last tip. Formulate your plan based on everything that you learn. Formulate how to make more money plan based on everything that you learn during the time that you’ve scheduled to figure it out and just know you really can borrow confidence from other people. Meaning if you’re going, Hal, I don’t know, I’m depressed, I’m discouraged. Like my heart goes out to you. I wake up feeling depressed, probably at least a couple of days a week for no reason. I don’t know why. Ever since I had chemo, it messed me up. But anyway, I’m not going to cry about that.

 

But the point is, so yeah, like, I get it. I get waking up and feeling– in fact, yesterday was one of those days, I had a horrible day yesterday. I felt depressed, I didn’t get anything done even though I worked all day, I was unproductive, and I went to bed feeling not good. And then today, I feel great. So, I’m not sure what changes from one day to the next, but I just encourage you borrowing confidence from the people is to realize that you can do this, that anything another human being has done is evidence of what’s possible for you.

 

No matter where you are now in your life, on your business, on your finances, even if it feels hopeless, there’s hope. You can turn things around. Remember that, so far, you have a 100% success rate at surviving every challenge that you’ve ever faced. And right now, if you’re facing financial challenges or if you’re concerned that you might face financial challenges, make it a priority to figure it out.

 

And the last thing I’ll say, I forgot I was going to include this, and I forgot until now, which is consider establishing multiple sources of income. Consider establishing multiple sources of income. And actually, don’t even think to consider, just do it. Establish multiple sources of income. What does that mean? Well, I mean, you know what it means, it’s pretty straightforward. But why is that important, I guess, is really the question.

 

Think about it, if you’re relying on one source of income, so like right now, you might be listening to this and going, no, I got a good job. Okay, do you know 100% without a doubt that that job can’t go away? Because when all our eggs are in one basket, we’re walking on very shaky ground. If all of our income comes from one source, then we are dependent on that source. And if that source goes away for any reason, I mean, think about how many people have been laid off or how many companies have gone bankrupt, and therefore, the people were laid off that work for that company. If you’re relying on one source of income, it just puts you at a level of risk that I personally am not comfortable with. Maybe you’re comfortable with that level of risk because you go, look, I am going to put all my eggs in this basket, and if I lose the job, then that’s okay. I’ve got some money saved. I’ll figure it out. And that’s a great approach. That’s fine. That’s one approach.

 

Personally, I like to create multiple sources of income so that if one of them, if one industry, for example, fails, imagine your Blockbuster Video, you own Blockbuster Video, you’re a multimillionaire. You’re thinking, no, I got nothing to worry about. Hopefully, that person that was the owner of Blockbuster Video or the owners, they had multiple sources of income so that when Blockbuster went belly up, went bankrupt because of Netflix, they had alternatives. They had other ways of generating income to support themselves and support their family.

 

So, I would make that part of your plan is to create multiple sources of income and to do it one at a time. Actually, that’s an important caveat. Don’t try to create multiple sources of income at the same time. What is that? The old adage of the person who chases two rabbits catches neither. So, don’t try to do two things at once, typically. And if you have that capacity, great.

 

But ideally, creating multiple sources of income is done one at a time. For me, I’ve got 13 books. Each one of those is a source of income. And then I have also 13 audiobooks, which is another source of income, and then 13 Kindle books, which is another source of income. And then I do speaking, and then we have the podcast. We have sponsors for the podcast. So, there are different sources of income. I’m just giving you those to just give you some real-life examples.

 

I have another friend, Justin Donald, who’s the author of The Lifestyle Investor. He does things completely different than me. His sources of income are he buys into companies. He owns mobile home parks. He owns different real estate. So, there are lots of ways, countless ways to establish multiple sources of income. But I believe personally, that it’s really important, especially to survive a recession, is that you’re not dependent on one source, but you have many sources, or at least more than one, at least two. But start with one at a time and build them over time, establish one secure source of income. And then once that one’s up and running and reliable, focus on another one.

 

And you can do them at the same time. You can focus on one primary and then have a secondary one that you’re focusing on as well. You can also focus on two sources of income, generating two at the same time. That way, if one doesn’t pan out, all your eggs weren’t in that basket. So, I know I’m kind of countering what I said a few minutes ago, but as I’m talking through this, I’m going, actually, it might make sense to create multiple sources at one time if you have that ability, if you have that capacity.

 

I think for most of us, just starting one business or pursuing one source of income and doing it really well is probably more than enough to take up our time, energy, and attention, and that’s why I was encouraging you to do one at a time. But if you have the ability to do two, the capacity to do two, by all means, do it.

 

All right, goal achievers, I hope there was something in there today for you that’s been valuable, whether it was a mindset shift or an actual specific strategy or option for making more money. I love you. I appreciate you. I wish you the best. I really, really do. I know my heart goes out to a lot of people right now. I’ve heard from you, life can be hard. And I don’t know, I’ve become more and more empathetic over the years. It’s been an area of focus for me because I used to not have any empathy. And it’s been really one of my biggest areas of improvement is empathy.

 

And in doing that, I just have become more present to how challenging life is for all of us, but for some more than others. And so, if you’re struggling right now, there’s hope. Schedule time to turn things around. And if you invest that time, day after day after day, it’s inevitable that things will turn around for you when the time is right. All right. Love you guys and gals. I’ll talk to you next week.

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