Episode 52 | How Long Should You Run Your Side Hustle or Start-Up Before You Call It Quits

Sophia Noreen: Hello everyone. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I'm going to be your host for today. Today, we are going to be speaking about how long should you be continuing your side hustle or startup before you call it quits? And this question is very difficult for so many of us, entrepreneurs, especially if you don't have any investors and you're using your own capital. I find that this question does come up quite a bit. 

How long are you going to be giving the business until it can be generating enough funds so you can quit whatever additional income streams that you are using to carry or float your business, or float your lifestyle? This is a question I think that many of us struggle with because we will say, okay let's just go for it, we'll be all in for the next two years. We have 24 months to get this business off the ground and be generating enough funds so that we can pull a salary out from it, and basically let it sustain itself. Many times as entrepreneurs, we get into it very quickly or even we get into it very slowly, but we're hopeful. 

You don't want to be thinking, oh, well, I'm going to do this for two years and then quit, and go right back to the way it was before. You're hopeful. Your mindset is such that you're thinking this is going to be it. I'm going to be able to move this thing forward. It's going to fulfill all of my wildest dreams, even dreams for service or dreams that you might think for yourself regarding big shiny objects, cars, houses, whatever it takes to motivate you. Some people are very motivated by the shiny objects and other people are very motivated by the service side of the business. Whatever it is, I think this is a very important conversation that you need to have with yourself, with your team, with your partners, with your partner in life. 

How long are you going to be giving yourself in the business before you see the success that you are looking to achieve? Now, I have heard that many people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year but they underestimate how much they can accomplish in 10 years. So let me say that one more time. 

Many people will overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, in the 12 months, but they will underestimate the amount that you can accomplish in 10 years. What that means to me is that it's really difficult at the beginning. You're going to be putting a lot of hard work in. You're going to be putting equity, your sweat equity, or monetary capital to keep the business floating, and the first zero to five years are going to be difficult. But once your business picks up the momentum, you will see a fast acceleration and you would be surprised at how much you can accomplish if you just stick to it.  

The whole premise of today's episode is basically to say, we need to have a very secure plan of action from the very beginning of your entrepreneurship journey with whatever business you are in. It doesn't matter if you're a service business, it doesn't matter if you're a product-based business, it doesn't matter if you're a professional business, professional accounting, lawyer, physiotherapist, or photographer, it doesn't matter what the trade is. In business, you need to have a plan of action and you need to have that plan of action put into place and be delivered consistently. 

I think that's where many entrepreneurs get stuck. They forget the plan, and the famous saying goes, "If you fail to plan, then plan to fail." You need to have a plan of action from the beginning, and the way I set up my goals is basically, you have your big goal. So the example that I'll share with you is many people would say, in the two years, I would like to make, for example, a hundred thousand dollars per year. That is a goal that many individuals might have at the very beginning to say, I think this amount of money will be good enough to cover all my costs. And I'm just using round-off figures here guys, I'm not using this as a real-life example. Hundred thousand dollars US or Canadian, it doesn't matter, that could be your potential scenario. You want enough money in the business for it to run itself and to pay yourself a modest salary.  

Now, that's a great goal to have but when you're starting, that's just a goal. Really and truly, it doesn't mean anything. It could be a million dollars. It doesn't matter what the goal is. What's important is what are you putting into action to accomplish that goal? What are you going to do consistently every single day to ensure that you have enough sales coming into your business to make that top line, gross revenue of a hundred thousand dollars?  

That is the real core of the problem when many entrepreneurs say that this is a goal I have. That's great that you have that goal. Now, what is your action plan? What are you going to do consistently every single day to ensure that you have enough people seeing your business in order to convert them to a customer and then of course make the sale? So you have to understand that not everybody who sees your business is going to become a customer. You have to understand the entire trajectory of the client or customer journey. They're going to meet with you, they're going to watch you for a while depending on what level of business that you're in. They may just need a quick email with a sales discount, or they may need to see you and listen to your podcasts for a while. 

You need to understand your client or your customer and understand their journey. And so by understanding their journey, then you can understand the tasks that you need to complete on a regular basis so that you can attract the right level of individuals, the right customers, your IC, your ideal customer, or the ICA, ideal customer avatar. You need to be able to understand who you're attracting understand their journey until they become a paid client or customer, and then understand what you need to do consistently every day or every week to ensure that you have the right people entering into your world.

Now, I'm giving a really high level here, but the reason why I'm doing this is because you see now that it's not as easy as saying, how long are you going to give your business until it's going to be able to generate an income for you? Or how long are you going to give your business until it's able to pay you a salary? 

Those questions are important. It's great to have a timeframe, but you can't just say a number. You can't just say, it's going to be two years and I'm going to make a hundred thousand dollars. You need to say, I have a goal of consistently completing these tasks and I hope by completing these tasks, we'll be able to achieve our goals within X amount of time.

I'm not saying it's not important to have a cutoff time of say two years. I think it's actually very important, but what I'm fearful of is that two years is very long. That timeframe is so broad for most people, they cannot conceptualize two years from now. As we record this, we're in the summer of 2021. If you asked me to plan out my life until the summer of 2023, I would say, what are you talking about? So really truly, these are great cutoffs and big goals to have. It's great to have your three-year goal and five-year goal and one-year goal, but they're too big. 

And what I'm suggesting is rather than saying, how long are you going to give the business until X, Y, and Z is met? My suggestion is, say the question you should have for yourself and the question should be reframed if other people do ask you this question is, what am I going to do consistently every day or every week to ensure that I'm going to be able to accomplish my goal? And then, in that case, you also have to know what is my customer journey, my client's journey? Who's my ideal customer avatar, my ICA? And what tasks can I do every single day to ensure that I'm attracting the right client, the right ICAs into my world? So many people would say funnel, but I would say into my world, and that's my digital space or my product space. Then what does their journey look like until they become a pay client or customer? These are such big fundamental ideas and fundamental concerns that you should have as a business owner when you first start. I know it seems overwhelming. I know that some individuals will be like, well, that's just a lot of jargon, right? Like you might be thinking, oh, well, I'm just going to start and that's great, you start. Have the momentum. But remember, these are things that you need to know, and these are questions that you need to ask as you are developing your plan. You must, you must have a plan. 

And having the big goals, the audacious goals is great. Remember the saying goes, you will accomplish much more than you think you can within 10 years, but with a 12-month journey, people will overestimate what they can accomplish. 

And so that is the reason why you should say consistently every day, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to. Cold call five individuals. Now I'm not saying this is a plan you should do. But what I'm saying is you should have a consistent plan of action. And if you are attracting clients or customers, and you're a service-based provider. So for example, say you are a photographer and you'd like to break into the wedding scene within a certain geography. You could say, my goal is I want to make a hundred thousand dollars within the next 12 months. What I'm going to do consistently is I'm going to go ahead and collaborate. I'm going to cold call event planners. I'm going to go ahead and call banquet halls. I'm going to go ahead and call restaurants, florists, dress shops. And I'm going to ensure that every single day I call five of these businesses and see if we can have a collaborative agreement. You can go ahead and really infiltrate the market and say, if I can get exclusivity in this geography with 10 to 20 businesses and they can help flood my referrals and they can send referrals my way, and then you basically work backward.  

You say, if I get X amount of referrals, then X amount of referrals converted to paid customers. And then you can of course put a monetary package amount per customer, and then that's how you can get your hundred thousand dollars goal. 

You really, really, truly need to break down your big audacious goal and you have to know again, your customer journey, your client's journey and who your ICA is, who's your customer that you're serving before you go ahead and just give it a timeframe and say, well, I'm only going to work for two years, for example, and if my dreams are not met and I can't make it to my goals, then I'm calling it quits. We really got to become real at this. We have to be able to say: Yes, I gave it two years and I gave it my all. I essentially did everything that I was supposed to do. I basically met all of these tasks on a daily basis and I ensured that I followed through on every lead. And then perhaps, if you did all that, let's say you went ahead and you ensured that you've completed every task as you had sought out to do. And let's say you accurately planned your customer journey and you accurately identified your ICA, your ideal customer avatar, but you still are shy of the goal that you had wanted to accomplish. 

Then ask yourself, was that goal too far-fetched? Did you go beyond what is even possible? For example, if I say to myself, I want to be a photographer in certain geography but my geography perhaps doesn't have a lot of weddings because it's in the geography of retirement homes. Not many people are getting married when they're past a certain age bracket, so perhaps I'm in the wrong geography. Perhaps my ideal customer avatar is not there. Then you can't have that goal of establishing a wedding photography business in that geography. So you have to make sure that whatever goal you're setting it is realistic. We can't be sitting here and thinking that we'll be able to accomplish every single goal within a certain space. It has to be a realistic goal, and it has to be given a realistic amount of effort and action and of course, a realistic amount of time. You're not going to be able to accomplish all the big goals within the 12-month timeframe. You'll have to give a time, you'll have to be patient. 

And so, going back to the beginning of the episode where we basically said that if somebody asks you, how long are you going to give your business until it can pay you? Or how long are you going to give the business until it's able to pay for itself? That's a great question. But remember, you can answer by saying I'm going to give it 12 months, or I'm going to give it 24 months. But I'm going to answer also within 24 months, I'm going to ensure that I'm going to complete these tasks regularly. Or I'm giving 12 months, but I need to ensure that I'm completing this t consistently. 

And if you say that to yourself enough, then you are basically committing every single time that you will be committing to completing those tasks without having to say later on: Oh, I tried that. But it didn't work out. And then you have some reason for it.  

Once you have aligned your business plan and a geography that is suitable for your business, with the clients that are suitable for your business, with a customer journey that's suitable for your business, then you have really tailored it down to the tasks that you should be completed regularly. Once that's all completed, all you need to do is press go, and you need to do to deliver and consistently go after that task or what that goal is on a regular basis. Hopefully, if you have mapped everything out accordingly, you should be able to reach the goals that you're going for, assuming that is realistic.  

Remember, we have to be really cognizant that sometimes we look at things and we're like: wow, that would be amazing if I could make $1 million in five years because I've targeted the exact location for weddings, well my clients will pay $50,000 for a wedding shoot. 

Now, guys, this is a really far-fetched example, but I'm using it because it is far-fetched. You have to realize that depending on the industry that you're in, you will be kept. Remember, when you're planning your goals, make sure that they're realistic and make sure that they're not over and above what your industry actually can accomplish. 

Guys, I know this episode is funny because I'm basically saying to you that yes, have a time limit on how long you're going to be in your business for while it's still pre-revenue or while it's still requiring some additional funding from your own capital or before it's able to pay for yourself. Have a time limit because if you don't have a time limit, then you could be running on a treadmill for years and not seeing success. 

But what I'm also saying is make sure it's a realistic goal that you're going for. Make sure that you've identified your customer journey and you've identified your ideal customer avatar, and then finally you have to break it down into tangible tasks that you have to do every day. If you're not doing it, then one of your team members has to get it done. 

They need to be accomplished. You cannot just say: Yes, I'm going to have this big audacious goal, and then you do nothing to accomplish it. I hope this information was useful. I hope you had a couple of moments where you're like, wow, that's great. I never thought of it that way. And remember, if you do have questions, you can always email us at [email protected]. And remember, you just really need to be as cognizant as possible when you're mapping out your plan, and you have to be able to take the time and effort to put your plan into action. 

If you don't do those things, then starting the business will be in vain. You won't be able to see the results that you want. And guys, again, I say this because I've had firsthand experience. When we took our Also Sophia business, alsosophia.com, our product-based business, it was very difficult in the beginning because we had goals. But the goals of course were limited because we had limitations either in time or capital, but as time went on and we said that we would like to hit the next benchmark and the next benchmark and the next benchmark, we needed to make concessions for that because now we had to say: Okay, if we want to get to this level of revenue, then what is the strategy?

We had to have a full marketing plan. We needed to make time to execute the marketing plan. If I wasn't able to do it, I had to find team members that could do it for me or for the company. These are things that as an entrepreneur, as a problem solver, you need to basically find the solutions. Find your goal but then, of course, think about the plan that will help you get to that next level. Don't just have a goal and then have no plan for execution.  

Okay, I really hope that all this information was useful. I hope you had a couple of breakthroughs there. I cannot wait to hear your stories. Remember, you can always email us, I love to hear your stories and we will see you guys again next week, same time, in the same place. And remember, make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it. I'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.