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Today we meet someone who has “done it” in the world of online business. Laura from I Heart Planners has successfully transitioned from a full-time engineer to an online business owner (who works roughly 15 hours a week by the way).
Her backstory will prove especially insightful for all of us fighting the good fight towards FIRE and even full-time entrepreneurship.
(spoiler: Laura and her husband carefully planned ahead for her work transition)
We also chat about…
- digital vs physical products for side-hustlers
- Creating and selling printables! (Laura’s bread and butter)
- Top-level productivity musts…and tips for hiring your first employee
Laura is an incredibly impressive online entrepreneur these days, and has a lot to share/teach with us side-hustlers! Enjoy 🙂
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Laura’s site: I Heart Planners
- Marie Kondo’s The Magic Art of Tidying Up – Great book on organizing, “discarding,” (it’s not JUST ‘how to clean’)
- The Panda Planner
- The 4 Hour Work Week – #1 or #2 book for entrepreneurs in general.
- Laura’s Printables course!
Key takeaways from our chat with Laura from I Heart Planner
1 – The fear to take the leap is real.
The transition from full-time job to….well, anything else (including early retirement, as Mad Fientist pointed out) can be anxiety-inducing to say the least.
- What will we do for money?
- Do we have enough money to make it?
- What if my business fails?
- What will I do with my time?
All valid questions, but Laura mentioned two things worth remembering.
One, “Don’t wait as long as I did.”
This is inspiring. As much fear as Laura (and probably her husband) felt when planning for their transition, she doesn’t regret it. Not only that, but she would encourage others to work through their fears faster than she did!
Next, really good news: You don’t have to quit your job to start!
In fact, this is actually encouraged. Working on side-hustles (that’s how they got their name, remember) is an excellent way to bridge the gap between a 9-5, and something else.
Work during the 5-9 hours building up a business, or at least some sort of income that could sustain you in a mini-retirement, etc.
2 – Blog vs business? Both? Which makes money?
While Laura does have a blog, it is not the driving force behind her monetization strategy.
She runs a business. The blog is a marketing extension of that.
Here’s why this is important: there are millions of bloggers that START blogging because they want to make money, and their sites are usually set on making passive income, often through ads and affiliate links.
These are great ways to monetize a blog, but they require a ton of traffic and/or followers. This kind of business take a long time. Straight-up.
However, products and products (whether they’re digital or physical), and can be sold at any point during the life of an online business.
(Of course, the more followers the better perhaps, but that isn’t as direct a factor for product monetization…as opposed to using ads, etc).
Laura is highly analytical and thoughtful, and she started her website from day one as a business.
Inspiring, and instructive for you current and would-be bloggers out there 🙂
3 – Ditch the “cheapest available labor” mentality when it comes to hiring (even freelancers and VAs)
Laura has a team now helping her business thrive.
(Yes, for those of you who don’t own your own business, or whose side-hustle is not yet generating enough income to sustain an employee…..we hear ya. Keep reading anyways, as you might have to deal with this one day).
Money is a tricky subject, especially when it comes to outsourcing work and/or hiring people. It can be entirely too easy to search for candidates based on cost.
This is a mistake, and one that Laura dealt with firsthand.
Instead of considering cost above all else, consider quality. Is this the BEST person to do the job?
Hiring the absolutely best employees (or VAs, or assistants, or freelancers) may in fact cost more money in the short run, but will likely increase ROI in the long run.
Why?
Turnover and your personal sanity for one. For two, these more expensive employees hopefully free up your time to produce more revenue, AND do their work better than you ever could. (That’s what we’re aiming for at least).
Turns out the whole “people are your biggest asset” thingy is actually true, even for small businesses and side-hustles.
4 – Want more productivity? Solve the top-level problems FIRST
- Get a faster computer.
- Get a faster modem/router.
- Change your mouse speed settings RIGHT NOW to the highest possible setting. (This will take less than an hour to get used to, and will change the speed at which you get things done).
We love to thing about tactics we can do to enhance productivity, but those are fallible.
First, take care of hardware and software advantages (which are disadvantages if they’re not working). Upgrading to a brand new iMac might cost money up front, but if it ends up giving you an extra 2 hours a month due to increased productivity…what’s the opportunity cost for not buying it??
Comment below with the following: What are some other top-level productivity hacks?
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Olive says
Thank you for a very interesting podcast with Laura from I Heart Planners. It was great to hear her story with all the realistic nuts and bolts that got her to her thriving business today. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts, but thought this was pure gold – especially because it wasn’t geared to selling something at the end. It was good, honest info. So thank you for that. I felt like I was sat round the coffee table listening to friends. And a plus – I’ve come away with a much clearer understanding of what starting up a digital business looks like.