🐧 5-figure expat side hustle growth playbook
6-step growth process, 2 templates, 1-2 punch, customer call script
Dexter Zhuang
April 23, 2023
Hey expats. I built a 5-figure career coaching side hustle during a travel sabbatical. I also spent 9+ years growing online products in Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia.
In my experience, the toughest thing about side hustles (and many businesses) is distribution.
So we’re going to deep dive into that growth good stuff. 🔥
Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
🥅 Setting expat side hustle goals
🏡 Create your landing page (plus: 2 templates)
🏎️ Drive traffic via your channel(s)
🤝 Close sales using an intro call script
🔁 Scale up using feedback loops
P.S. What questions do you think I should write about next? Hit reply — I’d love to hear from you!
🪝5-figure side hustle growth guide
⭐️ Recap
Two parts to getting sales:
Distribution: Getting leads
Sales: Converting leads into buyers
🧠 1. Prepare a growth mindset
🛠️ “Build it and they will come” mindset is a recipe for failure. I know many builders who cringe at the thought of self-promotion.
The reality is no one will know about what you’ve built until you publicly share your work.
How to fix:
Overcome your fear of self-promotion using a 30 day challenge. It is entirely possible to market your work authentically. Practice daily. Find what style fits you. If you’re competitive, challenge a friend to do 30 minutes each day over 30 days. Have fun with it!
Allocate 30-60% of your time to distribution / sales. This is a rough benchmark based on my former side hustles. Start on the higher end until you get over the cold start hump.
🥅 2. Start with your end goal in mind
Now that you’ve cultivated the right mindset, lets zoom out to your money goal:
How much revenue do you want to generate from your side hustle in 1 year?
Let’s say, you aim to earn $1k USD / month.
🤔 How do you achieve this revenue?
Here’s your options:
Sell 1x $1000 product monthly
Sell 10x $100 products monthly
Sell 100x $10 products monthly
Sell 1000x $1 products monthly
🤔 Which option do you choose?
It’s up to you: Pros and cons exist for all pricing levels whether high, mid, or low end. Consider your own superpowers and interests.
Assess unit economics of your channel: Not every distribution channel will be feasible given the product price vs cost.
Example
Let’s say you’re an 🤖 AI creator in a mature industry.
If you sell a $10 PDF guide, then inbound sales calls are not good ROI. Instead, directing free traffic from social media channels to a sales landing pages make more sense.
However, if you sell a $1000 (or higher) coaching session, then an inbound sales call may be worth your time.
🏡 3. Guide people to your home on the internet
💻️ Create a simple landing page. It’s not enough to just post on social media. You need to give people a place to go once they express interest in your product / service.
Here’s a simple landing page example from Justin Welsh:
📆 Setup a newsletter form and Calendly scheduling flow. Give customers ways to engage with you (sign up for newsletter) or reach out to learn more about your offer (schedule an intro call).
Example customer journey:
Customer discovers your short-form Linkedin content
→ Clicks to visit your personal website / newsletter
→ Reads your long-form content
→ Books a free intro call via Calendly
✍️ Tailor your offer messaging based on customer needs. Use the templates below to output foundational copy that you can use for landing pages.
Template #1 Customer Needs
Segment: Sub-group that you’re targeting
Needs: Pain points they experience
Template #2 Offer Messaging
Hook: Why this segment should get excited to learn more
Benefits: What value does your offer deliver for this segment
Call-to-action: How these customers can get started (subscribe, buy)
Example
#1 Customer Needs
Segment: 5-figure independent consulting business owners
Needs:
• Tired of trading time for money
• Lack of know-how to scale marketing
• Confused about how to package 10+ services
• Not enough time
#2 Offer Messaging
Hook: I help you grow your independent consulting business from 5-figures to 6-figures in revenue
Benefits:
• Launch a $1000 digital product and get your first 10 customers
• Learn how to scale your paid & Linkedin marketing without more spend
• Design new price & packaging that drives 25% more sales
• Hire virtual assistants to scale your execution
CTA: Book a free strategy session
🏎️ 4. Drive traffic via your distribution channel(s)
Now that you have a simple offer landing page, the next step is driving traffic to your page.
🥊 “Test and Prioritize” one-two punch:
Test 2-3 distribution channels for several weeks. For each channel, measure its ability to convert your audience into making a commitment (eg subscribing to your email list). Learn what’s working and not working. Stack rank your channels based on business potential.
Double down on growing the highest-potential channel. Cut other channels to get more ROI out of your time. Each channel typically requires upfront investment before leads start flowing in more organically.
📣 Channels
Friends & family: Everyone’s got to start somewhere…
Social media: Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Tik tok
Existing communities: offline (college campuses, workplaces) or online (eg Reddit, Slack groups, newsletters)
Website / newsletter: Create an email list and add a sign up option on your website
⚠️ Mistake #1 Spreading yourself too thin: Wasting time and energy executing many channels and not getting traction on any of them
How to fix:
When you’re just starting out, prioritize the highest-potential channel. It takes several weeks (minimum) to get over a cold start and gain momentum
Eventually you should 1/ see leads scale faster than your time spent 2/ get into a smooth executional rhythm
Once the first channel has solid foundations, you can carve out time to test scale your second channel
⚠️ Mistake #2 Relying on social media platforms alone: Platforms can change their algorithms and your reach can plummet overnight.
How to fix:
Build an email list
Own the relationship with your audience
Don’t get disintermediated by a platform
🤝 5. Write a customer call script, close sales, and iterate
Your hard work is finally paying off. Now customers are booking your calendar for a free intro call.
🫶 Create a lightweight outline to help you navigate this consultative meeting and win your customer’s heart and mind.
Here’s my call structure:
Intro phase: Introduce yourself, clarify your goal and the customer’s goal for the session
Listen phase: Ask about your customer’s business and where they’re hitting roadblocks. Take notes. (hint: this phase should take up the bulk of your call. I usually prepare a list of questions in advance)
Synthesis phase: Quickly summarize the customer’s goals, needs, where they’re getting stuck, and how they’d like to get unstuck (aka where you can help). Confirm with the customer if your understanding is correct.
Sell phase: Walk through one-by-one how specific milestones/value propositions of your offer would help address each pain. Ask the customer if they’re interested in continuing with the offer. If yes, provide clear next steps (share payment link).
🗣️ Collect feedback and iterate. During the call, listen for feedback. After the call, use the feedback to iterate your sales approach and offering.
🏆️ Close the sale by acting as a guide. You don’t need to do a hard close during the call itself. Instead, give customers a clear next step on what to do if they want to purchase your offer.
🔁 6. Scale up by looping through these steps
Now that you’ve managed to get your first few customers, don’t stop. Keep going.
➰ Repeat the same steps. Each cycle, use a tight customer feedback loop to make each step 5-10% more effective.
You’re on a path towards accelerating your sales.
👣 Steps we covered
Identify your business goal
Create a simple offer page
Drive traffic to your offer
Get customers to book a call
Deliver value in customer meeting
Win your customer
Repeat and iterate
Congrats! You’ve built a growth engine for your expat side hustle! 🎉
🙌 Our friends at First Class Founders
Grow your online business faster. Our friends are publishing a weekly newsletter First Class Founders, which teaches you the metrics, growth tactics, and business frameworks to grow your audience and monetize.
First Class Founder sends you the best growth tactics for founders & creators each week. Sign up here!
|
🌐 Beyond your borders
🇭🇰 Expat students at Hong Kong schools decline by 12% (Bloomberg)
🇸🇬 3.5k high net-worth individuals to become Singapore citizens, mostly Chinese (Reddit)
🇸🇬 Wealthy Chinese expats not investing in Singapore (TDB)
🇺🇸 Remote work is back on the rise (slightly) in the short-term (LI)
🇬🇧 UK work visa trends: India ranks as #1 nationality (Medium)
🇦🇺 Five Australia universities ban Indian students over false visas (SI)
That’s all for today!
💌 Reply to this email
📨 Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.
What'd you think of today's email? |