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In this episode of GradBlogger, we interview Ross Simmonds about side hustles. We discuss why you should have one and how you can make time for it. We also discuss issues like whether or not you should inform your employer or teacher about your side hustle.
Disclosure: Some of the links in the podcast show notes and transcripts are affiliate links (indicated with [Affiliate] in front). If you choose to make a purchase through these links, GradBlogger will earn a commission from that purchase at no extra cost to you.
Introduction
Chris Cloney: 00:08
Welcome to Episode #15 of GradBlogger, where we’re helping academics build online businesses and change the world through blogging, podcasting, and video. In today’s episode, we’re talking about side hustles: why you should have one, how you make time for it, and the answer to the big question that I get all the time: should you tell your boss or your PI (if you’re in grad school)?
Chris Cloney: 00:34
I have a very special guest on the podcast to answer all of these questions. He is a dear friend of mine as well as a mentor through my whole entrepreneurship journey, so I just want to say a big welcome to Ross Simmonds. Ross, thanks for coming on today.
Ross Simmonds: 00:46
Thanks for having me on, Chris. I’m excited to chat with you and finally get a chance to connect with your audience.
Chris Cloney: 00:51
Yes sir. I do need to start with a big personal thank you to Ross. He’s influenced my journey a lot. He’s a local entrepreneur in my area, which is eastern Canada. I tried to recall the many ways he has influenced my business and I came up with three. I’m not going to bore you guys with all of the details, but I’ll go through them real quick.
Chris Cloney: 01:07
Back in like 2013 or 2014, I downloaded an e-book called Standout: the Entrepreneur’s Guide to Content Marketing. This was Ross’s book: he’s been in the space for a long time. I started trying to do that at my business back when Yammer came out. You remember Yammer, I’m sure, Ross.
Ross Simmonds: 01:27
I sure do. Yep.
Chris Cloney: 01:29
I tried to get into that space but got totally shut down by my boss, who said, “No, don’t do it. We don’t want what we’re doing here to be broadcast out to others in the company.”
Chris Cloney: 01:40
I also tried to bring Ross a business venture in 2017. We sat down and had a coffee and he said, “You know, you need to make sure that this is right for you. Ideas are a dime a dozen and it’s the implementation that counts.” Once I started my own business, you said I should read the Hustle Manifesto. It was all about side hustling and that’s what we’re talking about today. I just want to say a personal thank you for influencing my journey throughout this whole process.
Ross Simmonds: 02:06
No worries, Chris. I’m glad that you were able to take those e-books and use them to drive some pretty cool results. Looking at your story over the last few years, it’s been amazing to watch from the sidelines. My hat is off to you for being able to take the information and turn it into something meaningful.
What Are Your Businesses Today?
Chris Cloney: 02:26
No, I love it. To start: what are your businesses today? The reason I bring up the side hustling is that you have quite a few. It’s almost like you side hustle on your side hustle?
Ross Simmonds: 02:37
That is fair. My main business would be Foundation Marketing, which is a content marketing agency that works with B2B brands on telling their story online. That’s the primary business. In addition, I have rosssimmonds.com which sells books such as the Hustle Manifesto and Standout. I have a handful of resources that I sell through that site, but also public speaking through rosssimmonds.com is a significant driver of revenue as well.
Ross Simmonds: 03:06
In addition to that, we’ve got Hustle and Grind, which is an e-commerce platform targeted towards entrepreneurs where we sell coffee, coffee mugs, t-shirts, art, and things like that all over the world. then in addition to that, I have a handful of media properties that are not necessarily publicly known to be Ross Simmonds’ brands, but they are operated under Foundation and the team works on these companies on a regular basis.
Ross Simmonds: 03:32
We also have a little bit of a niche in the cleaning space. We’ve got a new software that’s coming out within the next couple of weeks. Yeah, so to say that I have a lot of side hustles to main hustles, would definitely be accurate.
Chris Cloney: 03:46
I love it. So there’s a lot going on there and you’re traveling the world, presenting on entrepreneurship quite as well. I’ve seen you on stage a number of times now. How did it start for you? How did your entrepreneurship journey start?
Can You Share Your Early Entrepreneurship Story?
Ross Simmonds: 04:09
If you want to go back in time to when I was a very young kid, the entrepreneurship journey would’ve started back in high school. When I was going back to school shopping with my mum and my sister, I had this epiphany that do-rags, which were all the rage back then, were being sold in only two different colors in Nova Scotia. In eastern Canada, it was very hard to find multicolored do-rags.
Ross Simmonds: 04:34
But we came across this one store when my sister went into a hairdresser shop and they were selling wholesale do-rags of all the different colors of the rainbow for $1.50 and I was like, “This is insane.” I can only buy a black or white do-rag for 10 bucks. If I can buy multicolors for $1.50, then ching ching!
Ross Simmonds: 04:53
I asked my mum for an advance on that allowance and bought 10 of them. I brought them back to school and I sold them for $10 a pop. then I just kept doing that over and over and over again. That’s when the light bulb came on. I realized that if you can unlock something that is of value to people and you can put it in front of them, there’s an opportunity to make money.
Ross Simmonds: 05:13
That was the first taste. It blew my mind. It was amazing. That was my first take into entrepreneurship and my life was changed ever since then.
Chris Cloney: 05:30
I love it. I’ve heard your story and that’s like a cool part of it. How did you get started blogging?
Ross Simmonds: 05:51
It’s definitely funny. I started in the world of fantasy sports. I am a huge fantasy football fan. Go Eagles! I’ve been a die hard fan for a very long time and had a lot of stress because of it. But during university, I had this blog where I was writing about fantasy sports. I was living in my parents’ basement and writing every single day of the NFL season.
Ross Simmonds: 06:16
Over time, I started to notice that major players in the sports industry were starting to feature quotes from my blog and I was getting traffic from people all over the world. I was like, “This makes no sense. I’m a 21-year-old kid living in my parents’ basement, drinking instant coffee. I’ve never been to an NFL game, but people are reading my thoughts on the NFL. This is wild.”
Ross Simmonds: 06:40
When that started to happen, it clicked. It clicked that there are no real borders because of the Internet. If you have ideas and you have stories that you want to get out there and you press publish, you can literally reach anyone.
Ross Simmonds: 06:52
That was the first forte. Funny enough though, the traffic was going up, but my school marks were going down, so my mum told me I had to shut down the fantasy football blog. Eventually, I just switched from writing about fantasy sports to writing about marketing, which is what I was doing in school. Then I started to write about technology and entrepreneurship. That helped me break into this industry and start to build a name for myself at a young age and carry with me into my career today.
Chris Cloney: 07:20
I love it. I had the same epiphany, although I’m in a totally different industry. I was blogging about my research topic for my Ph.D. which was dust explosions and industrial sites.
Ross Simmonds: 07:32
I remember it.
Chris Cloney: 07:34
Ross remembers when my website was mydustexplosionresearch.com. I started writing online about a topic. I came up with ideas and stories. I bring this up because if you, the listener, do this for a month or six months or a year, you will have that epiphany that this makes no sense. People are listening to me, they’re coming to my website, they’re seeing me as an authority and eventually a personal brand if you choose to use that word.
You have this moment of “Wow- the power!” That’s the point where you start to build an online business. I want to highlight that as an important first step in this whole side hustle: create content, get online and you’ll be amazed at the results.
Chris Cloney: 08:19
I can’t guarantee that you’re going to create courses, be a presenter around the world like Ross, or build an independent research company like myself, but if you create the content and put it out there, you’ll be amazed at the results.
Chris Cloney: 08:32
Ross, why should the listener start a side hustle online? What’re the benefits?
Why Should the Listener Have an Online Side Hustle?
Ross Simmonds: 08:50
It’s a great question. I think there are two key benefits that are often talked about, one of them more often than not, which is the idea of generating extra revenue on the side. I think that’s one of the easiest ways to pitch why should you have a side hustle. If you ever want to go on an extra vacation, if you want to be able to save up for that down payment on a house, if you want to be able to go to the bar with your friends and buy the first round and not even stress about it. All of those things are very nice and those are an outcome that you can get from having a side hustle.
Ross Simmonds: 09:24
One of the most underrated yet powerful elements of the side hustle is two-fold. One: a new skill set that you can acquire in your current job. When starting your own business, you have to think with different parts of your brain that as an employee, you don’t need to think about. You have to spend time thinking about product market fit, understanding accounting, finance, budgeting, business planning, all of those different things. Those are typically skills that you don’t have to work on in your actual job.
Ross Simmonds: 10:02
The next piece that the side hustle gives you is the ability to get punched in the face a few times and gain some persistence and patience. Many would consider these to be soft skills, but they are the skills that are going to differentiate all of us when all of our jobs start getting replaced by automation and machine learning.
Ross Simmonds: 10:27
I think that there’s a lot of value in us building a side hustle, not just because you can generate revenue but also because of the personal and professional improvements that you’re going to make.
I think you can probably speak to this just as well as anyone, but when you first start, you think you know a lot, you think you have a good understanding of what the world is going to be like when you start to jump into it. But then, every single day, you start having your eyes opened to new opportunities and things that you didn’t even know existed. Whether it’s your skill set, whether it’s the new people that you will connect with, the people who you will meet, the type of respect that you will get in your industry, the power of a side hustle, the list can go on and on and on.
Chris Cloney: 11:11
Yeah, I’m reading The E-myth by Michael Gerber [Affiliate]. That book is all about moving from a technician to a manager and what he calls an entrepreneur. I call it visionary, somebody who sets the vision. But the whole point of the book is that there’s a big skills gap between workers, which we all generally were at some time.
Ross Simmonds: 11:35
I still had a few nine to fives.
Chris Cloney: 11:37
Actually, we’ll get into that in a second. But that’s the thing. If you look back and say, “Oh, I lived a good life. I’m happy with where my businesses are today,” you can also say, “It’s because I took the time to build the skill sets and the confidence and the resilience to be able to do that.” Your first side hustle doesn’t have to be your last one. I remember that from Hustle Manifesto. It can be selling do-rags. It could be a fantasy football blog. It could be anything, but starting something is an important point to that.
Ross Simmonds: 12:03
I think if I go back to my early days, like when I wrote Hustle Manifesto, one of the businesses I ran was called Dreamer, which was an events company that was essentially on the backend. It was very technical and it was technically driven. But at the same time, I had never taken social media content. None of those things were taught in school.
Ross Simmonds: 12:26
I created this business as my own mini-MBA because I knew I needed to find a way to understand technology. I had to understand startups. I needed to understand this world a little bit better. I created that company and used it as my own training ground. By doing that, I was able to understand startups a little bit better, which ultimately led me to be able to now invest in startups, get into the startup community, work closely with startups and help them grow in scale. That’s all because I had an early side hustle that was in the lane that I wanted to go into.
Chris Cloney: 13:01
Yeah, like a side hustle is your training ground. That’s a good quote there.
Ross Simmonds: 13:05
Yeah, exactly.
How Do You Make Time for a Side Hustle?
Chris Cloney: 13:06
That’s great. We’ve convinced the listener that it’s a good idea. Honestly, a lot of them don’t need convincing. They’re already there, they’re doing it or they’re trying to do it. The question is, how do you make time for that? How do you fit that into your life? Especially if you’re the person who says, “My life is so busy.” How do you fit it in?
Ross Simmonds: 13:28
One of the things that I preach over and over again is that you need to live and die by your calendar. I think that your calendar is the most important technology. This is the first time I’ve said this, but I’m putting my hat in the ground. I think the calendar is the most important piece of technology that has been created in human history. The reason why is because time is all we’ve got. Time is the one thing that if it’s spent, it’s spent forever. You can’t get it back. Time is the most valuable asset that any of us have, but we often overlook it, don’t spend as much time as we should, thinking about the time we spend.
Ross Simmonds: 14:01
When you use a calendar, you can start to look at it and think, okay, from nine to five maybe you have to work your main job. There’s also lunch. At lunch, what do you do? You have the opportunity to block off time in your calendar to make sure that for 30 minutes during your lunch break, you’re doing something related to your business.
Ross Simmonds: 14:20
Then you have the after hours. You have the ability to block off time where you say, “I want to have that dinner with my wife every night.” Okay, that’s great. You make sure that that’s in your calendar and it’s a lock every single day.
Ross Simmonds: 14:32
But in the evening after that dinner, you block off some time and spend two or three hours putting in the time and effort to do your business. We spend a lot of time doing things that have no real value in terms of output, such as Netflix and chill. It may feel great, but it’s probably not going to help you long term.
Ross Simmonds: 14:50
if you can reduce the amount of time that you’re consuming content and doing things that have no benefit on your relationships, your fitness, your personal growth or any of those things and you optimize for your time, I think that everybody has the time for a side hustle. You just have to look at your calendar and identify the things you’re doing that you don’t need to do, and cut those out of it.
Ross Simmonds: 15:14
There’s also the opportunity to wake up early. I’m a night owl. I’ve never been somebody who wakes up super early to work, but again, if that’s you, do it. Embrace the idea of waking up at 5:00 a.m. That to me would be madness, but I’m somebody who will stay up until 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. and get something done if I need to. It’s just the way I work.
Chris Cloney: 15:36
Yeah, it’s a good point. I just pulled up a post on https://rosssimmonds.com/side-hustle/. It’s a post about how and why you started a side hustle, and there’s a little slideshow at the bottom that says “Why do I love the side hustle?” with pros and cons.
Chris Cloney: 15:55
Pros: Make more money, build new skills, employment backup plan, offers creative outlet, do what you love, control your destiny.
Cons: You’ll spend an extra 10 hours a week on it, you won’t get to watch as much TV and you won’t be able to play as many video games.
Ross Simmonds: 16:10
That’s pretty much it. Those are the cons I give. I think about Madden often: Madden used to be my game, but now I average maybe four hours a year playing it when before, it was probably four hours a day. But now, it’s not possible.
Chris Cloney: 16:30
Yeah, and I agree. It’s about finding that time. It’s about saying, “What matters in my life?” and again, it’s not permanent. You don’t have to reset it for the rest of your life, but this next month. What’s the big thing?
Ross Simmonds: 16:41
Exactly. Another thing that you have to embrace is knowing what you need to do. One of the things that I did early on in my career was outsourcing everything and anything I could. Laundry was always outsourced. I had someone come in, they would get my laundry and they’d go do it. They’d drop it off, they’d fold it. It was amazing. There’s nothing better.
Ross Simmonds: 17:06
Now, I do my own laundry once in a while and that’s just the way things are. But I’m working on it. I might be outsourcing that again soon, along with things like groceries. We live in a world where everything can be outsourced. With the gig economy that exists today, you can pay an extra $6.99 to have your groceries delivered to you rather than spending two hours walking up and down the grocery aisles.
Ross Simmonds: 17:27
That’s amazing. If you are in a city and you need to get somewhere, take an Uber, take a Lyft. Jump in the backseat and start writing and creating your content and doing your work. Jump on the bus. They have WiFi now on the subway. It’s wild. You can do all of those things and stay efficient by outsourcing your time so you can do things that matter, whether it’s writing a report, writing a blog post, doing your finances, jumping on a call, or pitching why somebody should sponsor your newsletter.
Ross Simmonds: 17:59
All of those different things are feasible when you start to stop doing things that don’t matter. I was listening to a podcast with a gentleman by the name of Naval from a site called Angel List, and he talks about how when he was very young, he gave himself an hourly rate. If something was going to have a return that was less than his hourly rate and the amount that he valued his time, then he wouldn’t do it.
Ross Simmonds: 18:24
He had bought a product at one point and he knew that if he went to return this product, he would have to wait in line, and the product was only worth $50, but he set a personal hourly rate of $150, so instead of waiting in line, he just donated it and give it to someone on the street because he knew that there wasn’t enough value for him to spend an hour waiting in line to make that happen.
Ross Simmonds: 18:50
I think we all need to recognize that it’s important to value your time. Don’t be afraid to take shortcuts that will outsource those tasks that you don’t necessarily need to do.
Chris Cloney: 19:03
Yeah, I would agree. A book that covers the same sort of topic is [Affiliate] Work Less, Make More by James Schramko. He talks about an effective hourly rate. To be honest, when you hear things like outsourcing your groceries, the way I decided to do it was calculate my effective hourly rate and the time it requires me to go do that. I think it costs $5.99 to have somebody else go through the aisles. That’s a business thing. The grocery store would rather their employees be doing it quickly than you walking around. It’s good for them. It’s good for you.
Ross Simmonds: 19:41
I would advise that the listeners set an hourly rate for themselves. How much do you think your time is worth? if you work at a job today, you can quickly do the math and see how much they pay you. Then double it because that’s what your actual value probably is. Or maybe even triple it, depending on your industry. That’s your value. That’s your hourly rate.
Ross Simmonds: 20:00
Then take that and ask yourself, “How many times a week do I have to commute to work? Okay, I have to commute to work every week and it’s two hours. Okay. Or two hours a day.”
That’s insane. I’m a remote guy, so when I hear two hours a day to commute in, I get the hives, but let’s say you have to commute for two hours a day. Multiply that by your hourly rate, by the number of days you work every week, by the number of weeks in a year. That’s how much money you were sitting on just in your commute. If you can outsource that to take a bus or to get a taxi or whatever that may be, and you can work, you can turn that value into money in your pocket versus money that you’ll never see.
Chris Cloney: 20:41
I love it. That’s an important point. The projection is an important exercise and then once you get started, measuring it is too. You’ll find that you probably make less money on a per hour basis as a startup entrepreneur. Most people are around $15 to $20 effective hourly rate. Do the projection where you want to be, measure it, and then it’s all about how do I get there? My effective hourly rate for this year is between $100 and $150 but I’m not even close to there yet.
Ross Simmonds: 21:08
Yeah, it’s a great exercise. You have to have those aspirations. You have to say, “Okay, this is how much I think my time is worth.” Then you have to do things that will get your value to that market in the world. It starts very early on by understanding this way of thinking.
I don’t know if you’re still using it, but we were talking about like hiring people on Upwork and Fiverr to do tasks that were repetitive but would take a lot of time. Those sites are another way that you can embrace the side hustle and make things a lot easier for yourself.
Ross Simmonds: 21:38
Or you can go on a site like Upwork and find somebody who can tackle tasks that are very repetitive. You can train them once and just walk away from them. I’ve done this time and time again. I probably have 15 Upworkers on payroll right now, just constantly doing tasks for me, whether it’s reviewing blog posts, curating content, doing SEO audits of our websites. It’s an ongoing thing. You can also get people to do this work for relatively cheap. Why spend your hourly rate doing it, which could be $100 an hour, when you can outsource it to someone who’s going to do it for $8 an hour? It doesn’t make sense.
Chris Cloney: 22:17
I’ll give one last example and then we’ll move on to the big topic, which is: should I tell my boss about my side hustle?
Ross Simmonds: 22:24
Right. Yeah.
Chris Cloney: 22:24
Stay tuned. But here’s the example, which drove me up the wall. I had just gotten headshots done at a professional photography place. Terrible experience. Four months and 300 bucks, too. They didn’t want to give me the files. I said, “Give me the files. I can send them on Upwork and get them raw edited and they’ll be ready tomorrow and it’ll cost me…”
Ross Simmonds: 22:47
Pennies, yeah.
Chris Cloney: 22:48
No, 25 bucks to hire the most experienced person, and like eight bucks if I went lower. I was like, “Give me my files.” There are things that are in this world that are outdated, and going and sitting down for photos and then waiting four months for somebody to touch them up is so off.
Ross Simmonds: 23:06
That’s wild. Yeah, that’s an opportunity. If anybody is looking to be in the photography business and they’re listening to this- if you want a side hustle, there’s an industry that you can shake up quick.
Chris Cloney: 23:18
You got it.
Should You Tell Your Boss About Your Side Hustle?
Chris Cloney: 23:18
So, okay, I want to move on to your boss because I get this question a lot. I get comments like, “I’m a graduate student, I want to start a website, but I’m nervous of what my supervisor is going to say” or “I’m tenure track, I’m nervous about what my academic administration is going to say” or “I’m in a corporation or industry. I’m nervous about what my boss is going to say.”
I read the Hustle Manifesto and there’s a chapter about whether you should tell your boss about your hustle, so I did. It was absolutely normal to me. I just went and told my supervisor, “I’m starting a website.” I didn’t mention anything about business because it wasn’t meant to be a business back then. It was nearly a year before I even monetized it.
Chris Cloney: 23:58
But now people ask me, “Oh, I’ve been doing this thing on the side for a year and a half, but how do I tell my supervisor?” I would say, “Oh I already read the book. I did that first thing.”
I know you were doing a full-time job before you transitioned to one of your businesses. Should you tell your boss about your side hustle?
Ross Simmonds: 24:17
Yeah, right away, 100% tell your boss about your side hustle. I think that’s the first and foremost answer. It makes no sense to not tell them because at the end of the day, if you’re not transparent about it, you can open up a lot more cans of worms later, especially if you’re in the scientific world. You can go into this space where you’re doing research, but does your boss own the research? Does your university own the research, or do you own the research? Who owns the IP?
Ross Simmonds: 24:46
You need to be transparent about what it is you’re trying to do, to a certain degree. What I mean by that is you don’t say, “I’m starting this because I’m looking to find that way to escape and I’m going to quit in two months.” You tell them that you’re using this as a way to sharpen your skills and better understand your industry as well connect with people outside of the region. Very straight forward.
Ross Simmonds: 25:13
They’ll love that. They’ll eat it up. I would eat that up if somebody on my team said, “Ross, I’m starting a marketing blog and I’m doing it because I want to grow my skill set.” In the back of my mind, I know that they may be getting ready to escape, but I would know in my heart that this is amazing for them. This is a great opportunity and I’m excited for them.
Even if you have an old-school boss who doesn’t get the Internet, they’re still going to say, “Okay, they’re doing something online. That’s cool. They’re playing on the Twitters! Cool.” Be up front with them. I don’t think that there’s any reason why you shouldn’t be transparent with your boss about it. I think it’s a good approach.
Ross Simmonds: 25:46
In the Hustle Manifesto, I talk about the experience where I was very transparent about Dreamer, which was my business at the time. My boss came up to me and said, “Let’s chat about Dreamer.” They were curious about what I was doing.
Ross Simmonds: 26:03
I was upfront with them. I said, “Dreamer’s just a side project of mine. I’m looking to gain new skills. I’m trying to gain extra cash and I think it’ll be good for the company because I’m going to show clients that I’m innovating and I’m doing things that are outside of the box. I’m not making nearly enough to leave my current role and do it full time so you can trust that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” But in the back of my mind, I knew I was trying to escape.
Ross Simmonds: 26:31
I think that’s how you go about it. You’re transparent with them. Let them know that your focus is skills and if you can position the benefits that they’ll have as a result, even better. I think there are tons of benefits that you can pitch to them to show why it’s important that they allow you to have that side hustle.
Chris Cloney: 26:58
Yeah. I want to pull out a couple more of those tips. Be transparent about what you’re doing but only to a point: don’t be transparent where you’re going to offend them.
Ross Simmonds: 27:08
Right. Yeah.
Chris Cloney: 27:10
I was fully transparent and said key things like you did: I want to increase my skills. I was transitioning from one industry to another, so I want to make connections. There are research groups on the other side of the world that I only meet once every two years. I think we can connect with them more.
Play off those benefits and yeah, bring up the benefits that are helpful for them. Any other kinds of big tips from people you’ve talked to who have had that tough conversation? I have a couple of my own, but I want to see what you come up with first.
What Are Some Tips For Having That Conversation?
Ross Simmonds: 27:41
The one key tip, and it’s tough depending on where you work, is just wanting to send an email and say, “Hey boss, I’m starting this thing and this is what’s going on.” It is important to try to have these conversations face to face. You don’t want to be the cold shoulder who just sends an email and says, “Hey boss, this is something I’m starting, just wanting to give you the heads up.” Nope, don’t do that.
Ross Simmonds: 28:04
You want to say, “Hey, I want to get your take on this.” I hate to make it sound manipulative, but if you can stroke the ego a little bit while you’re doing it, it’s a great win. You can say, “Hey boss, so this is something that I’m starting. I know you’ve been in this industry for a long time. What do you think of this?”
They might tell you it’s a bad idea. That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re being transparent with them and you’re giving them their take. if they think it’s a bad idea, even better because they’re not seeing it as a potential escape for you.
Ross Simmonds: 28:34
Again, transparency is key. Don’t be afraid to ask your manager or your boss, for insight because, in addition to that, they might end up being your biggest cheerleader, right? They may be the person who says, “Oh, I love this. I’m going to share all of your content on LinkedIn. I’m going to let all of our clients know that you’re doing this thing.”
If you can use the organization that you’re working in to be your launching pad, poof, it’s over. That’s amazing. You’ll have a strong network when you launch.
Chris Cloney: 29:15
I love it. Those are some great points. I’ll briefly share my story. I just went in and was so nervous. I thought it over for two weeks and I said, “All right, here’s what I’m going to say.” I went in and said to my academic advisor, “I started an online blog.” I used the word blog. It’s probably going to make them think that you’re silly, but that’s all right.
Ross Simmonds: 29:39
Exactly. It’s completely okay.
Chris Cloney: 29:41
I just want to discuss what’s going on in the research world. I’m not talking about my research specifically, but if you pick up that textbook on your shelf, I’m going to talk about all those topics on it. I want to learn them and teach them to others and I want to do that so that I can find employment.
I was trying to find employment in a new industry or connect with other research groups and I think there’s a big gap in the space where nobody’s talking.”
Chris Cloney: 30:02
When I did that three years ago, he said, “That sounds great. Just don’t put my name on it.” Conversation over. Today, though, they’ll probably say, “Hey, can we put that into our grant application” because it’s come so far forward.
Have the conversation, be transparent, elicit feedback and elicit help. Do it in person. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to do it.
Ross Simmonds: 30:27
It’s easy to get a little stressed out over this idea of talking about it in person, but we’re all grownups now, so we’ve got to have those conversations and not be afraid to face them.
Chris Cloney: 30:39
Oh, I love it. I think I’m getting there. I have a son now and I know you have a daughter so we’re getting closer to grownups.
Ross Simmonds: 30:45
I know, right?
Chris Cloney: 30:47
All right. I love it. That is an amazing conversation around side hustles. We started with your story: a serial entrepreneur, if you will, side hustling on your main businesses and now you have a whole range of them.
Chris Cloney: 31:12
We talked about why you need a side hustle. We talked about how a side hustle can be your training ground. It’s where you test things out. It’s where you learn. We talked about managing your calendar, knowing what you need to do, looking at your hourly rate and getting rid of things that are low value out of your life, and then you’ll have the time for that.
Chris Cloney: 31:32
We discussed the big question of “How do I tell my boss? Should I tell my boss?” It sounds like the answer is a resounding yes. I think in 99.9% of cases you probably should. There was a great quote in your book, and I’m just paraphrasing because I can’t remember it, but it’s something along the lines of you telling your boss in all cases will be less than the result of you not telling your boss and them finding out in a bad way.
Ross Simmonds: 31:55
Yes. Yeah, 100% that is the complete truth. That’s simple. By telling your boss, you reduce the amount of risk that comes with not telling your boss. Very straightforward. Yeah.
Chris Cloney: 32:05
One time in 10 they may say, “No, you can’t do that” or “That’s a bad idea”. Everyone’s going to tell you it’s a bad idea if you’re starting an online business for the rest of your life. Get used to it. Turns out it’s not necessarily bad: I get to sit here with Ross and talk about this stuff, so that’s a good part.
Chris Cloney: 32:23
But the point is that some people will say it’s a bad idea, and you just need to run through that. Some people will tell you can’t do it, and that’s where you may need to pivot a bit. Say, “Okay, well, we won’t talk about my research. We’ll talk about a higher level field or we’ll talk about specific textbooks.”
Chris Cloney: 32:39
If you are having problems with that, email me at chris@gradblogger.com. I’ll walk you through the whole process and then we’ll get you revealing and starting your blog. That’d be no problem.
I do want to go to Ross’s big strengths here because every time I see a presentation, he’s in business to business marketing. We’re in business to business. I call it research to research. Researchers blogging to researchers, researchers blogging to the public, researchers blogging to businesses.
What’s Big in B2B These Days and How Can We Use It To Grow Our Businesses?
Chris Cloney: 33:05
What is new and noteworthy in the B2B content marketing space today? This is a total shift from what we’re talking about. I have you on the mic, so I need to get the key insights.
Ross Simmonds: 33:17
I love it. Yeah. there are two key things that are shaking up B2B right now. I don’t know if one of them has influenced the research world yet, but it might be coming down the road.
Ross Simmonds: 33:27
The first one is the rise of video. Because our data plans are getting cheaper, the devices used to create a quality video are getting cheaper, and these mobile phones have amazing screen quality and we can consume video on the go, video is becoming more and more important across the board.
Ross Simmonds: 33:45
Video content, whether you’re talking about a subject, video content whether you’re on a conference call, or video content in terms of technologies that can analyze the conversations you’re having, provide you with insights and notes and feedback.
I believe without question that video is quickly becoming one of the most important mediums today, so that’s something that I think everyone should be thinking about. I have a video on video marketing that people can learn a lot from. It explains where video is going and some of the trends shaking up that space.
The second one, funny enough, would have to be podcasting. Podcasting is unlocking a lot of opportunities for B2B organizations and people around the world simply because we are able to consume this content passively.
Ross Simmonds: 34:33
It is very likely that somebody is listening to us talk right now and they’re running on a treadmill or they’re walking to school or they’re on a bus going to school. Some of them are probably waking up or listening to this and they’re turning around and they’re about to send in their notice and quit their job. All of those things are happening right now because we’re in their headphones.
I think that in B2B, and probably even in the research world, the interactions that we have with people are getting less and less intimate but because of audio and video, you can connect closer to your audience and with the people you’re trying to resonate with because it feels like you’re having a conversation with them.
Ross Simmonds: 35:10
Those are two things that I notice shaking up the industry. If I could do one more, it would be the world of reviews.
I think the Yelpification of B2B where everything can be reviewed now, whether it’s a person, like a CEO of a company, or an actual organization and their culture and products.
I think all of that is starting to take off as well, so I can picture a world where different programs are going to be reviewed based on the research that they’re doing. Grants will start making decisions on what schools get them based on the reviews of those different programs. That’s what I think the future’s going to look like and it might already look like that. I’m not in your space.
Chris Cloney: 35:54
It doesn’t. We lag probably a decade behind.
Ross Simmonds: 35:57
Okay, so if somebody creates that, let me know. I would love to talk to you because it’s going to be a big industry.
Chris Cloney: 36:05
I’ll give you a specific example: journal paper articles. Right now you send one in, they find three people to review it, and if the three people say it’s crap, you get it back, you edit it, you send it in again and, hopefully, you don’t repeat that process six times. Sometimes you do.
Peer reviewed by the world will happen 10 years from now, I think. Anonymous is tough there, but I think putting your name behind it and leaving reviews will give it more of a community aspect or globalization aspect.
What Is The One Big Takeaway?
Chris Cloney: 36:37
The big takeaways from this [discussion] is that as you start creating content and you’re putting it into the world, you’ll get to the point of thinking that this does not even make sense. People are listening to me and it’s very powerful. The other aspect is that a side hustle is a great way to create your training ground for your business.
Where Can People Find You?
Where’s the best place for people to find you if they want to figure out what Ross Simmonds is up to?
Ross Simmonds: 37:05
Yeah, so rosssimmonds.com is definitely the best place to start. That’s where I publish new content on a regular basis. Some of the content might not be necessarily that relevant because it will be general B2B marketing, but that’s the best place to go. They can definitely check me out on Twitter if they’re on Twitter @TheCoolestCool or @TheCoolestCool on Instagram as well.
Ross Simmonds: 37:24
One thing that I do want to do, Chris, is thank you for having me on and providing a great way for some of your listeners to get into this. The Hustle Manifesto has been around for a while and I think it would be awesome for some of your listeners to get their hands on it. what I’ll do is put together a promo code. They just need to type in GradBlogger and they can get the Hustle Manifesto for 25% off. I think that will help a lot of these folks take the steps that they need to have some positive change in their life.
Chris Cloney: 38:10
I have the Hustle Manifesto open right now. It’s around 312 pages. I avoided some mistakes in my business early days because I read this, so I’d advise people to go check that out for sure. If you like Ross and what he’s doing, catch him @TheCoolestCool and check out his website. You can also catch him on YouTube.
So I want to thank you again, Ross, for coming on and who knows- after you travel the world and do some more of these B2B presentations, maybe we can find time to get you back on the show again.
Ross Simmonds: 38:47
I like that. I would love that. Thanks again for having me and my hat’s off to you for being able to create such an awesome community. Kep giving this much value to the world and the world will keep continuing to give you value back.
Chris Cloney: 39:00
I love it. you’ve been listening to myself, Dr. Chris Cloney and Ross Simmonds, talk about why you need a side hustle in your business, how to get it into your business, how to manage the relationships around that. As always, you can grab the transcripts from this episode at GradBlogger.com/15. Go there. There’s a big orange button. You can’t miss it. We’ll also throw together a cheat sheet with seven or eight tips for approaching your boss. We’ll cover the things that we put in this episode, and you can grab that in the show notes as well.
Chris Cloney: 39:33
I just wanted to thank you for listening to GradBlogger. I’m excited to see your online businesses continue to grow through blogging, podcasting, and video, and putting content in the world. I’m excited to keep putting this podcast out and seeing that grow as well. We’ll talk next week and I look forward to bringing the next amazing guest on.
