#26 - Why Your Side Gig Might Not Be Ready

Thinking about starting a business or turning your side gig into a full-time venture? This episode is your reality check. Ken Carroll breaks down the myths and hard truths of business ownership — from hidden overhead and late nights to accounting headaches, marketing pitfalls, and competing with established players.

If you’re in it for “more free time” or “easy money,” this episode might talk you out of it. But if you’re serious, prepared, and ready for the grind, you’ll walk away with a clearer picture of what it really takes to succeed.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

https://www.business.com/articles/the-4-biggest-challenges-to-starting-a-business-and-how-to-overcome-them/

https://explodingtopics.com/blog/startup-failure-stats

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2020/02/13/13-common-challenges-when-developing-your-first-business/

https://misterindependent.com/risks-and-challenges-of-starting-a-business/

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/startups-failure-rate/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2025/02/06/9-challenges-new-entrepreneurs-face-in-the-first-two-years-of-business/

https://hbr.org/2021/05/why-start-ups-fail

https://www.ruby.com/blog/5-common-challenges-facing-small-business-and-how-to-overcome-them/

Transcript

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You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

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So you're looking to start that brand new business on this episode of Over the Bull. Over the last year, year and a half, I've run across a lot of people who have either started a business, thinking of starting a business, or looking to take that side gig to something bigger. And I find myself watching the ones that have jumped into it flounder, or I have seen others that are just getting ready to make a big mistake and I'm trying to Yes, this is 100% counterintuitive to a design agency. Now, the reason I do it is one, because I know what goes into a business. I've started a business. And the other thing is, is that I understand that we're trying to build long term relationships and we're trying to educate, teach people and help guide people on this thing we call life. Now, if all I'm trying to do is sell websites or marketing or branding or whatever may have you, I would be inclined to tell everybody that walks in my door that's the greatest thing in the world for you to do. However, it's far from it. I've seen all kinds of horror stories, and I can see the train wreck before it happens, but it's really hard to stop certain people from hitting that train wreck. And honestly, some people are so far away from it. what the reality is of business that they really are just not ready. They've not done enough homework on it yet. So this is intended to help those who are thinking of going into a business, but giving you pause and helping you have that reality check before you do it. Yeah, it's not fun, but here at Over the Bull, we're not about fun. We're about giving you what you need. Okay, so The first one I thought was really interesting is the myth of free time. There is no such thing as And I would just find that the time that I wanted to spend with my wife and kids was non-existent. And so it's a big sacrifice when it comes to it. Time is not going to be your friend when you start a business and it's going to be consuming to you. Now, there's a couple of things. First thing is, is to realize, okay, I'm willing to sacrifice a lot of time in order to get this thing on off the ground. I'm willing to work weekends. I'm willing to be up late. I'm willing to get up tired. I'm willing to live off coffee. Now, if you have a business, you already know this is true. And so the idea is that you also want to make sure that the person that is, you know, like, for example, my wife, you know, you want to have a serious talk with your wife and say, OK, I'm thinking of starting a business, but this is going to be time consuming. It's going to eat into everything. It's going to eat into maybe I'm late for kids' ballgames. Maybe I'm not going to make this. Or maybe I have to skip church every once in a while or whatever may have you. But the idea is that you're thinking that somehow you starting a business just because you're not punching a clock is going to give you more free time. It's a myth. And if you try to live that myth, it's going to give you more free time. you're going to not be successful at what you do. The reason being is, is that that myth works at the opposite spectrum of what the reality is. So your first checkoff when you're thinking about starting a business is, are you and your significant other ready to absorb that much time, effort, and energy and basically sacrifice so much? in order to give you an opportunity to start the business that you're in? If the answer is yes, you just passed the first part. So now let's talk about overhead and hidden costs. Okay, if it's not bad enough, you're not going to get a lot of sleep. The other problem you're going to have is that, especially if you have a side gig. Okay, so side gigs are fun because you can do them when you want to, how you want to do them or whatever. And And so it's kind of easy to work the side gig in. But to go to a full-fledged business requires you to start looking at things like insurance, possibly payroll. A lot of you are probably thinking you're going to do the work yourself. Then, of course, there are taxes, licensing. There's going to be marketing, software, and equipment. And what you're going to see, especially if you have a side gig, is that that money that you make that makes you feel like you want to do something bigger is going to dwindle away in overhead. Now, this really never stops, okay? So if you're in an industry that requires you to have a truck, at some point you're going to need truck number two. You would need driver number two. If you're in a different field, it's the same thing. Once you hit those points and what you find is that you grow your revenue, you grow your revenue, and then you add more and then all your net income goes away because you're having to hit that next level of expansion. Now, with each one of those layers comes new challenges. So when you first look at it, you may say, well, I want to do the work myself. But that doesn't negate the fact that you're going to have these other challenges. And, you know, of course, money can equal more time. What you do is you buy other people's time. And so if you've got a small nest egg, you're putting into your business, then you can have someone to maybe help you with accounting or setting up, you know, whatever software that you're going to need for your business. But if not, it's on you. You're going to be reading those manuals. You're going to be digging through it. And the one thing that I found out is that it's never the way that they say it's going to go when it comes to setting up a business. There's always layers of complexity. Now, if you're willing to take that on or have those resources, in order to set your business up and do it that way, then you're okay. But you will have that additional overhead regardless. Now, what I've seen some people do is they'll have some money saved up, but it's nowhere near what they need. And what they think is, okay, I'm going to start a business. I'm going to hire this person to do X, Y, and Z. And then once that happens, then more is going to come in. And then I'll use that money to do business. next thing. There's an assumption that just because you get things set up or just because you think you've got the greatest idea, it's not necessarily true. And even if it is the greatest idea, some people may not understand it. And so you need to make sure that you've got enough resources to where you can weather the storm or guess what? It falls back on you. So if you're there, you pass question number Number two. Okay, so let's move on to the actual setup of your business. Now, we're in marketing and design. This part, I'm telling you just because I've gone through it. The question is, what kind of structure do you have for your business? Do you want to be a DBA, an LLC? Do you want to be a corporation out of the gate? And how are you going to do your quarterly filings and all the stuff that goes along with it and make sure that you're playing by the rules? based upon how you set your company up. What's the most beneficial to you and which gives you the most protection? These are questions that are answered by professionals and you want to get more than one idea from a person. I've talked to many people about setting up business structures and I found that some people, frankly, don't give very good advice. They give advice based upon their experience and sometimes their experience is sandboxed into one solution or sometimes it's the solution that they do the most or make the most money at. And so they try to push you into doing that, even though it's not best for what you. So you do want to set your business up in the right way before you get started. And you want to make sure that your structure is set up and that you are ready to abide by whatever regulations as you move forward. Now, as a side gig, that's much easier. Now, side gig It doesn't give you much protection, and it's much easier to kind of navigate those waters. But when you move to a full-fledged business, you're going to find out that the complexities just get worse, and you're going to be on a road of learning for the rest of your business life. So do you check off on that list? And if you do, let's move on. So we talked about late nights. Okay. Late nights is just part of the game. Now, a lot of times when people start a business, at least from my experience, they have an idea or they're really good at something. And then what they do is they start seeing that people want that. And then they go, I want to do more of that. So they get a fulfillment out of it. They enjoy it. They start to grow from it. And then they start to experience some freedom. And then they start to move forward with it. And then what they find out is that, you know, maybe the people that are in your inner circle like what you do. But once you get beyond that circle, then you don't sell that thing so good. You don't compete so well in the market. And so the idea is that your marketing efforts, your setup, your infrastructure and everything works. is going to require some trial and error from marketing. But before we get to the marketing, there's this whole idea of brand identity and setup. And there is a lot of psychology that goes into the brand name. And so your brand name needs to resonate with what you're trying to do and make sense. And you also need to make sure that you're picking the colors, choosing the right demographics, building everything toward an audience, and making sure that it resonates and works for that audience. Now, why that's important is because when you get beyond your inner circle, they don't know you. Now you're moving into the waters of trying to talk to someone who doesn't know you. Just like, you know, if you were talking to a friend about a personal issue, it would go over a lot different than if you were talking to a stranger about that personal issue. Well, it's the same thing in business, only it's a little more complicated. You have to convey a message set up a value proposition and you need to present yourself in a professional fashion in a way that people will want to engage with you and trust you. Now, this is complicated and the idea that you're going to do this yourself or choose a name randomly and then be successful is really stacking the cards against you. Yes, of course, you're going to find that example of Apple computers and some of these others. The problem is that your imagination is going to be your enemy because you're going to think, oh, if these do-it-yourself situations, if I can just come up with a name or my family likes this name or whatever, and then you find out you get out of that inner circle and then you drown through those decisions, well, now you've got to reform things and redo things and set things up And so it's going to be very time consuming to turn the car around and start back on step number one when you thought you're on step number five. This is where your marketing and branding comes into play. And the thing about marketing and branding, there's a lot to it. But part of this, too, is it's not even that part is not going to be something that you're necessarily going to enjoy. So what I mean by that is the colors that your business needs to be, the logo that your business needs, the web address, the content, how it's framed, your price structure. All those things are built toward your customer. So the idea that you're going to build even your branding to meet what you want it to look like versus what your customer needs to see to engage with you could be night and day. And in order to have the best opportunity, you're going to need to rely on professionals. So this will take me to another situation. And man, some of these are hard. I can like see them in my mind as I'm talking here. But we had a person that needed some help with some branding. And, you know, not a lot of money. And I have this thing where I just love to help out startups sometimes. And it's bitten me. I mean, it's just there's no other word for it. And so in this one situation, what happened was, was that this person, through the initial consultation, we had an agreement as to the way that the branding should go that would make the most sense for what's trying to be accomplished. Now, where I realize this person probably couldn't be helped was when I jumped into an interactive Zoom design session and we're sitting there and we're working on things and at one point she starts taking her phone, screen grabbing the monitor and sharing it out with her family and asking their opinions about colors, logo, positioning and worrying about the most mundane, irrelevant stuff when it came to her branding. And I realized it was not possible given where this person was at to be able to stop and say, it's really not about what your mom likes. This is really more about what your customers need to see to have confidence in you. And even though I tried to navigate those water and make it happen. It simply did not. And so ultimately, I ended up just refunding and giving her everything that we had done because there was no helping this person. Now, of course we want our wives and our kids and our dads and our moms and our uncles and everyone to look at what we did and go, well, that's really good. But the minute that you start trying to serve your family's expectation, your friend's expectation, and not your customer's expectation is a pivotal moment of where you need to make a decision to what's more important. And in business, it's your customers. It's not friends and loved ones. So you can imagine the conversations around the table where, you know, the people that you love and trust and share life with, they start telling you that they think that the designer's out of their mind. It's not going to work. Uh, It's not the right way to set things up. And it'll get you second guessing. And a lot of times you'll find yourself, and I've seen like engineers, some guy, he came to me, this was years ago, he came to me and said, you know, he was an analytical guy and he didn't care, but he wanted to make sure that it worked. And you found out that he was the most subjective person influenced by his secretary at the office than he was about what his customers needed. And I even went so far in his case because I really trusted the idea he was a type A. And I ran a case study on our money. And I wanted to find out which branding elements were the most effective for his industry, what he was suggesting, or some of the options that we were creating. And overwhelmingly, the one that he wanted to use failed in virtually every category. But he stuck with it. And he stuck with it because it met something subjective. He was appealing to something beyond what business requires because he needed to scratch that itch. And so as you see, when you start a business, it's not about you. The branding is not about you. The game is about providing services to people and meeting their needs. So trial and error. So this is the other big thing. Unless you live in this industry, you know, AI is not going to get you over the goal. Choosing templates is not going to get you over the goal. Going to a cheap freelance site and have them build you a logo is not going to get you over the goal. There are no shortcuts. And the worst part is, is even if you go out and hire somebody and you think they know what they're doing, there are a lot of people in my industry who simply do not know what they're doing they don't have enough background they've not put enough into it and so you could have the best intentions but you could still find yourself having to go backwards and reinvent something and then go through the stress of looking at one the person that you're working with telling you one thing someone else telling you something different and then you not knowing which one is right trying to figure out who's telling you the truth or who is giving you the best advice to set you up for success the most and so that puts you in a precarious situation and the sad part is is that the person that's talking to you has their own motivations it's either to try to take the business from the previous person and of course they're not going to tell you they're doing a great job if they're doing that and then your previous may not be doing the right job, and the second person may be telling you the absolute truth. And so having that gut instinct and even making the decision and having to go backwards, you can imagine the pain that there is involved in trying to figure that out, going backwards, having to stay the course regardless of what's going on. You can imagine the toughness that goes into that And that's real. I can't tell you how many times. I mean, the whole reason that in our podcast that I decided to start citating third party sources was because I would find that some people would come out, basically as one situation, came out and said that, you know, it was more of a subjective decision on something that unequivocally was objective. There was a right But because this person used certain words in certain context, it confused the person we were consulting with and it made it difficult for them to make a decision. So when I'm giving you information on this podcast, I'm trying to give you reputable resources where it's not Ken telling you something. It's something that's known in the industry. Now, if you've run into or you've been in business, one thing that you're absolutely going to know is what I'm telling you is true. I'm sure you've had it where the person comes and says, this software is going to work magic. This design is going to work magic. And it doesn't. I guess one of the more recent ones I had, so check this out, was somebody who's doing email marketing. And what happened was, was a person that does nothing but email marketing designs, template designs, approached this person and said, hey, you need to spend another$1,200 revamping this. And I looked at it and there wasn't even clarity into what was going on, but she had this person thinking, the designer had this person thinking that if she redesigned her emails that were sent out, that somehow that's the problem that needed to be solved. It wasn't. She was trying to sell$1,200 worth of email rebranding just so she could make$1,200. I mean, there was no logic behind it. But as you can see, that makes things kind of tough when you're trying to figure out what to do because she had a relationship with this email person. She liked this person. And I'm sure there was a rapport that in some ways was probably merited. But it was leading her down the wrong path and cost her another$1,200 to do it. So, if you pass that test and you're to go through that. Let's move on to the next. Competing with established players. Okay, the thing is, is when you start out with a fresh new business, it's not in a vacuum. You're not going to have these competitors and people are not going to look at that new website you have, even if it is aesthetically more pleasing than people that have been around. That doesn't mean they're going to use you. As a matter of fact, if If the other company's been around longer, they're going to have a much better shot at getting that business and keeping that business than you. And the reason being is, is they know that company. They work with that company and they trust that company. And so even offering things like deep discounts or whatever may not help you pull those people away from the gravity of those established businesses. And so then what you have to do is you have to start getting into building your reputation building brand awareness, being consistent, and spending money at it. So yeah, you're going to spend money on marketing just to try to gain visibility and credibility. This requires a significant plan. This is not going to Google Ads, spinning up an account and letting it run. That's not what happens here. You'll just spend a lot of money. It requires a lot of thought that goes into it to make sure that when you're done, that you're gaining that visibility, you're showing your ads to the right market, you're showing your stuff to the right market, and you're building a reputation. Also, let's get real. Reviews are a big deal. You start up a brand new Google business profile and you have zero reviews, and then your competitor has 75 reviews, 175 reviews or whatever, and he's got a 4.9 and you've got a zero, you also are going to have to work hard at getting reviews. Your marketing people are not going to get you reviews. And so there's strategies to even get that ball moving to begin with. And so part of that is, is you need to understand that those people who you're competing against, even if they have a bad reputation, there's still a certain thing that those businesses carry with their audience to where they still trust them because it's comfortable. It's what they've It's things they've learned to deal with. And so to work yourself around those things is going to require a significant marketing plan. Plus, they may be also marketing. Now, a lot of these older businesses I found, they actually don't do a lot of online marketing in some business sectors. This is good because what they're doing is resting on what they've already accomplished. But it also shows how grounded they are in the community, too. And so what we help do is try to help navigate through those processes to build those plans to make sure we're showing up in the right place. But you can imagine that if you start with a website and you start with just some freelance or clip art or whatever, you're going to find yourself just running in circles, getting frustrated, thinking things don't work and not willing to to go through that. So can Competing with established players is something else that you're going to have to deal with if you start a business. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to be patient, create awareness campaigns, and slowly start to gain traction over a period of time? Because more than likely, that's what it is. Okay, so let's move on. So if you're there, then great. You check off on that one. Now let's talk about the idea that marketing is non-negotiable. Okay, so use whatever analogy you want, but marketing is essentially the lifeblood of your business. Good marketing is. I mean, you can, again, you hire the wrong person, you're going to go through a ton of money and get no momentum, no data, no nothing. But it's non-negotiable. You're going to run out of friends and family and people. And if you're trying to make that next big step forward, you're going to need to have a serious effort. This means no weekend freelancers. And this means no big agencies that cut corners and they just give you a lot of shine. This means finding someone that's going to really work with you, talk to you, help you build those data points, change direction, learn and grow. Now, they may do this all the time. Every client that we help marketing with, we sit down at multiple points and we look at the data. We look at what we're targeting and we simply say, this is not working. This is working. This is what I think we need to change. This is what I think we need to massage. This is what competitors are doing that seems to be working. We need to adjust this. And then we get feedback. And then we bat that back and forth with That's where the magic is, folks. Of course, we do all of our homework in the beginning. Of course, we analyze a bunch of stuff ranging from, well, don't want to get into the nerd speak, everything from keywords to what call to actions that they use to what language they use on their ads. Of course, we do all that. But see, your business is unique and you have to carve out that special uniqueness and present it in a certain way to where people will engage. engage with you and boils down to things even like inconsistent branding can kill that. So the idea is that a lot of businesses, they'll start up and they'll be underfunded or they will work with people that doesn't do a good job, basically, or they'll find themselves lacking patience. And so then they start and stop. They do different things, which kills the machine learning on online marketing platforms and they find themselves in this loop and this is a loop of of destruction and so then what they do is they they cut off the lifeblood of their business or they cut back on the amount that they want to spend on that lifeblood of their business and as you can imagine less blood goes to the brain less oxygen and then you know the writings on the wall for a lot of these guys and I'm not saying I don't understand it because I have talked to so many businesses who've stepped in this store and they have been burned, reburned, promised, whatever may have you, just so that an agency or a freelancer can build them a website and charge them money and walk away from it. And so they fall for the sales pitch and re-fall for the sales pitch. And then they get to a point where like, well, this just isn't working. I'm shutting it down. Now, I can tell you, I looked at an account today and it's a brand new division within a company we work with. When I say that, it's one they're seriously going after. And it's doing the same thing. We're having to build a strategic positioning, even though they are established in other areas, they're not established as a true competitor in this one thing. And so we're going through the pain of trying to figure out how to stand out from the competition in that arena. And it is painful. I mean, it is painful to sit down and having to go through it and look at the data and say, okay, the data points in this direction. Let's go down that direction. But it's also good to be able to communicate and talk and go through those steps. So finding someone that's willing to work with you and then being able to fund it are really important aspects. Because as you can imagine, if you come to our agency, for example, and you want to work on market You've got to have an ad budget and then you've got to be able to pay for that engagement time because, you know, an agency is time for money just like anyone else. And so you find yourself if you start shopping by price, what you're going to find is, yeah, that agency may charge you less money, but realistically, they're putting less effort into it. And so essentially, you're really not getting a deal by doing that because there are ways to really seriously do things. And there are ways to topically do things. And in order for your business to succeed, you're going to have to get below the surface and understand your competitors as much as you understand what you're trying to do. So do you check off on that part? Now, if you check off on those things and let's go ahead and put one more in here. I never like stopping at six. So let's make seven here. Patience, man, patience. is the absolute secret weapon for any new business. Now this is hard because patience is going to require both resources and trust in the people you're working with that they're really building towards something. Now that patience means you're going to be spending money. You're going to have to adjust. You're going to have to talk. You're going to have to work with those people to help build what you need to build. You're going to need to trust the system, but it's going to take time. There's not a magic button. There's not a dollar figure. There's not anything you can throw at it to where, especially if you're a small startup with limited resources, to where you're going to be able to spring and just make things magically start happening. Yes, and I've said this many times, we've had cases where we're great right out of the gate. We've also had cases where we're miserable right out of the gate. That's part of it. It's part of the situation. Sorry, I think you might have heard my coffee pot ringing. Sorry about that. But patience is big. And if you're not willing to be patient or you don't have the resources to be patient, then there could be a real problem there. Let me shout out to Alex here. We have a client, and he had a small budget. And he's patient, but he still needed to make things happen. And what was great about him was he coupled where he couldn't spend money and he couldn't afford necessarily the patience. He spent more time knocking on doors and getting into places that I– was really surprised he was able to get into. And so Alex is doing very well, but he really rolled his sleeves up and he compensated by taking on some of the just getting in front of people and presenting his product and staying diligent at it. So there's that aspect too. But it's definitely not a set it and forget it or just trust one thing or you can unplug from something. Whatever it Those things typically don't work for startups. side gig that's bringing in that extra income, and that by going full out business, that your profits are going to likely be in the red for a while, and that you're going to see money go out, and you're going to be stressed. If you're willing to do these things and follow this, then you are ready to start a business. But if you're not, and any of this is a misconception in your mind as to how things are going to go, then you need to maybe hit pause for a second and really think through these things. You know, there is no do-it-yourself in this world anymore online. That is an absolute 100% myth that you can pick a template, throw in some content, and you're going to be successful. Do not fall for that pitch and do not talk yourself into it by thinking, well, if other people do it it's going to work for me other people are doing it but I guarantee you when you watch these big do-it-yourself companies you'll see their own nationwide TV buying big advertisements you're going to see their advertising on major sporting events you're going to see their selling the illusion to you day in and day out that you can do it yourself but notice it's not their customers who are advertising Because it doesn't work. And when it does, you know, as I've been told, even a blind squirrel can find a nut. And so being prepared and being diligent is the only way to success. As mentioned, when we kicked off, I started a business. I know what goes into it. I can appreciate you wanting to get into a business. So let me speak to you. those who are thinking about this. It can be one of the most gratifying things that you could ever start as a business. It can be one of the most tough things you've ever done. It can be challenging. It can be a fight. It can require a certain mentality to want to do it. It's going to take dedication and sacrifice and all those things. There's a really interesting... Even with people who you think are like madly successful. Go check out that Cowboys documentary on Netflix. And just listen to what the owner had to go through in order to get where he was. And just listen to the stress. Don't breeze over the stress. Because, you know, we watch things and we tend to go, yeah, but this person's successful. You know, we have the, as one person said, the Yabbits, right? So you've got these Yabbits that are going around in your mind and thinking that they, but no, no, these people had real stress, real problems, and they fought through it. And it wasn't the most fun thing on the planet for them to fight through, but they fought through it. And that's really what you need to look at. So if we go back to the two friends, and I'll leave you with this analogy. If I can stop rambling. But if you take the two guys I told you about, guy number one who was physically fit went into the Marines thinking he had it under control. Guy number two realized it was going to be tough, did everything he could to prepare and expected the worst, hoped for the best. Guy number one washed out. Guy number two made it. So by you taking all this into consideration, let's say that you've got the greatest thing in the world. You start a business and you come in prepared with this, prepared with that understanding. And let's say that you're only working 70 hours a week to start your new business. And you go, wow, I can handle 70 or 60, maybe even 50. I can handle these things. And then you get into it and then you go, well, but I was prepared. I was prepared for the worst. Okay, so your mind, your imagination and your fantasy are going to be absolutely your worst enemies as you do this. And they're going to be these freelancer digital marketing agencies, all these people trying to sell you junk. It's blood in the water to them, and that's exactly what they want to sell you, this fantasy that does not exist. And that could be the one thing that crushes your dreams of starting a business. Okay, that's all I've got for today. Thank you so much for listening to Over the Bull. I know this was a hard lesson today. But sometimes hard lessons help us get where we need to go. Until we meet again, God bless. This is Ken with Over the Bull.

SPEAKER_00: 40:28

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