Lifetime experience of a couple with 8 sources of income

 Lifetime experience of a couple with 8 sources of income

Before making a million dollars, Craig and Carrie Clickner compensated for too much work and kept the employee mindset instead of the owner mindset.

Craig and Carrie Clickner are two American startup entrepreneurs, co-authors of the part-time book "So You Want to Start a Side Hustle: Build a Business that Empowers You to Live Your Life, Your Way". They currently have 8 sources of income, from activities in the field of business consulting, book writing, speaking, training, house rental to stock investment.

Below is what Craig and Carrie shared on CNBC about the mistakes they made during the startup process.

Like every other couple, one of the best things about freelancing is getting out of office hours. We both left the company a few years ago. For now, we can focus on the things that really matter to us, like spending time with our kids, traveling, and doing charity.

Before we met, both Craig and I had several part-time jobs, besides being primarily in the financial and educational industries. After that, we opened our first company together in 2006, merging two part-time jobs into one, creating Tandem Consulting. Currently, Tandem has a turnover of 3 million USD per year.

Craig and Carrie Clickner. Photo: Craig and Carrie Clickner

Craig and Carrie Clickner. Photo: Craig and Carrie Clickner

We want to tell everyone that our financial success comes from part-time jobs. Money earned from Tandem, plus savings and money from previous jobs, allows us to expand and work on more projects. Among them are a real estate consulting firm and a non-profit organization called Tandem Giving.

In total, we have 8 sources of income, bringing in millions of USD each year. Two of them are passive income from rental properties in Wisconsin.

A lot of people, especially young people, often ask us what we should know before turning a part-time job into a full-time job. Here are 5 mistakes we learned in the process.

Poor time and work management

In the early stages, we didn't anticipate the busyness of multitasking. And because we consider part-time work as a side hustle, we struggle to manage our time effectively. In the end, we found that the most effective way to increase productivity was to automate some of the tasks and hire more people to help.

When deciding whether this needs you to do it yourself or maybe someone else, ask yourself the following questions?

Are they important to you, your side job or your value? If not, can you skip it?

- If yes, can you hire someone?

- If it cannot be rented, how can it be completed in the most reasonable way? When is the deadline?

- While you are working, can you quit, automate or hire someone to do it?

Confusing revenue with profit

This sounds odd, but it's true. We know many people who have planned to teach online. They calculated that if there were 20 customers, charging each of them $4,000 a year, they would make $80,000 in profit.

This is completely wrong. How else would you think you would find those customers? Are you planning to create a website? Have you factored in the cost of opening and maintaining a website? Are you planning to do marketing, or go on a business trip? Do you need some certificate? Who will take care of the books, the accounting, the contracts? What if the customer bursts money?

With every business model, we fully plan it. Revenue is not the same as profit. And that $80,000 is certainly not the last money you can take home.

Reinvest profits to generate even more revenue

Once you've generated "enough" revenue, you don't need to reinvest all of your profits to generate more revenue. For example, you work part-time in the construction industry, then make it your main job and earn $600,000 per year, a profit of $130,000, assuming you don't receive a salary.

After that, it takes you 1-2 years to consolidate your business, file customers, pay off debt (if any), transfer skills to employees. Then choose a replacement to run the company with $60,000 and keep $70,000 for yourself, without reinvesting.

If you are a person with a simple lifestyle and good financial management, you can live comfortably with that money. Over time, you can even save and invest. And finally, at some point, you can sell the company.

Overpriced from the start and didn't raise the price once the brand was established

When your business is successful, customers will pay for the value they perceive. Usually, with cheap things, people will also underestimate them.

Don't be afraid of periodic price adjustments. With inflation and the ever-changing external environment, you should also change your pricing policy.