70: Anyone Can Be A Successful Entrepreneur With Tony Whatley (Part 2)
Ever thought becoming a millionaire is just childs’ play? For Tony Whatley, author of bestselling book, SideHustle Millionaire, it was exactly that! Tony grew up playing with cars, but when he took his love for cars online in the form of an online community, it grew to become the largest in the industry with 160,000 registered members and over 100,000 unique visitors per day.
In this episode, Tony, who emits a 365 driven attitude and a strong passion for helping others succeed, uncovers some of the common mistakes that prevent people from actualizing their dreams and monetizing their passions. We also discuss his struggle of being too focused on quality, and an innovative solution to help get his dream of an online course off the ground, and on the road to perfection.
My Guest: Tony Whatley
Tony Whatley became known as “The Side Hustle Millionaire” after his book with the same title became a #1 best-seller on Amazon. But, this book title isn’t just fiction; it is based on his actual story.
Tony once led a successful corporate career for over 25 years, but that is less interesting than the side-businesses that he created, which generated millions in profit.
As an active entrepreneur himself, he still owns a few businesses. But, his real passion is teaching entrepreneurs how to start, scale, and sell their business, within his consulting brand 365 Driven.
Episode Highlights:
[04:38]: So when I sold the website in 2007, which became the side hustle millionaire, there was about 160,000 registered members and we had over 100,000 unique visitors per day, which is a massive amount of traffic. It’s like a small city walking through the front door of your business.
[06:45]: Because to me, the integrity of the community means far more than the dollars. That’s why we built it. We treated it like a legitimate company.
[08:00]: People try to get followers and try to build their audience size on LinkedIn… and then now you can start to monetize things. But a lot of times people try to monetize too early… They haven’t built trust yet, so they lose the audience. So be willing to go in, one to two years really all out, and build the audience.
[13:00]: We got the systems in place, we got the other people working for him. And suddenly he’s like, “I see I’ve got free time, I’m nervous.” And I’m like, “Dude, but you’re earning more money, right?” He’s like, “Yeah, but I’m free.” I’m like, “Go to the beach.”
[15:30]: My mom’s Japanese, very disciplined on education, because she didn’t get that as a woman in Japan. I never missed a day of school. I went through kindergarten to graduation without missing a single day of school. She valued education.
[22:44]: I stuck Amazon number one bestseller, the logo, the goldcrest that you see on a lot of things, I stuck that on there before I typed the very first word of the book. And I published this in my group, I said, This is my vision and everybody saw it. I wrote the book and it became a number one bestseller in nine hours after launch. It sold over 1000 copies in the first week.
[26:03]: If it’s an amazing billboard, it’ll grab my attention. But I’d say 90% of them I kind of just bur out. And that’s the way most people’s Facebook feeds and Instagram feeds are too. If they just see an ad come by with a product sticking in their face and a photo of a product, people yawn and they just keep scrolling.
[30:55]: LinkedIn is the networking event. Facebook is the reunion party, Instagram is the coffee shop … and Twitter to me is the street corner.
[37:55]: I always say, you can climb any ladder, just not 14 runs at a time.
[39:03]: If I don’t see a face on their website, it tells me right away that they’re hiding, there’s something insecure about the design. Psychology, if they would have just talked to somebody that’s good at marketing, they would know that faces sell. There needs to be a human factor on every website, regardless of product.
[51:46]: There’s too many people who start companies with themselves at the top of the pyramid, and their company never scales larger than them as a person, as an individual. I’m the other way around, I like to have the pyramid upside down. I like to be the person that’s holding the pyramid it up above my head with a base on the top part.
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Resources & Links:
- Find Tony: 365driven.com
- Find Tony’s book: Side Hustle Millionaire
- Check out Tony on Social: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook
- Find Tony’s Facebook group: 365Driven Entrepreneurs
- Work with Estie: www.strandconsulting.net
- Join us on the Show: www.estierand.com/breakthrough
For Part 1 of this episode, where you can hear how Tony built his 6 figure side hustles, go to estierand.com/70-1.
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