25 | Asset Factory: Making Money While You Watch Netflix

Ready to transform your business into a self-sustaining venture? This episode of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show promises to reveal the secrets of creating revenue-generating assets inspired by the timeless wisdom of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." We'll discuss how to develop products like online courses and manuals that sell themselves, allowing you to break free from the constant grind. Learn to tap into your customers' core needs and emotions, crafting low-cost, non-location-based offerings that not only expand your business's reach but also minimize your time investment. Say goodbye to the endless cycle of trading time for money and hello to a more sustainable business model.

Meet Tim, our metaphorical hero who embodies the struggles of everyday life—tired, in need of help, and muddling through. If you've ever felt like Tim, you're not alone, and we're here to remind you to stay annoyingly optimistic. We invite you to share your business questions, quirky thoughts, or even bizarre voicemails at voicemailstotim.com. Your insights might just feature in a future episode, offering a unique opportunity to engage with our community. So keep pushing forward, because a little inspiration can go a long way, especially when life hands you those inevitable lemons.

If you are self-employed or run a small business and feel more like you're self-annoyed then get in touch, visit the website www.theannoyinglyoptimisticshow.com where you can submit a question or problem and start your journey to becoming self-enjoyed! 

The majority of 'business advice' out there isn't aimed at self-employed or micro businesses, following it leaves you frustrated and chasing quick fixes. I specialise in tools, systems, techniques, inspiration and help specifically designed for YOU, the person who has to do it all, who doesn't have a team of people, unlimited resources or the time to spend months learning complicated techniques. 

Transcript

Creating Assets for Business Growth

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey there, listeners, it's your annoyingly optimistic host here bringing you another season of the Annoyingly Optimistic Show. Welcome to Season 2, voicemails to Tim. Now let's meet Tim. He's been running his own small business for almost three years now and let's just say he's hit a bit of a rough patch. You know how it is Sometimes you get so stuck, you make yourself busy and just avoid finding the real problems. Well, that's Tim. So, as a good friend, I decide to leave him a daily voicemail, if I can't get hold of him, filled with nuggets of inspiration, insight and wisdom and downright brilliant ideas to help get him unstuck Every day. In just under 10 minutes I'll share some tips, tricks and a healthy dose of optimism to get Tim, and maybe even you, back on track, because, let's face it, we're all a little tired, in need of help and muddling through. So here we go. Oh wait, never mind Tim's being busy. Here's the voicemail I left him today. Hi, tim, missed you again. Thanks for your message. You fired me about the the drink more caffeine the other day. That was quite funny, it kept me, it made me laugh.

Speaker 1 1:04

But anyway, another one for you today, another kind of idea, something to consider and you know I love my books and I'm talking about various kind of books, and this is kind of inspired by one, and I was talking about someone about this the other day and I thought, oh, must share that with. With Tim is. There's a great book called Rich Dad, poor Dad. I am not, as I did far too often, going to try and butcher the author's name because I've never been able to pronounce it, but look it up, it's a famous book and I came to this one late, I heard. I'd heard lots of people kind of talking about it and there's lots of, lots of kind of takeaways from that and there's lots of similar themes which run across other books as well. So it kind of helped tie things together.

Speaker 1 1:49

But one of the key things it was is this idea of assets, and this is very relevant in where you are and in kind of self-employed, because we view a lot of the time that we only really have one asset and that is us driving the business, creating the value in the business, creating the, the products and everything else. And there is an element that that is 100% true we we are the asset. But that's why it's important to think of assets in different ways and think of actively creating them because, as we've spoken a lot about this difference between business and and being self-employed, and again part of this comes down to where you want to go with your business. But while we are the business and while the business is us, it's not really a business at all. It's a job. And why is it's a job? Because if we go on holiday, the business stops. What an asset allows you to do without suddenly worrying about staff and pensions and expansion and all the rest of it. So it still keeps within that lane of self-employed, which is very different.

Speaker 1 2:53

But it's about creating things that can generate money that don't require your input. It's creating something once that you can sell over and over again and, theoretically, can sell when you're not there to sell them. These are typically products online because they require less. These can be courses, these can be manuals, these can be anything whereby you put that time and effort in once to create the thing and then it's there forever. It's there. Yeah, it might need updating and tweaking and as things kind of change, but it's something that you can potentially sell over and over again.

Speaker 1 3:31

Now this can often be very difficult because the core product and the same with you, Tim, that you sell, kind of, is purely based on your time and what you create, and it's not about building up stock and things like that. So it can become very difficult and this is where you often have to step back a little bit and look at okay, who are my customers? What is it they want? What's the driver that makes them want to buy my product or service? What's the thing that's going through their mind, what's the conversation they're having when they decide to want to use my product? And if you get inside their head and we've talked about this before and and I know we've got something booked a few weeks ago, a few weeks time we're going to be talking about this but if you can really get inside their head and understand that, what you can then start to do is you.

Speaker 1 4:19

You separate the decisions, the emotion, the drivers that they're using from your product and you kind of go okay, well, this is what the what's actually driving the person. Because, remember, once you identify that core driver, that core emotion, that core thing that's pushing them towards you, there will be lots of people that share that same drive and passion, but don't end up buying your product or service. They, they decide to do that elsewhere, and when you do that, that's where you can often see well, okay, yeah, they might want, not want to come to me or do this particular thing because of this. So if I could offer something along the alongside of this, that that catered for a slightly different need, came from a different angle and thinking of it not as a new product or service, but if this whole discussion makes you think of a new product or service, fantastic. But if you can think of something that you can then create and again, typically this is great if it's potentially a low value.

Speaker 1 5:20

You know one of the obstacles of people potentially not shopping with you, not using you, could be product, could be time, could be price, could be availability, could be location. So if you can take some, make something that takes as many of those off the table, that it's not location-based, that it doesn't take a long time, that it doesn't cost them a lot of money, you're suddenly widening that audience and you've got something that, rather than you, you know you might be servicing people that within 35 minutes to you, that are within a you know, earn a certain amount of money and things like that, whereas all of a sudden, you can now be creating something that might be nationally, might be internationally and that could be sold online, or even if it's a product, it could be something that could be mailed out and things like that. So it's really worth kind of putting some time and effort into this, not taking away from your main business, but exploring and understanding your customer better, which will always benefit your core product anyway. But how can you take that understanding of your customers and their needs and their wants and what you do for them and take that idea and just take it a couple of steps either side of where you currently are and potentially create something that then is creating that that forever value? Because if you could, say, create a 20 pound, 25 pound, whatever it might be product that all of a sudden there might be costs of seven or eight pounds, but this is something that you could, you know, ship out if it's something physical, or have online if it wasn't, and you're paying for kind of hosting and things like that. But all of a sudden you're making 15, 16 quid per product, but your catchment area is suddenly 70 million people. You know whatever your niche is within that, you know. So all of a sudden you might be able to sell a thousand of those a year with very minimal kind of spend, but that can certainly make a difference to your, to your bottom line.

Speaker 1 7:18

And again, if you can come up with one of those, there is generally and you get something that sells, there is generally the option to go well, I can do a bigger version, I can do a bundle, and there's additional things that you can create around that. And all of a sudden you've not created a side hustle, you've not created a second business, you've created an asset to what you do which can give you the ability to then focus on your business but also potentially make those changes in your business because you've got this other revenue that your business is generating. So it was just an idea. I've got a couple of things in mind that I think you could potentially look at, but I just wanted to put that out there and see what you thought. This idea of creating assets Obviously, go and read the book, because it's a fantastic book and a great read.

Finding Inspiration in Struggles

Speaker 1 8:04

There's a lot to take from it, but that was one thing that that kind of grabbed me and I thought might be useful to you. So let me know, tim, see what you think and I'll catch up with you soon. Bye for now, and that's it for today's episode of voicemails to Tim on the annoyingly optimistic show. Now, remember, tim might be busy, but we're all in this together. Whether you're tired, in need of help or just muddling through, tim is here for you because, well, tim is you.

Speaker 1 8:29

Yes, you heard that right. Tim isn't just my friend, he's a reflection of all of us who are struggling to make it work. T-i-m stands for tired, in need of help and muddling through. So if you're feeling like a Tim, you're not alone For all those ambitious listeners. If you've got a burning business question, a quirky thought or just want to see if you can leave an even weirder voicemail, head over to the website voicemailstotimcom, submit your question and maybe, just maybe, you'll hear your idea in a future voicemail to Tim. So until then, stay annoyingly optimistic, keep pushing forward and remember, if life gives you lemons, leave a voicemail about it.