Hustle with Heels Podcast

Ep22. The Three Biggest Mistakes That Keep Your Side Hustle Stuck

• Cindy Excell

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Starting a side hustle is exciting, but certain mistakes can slow you down before you even gain momentum. I know because I made them too.


In this episode, we’re breaking down the three biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make. Like treating their side hustle like a hobby, getting stuck in the learning trap, and focusing on the wrong tasks instead of income-generating activities.


These are the things that keep businesses from growing, and I’ll show you exactly how to shift your approach so you can start seeing real progress.


If you want to build a side hustle that actually moves forward while juggling your corporate job, let’s make sure you’re setting yourself up for success.


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Welcome to the Hustle With Heels podcast. I'm your host, Cindy Excell, a corporate girl start hustler wife and a mom of two in 2020. I started my first start hustle as an online fitness coach while working in my corporate job as a private wealth manager. Over the years, I have been leading proof that a corporate career and a.

Side hustle can absolutely coexist in harmony. Today, I'm helping corporate women and early stage entrepreneurs create wealth beyond that nine to five jobs and build an online business on their terms. On this podcast, I'll share my knowledge, strategies, and stories that will help you start and grow your side hustle.

Whether you are ready to diversify your income streams or are looking to build a start business that aligns with your goals, I'm here to support you every step of the way. Now, let's get started.  Hey friend, welcome back to another episode of hustle With Heels Podcast. And today I want to talk about some of the biggest mistakes that new entrepreneurs or the startup hustlers make that could slow you down, or even worse, make you, you know, give up before you even gain any traction with your business.

And I'm going to go through three of those mistakes now, if you are just getting started. You do not want to miss this episode because let me tell you, when I started my side hustle, I made every single one of those mistakes. I wasted time, energy, and it felt actually quite stressful and overwhelming as well, because I didn't know any better.

I have been there. I wanted to share these mistakes with you so that you are aware of them, and I highly recommend you take some notes for this episode because it is packed with actionable steps that you can start using and get unstuck immediately. Okay, let's get into it.  The first mistake is treating your set hustle like a hobby, and then not having a plan.

If you are in a corporate job and you've been conditioned to say your nine to five as your real job or real work, and everything else is just extra, so when you start your set hustle, it is very easy. To treat it like an afterthought. You work under the way you have time, which in this case, since you have a full-time, nine to five job, maybe kids, maybe family commitments as well.

If you're like me, which really means having time is not going to be very often for you. Or maybe you think something like, let me just say how this goes, or I don't want to put too much pressure on it. Yet, many new entrepreneurs struggle with their side hustles. Because they don't treat it like a real business from the start.

If you wake up every day with no clear plan, you're just hoping that you will find the time to work on it between your jobs, between your meetings, life and the family, et cetera. And I guess what happens, the wake flies by and you, you know, barely made any progress. You probably feel frustrated and tell yourself you are just too busy and your side businesses could end up staying stuck for weeks.

Months or even years. So you think you've started a startup business, but if you are not working on it and in it, you are not going to make any income. And if your business is not generating income, it is just going to turn into a passion project or a hobby. I remember surreal story in 2021, there was a period in my previous fitness coaching business, I was in this 12 months long group coaching program.

I was all excited and pumped for like, you know, two or three months. I did a lot of activities. I set up a few clients. Then life got in the way. I was still quite new as a coach at that time. I. I was still finding my way of being a business owner and entrepreneur while working in my corporate job, and also mom of too.

But the second half of that program that I was in, I was really struggled with signing up clients from social media. Well, luckily I had my existing clients in know renewing their contracts, and I got the referrals from time to time. But for what I actually want to work on, which was to sign up clients from social media, from Instagram.

At that time I was really struggling. And then when I self-reflected, I realized that I actually didn't really have a plan to work on that part of my business during those time. And the solution to not to make this mistake is to have a clear plan. Because if you don't take your business seriously now, it will never grow into something serious later.

And here's the mindset shift you need to make. Your Sad Hustle is a business from day one. If you are listening to this podcast, I believe you are serious about building a sad business, not just a hobby, right? And even if you are just starting, even if you haven't made a dollar yet, you have to treat it like an asset, a business, not just a passion project or hobby.

Now to help you fix that, here are your action steps. If you've got a pen and a paper, and you can write this note down, first and foremost. Understand your why. I know that if you are listening to some of the self-development or self-help books or business books, you probably hear this a lot, understand your big why it is so, so critical at the beginning because you need to ask yourself, why do I start this business in the first place and why you choose to take this path?

Because let's be honest, this is not an easy path.  Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and the starting a start business is not for everyone. Some people will make it and some people won't. As harsh as it sounds, it's just the reality. But the ones who made it are not the ones who are smarter than you or more educated than you, or richer than you.

Well, some of them might be, but most definitely not. The majority. The ones who actually made it are the ones who are persistent, who keep working on it until it works. And usually those people have a very strong why to drive them. Keep going on this journey. When I first started my side hustle over four and a half years ago, my why was very simple.

I just wanted to diversify my income to create career options so that I don't have to be dependent on any employer. But over the years, while I'm moving along on this journey, after I have seen so many times what. It's actually possible with this entrepreneurship, with my business. After I have seen so many people just like me, they have reached the level of the success that I want and my why has evolved.

Now, my big why is that I want to build a financial security and financial freedom that allow me to provide what my family, my kids need. And I want to build a business that allowed my loved ones do what they want to do without worrying about money, without worrying about bills, and to give them the options as well.

And that's the why that drives me every single day and motivate me every single day when I'm working on my business. So whatever your why is, no matter how big or small, because it will evolve over time, write them down and put it somewhere you can see that is your big vision. You work towards with your side hustle.

Once you are clear on your big why, then ask yourself this. Where do I want to be with my side hustle in 12 months time? What does success look like for me Is that to reach 5K per month, 10 clients, or maybe replacing my, maybe replacing your salary. And then from there, you break the down from 12 months to three months and then to one month and then to one week.

That's how you come up with your weekly action plan by following those steps, and your weekly plan should include only essential actions that move the needle because you have still have a full-time job. You still have a family to look after, and you don't have all the time to spend on your business at this stage, well, at least not yet.

That's why everything you do in your business, in your daily action, it should be the essential things that help you either generating income or stand up clients should be the things that move the needle for you. And then from there, you set dedicated time for your business. And commit to it just like you show up for your meetings at your nine to five job schedule time for your set hustle as a non-negotiable meeting and stick to it.

And then once you've done that every week, you should track your efforts and adjust if you need. Because what gets measured gets improved, even if it's as simple as, I spent two hours this week to create my author. Be very specific on what you are going to do for your business, when you are going to do it, and what outcome you want to achieve.

Once you've done it, review your schedule at the end of each week and make adjustment accordingly. This is the way to hold yourself accountable, especially as a solopreneur, so that you can stick to the plan and keep your business moving forward. Remember, your side hustle is a real business from day one, so treat it like one.

I.  Now moving on to mistake number two. I have seen this one all the time for early stage entrepreneurs. They get stuck in the learning trap and they're not executing well. This one can be very sneaky and I'm guilty of that myself. I have done that so many times before. If this one speaks to you, just know that you are not alone.

You know their feelings when you think, I just need to learn a little bit more before I start. So what do you do? You start watching YouTube videos and, uh, binge listening podcasts, you sign up for, you know, maybe another free masterclass because maybe this one will give you the missing piece, or you buy another business book and highlight every single word.

Either you think it hates home, and if you're really serious, you even enroll in a paid course. You're determined to go through every module before you take action. As if, as soon as you absorb all those information and the knowledge, your business will make six figures or more just like that. And before you know it, you've spent three months learning, but zero time actually doing this is what we called the learning trap.

Look, I love learning. As someone grew up in China and all my childhood and the college years, were all about education. In fact, if you check out my LinkedIn profile, you probably will see all those educations title. Degrees, professional designations I have done with my corporate career over the years. I literally obtained the highest education and the most respected professional designations I could with my corporate career.

The financial advice career, that's how much I love about learning. When it comes to building a business, there are so many new skills to learn in business Building, in marketing and learning those skills make you feel that you are being productive. You probably tell yourself, I'm preparing myself for success, or I don't want to put out a bad author.

I need to make sure I know everything first before I launch my author. Or I just need to be more confident before I start talking to clients. But the hard truth is this. Learning doesn't build a business. Execution does. I've seen people taking courses after courses and then never launch an author, not even a 60 Minutes webinar or masterclass.

Why? Because learning feels safe. I. But taking actions, that's scary. It's easier to sit behind a laptop watching the training, the tutorials, than putting yourself out there and actually talking to, um, potential clients, sharing your knowledge and setting your offer. Because once you take action, there is a chance that someone might not like what you say.

Or someone might say no, or someone might ignore you completely. That's terrifying. And all of those things will happen. It'll happen to me. It'll happened to many other cultures before, and it will happen to you as well. So instead of letting the fear trick you into thinking, I just need to learn a little more.

Turn that around and reframe that. As the sooner I start implementing what I have learned, the sooner I get my first rejection, the sooner I am going to sign up clients and hit the income goal in my business. Because there is no amount of learning will ever make you feel 100% ready. That's just a fact.

You've heard all about knowledge is power, but knowledge only becomes power when you apply it. Now to help you break out of this learning trap, here are a few steps you can follow. Number one, dedicated a fixed amount of time every week to learning, and then you stop. So it is almost like give yourself a learning cap.

You can set up as either one hour or two hours per week. And you only allow yourself to do all the training, all the modules, whatever that might be in those two hours window, and then the rest of the time of the wake, use that to implement because learning should be a small part of your wake, not the whole thing.

I. And the second step is you follow and learn and implement a cycle, right? Every time you learn something new, you take action immediately. For example, if you learned about how to send direct message to people and build that connection, once you've learned that part, you send three messages on the same day.

Step number three is to ask yourself, would I pay myself for what I did today? What I meant by that is if you spend the whole day watching YouTube video or watching the training, the answer is no. Right, but if you took actions and moved your business forward, and if you did some income generating activities and you will pay yourself for it, and you are on track, remember this, you do not need more knowledge.

You need to take more action. Moving on to mistake number three is focusing on everything else except revenue generating activities. Four. This is a big one. Even today's date, I still catch myself on this one every now and then, but now I can very quickly turn that around and switch the focus on revenue generating activities instead.

So what this one looks like is that you're spending weeks, sometimes months, perfecting your logo, your website, your social media profile, your Instagram grade, but you never actually doing any activities that drives you, the leads or sales. This one is actually has some similarity to the last mistake because again, they make you feel like you are being productive because you are working on your business.

Right. All those activities are business related. It feels that you are doing something for your business, but if you ask yourself, are those activities going to make the biggest impact and the generating revenue for you, the answer is most likely no. Your business needs income. Otherwise, it's just a hobby.

If I ask you the question that, which one of these activities is going to help you hit your income goal, is that going to be spending six weeks tweaking your website, or is that going to be spending six weeks having conversations with potential clients? The answer is quite obvious, right? When I started, I also wasted time on this too.

I thought I need to have a professional looking website, but guess what? My first client. My sister, few clients actually, they didn't care about my website. They didn't even come from my website. They cared about how I can help them, and they came from the conversations, website, logo, social media, aesthetics.

They all have their time and space, and you will need all of them at some point in time, but you do not need them immediately. So get your priorities right and set non-negotiables for income generation tasks weekly and daily. Here's your new rule. Every week, ask yourself, am I doing things that will actually lead to clients?

If not, shift your focus and your action steps from this one is have a 80 20 rule, which means spend 80% of your time on revenue generating tasks such as.  Outrage, talking to potential clients, asking for referrals and setting your offer, and also stop overcomplicating things. Your first clients wouldn't come from a perfect website.

They will come from your conversations. So there you have it. Those are the three most common three mistakes I have seen many new entrepreneurs are making, and I hope by being aware of those mistakes, you are not going to be wasting your time and energy at the beginning stage of your sad hustle journey.

I. And we've covered a lot today. If you're still here listening all the way through, I already know one thing about you. You are serious about making your son hustle work, and that will make all the difference because let's be real, most people will not take action.  Most people will just listen. Nodding their heads, maybe even feel inspired.

But when it comes down to actually doing the work, they phrase, but not you, you are here because you don't just want to think about the building a business. You actually, you want to make the happen building your startup business. It's not just about the strategy, it's not just about the checking of your to-do list.

It is about becoming the person who follows through on their dreams. Now, I want you to take a moment and ask yourself, which one of these mistakes am I making right now, and what's the one thing I can do today to change that? Because at the end of the day, nothing changes if you don't take action and then let me be super real with you.

Your business, no one's coming to build it for you, and you have to be the one to show up. Putting the work and make that happen. I know that it can feel uncomfortable, it can feel even scary, and I know there are moments where you probably will question yourself as well, but that's what makes you different and that's what makes you an entrepreneur, because while everyone else is waiting for the perfect time or more knowledge, or more confidence.

You, you are going to take action and listen. If you even had one aha moment, I want you to do two things for me. First, go implement, pick one action, step and do it today. Second. Screenshot this episode. Tag me on LinkedIn.  Or just message me on LinkedIn and then tell me which mistake hit home for you. I want to hear from you and I want to celebrate your progress, and most importantly, I want to see your win.

Alright, my friend, that's it for today. Just remember, you are capable and you are resourceful. You are meant for more than just a paycheck. Your business is not a dream. It is an A set you are building for your future. So keep taking actions, keep building yourself, and I'll see you next week in the next episode.

You've got this. Thank you so much for listening to the Hustle with Heels podcast. I hope this episode has inspired you to take action towards your set hustle dream. If you en enjoyed this episode. Please take a second to rate and review it. Each review helps me help more corporate women and early stage entrepreneurs just like you.

Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories, all on LinkedIn, and check me at Cindy Excell. I will see you next week.