🐧 Expat side hustle growth playbook

In my experience, the toughest thing about side hustles (and many businesses) is distribution.

Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 🥅 Setting expat side hustle goals
• 🏡 Create your landing page (plus: 2 templates)
• 🏎️ Drive traffic via your channel(s)
• 🤝 Close sales using an intro call script
• 🔁 Scale up using feedback loops

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🪝Side hustle growth guide

⭐️ Recap

Two parts to getting sales:

• Distribution: Getting leads
• Sales: Converting leads into buyers

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🧠 1. Prepare a growth mindset

🛠️ “Build it and they will come” mindset is a recipe for failure. I know many builders who cringe at the thought of self-promotion.

The reality is no one will know about what you’ve built until you publicly share your work.

How to fix:

1. Overcome your fear of self-promotion using a 30 day challenge. It is entirely possible to market your work authentically. Practice daily. Find what style fits you. If you’re competitive, challenge a friend to do 30 minutes each day over 30 days. Have fun with it!
2. Allocate 30-60% of your time to distribution / sales. This is a rough benchmark based on my former side hustles. Start on the higher end until you get over the cold start hump.

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🥅 2. Start with your end goal in mind

Now that you’ve cultivated the right mindset, lets zoom out to your money goal:

How much revenue do you want to generate from your side hustle in 1 year?

Let’s say, you aim to earn $1k USD / month.

🤔 How do you achieve this revenue?

Here’s your options:

• Sell 1x $1000 product monthly
• Sell 10x $100 products monthly
• Sell 100x $10 products monthly
• Sell 1000x $1 products monthly

🤔 Which option do you choose?

• It’s up to you: Pros and cons exist for all pricing levels whether high, mid, or low end. Consider your own superpowers and interests.
• Assess unit economics of your channel: Not every distribution channel will be feasible given the product price vs cost.

Example

Let’s say you’re an 🤖 AI creator in a mature industry.

If you sell a $10 PDF guide, then inbound sales calls are not good ROI. Instead, directing free traffic from social media channels to a sales landing pages make more sense.

However, if you sell a $1000 (or higher) coaching session, then an inbound sales call may be worth your time.

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🏡 3. Guide people to your home on the internet

💻️ Create a simple landing page. It’s not enough to just post on social media. You need to give people a place to go once they express interest in your product / service.

Here’s a simple landing page example from Justin Welsh:

📆 Setup a newsletter form and Calendly scheduling flow. Give customers ways to engage with you (sign up for newsletter) or reach out to learn more about your offer (schedule an intro call).

Example customer journey:

Customer discovers your short-form Linkedin content
→ Clicks to visit your personal website / newsletter
→ Reads your long-form content
→ Books a free intro call via Calendly

✍️ Tailor your offer messaging based on customer needs. Use the templates below to output foundational copy that you can use for landing pages.

Template #1 Customer Needs

• Segment: Sub-group that you’re targeting
• Needs: Pain points they experience

Template #2 Offer Messaging

• Hook: Why this segment should get excited to learn more
• Benefits: What value does your offer deliver for this segment
• Call-to-action: How these customers can get started (subscribe, buy)

Example

#1 Customer Needs

Segment: 5-figure independent consulting business owners

Needs:
• Tired of trading time for money
• Lack of know-how to scale marketing
• Confused about how to package 10+ services
• Not enough time

#2 Offer Messaging

Hook: I help you grow your independent consulting business from 5-figures to 6-figures in revenue

Benefits:
• Launch a $1000 digital product and get your first 10 customers
• Learn how to scale your paid & Linkedin marketing without more spend
• Design new price & packaging that drives 25% more sales
• Hire virtual assistants to scale your execution

CTA: Book a free strategy session

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🏎️ 4. Drive traffic via your distribution channel(s)

Now that you have a simple offer landing page, the next step is driving traffic to your page.

🥊 “Test and Prioritize” one-two punch:

1. Test 2-3 distribution channels for several weeks. For each channel, measure its ability to convert your audience into making a commitment (eg subscribing to your email list). Learn what’s working and not working. Stack rank your channels based on business potential.
2. Double down on growing the highest-potential channel. Cut other channels to get more ROI out of your time. Each channel typically requires upfront investment before leads start flowing in more organically.

📣 Channels

1. Friends & family: Everyone’s got to start somewhere…
2. Social media: Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Tik tok
3. Existing communities: offline (college campuses, workplaces) or online (eg Reddit, Slack groups, newsletters)
4. Website / newsletter: Create an email list and add a sign up option on your website

⚠️ Mistake #1 Spreading yourself too thin: Wasting time and energy executing many channels and not getting traction on any of them

How to fix:

• When you’re just starting out, prioritize the highest-potential channel. It takes several weeks (minimum) to get over a cold start and gain momentum
• Eventually you should 1/ see leads scale faster than your time spent 2/ get into a smooth executional rhythm
• Once the first channel has solid foundations, you can carve out time to test scale your second channel

⚠️ Mistake #2 Relying on social media platforms alone: Platforms can change their algorithms and your reach can plummet overnight.

How to fix:

• Build an email list
• Own the relationship with your audience
• Don’t get disintermediated by a platform

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🤝 5. Write a customer call script, close sales, and iterate

Your hard work is finally paying off. Now customers are booking your calendar for a free intro call.

🫶 Create a lightweight outline to help you navigate this consultative meeting and win your customer’s heart and mind.

Here’s my call structure:

• Intro phase: Introduce yourself, clarify your goal and the customer’s goal for the session
• Listen phase: Ask about your customer’s business and where they’re hitting roadblocks. Take notes. (hint: this phase should take up the bulk of your call. I usually prepare a list of questions in advance)
• Synthesis phase: Quickly summarize the customer’s goals, needs, where they’re getting stuck, and how they’d like to get unstuck (aka where you can help). Confirm with the customer if your understanding is correct.
• Sell phase: Walk through one-by-one how specific milestones/value propositions of your offer would help address each pain. Ask the customer if they’re interested in continuing with the offer. If yes, provide clear next steps (share payment link).

🗣️ Collect feedback and iterate. During the call, listen for feedback. After the call, use the feedback to iterate your sales approach and offering.

🏆️ Close the sale by acting as a guide. You don’t need to do a hard close during the call itself. Instead, give customers a clear next step on what to do if they want to purchase your offer.

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🔁 6. Scale up by looping through these steps

Now that you’ve managed to get your first few customers, don’t stop. Keep going.

➰ Repeat the same steps. Each cycle, use a tight customer feedback loop to make each step 5-10% more effective.

You’re on a path towards accelerating your sales.

👣 Steps we covered

1. Identify your business goal
2. Create a simple offer page
3. Drive traffic to your offer
4. Get customers to book a call
5. Deliver value in customer meeting
6. Win your customer
7. Repeat and iterate

Congrats! You’ve built a growth engine for your expat side hustle! 🎉

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🌐 Beyond your borders

🇭🇰 Expat students at Hong Kong schools decline by 12% (Bloomberg)

🇸🇬 3.5k high net-worth individuals to become Singapore citizens, mostly Chinese (Reddit)

🇸🇬 Wealthy Chinese expats not investing in Singapore (TDB)

🇺🇸 Remote work is back on the rise (slightly) in the short-term (LI)

🇬🇧 UK work visa trends: India ranks as #1 nationality (Medium)

🇦🇺 Five Australia universities ban Indian students over false visas (SI)