in this interview I talked to Elise
Dharma she took her side hustle and grew
it into a multi six-figure full-time gig
so we dig into and talk about how she
got started we talked about how lease
used her relationships and network from
her full-time gig to help launch her
side hustle and eventually grew into her
full-time job and at this point she
provides services for clients with some
agency work she has some courses and she
does some one-on-one consulting as well
super interesting her main focus is
Instagram in fact you should definitely
check out her free masterclass on how to
grow your Instagram following from
nothing to a thousand within 30 days and
that's free it's over an instant growth
boss calm and I'll put a link in the
description so you can get to it easy we
also talked about why she traveled to
Bali and how that helped her grow her
business and get clarity about her
vision and what she wanted to do and
before we get to the interview I want to
remind you this is part of a series of
interviews with side hustlers I talk to
people like Nick Lowe / Shayne Myers and
Dave young so be sure to check out the
playlist with the rest of these
interviews and let me know in the
comments if you want to see more of
that you want to see as well so without
further ado let's get to the interview
with Elise hey Doug Huntington here I'm
sitting with Elise Dharma welcome how
are you today I'm good thanks thanks for
having me Doug thank you for joining us
and this is part of the side hustle
series so I think we'll just jump right
into it so for people that don't know
you Elise can you give us a little bit
of your background and kind of what
you're working on now
sure well depends how far back you want
to go but I was a nine-to-five employee
once upon a time it was four years ago
that I last worked in a day job and it
was during my time as an employee that I
built my service based business on the
side so I took my skills my interests my
passions and I turned that into a
service that I could offer to clients
and within nine months I had a pretty
full roster of clients I was able to
quit my job which
had been a dream for a while but also is
still very scary anytime you're making a
huge life change and you're leaving
behind benefits and your friends and all
that stuff but I quit and then with my
new business in tow I went traveling for
a couple months right after effectively
it was kind of an Eat Pray Love trip but
that was my first taste of being a
full-time digital nomad having a
business with me that I could do from
wherever in the world and that's
basically what I've been doing for the
last few years I'd say in the last two
years I've moved more into the education
space of taking everything that I've
learned all the UPS the Downs and the
mistakes and sharing them with people so
that they can also achieve this
lifestyle based business but a whole lot
faster then then I did and yeah I find
myself mostly focused on Instagram these
days that's how I got my very first
client was growing their Instagram for
their e-commerce business and that's
what I teach quite a bit now is
Instagram marketing and how to use
Instagram to grow your business very
cool and what was your your full-time
job before you transitioned over to your
own gig I was working in social media so
I was working in social media pretty
early on this was 2010 when I started
working in this realm and it wasn't what
it is today being a social media manager
essentially was managing a company's
Facebook and Twitter and I was lucky in
that I was working in a start-up space
for I was working in an incubator for
start-up so I I became known as kind of
the social media person amongst you know
30 to 50 small businesses and that's
essentially how I was able to get my
first client was by being in that
environment inevitably I was asked one
day to manage a company social media
very cool and that's like the perfect
transition where you were exposed to a
big network of people you developed your
skills like on someone else's like dime
was that like intentional at all or you
just like we're at the right place at
the right time and like worked really
hard yeah I developed the skills on the
side of the job just because I wasn't
focused on Instagram for my actual job I
just
knew that because I was already in the
space even though this was a new
platform I could figure it out so I just
had the the faith in myself that I'd be
able to figure it out and yeah it all it
did end up creating this ball of
momentum that you know just as word
spread and as I got more referrals I did
have a full-time business within nine
months and that was you know without a
website without personal brand making
any launches happen it was solely
through my word warm network and and
word-of-mouth so yeah and I was also
lucky in that I jumped on Instagram back
in 2013 before it really was you know
leveraged as much as it is today by
businesses gotcha and has it so I didn't
hop on Instagram for a while and I mean
some would say that I'm not really on
there my dog has an account she's doing
really well like way better than my own
account but like how has it changed over
the last few years
yeah it's changed a lot when I first
started on Instagram it was like the
wild wild west there wasn't really much
in terms of tools for businesses to grow
it was really like a teenager's
playground this was before snapchat was
really that big too
you know tons of overly filtered
pictures borders that came with posts
even when I got on Instagram I wasn't
thinking about using it for business if
you go back to the very first few posts
of my feet it's a lot of party pictures
and food pictures you know random stuff
that we used to do and yeah fast forward
five years later
I mean Instagram is Facebook's new
Facebook as they're saying it's where
all the new features are being rolled
out and Facebook wants you to be using
Instagram as the platform to grow your
business and for me and my business it
is an awesome advertising platform but
beyond that you can still use Instagram
in so many ways to grow organically and
that's huge too that's why Instagram is
so popular with businesses is because
engagement is the highest their people
scrolling through the app are most ready
to buy on Instagram than on any other
platform and
that's why I cover in my master class a
thousand three ways to get a thousand
Instagram followers in 30 days because I
truly believe that you actually don't
need you know ten thousand followers a
hundred thousand followers to have an
impact on your business
you just need quality followers the
right followers following you that you
then lead to your business and like with
a thousand even less than a thousand
followers you can generate leads and
customers to your business no problem
I've seen it time and time again okay so
let's get into the nuts and bolts
because I think from the couple things
that I just mentioned I'm not very good
at Instagram I don't put a lot of effort
in so it's totally my own fault but for
me I'm sort of thinking like do I have
to post all the time and like really
nurture and spend time on Instagram like
each and every single day can you just
kind of explain it to me in layman's
terms consistency is definitely key on
Instagram you'll hear that a lot
probably if you start looking up
Instagram marketing materials but your
audience wants to know that you're gonna
be there for them you know it's kind of
like if you have a youtube channel what
you do and you let your foot your
subscribers know new video every Tuesday
it's kind of the same idea with
Instagram if they get used to seeing a
new post a new piece of content from you
on let's say a daily basis they're gonna
want to see that and when you do stop
that consistency you're gonna see a drop
in followers and the drop in engagement
so it is a commitment you know it
doesn't just happen overnight or without
the effort I tell business owners to
focus on Instagram if that is where your
perfect target ideal customers are if
that's where they're hanging out then
it's probably worth your commitment to
building that brand building that feed
on Instagram but more than that I mean
people want to get value from Instagram
they don't want to be sold to or
marketed to by following you on
Instagram so I define value in three
ways in terms of Instagram land you can
give value by inspiring people by
educating people and by entertaining
people and your feed can
one of those things or mix of those
things but that's generally why someone
will follow you like a personal brand
account or a business brand account is
they want to be entertained educated or
inspired and if you can do that on a
consistent daily basis I say daily
because it's usually the best frequency
that most people can stick with that
could it could even be just weekdays
like Monday to Friday post every day but
if you can do that daily then you are
going to attract your your target people
and your tribe on Instagram cool and I
guess I mean I hear the same sort of
advice in YouTube like you said or for
podcast like as long as you're meeting
the expectations of your audience
and your tribe and all that you should
be in good shape so I guess that means
you could probably like take a vacation
and say like hey I'm out of pocket for a
week and people won't get too upset at
you right yeah people love transparency
if you do want to let them know hey I'm
not a robot I'm gonna take three weeks
off or you can just schedule posts ahead
of time as well cool got it
so switching gears a little bit let's
kind of get into the nuts and bolts of
like when you were first starting your
freelancing practice and like how did
you structure like the deals with your
clients and how did you even figure it
out I know that's a struggle for a
service business when you don't know
exactly what they want or what they'll
pay and all that so how did you approach
it yeah it was definitely trial by error
this was 2013
so the concept of a course or business
coach was nowhere near my my brain at
that time I just knew it was an
experiment in a way and I I trusted in
myself that I'd be able to figure it out
I was also lucky in that my first client
was someone who I was friends with too
and they were also running a fairly new
business so we kind of had this
understanding that we were figuring
things out together and it doesn't mean
that I didn't take my role seriously I
definitely ensured that I was getting
them results and making sure my
deliverables were there I never wanted a
client to check up on me so I did set
certain standards right from the
beginning even to give myself
flexibility and
just figuring it out so that was my
strategy you know a lot of it was using
just what was common sense for me at
that time we had an agreement for me to
work on their the the company was an
e-commerce brand so I already knew I was
dealing with like a visual physical
product fashion fashion brand and I
wanted to build the lifestyle into the
feed of the target person and the target
customer at that time was typically a
teenager so the feed was a ton of fun I
knew I was able to figure out the vibe
the messaging I had a background in
screenwriting right and and copywriting
so I was able to tap into those skills
to talk to teenagers through the
captions and then when it came to the
business side of things I mean there was
a lot of talking to my network of people
who had already been there done that so
I did reach out to people who could
advise me on where to get a contract
template how to get that contract
figured out how to figure out you know
invoicing a client getting paid what
about accounting accounting was a whole
new topic dealing with taxes oh and now
I can write off expenses like this was
all new and luckily for me I had two
close friends that were also in the
business space themselves they were
running startups so even with their
perspective they were able to help
advise and I was able to figure it out
from there cool actually that's just
amazing that all the pieces like fell
into place so you shaped it as best you
could and then you were able to like get
advice as you went along and then I
guess after a few clients you kind of
have like the you know product ID
service where you were like here's what
you get you get a couple options that
sort of thing yeah in a way I mean at
that time I didn't really know about
offering a package of services or
anything to streamlines like that it was
more so someone would talk to me and
they would tell me what they were
looking for
I would just sort of say like yeah I can
do that or now I'm not really into doing
that so much so I just stuck with my
realm I new social media marketing I was
comfortable with I knew I was
comfortable with writing so I was able
to then offer newsletter writing skills
and I also had experience with MailChimp
so I was also able to design and deploy
those newsletters as well and then of
course with writing came log creation as
well writing blogs so I just stuck with
my strengths writing social media and
whenever they asked me for certain
services around those yes whenever they
asked me for something like Facebook Ads
I was like no I'm not gonna promise you
something and then figure it out as I'm
doing it you know when you're new and
you're just starting your side hustle
you don't want to set yourself up for a
big potential like disaster like that
you know you want to be fairly
comfortable in that skill even even
while you're still learning it you know
even with clients if you want to be
fairly confident in it before you start
charging people money for it thank you
for saying that so many like gurus or
whatever will say like just get the
client to agree and then pay and then
you can figure it out along the way
maybe hire other people to do it and
it's like oh that's the worst advice
yeah oh man outsourcing like someone
that you're just meeting from from the
internet and then it's all going under
your name that is like a recipe for
disaster for me yeah very scary so
interesting and now I guess do you
outsource anything now do you have any V
A's or anything like that
yes business has definitely changed I
would say for the first two years I did
mostly everything on my own
the very first contracted job I hired
someone out for was to help with the
writing aspect so I turned to people I
already knew
like in the flesh I knew these people as
friends as coworkers
I wasn't hiring overseas and and I was
able to bring them on as ghost writers
and today I have a team of about five
contractors and they help me with all
the agency side of things so I've got a
designer I've got a social media
marketer I've got a writer and
for my Alise Dharma business which is
more of the coaching in the education
space I have a marketing VA and an ads
person and now potentially a video
person as well so definitely definitely
as you grow you know you're gonna you're
gonna need to hire and add people to
your team and are you managing all of
them yourself or do you have a project
manager or any other folks in there I'm
the go-to person right now I have hired
on a project manager who's my marketing
assistant and I mean we're a couple
months into working together so we're
just sort of getting she's getting a
feel for my entire business and then
eventually I'm gonna be stepping back in
that role and then she's gonna move
forward into that role cool very cool so
from the freelancing perspective and
just side hustle do you have any like
other advice or things that you like
learned along the way as you were
transitioning from like side hustle to
the full-time gig well my some some
people recommend to go all-in like burn
the bridge and quit your job and go
all-in
I've never advised that because my story
was very different I am someone who
loves their security as much as I love
to travel I call myself a vagabonding
homebody you know I love having a home
base I love having a secure level of
income and that was the scariest part
about quitting my full-time job was
leaving behind that consistent paycheck
and benefits so for me my strategy was
to hold on to both my day job and my
clients on the side for as long as I
possibly do both I did both for nine
months some people are ready to ditch
their day job after three months or six
months you know I purposely wanted to
hold on and save money and just create a
little nest egg because I was pretty
confident in myself but it's still just
such a massive leap a massive life
change I just didn't really know what
was gonna happen so I wanted to set
myself up for success as much as
possible so I recommend that to anyone
else if they have the inkling to have
their own business you know keep your
current situation as is and yes you are
gonna have to work beyond your day job
when I had my day job I was working 15
to 20 ish hours on top of it so it meant
two nights a week and a weekend day you
have to make sacrifices if you want to
get to that level right so I do
recommend to people work on either
developing that skill on the side of
your day job
that skill that you can use in the
online world or work on developing your
business on the side of your day job and
then once you have that momentum then
you can kind of make the decision like
Oh am I gonna quit or not because it's a
whole different picture when you are
your own boss you aren't just doing
services for your clients you are doing
the marketing of your business you're
doing the finances the vision planning
the accounting the nitty-gritty tech
stuff like you do have to do what you
want to prepare yourself as much as
possible so I know that's not super sexy
advice and exciting but to me it's more
practical and you know I was advising
any friend to do something like that
that's exactly what I would tell them to
do me too 100% agree I mean I had a side
thing for like two years and I got laid
off so it was kind of like a little push
but yeah I mean I would have stayed with
it for even longer if I could have
steady paycheck benefits all the good
things so yeah yeah now I get a lot of
questions about like how to stay
motivated when maybe things aren't
exactly going your way and you're you
have you know your full time job you're
trying to put the time in on the side
like how did you stay motivated when you
know you were tired or just was
going wrong it was hard you know for
nine months I was sacrificing like I
said two nights a week or a beautiful
Saturday morning and afternoon so you
really have to be committed to the
grander vision and understanding that
you're not doing this for the rest of
your life you're it's a temporary phase
that you're in to prepare yourself and
give yourself the best shot at having
your own business full-time so I
surrounded myself with people who
understood where I was at I was my
boyfriend at the time worked in a really
young fast-paced startup his best friend
was a
Oh of that startup so they became my
go-to advisors in a non formal sense and
I actually ended up pulling back and
pulling away from my friends who didn't
get it and maybe they just didn't have
any experience with business maybe they
didn't understand why I was working so
much but I found that I had to become
really protective over my energy and who
I was spending it with and you know that
saying you are the some of the five
people you surround yourself with the
most that became really apparent in the
first summer of juggling both day job
and side business I started getting
having weird experiences with friends
which is actually totally normal I've
since learned so if you have tension or
a fight or something with family or
friends it is normal like that's totally
fine
but it made me retreat it made me just
get really protective because I was
already putting myself out there on a
limb doing stuff that was really new
even building any kind of public facing
brand I'd never done that before I had
to take care of myself I had to watch my
own back and make sure that I'm
surrounding myself with people who I
didn't have to question whether they
supported me or not they just did so I
think that's where I got my motivation
from they kept me on track they kept me
when things got tough they kept me you
know alert to the bigger vision the
bigger picture in a year later I mean I
was working remotely from you know Bali
and Costa Rica then Hawaii and it did
start to happen but yeah you have to be
really strategic about who you spend
your time with very good yeah I mean
that's really good advice it's very hard
if like people are like actively working
against you or don't believe in what
you're trying to do so it is emotionally
because yeah you can start you can keep
turning the cranks in your business you
can you know deliver the work for your
clients but emotionally if you're
feeling beaten down at all it can
it can take forever to do that work that
shouldn't take so long so you really got
to protect yourself for sure let's
change gears to like the travel aspect
so you you quit your job and then you
had clients and then you were like I'm
gonna hit the road so you went to you
said Bali Costa Rica Hawaii like how was
it traveling and working at the same
time yeah and one extra side note to
that story was there was a major
catalyst in my life to make travel
happen so as much as I'd love travel I
started traveling as a kid I had family
all over the world when I was 18 I
finished high school and I went on a
30-day trip to Europe with Contiki that
was like oh well the world is so big on
my bubble you know I spent my whole
twenties chasing that feeling of freedom
through travel I worked on a cruise ship
I moved across Canada and it was
interesting timing when I quit my day
job was just getting into the new rhythm
of working from home I didn't have an
office I worked for my dining table
wouldn't recommend that get a proper
desk and chair and just feeling a little
sad about not being around my co-workers
who were my good friends who you saw you
know you see them every day but a month
and a half two months after quitting I
went through a horrible breakup totally
blindsided and that's what actually put
me into a tailspin of feeling extremely
scared and alone for the situation I
just created right like I just lost my
my coworker Network I just lost what I
thought to be true with my relationship
it was a really interesting time because
it really made me think about my family
the most and just think like you know
what they are the study people there for
me and of course I had a few friends too
but in my haze of breakup depression and
the wildermann it was a friend of mine
who really pushed me to book a trip to
get out of my environment and I already
knew that I was going to go to Australia
for a family wedding and it was because
of this friend who encouraged me to stay
stay traveling for a while
so when I booked the three-month trip to
do Australia Bali Hawaii my own Eat Pray
Love
and then you know that effectively was
the first trip I took as a digital Nomad
that was the first time I took my new
business on the road and that was not my
intention my intention I just realized
this like a year ago like hmm that
breakup didn't happen I don't know if I
would have traveled like I did but it's
so funny how you know you got that
hindsight and that that perspective on
life after you're out of it but that's
what was the catalyst for that trip away
leave Toronto winter go to the warmth
have some time and space to heal and
just be by myself and meet new people
and that was the catalyst for he you
know digital Nomad travel preneur brand
and business that I have today
interesting and did like I guess you're
big on Instagram right so like did it
grow a lot during that period like
because you were traveling and had more
interesting things too or am i
connecting dots that don't connect yeah
I wasn't even thinking about it at that
point this was a year before I actually
looked at my own personal Instagram I
was very very shy and private and
personal at that time so I was sharing
pictures of Australia and Bali with you
know captions that weren't really I
wasn't being literal or super clear
about what was going on I was just
leading random quotes and stuff like
that because I was in a place personally
where I wasn't ready to publicly post
about and talk about the breakup and
everything I just purely I believe that
there are seasons in your life and that
was a season where I thought it was
gonna be business focused but life
happened and it was actually a season of
focusing on myself personally and that
was okay the business stuff came around
after I got out of that fog and I had I
need at that time I it was a catalyst
for me to come back home you know I
ended up meeting with therapists for the
first time ever and loved it and talked
to this person for eight months late
I really helped me unpack a lot about my
life that again has helped me get super
clear on who I am and way more confident
in having the the public brand and
persona that I have today so it was all
necessary yeah at that time the
Instagram idea of building my own
personal brand which that came along so
that I could get more clients for my
agency I needed more clients for my
agency I wanted to grow that business I
thought oh I'll just grow my personal
account with all my travel pictures that
I have but that didn't happen until a
year and a half later so hmm interesting
so like have you done other like long
trips and travel a lot like since then
yeah I when I look at my travel days
every year it always works out to be
just over a hundred days of each year I
spend working remotely since then I've
done pretty much one month spurts in
different areas I'm really a fan of
traveling to a place and not moving
around for a bit like stay there for a
minimum a week and I've also learned
that if I am gonna switch cities I need
to save my travel for the weekend
because it's too annoying to have a
whole workday like written off because
you're on the plane or on a train so
Nicaragua for a month with a company
called Nomad life that was really cool
I've done Costa Rica a few times and my
most recent longer trip was Bali last
November and I tend to partner now with
other digital nomads co-working based
companies and work with them and stay
with them for a month and yeah work and
live from somewhere cool cool and I like
that like one month period in a place to
you get to go to the grocery store like
live like a local a little bit versus
like feeling rushed to see everything so
I'll have that too yeah yeah all right
are you in any mastermind groups or have
you been over the years to you know help
you grow your business and that sort of
thing I am so for the first couple years
my agency business I just was a lone
soldier figured things out asked my
advisers and then that summer of you
know of realizing I wanted
to grow a business that's when I started
focusing on my personal account as a
portfolio piece essentially and then
when my personal account really had
momentum I think around 25,000 30,000
followers that's when I realized oh I
could hire someone who who could help me
figure out how to grow this as a
business that was the first time I
realized a business coach was a thing so
that was the first time that I hired a
coach we worked together for five months
to work on really at that time I was
creating a new second business and I
didn't realize it so I needed that help
to figure out who this new audience was
why were they following me what do they
want to learn turns out they wanted to
learn Instagram marketing and how to
have your own business so this was 2016
so since then it's really just been
tapping into that Network learning who
those people are and serving them as
much as I possibly can and then just
last year was when I joined a mastermind
for the first time so that was when my
business had grown so you know my
revenue hit over six figures for the
first time because for the first couple
years of running my own business my
revenue was pretty steady you know I was
one person doing services and I didn't
know how to scale it so I was typically
making the same amount every year and
with the lifestyle business I was fine
with that I just wanted to work remotely
and then when I realized I wanted to
grow a business and start to work
towards financial freedom that's when my
goal shifted that's when I hired a coach
that's when I hit six figures after I
hit six figures new benchmark new goal
to hit and then I joined a mastermind
which has also helped increase my
revenue - gotcha
and is the I think mastermind is there's
multiple definitions so is this like a
group that you joined and paid or it's
like a group of you know a few people
you guys chat every couple of weeks or a
combination what's your definition
that's a better question
this particular mastermind is a group
that I've joined with other
entrepreneurs and we all pay a monthly
fee essentially but it's a year-long
commitment so
yeah when I made that commitment to join
it was fairly serious because it's not a
membership site where you can try it for
a couple months and then cancel it this
was a signing a contract 12-month
commitment and which is very scary when
you're committing to a big chunk of your
revenue every month with the hopes of
growing your business but luckily for me
it was a good decision and it's helped
me grow my revenue but if that's not a
possibility for you I definitely
recommend forming a little coalition
mastermind with people who just get it
like they're working on the same thing
as you before I ever had a paid
mastermind I connected with a friend of
mine in the city that I lived in Toronto
and we were both working on two totally
different businesses hers was a software
based business creating a meal planning
software for nutritionists and mine was
service based but because we were both
doing it kind of alone we agreed to meet
up with each other once a month at a
coffee shop we kind of had a loose
agenda of what to talk about like our
wins our losses our lessons learned our
goals for the next month but it just
turned out to the kind of business
therapy and it was perfect
like it was a reason to get out of the
house it was a reason to feel like I'm
not the only one feeling like this so
yeah I definitely recommend connecting
with someone in your city in person once
a month if you're not gonna do the paid
route just yet cool and the groups that
I've been and were more like the latter
and totally like the business their
therapy stuff like that's kind of what
it ends up being but what would be like
the advantages or pros and cons for
either of them right so I'm curious like
would that paid mastermind like what
extra stuff do you get yeah it's totally
different because the way to do it with
a friend or just your community you're
generally exchanging ideas and thoughts
and giving each other your time yeah
it's therapy whereas the mastermind
that's paid depends how the mastermind
structured but typically you'll get a
chunk of like assets with your
membership so you'll get you know
software trainings that you need to know
to grow your business you'll get
templates with this mastermind that I'm
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