The Side Hustle Dilemma: When to Quit Your Day Job

Hello and welcome to the show. This is also an out and about recording, so I expect some noise in the background today. I'm not exactly sure how to title today's podcast episode. Oh well. First off, those of you who've been following the saga of a want a woman? That's the actual case study that we've been running through. That's the lady in Marco who is in the catering and the cuisine Business Today was supposed to be the last instalment where we would look at how sales skills can help solve business financing problems.

And we're going to, we're supposed to have looked at loans, yes, raising loans when I changed my mind because I think we spend enough time on Wonder Woman's case. And I think if you've been listening to the podcast episodes, especially last episode, you should give you a good sense of how sales skills can help in this regard. And then plus, I've really made podcast episodes before on raising loans. So I guess the only thing that I'm going to add on the matter is when it comes to raising institutional finance, you know,

if you're that, if you're in that situation, like Wonder Woman is, you know, you're a caterer, you want to expand your business, you want to raise loans, you're thinking of approaching a bank or Bank of industry or you're thinking of approaching Smedan. OK, No, Smedan doesn't give loans, but you're thinking of approaching an institution. I give loans. Then the main hurdle ahead of you really is to just go and do some research, find out what it is, the criteria that they're looking for, and then put together a convincing business plan.

Because for I think it's BOI. Yeah, I think it's BOI. So at the event where I was where the Ogar Patakata of BOI, whether it's president or chairman or CEO or whatever it is that they call him, what he said was that a lot of the business plans that they receive are not up to snuff, you know, not written correctly, not formatted correctly. Projections look like they were just plucked out of thin air. So when it comes to raising institutional finance,

institutional loans, you want the bank to give you money. It often boils down to those sorts of things. So you just make sure that you know the business plan is written correct, do some research about acceptable formats. And then when it comes to the finance bits, of course, cash flow projections are just a guess, but just make sure that you've actually put some work into making sure that your cash flow projections are realistic.

Then on the sales side, of course, you know, there'll be tips about ABM, which is account based marketing, making sure that you're multi threaded within the organization, that you're talking to a bunch of people there. Because you know, especially the Nigerian factor. If you say you're going to, you're trying to get a loan from BOI Bank of Industry or even if it's Zenith Bank or whatever and the only person you know there is your, your, I don't know,

maybe the lady in customer care or something. You know, it's not, it's not a good approach. So the more people you know within the account, the better. So if you're going to approach your bank to get a loan, then of course you need the contact number of your banking officer. Let's see what else I don't know. The more people that you talk to, I guess the better, the more people that you have within an account. So you can know the status of your application, what is right with your application, what is wrong with your application,

what you need to change with the application, all those sorts of things. So I'm not going to be making an episode. I'm not going to be making the final episode about how Wonder Woman can use sales skills to solve her finance problems. Because if you listen to the whole thing and if you listen to some of the older episodes, you pretty much have one of the answers there. Yes. So that's it. Anyway, today's episode is also an actual conversation that I've had with someone.

I don't know how to title it because we discussed a whole bunch of issues. So maybe when I'm done making this episode, I'll come up with the title. So let's see. So there's a conversation. I'm not going to be using this individual's name because I have permission to use his name. But I just thought about it for work purposes. His employers might not be happy to know that a dedicated staff such as theirs and a high performing one actually has a side hustle.

So because of that, I'm not going to say the person's job just in case the sorry, the person's name, just in case the his employer happens to listen to the shows. Want a shout out to those of you who are employer employers listening to the show? Hit me up. Phone number is 08064662140 and the country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian and then also connect with me on socials, the name is Tavishima Ayede on LinkedIn.

And that's also, you can also find me on that under that name on, on YouTube. So yeah, I've been hearing from lots of, excuse me, business owners, business owners and then self-employed folk. So it'll be nice to hear from those of you who are employers as well. Yeah, hit me up. Let me know, you know, stuff that concerns you people so that we can include some of those conversations over here on the show. So this individual, we are going to refer to him as the Incredible Hulk, Mr. Bruce Banner himself.

Now the reason why I want to call this guy an Incredible Hulk is because the Incredible Hulk is a scientist and also did some work as a lab tech. And this person also happens to do some work as a lab tech and he's based off in Gombie. So because of the information that I've given Mr. Incredible Hulk, if you're listening to this and you're thinking is this about me, yes, this episode is about you, but I'm not using your name so that your employer doesn't know that you have a nine to five.

So Incredible Hulk, Mr. Bruce Banner, he is a lab scientist. He studied medical lab science when he was in uni and he currently works with a medical establishment. And of course the work hours is like, you know, around our kind eight to five, eight to six, sometimes even eight to seven. Now because of that, things are really, really hard for this guy Incredible Hulk, for him to do his real estate side. Also because what's going on is Incredible Hulk, Please remember, not the real Incredible Hulk, not the Marvel character.

So but you know, just code name. So Incredible Hulk is really, really good at lead generation. Now lead generation just means you get people to do something, to raise their hand, to take some activity, to do something shy, to show that they might be interested in your product or your service. So that is lead generation. A lead is just someone who might be interested in your product or service, but the person has done something that all of us can see to show that they might be interested.

So the old example that I give over here on the podcast is the guy who was outside my son's school handing out Flyers for his back to school shop. Anybody who collects that flyer and now sends Adm that person is a lead because the person has done something that all of us can see. First of all, the person collected the the flyer. We saw that one. Then the person now sent you ADMI mean, what more do you need? The person has shown that he's a lead and by sending Adm, he kind of has implied that, you know,

you and I, we can, you know, we can start relating now, you know, as per, you know, whether it's the bag or whether it's the shoe or whether it's the textbook or whatever. So that person is definitely a lead. So leads can be created always online and offline. But our guy, Incredible Hulk, the Bruce Banner, what he does is he generates leads. So excuse me, this is how my time in Abuja, this is how my time, I won't kill somebody.

Maybe what I need to do is just join you guys, those of you who have a jackpot now, I should join you guys and jackpot to Canada and then maybe my vocal calls will will rest. You know who knows, maybe the weather in Canada might be more amenable to people like me. Where was I so Incredible Hulk now? So this guy is very, very good. The guy posts aggressively on WhatsApp and Facebook, and because of that, he's able to generate plenty of leads.

In fact, I should call up Incredible Hulk so that maybe the guy might even give me some tips so that I'll see how I can work on lead generation, because lead generation has a skill I need to improve. But let me make a note so I can call Bruce Banner, OK, All right, So he has been generating lots of leads now in the real estate space because remember, his side hustle is real estate. He's 9:00 to 5:00 is medical lab science, or sometimes his age to seven is medical lab science.

But he loves real estate. And he's trying to supplement his income because the money from this medical lab work, the money is not pure. If he told me the salary and I was shocked because the salary, you know, he didn't enter 200K. And I was shocked. People are surviving on salary of less than two 100K. Like how? With the cost of fuel alone, How are people doing it anyway? Oh, OK. Yeah, he's single. He's not married. OK.

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah. When you're single, you don't, you don't really spend much. So yeah, he's good at lead generation. But the problem is this. Sometimes somebody will hit him up like, oh, I saw this picture. I like this house. I want to view this house now, now, now, now, now I will tell the person that look, just you just wait, I beg, I will close work around that kind of four. I'll come and jam you at this cafe, then we can go there.

Some people will wait, some people will not. And because of that, even though he is generating leads, people are saying I'm interested. I define house. I define house. I want to buy land. He cannot take them there. So what he started doing was he started hooking up some of his guys like I beg, help me sort this person. Help me take care of it. You know, when I finish work, I will continue. Then what was not happening was that the person that he sends the lead to, the person will now just corner the something and just go quiet.

You know, just close the deal, collect the money, you know, collect Commission, you know, all of that. Then he won't hear anything. And then of course, Bruce Banner has been becoming very, very discouraged. And I told him, I told Bruce Banner straight up that look, idiots are their business. You know, that one is we can't get rid of the idiots. So we cannot lose our mojo. We cannot lose our motivation because they're idiots because the idiots Everly will be there.

So it doesn't matter whether you at the level of Incredible Hulk, you're trying to get some small, small 10%, you know, on top of rent of maybe for him or whether you're a confirmed bigger boy like Dangote and you have a refinery and we're talking, you know, millions and billions and stuff like that. The ever the idiots will always be there. Idiots are there at the level of 10,000 idiots are there at the level 100,000.

Idiots are there at the level of 100 million. Idiots are there at the level of 100 billion. So because of the idiots, don't lose your motivation, don't lose your shine. It's that it's, it's not worth it. Just know that they're there. We need to come up with ways for dealing with the idiots, that's all. And then setting the right expectations, because sometimes not everybody's an idiot. Sometimes the problem is we didn't set the expectation the right way.

And so somebody just makes a judgement call that, well, it's not as if we said this is not as if we said that. So if I pocket this one is not as if I'm stealing and it's not as if I'm doing anything wrong. So we need to let out the set expectations and then we need to learn how to deal with idiots. So that's it pretty much. So he wanted to know what should I do? And so we had the conversation. Now I didn't want to tell him leave your job because I'm not one of those people.

You see them all over on social media, you know, take a chance on you leave your best self. 2025, your year of this something, something, something. How long will people pay you to pay you to sacrifice your freedom, sacrifice your this leave your freest life, manifest abundance. Something, something, something. Leave your job. Now. I'm not one of those people because I firmly believe that the much more practical and the much more measured thing to do is this, especially for young men, 'cause let's face it,

Incredible Hulk, you finish uni. Like last year. I'll be two years ago, I can't remember, but this is how it works. You finish uni, you're trying to hold down the job, you're trying to do one of two things. Eventually, one day. You seem all fine, baby. Like where has this girl been all my life? Then you guys will start talking. You guys will start hanging out. You know, before you know it, you know this talk of you know,

I love you, but what are we? Let's define this relationship. Before you know it, proposal marriage has entered the whole thing and then three or four years later you're going to be married. So this whole thing of quit your job is that blah, blah, blah, guy. It doesn't really doesn't really work because it's not as if everybody will resign the job today they meet. I get of your dreams tomorrow and then the business that you're doing now is going to be able to finance that lifestyle.

It doesn't really work that way. So in my own opinion, I'm a firm proponent of this one that you have in your hand now be managing this 95, the side hustle. Keep the side hustle going and then let the cash flows from the side hustle determine when it is you leave. So I told him some yardsticks that I know a couple of people have used. I've advised somebody before, although this person was working at a highly paid consulting job.

This was maybe it was maybe like five years ago, the guy was working at one of these international consulting agencies and his salary was, was, was good as in good, good, good. You know, this kind of salary that they pay you. And it's not as if you're living like a church mouse, but you can't even finish your salary, that kind of salary. So I told you, I look with the amount that these people are paying you just try and save like three years salary before you take the leap.

Well, of course, you know, the usual thing. I want to be my best self. I want to be this, I want to love, you know, all those, all those people that got to his head. And so he resigned. And then that's when the trouble started because now he got married. Then after he got married, then of course, you know, leaving a nice well paid international job, you know, trying to build a wedding photography business. Before you know it, he now left photography and went back to that job.

And then people are now abusing that. I see you, you know, even, you know, even a real G like, you know, even a real photographer, you know, blah blah blah, no what not. And then nasty comments on social media. And so excuse me, even have a small code and you know my mind, I'm thinking like I already told you that is I was going to play out. But yeah, you want to make the leap, Fine, no problem. The salary is sweet. Save like three years because we're going to assume that it will take you three years to build a solid photography,

photography practice, save for like 3 years Popsy and Momsy to help out with some of the cost of the weddings. So at least it will give you some, some some runway. So there's some people that do that. Save a couple of years salary, then cut. And then there's some people that say, OK, when the salary of my side hustle matches the salary of my 9:00 to 5:00, then I will cut out whatever the perfect standard is. I have absolutely no idea.

I'm just saying that let your side hustle determine when it is that you leave. So I didn't want to tell Incredible Hulk leave your job. But I told him one thing though. I told him, look, you have one skill that lots of us don't have and that is lead generation. Now remember, lead generation is, well, who is the lead elite is anybody that raises their hand to say I might be interested in your product or your service. So he's doing lots of stuff on WhatsApp and Facebook that is getting people to raise their hand to say I'm interested and it's enough to do some good business even though idiots are stealing money from him.

So I told him that since you are good at the scale of lead generation and you love real estate, you don't have to resign this medical lab science job. You also don't have to quit real estate altogether because people are stealing from you. What you do is you just change your business model. So instead of running a proper real estate firm that handles lead generation and fulfillment, let me explain what these terms mean.

Remember, lead generation, get people to raise their hand. I'm interested. I define a house. I want to buy land that is lead generation. People who might be interested in your product or service, then there is fulfillment. Fulfillment is OK, so you're ready. Let me show you the house. Let us drop the contract. Let us do the renovation. Let me hook you up with a lawyer, take your keys to your brand new house, or here's your CFO for the piece of land you know.

So that is all what fulfillment means. Fulfillment just means you give the client everything that you promised. So a traditional real estate film firm is going to handle everything from lead generation to fulfillment. Create the interest. This person is interested, take them all through, go and visit the house. You know everything from beginning to end. That's what a real estate firm does. So I told him instead of running a traditional real estate firm,

which is what you're trying to do, you're trying to do medical science, now you're trying to do real estate, traditional real estate firm on the side. Clearly this thing is not going to work since medical lab should be 9:00 to 5:00. But sometimes you're here eight to six, sometimes you're here eight to seven. What you do now is you change your business model and then you build a real estate brokerage agency. So a broker is just somebody who matches demand with supply.

That's all the broker does. So I told him in this case, this is what you're going to do. If you're a brokerage, you do your lead generation activities. First of all, we established that he was posting like every two, two hours during work and then lunch break is like 45 minutes. I told him, oh, that's perfect because if you're doing every two, two hours while you're working, that means you're going to be pasting. I say pasting.

You're going to be posting about 8:00 to 10:00, maybe even 12 post on social media. So that is that's a good cadence on a daily basis. So that that cadence is good. Then 45 minutes gives you time to actually pick up the phone and call people. You know, oh, you responded to this, you responded to that and then have conversations with them and stuff like that. So the break time is when you'll be having all those conversation.

You know, of course you will, since break time is for 5 minutes, You take like 10 minutes and then rush your, you know, fufu and meat, they wash it down or Fanta and they now get on the phone and then call people. OK. He's based in Bombay. So they won't be eating fufu and meat, They'll be eating to washing kafa and me and Daushi. Yeah, I forgot the guy is based in Bombay. In fact, we had a conversation and I told him that the first time I met somebody who was from Gombay, I told him and I Look,

Madam Novak. So. But every time I hear Gombay, I just think of Bush and Boko Haram and cows, you know, So we had that conversation and and so like I told him that that's the benefit of social media and the new Nigeria. You know, we're getting to meet people from different parts of the country. So all our preconceptions or misconceptions, we're getting to shed them. So people like you who are Ebo and I've never met a tea person,

You get to hear from me, someone like me who is tea. But I spent all my life in Abuja and in Lagos and then some years in the Uki will get to see somebody from Gombe. You know, I know stuff like that. Then the person from Gombe who has never been outside Gombe, you get to meet somebody who is a be wrong, you know, Plateau or you get to meet somebody who is from, you know, Niger Delta or something. So it's, it's good. It's very hopeful and I'm happy for the advancements in social media and things like that.

So we're beginning to learn the new Nigeria know the new Nigeria. Sorry about that. So back to where I was now. So I told Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner, that what you do now is you're going to build a brokerage agency. So you do your Legion during the day, you're posting every two, two hours, and that means you're averaging between 8:00 and 12:00. If I remember how we counted it, then 45 minutes, that's when you're going to be doing engagements, calling our people,

messaging our people, getting back to them. And then what you're now going to do is, you know, I'm going to have some very strong agreements with all those idiots that have been stealing money from you in the past. But this time you make it official. You say, look, boys and girls, this business, you know, we, we gas to formalize this thing. We can't continue like this. I'm going to be generating all these leads on a daily basis and I'm going to be sending them to you guys.

And these are the terms under which we're going to be working together. So traditionally you guys have been collecting. He told me that you're going to be what they're collecting is a 10%, which is realistic because in Abuja they're collecting 20%. I mean these these agents, I mean they're just bastards collecting 20% for doing what anyway, so in go, but they're still collecting 10%. So I told him, OK, sure, no problem.

You send it to them, you know that they're going to take 10%. Maybe you negotiate 3% or sorry, 5 percent, 6%, that will be your own court. You know, something like that. At least it's not bad, you know, if the house is for him, 10% is like 400 K. So if you're getting 200K on each of those leads, you know, it's not bad. That's for the ones that close, but it's something that you work out with all these people. So it just enter firm into firm agreements with them.

So these are the terms of what's working together. I'm bringing the leads, I'm handing them over to you guys. You guys are doing fulfilment. But by the time you guys are done, this is my bank account details. This is how much I expect, you know, whether it's a fee or whether it's percentage, you know, this is how much you guys are dropping my account. So I told him that this is how you're going to be able to stay in the game, maintain in the game, continue to build your brand in the game and build a market presence in the game while you're trying to figure out when will I resign and you know, or what not.

And I told him no one is is left for you. But now abandoned this whole idea of a traditional real estate firm and focus on being a real estate brokerage agency. Then I told him, run it for a while. Let the cash flows determine when it is that you are going to leave. So at 1 moment, some people look like they're toasting and being toasted outside my window. So let me just wind up so that so that that just doesn't bleed into this whole thing.

All right, OK. Where was I? So I told him, yeah, that's. So that's it. A brokerage, real estate brokerage emergency. That's what the guy should be trying to build. And then the cash flows will determine when it is that you leave this medical science job. So what, they're going to do that whole thing of saving three years worth of salary or waiting until your income from the brokerage matches your income from from from medical science?

You know, it's up to you. These are things that you have to talk to. What are they called? Finance personal finance specialist. So if you find, if you know someone who's in personal finance, they're going to be able to ask you a couple of questions. You know, how much do you make? How much do you live on? What are the goals in that you have? And you guys can figure it out when to exit this kind of situation. That's if you're in a similar situation to Incredible Hulk,

Mr. Bruce Banner. So that's a conversation that I had with Incredible Hulk. And I figured, let me just come and share with you guys today because I suspect that they're about you listen to this podcast that are trapped in a similar situation. I don't know what to do. So if your situation is something similar to Incredible Hulks, you can you can you can try a different business model. In his own case, the business model has changed from real estate firm to real estate brokerage agency, and it's something that still allows him to be in the game, to do what it is that he loves and to still supplement his income from his 95 S.

Don't just wake up and think, oh, woe is me, what will I do? I'm in such a precarious situation. I don't know, I don't know, woe is me, what was me? Don't always me. Just think. I'm sure that there's a different business model that you can employ that will help you to still keep the best of both worlds. For now, nothing is perfect, but just know that every single problem has a solution shop. So that's it. I remember if you'd love to connect, the phone number is 08064662140.

The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian and then connect with me on socials. I'm on LinkedIn establishing my IED. The same name on YouTube as well. I forgot to give you guys updates on the radio show. It's confirmed the radio show is going to be live on the 20. Is that 21st? It's going to be on I think it's 21st of February, either 21st or 20, let's say February where we serve. What do I in January?

So it's going to be on the either 21st or 24th of January 2025. The weekday is a Tuesday. Whichever 1 is a Tuesday, that's the day that the show is up and running. So for those of you listening to the podcast who are based in Abuja, you will have the opportunity to calm me up live on the air so we can talk through some of your business problems. Yeah, I think that's it. No more news, no more news, no more announcements.

So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you against the next episode. Thank you very much to the likes of Incredible Hulk, Mr. Bruce Banner who listen to the podcast episode. Please remember to share the episode with other people who might get some value from it. And then also please share the podcast in Gombe because I've heard from other parts of Nigeria here from Port Arkad, heard from Inugu, heard from Ibadan, heard from Ilisha, heard from Efi, heard from Plateau.

I've heard from Kaduna where you know about Gombe. I've only heard heard of two people from Gombe. So the two of you in Gombe who listen to this podcast, I beg share with the rest of the Gombe brethren so that they can get the goodness of what we talk about over here on the podcast. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.