Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Okay, today's going to be fun. I was reviewing my podcast, so this is something that I do. I kind of look at the data to see what you guys like and you vote with your time. So like, it's not that I don't love when I get feedback, I do on certain episodes, but what I really like is seeing download numbers because that tells me that people are actively listening to it.
So I was just reviewing the download numbers and I was like, ooh, you know what? This one particular topic is downloaded more than any other and that's money. So we're going to talk about money today. But I thought it'd be fun to talk about creative ways to make money this month or this week or today, because this is something that I do with my clients, which is creating solutions and creating ways of collecting money that they might have not seen before.
This is one of my zones of genius, is I can see how people could make money even if those ways are blind to them right now. I am able to sit down with a person, hear what they want, hear about their clients and their vision and what they're good at, and then I can create a path to creating cash quickly. Not that this is like a get rich overnight. This is not going to make you rich, these ideas.
But I do think it comes from the consciousness of unlimited opportunity. If you've been with me for a while and if you're new, you will learn that I read a lot of books and my favorite books are about wealth consciousness. And so books like The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles, You Too Can Be Prosperous by Robert Russell, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Rich as F by Amanda Francis, Happy Pocketful of Money by Dick Conde. I'm sure I'll think of more. But off the top of my head, those are some of my favorite books. The Abundance Book by Randolph Price.
There's a lot of books that I have studied that have elevated my consciousness to see opportunities for money differently than I used to. That being said, one of the things that I did to prepare for this episode was write down all the weird things that I've done to make money because this has kind of always been in me. I didn't realize it until I became an entrepreneur, but I was always very entrepreneurial minded. I always saw opportunities to make money. I liked making money. I did things that other people wouldn't do to make money.
And I want to kind of share it just to, I think it's just interesting. Before I could work, I babysat and I love babysitting. I love making money babysitting. I was like the person in my neighborhood and my church community that raised my hand like, yes, ask me to babysit because I love making money and I love kids. The next thing that I did was I started a kids sports camp for my community.
So I was like 14, 15, 16, running a sports camp at my local park. I charged money for it and I made like, I think I made like $3,000 a summer, which as a 14 year old or a 15 year old kid, that was a lot of money for me. I would hire my friends. I would hire my sisters to help me. I even hired my boyfriend once and I would take the kids to the park. And because I played sports my whole life, I would teach them baseball or dodgeball or basketball. We would do water balloons.
One year, which is so funny now, I taught them some lessons because I was on a swim team, but I was like not a certified lifeguard or anything - kind of shady. But the parents loved me and the parents trusted me, obviously. So we had fun and we just would swim in my parents' pool.
And that was like my taste of entrepreneurship. I was my own boss. I enjoyed working for myself. I enjoyed being creative on like the times of the camp and how I structured the camp, what I taught, how many kids I took and all of that.
At the same time, I was also working for my city, the city of San Ramon in California, and I would teach kids basketball and soccer and I would ref flag football and basketball. I was like the youth sports teacher, I guess. So those were the things that I was doing in high school. I just learned to love making money. As I got older, when I was going to college, I worked, I was a research assistant, I was a personal assistant for a multimillion dollar family.
They were entrepreneurs and I was her personal assistant, which I look back at that now and see the seeds that were being planted in my mind, even when I was 18, working for her and seeing the amount of wealth that they had, seeing how they spent money, seeing how they invested in me as their nanny and personal assistant. Anyway, just the way they thought about money was so different than how I thought about money, it was very useful to my brain. I had no idea that I'd end up doing what I do now, but you can see the seeds being planted.
Here's some other funny ways that I've made money. When I was in college, I had money. Like I said, I had worked during the summer, my tuition was covered and everything, like I was very blessed, but I always wanted more money so that I had the freedom to do what I wanted. And so one of the things that I would do is donate plasma. I would go to a local plasma donation center. And if you're not familiar, donating plasma basically means they draw your blood, they spin it in this thing.
I'm not scientific. So if you're in the medical world, you're like, oh my gosh, she's butchering this. Anyway, with a bigger needle, because after they spin it, they take the plasma out of your blood and they put the red blood cells back into your blood. It is quite the process. And this is why they pay you because it is not easy. It's different than donating blood. I would make, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks a week donating plasma and I could do it twice a week. I would walk over to the donation center because I didn't have a car. I'd sit there and read my book while they took my blood, spun it, put it back in. And then I would come back.
And I remember one time I ended up passing out because it is hard on your body. They have to like track you. So you have to scan your license and all this stuff because you can't do it day after day after day after day because it depletes your body. And so one of the days I donated plasma, I actually went to a swim meet with my friend at my college at BYU and I passed out in the arena, I guess. I was sitting in the stands watching swim and I passed out because I just donated plasma and she was like freaking out and got me Gatorade and all this stuff.
Such a funny time, but I just love making money. Then this is where the story gets interesting. And this is where many of you know my story because I ended up getting married and we had a baby. Obviously this is years after the plasma passing out situation and our finances were tight. We had both dropped out of our master's programs and our student loans immediately became due.
Wesley was early in his career. I was not working. I was raising a baby. I was a new mom. Things were really tight. So I got really creative and I went to the internet like one does and found opportunities to make money from home. The first one that I found was transcribing videos and audio on Rev.com. If you're not familiar with this, basically you watch a video and you transcribe it so that they can use it.
It's very interesting because now with AI, we don't necessarily need it. But back then when I was doing this, we needed actual humans to transcribe things. I would sit there with my computer, like while my baby napped, and I would transcribe videos. I made cents, like I did not make a lot of money. I think my biggest paycheck during that time was like $36 or something like that.
That's how desperate we were to get cash in our bank. I was just willing to do whatever it took. At that time, I had been like researching how to make extra money at Rev.com. I was transcribing. Then I found out that you could flip on eBay or on Amazon. I did both. So what that looked like is if I went to the store, I could scan items with my app. I can't believe I did this. This is so crazy. I used to scan items with my app and it would show up on Amazon. Like if it was cheaper in the store, I could buy the product, like the thing that I did.
So this has an unhappy ending. I bought these backpacks at Shields and then I tried to sell it on eBay. I did both. I did Amazon and eBay. This particular case was eBay. Then I sold it on eBay for full price. So like the idea is I buy it cheaper in the store because whether they have an overstock or it's a discount or whatever, it's on clearance, I can sell it on eBay for more. So like I bought the backpack for like $40. I think I sold it for $60.
What I didn't know is that I sold one of the backpacks and made money and I was like, oh, this is so cool. And then the next backpack that someone bought, he lived overseas. This is so funny. Sorry, you guys, we are on a deep tangent, but I promise there's a reason. So then I shipped this backpack overseas to this man who lived in a different country. The backpack gets stuck in customs indefinitely.
I don't know what happened to it. Anyway, he demanded a refund. So I actually lost money on the shipping, on the buying of the backpack. And I never got the backpack back. And I ended up losing money. And at that time, like I said, our finances were very tight. So it felt like a huge blow to lose $60. Like it was like, oh, crap. Like I lost $60.
After that phase of transcribing on Rev.com, flipping things on eBay, trying the Amazon, fulfill by Amazon route for a little bit. I found a company called VIP Kid. And many of you know that this is also the time where I found Tony Robbins and Dean Garziosi. So during this time, when I was flipping things on eBay, when I was transcribing on Rev, I had found personal development. So I had been listening to books like You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero, which is one of my favorite books. I found Tony Robbins and read the book Awaken the Giant Within.
I found High Performance Habits, I think. Maybe that was later. I can't remember.
But I found books like that. This was the beginning of my journey where I started realizing there was more for me. I could be creative in my pursuit of more. And so I started VIP Kid, which is teaching kids English to students who live in China. So, get this. I would wake up at 3 a.m. with my baby still sleeping. And I would get up and teach English for two hours. And then my baby would wake up and we would start our day. And I would do that almost every day.
I did four days a week. I would teach. And my husband would go to work because our finances were so tight, like we were just really scrappy. And during this time, I think I read the book Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. And I started seeing entrepreneurship. I started seeing possibilities that I didn't see before because I read books.
The reason that I bring this up is like my evolution as a person who knows how to make money started in a very desperate place, in a deep pit of despair and fear and judgment and guilt and shame. I'm saying that because many of you are in this pit, whether that's debt, whether that's not creating an income, whether that's inflation, whether that's a job change or a job loss or a move or just the economy in general, whether that's losing someone to death and you are solo now where you rely on their income.
Like there's so many different reasons that we find ourselves in a pit of financial problems. I have been there and books were my saving grace. I didn't even know coaching existed. Like when I was flipping on eBay and like transcribing on Rev, I did not know coaching existed.
I did not know that I could get help this way. I found books. The first book was Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.
That was the first personal development book I read because I was like, something has to change. Then I found books like You're a Badass at Making Money. I found some of the classic self-help books from Tony Robbins. I just read and read and read and my mind started to change. I'm not surprised that as my consciousness started to change, I started to see other opportunities. And one of the opportunities that landed in my world was coaching and it kept showing up for months.
My sister-in-law was working with a life coach on infertility at the time. And I had heard the word life coach. I didn't know what it was. Then she tells me that she's meeting with a life coach to work through infertility because my sister can't have babies. So she was working with this coach to help her with her mindset, to help her grieve, to help her think of a different perspective. And she loved it.
She told me she's like, this is an amazing process. Amber, you could do this because she knew that I had almost become a therapist, that I had a background in psychology that I loved. Now she saw me loving reading and self-help and personal development. She's like, you could be a life coach. And she told me this and I was like, I don't know. I still had a lot of judgments back then because I thought I was going to be a therapist. Anyway, so this word kept coming up, life coach. Then I read the book, Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. I see that people called her a life coach.
That's when I started finding entrepreneurship opportunities. So like one of the possibilities that I found when I was teaching VIP Kid was to start a blog and monetize it. In fact, I actually did start a blog and I tried to monetize it. I called it growingandgrace.com. So I started publishing articles in the hopes that traffic would create clicks on ads that we posted on my blog. This was like a path of income that I thought could possibly work. I get to blog at home.
It would work because I didn't want to leave my babies. I was scrappy and I thought I was a good writer. Like I started publishing a blog and I was still teaching VIP Kid. So I was teaching VIP Kid, trying to learn how to monetize my blog, reading personal development, reading books about wealth consciousness and money. And my mind started to change. I started to think differently.
I started to see a possibility that not only would I get out of this financial turmoil, but that I can make enough money to be financially free to do what I wanted for me at the time. It was like I want to take my kids to Disney World. I want to buy a nicer car. Very basic necessities and like a vacation. That's what I wanted. But this word life coach kept popping up.
Anyway, eventually I decided to add a little tab on my blog, my growingandgrace.com blog called coaching. It was like, okay, if you love my blog, you might love to talk to me. I set off to coach 100 people for free. I talked about it on my personal Facebook. I talked about it on my Instagram. I said, hey, I'm doing this coaching thing. I'm trying it. If you want to help me out, schedule a call with me.
And I started getting calls on my calendar from friends, from colleagues, from old people that I used to work with, from old people I used to go to school with, from old high school friends, from people in my neighborhood and my church. People started booking calls to help me out. From those first round of calls, I definitely didn't hit 100, even though that was my goal. I had my first few people tell me like, hey, I love this.
Can I work with you as my life coach? And so I said, yes, it's $50 a session or $200 a month. And I signed my first few clients that way. That is how I jump started my coaching career, which is so funny looking back. That is how I started making money by myself. That was a huge shift for me to go from VIP Kid, transcribing, flipping on eBay, being an RA, donating plasma, babysitting, like all these random ways. The first time I got paid as a life coach felt very different.
I could see the potentiality of business ownership. I knew it was a direct correlation of my mindset work, of changing the way that I thought about money. I was no longer doing stuff just because I had to. I did not like the VIP Kid. My husband was sick because he knew I did not like doing it. I just felt like I had to. Flipping on eBay, again, not passionate about it, just did it to make money. Coaching was my way of making money in a way that I loved. And it was like crack cocaine. But like, this is amazing. Not as extreme as crack cocaine, but like I was addicted to it very, very soon. Like this is what I want to do with my life.
I could easily see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I'm sharing all of that because I have learned how to make money in places that other people can't see. And that was just the beginning. That was in 2018 that I found coaching. It is now 2024. And I have coached and I have learned how to make money from coaching in lots of different ways, lots of different ways.
And I help my clients make a lot of money because I got scrappy.
That still serves me because it's not that I even need to be scrappy. My business is beyond that now where I have recurring revenue. I have offers that bring in money more predictably. I make a lot more money than I used to. But that scrappiness is something I wouldn't even just call it scrappiness now. It's like a certainty that I am someone who knows how to make money. It's a skill that I learned that I can take with me anywhere. So I share all of that, one, to let you know I have been in the pit of despair, not knowing how to make money.
And I have gotten scrappy and I have learned these things so you can too. The reason that I also shared it is because so much of what I learned in all these random jobs and all these random opportunities was to look at things differently because there are people who need something and want to pay for it. Which leads me to this list of things that you can do to be creative about making money. It starts with a consciousness change.
In fact, I'm studying the book The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles again. I think this is like the 10th time I've read it. And I say that not to be like, look at me, I'm reading this book 10 times. Like, that's not what I want you to get. What I want you to get is that I never stop studying. I never stop reading and expanding my mind because I know that directly correlates to me making more money.
When I have different thoughts about money, I make more money. When I have different thoughts about money, I see opportunities where other people don't. I think I'm more inspired. I think I'm trusted with ideas that will make money. So this starts with your consciousness.
If you're listening to this, like this sounds interesting, like creative ways to make more money this month or this week, you might be disappointed that the step one is to study it. Not just business. I also study business.
I study wealth consciousness, which is the thinking and the beingness of money. And I also study lots of business principles to make it real. The combination makes it real. Because when you combine a wealth consciousness with marketing principles, you create clients. When you combine wealth consciousness with serving people and speaking their language and making powerful invitations, you make money. I wanted to front load you with that because these ideas that I'm going to share are just stuff you're going to do.
But it's the consciousness that has to change. And so one of the things that I deeply believe is that there is an unlimited supply or an infinite supply. And this concept, lots of spiritual teachers teach, you can call it whatever you want. I like to think of it as like God. God has created infinite supply for us. There is not a limit to our imaginations for how we can create money.
We have seen evidence of that through the hundreds and thousands of years that man has been on earth, the industrial revolution, cars, electronics, internet, vacuums, Stanley cups, clothes on Amazon, digital books, rockets, you name it. We have used our imaginations to create value for other people. And then money is our way of exchange.
We use money to exchange value. And so there is no limit to how you use your imagination to make money. Now, that being said, it has to line up with what other people want. Your imagination plus money through other people, MTOP, money through other people equals business revenue. So the more that you can be in your imagination, where you are using your ideas and you are looking at things differently by studying wealth consciousness, by studying these books, getting around people who think differently. That was huge for me too.
It was like, my family did not think like this. I had to tap into other communities. I had to get coaching myself. I got mentorship. I joined masterminds. I'd paid for courses, like you name it. I've done it, so that I could become the person who can make money in any situation, in any circumstance I find myself in. And I don't say that to brag. I say that because I know what's possible for you.
When you do the work, both in your mind and in action, by creating content, by making connections, by serving people, by marketing, you can make your business work. Like I said, we're not even into the places where we can create creative ways to make money. I'm front-loading you because I'm going to share ideas and some of you will do it and some of you will not.
Some of you will decide to take money into your own hands and some of you will not. Just because it's possible doesn't mean everyone will. And so I'm trying to compel you to actually doing some of these ideas that I'm going to share with you. Because one thing is for sure, you cannot do nothing and expect something to change. We have to change our thinking and our being and our activities, especially if you're a business owner. Like that is how business change happens.
That being said, without further ado, let's jump in to five different ways you can make more money this month or this week. These ideas are tried and true. These are things that I have actually done. These are also things that because I've done them, I have guided my clients to using them as well. Because this is what happens. And the way that I see these things is you have your core offers.
For a lot of you, that's a one-on-one offer or a group coaching offer. Something that's like on the regular. Many of you have a high ticket one-on-one. I recommend that. The problem with one-on-one that's high ticket is that like clients are not popping like popcorn. That is a misconception. High ticket one-on-one clients are created over time with nurture and care and trust and attention and resonance. It doesn't just happen overnight. In the meantime, what do you do? While you're waiting to sign a 5k client, a 10k client, a $100,000 client, what do you do?
These are the things that you do. These are my creative ways of making money this week or this month. So the first one I wrote is either a Voxer, Marco Polo, or text coaching offer. This would look like one day of Voxer coaching for a hundred bucks as an example. And I would limit the spots that are available because you don't want 20 people buying one day of Voxer, you will get slammed with work. And that's not the point. This point is for a quick cash infusion.
So you can do five spots of $100 Voxer days where you are solving a specific problem for your client. I've had people do like a relationship reset Voxer experience. On the other side of the spectrum, I had a client do like a branding refresh intensive for a day. I've had people do like a marketing audit or a health audit. There's lots of ways you can use this, but like I said, this is a quick cash infusion, a hundred bucks Voxer for the day or Marco Polo for the day. You could also expand this.
Let's say maybe it's a two week Voxer experience for 300 bucks. You could also do this in a group. I've done Voxer events. In fact, I should do a Voxer event again. I haven't done one in a while. I've done a Voxer event where I basically deliver a masterclass in Voxer. Usually if it's a Voxer event and it's group, I do it cheaper. So it might be like 30 bucks for 10 people in a Voxer group. You could do 30 bucks for a text group.
It doesn't really matter. The idea here is that it's a leveraged way of getting people to experience what it's like to work with you in a low demand experience for you. Like Voxer, you don't have to go anywhere. You can answer on your own time. I think it's really awesome. The next idea that I had was a six week one-on-one coaching intensive.
So I bought one of these from a woman. She was advertising this like six week one-on-one coaching. What did she call it? Like a sprint, I think. What it included was two calls and six weeks of Voxer for like two grand. I bought it because she was someone that I respected. She was someone that I wanted to pick her brain and it was the perfect offer for me because I didn't necessarily want like a six month or a 12 month commitment with her.
The six week was perfect. So when I bought it, I realized my clients probably want the opportunity to do that too. So six weeks, one-on-one coaching, two calls, or you can do three calls, or you can do a weekly call. Doesn't matter. Something that's maybe different or smaller than your high ticket one-on-one or your high ticket group.
The next idea I have for you is an audit of some sort. I think audits are an interesting thing to play with because it basically uses data to help you inform a plan for the client. This can look like a health audit. It can look like a relationship audit. It can look like a marketing audit or a brand audit. It can look like a money audit. It can look like a mindset audit.
The way that I see this working is you ask a series of questions that you can then give them feedback to realign with where they want to go. You can do this on a phone call. You can do this on Zoom. You can do this on Loom. If you're not familiar with Loom, it's basically like you record your screen. So maybe if you're a business coach, you're looking at someone's sales page, you record yourself going through the sales page and then sending them that video of all your ideas and edits. That's the kind of thing that I'm thinking about.
The other one that I've heard that you could try is more of like an energy audit. The first time I heard that was from Rich Litvin. An energy audit is basically like what gives me energy, what drains me. And you go through your life and you see what needs to be cleaned up, what needs to be delegated, what needs to be deleted, what needs to be enhanced, what you need to spend more time with. If it's something that gives you energy.
And so those are some ideas for an audit for your own business, for your own niche. This can look very different. And so don't listen for the exact formula in this. Think how you could apply it. How could you apply the audit idea to your own business to create cash? And the other thing that these things do is it creates relationships. I did a free call a few years ago called Level 10 Opportunity Call.
And the seeds that I planted in that offer were great. Some of them became one-on-one clients later. Some of them joined the Matrix later. And some of them were just still connected because I got to spend 30 minutes kind of doing an audit to kind of go into that offer. I did a Level 10 Opportunity Call, which is like, if you feel like you are a level 10 coach, but you're not making the money of a level 10 coach, you probably are in the wrong opportunity. Get on a 30 minute call with me and we will realign. Like, are you in the right opportunity? Are you working with the right people?
And I booked it out and it was great. I really enjoyed it. I had fun. The calls got booked quickly. I think that the audit experience, and you don't even have to call it an audit, but the principle is like where in your life are you out of alignment with what you say you want? And we'll go through and clean that up.
The next idea that I have that I think, especially if you're a more seasoned entrepreneur, I do this a lot. If you truly have limited spots for one-on-one, you should tell your audience. So let's say you have five clients, but you want seven. You should absolutely in your marketing, be telling people that you have two spots available and you should identify the number.
Because what this does, it's ethical urgency if it is true. I do not recommend this as a fake way of urgency. So what that would look like is you have zero clients, but you say you only have two spots. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about ethical urgency, which is you truly only have two spots available. You use that in your marketing to get people who are on the fence, to move towards you.
You could do this for group programs. You could do this for one-on-one. You could do this for products. It doesn't really matter, but letting people know how many spots are available or how many things you have left is a useful way to get people to move. Like I said, it's ethical. So you're not trying to manipulate anyone. This is just being honest publicly about what's really going on in your business.
If you're like me, I used to hesitate to say that because I didn't want people to think I was like being shady or scammy. It's only scammy if you're lying. So if you're not lying, if you really do only have two spots, you should say it. I think it's a way to get people off the fence and into your world. So let's cover what we've done so far.
We did Voxer or Marco Polo or text coaching. We did a six week one-on-one coaching intensive where it's like combination of Voxer or texting or coaching and one-on-one coaching. We did an audit of some sort. It's like feedback. They're paying for feedback. Announce limited spots left.
The last idea that I have for you is a class series. So I actually just did this with my friend Megan Teerlink called Ancient Wisdom in Modern Times and it was really fun to do. We had a ton of fun. We charged 25 bucks for it and we taught three classes where they get lifetime access to the replays. We talked about ancient wisdom in modern times. So it was like principles that Jesus taught, that yogis taught, that the Stoics taught, that spiritual teachers taught.
And we kind of combined it into principles that we called universal laws of transformation. It was super fun to deliver. We taught it together. We made it really cheap. We had dozens of people sign up and it was really fun. And so you can consider a class series. I think combining this with Voxer is kind of interesting too. You can either do a class series on Zoom like a masterclass or you could do a class series in Voxer. There's lots of ways to deliver it. Or you could do it any other number of ways.
Those are the traditional ways either on Zoom like a recorded call. You could also do it in Voxer or other video platforms. I know in Kajabi, the software platform that I use, you could do a live room. There's lots of ways to teach a class series. And even if it's none of these, like these are just some of the things that I have developed over time. If I need to make money fast, I can deploy these and create money. But that comes from my consciousness that there are infinite opportunities and that people want what I have and that I can help people and they want to exchange with me their money for the value that I have. That's business.
Whatever you are taking away from this, I hope it helps you. I hope you see creative ways to make money. If you need my help with that, you know how to get in touch with me. You can go to itsambersmith.com to read more about how I work with my clients. You can follow me on Instagram @itsambersmith. You can message me.
These are the kinds of things that I do with my clients. Not all the time, but a lot of the time, especially like, Hey, it's been a slow month. I would love to make some money. Like let's do it at a high level. Also like creating new revenue streams or breaking their ceilings. That's like, I've always hit 10K months, but I really want to hit 15K months. Or it's like, I've always hit 10K months. I really want to hit 20K months. These are kind of the ideas, not necessarily these ideas in this podcast, but like creating solutions for that is one of my things.
I love to see things differently and I help people see opportunities to create money where it doesn't seem like you could. I hope this helps you. Please study wealth consciousness. If that's all you take away from this episode is like, make it a priority to study wealth, both in mind, like the mindset of wealth and business, like actually marketing, sales, persuasion, influence, offers, all of those things that make up a profitable business are important to learn about because those are the things that absolutely have helped me become an entrepreneur that, I love to use the phrase like make it rain.
In fact, I taught a program for years called Make It Rain, which is about money mindset and marketing together to make money. When you are someone who can make it rain because of wealth consciousness, and business savvy, you become unshakable. The economy doesn't sway you. Bad things in business like a slow month or clients dropping off and not renewing or the client that you thought was going to sign left or ghosted you, whatever circumstances pop up in business, you can become unshakable because you are the person that makes it rain through study and by faith. And that's what I want for you. So I hope this episode helped.
I will talk to you in another episode. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
