Going Long Podcast_SOLO Episode 437_Billy Keels

Thu, Jul 11, 2024 12:18PM • 11:23

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

recognizing, corporate, sales, realize, promotion, move, signs, started, rat race, surefire, thinking, years, average retirement age, skill, life, build, point, listen, idealizing, side hustle

SPEAKERS

Billy Keels

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Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by the Billy keels advisory program. If you want to learn more about how to make your nine to five optional, just go to Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. Once again, that's Billy keels.com, forward slash advising. Five surefire signs, you need a profitable side hustle. Now this may happen for you differently than it happened for me. At the same time, if you are someone who is in a very high paid No, I'm talking mid six figure seven figure salary employee. Specifically, if you are in a sales exec or sales leadership role. It's just a matter of when it's going to happen. It's not a matter of if it's going to happen. Because I've been there I've done that I understand what the what the day to day, what it's like in that rat race. And I can tell you that there are very clear signs, five of them that are surefire signs that you need a profitable side hustle, you need to be thinking about it. And if you don't know where to think what how to think about it, then this is going to give you at least some ideas to recognize when it should be time to start to think about it now, for me, I think about how I was able to build a profitable side hustle, being able to build a business that generated over $100,000, within width, it wasn't didn't take me five years to do it, it took me about a third of the time. But these are just some of the things that started happening inside of me. And in my mind and my heart and around me that made me realize that I needed to be doing something else other than just 100% of my time, energy and effort dedicated to what I was doing in the in the multinational she's probably back in 2016, I'm in my late 30s, maybe early 40s. And probably in my early 40s. Around this time, I start recognizing that the things that I thought as a young kid, like I imagined the things that I was that I was watching on TV that I was going to work for the same company for 35 years, believe it or not, and I was gonna get that gold watch category, maybe not necessarily the gold watch. But in that category, sitting at the top of the at the top of the food chain, and having a very, very long executive career being able to then retire. But retirement for me at the time was I wasn't going to do anything at all, like just kind of hanging out at the beach every day or whatever, I realized now I have a very different concept of what retirement is, retirement is something that you are able to do everyday because you want to with whom you want, and when where you want. So but that's the kind of things that were going on. In my mind, I was a young father and kids were probably seven and five at the time. And I was in the rat race, I was definitely running around moving around. And what I started realizing is that after a decade of working in the corporate and building my own side, hustles a profitable side hustle, being able to do that, there were some things that if I would have been able to recognize these, these five different signs before, I could have started before and potentially finished before now finished corporate life at 48 years old. So it's still you know, I'm not I wasn't 25 or 30. And some of the things that you see nowadays, but but relatively speaking, probably 17 years before the quote unquote, average retirement age was. But let me get into this because you know, aside from being able to understand that it wasn't just about or guess what I wanted to do is have more money and have more titles. But the end of the day, I wanted to be known as and continue to want to be known as a reliable, reliable father at the time was a reliable husband, but now reliable father and husband and someone that my family could count on now. And that's still something that I want, like I want my family and friends to know that they can continue to count on me. But But what started happening was regardless of the the business that I've managed, that was $100 million business across Europe, Middle East and Africa, that around that point in time, I just closed the $25 million software deal that was the one that I did in a different language, a different culture. So personally and internally that for me, that was like a really big deal. But also to I started having, I started recognizing that while there were people that were interested in being able to have me help them and so I had investors that were coming along and people that were accredited investors later and investing hundreds of hundreds of 1000s of dollars with me at a time but none of that really would have happened if I would have not recognized the signs so let me jump into what what the I believe the five surefire signs that you need a profitable side hustle what they are, so that you can recognize them early and when you recognize them that you can get started earlier. Don't Don't wait until like I was like me like in my late 30s. Hopefully you can get started sooner. First. The first thing is recognizing you don't feel energized any longer by the rat race. Now something that my entire career I wanted to be in every special project I wanted to be in line for the promotion, I wanted to do all the things. But at a certain point in time my kids came along, I started recognizing like, there's only so many positions at the top was I really willing to do the work that was necessary to get to the top. But more than anything is I didn't get the same buzz, I wasn't getting the same energy from the rat race, right from being in the corporate life. So when you start recognizing that you're not getting the same buzz, or it's feeling a little bit different than before, it's not the same boost of energy, then that's probably one of the signs that hey, listen, something is starting to change. The second thing is, I took a, so during my career in around this point in time, I took a lateral move, or some perceived it even as a move back. But the reason that I took that path was so that I can move up faster in the promotion path. So I went from a from a sales organization that was really basically remote to a field sales role. And at that time, the idea was to then be able to move up the ladder out in the field and be able to in the field, organization, field sales organization, and then being able to move faster up the lane up the chart, up the org chart. Well, the promotion path really became not important at all to me. And so when it wasn't as appealing actually, I spent about five years turning down promotions, because it wasn't, it was no longer aligned with what I wanted out of life, my purpose, what I felt like was what I wanted to be doing and needed to be doing. So when the promotion path becomes less appealing to you, it's probably another big telltale sign. Thirdly, when you start to realize that your skill set has a higher and better use outside of your corporate job than inside, it's one of those things where you also start to realize, wow, okay, these skills are transferable, I can start to use them now in sales and sales leadership of extremely high ticket. So we're talking eight and nine figures. So 10s of 10s of millions and hundreds of millions, that the skill set that I had in corporate, if I could do that in corporate, well, what was to stop me from doing that outside of corporate in terms of recognizing talent, building talent, in terms of being able to understand how to create a win win scenario for when it came to a sales transaction, which led to a numbers of transactions in long term relationships. Why not? So when I started also realizing that wow, this skill set that I'm building, I can use it here, imagine what I could do outside of the corporate life. And then they're also to the comms this point in time, when you you are sitting in these meetings over and over in your, in these escalation calls. And you're thinking to yourself, this can be done so much more effectively, so much more efficiently. I'm sick and tired of sitting in these recurring meetings where no one has anything to talk about. I'm only here because my boss says I need to be here. And these things in your mind are like, I am completely wasting my time. Now I say that, because if any of those things resonate with you, you're there. I've been there, you know what I'm talking about. And I know how you're feeling. When that starts to happen over a prolonged period of time, it's time for you to also start realizing like, Hey, listen to me, outside of the company, because it's gonna be the same in every company. By the way, when you're in a big corporate, that's just what happens is part of what you sign up for. So the idea is to recognize, like, Hey, listen, you want to serve people in a different way in the way that you want to do it. Now, it may not be the perfect way, you probably in your, in your mind, you're idealizing this and you're thinking this is gonna be absolutely fantastic. I'm here to tell you, it's not always as fantastic as you think. However, if you have that yearning inside of you, this is the time right you have the strong calling to serve, who you want how you want. And you're recognizing there are also lots of inefficiencies within corporate. And then lastly, and this is the one that that if you're if you're recognizing it, because you're, you're constantly torn, and you start to realize you're on these long business trips, you come home late at night, or you leave early in the morning, you recognize like life at home is moving without you. And sometimes, well, probably more frequently than that you want your families recognizing that your being gone is more than norm versus the exception, then it's more than likely time for you to to this is one of those signs like hey, listen, use those skills, have a strong network and you have a business idea. It's time to start making sure and get clear on what that business idea is. Now, just a quick recap, so you feel like you're not energized by the rat race to promotion path isn't as appealing to you and easy anymore. The skill set that you have has a higher and better use outside of your corporate. You have a strong calling to serve who you want how you want, and you're starting to recognize that you're not miss Tolman anymore. These are literally five surefire signs you need a profitable side hustle. Now when you get to that side hustle, you're going to come up with your plan, you're going to create the thing that you want to create, and it will work or will not work. Have the Northstar understand clearly why you want to move in the direction. The thing that I can also tell you is regardless of if it becomes the profitable side hustle that you want, maybe it's not the first one may Maybe it's not the second one, but you will begin to build a skill set. And a valuable skill set in terms of being a business owner, being someone who can have an idea, great create talent around you, and be able to move forward and serve your clients. So if any of these things are happening to you for you, you feel any of these and you feel a real yearning that you've got to take action. Well, of course, listen to the episode. Take the episode. There's different ways you can get in touch with us. But most importantly, don't just listen to the episode and not do anything. Take action. share today's episode with family with friends, talk to your friends about it. Heck, if you know two or three people that are going through this exact thing right now, share the episode. All right. So while you're doing that, I'm going to be here preparing for the next episode. So until then go out and make it a great day. Thank you very much. Today's conversation was sponsored by the Billy keels advisory program. If you're looking to make your nine to five optional and need some help, just go to Billy keels.com forward slash advising once again, that's Billy keels.com forward slash advising

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