Ep 319. Live from PodHouse Las Vegas: How Relay Financial Keeps Our Business Money Dialed In!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Side Hustle Squad – Ep 319

Title: Live from PodHouse Las Vegas: How Relay Financial Keeps Our Business Money Dialed In!
Release Date: March 24, 2026
Host: Mike Garvey, with co-hosts Larry Dellisant and John Pajak
Location: PodHouse at Con Expo, Las Vegas

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Episode Overview

This special live episode of Side Hustle Squad is centered on streamlining business banking and finances using Relay Financial—a modern fintech banking platform designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Host Mike Garvey, joined by side hustle co-host Larry Dellisant and financial coach John Pajak, candidly discuss their experiences transitioning to Relay, the benefits it provides, and how automation and organization empower side hustlers to achieve clearer financial management, especially following the Profit First methodology.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. PodHouse Collaboration and the Business Context

• The episode kicks off with the team reflecting on the productive, collaborative environment at PodHouse (01:12–03:50).
• They emphasize the value of proximity, easy access to resources, and ongoing business operations while creating content and sharing ideas.

Quote:
"We've had a couple episodes prior to this at Pod House. Pod House is wrapping up... we're still moving our businesses forward... creating awesome content."
— Mike Garvey (02:11)

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2. Why the Switch to Relay? Frank Conversation on Business Banking

Challenges with Traditional Banks (07:07–08:00)

• The hosts express frustrations with the slow, cumbersome process of opening and managing accounts at traditional banks.
• Bank loyalty and resistance to moving finances are commonly cited fears for entrepreneurs.

Quote:
"It takes three hours to open up one account and you’re like, oh my God... So I think that deters a lot of people."
— Mike Garvey (07:07)

Easy Digital Transition (05:28–15:03)

• Larry walks through his own apprehension and ultimate ease in setting up with Relay, aided step-by-step by a customer success rep.
• The process is personal, patient, and accommodates anyone less tech-savvy.
• Details are shared on moving automatic payments, team member access, and organizing multiple business accounts in way less time than traditional banks.

Quote:
"I was nervous to do it because I’m not really good with computers... It was so easy. It went real smooth... We had it set up in basically like an hour."
— Larry Dellisant (05:28)

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3. Relay’s Features: Automations, “Buckets,” and Financial Clarity

Automated Transfers and Profit First (08:58–09:59; 13:37–14:21)

• Relay allows users to set up automatic money transfers based on customizable percentages, easing the process of segregating funds for taxes, operating expenses, payroll, and equipment.
• This system aligns perfectly with the Profit First method, where owners allocate money into different “plates” or accounts to manage cash flow and avoid financial surprises.

Quote:
"That’s one of the beautiful things about Relay... when your cash flow becomes more predictable, you could literally say like I want 4% to come out of this account all the time."
— John Pajak (09:33)

Sales Tax and Other “Invisible” Expenses (09:59–11:15)

• The hosts detail practical examples, notably how Relay’s automation ensures New Jersey sales tax is always accounted for, preventing accidental use of state-collected taxes.
• Multiple “buckets” are set up in seconds for specific needs: operating expenses, payroll, emergency, winter fund, debt payoff, equipment, insurance, travel, and more.

Quote:
"Every week I pull 7% from there and put in the sales tax... this last time it was like within $10 accuracy of like what I owed."
— Mike Garvey (09:59)

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4. Onboarding Experience and Customer Support (05:28–07:07; 14:21–15:24)

• Relay’s onboarding is hands-on, not just a generic web tutorial; users work with a dedicated rep who can train the business owner and staff, making the process approachable for older staff or those leery of digital banking.
• Set-up includes a full review of incoming/outgoing payments, classification of automated debits/credits, and building suggested account structures.

Quote:
"She took all the work out of it for me. She did all the brunt work... and I have one more call with her."
— Larry Dellisant (14:24)

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5. Day-to-Day Impact on Bookkeeping and Business Management (15:53–18:45)

• Having multiple, purpose-driven accounts reduces the need for guesswork and makes both bookkeeping and financial health checks much simpler.
• Bookkeepers and accountants can easily see categorized transactions, streamlining their monthly or quarterly reconciliation work.
• The ability to check financial “buckets” in the Relay dashboard at a glance reduces anxiety and increases confidence in purchasing decisions.

Quote:
"Every morning you could just open up your relay account, and at a glance, you could look at your dashboard and go, yeah, everything looks good."
— John Pajak (16:09)

Quote:
"At a glance, you can literally see the health of your business... can we pull the trigger on that new tank sprayer? ... It takes that fear, that anxiety... Yeah, we can."
— John Pajak (18:08–18:45)

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6. Advice for Side Hustlers and Entrepreneurs

• The hosts encourage listeners not to be put off by technology or by fear of changing banks.
• Relay’s system fosters accountability, clarity, and helps drive focus towards revenue growth rather than time-consuming money management.
• Personalized, ongoing support is highlighted as key to a smooth transition.

Quote:
"For everybody that works with me... I've been recommending them to use Relay... it's just been an incredible time saver and it keeps you accountable."
— John Pajak (20:26)

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• "It really does walk you through it. So if you do need help, it's there. For the most part, you could figure this out."
  — John Pajak (15:03)

• "Now we could spend our time talking about more important things like, hey, how are we gonna make that income account even swell up even more?"
  — John Pajak (20:04)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:12 — Hosts introduce the episode and reflect on the collaborative PodHouse environment.
• 05:28 — Larry discusses his initial hesitance and positive onboarding experience with Relay.
• 07:07 — Frustrations with traditional banking and why entrepreneurs are hesitant to switch.
• 08:58 — Discussion of Relay features: automations, multiple accounts, and easy money management.
• 09:59 — Real-world example: Handling New Jersey sales tax automatically.
• 13:37 — How to create multiple financial “buckets” in Relay “within seconds.”
• 14:21 — Larry details how onboarding rep Robin suggested account structure and tweaks.
• 15:53 — Impact on bookkeeping: easier categorization and streamlined reconciliation.
• 18:08 — Dashboard visibility and the new confidence in business purchases.
• 20:03 — Closing insights: moving from just managing money to focusing on growth.

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Conclusion

The episode is packed with first-hand experiences, practical tips, and honest discussion about the transition to modern digital banking for small businesses. Relay’s features—like easy account creation, automation, and supportive onboarding—offer both empowerment and simplicity for side hustlers and established entrepreneurs. The Side Hustle Squad hosts underscore the importance of having clear, accessible financial systems to reduce stress and enable better business decisions, all in a candid, relatable tone.

Links for listeners:

• John Pajak’s financial coaching info
• Relay Financial sign-up
  (Check show notes for details as mentioned by the hosts.)

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Summary prepared for listeners who want the actionable takeaways and main insights—without having to listen!

Transcript

[A]

In this episode we will talk about Relay. Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank Member FDIC FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass through deposit insurance coverage to apply. Are you ready to kick back and get inspired? Grab your favorite drink, pop the top and join the side Hustle Squad with Mike Garvey and Larry Dellisant. This podcast is the perfect resource for anyone who's already started their side hustle or is just considering taking the lead. With in depth interviews featuring guests from the green industry and beyond, you'll gain valuable insights and learn what it takes to succeed in running a business while juggling a full time career. From personal stories to practical tips, the side Hustle Squad podcast has everything you need to turn your passion into a thriving business. Now, here's your side Hustle Squad hosts, M. Garvey and Larry De La Sante.

[B]

Hey, what's going on guys? It's your host, Mike Garvey with the side Hustle Squad podcast coming at you from the Brandon Bull Studio here at Pod House Las Vegas at Con Expo with my co host, Larry Delisanti. Larry, how are you?

[C]

Great.

[B]

And John Pajak.

[D]

What's up, boys?

[B]

How you doing, boys? Gonna go play a little stickball?

[D]

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go play that. You know, that's a good game right there.

[B]

Oh, man. Well, this is awesome. We've talked, we've had a couple episodes prior to this at Pot House. Pod House is wrapping up. We're shutting it down, heading out of town and moving on to the next one.

[D]

Yeah, it's gonna be. This has been great, man. I mean, just the ability to get in one area, one house, be able to have areas for production and, you know, it's not just about having and whatnot, but being creative and bringing you guys great content.

[B]

And it's easy having breakfast and coming down, sitting down, hey, we want to talk about this. Let's go. And there's not like, oh, meet me over here later, come to my this, come to the room, blah, blah, blah. No, it's like, you know, we got triplet over there doing a coaching call, doing his thing. Everyone still can do everything they need to do. We just took a call with our, our accounts manager, Jess, setting everything up for like, it's working. We're still moving our businesses forward. We're still moving our all things, all of balls down the field and creating awesome content.

[D]

Yeah. The collaboration Here has just been really good. So looking forward to the next one, too.

[B]

Yes. Which will be for. We're going to have a small one in San Antonio with me and Eric are going to Justin Moore sponsor games with his brother as well. And then. And then we'll catch back up with everybody right at the end of the week for number three, which would be Cornell, Max, Win in Life Meetup, and Nailers Inner Circle. Inner Circle. That's what we'll be bringing you out to Pittsburgh. So cool.

[D]

So aren't we getting a haunted house for that one?

[B]

I think I found a house. Yeah. I just need to know, do I need. Do you guys need a Thursday. Friday? Yeah.

[D]

Right. We'll figure out.

[B]

Or do we. Yeah. Minor details, Minor details. I think it has 24 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, and it looks interesting.

[C]

Definitely in a haunted house.

[B]

It's the biggest Airbnb in Pennsylvania, apparently,

[D]

if you have that many. Like, if I.

[B]

It has 24 beds.

[D]

24 beds. 20. The. How many bathrooms?

[B]

I mean, it's 10 or something.

[D]

If. If you need both hands to count how many bathrooms are in your house, you definitely. It's haunted.

[B]

Yeah. This is gonna be wild. And I'm just sure it's like addition onto addition onto addition. I'll bring a Ouija board, but no. Well, this is a great opportunity. John, you are our financial advisor, financial coach for our business. And we're also. A year ago, we all partnered with Relay, our banking platform, and we've become good friends with them. Larry and I recently got to go out to Toronto to meet with their sales team. And what me and Larry normally do is that I have the idea of, like, we should move on this. And he's like, all right, let's move on it with Coastal. Or if he has an idea, let's. Let's test it with one of the companies, see if it even works, to then go to his company, Amazing Creations. Same thing we did with Jobber. Jobber came forward and then we tested this postcard mania. Let's do with Coastal and then move on. He recently made the move this year to Relay, and I wanted to talk about his experience with them, what bank accounts he should be setting up and, you know, profit first model. It's obviously, it's changed our business. I look at it every morning. I move things around. I put little buckets in on that, and then, you know, move the money around. But let's talk about, you know, Larry, your experience with Relay, and then also, John, your thoughts on it. And we'll go from There.

[C]

Yeah. So I signed up with them like basically two weeks ago. Like I finalized it, started finalizing it. I was nervous to do it because I'm not really good with computers and stuff. So I did it on call with Robin. And then, you know, she got me into the. The laptop to do everything because I'm not even good with that. It was so easy. It really was easy. It went real smooth. We had it set up in basically like an hour call. We had most of it completely set up. But she didn't want to move too much over right away. She wanted to kind of. Because there's things that automatically come out of my account, like ach. Like deposits. My payroll has to get moved over. My accountant has to be put into it. My secretary, my mother has to be put into it because she moves money for me. So she goes, let's first. It's a lot of factors, a lot of stuff go. There's a lot involved in it, you know, but easy stuff. So call one was, let's move the money in there. She helped me walk through how to do all of my different accounts, what I wanted them for. And then she asked me for my three months of bank statements. Busy months. Then she went in and she, she pulled. I didn't do anything. She did all this for me, which is crazy. She pulled. Everything that she saw was automatically coming out. The next call was, hey, here's all the things that come out. This is everything. There's like seven things that are automatic. Let's see. Oh, these two are the same. Like payroll.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And taxes for payroll. She goes, well, that's coming out of one account. So now we just got rid of that. Now it's one.

[B]

So.

[C]

But it was just, it was such an easy, easy process with her. Like I didn't even had to open a window on my. To be on a zoom. I didn't know how to open a window from an email. You know, I did it before I'm talking to someone. She just was like.

[B]

And that shouldn't deter people from being technically challenged. They can work you through it, I think. And what we talked about some of the hold ups like working with. And we talk. We can talk about this going to a traditional bank, right? It's you meet with the banker and then you takes three hours to open up one account and you're like, oh my God. Like as I did it. We did. I'll. We've done it. And it's like, hey, we're gonna switch from blank bank to the other one. And that was like turning the world upside down. So I think that deters a lot of people. It's a little scary. You know, you've. I've had some of my bank accounts. I saw my very first bank account. That is my bank account. I've never changed. So I think that's a little. People get resistant to that.

[D]

Yeah, I mean the thing is, you know how you, you're getting your account set up, Larry and you know, trying to balance things going back and forth. That setup is really generally pretty easy. But the fact that you know, Relay is there to assist you with anything, that's a great, I mean that's great customer service right there. And you know, for anyone that might be hesitant about changing. The thing is once you get a, you know they're the. You don't have to use the automations where it would change transfer money from account to account for you. But that's one of the beautiful things about Relay is that that's available and that's included in the features. It's not like a add on or anything like that. You know, for those of you that you know, let's pretend you, you already have multiple bank accounts. You have to manually transfer money back and forth, you know.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Because that's. And that, you know, for some people that's not a big deal. For some people it's like, it's a chore, you know, it's like, oh man, well I gotta. How much am I really supposed to pull from our income account to say payroll, you know, or you know, we're trying to save up for a new piece of equipment. How much should I be doing this again? You know, when we like when we do budgets, budgets, you know, we set those up and then you know, you, you still have to revisit them every now and again to make sure you're on task.

[B]

It.

[D]

This makes, especially once you have a budget. Banking with Relay makes it super easy because like you said you could either manually transfer money over or you could set up, hey, you know, when we have X amount of money coming in, you know, when your cash flow becomes more predictable, you could literally say like I want x, I want 4% to come out of this account all the time. And it's just feeding into this whatever other account.

[B]

The best part is the New Jersey sales tax. Oh yeah, 7, 6.6 to 5, whatever, 7%. Okay. So for, from my incoming every week I pull 7% from there and put in the sales tax. And I don't think about it every Friday morning. So it's like, I'm not like, oh my God. I just got a ton of money. Did I do that right? Did I move that money there? No, it's there. And this last time it was like almost. It was like within $10 accuracy of like what I owed. Because it's like before it was sitting in that big pot of money in my big account. And just like, I'm like, oh, man, we got like we're doing. But 7% of that is not ours. We're collecting it on the behalf of the state of New Jersey. So.

[D]

Exactly.

[C]

I can't tell you how many times I did that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, I'm like, man, look, oh, man, I have $80,000 in my account right now. I'm gonna just take. Oh, you tell me not to do it. I'm just gonna take a draw of 25,000. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go somewhere or put it into like a CD or something. And then I'm like, sales tax comes. Oh, that was 40,000. I'm like, oh, man. Now I'm like, you know, now I'm down to 20,000. You know, it's like. And then you're like, I just really messed up.

[D]

Hey, guys, Adam Fullerton here with Brandon Bull. As a proud sponsor of the side hustle squad podcast, we're all about helping lawn care and landscaping businesses make their mark and stand out from the competition. Visit [e-mail] to learn more about our professional branding website and graphic design services and how we can help your business look awesome and grow.

[B]

Hey, what's going on, guys? With Jobber, you can easily manage jobs, track your team, get paid faster, all from one SimP app. Join thousands of satisfied lawn care professionals who trust shopper to keep their business growing strong. Visit the link in the bio today and start your free trial. Pull up my relay right now. Okay, so you have your main business checking. That's where everything comes in. Sales tax. I have an operating expense account. I have a payroll and check writing account because that is one hold up and that everyone should know. You can checks right now can come from one account. So your direct deposit and any check writing paper. Check writing has to be from one account. Equipment maintenance. Our winter fund is already getting funded. Our equipment purchasing. We have to buy a new van or put a down payment on a new van that's fulfilled in there. An emergency fund debt payoff for our one box truck that's almost done and paid off, that's fully funded with three payments ready to Go insurance, our insurance policy, business savings, travel, and then I have some other accounts where I like take operate, aerating and seating, damp down payments or deposits, and I automatically fuel them into there. So I collect that money and then, you know, put that on there. Another thing too, it's like we're starting doing, you know, being a crest dealer and robotics and stuff like that. Hey, I will eventually have a relay for that, but for right now I have sure that, hey, pop open account for that. That's going to be that operating account right now for that until I can get everything set up with that. So it's like if you at any moment you click the, the plus button at the top and you need to create a checking account or a savings account and what the name of that is. You can do it up to 20 accounts.

[D]

Yeah, that's an awesome thing is you could have up to 20 accounts that you set up within like seconds. Like, you could literally.

[B]

You could set them.

[D]

Yeah, it takes like a minute or two to like, oh, you know what? I didn't make an emergency or I didn't make a winter fund.

[B]

Right.

[D]

You know, I think I should do that. Hey, yeah, that was a great idea, Mike. We should have a winter fund.

[B]

Like, what did you do before for your winter fund? You just had.

[C]

It just was like one big pot of money. I didn't know. And you're like, I didn't know what

[B]

was what, you know, sales taxes in there.

[C]

Everything. It was. And you know, I set up like, you know, I set up a bunch now. I set up like even a savings account. I set up like savings. I set up a equipment one. And I have like small percentages going and I'll probably wind up.

[B]

And you'll tweak them changing.

[C]

That's what Robin told me you're gonna wind up.

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

But she suggested what it should be, which is. That's what I mean. Like, she took all the work out

[B]

of it for me.

[C]

Yeah, she did everything. She did all the brunt work. She was like, you know, she did it all. And I have one more call with her.

[B]

Cool.

[C]

And she set it up.

[B]

How many calls?

[C]

Right on time and everything? Just two.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

So you look at it like it's three hours, but you're doing way more than when you go to a bank. You're there for three hours and you just open up an account, there's no work behind the account.

[D]

You know, this is right, this is.

[B]

You're.

[C]

It's going to take you three hours, but it's not three hours to setting up the account. It's like learning the account and.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

How to open up the multiple accounts. It's. It's almost like teaching you something.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But once you do it, it does everything by itself, so you're not doing anything anymore. You know.

[D]

You know, when we, you know, I've done a walkthrough on how simple it is to go through the relays interface, you know, and it, like, it really does walk you through it. So if you do need help, it's there. If you, I mean, really, for the most part, you could figure this out. And it's not hard.

[B]

And if you need additional training, they'll help you if they want it. If you need office staff that needs training on it. Who, you know, if you're. If, you know, like you said, your secretary, your mom needs training on it. Our bookkeeper is an older woman, and she was a little resistant to it because I sent her all the tax information and saw 20 different bank accounts that I thought she was gonna jump off a cliff, but it's okay. But that, but they can provide. They're providing training to her for it to the point where they're like, hold on, Larry, just wait until, like, they

[C]

tell me to wait.

[B]

Wait a second. So. But then again, it's making her job easier. Everything's categorized. It's like, you know, on top of the QuickBooks that she's doing, and then it's all linked from this to that and they, you know, it all works together.

[D]

To be honest, on a. I'm sorry. Okay, I was just going to say, like the. From a bookkeeping perspective, you know, I, I'm not a bookkeeper. I'm not a cpa, but I do our books for our business. And, you know, when you have everything organized like you could have all your different accounts, it really makes your bookkeeping much easier. Right to where, you know, I would recommend still having a professional bookkeeper. The thing is, when you organize it like this, it makes it much simpler for you to not necessarily have to rely on them as much. It streamlines how much work they need to do. And it's like, really, all they really need to do is do some reconciliation. It's not like, okay, well, we have to manage everything. It's like, it actually just streamlines things so well. And that's another thing that I really enjoy about, you know, the, all the features that are in relay. It's just, it's very simple, especially if you're. You're already used to doing the, like the profit first approach of having multiple plates that you're, you know, putting money in multiple buckets, it just makes it so simple. And without having, you know, I do, you know, budgets break evens of bottom lines, and I do financial coaching and things like that. You don't necessarily need to come to me and go, all right, I've got this big wad of money and I got this over here. How's my business doing? Every morning you could just open up your relay account, and at a glance, you could look at your dashboard and go, yeah, everything looks good. Oh, you know what? Payroll might be a little light where, you know, like. Because I see, hey, you know what? Maybe our payroll's 7,000 a week. And it's like, oh, we're at like 6,500 and change.

[B]

Yeah, let's pull some.

[D]

You know what? We just need a. We just need a little extra just to cover that, you know, but at a glance, you can literally see the health of your business based on all of your bank accounts and all the, you know, presets and everything that you get.

[B]

And it says, oh, maybe we can pull the trigger on that new tank sprayer.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

Okay, we got that. Yeah, we're good. We're like, okay, it's now time. We've been saving and, you know, for a year, and it's time to pull the trigger.

[D]

It takes that fear, like that anxiety and that fear of like, oh, man, we. We kind of need this thing, but can we swing it? Yeah, we can.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

Or you set it up where it pulls a percentage, and in four months, the money's there. You know, it's not that big, big chunk of money sitting there that you don't even know what's paid or not paid. But going back on something you said before about you could basically do it all yourself. Like, now that I had two, you know, two hour calls at her, I could have done that without her. I honestly could have. I mean, maybe not transferring the money over and stuff. That's how easy it was. Like, yeah, she's like, oh, just hit the plus button, do this. I'm like, that's it.

[B]

Just the plus button.

[C]

It's pretty easy.

[D]

The fact that they. The fact that they don't just say, hey, go watch this video.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

It's like you still get that onboarding

[B]

experience with the same person the whole

[D]

time, you know, so it's not like a.

[C]

It's a great experience.

[B]

It is. They're doing really big things or happy to be partnered with them. And I think that there's going to be a lot of collaboration with them in the future. And I really look forward to it.

[D]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing some more things with them because it's, it's been an incredible tool that, something that I would have to take time and my resources to help others. And it's not that it, you know, it's not beneath me at all. But there's so many other things that we could be focusing on.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Instead of going, well, you should have this much in your account here and blah, blah, blah, it streamlines all that. And it's like now we could spend our time talking about more important things like, hey, how are we gonna make that income account even, you know, swell up even more? It's like so it's, you know, for everybody that works with me. I've always, I've, I've been recommending them.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

To use Relay because it's just been an incredible time saver and it keeps you accountable.

[B]

Yep.

[D]

Make and it's just a, just a great thing.

[B]

Awesome. Well, we'll wrap it up there. Thank you, John. If anyone wants to work with, work with John. Get a budget, break evens, bottom line workshop, workshop on their business, contact John. I'll have the have his info, of course, in the show notes. The sign up for Relay. We'll have that link in the show notes. Get your business squared away. We did. It's changed our business tremendously working with John. So we'll leave it there. We're closing out Pot house and that's it. We'll catch you guys on the next.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in to the side Hustle Squad podcast with Mike Garvey and Larry Dallasante. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights to help you succeed in your side Hustle journey. Connect with Mike and Larry using the links in the podcast description. If you love the show, please leave us a well worded five star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback and support help us grow and continue to provide you with the best content. And don't forget to follow the show to be notified when the next edition of the side Hustle Squad podcast is available. We have many exciting guests and topics lined up so you won't want to miss a single episode. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you next time on the side Hustle Squad podcast.