How a Free Challenge Turned Into a $500,000 a Year Business (Greatest Hits)

Summary

Summary of "How a Free Challenge Turned Into a $500,000 a Year Business" – The Side Hustle Show

Podcast Title: The Side Hustle Show
Host: Nick Loper of Side Hustle Nation | YAP Media
Episode: How a Free Challenge Turned Into a $500,000 a Year Business (Greatest Hits)
Release Date: November 4, 2024

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of The Side Hustle Show, host Nick Loper engages in a profound conversation with Tiffany Aliche, also known as "The Budget Nista." Tiffany, a former preschool teacher, shares her inspiring journey of transforming a simple free financial challenge into a thriving business poised to generate half a million dollars in annual revenue. This episode delves into the strategies, challenges, and pivotal moments that defined Tiffany's entrepreneurial success.

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Tiffany Aliche's Background

From Teaching to Entrepreneurship

Tiffany's professional journey began in education, where she spent a decade as a preschool teacher earning between $65,000 and $70,000 annually. Her foundational knowledge of money management stems from her upbringing in a household where financial discussions were commonplace, thanks to her father’s roles as a CFO and an accountant.

Tiffany Aliche [02:35]: "I learned about money at home. My father was a CFO and an accountant, so money management was a daily conversation."

Personal Financial Crisis

Despite her stable career, Tiffany faced a significant financial setback when she lost her teaching job. This crisis led to the depletion of her savings, withdrawal from her retirement account, mounting credit card debt, and ultimately, her home went into foreclosure.

Tiffany Aliche [02:14]: "I lost my job, everything fell apart. I took all the money from my retirement account, ran up my credit card debt, and my house went into foreclosure."

This challenging period became the catalyst for her pivot into financial education and entrepreneurship.

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The Birth of the Live Richer Challenge

Identifying the Need

During her recovery, Tiffany began assisting family and friends with their finances, leveraging the money management skills she acquired both at home and through her father's influence. This grassroots support ignited the idea for a structured financial education program.

Tiffany Aliche [03:21]: "People were asking me how I was rebuilding, so I started showing family and friends how to manage their finances."

Launching the Free Challenge

In late 2014, Tiffany initiated the Live Richer Challenge, a free, email-based program designed to guide participants through financial tasks over five weeks. The challenge was promoted initially through her personal Facebook page, leveraging her established reputation as a community financial educator.

Tiffany Aliche [04:06]: "I started a post at the end of 2014 announcing the Live Richer Challenge, offering it as a free resource to help people get on a financial track."

Participants received daily, actionable tasks directly to their inboxes, simplifying the process by providing step-by-step instructions rather than abstract advice.

Tiffany Aliche [05:10]: "Every day in your inbox, you get one easy financial task with scripts and clear instructions on what to do next."

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Strategies for Growth

Building an Initial Network

Tiffany's pre-existing community presence through in-person classes and volunteer work provided a solid foundation. Her proactive approach included expanding her Facebook network by adding new friends daily, which was crucial before the advent of comprehensive Facebook business tools.

Tiffany Aliche [10:15]: "I had an email list of about 2,500, and when I launched the challenge, 500 people signed up instantly from my network."

Leveraging Social Proof and Community

As membership grew, Tiffany introduced "Live Richer Challenge Leaders"—enthusiastic participants who helped recruit friends. Additionally, she utilized milestones (e.g., reaching 5,000 participants) as social proof to attract more sign-ups.

Tiffany Aliche [16:36]: "Once we hit big numbers, like 5,000 women, I would advertise it across all my social media platforms, and women felt it wasn't a scam because so many were joining."

Multi-Platform Engagement

To maximize engagement and visibility, Tiffany directed participants to various platforms beyond email, including her blog and Twitter, ensuring a pervasive online presence.

Tiffany Aliche [06:32]: "I linked each email task to a blog post and encouraged participants to tweet about their progress, increasing traffic across all my platforms."

Continuous Engagement

Tiffany maintained participant interest by regularly sharing resources and encouraging ongoing involvement, such as finding accountability partners and fostering a supportive Facebook community.

Tiffany Aliche [16:54]: "In the challenge, one task was to get an accountability partner, which effectively doubled participation."

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Monetization Strategies

Diverse Revenue Streams

Despite offering the Live Richer Challenge for free, Tiffany successfully monetized her platform through multiple avenues:

1. Speaking Engagements: Companies sought her expertise to educate their audiences, providing her with substantial income.

   Tiffany Aliche [22:32]: "Companies hired me to speak and teach their audiences, which became a significant revenue source."

2. Book Sales: By promoting her book within the challenge's communications, Tiffany converted engaged participants into buyers.

   Tiffany Aliche [23:40]: "The book link was at the bottom of every daily email, and we sold over a thousand books in a single month."

3. Affiliate Marketing: Tiffany incorporated affiliate links for financial tools she genuinely endorsed, earning commissions transparently.

   Tiffany Aliche [24:16]: "This year alone, I made about $60,000 in affiliate money by recommending products I loved."

4. Live Richer Academy: Introduced as a premium membership offering advanced financial courses taught by various experts, generating recurring monthly revenue.

   Tiffany Aliche [24:43]: "With over 4,000 students at $10 each, we're bringing in $40,000 a month from the Academy alone."

Scaling Through Automation

To manage the increasing demand without scaling her personal time investment linearly, Tiffany automated the challenge's delivery, allowing participants to join at any time while maintaining the same quality and consistency of content.

Tiffany Aliche [18:34]: "I automated the content delivery, enabling continuous sign-ups and consistent participant experiences."

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Community Building and Maintenance

Fostering a Supportive Environment

Tiffany emphasized the importance of a strong community, establishing private Facebook groups where participants could support each other, share experiences, and seek advice. This sense of belonging was pivotal in retaining engagement and fostering word-of-mouth growth.

Tiffany Aliche [20:17]: "The group has evolved into a space where women help each other with their financial lives, from buying a house to managing spending habits."

Moderation and Quality Control

To maintain the group's integrity and prevent spam, Tiffany implemented strict joining protocols and enlisted a team of 12 admins to oversee interactions, ensuring the community remained valuable and focused.

Tiffany Aliche [20:36]: "We set rules where members must join through our challenge link and pass a survey, reducing spam and ensuring commitment."

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Challenges and Adaptations

Initial Hurdles

Launching a free challenge posed challenges in sustaining engagement and managing administrative tasks. Initially, Tiffany managed email delivery manually, which became unsustainable as participant numbers soared.

Tiffany Aliche [06:33]: "In the beginning, I was manually sending out emails, which was hectic and unmanageable as the challenge grew."

Evolving the Academy

Responding to participant feedback, Tiffany transformed the Live Richer Academy to include live courses, Q&A sessions, and continuous content updates, ensuring sustained engagement and providing added value to paying members.

Tiffany Aliche [28:42]: "We now offer live courses and weekly Q&A sessions, keeping the Academy dynamic and engaging for members."

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Key Takeaways and Lessons

Build and Nurture Your Tribe

Tiffany underscores the importance of building a dedicated community. Starting with a small, engaged group and nurturing relationships can lead to exponential growth.

Tiffany Aliche [30:54]: "Build your tribe now. Start with even 10 people, treat them well, and give generously."

Provide Tangible Results

Offering actionable, step-by-step guidance helps participants achieve measurable outcomes, fostering trust and encouraging continued engagement.

Tiffany Aliche [31:46]: "Give people tangible results, like a step-by-step money-saving script they can implement immediately."

Adapt and Learn as You Go

Entrepreneurial journeys are filled with unforeseen challenges. Tiffany emphasizes learning and adapting strategies in real-time to overcome obstacles.

Tiffany Aliche [31:59]: "Figure it out as you go. I didn't know anything about online business initially, but I learned step by step."

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Conclusion

Tiffany Aliche's story is a testament to the power of community-building, providing valuable content, and diversifying revenue streams. By offering a free, actionable challenge and leveraging multiple monetization strategies, she transformed her financial education platform into a lucrative business. Her journey offers invaluable lessons for aspiring side hustlers aiming to build impactful and profitable ventures.

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Notable Quotes

• Tiffany Aliche [02:35]: "I learned about money at home. My father was a CFO and an accountant, so money management was a daily conversation."

• Tiffany Aliche [04:06]: "I started a post at the end of 2014 announcing the Live Richer Challenge, offering it as a free resource to help people get on a financial track."

• Tiffany Aliche [16:36]: "Once we hit big numbers, like 5,000 women, I would advertise it across all my social media platforms, and women felt it wasn't a scam because so many were joining."

• Tiffany Aliche [22:32]: "Companies hired me to speak and teach their audiences, which became a significant revenue source."

• Tiffany Aliche [30:54]: "Build your tribe now. Start with even 10 people, treat them well, and give generously."

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Additional Resources

For more information about Tiffany Aliche and her initiatives, visit The Budgetnista.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened.

Transcript

[Nick Loper]

Here's an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the side Hustle show greatest hits collection.

[Tiffany Aliche]

How a free challenge turned into a.

[Nick Loper]

$500,000 a year business.

Welcome to the side Hustle show where aspiring part time entrepreneurs learn how to turn their side Hustle dreams into reality. Because your 9 to 5 may make you a living, but your 5 to 9 makes you alive. And now your host, Nick Loper.

What's up?

[Tiffany Aliche]

What's up?

[Nick Loper]

N. Nickeloper here.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Welcome to the side Hustle show live from beautiful Livermore, California. Got an awesome, inspiring, actionable show for you today. My guest is Tiffany the Budget Nista Aliche. She's a former preschool teacher who's built up a business that's on track to do half a million dollars in revenue this year. And the cool thing is it all started with a completely free challenge. She runs the livericher [e-mail] which has helped more than 160,000 participants save a collective $17 million and pay off $1.5 million in debt. In this episode, you're going to hear how Tiffany came up with the challenge.

[Nick Loper]

Idea, how she got people to join.

[Tiffany Aliche]

And now the 4 or 5 revenue streams she's using to turn this thing.

[Nick Loper]

Into a super successful business.

Notes and links to all the resources mentioned [e-mail] Livericher and I know Tiffany's challenge in marketing have evolved in the years since this was recorded. It may not exist in the same form that we talked about, but my challenge to you is to think of how you could apply a similar strategy in your own niche. What kind of cool, value packed challenge could you offer to reach new people and turn them into raving fans?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Ready?

[Nick Loper]

Let's do it.

[Tiffany Aliche]

I was a preschool teacher for 10 years and I was doing well. I mean, I was making like between 65 and $70,000 a year because I used to tutor on the side and babysitting stuff on the side and everything seemed great. I grew up in a house where money was talked about all the time. My father was a CFO and an accountant. You know, so I just learned about money at home. And then when I lost my job, everything fell apart. Like, I lost my savings. I took all the money out of my retirement account like they tell you not to. I ran up my credit card debt, My house went into foreclosure. I was like, sheesh. Like just everything fell apart. And it was in the rebuilding that I realized, okay, all the lessons I kind of learned at home because my dad was, like, serious about, like, learning about money. Like, he took. Took us to, like, money classes and stuff. So I used, you know, everything that I learned.

That's a great influence.

No, it was, honestly. And so when I was rebuilding, people would ask me, well, how are you doing it? Because I'm in the same position. So I just started showing family and friends, and that's how it started.

[Nick Loper]

Family and friends are asking, hey, what are you. What's going on? So did you end up getting a new job at that point? Another teaching job?

[Tiffany Aliche]

I knew I didn't want to teach in the classroom anymore just because I felt like I'd outgrown that. So I was volunteering at all these different places, like the Boys and Girls Club, the United Way, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, thinking I wanted to be a party planner. Don't ask me where that came from, but I was like, that's what I totally want to do.

[Nick Loper]

It's like everybody's dream to be, like, a wedding coordinator or something like that.

[Tiffany Aliche]

I know. And so. But in that, I found that as I was volunteering for these different organizations, I found myself sneaking into their classrooms and watching their presenters teach and being like, that's not how you do it. And, like, teaching and showing them. And then as I was helping people at the organization with their finances, people started asking me more and more, and I would sit down with folks, and they were like, well, can you write us, like, a curriculum since you're a teacher? And at the time, I had my master's, and I still do an education because I thought I was going to become a principal one day, but I didn't. And so I started writing curriculum and lesson plans for these organizations where I was volunteering. And so those lesson plans and curriculum eventually became the Live Richer Challenge.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Listening to what people are asking you for help with already, I like that. What was, like, the first step in getting this challenge off the ground? I mean, did you tell me about the early days? Like, I could. I could start, like, the side hustle challenge. Like, how am I getting my first. My first participants?

[Tiffany Aliche]

I started. I started a post at the end of 2014. Like, hey, I'm going to be doing a live richer challenge. It's going to be a free resource to help you get on financial track. If you're interested, let me know below. It was just a Facebook post, just.

[Nick Loper]

On your personal Facebook page.

[Tiffany Aliche]

And a ton of people were like, oh, my. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Because by then, I was Already like three years into being the budgetista. So around the city where I live, people knew me to be like, oh, that's the financial education lady. Because I had taught volunteering does something great for you. You get your face in front of so many people. So people knew me. So when I posted it, it wasn't a huge surprise because by then I was hosting free community classes. They were sponsored by the United Way. They would pay me and I would host classes for the whole community to come to for free and teaching financial education. So when I said, hey, I'm going to be doing it online, the same stuff we do in class, people just showed interest. And I did it on purpose so I could start to collect interested parties. And then I think I put up like an eventbrite link just so people can say to add themselves to like a list. And I didn't. I wasn't even using like, you know, like aweber or like infusionsoft or anything like that. It was just post interest. Here's an easy free link to sign up so I can collect the emails.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so when somebody signs up for your eventbrite thing, which was it free?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah, it was free.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so a free eventbrite event. And then that gave you their email address.

[Tiffany Aliche]

And I started to craft what I thought the challenge should be like. I was like, all right, so I teach this six week course for the Unite Away. So how do I condense this into. I think at the time the first challenge, I condensed it into five weeks. And the way the challenge works is I really played into what I knew about people from a teaching perspective is that people want to be told exactly what to do. They don't want you to have them figure it out. So I was like, okay, so instead of me saying, here's some ways to do stuff, what if every single day I told you exactly what to do? And so that's the way the challenge works. You sign up and every day in your inbox for the length of the challenge, which is about a month, you get one easy financial task that says, hey, call your service provider, tell them you don't have the money. Here's the script. If they say no, here's script number two. If they say yes, here's script number three. And then let me know how it goes. So that's how each task went. You didn't have to know how to do anything except for read, write, add, subtract.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so for five weeks, people are getting. It is all delivered through email?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yes.

[Nick Loper]

Are you writing these out like the day, the morning of. And hitting sending.

[Tiffany Aliche]

In the beginning, I was. And that was really hectic. And so I realized, you know what, maybe are there other ways I can get people to connect to different platforms? So I'm like, okay, one, I finally, I think I signed up at the time. I use infusionsoft now, but I was using Aweber. So I'm like, okay, one, they're opening my emails, but what if I could get them to my blog? So in the email I would say, hey, today's task is learn how to budget. You can learn how to rock this task. Here, link to the blog post. So it like forces all of these people to, one, open my email. Then two, okay, to my blog. And then while on my blog, I was like, I would have tweet this out. So then I was like, every step of the way, I was trying to get them to touch all of my platforms, to raise my profile on all the platforms.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, okay. This is always a debate, like, oh, how much of the information do I include in the body of the email versus, like, trying to get traffic back to the site? I'm glad to hear your take on.

[Tiffany Aliche]

It because before then, I don't really consider myself a blogger because I was literally blogging. Like, I mean, if you got something out of me once every four months, you're lucky. So I didn't have anything on there. And trying to get my blog. And so this was kind of the way, like, okay, well, I know that at the time, my first year in 2015, I wanted 10,000 people to sign up, and we got that. We got about 20,000 people signed up for the challenge. And I would say about 50 to 60% of them came fairly regularly to the blog via the daily emails. For me, sometimes things happen that I don't plan on, but it was totally awesome. So I had this online Facebook group, and it was specifically for what I was teaching these classes in person, in the community, and volunteering. People kept emailing me and I was like, look, I can't email everybody back the same answer. I'm going to form a Facebook group. If you're a class member or if you've come to one of my classes, post your question here. I just added those people to the Facebook group and I called it Dream Catchers Live Richer. And somehow people from the challenge found the group. I didn't post it anywhere. I don't know how they found it. And people started adding themselves and asking to join and then sharing what was happening with them during the challenge. And I was like, this group is not for that. And then I realized, duh, dummy, light bulb. This is awesome. And so I started posting the group link in the blog post. Like, hey, tell me how you rocked out on today's task here. You know, group link to the Facebook group. And it's a private group, so you have to request to join. And that is what really made the challenge take off, because now you had people, 10,000 people, every single day, talking about one particular task that you gave to them.

[Nick Loper]

Now you mentioned people, okay, they're going to link to the blog and then they're going to have an opportunity to share this on their own Facebook and on Twitter and stuff. Starting out with your own personal network that you built over the years, doing these in person classes. I'm curious how you went from your personal network in this moment. Maybe you just had a huge network to getting 20,000 people over the course of a year. There was some element of virality there, you know, a tipping point. And what do you think led to that explosive growth?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Honestly, it was not explosive. It was like. It was so, like. Because what I did was I started in, I want to say June, and it literally took till January of the next year to get the. Like, to get 10,000, like every week was like we had to scrape, beg for people to join. So my initial network, so I'll tell you, when I first put it up, I think 500 people instantly. So that was like my, hey, I know, Tiffany network.

[Nick Loper]

But that's good.

[Tiffany Aliche]

That's okay, you know, because you have to remember, by then I had been teaching financial education in the community. And I think I had like an email list of like 2500. So getting 500, it was like, okay, 500 folks.

[Nick Loper]

Sure, sure.

[Tiffany Aliche]

And then two before Facebook kind of like made this illegal. When I first was starting the budget in 2009, 2010, one of my homeworks to myself was I used to go and friend a hundred new people a day or at least request to friend them. Because I knew that, like, at the time, Facebook didn't have Facebook groups or Facebook business. So I was using my personal page as like a soft business page. So I wanted a whole bunch of friends.

[Nick Loper]

So just random people?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yes. So what I would do is I'd be like, let's just say I was your friend. And I'd be like, oh, Nick and I are friends in real life. Let me go through Nick's friends list. These people have headshots. He looks important friend. This one looks like. So literally, I would friend you, based upon your picture, that you look like you work for a company that might pay me to speak Friend. And so. And so, literally, like. But, like, obviously, you cannot do that now. So now I have a friend list of, like, 5,000. But really, it started in 2010. And then in 2010, I used to post a tip of the day, a financial tip of the day, on my Facebook page. So on Facebook, I was known as like. And my nickname on Facebook, well, my name was Tiffany the Budget Nista Aliche. And so I'm posting tips of the day. I'm sharing pictures of me speaking around in the community. So I had already laid a strong foundation for. When the challenge came. It wasn't this huge, like, who's this girl? It was like, we've seen for years that she does this.

[Nick Loper]

Now I'm looking back, I was like, yeah, I think we were friends on Facebook before I ever met you. Wait a minute.

[Tiffany Aliche]

You got caught up in the Facebook, like, hey, he looks like he might be somebody who might know somebody who might know somebody.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, you guessed wrong. You guessed wrong.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Okay. And so when I put it out, yes, about 500 people signed up right away. But then I went to school, my bachelor's degrees in marketing, and I used every marketing thing I could think of. I used to do a quote of the day. Like, did you know 60% of women, you know, don't have enough for retirement? Don't let that be you. Sign up for the challenge. So we were using all of these different tricks and tips and posting all of these different quotes and creating all of these meme boxes to get people interested. One thing that helped a lot was I reached out to the first 500 and said, how many of you ladies would love to be a live Richer challenge leader? And they were like, oh, my gosh. Because women love to be, like, a part of an experience. They're like, I would. Meanwhile, it meant nothing. Like, there's no such thing as a Live with your talent leader. I just made it up. But as a result, I got my friend who was a designer, to create these meme boxes where it was their picture, and it says, I am a Live with youh challenge leader. And the website at the bottom. And the women loved them because they were really pretty. And their job as a leader was to sign up between 10 and 20 of their friends. And so that helped significantly. And then once a month, for like, six months, I would talk to the leaders on the phone to see what was working, what was not working. The leaders formed their own Facebook pages to sign up their friends and get their friends excited. Because the leaders, most of the leaders knew me personally.

[Nick Loper]

So initially, yeah, there was a personal connection.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Exactly. So they were just like, you know, to tell their friends, like, oh my God, I know Tiffany, she's awesome. The challenge is going to be great because people had not experienced the challenge, so it was a hard sell. So that helped significantly. And honestly, we didn't use, I didn't even know how to do Facebook ads. I didn't spend any money on ads for the first 20,000 women.

[Nick Loper]

This is like, you know, taking a page out of the network marketing book, except without really, you know, buy my acai drink.

[Tiffany Aliche]

It was. And I honestly, I didn't know anything about like, you know, how like you have all the marketing guys online now. I didn't know anything about any of that. All I knew was intrinsically what made people move. One, being part of a community. Two, we used a little bit of fear tactic like you don't want to be the old lady eating cat food. Join the challenge.

[Nick Loper]

You know, More with Tiffany in just a moment, including the one little tactic that has stuck with me even eight.

Years later, right after this.

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Okay, so 60% of people don't have enough for retirement. One day join the challenge, next day don't eat cat food.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yes. And then two. Really to me, what tipped it was having to live with your leaders, sign up their friends. And then two. What we did is in the beginning of the challenge, one of the tasks were to get an accountability partner. Ask your friend, your coworker, your mom, your sister, your someone to do the challenge with you and she had to sign up too. So that's okay.

[Nick Loper]

So you're getting like two for one.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah. So we said we and plus, you know, it was free. But you know, that helped significantly too. Like, so people started and then once we kind of tipped over, I think once we hit like 5000, it started to roll a little bit faster because we were posting the numbers. Like every time we hit a big number, like 5,000 women have signed up for the challenge. What are you waiting for? I would post it across all my social media platforms and then women would be like, oh my God, 5,000. It can't be a scam if all of these people have signed up.

[Nick Loper]

Safety in numbers, right?

[Tiffany Aliche]

And then what I would do was for the women that did sign up like every two weeks, I would send like an awesome resource so that way they wouldn't forget that the challenge was starting. So, like, every two weeks I'd be like, hey, here's this great website I like. You know, challenges starting in six months. Hey, this is great book I'm reading. Challenge is starting in six months. Don't forget to ask your mom, your sister, your cousin, your friend. So I kept them engaged because I started collecting people a full six to eight months before we actually launched the challenge.

[Nick Loper]

That's a good point. So this is kind of a start and stop thing. It goes for five weeks or a five week period where this content is being delivered. So the rest of the time is kind of like in anticipation. And what happens after the fact? Like, could you go through it again? Or, you know, how do you engage those people? You know, if somebody wants to join in the middle, like, if it's all kind of on an automated delivery system, theoretically they could. But, like, you want everybody going through, like the same tasks at the same time.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Well, in the beginning, it was just my intention to do this one time, like, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, like, all right, we're done. And then the women were like, no, where are you going? We want, like, I want to do it again. And I was just like, okay. And so that's when I was in.

[Nick Loper]

The same content, like, the second time around.

[Tiffany Aliche]

So I recognized that some women started late or there were some Johnny Come latelys, you know, like, oh, my sister told me it was awesome. Is it too late? So it took me a month, but I automated, yes, the same content, and then you could just sign up for it and it would run throughout the year. And then what I did was I said, you know what, let's do a new challenge every year. So 2015 was the first challenge and we automated it after the collective community did it in January. By March, anyone could join. And then by, like November, I turned it off. And then we started collecting people for the 2016 challenge, which was the Savings Edition, which is just about savings. And so we ran that in January, and then as soon as it finished in February, we turned it on automatic. So right now that's automated. So you can join the Savings Edition challenge or you can join the first initial challenge, which covers budgeting, saving, credit, debt, insurance, investing money, mindset. It covers, like, basically everything, you know. And so both of those, you can sign up for it and you'll get those automatic emails in your inbox and you could do it whatever you want. And so when I got the first 10,000 women, those are the women who had signed up by the Time we started. The other 10,000 came throughout the year through the automated challenge.

[Nick Loper]

So I wanted to sign up today. I could. And it would be no effort on your part. Like, it would be automated delivery.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah, automated delivery. And then you would just, like, you would still get the same content as everybody else, but automated delivery. And the group still runs. So now the group has shifted away from being just about the challenge and now it's just women helping women with their financial lives. So 24 hours a day, women post everything from somebody wrote the other day, I'm so mad at my husband I could throat punch him. Which I thought was hilarious. She was like, he's the worst spender. He doesn't know how to save. What can I do? And so other women would give her advice, which I thought was. So that's what the group has become. Like, hey, I'm buying a house, what do I do? Or woo, woo. I bought a car with the money that I saved from the challenge. What are you guys up to? So it's just a support group for women working on their money.

[Nick Loper]

What's your time investment in moderating? Any group that size is going to attract spammers.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yes, for sure. So one thing we do do is in the beginning, you could just join. Now, if someone added you, we would add you. So now we have some rules that, one, you can't be added by someone else. So if it says Nick Loper added Dave, we ignore those and we delete those requests. Dave has to add himself. So that helps because it's like someone has chosen to be here. Two, it's difficult to just be added to the group. So one way to be added or one way to find us is you go to the challenge and then you get an invite. And then also on the challenge page, there's actually a little link that says, like, join the forum. And when you click the link, it's actually a survey that kind of runs you through the group rules before you join. So I have about 12 admins. I don't heavily admin the group because they pretty much take care. I just kind of go in and give virtual high fives and answer some basic questions. But we've got a ton of financial experts in there that just like willingly share. So I don't have to be like, you know, in the beginning though, it was like hours and hours, but now, you know, I might spend, I want to say maybe an hour a day depending. Like, sometimes I'm having fun and I spend a ton of time and some days I don't make it to the group at all.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's been kind of, you know, I was hesitant to start the side Hustle nation Facebook group for kind of that same fear. Like, I don't want another thing to manage and moderate and create content for, but it's like it's kind of turned into this cool community on its own where people are asking and answering questions without my involvement. And so far, knock on wood, do very little moderating only. Maybe I delete one post a week or something or say, hey, thanks for sharing that, but can you give us a little more? Give us a little more meat of what can we take away from this experience or something? This is all awesome. My question for you is you're giving it all away for free. How does this help you pay the bills? I know you still have living expenses, and I've turned this into a business. You want to talk about what that has turned into as a result of this?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah, honestly. Surprisingly, I'm not going to lie. We make whop. We make about half a million dollars a year. I know, right?

[Nick Loper]

Sometimes I've given something away for free.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah, I know. Honestly. And here's how. So, one, I use my social influence to flex on social media. So basically, I'll share, like, oh, we've got 10,000 women doing this, and we saved $17 million. And so companies hired me to speak to teach their audiences. So that's one way. So last year, my speaking and like, book sales. So even though the Live Richer challenge is actually free online, yo, they kick butt in book sales. Even though I say on the site, like, because what I do is every day, the task on my blog post at the bottom, it says, hey, do you want to do the same challenge but in book form? Maybe you're not a computer person. Buy the book here. It's at the bottom of every single day. So for three weeks, you're seeing that little picture of the book and it says that. And people buy even though they know, yo, it's free online. I'm doing it for free. And that's where I'm seeing this link. And that's the only way I advertise the book. So people buy, like, the book. Like, just this month alone, we sold well over a thousand books this month alone. Wow. And so that's 1, 2. Like I said, speaking for different companies, colleges hire me. Like, I work with Prudential. I just signed an influencer contract with Ford today.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, wow. I used to work at Ford.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Really? I'm excited. They sent me a car I was like, okay, we could do this.

[Nick Loper]

What?

[Tiffany Aliche]

I know.

Jeez.

And so. But because that happens when. Because I'm treating my audience well, they come, they stay, and they're interactive. And as a result, companies want to get close to that, so they pay. And so last year, like I said, so last year, in speaking and in book sales, I made about $150,000. And then this year, we launched the Live Richer Academy. So this will be the first time that we really charge the individual. So the Academy, the way it works is that it's a monthly fee and it's the next level. The challenge is basic financial education. The Academy, I've gotten all these financial experts from around country to come and teach a course. That's their expertise. So we have a tax lady. We've got a student loan lady. You know, we've got people that. That's not my expertise. And it cost 1299amonth at first. It was 999amonth when we first opened in March, and now it's 1299amonth, and we already have over 4,000 students. So just do the math. For 10 bucks, 4,000 students, that's $40,000 a month.

[Nick Loper]

That's a pretty serious. Pretty serious continuity business or membership business.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Exactly. On top of that. But that came from years of giving and giving and giving. I was nervous to say, hey, audience, would you pay for more? Because they're not used to paying. And they were like, okay. And then I do affiliate links, but I'm always very transparent about the three or four things I actually really like. Like, I love digit, I love ebates, I love credit karma. So I didn't even know that they had affiliates. In the first challenge, I was mentioning all of these great resources, but I didn't have a link because I didn't know anything about affiliates. And then a friend of mine was like, why are you not making money off these suggestions? I'm like, well, how do you do that? And he was like, these companies have affiliate links. You're already mentioning them because you use them and you love them. Throw your link in there. And I was like, it can't be that much money. What? This year alone in affiliate money, I think I probably made about $60,000 in affiliate money.

[Nick Loper]

It can add up.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah. And so, like, all of these things combined, that's why I said, like, you know, this. This year, at minimum, we'll take in about half a million by next year. I really. At the rate that the academy is growing, because we just opened in March, that will be about a million dollar a year business by next year.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Okay, so we're recording middle of June, so it's only three months old.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah. And we're already making basically like, what is 40,000 times slow?

[Nick Loper]

You said 40 grand or 50. Almost 50. So, you know, and it's easy to look at that and say, wow, that's crazy. I want to do the same thing. But it's like we kind of not glossed over, but, well, we put in some time for four, five years leading up to this to build. It's that whole know, like, and trust pyramid where, you know, you've been given this value away for quite a while, but still really, really inspiring. What do you see as the next step outside of the Academy, outside of the speaking things? Like you're doing keynote stuff. Where is this thing going?

[Tiffany Aliche]

Yeah, so I do do some keynote stuff, but I was asking myself that the other day because you kind of are like, ooh, I remember my first goal was if I could make $500 a month, I'll be golden.

[Nick Loper]

I've been there. I've been there.

[Tiffany Aliche]

And then you're like, oh. I mean, the Academy has blown everything out of the water. I'm not even going to lie. It's not even. There's no precedent. I mean, just last year, like, we've quadrupled this year. So this. I just, I feel like, honestly, I just want to do good work. I'm writing a children's book. Since I used to be a preschool teacher, I feel like there's a lack of fun financial education materials for kids. So I'm writing a children's book. And I think it would be so awesome if, like, I have a main character in the book and I want her to become like the door, the explorer, but for money in kids, like on Nickelodeon somewhere. So that's. That would be awesome. And then, like, we're opening these things called Dreamcatcher chapters. So the women, which is so awesome, they've actually started meeting monthly offline. So there's like a. There's a New York group, there's a St. Louis group, there's a Texas group that's 500 women strong. And I'm like, wait, you guys are meeting without me? What the heck? How did this happen? And so we're going to make it official, so we're going to roll out dream Catcher chapters. Yeah, the dream catcher. So that's the name of our tribe. They named themselves after the name of the group, Dreamcatchers. And the other day they were like, yo, we want a T shirt. And I was like, yeah, nah, I don't really feel like it. They were like, one lady was like, if you don't make us a T shirt, I'm making a T shirt. And that's like, all right. And so I put up like a design and I was like, well, pick which one you guys. Like, over 4,000 people were like, we like this one. And I'm like, wait, 4,000 times? Let's just say I make a T shirt and it's 10 bucks profit. That's crazy. And I didn't even want to make it. Not that I didn't want to make a T shirt, but I don't like putting out tchotchkes. Just to put it out.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, so they're asking for it.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Exactly. So that's what I've learned. I've learned that I deliver what's requested, and you don't have to wonder if it's going to do well or not. So, yeah, there's just all of these different streams of income. I don't know what the end goal is. The end goal is just to do dope work and make good money.

[Nick Loper]

I'm with you. Like, I don't know, you know, I could retire tomorrow and, you know, what would. What would the day look like? But you'll probably be doing the same thing, because I love. I love doing it. Sounds like you're kind of in the same boat. So that's. That's really, really cool. I'm curious. On. Just on the membership site, one of the challenges that always comes up is like, well, how do I keep people in there? How do people engaged? And so are you going to be constantly trying to create new, like, exclusive content for. Just for that group?

[Tiffany Aliche]

So, yeah, so the way it took, like, I'm not gonna lie, this is how, you know, people really love you. So when we first opened the membership site in March, it totally sucked. I was like, what the hell is this? And people signed up. And I remember we were like constantly, like, I thought it was awesome until people were kind of in there and they were like, what? What? Cause it was pre recorded and they kind of ran through all of the courses so quickly. And so I was like, wait, so how do I keep people engaged? It took forever just to take these first 10 classes and it costs a ton of money. And I was like, it's going to eat up all of our profits. So what I did was I said, okay. We started thinking of other ways to deliver. So one of the things we do is we have instructors now teach live. I have a private YouTube channel and then I upload or I embed the video into the actual academy. So once a week you can take this live course. Like right now, a course that's happening is real estate investment for beginners. And so Christina teaches on Tuesday nights at 7. And we have a how to start a business course. Chike teaches Wednesday nights at 8 for three weeks. And so that keeps people going. And then every single Sunday we have an ask the expert series where I find one of my dope friends to come on for a q and a about, like, their particular financial expertise. And so I don't have to teach the other courses, but on Sundays I do like, you know, that's kind of like where I have to invest the time. It's like on Sundays for an hour I sit and I do the Q and a and people watch live. So that keeps people interested because you know there's going to be a new course that's going to roll out every month or so and then every Sunday it's going to be new material. So that's what keeps them going. And we have a private Facebook group specifically for the academy. Sure.

[Nick Loper]

Well, if you need some help, people have questions about side hustling. You know, I'm happy to help out.

[Tiffany Aliche]

No, I would love to. That's one of the biggest requests for sure.

[Nick Loper]

Absolutely. Tiffany, this has been just really eye opening stuff, like an incredible movement that you built. Check tiffany how to thebudgetnista.com you find all the information about the literature challenge over there, everything she's got going on. Just want to say thank you for joining me and let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Build your tribe now. I wish I wouldn't have waited so long because we'd be like probably a quarter of a million by now. Start now. I don't care if you have 10 people. Build your tribe, treat them awesome and give, give, give.

[Nick Loper]

Love it. Thank you so much, Tiffany. We'll catch up with you soon.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Thank you.

All right, hopefully this chat with Tiffany has your gears turning on what kind of free challenge you can host to grow and connect with your audience.

[Nick Loper]

I know she's got me thinking about how I can borrow her strategy there.

[Tiffany Aliche]

So my top takeaways from this chat, number one, it starts with your network and it snowballs out from there. I know this is a common theme, but strengthening your relationships is something you work on regardless of whether or not you have a business today. Like when people ask, oh, how can I get guests for my podcast? It's the same answer. Like, it starts with your network and it spiders out from there. How do I get freelance clients? It starts with your network and it spiders out from there.

[Nick Loper]

So I know you've heard me say that over and over again, but I think it's true. Your network really is your net worth and that's how it started for Tiffany, that's how it started for me, and that's how it started for just about everybody I can think of.

[Tiffany Aliche]

So number two, give people tangible results.

[Nick Loper]

She gave the example of a step.

[Tiffany Aliche]

By step money saving script and that's the kind of thing people can immediately take action on, like following a recipe step by step by step. And when they see it work, they're motivated to keep paying attention and help.

[Nick Loper]

You spread the word.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Takeaway number three figure it out as you go. This thing started with what Tiffany knew, personal finance, including admittedly her successes and her failures along the way. But she didn't know anything about online business. But she figured it out one step.

[Nick Loper]

At a time and that's what we.

[Tiffany Aliche]

All have to do.

[Nick Loper]

Like, I'm still figuring it out as.

[Tiffany Aliche]

I go, so be sure to head over to side hustlenation.com Livericher all one word, all of the budget Nistas Top.

[Nick Loper]

Tips from this conversation.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Want to thank you guys so much for tuning in this week.

[Nick Loper]

Until next time, let's go out there.

[Tiffany Aliche]

Make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.