307: How To Make Life Changing Wealth And Have A Great Family Life With Steve Chou

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You’re listening to the My Wife, Quit or Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. And today, I don’t have a guest on the podcast, but in this episode, I’m going to share a collection of principles that I live by on how to make life-changing money without sacrificing your family. After all, a component of your ability to make money online depends on your mindset, habits, and your ability to balance family and your work life. But before we begin, I want to thank Klaviyo for sponsoring this episode.

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Now it’s safe to say that most of us have been doing more online shopping lately. And if you’re an e-commerce brand, this means that you might be seeing more first-time customers. But once they’ve made that first purchase, how do you keep them coming back? Well, that’s what Klaviyo is for. Klaviyo is the ultimate email and SMS marketing platform for e-commerce brands, and it gives you the tools to build your contact list, send more memorable emails, automate key messages, and more, a lot more. And that’s why more than 30,000 e-commerce brands like Chubbies, Brooklyn, Living Proof,

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all use Klaviyo to build a loyal following. Now strong customer relationships mean more repeat sales, enthusiastic word of mouth, and less depending on third party ads. So whether you’re launching a new business or taking your brand to the next level, Klaviyo can help you get growing faster. And it is free to get started. So visit klaviyo.com slash my wife to create a free account. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. Now on to the show.

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Welcome to the My Wife, Her Job podcast, where we’ll teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here’s your host, Steve Chu.

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Welcome to the My Wife Could-A-Job podcast. As I mentioned in the intro, I’m going to be sharing some of my philosophies on making life-changing wealth. Now, when it comes to business and life, my primary goal is to be the best dad that I can be. Now, making money and getting rich are secondary objectives, and most people don’t believe that you can actually have both. But if you approach building wealth with the proper mindset, then you can make lots of money and have the lifestyle that you want at the same time. Now, I want to preface this video by saying that I’m not filthy rich. I can’t afford to buy a private jet.

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nor will you ever see me on an episode of MTV cribs, but I do run multiple seven figure businesses that are very profitable. And I spent a lot of time with my family, almost too much. As a result, the principles in this video may not apply if you’re trying to make a billion dollars like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg. But if you aspire to make a couple of million dollars per year where family is your priority, then continue on watching. lesson number one, you cannot get rich unless you build money generating assets.

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Now, not all money is created equal. When you work a day job, you are paid based on your time. And because there only 24 hours in a day, your earning potential is forever capped by the amount of time you can work. As a result, your day job will never make you life-changing money. Instead of spending all of your time working for somebody else, you need to build a collection of money-generating assets. Now, an asset is something that you own that makes money while you sleep.

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It is an army that you command human or machine that builds wealth 24 hours per day without your intervention. Now there are many ways to create income generating properties that are well covered in my post on how to become a millionaire. But here are some assets that I personally built up in the last 20 years. So the first asset is real estate. Now my house continues to appreciate year after year. I also run an e-commerce store over at bumblebeelinens.com, which generates seven figures per year, both my blog and my podcast over at mywifequitterjob.com.

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These two properties collectively generate seven figures per year. And also I run an annual e-commerce conference over at seller summit, which is a conference that generates six figures in revenue per year. Now I also have a portfolio of stocks and mutual funds and the return rate varies, but generally goes up into the right. And finally, my YouTube channel, which I recently started, and please click here below to subscribe. Now, bottom line income generating assets, buy you freedom. After all, if you are spending all of your time working, then you aren’t spending time with your loved ones.

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Alright, lesson number two, build an asset that adds value to the world. Now out of all the assets that I own, my online businesses make me the most money. And in general, the more value your asset can provide, the more money you will make. As a result, whenever I invest my time in creating a brand new asset, I always make sure that it provides tangible value to the end customer. Now this principle may seem like common sense, but every single day I get emails from readers asking me about AliExpress dropshipping or eBay dropshipping.

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and other get rich quick e-commerce business models. And in fact, the internet is filled with schemes that promise a quick buck at the expense of selling junk or ripping somebody off. Now, if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. So before you invest your time into starting a business, you first must ask yourself whether you are providing value or whether you are making money at the expense of someone else. Now, if you provide value, your asset will stand the test of time. And my wife and I, we’ve been running our e-commerce store for over 13 years now.

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and I’ve been running mywifequitterjob.com for 11 years. Do not get sucked into get rich quick money schemes because they will eventually fall apart. Focus on building value and the money will come. Lesson number three, keep employment to a minimum. Now, whenever I meet new entrepreneurs at a conference, usually the second or third question I get asked is how many people I have on my team. Now, for some strange reason, people tend to use headcount as a measuring stick for business success.

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So I always get a little sheepish when I say that I only have one VA on my staff over at mywifecoderjob.com. And the truth is, is that I’m extremely cautious when it comes to hiring employees. In fact, I believe that every single business should have the minimum amount of human labor possible and that you should only hire when you’ve completely exhausted all other avenues. Now, in my opinion, human labor is the highest maintenance method to grow a business. You got to deal with personalities. You have to manage employee morale. You have to have leadership skills.

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And if you aren’t a good leader, then guess what? Your employees won’t work as hard or they will simply leave. So instead I focus on my computers to grow my business. And if I can write a piece of code to replace a human, I will do it. Computers don’t complain. They work 24 seven and they never get tired. Hell, my wife, Quitterjob.com is a seven figure business largely because of software and I only need one employee to keep it running. Now, can I scale to $10 million on just one employee? Probably not.

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but my primary goal is to be the best dad ever. Will $10 million make me a better father? Probably not. Lesson number four, your business provides more security than your day job. Now over the years, I’ve had countless arguments with readers about whether running a business is more stable than your day job. And aside from the fact that your job will never make you life changing money, I actually sincerely believe that it is less secure as well. Now the level of your job security will vary depending on what you do for a living, but here’s my take based on experience.

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Back when I hired engineers for my tech company, actually created job wrecks for very specific roles. So for example, the last hire I made was for a junior microprocessor designer with a very specific set of hardware design skills. Now the engineer I ultimately hired was great at what he did and he eventually left the company for another position. But was his departure catastrophic to the company? Not really. I simply replaced him with another engineer of a similar caliber. Now what’s my point here?

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When you are hired for a specific role at a company, you are essentially replaceable. Every aspect of a job can be taught. And especially in the case of engineers, you will eventually be competing with someone younger than you who knows more than you. Now on the flip side, can I ever be replaced at my own e-commerce store or my blog? Not as long as I’m the boss. Lesson number five, you have to create your own luck. Now when it comes to success in business and life, luck always plays a factor.

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But have you ever noticed that certain people are luckier than others on a consistent basis? Now, when good things happen, seemingly by chance over and over and over again, it is no longer luck. It is skill. Now a reader once asked me whether I could replicate my success if I started all over again from scratch. And the answer is absolutely. If I lost everything and had to start with nothing, I am very confident that I can rebuild everything within five to 10 years. Now, when it comes to getting lucky, it is like playing the lottery and the more you hustle,

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the more lottery tickets that you get. So for example, without my podcast and my blog, I would never have randomly met the sponsors that support me every single day. If I didn’t attend conferences, I would never have met my business partner. Now, when you put yourself out there, whether it be with a blog, podcast, or a YouTube channel, you are building a unique brand that naturally attracts other people. And because I’ve covered e-commerce strategy for over a decade now, I’m actually now well known in this field. So guess what? Whenever someone needs help in this department,

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they naturally gravitate towards me. Now, it is a pure luck that potential students are able to find me. Absolutely. But I’ve drastically increased my chances of being discoverable online. Lesson number six, you must learn how to sell. Now in order to build wealth, you have to learn how to sell. And prior to my internet life, I was an engineering director who stared at a computer screen all day. I was great at building stuff, but horrible at selling. And in fact, I still remember the first live presentation that I gave to sell my course. It was terrible.

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Even though I ended up selling 35 seats, I literally trembled when it came to present my offer. Now, if you’re terrible at sales like I used to be, the good news is that sales and marketing is actually a skill that you can learn over time. Most people think that you have to be sleazy and pushy to get someone to buy, but the reality is that sales and marketing is about communication and authenticity more than anything else. Just tell the Ike it how it is and your product will sell itself as long as you are providing value to your customers. And regardless of how uncomfortable you feel,

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you will get much farther in life by devoting a portion of your studies towards human psychology and learning how to market yourself. Lesson number seven, building wealth always takes time. Now, most people believe that getting rich either happens quickly or doesn’t happen at all, but almost every single entrepreneur I know built up their wealth gradually over time. And if you look at my businesses, my assets didn’t start making money right away. My blog didn’t start making significant money until after year three, and my podcast took a few years as well.

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Now building wealth is almost never caused by a sudden windfall of money and most assets build up little by little over time and collectively they add up to a significant sum. Now, if you use my YouTube channel as an example here, I literally started my channel about a month ago and right now my video views are very low, but I plan on producing one video per week for this channel forever. Why? Because I know that in a year or two, my YouTube channel will generate leads and eventually become a significant factor in my business. Just you wait and check back on this channel in a year.

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Thanks to the internet, there’s so many ways to make money. Just pick one and stick with it. Lesson number eight, live below your means even if you have a lot of money. Now, even though my wife and I wouldn’t mind buying a larger house or remodeling our kitchen, we’ve purposely chosen to live below our means. Now we could certainly afford to buy a new car, a new house, or go on more extravagant vacations, but having more money in the bank means more freedom. Right now, I don’t have to worry about money at all. And I sincerely believe that people who live below their means enjoy a peace of mind

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that people who spend extravagantly can’t comprehend. Many people I know immediately upgrade their lifestyle as soon as they start making significant money, but it also keeps them wanting more and more. And when you upgrade your lifestyle, your expectations increase and you establish a new normal. Now this new normal is much more expensive to maintain and you aren’t necessarily happier as a result. So for example, I could buy a much larger house that costs twice as much, but will it make me twice as happy?

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Is a much larger house going to make me a much better father? Probably not. Now, once you make some money, you should still live like your old humble self. So you never have to worry about money ever again. Basically, you want to get to the point where you can say that you’re done, you’re retired and that you’re going to work on the things that you want to work on and spend time with the people who you want to spend time with. Lesson number nine, be stingy with your business expenses. Now living below your means also applies to business as well.

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Now my buddy Joe Valley recently gave a presentation to my students in my class on how to value and sell your business. And one key takeaway that I left with is that every dollar you save with your business results in three to four more dollars in your bank account. Now here’s why. When it comes time to sell your business, most e-commerce businesses sell at a three to four X multiple of your earnings. As a result, every extra dollar earned is three to four extra dollars more that you can sell your business for.

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So those of you who followed me for a long time know that I always tried to code my own apps instead of paying recurring monthly fees. And if there’s an application that I can actually code up in a week or less, and it saves me $50 a month, I will actually take the time and write it myself. Now, obviously, if you’re trying to scale your business really fast, it actually makes sense to just pay the money rather than figure things out yourself. But it all depends on your goals and your expected increase in sales as a result of using the new tool. So overall, my philosophy is to fiercely cut recurring costs as much as I can

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and haggle with my vendors for everything. If you do not ask, you will not receive and keeping costs down always leads to more freedom and peace of mind for your business. Now lesson number 10 is to play the long game. Now, when it comes to building wealth in business and relationships, it always pays to play the long game. And in general, I will not start any business that I don’t plan on running forever, nor will I ever heavily invest in any relationship that I don’t plan on maintaining for the long haul. Now, why is that?

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because I believe that the principle of compound interest applies to everything in life. Now, if you aren’t familiar with compound interest, it is the principle by which money grows in your investment account. So for example, if you start with a thousand dollars and it grows at 10 % per year, by year 30, you’ll have 17 X the money because their earnings pile up over time. Compound interest always starts out slow, but grows exponentially over time. Now blogging is the perfect business model to illustrate this principle. When I first started my wife, quitterjob.com, it made no money in year one.

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Year two, it started making enough to pay the mortgage, but by year three, it made enough to replace my day job income. And today in year 10 plus, it actually makes seven figures. Now when it comes to relationships, building trust takes time. And in order to be successful, you have to work with other people. Now figuring out who you can depend on requires a tremendous amount of time. And today the relationships that I’ve built up in the past decade make up a huge part of my business revenue. Without my business partners, I would never be where I am today.

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Now, whatever you decide to build, make sure that it is something that you plan on maintaining for the long haul.

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If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, you’re going to need a trademark to protect your intellectual property. Not only that, but a trademark is absolutely necessary to register your brand on Amazon. Now I used to think that any old trademark registration service would work and I could even try to register my own trademark by myself on the cheap, but I was dead wrong. Securing a trademark without a strategy in place usually results in either an outright rejection or a worthless, unenforceable trademark.

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Now that is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council. They have a package service called Total TM, which provides the same attention to detail and process that large law firms do at a fraction of the price. Now for me personally, I like Emerge Council because of their philosophy. Their goal is to maximize IP protection while minimizing the price. So before you decide to register a trademark by yourself or file for other IP protection, such as a copyright or a patent, check out Emerge Council first and get a free consult.

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For more information, go to emerge council.com and click on the Amazon sellers button and tell Steve that Steve sent you to receive a hundred dollar discount on the total TM package for Amazon sellers. Once again, that’s merged council.com over at EMERGECOUNSEL.com. Now back to the show.

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Now we left off on lesson 10 and lesson 11 is choose your business partners wisely. Now up until 2016, I refused to partner up with anyone because I was scared. After all, I kept hearing horror stories from friends on how their business partnerships were a complete disaster. Some friends had their partners outright steal from them. Some friends complained that their partners weren’t holding up their end of the bargain. And others complained that their partners kept making boneheaded decisions. Now there’s so many ways for partnerships to go wrong.

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So I’ve been extra careful in choosing who I work with. And in general, I look for four main character traits. My partner has to have a good head on his or her shoulders. I need to trust that he or she will make the best possible decision in any given situation based on the available information. My partner has to have integrity. I need to know that he or she will not intentionally do anything illegal or try to rip me off. My partner also has to be motivated to put in the work. Now having a smart partner is a given.

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but sometimes smart people may not be motivated to put in the work. So the effort level must be equal. My partner also has to be driven by logic, not emotion. Now, in my experience, the people with the least emotions tend to have the best judgment. Heat of the moment decisions tend to be non-optimal. Now, if you can find a partner that possesses these traits, then not only will it add value to your business, but it will make running it more fun as well. Lesson number 12, always be learning. Now, even though I teach a class on how to start a store and a class on how to start a blog,

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I full on admit that I don’t know everything. Both blogging and e-commerce changes so quickly and you have to adapt to these changes in order to survive. After all, just because your business is doing well today does not mean that it will last forever. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for new strategies and constantly learning new things. And in fact, I believe that every entrepreneur should read books, blogs, and tutorials every single day. However, the most important aspect of the learning process is to maintain an open mind and never consider yourself to be an expert.

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Now, despite the fact that I’ve been running my online store courses for almost a decade, I continuously pick up new things from the students in my class all the time. The other aspect of learning worth mentioning is that you have to get your hands dirty. Now reading a book or watching a tutorial is one thing, but taking action and doing is infinitely better. So if you’ve been stuck in the analysis paralysis phase for too long, then just get started with what you’ve got. Lesson number 13, outsource repetitive tasks. Now, even though I try to keep my team as lean as possible,

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I always outsource as many repetitive tasks as possible. Cause here’s why. Once a task becomes repetitive, it means that you are no longer learning. And when you are no longer learning, that task becomes a waste of your time. Now, obviously your first choice should be to outsource repetitive tasks to a machine by writing code. But if you have to outsource, outsource the work to another human. Lesson number 14, learn how to code. Now, most of you out there are not trained programmers, but if you’re running an online business,

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you should at least be able to read and modify minor parts of your website code. Now I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs rely on their web developer every single time they need even the smallest tweaks made to their website. And this sucks. Not only do you have to patiently wait for them to do the work, but you soon become dependent on them for every little thing. Now developer costs can quickly add up. So why not invest some of your time towards learning how to code? The best form of leverage for any business is software. And when you know how to code,

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you can command an army of machines who will work tirelessly for you. And even if you’re tech averse, it pays to understand how programming languages work. Now you don’t have to be a coding expert, but being fluent is often good enough. Think about it this way. It is highly likely that sometime in the future, machines will render human labor obsolete. So would you rather be replaced by a robot or be the one who designs the robots? Lesson number 15, pick a business with high barriers to entry.

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Now most new entrepreneurs tend to gravitate towards business models that are easy to start with, with little financial risk. And this is the main reason why dropshipping is so popular. But doing something just because it is easy is absolutely the wrong way to think about your business. After all, if your business is easy to start, then you’ll always have more competition. So instead of looking for easy ways to start a business, try to think about aspects of your business that are painful to replicate. Now for our e-commerce store, we do personalization for our products because it is a major pain in the butt.

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running embroidery machines 24 seven is difficult because there is a steep learning curve and the machines break all the time. If someone wants to copy our business, it will be much more difficult to replicate our personalized offerings without significant investment. Similarly, when it comes to content creation, it is much harder to create video than it is to write a blog post or produce a podcast. As a result, producing video will give your business a leg up over the competition. So go with what’s hard and your life will eventually be easier. Lesson number 16.

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do not be too stingy with your business. Now, when it comes to building a money making asset, you can’t be overly cheap. Keeping your business lean is one thing, but refusing to invest in essential tools is another matter entirely. Now I’ve had students and readers refuse to pay 40 bucks for a research tool that would save them hundreds of hours of time. I’ve had new store owners refuse to invest in a good shopping cart like Shopify or big commerce in favor of cheaper inferior platforms like Wix. Now in order to run an effective business,

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Making forward progress is your top priority and you have to properly value your time. And when you’re first getting started, I recommend that you assign yourself an hourly rate. So for example, if you work a day job, then take your hourly pay and multiply it by two. If the tool that you are too cheap to buy will save you more money than what your time is worth, then buy the tool. The same principle applies to outsourcing repetitive tasks with your business. By assigning a dollar value to your time, it allows you to justify your business spend and avoid the frugality trap. Lesson number 17.

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take criticism with an open mind. Now, back in the day, I refused to ask for help because I was afraid of what people might say. And whenever I did receive negative feedback, I would immediately get defensive and lock myself in the nearest room. But over the years, I’ve learned to channel the energy of negative comments directly towards improving my business. So if you’re not currently part of a mastermind group, then I highly recommend that you either join or form one of your own. Because without getting feedback from unbiased parties, you could be overlooking glaring weaknesses in your business,

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that are impossible to spot on your own. Now I’ve been meeting with my e-commerce mastermind once per month for nearly six years now. And this group was directly responsible for improving my conversion rate by 46%. Now, even though the feedback I often get from my mastermind is blunt and painful to hear, applying their suggestions always gets good results. Lesson number 18, no one can copy your personality. Now I’m often asked by other entrepreneurs why I have my face and name plastered all over my blog.

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After all, using my name and face makes eventually selling my business problematic. But in the face of competition that increases year after year, my best form of differentiation is my personality. After all, no one can copy me. No one can copy my skills or my sense of humor. And by establishing a strong personal brand, I’m effectively future-proofing my business. So if you can gather the courage to put yourself out there and show off your personality to the world, then good things will happen. Talk about your failures. Talk about your triumphs.

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There are always people out there who want to hear your story. Lesson number 19, prioritize your tasks based on impact, not urgency. Now this principle often gets me into trouble with my wife because I sometimes have to prioritize other tasks over what my wife wants me to do. And here’s just a sample conversation. Steve, I need this product graphic fixed immediately. It’s wrong on our site and we’ll lose out on a ton of sales. Well, dear, how many product photos are broken? Just one. How many units of this product sells per day?

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None yet, but it’s a brand new product. Would it be okay if I do this next week? I’ve got some other things on my plate that are higher priority. Would it be okay if you slept on the couch tonight? So that’s just an exaggeration of one of our conversations, but every decision that you make with your time can have long-term effects. And if you spend all of your time putting out fires and tending to mini emergencies, then your business will never make progress. Now I’m not telling you to stop putting out fires or to not listen to your spouse, but you should consider that fixing what is urgent isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

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Sometimes it is okay to leave things broken if there are bigger, more impactful tasks at hand. Lesson number 20, you will succeed eventually. And this is perhaps the most important principle of all. If you start a business and stick with it forever, you will eventually succeed. Now in this day and age, everyone is fickle as hell. And the reason nine out of 10 businesses fail is because people simply give up. Everyone wants results immediately, but almost no one has the patience. Getting rich quick is a myth. You have to put in the time.

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you have to put in the hours. You have to build up your skillset and be great at what you do. You have to make your business a part of your routine and keep doing it every single day. And as soon as you start keeping track or setting expectations, you’ll get impatient and give up. There are so many businesses out there that are successful simply because they weathered the storm. And when the going gets tough, the weak drop out, but the strong survive. So if you can make your business a part of your permanent lifestyle, then you will eventually outlast everyone else.

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Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now please send me an email over at steve at mywifequitterjob.com if you enjoy these solo episodes and please share your own philosophies as I’d love to hear them. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 307. And once again, I want to thank Klaviyo, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to klaviyo.com slash mywife.

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Once again, that’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.com slash My Wife. Now we talked about how I use all these tools in my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own eCommerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

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where we’re giving the courage people need to start their own online business. more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitterjob.com.