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That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways. Today on Radical Personal Finance I'm going to share with you about my new consulting business wherein if you would like you can have a consultation directly with me via the phone but I'm also going to share with you how you can take what I'm doing and use it as possibly a good source of part time income for yourself.

Hope this content is very useful because some of you could leverage this to make a good little extra bit of money. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host, your fellow voyager on the road to financial freedom. I'm here with you to talk about how to live a rich life now while also building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

Today's little idea is partly about me. Yes, I'm advertising my new business but it's also very useful to you. I really think that some of you listening to this show will be able to take what I'm talking about in today's show and what I'm doing and what I am testing out and possibly use it to make yourself a little bit of extra money.

So I'm going to share that with you. So quick up front, basically what I'm offering is I'm offering paid phone consulting in the future. But before I get into the details of that and that will be open to anybody, any of you who have ever asked me or been interested in that, I've gotten many emails.

I believe this will be a service to many of you. I've already spoken and done some consulting calls. In fact, just immediately before hanging up the phone – immediately before – you notice we don't hang up phones anymore but we still use the terminology. Immediately before hitting record and starting the show, I just finished up another consulting call with a listener of the show and so far, they have been really, really good.

So I'm very excited about offering this to you. But I'll get to those details in a minute. But I want to give you a little bit of the back story. Many of you have asked me for personal advice, personal financial consulting and I have up till now always said no.

I'd like to explain why and what's different now and how – again, how some of you can model and copy what I am doing. When I originally started Radical Personal Finance, my intention was to build the podcast and also to build a new financial planning firm. My thought was at that time, the best business use of a podcast is as a component of marketing for a business – a larger business.

So for example, I think the best business use of a personal finance podcast is as a component of the marketing efforts for a financial advisor. At the beginning, that was my intention. I thought that it was possible to build an income from a podcast in some way or another but I wasn't sure that that was necessarily the best move.

I thought that it would be better to use a podcast as a marketing component of an overall business and I still believe that. Now as I started to get into the course of the show and at the very beginning, I didn't talk much about it at the beginning because I was filing paperwork behind the scenes and I was putting in my form ADV and all that stuff with the state to get registered as a registered investment advisory firm.

We talked a little bit about that in yesterday's episode. But I was doing that process behind the scenes. But I started to look at how much time and energy I was investing into the show and I started to look at how much time and energy would be required for financial planning to do financial planning well and I started to get concerned because I ran through it and I said, "Well, I'm putting all this effort into Radical Personal Finance.

I'm putting 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week into this. Should I really overhear – how on earth am I going to fit this into the time that I have in a week?" And when I then looked at creating the financial planning firm and you go through all of the requirements for that, the registration with the state, all of the software that you need to get to be able to deliver the traditional financial planning deliverables and formats and things like that, it's a daunting amount of work and it's also a daunting amount of money to get everything set up, to get the software subscriptions and get your Morningstar and your financial planning software, etc.

It's also a daunting amount of work to simply stay current on all of those things. And the actual client engagement process, a good engagement with a good financial planner, I mean it's many, many hours. And I looked at the money involved. I looked at the rates I was intending to charge.

I looked at all the different options. And ultimately I came to the decision that I could either be a great financial planner or I could be a great financial broadcaster. And I looked around and I said, "I know a lot of really good financial planners who are very good, who don't have the skill of broadcasting, and I know very few great financial broadcasters." So I decided that my skill set was best used in the direction of broadcasting.

And so I made the decision to close the firm. I pulled the paperwork. It never was approved by the state. I went ahead and pulled it out of application, shut down the LLC and just collapsed the business. And I decided to focus and go all in on radical personal finance.

But still along the way, I had wanted to be able to work with individual people. But the context was difficult. I couldn't hold myself out as a financial planner, nor could I give advice on specifics of securities without being registered with the state. Then when I looked at the actual deliverables and things like that, things that would be needed to create a good financial planner, I still had all the problems with the time, the data collection, et cetera.

And you need to do, if you're going to practice on that level, you need to do a good job. If somebody comes to me and says, "Joshua, can I afford to retire? Do I have enough money?" I need good data. I need all the statements. I need everything. I need to run all of the analyses and all the projections.

You need the tools of the trade. And I was so engrossed with creating the show, I didn't have the opportunity to really perfect those tools of the trade, nor did I have the time to do it. So I've consistently for the last two years said no to anybody who's inquired for personal consultations.

Now a few people have begged and pleaded and slipped and squeaked in under the radar where I did just an hourly engagement where they asked me for advice and I sat down with them and they paid me an hourly fee for it, not giving advice on whether they should buy or sell a certain stock, just simply staying in the realm of general advice so that I didn't – since I lapsed all of my licenses, I need to stay clear of giving specific financial advice on any kind of buy or sell decisions, things like that.

But along the way, I've wanted to create something different, but I had to figure out how do I actually do it. Well, I didn't know. I did know that I didn't want to have to do software. I didn't want to have to deliver a financial plan. I didn't want to have to deliver some of those things, but that I did want to figure out how to do consulting.

A few months ago, I came across a website called Clarity.fm and I looked at it. I said, "This could work," and I just laid it aside. But last week, I was sitting there thinking and I said, "Wait a second. This is perfect." So Clarity.fm is a new website, a new company, and what they do is they offer phone consultations with experts.

But the way they do it is important. They allow people to sign up as an expert and establish a profile and they allow people to sign up and to work with that expert. So I'm the expert in this case and the reason I'm going through this in detail is because I want some of you to consider using this as an extra income source for you.

But I sign up as the expert and I establish my profile. I establish an hourly rate and I establish all of the details there, telling people who I am. And then if you're interested in speaking to me, the way it works is simple. You go through to the website and you set up an account.

So you put in your name and a username and a password and things like that. Then you search and find an expert. You put in a credit card, credit card information when you establish the account. You search and find the expert. In this case, it'll be me or there's other people on there too.

But you search and find the expert and I'll link you through directly to my profile to make that easy. And you schedule a call with the expert. Now, there's a scheduling function where you choose a few times. I choose a few times and we get the call scheduled. And then at the time that the call is scheduled, you estimate how long you anticipate wanting to speak to the expert.

So if that's 30 minutes or an hour, et cetera. At the time that you book the call and at the time, excuse me, that the call is confirmed, your credit card is charged for the actual amount of – excuse me, the time that you estimate. So a 30-minute call and the expert's rate is $300 an hour.

It's $150 that's charged to your card. You get access to a special customized phone line and a special customized PIN. The expert gets one number and a PIN and you, the caller, gets another number and a PIN. And they're different numbers and PINs. Then at the appointed time, each of us calls in to the phone line.

We get connected for the conference call and the system, the software, keeps track of how much time we're on the call. So if you anticipated a 30-minute call and we actually talk for 15 minutes, then you hang up. Then the call is terminated and you are refunded the balance of the call.

So in the case if it's $300 an hour, you get refunded $75. On the flip side, if you wind up talking for 60 minutes or for 45 minutes or however long, your credit card is billed for the additional amount. And the thing I love about this system is it's simple, it's clear, and it solves some of the major problems.

You see, many of the people that pay that bill on an hourly rate, and when I've done this on an hourly rate in the past, it's very difficult to know how to do this exactly right. First, you often have the challenge of people not wanting to pay for an hourly rate and not wanting to know how to control the situation.

Well, the cool thing about having it done through a phone line is simply that if you're not finding value in the expert's responses and you just want to hang up, you just end the call. And because you have full control over your end or I have full control over my end, the call is ended, the time is done.

The billing immediately stops because you have a disinterested third party, which is very nice. The other thing that's important is getting the time accurate. If any of you have ever sold your time, one of the challenges as a service provider is you want to give your client the best amount of value possible.

There's always a little bit of small talk. There's always a little bit of question. Usually most of us who have provided services on an hourly basis, we usually try to round a little bit in favor of the client. "Hey, you were in my office for an hour and 45 minutes, but I'll bill you for an hour and a half, and that way you'll have some better systems." Many times when clients are paying on an hourly basis, they get a little bit frustrated like, "Wait a second.

That wasn't exactly what it was. That wasn't the exact amount of time." And so usually to cover yourself as a service provider, you round down. Well, the cool thing about an extra external system is there's no question. There's no guessing. You're just being billed for the time that you speak.

And so I think this is a truly great opportunity. Now I don't know if there are other companies that have done this in the past, but I love what Clarity is setting up, and I like the system. And the system is very convenient. It does a good job with scheduling.

It does a good job with reminders. You get a text message five minutes before the call. You click the phone number. The PIN code is already entered in, so when your smartphone just goes through automatically, it's fantastic. And I love this because what it's going to enable me to do and has already with the three or four I've done so far – three I've done – it enables me to just simply give specific advice on whatever you want to talk about without necessarily committing to any of the follow-up systems.

So I've done this. I put out the notice among some of the patrons of the show in our Facebook group and I put out the notice and I've so far had three calls. And they have been awesome. The reviews even from the callers – that's the other great thing is that callers can leave reviews on the profile.

Those reviews are public. Anybody can come and see how many calls have been made. Anybody can come and read the reviews, so there's a good feedback mechanism. So if as an expert you're not doing a good job for a customer, you're wasting their time or something like that, the customer can leave that information right there in the review.

So it's good transparency and accountability, which is fantastic. I've done three calls so far. In every one of them, I've come away feeling like this is great. One call was about general life plan – one call is about general life planning. One call was about business and one call was about podcasting.

Somebody wanted my podcasting advice. And this is – it's been fantastic because I really came away from it feeling like the – there was huge value there for the participant. There was huge value there where I was able to help clarify some things for them. Many have expressed that you love to listen to the Q&A shows but you just don't want to have your personal information made public.

There's personal details that are often important. So you'll notice even on Q&A shows, I often will make the shows just a little bit vague. I won't ask you for a specific on a situation just to help you keep some of your personal privacy. Well, in the context where it's just you and me, we can talk personally.

And so it's really, really a high-quality system. I've been very impressed with it and have thoroughly enjoyed it. What I love about it is for me as an expert, it allows me to be compensated for work that I enjoy doing and it's important to me. I want to do it.

I don't like to always be just putting information out there without getting the feedback. Working with real people helps me to stay sharp, helps me to make sure that I'm relevant. So it allows me to have a really great system to connect and help people without having all of the other encumbrances.

I don't have to come up, which was one of my plans, with, "Well, I'll have multiple coaching packages and you'll have a coaching package of four sessions and six sessions and eight sessions," or anything like that. In this situation, I don't have to do that. If you want to talk to me again, you just book a call and we talk.

And if you don't want to talk to me again, you just don't book a call. There are no commitments. There's no ongoing plans. There's no anything. And I love the pressure that puts on me where if I want another call with you, I've got to deliver. So I think it's a really great system.

So in short, if you would like to speak to me and get my advice or input on literally anything, I'll talk to you about anything except... Excuse me, I need to put a caveat. Except I cannot give you specific advice on the purchase or sale of securities and I cannot give you specific advice on the purchase or sale of a specific insurance contract.

If I do those things, that would cross over the line of things that in the United States you're required by law to be licensed over. We can speak generally about those subjects. I can educate you on those subjects. I can give you information that you need to know, but I don't sell any products and I can't advise you to sell a stock, anything like that.

So if you ever ask me a question like that, just don't bother to call because I won't answer it. I'll turn it around and say, "I'm sorry, I can't give you a response on that." It's important because I'm not licensed anymore. But beyond that, you could talk to me about anything you want.

So we could talk about business, we could talk about podcasts, we could talk about marketing, we could talk about anything that you want, financial planning. I even suggest some of you might be well-served by putting me in your back pocket and taking me to a financial planning appointment or to meet with your attorney.

I'm willing to do that. I've wanted to be able to do things like that, but if you want to take a phone and you want to have a second opinion or for me to get on a conference call with you and your team, something like that, to say, "Hey, are you getting good advice?" You can have a perfectly unbiased financial advisor with no commitments, no strings, no anything.

It's just me on the other end of the line and you're just going to simply pay me for every minute that the call is connected and when the call is disconnected, it's done. So I'm pretty excited about it. I think it'll fit. It'll allow me to do something I've wanted to do for a long time but never found the technology to be able to do it so I could actually do it while still doing everything else that I'm doing.

So if you'd like to book a call with me, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/phonecall. And at the moment, I've got that link set up so it will pass you through to the Clarity profile and you can just book directly there. I'd love to talk with some of you. I encourage also some of you to consider this as a side income for yourselves.

I consider some of you who are experts, who get people asking you questions, to use this as a polite way of getting paid for your advice. In general, I think we should make a practice and habit of giving away very little advice for free. When you give away free advice, usually the people don't take it and they don't do anything with it.

So if you're an expert in something, consider very seriously simply not giving advice away for free. If you would like to have an easy way to do that, this website could be a good system for you to do it. Go ahead and set up your own profile. You can actually set up – you'll set up a profile with your name and you can transfer yourself from individual like listener with someone with a question to an expert just with a click of the button.

Now you have to be approved as an expert so they're just going to check you out and make sure that you actually have credentials. But you can be an expert in just about any area. That's up to you. But if some of you spend a lot of time answering people's questions, writing long emails, things like that, well, consider using this as a cutout, a way to see if somebody who's asking you a question is really serious about your advice.

Send them a link and say, "Book a call with me here," and they'll see your hourly rate. They'll pay and they'll book a call with you. This can be very, very useful in many types of businesses. I was with a friend recently who had used this. He was asking some questions.

He wanted to speak with someone who's an experienced videographer who is experienced in doing videos for business people. He went ahead and booked a call with this person, spoke on the phone for about 30 minutes and just got some advice and got exactly what he needed. Many of you are experts in your field.

If you're a photographer, if you're a business person, if you're an attorney, this could be a very simple way with no strings attached where you can just get connected with somebody who has a question. You can bill them. You choose the rate that you want to bill them. You can bill them.

It's very simple. It'll work and you're not getting yourself in over your head with too many entanglements. You're not getting in over the head with contracts and all those things. If you do a good job at this level, then you can go ahead and get into other things in the future where if you want that to lead into other services, other packages, things like that, I think that will be useful.

I would have loved – now, I don't know the regulation on this but when I did have a firm, I would have loved – and I was actually licensed in insurance. I would have loved having the ability to have this as an option for people. The technology makes it so simple.

If people just want to get your advice on the phone, no sale, no products, anything like that, they can just speak to you. Consider you yourself and see if this might be something that you would find useful as an extra business. I'm optimistic that many of you will find value in this.

This is not my primary business going forward but I'm making it a priority for a little bit here while I'm building out other things behind the scenes. But in terms of the ability to set up just something as simple as a consulting practice, if you can do something similar to what I've done where you establish yourself as a known expert, as an expert in a brand, in an area, something as simple as this, a paid consulting phone call system could be your ticket to a mobile virtual income that you can do from anywhere and that could be very, very useful to many of you.

You could take an area of expertise. Many of you who are personal finance bloggers with experienced blogs can take this and you can teach other bloggers. There are many personal finance bloggers or podcasters that I would be happy to have paid for 30 minutes of their advice or 30 minutes of their time, things like that.

Consider it seriously. Be a mechanic. This could be a way where you can give somebody advice on something mechanically related. Just for a few minutes, they want to talk to you, you can set it up as a side business for yourself. It's a great model. Clarity.fm is the website that I'm using.

There might be other options out there. I have not researched them. But check it out for yourself and see. I think it's a really, really great model. Pro tip. Well, we'll skip the pro tip for now. It's a great model. I encourage some of you to check it out and see if it would be useful.

Like I said, I'm optimistic that many of you will find value in this. You'll hear me mention it a lot on the show going forward. Even if you don't want to speak to me personally, take my example and consider trying it yourself. I'm working on a course. Working title is something like how to establish yourself as an expert in your industry in two years or less, something like that.

I'm going to go through systematically what I have done to go from no name brand, no recognition to being a known and recognized brand and how you can do and model what I have done at a very low cost. A lot of work involved but you can do and model it.

I'll lay it out for you with a specific series of steps in this course where I'm going to give you some pro tips that I've come up with that I see almost nobody else doing. I'm trying to save some of my stuff to sell. I give so much away.

I'm trying to save something to sell to you to get you to buy this thing when I'm done with it. But this can be a component of that and many of you could use this to build an expert business for yourself and then earn through something as simple as phone calls if you had a reliable consistent stream of income.

I think it'll be useful for you. That's it. That's all I wanted to share with you on today's show. As we go, two things. First is an announcement. Next week I'm planning to do a series on disability income insurance. If you have a question on disability income insurance, send it to me.

Email it to joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. Email me your question on disability insurance. I will do my best to handle as many questions as possible but I'm going to do a series on disability income insurance. I think you'll enjoy that. It's something I mentioned a few times but I have not done detailed shows on it.

I know many of you who want the technical financial planning stuff have been itching for that. If you've got a question for me on disability insurance, get it to me via email joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. Second, thank you to those of you who are patrons and supporters of the show. One of my commitments that I've made to patrons and supporters is just to do my best for you to provide as much value as possible.

As an example, I made the offer to work with patrons and I gave them advanced access at a significant discount to a phone call with me to those who are in the Facebook group, the irregulars level, the highest level of supporting patrons. So if you're at that level and you didn't get that offer, make sure that you either sign on to patreon.com or into the Facebook group and you'll see that offer there.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who support the show. I wasn't able to open it up at that discount to those of you who are supporting it a few dollars a month just simply because I need to still create the show and still create other stuff.

So I couldn't allocate the time there. But I'm doing my best to continue to give you guys value. I just want to thank you for your support. If you're not yet a supporter and patron of the show, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Also remember, if you'd like to ask me a question but you don't want to pay for it on an hourly rate, you can always feel free to join as a patron of the show and access the Friday Q&A calls.

That's a really great option. That'll probably be your least expensive option. Some of the calls, we have a number of callers. Some of the calls, we only have one or two callers, and you can get an extensive amount of time with me on those Q&A calls. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron, and I look forward to speaking to many of you for a consulting call.

Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/phonecall, radicalpersonalfinance.com/phonecall to set up a consulting call. Thanks, guys. Don't just dream about paradise. Live it with Fiji Airways. Escape the ordinary. With Fiji Airways Global Beat the Rush Sale. Immerse yourself in white sandy beaches or dive deep into coral reefs. Fiji Airways has flights to Nadi starting at just $748 for light and just $798 for value.

Discover your tropical dreams at FijiAirways.com. That's FijiAirways.com. From here to happy. Flying direct with Fiji Airways.