Hustle Machine

Welcome to the first episode of Hustle Machine, our new podcast designed for the entrepreneurial community.

We’re Jason Marlowe and Zack Tatum, co-founders of Market House, a website design company specializing in branding and automation, but this particular podcast goes far beyond the scope of our small business.

No, Hustle Machine is our attempt to build a community and connect with entrepreneurs and solo-preneurs and focus on the various elements of running your own business, operating as a freelancer and how to make your hustle or side-hustle work for you.

In this inaugural (that’s another, fancy way to say first-ever for those of you skipped senior English in high school) episode, we want to, in fact, focus on that word, “hustle,” and perhaps re-define it, in effect flipping the script on what it means for people today.

We’ve been running Market House for nearly a decade. We, ourselves, are hustlers. But we knew from the beginning we didn’t want to run ourselves ragged or neglect our families and friends to make our business a success.

We want to show you can hustle as a business owner or freelancer and still establish a balance between business and personal life. We want to change up the business culture and overcome that negative training.

Going forward, we hope Hustle Machine will allow our community to connect with another, mentor each other, form peer groups and provide continuing education for business matters.

Hustle Machine will come out every week, with plans for some live episodes going forward. In the meantime, you can listen to the episodes we’ve already uploaded, visit us online or connect with us via the social media site of your choice, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

And if you like what you hear, we hope you’ll subscribe and follow on your platform of choice as we continue to expand and explore what Hustle Machine can become. Drop on by and listen to two college buddies turned business partners explain what they know about business to you, with some bad jokes and good tips along the way.

Let's start the hustle.

It took us 17 or 18 takes to get this one in the books because Jason’s computer kept freezing up, including at least once early in this final shoot. Find any more instances of him freezing up to win a prize!

As our duo learn revenge is a dish best served cold, Jason begins considering his career viability in case of a zombie apocalypse and Zack is confronted with whether he’s the Jack Shepherd of the group in perhaps the most tortured “Lost” metaphor of the past five years.

We almost break up the podcast entirely over Jason’s terrible Yoohoo take, but we do get down to business eventually in this marathon episode about the need to dress for success.

The irony of Zack wearing gym clothes while Jason wears a blazer over a graphic T-shirt to discuss this is duly noted, we promise.

Nonetheless, Zack in particular emphasizes the importance of first impressions and creating an office culture alike through office apparel, while Jason faces an existential crisis about his possible lack of a fashion style and whether he’s changed in the years since he once swore not to allow any hats in the office.

(Has Jason potentially been replaced by a pod person since then? What is he hiding under the cap he once threatened to ban from the workplace? Stay tuned to find out!)

We’ll talk about elevating your style, the difference between wearing certain clothes for client meetings versus wearing them for a day in the home office, and how wearing a nice outfit, even at home, can make your work feel like your career and not just a hobby. We note how people treat you differently depending on your attire and talk about how to maintain your individuality even as you find ways to dress up to the expectations of new clients.

And as Jason, in particular, tries to find that perfect balance between the three-piece suits of the past and the casual Friday approach of the weekend, we can all remember that, if the apocalypse does happen, we can dress down as much as we want. The zombies won’t care.

Today’s episode of Hustle Machine is, admittedly, unfinished, or at least only covers part of the topic. We’ll tell you that upfront because, honestly, we could discuss aspects of this week’s topic for hours on end and we try not to strain anyone’s patience in any given episode.

Honestly, though, every episode of Hustle Machine is, to some degree, about this issue and we’ll be discussing it again and again as we continue to keep things chugging along over here.

That’s right, it’s time to start talking about starting a business, a topic that will keep us occupied here at this podcast for many episodes to come as we touch on aspects of it again and again in various ways.

We’ll talk about the basic steps you’ll want to take first, from creating a business plan to researching the market before spending any money.

Jason will also do his best to pretend there are no other website design companies extant other than ours, to variable results.

We’ll also say the word “differentiators” so many times this episode it may no longer sound like a real word by the time we’re done.

From knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and hiring the best people to cover the latter, to budgeting properly for marketing, there’s a lot to know in starting your business, and we hardly scratch the surface in this week’s episode.

We do find time, however, to debate the existence of the Dead Letter Office and continue to pine for our fabled angel investor as we search our spam folders for his or her grant offer yet again.

While we keep looking for that offer, make sure to come back for more talk on this topic in the future. The Hustle Machine is on the move but we’ll make sure to keep circling back on this particular issue as many times as needs be.

Welcome to episode 2 of the Hustle Machine!

That’s the advice we found from a certain 9-year-old to her older sister and we encourage it wholeheartedly here at Hustle Machine. We just hope that little girl doesn’t have her own podcast yet or she might put us out of job in giving peptalks to those of you in need of finding a better mindset.

Lo and behold, it’s already time for Episode 2 and the Hustle Machine is up and running again as we focus this time on the importance of mindset in keeping your small business or other enterprise going strong.

Mindset is very important to us here at Hustle Machine. It plays a big part in hitting goals and you’ll hit more goals, quicker and better, when you’ve got your head fixed in the right mindset.

We talk about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, and how the latter can help you set new goals, take advantage of opportunities that come your way and fight complacency to keep growing and changing as a business owner.

In addition to space metaphors, we’ve got all sorts of other metaphors to go around this episode, from mountain climbing to the first, and almost certainly not last, reference to the Boy Scouts and Scouting from Jason on this podcast.

We’ve got a lot of advice to go around this episode, from reading a lot of business books (the average CEO reads 60 books a year!) to being receptive to feedback when it comes your way.

Overall, we hope our listeners can use some of this advice to find themselves in the right headspace in their business dealings going forward. Mindset is a big deal at Hustle Machine and we want you to find the right one for your work, too.

And if you still need more of a peptalk after today’s episode, well, you can always try and find an encouraging 9-year-old to put you in the right mentality, whether it’s to go the bar, start a business or, yes, go to outer space. Maybe we’ll see you there.

Get Our Free Stop Start & Continue Worksheet

In the show, we also discussed the Stop, Start, & Continue method. Grab our free worksheet here and do this with your own team.

Do more. Be more.

Today’s episode is all about criticism, so try to be gentle in the comments if you don’t like it, OK?

There’s a lot to criticize, whether for good or ill, in this episode. We work on breaking the fourth wall of the internet in the early going, while Zack lists his personal pain list as he dwells on the perils of aging.

It doesn’t get more comfortable as we jump into the topic at hand, either. Jason admits he doesn’t take criticism well, then confuses Oscar Martinez with Oscar the Grouch (a common mistake, surely). We debate the efficacy of our criticism metaphors involving sandwiches and bookends, try to figure out why clients always pick the worst of any given list of options and even make the first fart joke of the podcast in a historic milestone for Hustle Machine.

Certainly you can disagree with a client, but you’ll have to accept their choices on some matters, even if the mentor or peer group you find might agree with your assessment over them. Only one of them is paying you, after all.

No matter how precious your “brain baby,” as Jason coined the term, sometimes you’ll just have to accept the client finds it ugly and wants a different option. The important thing is not to wallow in that criticism but to move on and find a way to meet the client’s demands.

If nothing else, just know that a client’s criticism of your most precious brain baby is probably less brutal than Zack’s masseuse pointing out his back fat, so there’s that, at least.

Give today’s show a listen, give it a like and maybe even leave some feedback, as long as it’s not too critical. We’ve learned to take it, of course, even Jason. But, still, don’t be too rough with us, alright? There’s only so much dark and hopeless brooding we can do on each critical comment, so don’t go too overboard or you’ll leave us unable to move forward for all the wallowing.

Until next time, Hustle on!