Connect with Veronica LLorca Smith: https://substack.com/@veronicallorcasmith

Welcome to the launch of the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast with Vinayak Ramesh.

Today’s episode features Veronica LLorca Smith, who left more than 15 years in corporate leadership and built a portfolio career around writing, courses, coaching, public speaking, and her personal brand.

We talk about how she went from selling $9 books to building multiple income streams, working with over 200 coaching clients, and creating speaking opportunities worth thousands of dollars.

>>> Don't forget to follow the show, download these powerful launch episodes, and drop us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

>>> Claim your FREE gift for supporting the launch — the Substack Notes Starter Pack + Substack Growth Engine. Leave a review and DM me on Substack: https://substack.com/@vinayakramesh1

Hey, this is your host, Vinayak.

And welcome to the Sustainable side Hustle podcast.

Today I've got Veronika with me, who spent nearly two decades in corporate leadership at various companies before deciding to leave that world behind and start writing with zero experience in writing or marketing.

Since then, she has published four books, one with Penguin Random House, then built a public speaking business working with Fortune 500 companies, and now runs two Substack publications in two different languages.

Let's get right into it.

I was in the corporate world for over 15 years, and I always thought that that's what I was going to be.

I had this idea in my mind that I was not an entrepreneur.

I was not a natural, I didn't have what it takes.

And so I started to climb the ladder.

I worked in different organizations, small businesses, doing business development in China.

Then I moved to Hong Kong.

I worked for Apple in leadership roles.

And I worked for another big company, Estee Lauder, which is also a Fortune 500 company.

And then during the Pand, I was locked abroad, so I thought I was going on holidays, but I ended up locked abroad.

So I tried to look for a job there, thinking that I was still going to stay in the corporate space.

But after six months of trying, I wasn't able to find one.

And so at one point I said, look, you have everything you need to be successful.

You have all this experience, you have your brand, you have your network.

I had all the ingredients.

I just had to think of a different recipe.

And that had never crossed my mind until I found myself in the situation.

I started writing, I started building my brand, I started creating my first digital products, publishing books, growing my community.

And for me, the community was really the cornerstone of everything.

The reality is that we only learn and find our answers by doing and by trial and error and seeing what works and what doesn't work.

And so, sure, I did a lot of thinking and I went for all these meditative works.

But honestly, what really helped me find my path and define what I stood for was writing and showing up online and exploring different topics.

And I was a mess.

When I studied, I was all over the shop.

I would write about the metaverse, I would write about retail because I had a background in retail.

I would write about leadership.

But all these experiments, they helped me really have a clear idea of what I didn't want to talk about so that I could really focus on what are the topics that I'm leaning into?

What are the things that are more.

More passionate about?

How do I really want to help people.

And instead of thinking about what do I want to be known for, I started to shift that narrative to how can I help people?

So I said, hey, this is Veronica.

This is what happened to me.

I locked abroad, I don't have a job anymore.

I'm trying to figure out a new path.

I'm happy to share my story, I'm happy to share what I'm building.

If you want to come along the.

Journey, you have got a different business on LinkedIn.

You have got a different business on substack.

So how are you monetizing both of them?

Sure.

So let's talk about that because that's one of the biggest questions that I get is how do I stop being a starving artist?

In my case, only writing did not pay the bills.

And so I had this book that costed five to nine US dollars on Amazon.

I had the writing that was very unreliable with medium.

And so I really had to think bigger.

And that's how I started to think about this idea of a portfolio career.

And that's really when I started to go from a more of a sophisticated hobby to a business.

Because what I realized is that I was missing certain pieces that were very strategic.

When you think about monetization, the first thing is I only had low ticket values, as I was saying.

And so the first thing, the first question was how can I enrich my business and my portfolio with a medium value and a high value ticket?

And so that pushed me to think different about what I was doing at the time.

And so with all this content, I realized that I had an opportunity to start bundling up.

And so I started creating courses.

And so those courses, they took my offer from 5 to $10, as I was saying, to 88, 100, 100 plus US dollar, which is still not super high, but it made a significant amount because it meant that with only 10 students now I was able to reach a thousand.

So that was one new revenue stream that I added to my portfolio, which is courses.

Right now I have five.

I just published actually the fifth, which is about portfolio careers.

Then I realized that as I was growing, a lot of people were starting to ask me questions.

They would send me a dm, they would ask me if I could help you with these.

I jumped on I don't know how many can I pick on your brain calls?

And then at one point I realized, hey, I'm giving all this advice for free, but this is actually my time, this is actually my ip, this is my expertise.

I help people repackage what they have so that it really becomes a business.

And so that's how I launched my coaching business.

And since then I have had over 200 clients that have gone through it.

You start growing a community and then all these other possibilities become real.

So that's another one.

So we've already talked about how I went from low value tickets to then medium value ticket.

Now I added the one to one service, which is something that you can create very easily.

Group coaching.

That's one of my favorite things to do because instead of just spending time with one person, now you're talking about a small group.

We spend three sessions of 90 minutes together and we talk.

In this particular case is about public speaking.

And then the last one, and I wanted to keep the icing of the cake for the the end is the B2B.

You say that it's personal brand for corporate employees who want to do sales, for example.

And all of a sudden for that one session you might be able to charge 3,000 US, 5,000 US even more depending on your position as a speaker.

So the first thing that I would say is really focus on building a community.

Everything that I've been talking about in the previous episodes has really been about building trust.

Really community is about trust.

The person who buys your book is trusting you.

And the most amazing thing is that maybe today you feel that you're not really an expert or that you don't have a lot of skills in a particular topic.

But if you keep learning about that topic and writing about that topic, chances are in six months time there's going to be someone who is going to be just starting and is going to be looking at you, looking up.

And it's going to want to know exactly what are the steps that you took.

And so you can just be very open and say this is day one and start building your path because when you do, people will come along.

So that was just a trailer, but we are about to get into the real story.

How she pitched a book deal before writing a single word, built a public speaking business from zero as an introvert, and now runs two substack publications in two different languages.

If you have ever wondered whether it's too late to start over or too late to learn a completely new skill, you probably don't want to miss this one.

Make sure you hit that follow button.

It's completely free.

And I will be dropping the full interview really soon.

And go check out Veronica.

She provides tons of value on her substack publication, the elementary Mindset.

And if you want more of what we talk about on this show.

I write about it every week over on my substack, the Sustainable Solopreneur.

And it is completely free too.

So consider subscribing to it.

It is linked in the description.

I will see you soon.