Stop Chasing Side Hustles… This Is the Recession-Proof Model for 2026 (Episode 171)

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🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley break down why the “side hustle hopping” era is quietly destroying people’s progress — especially heading into 2026.

They explain why most people never win online because they keep resetting to zero, and why the model they teach works differently: it’s built on existing demand, real compounding, and skills that don’t disappear when the economy tightens.

🎥 Prefer to watch instead? Watch on YouTube → https://youtu.be/ygpbxWfymh4

🧭 Topics Discussed
★ Why side hustles don’t compound — the hidden cost of constantly restarting and losing momentum
★ The boring-business advantage — why long-term, stable models beat hype-driven opportunities
★ Why high-ticket e-commerce works — existing demand, predictable buying intent, and strong margins
★ Why recession punishes inconsistency — and rewards people who stick to proven foundations
★ The real “recession-proof” edge — not the product, but the structure + transferable skills you build
★ How to get in front of buyers ready to purchase — demand validation + Google ads + Performance Max

🛠 Links & Resources Mentioned
Lewis’s Book → https://dropshipunlocked.com/book
Shopify £1-for-3-months Offer → https://dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Free Trial of a Professional Phone Line → https://dropshipunlocked.com/circle

📌 Episode 143 (mentioned): How to choose high ticket products that actually sell → https://youtu.be/efusffFBxXA

💡 Key Takeaways
★ Side hustle hopping kills progress — you don’t fail, you just never stay long enough to win
★ Compounding beats hype — pick one vehicle, push through the build phase, and let results stack
★ Existing demand is the cheat code — you’re not “creating” buyers, you’re showing up where they already are
★ High-ticket gives you room for error — more profit per sale = more resilience when conditions tighten
★ The model is recession-proof because the skills are — demand validation, ads, supplier leverage, systems

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Website → https://www.dropshipunlocked.com

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Transcript

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The era of just chasing side hustles is completely dead because. The model we use right now is working, because you're not guessing or creating demand. The reason that this model is recession proof is not the product. It's because. Every year there's a new side hustle that promises quick wins when, whether that's AI automation or faceless content reselling crypto ideas. And most people jump from one to the other without ever building anything real. And the problem with that approach, especially heading into this year, is that you're always starting over again, always building, never compounding. So, Louis, let's start here. Why do people need to stop chasing side hustles and go back to first principles when building a business today? Well, well, this is the same pattern repeating itself again and again, isn't it? It's a new year. Therefore, there's new shiny objects, there's new distractions, and there are new things out there to take our attention away from the business models that are tried and tested and continually work and have done for decades. Now. The trouble with these shiny objects, these new business models, as you alluded to there, is that you're constantly restarting. So every time something new comes along, you might test it, you might think, oh, I'm going to try that. Maybe that's my answer. But the trouble is you, you then lose all the momentum you build up, built up on the previous thing you were working on. So after a while you're just kind of, you're never compounding, you're just always restarting the same process again. You're always in that early build mode. And the thing that no one talks about with online business is that actually it's quite a lot of front loaded work usually. So you're doing yourself a massive disservice by keeping going back to that because it's, it's making it harder. Like actually if you just focus on the build mode once, pick your opportunity vehicle, pick the thing that you know, the business model that you feel works for you and meets the criteria you're looking for in terms of your life and the outcomes you want and see it through to profitability, See it through until it reaches some level of stability. Because if you can do that, you then get to reap the rewards of the front loaded effort you did six months ago. But I think sometimes it's that like constant attention dopamine hit that entrepreneurs look for where the next thing comes along and everyone's talking about it and it's a, you know, a huge buzz. So it's Kind of, I guess they're asking the wrong question. You know, they're going into it thinking and what's hot at the moment? Instead of what business do I actually want to own long term? Because some of the most boring businesses are arguably the best. Because eventually the business owner doesn't want this crazy voice v volatility and fighting fires everywhere and trying to manage all this like early build chaos. They just want something that's proven, that just churns out profit month after month is really stable and for the business owner is like, yeah, relatively boring. Like it just kind of smooth sailing. It continues. Their team work on the business for them and they act as the business owner. So I think that that cycle, that pattern that we've just talked about, it literally burns years of people's time up because they don't fail. They just never stick around with the business model long enough to make anything work. And so the, the situation that we're in in like the go the global economic conditions that we find ourselves at the moment, like we know that a recession punishes inconsistency. If you are going to be inconsistent and you're going to keep jumping ship to the next one, the businesses that survive are going to be the ones that compound and front load the work and then build on what they did last year and the year before. So you pick a model that has longevity, that's not based on a trend, it's not based on hype. And then you compound those skills because you'll learn every year new things, the systems that you put in place and then eventually your presence in the market as a business, as a brand. So customers are coming back to you and buying from you after they bought from you last year and the year before. And before you know it, you have a really strong brand that's defensible and is almost the opposite of a shiny object that, that has just appeared in, in the entrepreneurial space. Yeah. And that's such an important distinction, isn't it? To go into a business based on the end in mind, how do you want your, your life to look based on what business you build rather than just following the trend of what seems to be working best right now. So for you, Louis, just to get some context for people coming across us for the first time, you've built a business that's done almost £6 million, I believe now in sales. And that's the E commerce model that we'll go into detail as we continue to chat, I'm sure. But tell us, how were you able to stay consistent and not get dragged into different side hustles that were vying for your attention. Firstly, you have to cut out a lot of the distractions. I just don't look generally there's probably new business models out now that exist that I'm just not really even familiar with because I kind of see them as a flash in the pan and I've seen the cycle repeat itself too many times. These people that teach one business model and then they kind of disappear and then they come back teaching something radically different later and it's almost like they're just jumping on each trend. So I've seen that cycle a few times now, being in this space for nearly a decade now, that it's just, it becomes recognisable. So, yeah, no, I like the idea of the, the boring business. I like the idea of being the business owner. People sometimes say like, oh, but you know, I want to build a business around like these items because I'm really passionate about them. But in this space, if you're trying to build a lifestyle business that supports your family, allows you to travel the world, pick your kids up from school, go to the gym in the middle of the day and have money coming in regardless, what do you want? Do you really want something that you're super passionate about, like the, the material and the products and stuff? Or are you looking for the outcome and therefore maybe you're kind of product agnostic. It doesn't matter what you sell because you're passionate as an entrepreneur about the business making profit and serving customers in a, to a great level that they're really happy with their experience. So yeah, sometimes I have to disconnect myself from like the types of products that we sell on our E commerce stores and actually just remember that like, we're serving markets that are, that have demand and that we, we can just benefit from, from doing that and be a behind the scenes business owner. You know, the CEO of Wayfair is unlikely to be really passionate about all the chairs and sofas and furniture that they sell because they're, you know, just managing the business. They're kind of keeping it running. Now I'm not saying we're on that same scale, but on a much smaller scale where it's a lifestyle business. For me, the outcome that I wanted was time back with my family, time with my children when I eventually became a dad, which I am now, time with my wife as a husband, but also the ability to like, yeah, go and play, paddle and go to the gym and like, go for A run and just do things in the day and not be locked in like a corporate grey office meeting room. So I, yeah, I think you just have to quite keep your focus on what the outcome you want is and take stock when you get there as well. We were at a meet up recently, weren't we speaking to one of our members and he's done significant milestone he's just achieved in sales with his business. I won't go into what it was exactly, but it was, it was high but. And he was straight onto the next thing and I was like, just hold up a second. Like you, you set out on this so that you could achieve a passive business that creates you that level of income without you doing anything. He now has two virtual assistants that run the whole for him and it's like just for a moment just, just stop and pat yourself on the back and be like I did it. I reached that first milestone because it's very easy and tempting for us as entrepreneurs to just jump into the next thing and before we know it we're really busy again. And that's the benefit of front loading the work and then get to the point where you can build systems to take your time out of it 100%. I think our brains are wired to go towards what we want to fix or what we should be working on. And what that can develop for somebody is the constant perpetual build cycle that people going through every time and they build something and then they, they have to restart because they feel like they're getting pulled in a new, different direction. But the only thing that allowed me to build my seven figure business and now travel the world while it continues to operate is because I stuck and I stayed consistent to a business that I believed in. Now I needed to join Dropship Unlocked and work alongside you Louis, to learn this, really to realise that you need to stick with something and push through the inevitable challenges to build something that's worthy and that will sustain you for the long term. So once I did that I really got my head down, built something that was long term and on solid foundations then it's been able to pay for, for the long term. And now when we have those chats with members, they're able to stick to things as well and we can keep them on track and able to pat themselves on the back when they achieve these awesome milestones that we, that we come across. So let's talk about why specifically this model that we built works for the long term. Why do you think high ticket E commerce makes so much sense why does it make sense right now especially compared to the typical side hustle ideas that people are chasing? Well, it comes down to the fact that it's based on customer demand. So we're not trying to reinvent anything here. We're not trying to go out and just, you know, rustle up interest in a product that we're thinking of selling. It's about just going to where there's already a queue of people and, and just slotting our kind of offer in at the front of the line or you know, somewhere in the first five of the line. Like it's, you don't have to be the only person to operate in that market. So that's why I always have to try and reframe the idea of competition being a bad thing in members minds when they first start to. Actually we want a bit of competition because it proves there's money being made in that market. We don't want to take the risk on our first online venture of being this unicorn products that we might be able to make work but like the odds are stacked against us. So that's the first thing we're going. Where there's existing customer demand that makes it very stable in this type of environment because you obviously, wherever there's demand, you just go there. So that's, that's what makes it different to like, oh, I'm going to sell this trending thing because there's like a spike in demand and then suddenly it dies out and we have to now find another thing. We just go where markets have been in demand for, for years, if not decades. The next important aspect that allows us to stack the odds of success in our favour is the level of profit, the actual pounds of profit that you will make per order when you use the home turf advantage model like we teach. So that margin of making like a hundred pounds, five hundred pounds, maybe £800 in profit on a single transaction, on a single sale, that gives you so much room for error. That is not to be underestimated. When it comes to running ads, that's really important. Allow you to pay your team. If you have a virtual assistant, it allows you to run ads and not be that good at running ads as well. Because if it takes you £50 to make a sale, okay, well you made £750 profit now instead of £800 profit. And people all the time are like, yeah, but can you really sell products that are £800 profit? And it's like, well look, in our community, every single day hundreds of members are making sales for various different amounts, like whether it's £100 profit, £500, £800. You just have to look at the examples that are out there and look around your house, look around your high street, look at the things that are worth thousands of pounds that people are buying every day. So it's really about just finding what the stable markets that you can enter are. Where there's consistent demand, it's not seasonal, it's not viral, it's not trending. There's nothing that is going to go out of fashion. It's just about then positioning yourself where that money is already moving. Like, if you, if you imagine that you could see money moving through the world and there's like little lines going everywhere, from like one person's computer to a. A business up north where they buy it, and then there's another person up north buying an item that's down south. You can see these wires of money moving everywhere. All you need to do is, is follow the path, just watch where the money's going. And there's literally tools that allow us to do that inside our programme where we analyse the level of demand, the level of profitability, the availability of suppliers, things like that. So if you're listening to this and you want to go deeper on choosing the right products for this model, because I know that's a common question that people have in their mind, we actually broke that down step by step in episode 143. So that's 1, 4, 3, which was titled how to Choose High Ticket Products that actually Sell. So if you want to cheque that one out, that might be helpful. That episode pairs perfectly with the conversation that we're having today. Yeah, it's a great shout. It's. It's a whole big question, isn't it, about how do you find the products to, to actually sell once you've decided that you want to start selling products that are in demand already? Which is why it makes sense as a business model to stop chasing these different side hustles and going after demand that's constantly fluctuating. If you're trying to jump on a trend, rather than just sticking to a market that is clearly not seasonal, it's clearly trending upwards over the long term. And it's something where there's lots and lots of demand. That's why we validate that there's at least 10,000 searches per month for certain physical products. We make sure that they're trending, using tools like Google Trends to make sure that they're on the Right path. And there's a whole load of tools that we use to find out which products we should sell because they're based on data it's actually selling before we just go in on a hunch, which is what I did before and it went completely wrong. You know, I was trying to sell these cheap elasticated shoelaces because I thought they were trending because I saw a few Facebook ads for them and the reality was they, they, they may have been trending for other people. They certainly weren't trending for me because I hadn't done anywhere near enough research into what was going to make a store successful until I started selling high ticket products based on demand and I never looked back. And I still run that business today. It's almost five years old now. Job is celebrating that, that, that milestone soon. But I think something we need to touch on Lewis is this idea that there's trends and falls through, through any market and there's, there's going to be highs and lows of any sort of, there'll be, there'll be recessions in the, in the country and this year there may be one coming along at some point. And so people wanted to go into a business that wants to be as resilient as possible. Of course. So I think the idea of recession proof, people assume, hear that and they might assume well nothing's ever going to go wrong, which isn't true. But some models clearly handle pressure better than others. So why do you think this approach is more resilient when the economy tightens and conditions change? Well, you are upskilling as an entrepreneur by building a business like this because there's a lot of transferable skills that are easily missed when you're in the midst of it and you are building the thing yourself. You're not realising that actually by doing this it might feel like a lot of hard work at the beginning but you're learning about sales psychology, you're learning about buying traffic and paying for ads and how PPC traffic works. You're learning about like speaking with suppliers, negotiations, margins like profit margins, return on ad sped and whether it's like management and how to manage a virtual assistant once you hire one, automation systems like things like that. So it's so valuable as a just a skill set like if, if you didn't earn any money from this and it was purely just a skills gathering exercise, it would be so valuable, probably way more valuable than, than like the degree that I got at university that you know, like it's so much more Easy to just implement an action and use and pivot from. So it gives you that flexibility. Then later to say, well, okay, maybe for example, the recession hits and the business niche that you picked the first time, for whatever reason, doesn't pan out. Okay, well, are you starting from zero? If you decide to pivot and create another business because you know all of the steps now that took you to get from zero to having a business up and running even if it didn't work out, you can get from 0 to 1 so much faster the next time around. If you decide to pivot, or even if it did work and you decide, I want a second store now or a third store, you know what to look for. You know, like you could just export your theme from Shopify, make a few colour changes, flip out the logo and you have a second business. Like, you could even have your virtual assistants team answer the phone to the second business too. So it's just it, I guess it's that it's the fact that you've built yourself options, skills that are so valuable in today's market. You've also not locked yourself into really high overhead costs as well. So you've got a lot less pressure, you've got a lot more control in those tough periods of time, like you mentioned, during recessions, where everyone in all the high street shops start to shut because people can't pay their business rates and their premises leases and etc. Anymore. Whereas your overheads are very, very minimal. With a business like this, like literally a little bit of money on a couple of pieces of software per month and then some paid ads which you can scale up or down depending on your profitability. So you're not, yeah, you're not locked into any of those things. You're not stuck with stock. You haven't. It's not like Amazon FBA where you've bought huge containers of stock and now you're paying by the day for it to be stored in an Amazon warehouse, you are not dependent on one product, you're not dependent on a trend because you've built a brand, a retail brand niche that you can sell within. And so I think the combination of those things are what make this type of business resilient. It's not the product, but it's the structure of the business and the skills that you built by creating the business in the first place. So we see a lot of our members will adapt and pivot and they keep moving forward even when conditions change because they might just, you know, tack on a slightly different group of products onto an already successful store to make sure that during the recession, when those market conditions change, their business now serves the new demand that exists as a result of the recession, if that makes sense. It's kind of hard to conceptualise without going into like specific niches, but if you just imagine that during a recession, perhaps a certain type of product thrives more than ones that thrived during much better economic times, well, then you just pivot and sell those products as well, or instead in your store, so you have ultimate control. The fundamentals all remain exactly the same. And that's why I say it helps to not be too emotionally invested, I think, is my opinion, in what you're selling. Because if you're only passionate about the things you're selling and you don't want to sell anything you're not passionate about, it's kind of hard because you can't see the, the data through the noise because your, your heart's telling you one thing and your mind's saying, well, this is where the profit is. So it's easier to just kind of detach yourself from that and be like, what does the data tell me? What does the market want? What are people buying? Where will we make good profit margins? And how can we make sure we ride out the storm of this recession? That's the real value that can't be taken away, no matter what's going on in the market, is the skills that you have. And that was what I really bought into when I invested in myself and built my company. When I look back on it now, what I really was doing was investing in my skills and the ability for me to generate money online and all the little sub macro skills that fit underneath that making money online skills with all of the traffic, you know, in offer building and website building and supplier management, all these skills are so transferable and you just level them up and scale different businesses with those skills moving forward. That's how I've took it on. You know, we had Suraj on the podcast last week and he was explaining how he's now bought a 3 million a year business which is one of his suppliers. And he said that all of the skills he's learned through his first store is now being applied to this store. And he also built a second dropshipping store alongside his first. And he was able to deploy that so much quicker than the first one because it was all transferable skills. So he could just build a website, sign suppliers and start selling different products so much quicker than the first time. And yeah, Also, to give another example, I was just on a Q and A call inside the Masterclass community and we were speaking to a member who is about to build out his second store and he was saying that it's going to take him a fraction of the time that his first store took him a matter of weeks, because really he'll just build a website, sign suppliers, run ads, all things that he's done before. And he knows how quick he is now to deploy and start selling products in a new market because he knows how to validate demand. He knows how to to put the right products in front of the right people at the right time. And it's such a valuable skill that will serve you no matter what the market is doing. So if there's one key takeaway from this episode, it's that this year won't reward people who are jumping from object to object. Instead, it will reward the people that stay consistent. They build a solid model and they invest in growing their skills to deploy that into what's working right now. So, Lewis, for someone that thinks, okay, I really fancy this, I can see the path, I can see what other people have achieved and I want a real model and a clear place to start. Where would you suggest that they go next? Well, we've put together a page that is a perfect starting point for you if you're in that position. So head over to dropshipunlocked.com start. That's where we lay out the exact roadmap that all of our members have followed to build high ticket UK e commerce businesses with the low overheads we talked about today, strong profit margins and develop the skills that last far beyond a trend. Fantastic. Yeah, well said, Lewis. We can go straight to there after this episode if you're enjoying it and if you like the sound of it. But what we're going to do first is we're going to answer a question that we've had in from a listener. We like to do this on every episode and it gives you a chance to ask your questions if anything's come to mind while listening or watching today's episode. So all you need to do is comment beneath a YouTube video version of this episode and we will answer the question comment in the comment section and also potentially feature it in an upcoming episode. Now that is exactly what Matthew S. 1983 has done. So I'm going to put his question to you now, Lewis. He's asked, how do I ensure that my products get in front of the people who are ready to buy? Yep. Thank you for your question, Matthew, and definitely a common one that we hear quite, quite frequently. So the first thing, if you want to make sure that your products are going to sell, is making sure you're in a proven niche that has demand. So we talked about this today, but we don't guess, we don't think, I wonder, I think that people would probably buy this. We validate it with numbers, with data and we make sure that using the tools that we talk you through inside the masterclass, people are already searching and buying these products online so that we just have to slot our business in at the front of those search results. Using ads. We can jump to number one, number two, number three, by running ads. That's the beauty of it. Google is happy to take your money and in exchange put you right up to the top of the search results. From there, you then upload your products to your Shopify store. So they're ready to then be shown to the buyers that are already looking for them. And at that point, yeah, you're ready to then start running ads. So your products appear at the exact moment that someone is searching to buy them. They're not scrolling through Facebook or Instagram and then suddenly your ad pops up and they think, oh, do you know what, yeah, I might buy a 2,000 pound barbecue or something. That's a hard thing to do to take someone out of like passive scrolling mode and then just convince them to make a high ticket purchase. Instead we, we just say, well okay, well where are the people that are searching? Where do I find a three burner gas barbecue grill, you know, in stainless steel with a side burner on it or something like that is really specific bottom of funnel searches. If you imagine like a search funnel where, where you've got all the kind of generic searches at the top and then you've got the people that know which brand they want, they know which model they want, they know the exact thing they're after. Let's just show our ads to those people. It's really simple. You get in front of them, you won't get every single one of those searches as a sale, but you, the ones you do get, you'll get a much lower cost per acquisition on them and you'll be able to make the sale without having to do too much actual selling because they're already looking for the item in the first place. So we can lean on Google's machine learning and AI algorithms to do all the heavy lifting rather than trying to outsmart the algorithm. And so there's a type of campaign that we recommend, Matthew, which is called Performance Max campaigns. And so we guide you through all of this like in step by step, click by click video tutorials. But basically a Performance Max campaign will put your product in front of the people who are most likely to convert across Google's entire network. So that's across search, YouTube, display, Gmail, like shopping the whole, the whole network. So Google owns a lot of real estate on the Internet and that's really the, the, the best way that we've seen to do it to get those initial sales. We'll use retargeting ads later across the meta platform as well to bring people back, which is like where you see an ad that says, hey, remember this item that you were going to buy the other day, you never finished your purchase. Here it is. That's when the scroll stopping ads can work because you know that person was already looking for it a few days ago. So hopefully that's the answer to your question there Matthew, and that helps you along your journey with your e commerce business. Now, as we wrap up this one today, one question I have for you is who do you know that could perhaps benefit from hearing the conversation that James and I have had today? Open up your phone right now and just click the little share button next to this episode, maybe on WhatsApp, send it through to them and just add a line that's like thought you might enjoy this. That tiny little gesture of sharing this episode with some someone in your world, your family, your friends that could be the thing that changes the direction of their life for the better. And who would they have to thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial. Journey to kickstart your e commerce business. Head over to dropshipunlocked.com start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes packed with strategies, tips and success storeys. Plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us. And you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast.