Finding Your $250/hr Side Hustle: How One Firefighter Unlocked an Extra $40k a Year

What if you could earn $250-$300 an hour solving a problem most people would rather avoid? Jim Lashbaugh did exactly that, and last year, it added about $40,000 in extra income.

Jim is a retired firefighter who spent nearly three decades on the job. On the side, he flipped houses. And as part of that, he had to wrestle with one of the most annoying parts of real estate development: building permits.

He got good at it, but he never planned to do it for anyone else.

Then a friend asked for help. Then a stranger called. And SynergyPermits.com was born.

Jim joined the show to share how he turned a very specific, very unglamorous skill into a flexible side hustle without cold calling, without ads, and without any formal credentials.

Tune in to Episode 727 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

• how to find the niche skill hiding in your own experience
• a simple pricing shift that can double or triple your effective hourly rate
• the one-question close that converts almost every prospect into a paying client

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How a Pain Point Turned Into a Profitable Side Hustle

Contractors and builders know permitting well. It’s slow, full of red tape, and takes time away from actual building. Jim had navigated it for his own flips for years, never enjoying it, but getting through it.

After retiring from the fire department, he scaled back on houses. But when a friend asked him to handle a permit, Jim said yes and charged a little for his time. His wife took notice.

She told him, “You’re pretty good at that. Maybe you could spend a little less time on the couch and do this for other people.”

So Jim made a couple of calls to builders he knew. Word spread. Then a plumber — someone Jim had never met — called out of the blue and said, “I heard you handle building permits. Can I pay you to handle this for me?”

That first real client paid $500 for the job, which worked out to about $100 an hour. Jim had no website, no social media presence, and the client never asked about his credentials. He just didn’t want to deal with it himself.

The Skipping Rock Theory: Building a Client Base Without Advertising

Jim hasn’t run a single ad for Synergy Permits. His entire business has grown through word of mouth, but not just his own network. He calls it the “skipping rock theory.”

When a rock skips across water, each point of contact creates its own ripple.

Jim told just two builders about his service, and each of them told people in their own circles. That plumber client? He brought Jim more work through his own network.

“It’s not your circle that matters — it’s all the circles that you touch.”

His advice for anyone starting out: tell four people. Those four people will each know someone who needs what you do. It sounds simple, but it works.

Today, Jim has over 25 active permits in his pipeline, up from just two when he started about a year ago.

How to Find Your Own Niche Skill

Jim was honest: he never would have put permitting on a list of his own strengths. It took his wife pointing it out for him to see it.

His recommendation is to:

• write down the things you’re good at
• the things people ask you about
• and the things people ask you to help with

Then ask your spouse, a best friend, and a coworker to do the same exercise… without seeing your list. Whatever shows up across all of them is worth a hard look.

You can’t see the label from inside the jar. The curse of knowledge makes it hard to recognize your own expertise. Other people often see it more clearly than you do.

Pricing: From Hourly to Flat Fees (and Why It Matters)

Jim started out charging by the hour because that’s what he knew. But he quickly shifted to flat-fee pricing, and it changed the business.

His starting rate for a standard building permit was $1,250. That jumped to $1,500, and now he charges $1,750 as his base. He bumps that up for more complex projects like duplexes or cottage clusters. Not a single client has questioned it.

On a straightforward job, that flat fee works out to roughly $250-$300 an hour of actual time. The key is that clients aren’t buying hours — they’re buying a result. And the result they’re buying is time saved and stress avoided.

In Portland, the average permit timeline runs around 9 months. Jim’s average? 4 to 5 months.

The reason: he responds to reviewer requests within 24 hours, coordinates directly with surveyors and designers, and keeps everything moving. A contractor managing this themselves might let an email sit for weeks before even opening it.

“Time applies to everyone’s business. If you can do something in three to four months that they’re used to taking six months… they’re going to pay you all day long.”

Jim has also started offering land use planning as a separate service, helping clients figure out what they can actually build on a property before the permit process even begins.

For that, he charges $95 an hour, knowing it typically leads to much larger permit jobs down the road. One builder he did free research for ended up referring four more clients.

Building a Referral Engine: Strategic Partners Over Advertising

Jim’s biggest source of new business isn’t homeowners but designers and surveyors. These professionals often get asked to handle permitting as part of a project, and most of them hate it.

Jim works with them two ways. Sometimes he’s behind the scenes entirely, contracting directly with the surveyor who then manages the client relationship. Other times, he’s introduced directly to the client and bills them separately. Either way works.

The real upside of these partnerships is volume. A single homeowner adding a garage might be a $1,750 job, once. A builder with multiple projects is a recurring stream of work. The goal is to find the “lead fountains” — the people who connect you to many clients rather than just one.

Jim also found an unexpected benefit: by acting as the go-between for his clients, designers, and surveyors (rather than making the client coordinate everyone themselves), he built strong relationships with those professionals. They now send work his way.

Three Things That Close Almost Every Lead

When a prospect calls, Jim listens first. He lets them explain their situation: what they have, what they need, what’s frustrating them. Then he does three things.

1. Be kind, be helpful, and pick up the phone – Because a quick conversation can save weeks of back-and-forth delays. Clients notice this.
2. Deliver more than expected – If clients are used to a permit taking six months, getting it done in three to four is a shock to the system in the best way. Once they experience that, they’re not going back.
3. “What is your one thing?” – Builders want to build. They don’t want to track down arborist reports and chase reviewers. The moment Jim says that, he says, “Their eyes get big.”

His conversion rate: 9 out of 10, sometimes 10 out of 10. People know it’s a pain, and when someone credible offers to take it away, they say yes.

Tools/Tech

• Joist – invoicing app ($15/month)
• Trello – project management app ($6-7/month)

The Biggest Surprise?

Not one client has ever asked Jim what his credentials are. No certification, no license, no degree.

People aren’t hiring him because of what’s on paper. They’re hiring him because someone they trust said he could handle it and because when he picks up the phone, he clearly knows what he’s talking about.

“My definition of an expert is someone who is calling you to do something for them. That is their expert.”

What’s Next for Jim?

Jim and his family are planning a trip to Europe this summer, which he’s also treating as a live test of whether the business can run fully remote across time zones. He’s cautiously optimistic.

On the business side, he’s looking to bring on a part-time contractor to handle overflow. His ideal candidate: a city permit reviewer who’s nearing retirement and wants a side project of their own. Someone who already knows the system from the inside.

He also shared a side hustle he organized for his teenage stepson and some friends: a neighborhood junk-hauling weekend.

They made flyers, posted on Facebook, and took orders before renting a dumpster, so there was no upfront cost.

The demand was big enough that a planned one-day event stretched to two and a half days. Everyone walked away with cash in their pockets.

Jim’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

Adding more value
“They’re gonna pay.”

Episode Links

• SynergyPermits.com
• Joist
• Trello
• The 15 Best Side Hustles for Firefighters: Earn $1000/mo in Your Spare Time
• Episode 332: How to Start a Junk Hauling Business: From $0 to $300 Million and Beyond

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