Like I said in my first post, I started this blog because I want to help more people make extra money, whether it’s by starting the business of your dreams or by picking up some side hustles to fatten up your travel fund. Maybe you already have your dream job/side hustle/work situation in mind. Maybe the picture is as clear as a Pinterest board for you, or maybe all you know right now is that you want to do something different. You want to make more money, but you have no idea how to make it happen. You want to quit a soul-sucking desk job but have no clue what you’d do instead. You want to go “back to work” to generate income for your family, but the thought of dealing with a full-time job on top of your life sounds completely unrealistic.
I do not have all the answers, but I have been in some of your shoes, and I have come out the other side (after lots of failing and giving up and trying again) with an online business that works for me and that generates a healthy income for my family. I’ve been doing this for more than a decade (it feels really weird to type that) so now that I can justify spending a little less time building my business and more time doing what I want without worrying about the cash flow, I want to help you create something similar for yourself by sharing what I know and how I make it work.
That being said, if you don’t yet have what you “want to do” in your head, the only person who can really figure that out is you. However, I’ve been at this game long enough that if I had a nickel for every time someone said to me “oh I’d love to do what you do, but…” I’d be retired in Bora Bora. I have heard a lot of the fears that hold people back and prevent them from making these kinds of life changes, so the following pieces of advice are what I would tell you if we were chatting about this topic over coffee.
All you have to do to make money is be better at something than someone else.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to, say, NASA engineers or phlebotomists or lawyers, but it’s true for plenty of creative skills and trades like writing, design, photography, woodworking, transcribing, and other things you can teach yourself. You don’t even have to be an expert to get someone to pay you to do something for them. You just have to be able to do what needs to be done, and they have to want to pay someone else over doing it themselves. As you continue to learn and improve your skills, your net grows and you can attract a bigger number of clients.
You probably have more skills than you think.
Have you ever taught yourself how to do something because you were too broke to pay someone else to do it? The reason my husband is so good at working on cars is
If “someone else” is already doing what you want to do, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It means there’s a market for it.
The bottomless pit of the internet means there is virtually no limit to how many people can start a website and do the exact same thing as everybody else. This makes it easy to feel defeated before you even get your ideas off the ground. The Furlough Cheesecake sisters weren’t worried about other cheesecake makers when they started their company – they gave it their own unique furlough-inspired spin and boom, they’re on Ellen JUST for making cheesecake! Remember, even if others are doing something similar to you, if you are honest and authentic and have a quality product, you will still be providing a unique concept or perspective that nobody else can give. Nobody else has your background and experience. Nobody else has your combination of DNA. Therefore, what you have to offer does not yet exist, and it is up to you to bring it to fruition.
Stay the literal fuck away from multi-level marketing companies/MLMs/pyramid schemes.
You are more likely to get struck by lightning as a shark bites off your hand that’s holding a winning lottery ticket than you are to make a sustainable, substantial income off begging your Facebook friends to buy leggings or ketogenic coffee. The only way I would say an MLM is worth joining is if you already have a huge cult-like social following that would sit on Instagram and watch you read the Applebee’s menu if you chose to do that, which means they’ll buy whatever you sell them. And if that’s the case, you can capitalize on your following far more effectively by starting your own business or product line than by working as a salesperson for LuLaRoe. You deserve better. The world deserves better. No Brenda, I don’t want to cure my psoriasis with your oils.
5) The riches are in the niches as Pay Flynn loves to say. What does this mean? Here’s an example:
I’ve been writing in some capacity for about 12 years. When I first went full-time into self-employment back in 2009, I thought that my writing chops and desire to write about anything – from handicap toilets to porn video descriptions – would yield me all the clients I needed.
Nah.
One day a few years ago I decided to browse Upwork for writing gigs in the cannabis niche because I like to smoke weed and know a lot about it, so writing about it could be fun, too. I was stunned to find so many dispensaries and small business owners looking for people to write for their websites, but not many freelancers who specialize in the topic. I knew how disastrous it could be if they hired a writer who didn’t even know the difference between indica and sativa, THC and CBD, or marijuana and hemp. Long story short, this is how Jane Dope was born and why I have people reaching out to me regularly asking for help with their website content. It is exponentially easier for me and for them because they don’t have to walk me through the industry basics and lingo, and I can focus on learning as much about cannabis as possible (it’s a tough job but somebody has to smoke do it). As a result, I can justify raising my rates as needed because I know the right clients are eager to pay for the right person.
Similarly, my friend who’s a child psychologist makes extra money by using her grad school writing chops to write articles for other psychologists who want content on their website but don’t have the time/skills/desire to do it. You think it’s more worth it for them to hire me in 2009, with my handicap-toilet-eagerness to write about “anything and everything”, or my friend who’s already an expert in the field?
(Related post: How to Find Your Niche and Start a Successful Blog or Business)
Struggling to get started? Remember that you can remake garbage, but you can’t remake nothing.
The only way to get from zero to 1 is to take some sort of action, no matter how small or mundane, and see what happens. I struggle from mental constipation all the time while I’m trying to write, but the only way I manage to get anything done is by forcing myself to start, even if it sounds like shit or I don’t feel “ready”. Shit work can be improved, and sometimes you’ll find some gold in there (or maybe that’s just corn).
Moral of the story: People are busy. People are lazy.
So many of us would rather pay someone to do things we dislike or suck at than do it ourselves. Capitalize on that.
(Your next move: The first step to any online business is a website, whether it’s a portfolio, blog, or simple landing page. Ready to start one of your own? Check out my tutorial on how to set up a WordPress site using Bluehost.)
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