The Side Hustle and Replacing Your Income

There are a lot of people that could have their life dramatically change with an extra $1,000 per month.

When I started, I wanted to leverage side hustles to add $100-$200 per month across 5 side hustles, I found that extra $1,000/mo. After 'learning while doing', I found that I could grow, develop and expand these small operations until $1000/mo per side hustle. Then $2000/mo, and so on.

It does take time and it does take a great deal of attention to your side hustle.

What is a side hustle?

A side hustle is a way to earn additional income outside of your primary job or occupation. It is typically a part-time or freelance activity that allows you to use your skills or pursue a passion while earning extra money. Side hustles can take many forms, including freelancing, selling goods or services online, driving for ride-sharing services, pet-sitting, tutoring, or creating and selling crafts. Many people engage in side hustles to supplement their income, pay off debt, or save money for a specific goal. Side hustles can also offer a degree of flexibility and autonomy that may not be available in traditional jobs.

Here are some common side hustles you can start with no money:

DROP SHIPPING: Almost everyone has a drop shipping or private label option available. Find a product you really enjoy, and identify a vendor to private label drop ship for you. You simply provide the marketing and sales, and they provide fulfillment, packaging and shipping.
PRINT ON DEMAND: Print on Demand is another option whereas you market and sell t-shirts, coffee mugs, backpacks, coasters, etc. and a print on demand company will print, fulfill, package and ship any quantity, whether it is 1 item or 100 items.
AFFILIATE MARKETING: There are a lot of people that are doing this and may not even know they are. In short, Affiliate Marketing is promoting a product on your website and getting a commission each month when someone buys. Some folks that see Success with this utilize what they call Niche Sites. Pick one product line, write about it every day in your blog, and include a buy now button linking directly to your product using your affiliate link.
SELL INFO PRODUCTS: This might sound really complicated but it actually isn't. Info products can be ebooks, paperback books, or hardcover books. They can be online courses, or prerecorded virtual learning opportunities. I sell books on Amazon, courses in Udemy and 4-week sales training PDFs. If you can type a doc in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you can make info products.
START FREELANCING: If you have knowledge or expertise in a particular area, freelancing allows you to pick up 2-3 clients and make an extra income. This could be marketing, web design, bookkeeping, carpentry, plumbing, landscaping, etc.

Side hustles are work, they're very small businesses but require a lot of work and attention to detail. Nonetheless, you can replace your income with diligence, patience, and an aggressive sales strategy.
I'm working on finishing up my next book about Side Hustles and how to replace your full time income.

3 Biggest Mistakes When Considering Side Hustles

Quitting Your Job: Please keep your day job. Side hustles are meant to be something you build on the side in your free time to enhance your personal income levels. So, the initial goal should be to supplement your current level of income. If that's $500/mo, $1000/mo or more - then your goals should align with supplementation to start.
Leveraging Time: One of the biggest mistakes people make when starting their side hustle is that they dedicate a lot of their time, energy and resources to building a business. Leverage your time and tap into free resources. You can access free resources with the SBA (Small Business Administration), SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives), the Get Customers Gazette for marketing tips, information and resources, and your local small business development center.
Share Your Opportunity: Sharing the opportunity with others is a great start. Hop onto your social media account(s) and share that you are starting a side hustle, detail the side hustle and how it will benefit your prospective buyers. In some instances you can get your local newspaper or local media to run a story on your new venture, or you can start blogging about your business and share the opportunity with others. This is not an MLM, so don't follow the MLM playbook to sharing opportunities or recruiting others.

7 Steps to Starting Your Side Hustle

Analyize Your Business Idea: First and foremost, assess your talents. Find a good way to highlight your best attributes and what you can deliver to your prospective buyers. This may include your woodworking skills, your abilty to organize community events, wash windows, mow lawns, or design beautiful landscapes. Whatever your gift, seek to identify that gift and how you can deliver it to the marketplace where a need currently exists.
Conduct Market Research: This is the biggest short fall when starting any business, full-time or side hustle. You'll want to assess your pricing in comparison to your competitors and determine where you would sit, high-priced, lower-priced or right in the middle. Research the product and services you wish to deliver to determine if they'll fulfill an unmet need in the marketplace? Lastly, look to highlight your specialty and your talents.
Test your Idea: One of the easiest methods of testing your idea is to go out to your friends, neighbors and relatives and provide a product or service demonstration. Some may call this an MVP or Minimum Viable Product, which has the essential elements to delivery an outcome. Then, once the delivery is completed, you have feedback on what makes the product, service or solution better you'll have primary research on how to improve your positioning within the marketplace.
Develop a Plan: This doesn't necessarily require a comprehensive business plan one would develop for seeking funding, pitching potential investors or business partners. A one-page business plan is a simple way to keep your thoughts organized and in front of you as you start to grow, develop and expand into the marketplace.
Set up Payment Options: For a lot of smaller businesses and hobbyist, you can look to PayPal, Squarre or Stripe to accept payments. As you grow, you'll want to look at getting your own merchant account. Expect to pay closer to 5%-7% with Paypal, Square or Stripe on your transactions, and with your own merchant account Superior Marketing can get you closer to 2% - 2.2% or help you leverage our Dual Pricing Model to wipe out all of your fees with a compliant zero fee processing solution. This allows you to send out invoices, or utilize a payment device to accept credit or debit cards, and organize your sales reports and inventory.
Start with Local Marketing: In your local community, there are hundreds and thousands of buyers that are seeking what you're offering. Local Marketing is a great way to generate a lot of clients and fast. Leverage your Google Business Profile to ensure that you're showing up in Google searches, throw up a simple website and get yourself into all of the free online directories you can. Another strategy is to establish social media profiles to display your work, share your story and start engaging prospective buyers.
Share Your Succes: I know there are a lot of people that do not like to toot their own horn, but this is not the time to be quiet about your successes. This is the time to share your success stories with clients and local business. Get into local press, partner with local non-profit organizations to business organizations to start networking and sharing your story, your successes and plans for building your side hustle to replace your full time income.

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