As we all work on creating our new normal following the pandemic, many of us realize that having multiple sources of income is the best way to protect ourselves in the event of a crisis. Whether you currently have a full-time career working for someone else or you’re an entrepreneur, you can start a side hustle that creates another stream of income and helps you work toward financial freedom. However, to make your side hustle worth the time and effort, you need to make sure you’re mastering your money as well as your craft. Here’s how.
Build Your Skills and Refine Your Services
Most of those who start a side hustle has a specific skill such as photography, writing, web design, or creating art. It’s likely you’ve already practiced this skill for years and feel comfortable with your level of expertise. However, if you want to make your side hustle work (and maybe turn it into your main career someday), you need to keep building and refining your skills. Take continuing education courses, attend workshops, watch YouTube videos…whatever it is you need to do to make sure your skills don’t stagnate, do it! This is all part of mastering your craft, which is the first step toward success.
Focus on Proof of Concept
No matter how good you are at your skill, you still might not have a viable side hustle. Many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of thinking their idea should work and be appealing to customers or clients instead of proving that it is. Proof of concept is the term used to describe that you’ve demonstrated your side hustle works and is considered commercially viable. Part of learning to manage the business end of your business is ensuring that your side hustle has appeal to buyers. Is there a need for the product or service you plan to sell? What sets it apart from competitors? Do you have a delivery process that is straightforward and simple? No matter how much of an expert you are at your skill, if you’ve not gone through the proof of concept process, you could still fail.
Build in Profit From Day One
I’ve talked a lot about focusing on profit rather than revenue in your main business and the same holds true for your side hustle. Before you start coming up with ways to make more sales or book more appointments, you need to make sure you’re building profit into every single transaction. This means not just looking at the price of your product or service, but also taking into consideration any expenses you have. For example, if you’re a photographer, you need to build in the cost of any assistants you need, equipment and processing costs, travel time, etc. Once all these have been covered by the price of the photoshoot, you must have some leftover to pay yourself. If you can’t pay yourself on each and every transaction, your side hustle is basically a non-profit.
Creating a side hustle is a good idea for anyone who has a marketable skill and wants to build more wealth. If you do it correctly, you can reach your financial goals faster and have more stability no matter what happens in our increasingly crazy world.
Want to learn more about mastering your money as an entrepreneur? Check out our online course on the subject!
