Build a side business without quitting your job

You are an expert in a niche field, have developed a unique set of skills or you may have a unique idea for a business. But it’s daunting to start a business unless you have funds or connections.

It’s indeed a scary thought to quit your job and launch a new venture…

To inspire you, here’s a list of 11 prominent people who started their business as a side hustle, including Mark Benioff (Salesforce), Sara Blakely (Spanx), Phil Knight (Nike)…

According to Matthew McCreary of Entrepreneur Magazine, follow these three strategies to maximize your resources and work toward profitability. This would pave the way to gradually build your side hustle into a a full-time business.

1. Do not work for free

At the start of your career, you may have taken internship jobs to gain experience and pad up your resume. But, according to the Department of Labor, unpaid internships or labor are only legal if the worker is considered the primary beneficiary of the work.

If you have a set of skills that you plan to use for your side hustle, for example business consulting, photography, tutoring, copywriting, social media marketing, baking, crafting etc. don’t work for free. Your work is valuable and you need that paycheck. You’ll be surprised to know that it may also turn off potential investors or clients. Unfortunately, customers may associate “Free” with worthless…

In order to turn your skills into a lucrative business, you need to know how much to charge for your products or services, and how to attract paying customers. This may take time for you to research the competition, the market and the target consumers or customers. But this is a must in order to have a better understanding and plan accordingly. You also need to think about a marketing strategy to connect with potential clients.

Not sure how to start? the Executive Vice President and GM of Essentials and SMB at Salesforce Meredith Schmidt contributed a great article for Entrepreneur about a simple, five-step process you can use to find the right price for your offerings:

Understand the value of your product or service. Schmidt says you should start by asking your customers an aided question. “Something like: ‘What would you think if we charged X amount?’ The second is an unaided question like: ‘What would you be willing to pay for this?’ You can reconcile the two sets of answers to get closer to a target price.”
Research the competition. You don’t have to copy what other businesses in your industry do, but they can help you find a price that might give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Determine your costs. This one might be obvious, but if you don’t know how much you spend on your product or service, you won’t know your break-even cost: the minimum price to charge for your offering to earn back what you’ve invested.
Build a basic pricing model. You might hate math, but there’s a fairly straightforward formula you can use. First, take the price of your offering and subtract the cost it requires to make. Then, multiply that number by the quantity of your sales, and you have your profit.
Move to behavior numbers. Schmidt reminds you that English readers go from left to right, and thus, pay more attention to the far-left numbers than those on the right. An item priced at $19 can seem considerably less in someone’s mind than if it’s priced at $20, but it’s only a dollar difference. These behavior numbers can help you sell more without considerably lowering prices.

Schmidt also notes that pricing your business can be an inexact science: Charge too much, and you might lose some customers. Charge too little, and you won’t earn as much as you could. Trial and error can help you find the right number for you, if you’re willing to try.

2. What type of side hustle do you have in mind?

– Is your business idea digital? Say an e-book, an app, a self-help guide, photography…

Consider why consumers would pay for your products whereas many free options or heavily discounted deals are available out there.

You may not wish to charge right away and use instead a freemium model to monetize your digital asset. Harvard Business Review defines freemium this way: “Users get basic features at no cost and can access richer functionality for a subscription fee. If you’ve networked on LinkedIn, shared files through Dropbox, watched TV shows through Hulu or searched for a mate on Match, you’ve experienced the model firsthand. It works for B2B companies as well — examples include Box, Splunk and Yammer.”

A great example would be to offer some articles or info at no cost, but charge a subscription or a fee to access other content.

– Do you plan to sell products?.

To avoid the headache, logistics and security required to start your own e-commerce, you should make full use of established third-party sites such as Amazon’s affiliate program which “helps content creators, publishers and bloggers monetize their traffic” by earning “up to 10% in associate commissions from qualifying purchases and programs.”

You could open an online store like Shopify so “customers can enter your custom URL into their web browser to visit your online store. You still use your third-party domain provider to manage your domain settings, pay for your domain, and renew it.” There are many courses teaching how to sell products on-line like this one.

– Do you plan to sell your services?

If you plan to offer your skills, consider freelancing to build a clientele and get paid. Potential clients can test your services and expertise without making a long term commitment.

Julia McCoy the founder of Express Writers and Entrepreneur contributor, has suggested five basic steps you can follow. Although her expertise revolves around copywriting, many of her advices are also relevant to a wide range of services.

Find your niche. You might think that casting a wide net is your best option, but McCoy notes that within her field, “authority writers get paid up to $1 per word while building a lasting name in their industry.” And while $1 per word may not sound like very much, consider the fact that prolific writers can easily churn out several thousand words in a single day.
Decide which hard and soft skills are essential. In a separate piece, McCoy outlines three hard skills, which are more technical, that one might need to become an excellent freelance copywriter, which include SEO and content strategy. But your clients will be people, and so it’s just as important to develop more interpersonal, soft skills like empathy or curiosity
Build your portfolio. What do you already have to offer as proof of your worth? Can you direct people to a well-designed website with customer testimonials?
Pitch for projects. McCoy recommends Upwork and Fiverr for those who are just getting started with freelancing. But, if you already have some potential clients, you might try reaching out to them directly.
Rinse and repeat. Just as a business is always iterating, so should your freelance process. More projects means a better portfolio, a better-defined niche and more lessons. Keep using each step of the process to grow your network and reputation.

Now, should you charge hourly, per page, per project or in some other fashion? It’s really up to each freelancer, but Briggs says you should consider several aspects before deciding what’s best for you.

For example, if you charge based on an hourly basis but work faster than your competitors, it would disadvantage you…

Briggs also gives some great tips to attract more clients and mistakes to avoid such as making your pitch too long and talking about yourself too much. Keep things simple. Explain who you are, summarize why you’re the right person to help a client with their project, and offer details about your work.

Udemy is offering this highly rated course on how to earn money from home.

How to make money and build your business without quitting your day job

If the ideas above don’t work for you, there are other options. You could try posting about your project on sites like Gofundme, Kofi or Patreon.

You could try selling your products on Etsy. You can learn all about selling on Etsy with the following course.

Etsy 2020 Masterclass: Setup, SEO, Social & Etsy Marketing

You could build an email list and learn how to maximize email marketing through this course. Plan to build a following on a social media platform to promote your services or products.

Even if you don’t have the time or can’t afford to quit your job, keep planning and commit to work toward your side hustle and future business every day, even if it’s for several minutes each day. You’ll have a base to build on in a few months or in a year.

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