8 August 2007 One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

What do you think of when you think about income? Most likely its your job or your business. If I told you to increase your income, you’ll think “raise” or “more revenue”. Your daily occupation should never be your only source of income. I think most people have some kind of skill or knowledge that can be used to generate an additional source of income on the side. With a bit of viral marketing and a loyal client base, it can potentially become a long term source of secondary income, which can be saved and eventually invested.

I’ve been doing a lot of graphic design work lately. I’ve been approached by old friend’s and business associates to help create trade show fliers, animated banners, logos and other print ads. I’m not a graphic designer by trade, but I know a thing or two about making nice looking images and websites. I never really marketed myself as a graphic designer, web designer or anything like that. If I look at all the time I used to do the graphic design work, I estimate that I made about $30-$40 an hour doing some basic stuff that I already enjoy doing.

I decided to think further and look back at the many times I’ve been asked for advice or help in the e-commerce area. I’ve had two aunts and an uncle who either got me on the phone with them or in their office for a few hours a day discussing the various aspects of starting, running and marketing an e-commerce business. I’ve had friends approach me for graphic design work, advice on selling on eBay among other topics. Of course I didn’t charge any money for these sit downs or conversations, but there is a possibility that I could have taken it one step further and actually marketed myself as an e-commerce consultant for small and home based businesses. Had I done that perhaps I could be brining in a few hundred extra dollars every month or more.

What can you sell?

Think about what can you sell, not in terms of just products but service and knowledge as well. Are you particularly knowledgable with aquariums? Perhaps you can advertise yourself as such and help people setup and maintain elaborate aquariums. Get enough clients and you’ll have yourself a nice little side business for the weekends. Can you fix things? Are you good with computers? Can you do alterations on clothes? Can you fix cars? The possibilities are limitless and most of the time a hobby can be turned into some type of income generating gig. I know a guy who really knows the specialty food business so he created an e-book about how to get large chain stores to carry your products. Cooking and developing recipes was his hobby, so if you’re skill or knowledge is unique, you can make money from it as well.

If you don’t have a skill, you can always learn. Find something that interests you, then think about the possibility of making money from it later. I’m a do it yourself kind of guy, as I wrote about in installing laminate flooring, so I enjoy reading, then doing. There are many how-to guides, how-to books and how-to videos out there, many of which are even free. I learned graphic design in classes in college, but realistically the book and actually using Photoshop taught me all I knew. The professor offered some good hints but the majority of the skill comes from reading and doing. These books are available in just about any book store. Thanks to just reading and doing, so far I’ve been able to do many home improvement projects, make sushi just about identical to local restaurants, build websites, properly detail a car, do minor computer troubleshooting, maintain elaborate freshwater aquariums, and do minor repairs on watches. All of the things I mentioned can be used to make some decent side money.

Promote Yourself 

If you have a skill or learned a skill you think you can sell, do some basic marketing. Of course you don’t have all the time in the world since this is your side gig, so you don’t have to go crazy with the marketing. Here are some very basic ways to market your side business.

1. Tell everyone. Tell them what you are doing and tell them to tell others they know.
2. Make business cards. Business cards are cheap nowadays, check out vistaprint.com. Give them to everyone and all the local businesses you patronize.
3. Put up ads on Craigslist and other free sources.
4. Make a website about you and your service! It costs about $10 for a domain name and as low as $2/mo. to host it. Some hosts even come with website builder software.
5. You can even put a decal on your car

By doing some basic marketing and some actual work for people, you’ll start to build a name for yourself. You can eventually get to the point where its a steady stream of income. If you’re really good, you might even turn it into a full blown business!