NickVenturella.com 9-18-20 - Earning additional income

Earning additional income

September 18, 2020

Even those of us still employed throughout this pandemic are searching for additional ways to stay ahead of the unknown financial curveball that could be lurking in our near future.

I’m a big proponent of diversifying your income streams with side hustles or freelancing or something.

While you’re gainfully employed is exactly the right time to be expanding into this side hustle idea.

Now, if you have a full-time job that’s your main financial source of revenue and you want to keep it, then you need to make your success at that job a top priority.

However, even while doing that there is room to build out other income streams…And doing so provides at least some level of a financial safety net that most don’t have these days.

I know the objections and the excuses of why you can’t or won’t take action to do this, but ultimately it’s your choice – you will reap what you sow. I promise the benefits of doing so go beyond increased financial gain...you gain things like new transferrable skills that can help you in your day job and your career at large.

For me, I’m infinitely curious about how I can take my interests and skills and monetize them. That’s a very satisfying aspect of being creative – how can I take an idea in my head and realize it into something that has value to others?

So, if the idea of building out some side income stream appeals to you, then here’s how I would encourage you to get started…

Do a simple personality, skills, interests inventory of yourself.

This doesn’t have to be complicated, just make a list of personality traits you have. Are you an introvert, an extrovert, do you like connecting directly with people or prefer research and building something?

Next, list what actual skills you have so you can determine what type of side hustle might leverage those existing skills moving you towards monetization faster vs. having to learn a new skill that could be monetized. This could be typing skills, drawing skills, marketing skills, songwriting skills, coding skills, whatever you have under your belt.

Finally, create a list of interests you have. What do you like? What are your favorite hobbies, pastimes, crafts? Think of the things you like to do where you lose track of time.

Understand what people tend to value

It’s important to understand what people are likely to pay money for. The usual big buckets include products or services that save time/provide convenience/improve efficiency, save/make people money, and/or improve one’s self/health/well-being.

Connect the dots

This is the hard part. Review your personality, skills, and interests and try to make connections between what you know about yourself and enjoy doing, to how those personality traits, skills, or interests could be combined to help others in one of those three major ways described above.

Once you’ve thought of something. Start sharing the idea with those you think would be your ideal customers (could be friends, colleagues, family members for now) just to see if they would have interest in your product or service idea. If it seems like there’s some legitimate interest from others then build/create a prototype of your product or service and pitch it to those interested to get started.

To help. I’ll break down how this looks for me personally and what I do:

PersonalityI have aspects of both an extrovert and an introvert, but most who know me probably identify me as extroverted.

SkillsMusician/songwriter, illustration, graphic design, copy writing, marketing, coaching, leadership

InterestsMusic, art, writing, business, physical fitness, connecting with other artists, teaching about the intersection of art and business

How it helps others’ health, wealth, and/or happinessWriting, recording, and/or performing music can help people’s happiness by creating an emotional escape or healing pathway. (happiness/health)

Copy writing can be used across many business functions to help organizations save time and even make money from someone else’s writing if that’s not a business owner’s strong suit or they don’t have time for it. (that checks the wealth and/or happiness boxes)

Art / graphic design / illustration - like copy writing this can provide a service to someone or an organization that needs to use images to communicate something but they don’t have the skills to do so on their own, nor the time to learn (wealth/happiness)

Marketing skills combined with my love of monetizing creativity...essentially helping others with entrepreneurship. (this could potentially hit all three boxes: health, wealth, and happiness)Once you've identified something you like doing that could benefit others there are lot's of opportunities to get up and running quickly and starting to earn money. 

  • If you like finding unique items at low prices (like yard sales or thrift stores) and flipping them for higher sale price, you might look into doing so on ebay.

  • If you have a service you can easily offer electronically you might consider beginning to offer it on Fiverr (affiliate link).

  • Or maybe you simply want to start earning some extra income in the stock market but need to learn as you go with very small investment amounts. An app like Stash can help you get started with as little as $5

Whatever you choose, if you find something that is of interest to you, leverages your current skills, and can help others move closer to their own health/wealth/happiness, then you likely have a winning combination for a side hustle. Good luck.

Stay positive. Stay healthy. Be kind.Sincerely,Nick VenturellaCreative Professional, andco-founder of Eleven Music Career CenterNickVenturella.comnickVmusic.netFacebookYouTubePatreon