*Affiliate links have been used in this post.
In my opinion side jobs and side hustles are brilliant for everyone, especially business owners. Today, I want to talk about side hustles and more importantly the mindset many people have about them. In an ideal world we’d have a business idea, start our business and the money would come rolling in on day one and continue that way for as long as we desire.
In reality for most of us, starting a new business is not so simple and the money doesn’t come in so quickly or consistently.
In the past, I’ve had clients who have been desperately trying to make just enough money to survive and not really managing it but the idea of a side job or side hustle was completely out of the question for them. The result of this attitude can be that the sheer determination and commitment to the dream business pays off, but, it can also, unfortunately, mean that your business fails and you have to return to employed work full time just to pay your bills.
The subject of side hustles came up a lot in coaching sessions and so many people saw this option as failing at the real business. I’m here to tell you that simply is NOT true.
I was watching a video by The Financial Diet girls yesterday. I love their channel. It’s really aimed at college students, which I’m not but my son is and I love their attitude. In their video Having a side hustle, they talk about all kinds of side hustles. I highly recommend watching it with an open mind. Most of the jobs they talk about are clerical type side hustles but there are so many more. I’ll list my own favourites below.
But first I want to talk about the mindset issues around taking on a side job or side hustle. Let’s look at some of the common ideas that come up around the issue of side jobs or side hustles.
Idea 1: If I Need A Side Hustle I’m Failing At My REAL Business
This is so wrong. SO, SO, WRONG! In my opinion and experience side hustles compliment your real business and show how determined you really are to make a success of what you’re doing. It also shows you to be someone who is resourceful and gives you more than one income stream (I recommend several income streams).
New business and sometimes older businesses go through times when the money from your usual line of work (you might think of this as your real business) for whatever reason, does not bring in enough income.
A side hustle can definitely compliment your existing business. For example, a beauty therapist can set up a blog talking about beauty tips and sell products through the blog (their own products or be an affiliate for other people and sell their products). There are lots of ways to monetize a blog. This would definitely be a side income that compliments your existing business.
If you’re a dog groomer, you can offer specialist dog clothes, food, accessories… or offer dog walking services or pet sitting.
Your side hustle also doesn’t need to have any connection to your existing business. For example, One of my side hustles is cleaning for a few hours a week. Whilst I don’t particularly love cleaning. I do like that it’s a physical job. I work in a nice environment for someone I really like and it’s super flexible. It works well for me and when I wasn’t making so much money, it gave me a little breathing space. It was guaranteed income for not so much effort.
The bottom line is you need to be making a certain amount of money and if your business isn’t doing it for you just yet, a side hustle could mean the difference between quitting your business or allowing you to stick with it whilst it becomes more profitable.
Never see a side hustle as failing. Some of the most amazing people I know in business (myself included) are big time side hustlers. Many, many successful entrepreneurs are serial side hustlers.
Think about Richard Branson. When he set up his first business which I believe was actually selling Christmas trees and budgerigars, he could have said no, this is my business, I can’t do anything else. Now, where would the world be if that had happened? Of course these days he’s well known for his Virgin brand, but when you think about it, they’re mostly really successful side hustles. No-one would say he wasn’t successful.
Idea 2: Side Hustles Take Me Away From My Main Business
Okay, so yes, they might take you away from your main business but that’s not always a bad thing in my experience. Sometimes a little break helps you to be really focused when you do work on your main business. And as I said earlier it gives you a bit of breathing space money wise. If you’re super stressed about making money, you’re actually putting up blocks and everything seems really hard work. If you are able to simply focus on building a strong business rather than grasping at money straws you’ll be in a much better place to be successful.
Idea 3: People Will Not Respect Me As A Serious Business Woman / Man If I Take On Side Jobs
YES, there will definitely be people that think this but let me tell you this, it doesn’t matter and they’re not the people who will make your business a success or a failure.
I can remember when I first started cleaning, I’d get comments like “Oh here’s the working girl” after I’d done an hour and a half cleaning. Honestly, I often felt like smacking them in the face. What they didn’t see was me working 10+ hours on my coaching business a day on top of that cleaning. But, the reality is that this does not matter. ALL business people that are worth thinking about know that business life is not so simple and side hustles are a part of life for many business owners. It’s really how you view your side hustles that matter.
A few of my favourite side hustles – side jobs
I wanted to share a few of the things I’ve done as side hustles and some I still do. For me personally, I love side hustles as they keep my mind flexible and open. If I just focused on one thing all day, every day. I’d be bored senseless.
- Cleaning – Really, I think most people could do this. If you can clean your own home, you can clean for someone else. I never advertised. I simply picked up a few cleaning jobs by word of mouth. I now only do approx 2 and a half hours a week and I’m happy with that. For now, it still works for me.
- Blogging – Yes my blogging started off as a side hustle. It’s now my main business and I absolutely love it. Originally though, it was to make some extra income through affiliate links to boost my coaching income. Blogging makes a great side hustle.
- Social media support – I don’t do this anymore but it’s super easy to do. If you’re good on social media, you can offer to show other people how to use social media for business or you can manage their social media for them for a monthly fee. I’ve done both and it makes a nice little side income.
- Pet sitting – I’ve looked after neighbours pets when they’ve been on holiday.
- Publish a book – If you have some knowledge that you can pass on or you’re good at storytelling, self-publish a book. I used Kindle Direct Publishing for all of my own books.
- Create online courses – Share your skills online. I use Udemy to sell all of my online courses. It takes a lot of setting up but very little maintenance once done. I’ve tried different ways to sell my courses and although this one doesn’t make me as much per sale, it’s the platform I find works best for me. I rarely spend any time maintaining the courses. Click here to Start creating your own course.
- Fiverr.com – If you have a service to offer, check out Fiverr. I’m a big fan. I’ve used it to offer social media services, coaching related things. For example, one of my best selling things on Fiverr was my personalized law of attraction guide. When I offered this for $5 it often resulted in full coaching work at a much higher price. Check out Fiverr for yourself.
- Surveys – I had a love hate relationship with surveys for a few years. I’d hear people raving about making money doing paid surveys and it just never really happened for me. I’d get really frustrated because so many of them are what I see as time wasters. You’ll start a survey that says it pays £2.00 or something like that and you’ll spend 5 minutes answering questions, then get a message saying “You’re not a match for this survey, sorry!” HEY, I want paying for my 5 minutes. However, I then found https://www.prolific.ac and my faith in paid surveys was restored. If you see a survey on your dashboard, you’re a fit for it and as long as you complete it properly, you’ll get paid. Now, I do want to point out that we’re not talking big money here per survey. Some surveys take as little as 1 minute and pay 10p. There’s one on today that takes approximately 2 minutes and pays £1. Other surveys take longer, around 10-20 minutes and pay a bit more. But here’s the thing, I usually do 2 or three surveys in the evening (depending on what I’m doing and how tired I feel), some days I don’t do any, but bit by bit over the year this total adds up nicely and yes, makes a nice little side earner. I usually pay for Christmas presents with this money.
That’s all I can think of right now, I’m sure there have been more. The possibilities are really endless. Think outside the box and see what you come up with?
Have you done some different side jobs/ side hustles? Let me know in the comments below.
Wendy
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