Before you leap into a side hustle, you need to answer questions that can determine whether you will succeed or fail.
If your goal is to build a side hustle into a full-time self-employment opportunity, you will need to know what you are doing before you head out into this journey.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is credited with saying, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
This is true.
Making sure your first step is in the right direction is just as important.
So before you spend money on a domain name, hosting, advertising, etc. Make sure you answer the following questions.
You will need the answers to all of these questions if you plan to make money and build a successful side hustle.
What product or service could or would I offer?
This is the most basic question you need to answer. To put it another way, “What pain does my client have that I can relieve?”
If you create websites, the pain might be that your client has an outdated website or no website at all. The pain you relieve is creating a professional-looking website that converts visitors to clients.
You can tutor a specific subject (Math, English, Chemistry, etc.). The pain point is the parent has a student that is not performing well in school. This is causing stress in the home and with the teacher-student relationship. You can relieve this pain through tutoring the student in the subject one-on-one and help them to learn and understand the subject. The student then improves their grades.
Are others offering this product or services?
Make a list 5-10 websites. If there are zero people doing what you plan to do, that might be a red flag. Offering to product vintage wagon wheels might not have a large enough need to support your business.
If you are able to find others that are offering a similar product or service, that is a good thing. That confirms there is a market for it, now you can offer it with your experience and “tweak” to it.
What are they charging?
In the market place, there are extremes when it comes to pricing.
I can eat at a fast-food restaurant or I could eat at a 5-star restaurant. One is an $8 meal for one. The other is $50 per person.
Beware of undervaluing your product or service. You do not want to be a Wal-Mart in a market that is used to paying a premium.
There will always be someone willing to do a job for less money. Your job is to show the VALUE you bring and not compete on price.
Who would I offer it to? For how much?
Are you selling travel experiences to families or to executives that want to play the best golf courses in the world?
A family vacation might include four or five people for a week or two.
If you can sell a two-week golf package to Ireland and the UK to 5-10 executives, you will be able to charge more and make more money. Especially if you are their guide.
How would I reach that audience?
Before you spend a penny on advertising, you need to know where your people are.
Have you ever asked yourself why Lamborghini does not run TV commercials for its cars? Those that can afford a Lambo are not watching TV.
Who is watching TV? Those that will buy a Ford, Honda, or Toyota.
What would I name my business? Why?
Will your business be built around you? My business, EricSGale.com is based around me. So is my wife’s tutoring business, CarrieGaleTutoring.com. My client JD Kurmann is as well, KurzmannsAutos.com
My friend Paul Majewski and his wife, Brittany, own and operate Chesapeak Shredding under a name that identifies their location and what they do.
Decide what you want to do.
Reach out to 10 contacts
Send a text message, DM on social media, or via email to these contacts asking them what they think of that product or service. Have they spent money on it before?
If so, how much.
Ask them if you could email them more information about what you are planning on doing. Then keep their emails addresses in a spreadsheet so you can add them to your email marketing list later on.
Write your About page.
Remember, the About page is NOT about you. It is About how you can help people.
As you write the page, you will talk about yourself but in a way that highlights how you are able to help people and relieve their pain.
Write a 500-600 word blog post about your topic.
Repeat this until you reach 12 total posts. Store these in a Word, Pages, Text, or Google document.
One of the greatest ways to market yourself is to provide great content.
If you are unable to write 12 blog posts, maybe this isn’t the side hustle for you.
Or, you are suffering from the “curse of knowledge.”
You might know too much about this to realize that people do not grasp what you do.
You might be a level 7 (out of 10) and your audience is at a level 2.
Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
So explain what you do like you were explaining it to a six-year-old or an 86-year-old.
Join at least 2 online groups
Find groups that discuss this topic.
Be as helpful as you can without asking for anything in return.
You are building up a storehouse of reciprocity.
Next Steps
Decide to spend 10-30 minutes a day for the next few weeks working through these questions.
By the end of those few weeks, you will being able to launch a strong side hustle.
