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Today we have a guest post from Sa El.Sa El is the Co-Founder of Simply Insurance. He is a Licensed Life and Health Insurance Agent with over 11years of experience in the industry. He is an Entrepreneur, Insurance Educator, and Field Underwriter.
Deciding to start a side gig can be both exciting and scary, even more so if you are going into a field that you don’t know much about. But, what if I told you that I was able to start a side niche and on average, make $7,000 per month.
Today, I am going to share with you the steps that I took and in-general, what it takes to build your side gig.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Figure Out Your Gig
The first step you need to take, before doing anything, is to figure out what type of side gig you want to go into.
There are probably over a million things you can do; however, you probably want to start with things that you are good at.
You should ask yourself:
- What do I enjoy doing?
- What am I good at?
- How educated am I on the subject?
- Are there people already doing it and making money?
These questions are important because they will help you focus on what your side gig could be.
For me, I decided to be a freelance writer on the side, I was already writing heavily for my own blog Simply Insurance, and I also happen to be in the very niche insurance space.
I decided that my side gig would consist of me being a freelance insurance and personal finance writer.
I created a Hire Me page on my own personal blog that showcased my writing skills with articles.
Now that I knew what I wanted to do, my next step was to figure out how to make it happen.
Related:Finding the Right Side Hustle For You
Side Hustles Explored: How to Get Started With Freelance Writing
Step 2: Get Educated
Education is the most critical factor when it comes to anything that you do.
While I have over 11 years of insurance knowledge, I didn’t know the first thing about being a freelance writer.
The first thing I did was to get an education on it from a professional, so I purchased their course on how to make money with freelance writing.
The thing you must remember is that going to a traditional “School” for education isn’t always going to be the answer.
There is no one that you can learn from, better than someone already doing it and most of these courses aren’t expensive at all.
My course only cost me $200.00 and several hours of my time. I think it was well worth it seeing that it is has given me a substantial side-gig income.
If you don’t take anything from this post, just take away the fact that you shouldn’t do anything until you get educated on it.
Related:22+ Websites That Pay Writers for Guest Posts
Learn how Holly Earns $225,000 Per Year as a Freelance Writer
Step 3: Outreach
Like any type of business, once you get educated and know what is expected, you need to start reaching out to people for work.
You can use several platforms, but for me I used:
LinkedIn Pro-Finder
This option was great for me because people search for local writers to create things like books, blog posts, and ghostwriting jobs. Once the job is posted, you get to submit your proposal, and I was able to get some work through the LinkedIn Pro-finder tool.
Facebook Groups
Joining Facebook groups that are a part of your industry is essential. Over 60% of my jobs have come from people in Facebook groups that need my writing skills or from people in the group who can’t take on extra work and pass it along.
Becoming part of a community is very important, you can learn extra skills and also build relationships that help you get your side gig to the next level.
Problogger Job Board
Job boards are also a great way to find work, especially when you are first starting your side gig. For me, Problogger has a job board all about freelance writing so I can apply for jobs as I want daily.
Finding your mix of places on where to get jobs will be different, but using the above Ideas help you get on the fast track to building a steady side gig.
Step 4: Consistent Work
When you first start off, you probably won’t get top-dollar for any of your work, unless, like me, you are in a very specialized niche.
This is perfectly fine, you need to get some work under your belt and prove you can do the job. I used my portfolio of articles from my site and some guest posts that I had written in the past as proof of my work. A lesson I learned from the course I took was that you should set a daily goal and that would help you get to your monthly goal.
To make $7,000 per month, I needed to do $233.00 worth of freelance work per day. This work comes from both individuals and corporations, and in general, I am able to create the income that I want.
The best thing is that I can actually get ahead on my work and not do anything else in regards to freelance writing for the rest of the month. My average post is around 1,000 words, so it isn’t much to do more than one post per day if I wanted.
Taking Action
I started my side gig because I wanted to have additional money coming in along with my income from my blog. However, I never expected it to generate so much income monthly.
There isn’t any reason to hold back on starting your side gig, get educated and get started because no matter the industry you are in, someone else is already doing it.
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