Side-hustles are becoming increasingly unpopular due to their flexible nature and their ability to ease individuals into the world of business. If you’re thinking of starting a side-hustle of your own, here are a few quick and easy tips that will ease your efforts and help to ensure your new venture is a roaring success:
Set a schedule
It’s easy to let your side-hustle work fall by the wayside when you have a job and a family to look after which is why it’s useful to set a regular schedule for it. Add it to your calendar so you know when you need to be working and make sure everyone else knows you’ll be busy then too.
Work out your costs first
Whether you’re selling hand-crafted items over the internet or offering your services as a copywriter, it’s important that, before you do anything else, you work out your costs so that you can price your goods and services correctly and avoid ending up out of pocket. Costs include everything from the materials you use to the electricity that powers your laptop as you work.
Once you’ve made a note of your costs for each unit you plan to sell, think of an acceptable hourly rate for your time and add the cost of production per piece to your hourly rate, taking into account how many pieces you can create in 1 hour. This will be how much you should charge. Oh, and don’t forget shipping, You can calculate the cost of domestic UPS shipping from Unishippers quickly online which is pretty useful. You need to make sure you can cover your costs and make at least a small profit and this is all part of that.
Of course, you may want to charge a bit more depending on your skill level and the market so always look at what the competition is charging, so you can be competitive and earn enough, before making a final purchasing decision.
Use automation
Work out which tasks you can automate and make use of the technology that is available to you. From automatic accounting software to document templates and even social media post scheduling, there are lots of things you can automate and/or schedule in advance to increase our productivity levels and make life as a business owner so much easier. Use them.
Use existing platforms
When you’re just starting out, it’s often easier to use existing platforms to build your business. For example, you could sell your crafts on Etsy or your skills as a writer on Upwork rather than setting up your own website or store – that can come later. The benefit of doing this is that you’ll have a ready-made audience – these websites get hundreds of thousands of visitors each week to sell do. As long as you create great product descriptions and really sell yourself, you won’t have to work so hard to get noticed.
There’s obviously much more to running a successful side-hustle than we’ve discussed here, but when you’re getting started, these tips will help you to get off to a flying start.
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