Ways to Make Money
What are some ways that you can make money?
Here are a few ideas to get your brain ticking and let those entrepreneurial thoughts and ideas come out from your hobby.
There are plenty of people who make money from their hobby business. It could be part time or it could be full time. Perhaps you have always loved taking photos of the kids and sharing them with your family and friends. Maybe that hobby as a photographer is just the path that you can take to make some extra bit of money. Why not offer childrens photo shoots at the local school fair or shopping center to start off and see if you can make a hundred or more dollars from parents who want fantastic shots of their kids but don’t know how to do it.
Maybe another example could be that soup that you have always made and that everyone loves. Could you make it and sell to the local community for lunch during winter? I know building sites and industrial areas where people are outside working in the cold would love a warm soup to fill them up, and would be happy to pay for it if its great quality.
Another idea to make money could be something as simple as offering the neighbors in the street to mow their lawns for them. Its good exercise for you, they get their lawns mowed and you can make some extra cash in the process. Of course, if you have a green thumb you may even be able to offer other services such as gardening, tree pruning or clearing out gutters of leaves. Many a business has started like this and grown into a full time home care maintenance business. The best part is you will already have most of the tools required to do the job already in the shed.
Do you play a musical instrument? Why not try your luck at some busking down at the shopping mall? The best time to do this is usually around Christmas, as everyone is in a festive and giving spirit and the song choice is rather easy. Of course there are plenty of alley ways / cafe hangouts in towns and cities that would be happy to pay for some regular relaxing background music to add to the atmosphere for their customers.
As you can see, this is only a handful of ideas that you could use to turn your hobby into something that little bit extra. If you aren’t that interested in making money, but just want to support your hobby, then just a little bit of work could help to pay for your materials, supplies or whatever it is that keeps your hobby going. I know many people who love photography yet its pretty expensive to be constantly investing in expensive lenses and gear. So its pretty easy to justify it when you know you have done a couple of friend’s weddings or special events and can pay for new gear with money the old gear has earnt you.
Basically what I’m saying here is to get another job. It may come across as that, but I’m sure you will enjoy it more if you already have a passion, experience and know how in your hobby. And you dont have to go the full committment of quitting your job, buying into a franchise or putting up a lot of money to start, as you are just expanding on what you are already doing. It may even be something like those jams that you always make at home you can sell once a month at the local farmers market. It might not be a lot of extra work to make some extra money that allows you to afford that little sweet or night out for dinner with the partner.
See what else you can think of. There are plenty of ways to make money, its just knowing how to start and what to do. Use your strengths and it will be a lot easier.
The 4-Hour Workweek
Its likely that you will have heard of Timothy Ferriss’ book called “The 4-Hour Workweek”. Its a book that has been around for a few years now and last year just before Christmas an updated version was released. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this book and the topics that it deals with.
1. Quitting your job. For most people this is not an option. While there are people who are working in jobs they don’t like, the vast majority of people must have some type of enjoyment in their workplace otherwise they wouldn’t stick around. I can’t see how the majority of the world is wrong for such a crucial issue. Sure we all need to make money to survive but are we all just doing it so that we are stuck in some type of system? We all dream of working from home and making millions of dollars from our couch, but is it all really achievable and likely? Sure it does happen, but usually that scenario is the result of hours, weeks and if not even years, of hard work.
2. Starting your own business. This is the bulk of the book and what I really enjoyed. I don’t believe in just quitting your job and boating it around the world because its cheap in some countries to do so, I want to work in my own business and enjoy the benefits that can bring, as well as the challenges and learning.
I strongly agree with the principals of how Tim explains trialing your niche, area of focus, to see if it could be a business idea that you can develop to produce a sustaining and recurring income. In particular, I was interested in his thoughts on setting up online businesses to make money from. It is true of what I wanted to achieve when I created this website. A site that would be active on the web, for anyone to come by and read, to provide value, and in return it would be a source of income. Like anything, money doesn’t just grow on trees and takes time and hard work. As Tim sets out in his book, you may need to trial a few ideas before they stick. You won’t make money just like that from the get go.
The other important thing to remember is not to over commit yourself. Start small and dream to grow big. Don’t start big and find that the dream doesn’t come true. Its much easier to upscale if you put in the correct plans and processes from the start, rather than the other way around.
If you do wish to quit your job, live the 4 hour workweek then making money online is a great way of achieving this. Just remember that it does take a real lot of hard work. The competition is tough and everyone wants a piece of the billion dollar pie that the internet is. If you want to make money online I would suggest that you think outside of the square and do something that hasn’t been done before.
As Tim says in his book, its best to sell your product to 200 people who really want it, than it be shown to 200,000 people who couldn’t care less and simply clicked on your ad because they thought it was something else!
Overall, I would give it a 4 out of 5 and highly recommend to any budding business person or entrepreneur, even if you don’t find all of it useful, the aspects on internet marketing, making money on the web and outsourcing are well worth your time.
