Disclaimer: The content displayed in the article is directly copied from boldanddetermined.com (which was closed down) to be available for those who are lookign for it.
Everyday, people ask themselves, and others, “What can I do to make a side income, or maybe even replace my current income?“. Everyday, people will ask, ask and ask some more about how to accomplish this seemingly mythical feet. One thing they will not do is take action. They will never follow through with a plan or with advice given to them. Even with golden advice. That’s why they’re stuck punching a time clock (which they ironically don’t give up on) and that’s why action & risk takers can lead a life of freedom from time clock hell.
I recently had a conversation with an unemployed accountant. I mentioned I will be visiting such and such country, which in years past has had a problem with kidnapping gringos, and the person I was speaking to said “Don’t get kidnapped, hahaha“.
But then she had more to add..
She said “Oh, y_ou won’t get kidnapped, they only kidnap people with money_“. I looked at her, curiously, like a dog will look at you when you blow into it’s ear. She was nice enough to clarify her meaning: “I mean, MONEY MONEY. The type of money that YOU’LL never see“.
I started to laugh at this statement. You see, this person has been unemployed for the past 18 months. She is an accountant and is holding out for a position at 90k per year. In the past 18 months of complete joblessness she could have opened her own consulting firm and eclipsed the 90k salary she was holding out for and simultaneously ensured that she is never again laid off and left looking for work. Instead, she has chosen to be a parasite and collect unemployment while “looking” for a job.
The above mindset, the mindset of a parasite and not a producer, is the mindset of an ultimate loser.
This is the type of mindset that can’t fathom ever making any real money or doing something extraordinary and assumes no one else can either.
Above is what a loser looks like. Continue reading below to see what a winner can do to stop punching the time clock…
1) FREELANCING
A freelancer, or independent contractor, is someone who does all the work they would have normally done with an employer, but they have decided to take their future into their own hands and go into business for themselves.
Freelancers are often graphic artists, photographers, copywriters, computer programmers, language translators, editors, models, actors, search engine optimizers, web designers, writers and publishers.
If you have any of the skills above, or any skill un-mentioned, you can become a freelancer.
Why should you become a freelancer?
So you can get out of the 9-5 jive and quit punching a time card for your boss.
How can you become a freelancer?
Easy, peasy, Japaneasy. Everything you could ever want to do can be done on the internet.
Sites like Upwork and oDesk let you sell your freelancing services directly to people who need your service. You sign up, post the services you provide, spruce it up and make it look nice, bid for work and then do your job (and do it well), get paid and go on to the next one.
20 years ago you had to go knock on doors and make cold calls and network, network, network. Today, you can get all of that accomplished on the internet.
2) CONSULTING
Consulting is a lot like freelancing, you will take your previous experience and use that to go into business for yourself, but consulting differs from freelancing in one major way: Consultants sell their knowledge. A freelancer will do some actual work, like taking wedding photos for instance, however, a consultant will sell his knowledge and expertise.
A consultant will typically have multiple customers at a time and focus on cultivating long-term relationships rather than completing short time specific projects.
According to an entrepreneur.com article entitled How to Start a Consulting Business, the top 20 consulting businesses thriving today are:
- Accounting
- Advertising
- Auditing
- Business
- Business Writing
- Career Consulting
- Communications
- Computer Consulting
- Editorial Services
- Headhunting Services
- Gardening
- Grantsmanship
- Human Resources
- Insurance
- Marketing
- Payroll Management
- Public Relations
- Publishing
- Taxes
- Writing Services
If one had a career in any of the fields above it should certainly be easy enough to carry that knowledge over to a consulting firm. Niche knowledge can be exploited as well, for smaller fields of expertise there is not much competition.
What are you an expert in?
3) INTERNET MARKETING
I am of the opinion that every smart and serious minded man who is prepared to leave the 9-5 jive forever needs to be on the internet.
There are a million and one ways to make a living online. The possibilities, options and opportunities are limited only by your imagination and the imagination of others.
The barrier to entry is almost non-existent. A few bucks for a domain and hosting, a few bucks for this and that and you can get started. One could even get started with ZERO monetary investment if one were terribly broke.
Internet marketing requires no overhead, no office space, no physical product, no meetings in person, no daily phone calls, no time spent in traffic, no inept and incompetent co-workers, no boss breathing down your neck, and no time card to punch.
Internet marketing is the ultimate in freedom. As with everything in life, this statement comes with a but…
Internet marketing is the ultimate in freedom but you must be highly self-motivated and determined or you will not make a single penny.
The internet is the wild west and it is full of gold. Your pick-ax can be had dirt-cheap but you’ve got to actually use your pick-ax and get to work mining for gold.
There are endless ways to get started online, so many that it can become overwhelming, the best thing to do is pick one method and get started.
4) E-COMMERCE
Open up a website and sell stuff. Easy enough, right?
Actually, it can be quite easy. Sites like Shopify, Volusion
and BigCommerce make it incredibly easy to create an e-commerce website with the click of a button. A person who has never even created a simple website can open an attractive looking online store in a matter of hours.
The trick to operating a profitable e-commerce venture is to find a product that people already want, sell it to them at a reasonable price, and have someone else ship their order to them. In this scenario, you would be the middle man. You would have no physical product to ship, no inventory to keep track of and fewer headaches.
How can you sell stuff without having any inventory?
It’s called dropshipping. You find a company that already warehouses a product and you strike a deal with them – you send over your orders by email and they ship the product directly to your customers. The warehouse will sell the products to you at wholesale price, you sell the products to your customers at retail price, you keep the difference and you never have to physically see or ship product.
The warehouse sells their product, your customer gets what they want and you make a living. Win-Win for everyone involved.
Sites like Doba and Shopster make it easy for you to find wholesale products that can be sold retail and dropshipped.
5) BUY AND SELL STUFF
People sell quality items for pennies on the dollar every single day. If you logged in to your local craigslist right now you could most certainly find something that could be purchased and resold for a profit. People sell things cheap because they want fast cash and an easy sell. Many people will simply cave in for a fast and easy cash offer. Their loss could be your gain.
The great thing about buying items from craigslist is that the list price is rarely the sell price, most of the times sellers of an item will take much less than advertised. I have bought many items on craigslist and never paid the asking price.
Computers, apple products, other electronics, bicycles and even cars can be purchased and resold at a profit very easily. Thousands of people have made their living on Ebay doing what is described above – buying low and selling at a profit.
Items can be purchased online or in person and they can be sold locally through sites like Craigslist or nationally via sites like Ebay and Amazon.
Note: You cannot sell any more than 5 cars per year if you do not have a dealers license.
6) PERSONAL TRAINING
There really is not a lot of money to be made in personal training, however you can certainly make a livable income and you can help people at the same time. Personal training can also be a great way to make a side income. You can train clients in the early morning, on lunch breaks, and after work to help bring in some extra cash money. Of course, you will need to be in shape to be a successful trainer.
Whatever you do, do not get a job as a personal trainer for a gym chain. The life of a personal trainer at a globo-gym it is not enviable. The trainers at a globo-gym work all the time and they make terrible money.
Next time you are at your local gym repping 405 lbs on the incline bench, take a look at the eyes of the personal trainers working there. You will see how soul-less and dead they are. That’s because they are broke as a joke and working all the time, punching a time card for their little piece of hell.
If you are going to get into personal training, the only way to do it is to go your own route. Train from your garage, basement, or rent your own space. You will need a certification to be a personal trainer but PT certifications are easy enough to come by.
7) BLUE COLLAR
What do house painting services, lawn care services, roofing services, plumbing services, carpentry services, general contracting services, electrician services, trucking & logistics services and flooring installation services all have in common?
They all pay big money if you are the boss man.
Blue collar services are needed every single day of the year, rain or shine, and they are needed whether the economy is good or bad and there is always a market for them.
Fortunes can and are made in blue collar industries.
8) DOMAIN SPECULATING AND INVESTING
Domaning is the art of buying, selling and investing in domains.
Why would anyone care about domains?
Domains, dot coms, are the greatest investment the world has ever seen. Owning TimesSquare.com is as good or better than owning property in Times Square. Yearly maintenance for even the most popular of dot coms is a mere $10, but that $10 investment can provide significant returns. If you are smart enough to own a domain like baseball. com or football.com you have an asset worth 7 figures.
While it is true that all the most valuable domains are taken, many of them can be purchased for a fair price or even at a steal of a price. It takes a little digging and a little detective work but a phenomenal purchase can be had for those willing to put in the time and effort.
Dot coms are virtual real estate. Owning a good dot com give you instant traffic, instant credibility and, for the best of the best one word domains, instant income.
If you don’t think domaning can be lucrative you should take a look at a guy called Frank Schilling, a guy who developed a domain portfolio valued at between 500 million and 1 billions dollars.
For those interested in domaining, start by reading every single post on RicksBlog.com.
Note: One could also invest in real estate. What is one thing they aren’t making any more of and increases in value every single year?
Land.
Buying and maintaining land will likely not give you an income straight away but can be a significant source of your future wealth.
9) INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
There’s a guy called Jim Rogers, a very famous and rich American investor, who has moved his base of operations to Singapore and claims China will be the next superpower. Jim Rogers is often quoted as saying:
“If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia.”
While I disagree wholeheartedly that China will ever become a super-power, there is no denying that China is a booming market and it’s citizens are all about money and business. These Chinese citizens are hungry to buy quality products from American and other sources. There are 1.3 billion Chinese, even a tiny market in China is HUGE.
There is tons of room for a savvy international entrepreneur to get in on the action in China, or in other frontier markets like Mongolia, Burma, and Vietnam as well as the other BRIC countries Russia, India and Brazil (the 4th being China).
“TAKE ADVANTAGE AND MAKE YOUR MARK”
Opportunity abounds, friends. At no other time in human history have people been able to do almost literally anything they want. Everything is at your fingertips, everything is a mouse click away. Anything can be done and accomplished.
All it takes is a choice, a mindset; I CAN and I WILL, and a willingness to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to you.
After you have made your decision to leave the 9-5 jive, there is one thing you must do everyday – FOLLOW THROUGH. You must never give up if you wish to make a sustainable living. Do at least one thing every single day to further your goals and you are better off than 99.99% of the time card punchers.
Or you could just keep on punching that time card and hoping and wishing for better.
