CA #3: 4 steps to building a $250k/year side hustle
Read time: 2 minutes.
With the right strategy, you can turn your experience into a highly profitable, solopreneur consulting business that can easily bring $250K a year in revenue with a very high (80%+) profitability
Here are four steps to make that happen:
- Leverage Your Expertise
The first step to building a solopreneur business is identifying your area of expertise. Choose a field where you have a few years of experience (gained in your 9-5 or previous projects) and a good understanding of the landscape. You don't need to be world-known expert. All you need is to be a few years ahead of your audience.
Once you have identified your expertise, the next step is to offer consulting services to people who are just starting out in the same space. Your experience and insights can save these beginners a lot of time, mistakes and money, making your guidance invaluable. The trick is to position yourself as a guide and mentor, someone who has been there, done that, and is ready to help others do the same.
Doing consulting alone can allow you to build a VERY lucrative business. You can charge $15k-$20k retainers or close $60k-$100k consulting deals that won't mean you need to be glued to your computer for 60 hours per week. These can be easy and fun projects giving you lots of flexibility. - Build Your Audience
The next step is to build your presence and audience (very important for your next steps). Social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter can be incredibly effective for this. Start sharing valuable tips, insights, and experiences related to your field of expertise. The key here is to provide real value that can help your audience succeed.
The easiest way to create content is to document what you do: what you have worked on, results you achieved, wins and losses, client results, challenges. Sharing it will give your audience an access to your insights as well as will expose them to what you do - a perfect marketing tactic.
In addition to social media, consider starting a newsletter. This not only allows you to further demonstrate your expertise, but also helps you to stay top of mind and build a closer relationship with your audience.
Another reason for starting a newsletter is to move your audience from the "renting" space of social media to email list you own. That way you don't need to stress about losing your followers in case social platforms change rules and restrict your account. - Create a Passive Online Course
Consulting is great and can bring you really good money, working 15-20 hours per week. But it might be difficult to scale beyond certain point. So if you want to keep high profits, flexibility and have free time it's time to turn your expertise into a scalable product. Gather insights, golden nuggets, and your consulting clients' "aha moments" to create a passive online course.
Your biggest challenge here will be "dumping" all your knowledge and expertise into actionable, practical lessons. Take the time to structure your course in a way that is easy to understand and implement.
Remember, the goal of your course should not just be to educate, but also to transform and take your audience from point A to B. Your students should be able to achieve tangible results by the end of the course. - Monetize Your Audience
The final step is to sell your course to the audience you've built in step two. By this point, you should have established trust and demonstrated your expertise to your audience. You should have gathered testimonials and case studies working with your consulting clients. This will make your audience more likely to invest in your course.
Building a highly profitable, solopreneur business is not as hard as some think. It doesn't need to mean: complicated funnels, stressful sales calls or difficult delivery.
What you need is - the power of ONE:
- one niche
- one product/solution
- one topic/message
- one funnel
p.s are we connected on LinkedIn or Twitter?
...and whenever you're ready, here are a few ways I can help you. If you're still trying to figure things out, I'd recommend starting with an affordable course:
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