Photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash
I have studied money-the acquisition, spending, saving, compounding, and its usefulness-for a long time. I have held at least a dozen side gigs throughout my life while maintaining one steady source of income. You could say that Hive is another side gig for me, though I have not sold any of my earnings. I have only powered them up and leased them...that's besides the point...
I am at a stage where I'm turning one of my side gigs into a business that I plan on keeping going for a long time. This means I'm in a transitional stage. My wife has called my side gig a hobby for years and I started correcting her about a year ago, letting her know it is in fact a business. I have spent thousands of dollars on equipment, building my studio, etc. on making my "hobby" get to the quality expected of a business. The first year I made over $100, I wanted to put this side gig on my taxes and write off expenses toward it. My tax lady said the IRS would recognize this side gig as a hobby if I didn't make money from it for at least 3 years. Since that time, I have doubled my earnings each year except one. Last year I did 2.5x the previous year. I have done all I can up to this point on my own. This January, it was time for me to decide if I wanted to do right by my side gig to make it a bigger business or to stifle its growth and maintain it as a smaller side gig. I chose to grow. To grow, I needed another person.
My side gig is YouTube. I make thousands a year producing content for other people to consume. I have for about 6.5 years now made my own content-filming, editing, and posting. Up until this year, I had 8 channels, 3 of which are monetized. This year, I started a 9th. You can have up to 200 under one email address according to YouTube's rules. So I hired a person to work up to 10 hours a week on editing my videos. This is the most time consuming part of my process. I didn't know how to go about doing it at first, which is why I'm writing this post-to teach you how you can grow in your business if you need help...
So how did I find my helper?
I used a website called Upwork.com. I posted what I wanted to have done after signing up to be a client. They also have a freelancer side where you can sign up to offer your services. It asked if I wanted someone exclusively from my country or from around the world. Because I understand economics, I opened it to the whole world. After receiving dozens of offers for the job at varying rates between $7-$100/hour, I went with someone who lives in the Ukraine at $8/hour who also had great representations of his work. Since then, I have uploaded my raw video material to him and every week he sends me the finished files.
This has saved me many hours of my time. I have been able to create a lot more videos and the quality of his videos are close enough to mine, and sometimes better, that I am very pleased. A month after starting with him, I even bumped him up to $10/hour. That's $3/hour less than the minimum wage in the state where I live in the US.
Why am I sharing this?
I have spent $705.20 so far this year on video editing/marketing services. I've earned more than that via YouTube in the same timeframe. For every video I make, it increases my income potential. My 9th channel has almost 2,000 videos that have been uploaded since I created it and I hope to have tens of thousands by the end of the year. Considering the growth possibilities, I hope to more than double my income this year, again. Each one of you here is open to earning money online. Perhaps you could use a boost to your income by hiring someone else to outsource your more mundane tasks... In the business world, we call that leverage.
So I'm transitioning...from making some money as a hobby to making a great income from a side business. The goal is to replace my full time income, not to quit my job (because I have great retirement perks coming), but to build my portfolio, make my life that much easier, and share the wealth with others who need it. I don't plan on giving money away, but I am for paying someone an honest wage for honest work.
The hardest part for me to do this?
I had to trust that the person I was sending content to was not keeping it for themselves/posting it on their own channel. I had been mulling over this for years and I'm glad I finally took the leap of faith. My first step was giving him one video to do, then 2. After a couple weeks, I made sure I was getting my money's worth. I was happy with the results and now spend about $100/week on his services. I'm happy with the results I'm getting!
Ideas for you to comment on below:
What are you doing that you could outsource and increase your productivity? Do you have any other tips on increasing productivity above outsourcing work? If you have turned a side hustle/gig/hobby into a business, how did you make the transition?
http://www.WatchBobOnYouTube.com
Some examples of my work:
