Do you want to make more money with your side hustle? Or, do you want to turn your side hustle into your full-time career?
There are many things to think about before taking your side hustle to the next level if either of the above questions apply to you.
I know this because it took me around two years before I made the decision to pursue my side hustle full-time. Even after that, I still prepared myself for another few months before I actually left my day job.
I look back and I still cannot believe that I gathered the courage to take my side hustle to the next level.
Life is incredible now and I’m very glad I made the preparations that I did.
Below are my tips for taking your side hustle to the next level and starting a small business successfully.
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- My Online Business Income Reports
Create a plan.
Starting a small business is a lot of work. Whether you want to make more money with your side hustle or if you want to make it your full-time income, you will want to create some sort of plan.
Below are some of the many things you should think about:
- Can you make a full-time income with your side job?
- Can you make an income for many, many years to come?
- If you plan on keeping your day job, will it suffer if you try to make more money with your side hustle? What can you do so that your day job doesn’t suffer?
- How long will it take for you to make a full-time income after you leave your day job?
- What will you do for health insurance?
- When will you turn in your notice at your current full-time job?
- What is your backup plan?
Related: If you are wanting to leave your current job to pursue something else, I have the book for you. I highly recommend the book How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye. It includes 150 pages of information on how to negotiate a severance from a job you no longer like, profiles of people from different demographics and income levels who’ve successfully engineered their layoffs, and how they did it, and more.
Have a self-hosted website for your small business.
I receive many emails each week from people who are trying to get their freelance writing career off the ground. One of the first questions I always ask is whether they have a website or not. Surprisingly, most people say no! How are people supposed to find you or even know about you if you don’t have a website?
There is a chance that your side hustle doesn’t need a website, but I find that rare in this day and age.
The first thing almost everyone does when they are interested in a company is look them up online and check out their website. If you don’t have a website, then you are cheating yourself out of potential customers.
I recommend setting up a website, opening social media accounts with your business name (or your name), and more when starting a small business.
Related to this, I also recommend having a professionally designed website and/or logo once you can afford it. Companies such as Deluxe Business Services (affiliate link) can help your business look professional. For example, with Deluxe’s logo design service, you can receive a great design on a low budget. Their logo design service starts at just $245 and this includes personalized service where you actually work one-on-one with a designer. Also, right now you can get 10% off any logo design package with my link.
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting.
Hire help when starting a small business.
Outsourcing is needed in order for most businesses to grow.
If you can make more of your time available by outsourcing work and other tasks, this frees up more time so that you can make more money, grow your business, and so on.
There are many positive reasons for why you should start outsourcing:
- You can add more time to your life.
- You can focus on the bigger picture.
- You can outsource tasks that you hate.
- Outsourcing work is great when you are not an expert at a task. Yes, this means you may have to hire an accountant or lawyer for your business!
Related: Should You Outsource Tasks To Make Life Easier?
Network with others.
If you want to take your side hustle to the next level and start making more money, then you will want to start networking.
Networking can help you and your business because you can learn about new ways to improve your business, you may make valuable contacts, you can learn more about the industry you are in, and more.
This means that you may want to start networking with others in your industry by attending conferences, local meet ups, emailing others, and so on.
Find ways to market your services or products.
In order for a business to grow, you will need to market it in some way.
Starting a small business without any marketing would be near impossible because no one would know that you even exist!
Whether it’s something as simple as providing great customer service so that your reputation will spread across your market or if you plan on placing advertisements, marketing your business is important.
Have a proper work environment.
While at one point it may have been fine just to work from your bed, eventually you may have to invest in a home office, a co-working space, a shared conference room, and so on.
Having a professional and proper work environment can help you separate your work from your life and it can help you look more professional to clients.
Beef up your emergency fund.
You will want to beef up your emergency fund if you’re going to rely on your side hustle for your full-time income. This is because you may experience unstable income when starting a small business.
You might have your best month ever one month and the very next month may be your worst. Stress can impact the quality of work that you provide and this is something you don’t want to happen. A lack of an emergency fund may even cause you to completely give up on your side hustle because you may not have the funds to continue.
Are you interested in taking your side hustle to the next level and starting a small business? What are your future plans for your side hustle?
Leave a Reply
Hey i love your blog i was wondering if you had a post about credit companies that claim to help fix your credit what are your thoughts
Hello!
Sorry, I don’t have a blog post about that. I’ll have to do research.
You can’t underestimate the power of networking. It may seem difficult or out of your comfort zone to connect with other people but it has to be done to have success.
Yes!
Always good to keep your 9-5 and build the hustle in your spare time, once it reaches a level of income that can support your budget you can leave the 9-5. This will prevent you from taking a leap to early.
Yes, I think that’s the best way. Thanks!
Great post! I’m just starting up as a freelance writer now, and I’d like to take that to a full-time job in the future. I’ve been doing it for about a whole two weeks now, and it’s been working out great so far! 🙂
Thanks Lindsay!
Having a plan and having an emergency fund are both really important when it comes to side hustles in my opinion. A plan will help you measure your growth and success (is it worth your time and money?) and the emergency fund is helpful because there are expenses with starting a new venture. If things go wrong, having an emergency fund is key to protecting your finances.
Yes, I agree!
Hey Michelle, thanks for these tips! I’m planning to try to start some freelance writing soon. 🙂
You should! I love your writing.
Aw thanks Michelle. 🙂 We’ll see how it goes!
I think it’s important to find out from others in your niche if your side hustle is something with the potential to support you full-time. Some side hustles are easier to take full-time and some are hard. It’s a good idea to find out if it’s possible for your side hustle to be a full-time job.
Yes, great tips Cat!
Seriously though, it’s tips like this that made my side hustle out grow and kill my day job. BOOM!
Awesome! 🙂
I outsource a few, such as accounting, the technical side of my blog, and a little more.
Good luck Angie!
Aww thanks!
Thanks Michelle, this is good advice. I’m right at the point where my side hustle could become a full time business if I decided to jump in. I’m reaching the limits of how much work I can do in parallel to my full time job, but I’m a bit too risk adverse to finally make the jump.
your advice is great, I think I need to look for outsource help
Do you think you’ll make the jump? 🙂
Yes! It’s on my roadmap for early to late 2017, depending on how fast I can grow my emergency fund.
Nice!
Networking is HUGE. Doing that has helped me a lot the last 2 months. I still can’t believe that I’m making money freelancing.
It’s a great feeling, right? 🙂
It definitely is.
Thank you for these. These are important for blogging and entrepreneurial success and all these tips you mention work! I highly recommend your point of a good work environment. I use to work from home except there were so many distractions like a dog that thinks it’s the weekend! I tried looking into co-working spaces but they were expensive in my area so I worked in the quiet rooms of libraries + it’s free!
Thanks Jen!
Thanks Gina!
I’m definitely not looking to make my side hustle full time. But I do want to grow it. I finally accepted that, to do that, I need to hire other people. I think that’s one of the harder things to do when you’re just starting out. If you’re making little to no money, it’s scary to go into the negative for a bit. But you have to make sure everything you do is professional, and the money will come back to you.
Yes, it can be difficult and that’s why it’s important to weigh the pros and cons.