Imaginative title, right? I bet you’ve never read anything with a headline like that before.
I kid. However, what I have to say here will share very little in common with those articles.
Unfortunately, I am not here to show you how you can create a passive income in three easy steps and just a few weeks. Sorry. That aint my bag, baby. When it comes to passive income, success is usually borne out of months (or years) of trial and error.
If you are a regular reader of the blog, you will know that I am a big fan of the concept of passive income. It is something that I am striving hard to create for myself. However, I also happen to be quitting my job in about a month’s time, so the need to generate an immediate income is rather pressing.
And that is what I am here to talk about today. How to generate a non-speculative income, in the short term, and on an ongoing basis. And furthermore, how doing that can ultimately lead to your passive income dream (as long as it isn’t wildly unrealistic).
Find Your Asset
The key is in finding your asset. I strongly believe that almost everyone has a particular skill or talent that is valued by others. It may not in fact be anything you consider particularly impressive. For instance, I have always considered myself a decent writer, but until recently, had never considered it something that I could actually make a living out of.
But don’t let me lead you down the writing path. A freelance career can take multiple forms:
- Web design
- Graphic design
- Marketing
- Social media
- Music production
- Translation
That is a very brief list, which could in reality be very, very long. It is truly amazing how people can leverage seemingly prosaic talents and turn them into viable businesses. We live in an age where that is more achievable than ever.
Keep It Simple and Non-Speculative
I should make something clear at this point – I am not proposing that you establish a business whereby you sell a service direct to the masses. That in itself is a highly speculative venture (although not one that you should necessarily avoid in the long term). I am talking about having a skill that is in demand, and that people will pay you for, on an ongoing basis. If your initial endeavors are successful, the next natural step is trying to exploit that same skill through some sort of service provision.
For instance, if you are a good graphic designer, you can look to get some regular paying jobs with design companies that perhaps have more work than their fixed staff can handle. In time, you can generate a healthy income from this, and produce your own video course and accompanying resource pack, entitled “How To Find High-Paying Design Jobs”. That in itself could become a source of passive income.
Finding your asset and figuring out how you can monetize it can be more than just a step towards leaving work behind. It can be the step.
I am not saying that what you do now has to shape your whole future. That’s the beauty of working for yourself. You can freelance for six months, and if it isn’t working out for you, you can look to step into something else. You can reduce your hours down in order to give yourself more time to focus on more speculative business ideas. You can afford yourself the kind of flexibility that a “normal” job would rarely give you.
In short – you are in control of your destiny. Once you have set up a basic means of generating an income on an ongoing basis, you can then customize your workload as much as your bottom line permits.
Not only can freelance work present you with a viable means of quitting your job right now, it can also give you the flexibility of time to accelerate your speculative business endeavors far beyond the rate at which you are currently going.
Can anyone say “winning”?
So What Now?
In this article, I am stripping the process right back to bare bones. In the future, I plan to go into more detail as to how you can accomplish each step. Having said that, I know that you don’t need me to hold your hand. I know that you are fully capable of using your own initiative to figure out these steps on your own.
1. Assess Your Talents
In a nutshell – what are you good at? You should list absolutely everything – regardless of how trivial it may seem. Your most “trivial” skill may in fact be the most commercially appealing. I didn’t give my writing skills a second thought, but I can actually leverage them to produce a full time income.
2. Consider Monetization
Now that you have your list of talents, you need to figure out how you might monetize them. As mentioned above, we are not initially talking about speculative business ventures. We are talking about finding people who have an immediate and ongoing need for your talent. Once you have established a base income, you can look to see how you can further exploit your skill for higher rates, or passive income.
A good place to start is online job boards. Although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it in terms of sourcing work, Craigslist is a great way of finding out what people are in need of. Simply Googling your talents and seeing what comes up is also another great method – after all, if other people are making money in such a way, why can’t you?
3. Start
This is the true beauty of getting started with freelancing. There’s no sitting around, waiting for your speculative efforts to come off. You source jobs and you start. That represents a very solid step in the right direction.
Isn’t It Just Another Job?
Yes and no. It is another job, in the sense that someone is compensating you for the provision of a service. But it is not “just another job” in the sense that you are in full control of what you do and don’t do. If you want to scale back your freelancing hours so that you can spend more time on your speculative business ventures, you can. And if you want to increase your hours because Christmas is coming up and you could do with some more money, you can do that too.
Not only that, freelance work will set you up with invaluable contacts. If you decide in the future to move on from freelancing, you will come out the other side with a highly-developed skill, a reputation, and a platform with which to base your business upon.
Employment vs. Self-Employment
Advocates of employment will talk about health care, sick pay, and other such things. And they would be right to. But that is all they have. The net upside to self-employment, in my opinion, is huge.
As long as you are employed, you are not in control of your destiny. You may think that if you do well enough, you’ll get a promotion, which will give you x, but there is not guarantee of that. You are, to all intents and purposes, powerless. When it comes to advancing your career, you are fully reliant upon the whims of others.
Self-employment, meanwhile, is all about you. To a far larger degree, you get out of it what you put in. I learnt the hard way that putting all of those extra hours and weekends into your job doesn’t necessarily give you anything extra. Not so with self-employment. If your hourly rate is x and you do more hours, you’ll earn more money. And if you invest your time sensibly into your business, you will see a return.
I’ll throw away the benefits that employment brings in a heartbeat to be in control of my own destiny.
What about you?
Creative Commons images courtesy of gingerbydesign, quimby, Andrew Magill, Jegi
Online Money Making says
I began doing freelance and affiliate work about a year and a half ago and I couldn’t be happier, it’s still alot of work unlike most promises from salespeople but I have no boss and don’t have to leave my house and can work from anywhere at anytime.
Tom Ewer says
Hello Mr. Online Money Making,
Apologies for the delay in my response – your comment got caught in my spam filter (I’m guessing because of your name 😉 )
I’m glad it’s all working out for you – living the dream eh? 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Freedom Ventures says
Hello Tom,
Following a complete health collapse, I’m in the process of setting up my own business. This post was helpful and informative. Thank you!
In following Step 1, I’ve come up with the following list. I am personally reviewing and analyzing this, I’ve asked close friends and family to analyze and comment on it, and I would appreciate your thoughts as well concerning what you think I could do to parlay these talents and abilities into sustainable freelance income.
Assess Your Talents (list them ALL):
Planning
Organization
Analysis/Analytical
Writing
Problem solving
Inquisitiveness
Encouraging
Teaching
Positive Attitude
Piano/Music
Gardening
Farming
Self-Reliance
Self-Sustainability
Making something from virtually nothing
Forward thinking
Finance/Banking/Budgeting
Research
Interests:
Business
Piano/Music
Photography
Astronomy
Experience:
Project Management
Computer programming, analysis, and design
Leading teams
Recruiting
Insurance
Banking
Retail
Farming/Agriculture
Thanks much, Tom!
Tom Ewer says
Hello,
I just had a really cool idea but I don’t think it would work in practical terms – online piano lessons! Cool in theory – don’t think it would work in practice though…what do you think?
Perhaps you could write in the finance sector – that is an extremely lucrative market. There are countless ideas for blogs I could come up with based upon your list, but that is a more long-term play.
Cheers,
Tom
Ashwin says
Hey Tom,
No it isn’t one of “those” articles, of which I’ve seen more than my share. Lucky for me, I started freelancing about 4 years ago, full time. I live in India so even the “pittance” is good enough for me.
I grew. So much that the pittance seems to fall behind the demands I make on myself. I needed more and eventually, I had to step out of the parallel rat race that freelancing world witnesses.
I have to hike my prices. On part with native speakers. I need to get going and so something to establish a roster of clients who pay me for what I am worth. I need to grow. I need wings to fly.
My problem is about “starting up” anymore; it’s more to do with “growing up”. Ever since I’ve seen the likes of Danny Iny, Corbett Barr, Kristi Haines, and Sean Platt, I was inspired.
Just how the heck do you grow up?
I started taking the first big steps now. My website went through an overhaul. My posts are longer and better now. I am more serious with Social Media.
Yet, there’s a gap somewhere 🙂 Or maybe I am being a little too impatient.
Ash
Tom Ewer says
Hey Ash,
Impatience is good to an extent – it pushes you to achieve more.
I think the best thing you could do at this time is clearly outline what you want to achieve – rather than just saying that you want to “grow up”. Do you want 30,000 unique visits per month to your blog? Do you want 10,000 Twitter followers? Or perhaps you should consider more results-driven goals – like making 10 cold calls per day.
Decide what you want to achieve, then set out clear goals that you think will lead you to success. If you don’t reach those goals, or if the goals do not take you to where you want to be, set new goals.
Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Tom
Ashwin says
Hey Tom,
Thank you for your kind words.You are right about clarity. “Growth” has no meaning until we can measure it, right? I’ll set up some goals this month. Small ones. Let’s see how it goes.
I am sure it’s not impossible. I am already seeing some positive things happening. You keep up with the good work, Tom. Awesome stuff here 🙂
Tom Ewer says
Ash,
I could be jumping to conclusions here, but I noticed something in your comment above that piqued by curiosity. Would you consider yourself a naturally pessimistic guy?
I ask because you said, “I am sure it’s not impossible”. A far more positive (and quicker) way of saying the same thing would be “I am sure it is possible”. It seems that an element of negativity has crept into even your most positive statement… 😉
Cheers,
Tom
Ashwin says
Hi Tom,
That’s a good question. My optimism and pessimism are at logger heads right now. I am not really sure how I should be, at this juncture in my life. When you are 30 yrs old, I guess this happens.
I am a very optimistic, fun-loving guy though 🙂
You got me there, eh?
Tom Ewer says
Don’t worry about it – I’m having a mid-life crisis, aged 26 😉
joy says
Hey Tom – Mid life @ 26?
That’s kinda difficult to stomach( until and unless you say that you are a vampire and my 26 is your 2226 yrs )!
Joking though..! 😉
cheers..
Tom Ewer says
Haha – call it a 1/3rd life crisis then 😉
J.C says
Just wondering what should my version of mid life should be at 40 !
🙂
Tom Ewer says
You’re fine with mid – I’ve switched to 1/3rd 😉
Christina says
Tom,
What’s the link to the more in-depth post you hinted at writing? I’d love to know exactly how you source freelancing jobs to create an on-going base income so you can do other things like create niche sites. Did you mail flyers, knock on doors, apply to gigs on Craigslist, bid on jobs on oDesk, etc.?
Also, how did you handle business licensing and the legal stuff? Nobody seems to talk about that. Thanks!
Tom Ewer says
Hey Christina,
I’m not sure what you’re referring to by the more in-depth post – could be more specific? You might want to subscribe to my newsletter – that’s got some great information on freelancing that you won’t find on this blog. I’m also hoping to showcase a few hugely successful freelancers in the coming weeks.
I found my two clients through the ProBlogger Jobs Board – to be frank, I was amazed at how easy it was. If you’re willing to be a bit patient and wait for the decent offers to appear, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I personally have never used freelance “brokers” such as oDesk or Elance.
Not sure what you mean by business licensing and legal stuff – could you be more specific? I’m based in the UK, so depending on where you are, requirements will vary.
Cheers,
Tom
Christina says
When I said in-depth post, I was referring to this quote in this post: “In the future, I plan to go into more detail as to how you can accomplish each step.” Just wondering if you had done that yet.
As for the business licensing and stuff, it’s my understanding that in order to sell a product or service, you must be registered as a business for tax purposes. But I didn’t realize you’re based in the UK and I’m in the US, so you probably can’t help me there anyway.
I recently discovered the ProBlogger jobs board myself, and I am definitely keeping it in my radar. Most of the jobs there look really credible, which is nice compared to other places you can look.
Thanks!
Tom Ewer says
Ah – no – I haven’t yet. But thank you for reminding me! I have now put such an article on my To Do List.
Yep – afraid I can’t help you with the US stuff. In the UK you just register as self-employed and you’re on your way.
ProBlogger is pretty good for jobs. The key is to find places where you have to pay to list a job – that weeds out the time wasters and spammers.
Jennifer says
Nice article, minus Charlie Sheen’s pic (no role model there); but I digress. Do you recommend finding a niche when thinking of a freelance writing service or throwing everything out there and see what sticks? Is it necessary to meet clients in person first? And last but not least, can a freelance writing service translate internationally?