You’re not lazy. Quite the opposite – you work hard. But you’re working for someone else, occasionally undermined, stressed out, and you’re tired of the same mundane routine everyday. You do it every week, just to repeat the same process over and over again- and get to Friday only to look forward to the weekend again. And then again, you hit Monday.
When you find yourself caught in this endless cycle, it’s not hard to find yourself asking if this is what you want out of life. Some people are okay with routine, as routine means stability. But some, like us, know that there’s a way to break free from this position that society has us assigned. And you’re willing to do whatever it takes, because the reward is greater than any – and that is to be in control of your own life.
The reality is that even after you quit your job. You STILL have to work. Yes, you will have more control over what you do and when you do it. But you’ll find yourself working possibly even longer hours than you were before, at least in the initial stages. If this is something you are willing to accept and push through with strength and determination, the more likely you are to reach a life where someone else doesn’t decide what you do with your Monday mornings – and finally be able to do more of what you want to do.
There are 4 general income sources for those who break out of the 9-5:
- Freelance
- Passive Income
- Online Teaching
- E-commerce
When you’re starting off solo and have no built up revenue streams of your own, here is what your income sources should look like in the beginning stages.
I quit my 9-5 (begining stages) = Freelance + (passive income and/or online teaching and/or online shop)
Freelancing
Freelancing is most likely what you will need to resort to for the bulk of your income when starting on your solo entrepreneurship adventure. Here are a couple of different services to provide when offering freelancing services. Which ones describe the type of work you can provide?
- Graphic Design
- Writing
- Web Design
- Web Development
- Social Media Marketing
- Virtual Assisting
When you’re freelancing, don’t forget about the option of having monthly retainer fees! This is an alternative to getting paid on a per-project basis and offers some stability and peace of mind when starting off solo. This is great to offer small businesses who need any kind of marketing services on a continual basis.
Passive Income
In my own personal words, the definition of passive income is when you get to sit on your butt and watch the money roll in with little to no effort. The upside to passive income is just that (need I say more?). The downside is that it takes time to build up. But if you just act on a little consistency each day, eventually you will reap the benefits of building up the kind of income stream that everyone dreams of.
To be more concise, passive income is derived from selling a product (digital or physical) in which you do not put any effort into its sales beyond having created it – which typically doesn’t require that much time and effort in itself. Passive income normally comes from selling on a third-party platform where you and the company both make a profit from the sale.
I’ve broken down Passive Income into 3 Categories.
- Passive Income through selling Digital Products
- Passive Income through selling Physical Products
- Passive Income through Blogging
Passive Income Through Selling Digital Products
With any kind of design knowledge, there are a variety of digital products out there that you can create to start building up your passive income!
If you’re a photographer, you can upload images on iStock, Shutterstock or Adobe Stock and get a small cut for every image downloaded. Take it one step further and research what the market needs these days. If there’s a big market for organic foods, for example, find some great backdrops that would work well as a background image for a website selling organic and natural foods. You can photograph something as simple as the top of a wooden table, a bunch of tomatoes at a farmer’s market, etc… In addition, I’ve been seeing many successful shops on Etsy that sell digital downloads of their photography where the buyer prints them out themselves. In fact, I would bet that you will probably see the money roll in faster if you do decide to sell your photography prints on Etsy.
If you’re a graphic artist, or even just like to tinker with digital design, there is no limit to the different passive income ideas available to you. Use these stock photo platforms to upload even the most simple design elements like icons, or sell design outtakes from old clients. Make simple, textured backgrounds that people may need for their restaurant menus. Make your own Photoshop brush presets and sell them on Creative Market. I personally opened an Etsy shop selling printable items for bridal showers. The list goes on and on.
If you’re a web developer, I’ll come out and be honest and say you probably don’t even need my help. Creative market is a great platform for you to sell website templates, code snippets or other “web scraps” that you can resell and make use of.
Maybe you love to paint. Upload your watercolor images to iStock, Shutterstock or Adobe Stock by scanning them. For these specific platforms, I would recommend thinking about what people might need beyond just landscapes or wall-worthy decor. There’s been many times where I’ve searched things as simple as “watercolor background” or “watercolor floral elements” on stock collection websites. Again, everytime someone downloads your image on one of these stock photo platforms, you’ll receive a small fee.
Etsy is an amazing place for you to sell your paintings, not only as physical items but as digital items as well! Scan your paintings and sell them as art prints or greeting cards so that people can purchase, download and print. Etsy makes it very easy for you to list your item as a digital product. Try it out! On that note, Zazzle and Minted are other great places to sell art prints and/or greeting cards.
In a nutshell, here are some platforms where you can sell digital items:
- Etsy
- Zazzle
- Minted
- iStock
- Shutterstock
- Creative Market
Passive Income Through Selling Physical Products
Believe it or not, you can still make a passive income by selling physical products as well. Online Platforms like Society 6 and Redbubble actually let you digitally upload your own design onto an item of your choosing, say, a blank t-shirt or mug. This can be as simple as a cat-lover quote, or a more elaborate design. They do the printing, handle the actual product and ship it out to the customer! This amazing system is called Dropshipping.
Even e-commerce platforms that do not directly dropship for you (such as Etsy) will still allow you to easily integrate with a system that does. For example, Etsy allows you to integrate with Printful, an online platform that connects to your shop and will dropship items for you!
Printful can actually also integrate with a Shopify store. However, I am not using a Shopify/Printful integration as an example for passive income because with Shopify you actually have to work a little harder on marketing to get your products to sell. Shops like Etsy have their own internal marketing system that help your products get found and drive sales towards your shop easier than you would having a Shopify store. However, this does come at a price considering that Etsy gets a cut from your sales and Shopify doesn’t. Article on the difference between Etsy and Shopify to come!
Passive Income Through Blogging
This may be one that’s been over mentioned, but it’s worth re-mentioning in that passive income is very real with blogging. Blogging does take time, as does any other source of passive income, and can sometimes take longer to see any kind of monetization. But with a little consistency and dedication, it is very possible to see the ability to monetize as early as a few months in to a year.
What to blog about
Think about the last time you felt knowledgeable to the point where words just naturally flow out of you when you teach about it. Think about a time when you had a lot to say about something you’r passionate about, and use that as a benchmark when figuring out what to write your blog about.
What’s great about blogging
- Your blog is your blog. You aren’t playing by anyone else’s rules but your own.
- Blogging is therapeutic. Think about all the times you feel as if you have something to share with the world. Use blogging as your outlet.
- Blogging is FREE. Besides the domain name which will usually cost you about 14 dollars, and a hosting platform that will only cost you around 10 dollars A YEAR. If you use WordPress (highly recommended), you will have a lot of free templates to choose from.
- Blogging’s easy. Just Write! There’s no math involved and no science. Dedicate half an hour to an hour to write an awesome article every day, or at least a few times a week.
Tips for beginning stages of blogging.
- Be Consistent – Blog at least 3 times a week.
- Be Informative – Make your blog about the reader, not yourself.
- Write about something you have a genuine interest in!
Even though you should never start a blog with the mindset of purely monetizing, if you ARE looking to monetize, the better route to take is to make the blog about your reader and not yourself. Write informative articles. Preferably in a specific area that you excel in and are passionate about. This may be in graphic design, basket-weaving, cooking, bartending, traveling, ANYTHING! There is always someone in the market that is looking to learn what you know. Set a goal to write 2-3 informative blogs every week. Eventually, your traffic will build enough to a point where you can start to monetize.
Once you build a good collection of blogs, start promoting your blog, get the word out there and start collaborating with other bloggers!
When it comes to blogging, all I have to say, is: Don’t let the following year come wishing you had started one today.
How blogs actually generate money (after they’ve built an audience)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Selling products (physical or digital)
- Ads
Because it takes time to build up, I wouldn’t suggest relying solely on passive income when you’re starting off. But I 100% recommend it as something you work towards day by day – and it’s something you’ll thank yourself a year, maybe even just months down the road.
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These are all great passive income channels. However, the best way to sell any kind of product (physical or digital) are those that you can sell to an audience you have already built.
I don’t discourage you from starting a passive income source from the above mentioned, even if you haven’t started building an audience yet. But I do recommend that you start building one for an even brighter future in the world of passive income. I am going to go ahead and share with you arguably the most important piece of information of this entire blog:
The best and most efficient way for you to build an audience is through teaching your skills for FREE. This is primarily done through blogging and YouTube. Once you build an audience and gain trust as an “expert” you can start to sell products and services according to their needs.
Online Teaching
Teaching your skills is always in demand. Be confident that a skill that you have is being sought after by another person. And through this you can monetize! Here are a couple platforms you can turn online teaching into a revenue source.
IMMEDIATE INCOME
Online teaching through selling courses online – This is the most immediate way to make money from teaching online. People will pay directly for your services. You can teach anything from Graphic Design to speaking English! Check out these sites:
- Udemy
- Teachable
- Skillshare
PASSIVE INCOME
Online teaching through Blogging – This is not the most direct way to make money teaching and falls more under the category of passive income when it starts to monetize. However, once you build up enough traffic and a decent following, you can sell even more in-depth services or programs to those who’d like to receive hands-on help.
Online teaching through Youtube – Like blogging, this one may also take some time and can also fall more under the category of passive income as well. However, if you’re good at talking in front of the camera and your personality really shines through, videos are a great way for you to gain an audience as you teach. Every day, there are visitors searching YouTube on ‘how to make a green smoothie…’ or ‘how to do design a logo…’. And the owners of these channels are making money through advertisements. Teaching on YouTube is a great way for you to gain traction and eventually monetize on.
Opening an online store
Selling products online is not a new concept. If you already have some kind of a following, on social media, for example, it will be easier for you to sell your own products. If you have a great idea for a product or are really passionate about something you are willing to push marketing-wise, open up an online store. Just know that opening up an online store is not something you want to dive into right after you quit your job as it takes up time to build up an audience.
Building up an audience – Voila! This is where something like blogging comes in. Blogging helps build an audience before you start selling to them.
However, if you are starting a shop on a platform like Etsy, Etsy does have a great internal search system that helps your product get seen by buyers. It IS possible to make sales on Etsy without putting much marketing effort in. But if you’re looking to grow you’re e-commerce store to a substantial level, it is always better to build an audience, first.
Some things to get you on your way to being your own boss.
A. Work on one thing every day.
If you’re wanting to quit your job, start taking small steps now. Every day when you get home from work, work on something to get the ball rolling. Set reasonable daily goals, and always leave one day empty to serve as a buffer for the occasional “off day” you might have.
B. Jot your daily tasks into a planner.
Here are my reasons why it is important to use a planner:
A planner helps you feel accomplished.
Having a tangible planner is not only a way to stay organized, but a physical reminder of the work that you get done. It is a symbol of your progress and the long-term goals that you are moving closer to day by day. Never underestimate the power of a physical planner!
A planner helps you to allow yourself breaks.
If you work endlessly without a plan, you won’t feel as accomplished. You’ll always feel as if you should be working, instead of feeling good about giving yourself an occasional break after checking something off of the list. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong advocate of hard work, but burning yourself out will only discourage you in the long run.
A planner helps you stay motivated.
Every week is a new opportunity to set new goals into your planner. Relish your productive previous week and ask what you will do this week. Make your planning routine fun and use planner stickers if need be!
Recap
If you’re looking to quit your job, don’t forget that freelancing will be the most immediate source of income. In fact, secure a few good clients beforehand. Freelancing should definitely be the area you are dedicating the most effort to when you’re starting off solo.
However, it’s always smart to put your foot into other sources that will build up over time- whether it’s in passive income, online-teaching or having an online-shop (which sometimes also entails passive income). Assuming you have NONE of these built up, here is a diagram that I put together to show you what you should strive for in the beginning stages of going solo:
Don’t forget to keep the 9-5 for as long as you can possibly ride it out while you’re setting up the foundation to your online/solo success. Of course, saving enough money before you decide to pull the plug is always a great idea. However, every agenda for every person looks different. Maybe it’s difficult to save that extra money to finally have the guts to quit, in which case you can secure a part time job instead to have some fallback while you’re working on getting on your own two feet.
As you’ve seen there are so many different things you can be doing RIGHT NOW start building. Stay determined, be patient, work hard, and make sure to take steps every single day. If quitting your 9-5 is what you really want, take my word for it. I’ve done it, and so can you!