Do you have a skill that can be used to solve somebody’s problem? Did you know you could use that skill to create an additional source of income?
The two easiest ways I know to turn that skill into an additional source of income are consulting & info-products.
Whether it’s a skill you’ve developed in your professional career or a skill you’ve developed for a particular hobby, you can start using that skill to help people solve their problems.
Consulting is helping someone work through a problem in exchange for a fee. Typically it’s done on a 1-to-1 basis and less commonly in a small group setting. Starting a consulting business doesn’t require a lot of upfront investment or overhead.
It can be done as simply as offering to personally help someone work through their problem for a fee. You could make a post on your favorite social media account asking, “Hey, who needs help with X?”. You could then start a conversation with the people who reply, helping them to work through their initial challenge, before offering to continue to help them via a paid arrangement.
As you work with people, you can post your experiences and success stories on a blog (like the one you’re currently reading) to share it with others who are experiencing the same problem as the people you have worked with.
Over time that content will attract more people, some of whom will reach out to ask you to help them too.
(Side note: Eventually, as you gain more clients, you’ll find that there are more people who want help than you can help individually. You could then expand your business by creating info-products that would allow you to help even more people that you can’t help individually.)
Or perhaps you’re a more behind-the-scenes person and don’t really want to work with people directly, at least not yet.
In that case…
Info-products might be perfect for you.
An info-product is a solution to a specific problem that you’ve packaged into a step-by-step process someone can follow.
In fact, it’s highly likely you’ve used an info-product before. If you’ve ever bought a book or guide on how to do something, you’ve bought an info-product.
If you created a physical info-product you would have to pay for the printing & shipping costs. However, now with the growing popularity of DIGITAL info-products, you can get started with very little costs upfront and almost no overhead.
Starting your digital info-product business can be as simple as…
a) Choosing which problem you are going to solve
b) Deciding who you are going to solve that problem for
c) Breaking down your solution into a specific step-by-step process.
You then package that process into a PDF document or a series of audios or videos, and now you’ve got yourself a digital product that people can access or download that will help them work through their problem without you having to help them personally.
You can then offer that product to people with that problem. You can offer it to friends who you know have that problem, to people who read your blog or visit your website (if you have them), and, when you are ready to expand, you can even invest in some online advertising to offer your product to people to whom you don’t yet have a connection.
(Sidenote: By this point, you may have decided you’d like to help people 1-on-1 or in a small-group setting. You could expand your business by offering consulting services to buyers of your info-product.)
If you need help to develop a specific plan to turn your skill into an additional income source, stay tuned for future blog posts where I’ll be talking more about that.
However, if you’d like the content sent directly to your email as well as the opportunity to ask me questions about developing YOUR specific plan, join my email list here. Talk to me about your skills & expertise and I can walk you through planning your own digital info-product business.
-Eddys Velasquez