In my last posts I looked at some of the many, many ways in which you can leverage new technological tools to start something with nothing but a little time and effort. Here are a few more ideas for you to explore:
Coaching
You’re probably familiar with business/professional coaching and personal/life coaching. But you can also create coaching programs for anything for which you’re an expert and for which there is market demand.
For example, you could coach people on writing, marketing, entrepreneurship, visual or performance art, and even things like fashion and appearance. Fortune magazine reports that you can even earn $50,000 a year coaching people to play video games!
In this industry as in others, technology is making it easier than before. You can offer coaching services via Skype and webinars and use advanced scheduling software to manage your calendar.
Consulting
Forbes reports that consulting is a $100 billion industry. The internet has broken down the barriers to entry in setting up a home consultancy business. In most cases all you need is a laptop, cell phone and using the skills you already have with no investor capital. You can effectively start a consulting business from scratch. Consulting provides a great deal of flexibility, allowing you to set your own hours and take time off as you need it.
To become a consultant, you don’t need a college degree, office, or staff. You simply need to discover your gifts and define your niche. It’s your sweet spot that overlaps between your skill levels and the demand of the prevailing industry trends. Take your existing knowledge you have gained and turn it into a re- source that someone would be willing to pay money for.
A consultant is hired for one reason: knowledge. A client selects you to work on their behalf because you know something that they don’t. You help your client to solve problems and generate results for them.
As a consultant you must de ne your audience. For example, will it be large corporations, small businesses, or individuals? What industries do you know well and what is the market need and desires for that industry?
Identify major blogs in your chosen niche. Research popular social media posts and read the comments. Analyze the emotion- al and language level of the comments. Who are the top influencers in this niche and what are they communicating to their tribe? De fine your niche using www.buzzsumo.com. The tool validates how content performs online and breaks down that performance by multiple metrics across specific domains and keywords. This data assists marketers and consultants to better create, optimize and promote their content.
Here are some popular consulting businesses:
- Online Marketing: Help businesses develop effective advertising campaigns for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms, as well as for search engine optimization (SEO).
- Business: Help businesses solve their most pressing problems and become more profitable.
- Computers: If you know computers, whether hardware or software, your biggest problem will be not having enough hours in the day to meet your clients’ demands. Many business owners do not have sound technical knowledge regarding computers.
- Fitness: There is significant demand for fitness consultants to help with things like custom workout routines, diet and nutrition planning, healthy lifestyle education, muscle building workouts, and weight loss and weight management.
One way to determine how much to charge for your consulting services is to find out what the competition’s rates are. When ascertaining your monthly retainer, forget what it costs you and how much time each task consumes your day. Focus on what the intrinsic value is worth to your clients. Formulate the value of the problems you are solving for them. Companies are interested in revenue, so plan how you can bring them that.
Industry standards vary for a monthly retainer fee. Many consultants charge anywhere between $12,000 and $36,000 per client each year. A monthly retainer fee of $2,000 per month per client is a good starting point. With just five clients per month, that’s $10,000 monthly recurring revenue each month ($120,000/year). With ten clients, that’s $20,000 monthly recurring revenue ($240,000/year).
When starting out, use free social media platforms to build your prospective consulting base. Post on Facebook and offer your services to your community. Once you have secured two to three clients per month, you may want to consider paid social media advertising to scale up your consulting business to ten, then twenty clients each month. Freelancing as a consultant permits you to start saving money for investments and other opportunities to build wealth.
Social Media Marketing Agent
Social media is one of the most powerful ways to market a business. Most business owners have very little knowledge of how to harness the power of the various social media platforms to generate new leads and customers. More customers for businesses solve most of their problems.
If you can generate leads for business owners via social media marketing, you can write your own ticket. You can charge $1,000 to $5,000 per month per customer to manage their social media.
In my next post, I’ll outline even more opportunities for entrepreneurial work in this technological age.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear your ideas on how you might create opportunity today. Thank you for sharing.
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