This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and welcome. I'm gonna show you something important today in the form of a story, of course. And the story is about a bilingual insurance agent who earns up to $40,000 a year on the side using her language skills. But the lesson, I'll tell you up front what it is, the lesson is that in a lot of fields, industries, or careers, the people who are most successful have found a way to go deeper in that field, industry, or career. For example, in the world of translation, most translators for hire tend to focus on business or legal translation, maybe something in the media world.
Not bad. But today's case study finds a different approach, which you'll hear about. And you can apply this perspective in a lot of different fields. Let's take social media consulting. Like, what does that even mean?
I hear all the time from people who are like, I wanna be a social media consultant. I know it's a huge field. Lots of companies need help with social media, but could we make it a little bit more specific? You actually might be more successful if you do. Personal training.
Like, we've got a lot of fitness people out there. A lot of people doing fitness coaching and training of various kinds. Well, just like today's story, you're gonna have better odds of success if you narrow that down. So the lesson here is to look for the margins. And the story that illustrates that is coming right up.
Here's a quick message from our sponsor. I really appreciate them allowing the show to be completely free. [Music]
Jennifer Thome is a long time serial side hustler. Just to name a few, she has moonlighted as an event planner, sold baked goods, and managed social media for nonprofits. These days, she's earning extra money as a Chinese translator, specializing in solving real life problems.
Jen moved to China when she was 20. It became proficient in the language. While living there and going to school, people would ask her for help with lots of simple tasks that required English. These days, back in the States and living in Los Angeles, she still does some traditional translation work, including interpretation and voiceover recording. But it's her unique ability to help people solve those real life problems that's her specialty.
Her first paid job as a translator was solving a legal problem. A couple's children were wrongfully taken from them and didn't know what to do. Within a short period of time, through research, making phone calls, and navigating the court system, Jennifer was able to get the kids back into the parents' custody. She never asked for compensation, but they were so grateful they paid her almost $8,000. Feeling shocked that she could make money doing something that in the past she'd just done as a favor for friends, Jennifer soon began doing translation as a paid hustle.
She discovered that the work was fun and profitable, and it also helped her maintain her language skills. In a typical week of translation work, she has helped clients negotiate with hospitals and insurers, assisted a Chinese company seeking to become compliant in the US, and worked with immigrant parents to find schools for their children and assist with the paperwork. By day, Jennifer works as an insurance agent and financial planner. That background gives her the knowledge to help people who are not fluent in English negotiate their hospital bills, which, by the way, is hard enough if you are fluent in English. She suggests others who are interested in doing translation as a side hustle consider what they are most knowledgeable or passionate about.
For example, are you a multilingual college student who didn't mind the college application process? Well, you can assist others through that task. Do you enjoy typing and can do it quickly? If so, consider transcription. Another tip Jennifer offers is to prove your worth.
You don't have to wait for someone to hire you to start a portfolio. I thought this was interesting. She says translating manuals, like company manuals, can be a lucrative field. So go and download some company manuals and start translating. By making those samples, you can say to prospective clients, "Look, here's a translation of company X's manual." You don't have to share that you didn't get paid.
The point is just to show that you have the chops to do the work. But speaking of getting paid, the next step in creating your side hustle is to get paid. Now, this is the aspect that Jennifer struggled with the most. Like some of our other stories, in fact, she was unsure what to charge and everyone she asked for advice had wildly different opinions. She finally decided to reverse engineer the process.
First, she figured out how much she wanted to earn. Then she considered how many hours and days she was able to work per week, factoring in her other job and other commitments, and how much vacation time she wanted. Lastly, she estimated how much her taxes and expenses would be. She entered all this data into an Excel spreadsheet, which then gave her an ideal hourly rate. Now, this is her base rate.
She also charges a premium rate for work that's especially difficult or time-sensitive. Jennifer had zero startup costs when starting this translation business. Her first year's profit was $27,000, and the second year was nearly $40,000. Once she began finding her feet, she got to thinking about how she could teach others to translate their skills into cash. So she invested a few hundred dollars into creating an online course that would show multilinguals how to develop their own translation hustle.
But she doesn't do any advertising. Close to 80% of Jennifer's translation business is from referrals. She recommends that if you wanna start getting paid to translate, ask yourself where would someone who needs my services be? And then go there. Mention it on social media and join groups where you might be able to help people.
For her, the best part of this project has been her ability to help others in distress. She's been able to solve huge legal and health problems for others. And in return, she receives a whole lot of gratitude from her clients. Of course, she's not just doing it for charity. That money is real.
It's allowed her to transition to part-time work from her day job and spend more time with her kids. Using her language skills to solve problems has translated into real benefits. [Music]
So the lesson is look for the margins. In this case, avoiding most traditional translation work is what's allowed Jennifer to thrive. Again, $40,000 a year on the side, particularly focusing on her background in insurance and finance, which as we know, a lot of people have huge problems with, especially if English is your second language or if you don't speak the language at all.
And like I said, people who are completely fluent, native speakers often struggle with that stuff too. So it's not surprising that somebody else would have even greater problems. Now I mentioned social media consulting and fitness, our personal training in the introduction, as two fields in which it might be more beneficial to say, okay, where are the margins? Where's something else I can do within this broad industry or field? Here are a couple of more examples.
First one I thought of was reselling. We often have stories featuring people who are buying something at one price and selling it for a higher one. Last week I had that story of a guy who is buying and selling headlights, headlights and taillights, and actually creates a six figure business doing it. Again, he is looking for the margins. Not a lot of people out there focusing on that.
Another example is career coaching. Now this is really broad, just like fitness, just like social media. Lots of people want to go into career coaching. Well, we have seen over time. I mean, I know this from talking with thousands of people.
The ones who are successful, we have featured on the show people specifically focused on resumes. People specifically focused on negotiating a salary increase or reducing your debt. Or there was a guy who had lived overseas with his family, lots of different countries, and set up a consulting practice helping other families prepare for moving abroad. Again, really specific, look for the margins. And by the way, pick one of those things to focus on.
The interesting thing is when you pick one of those things, you often end up getting approached over time for help with some other stuff. And at that point you can choose. You know, am I gonna stick with just this one thing? Am I going to expand? That's a whole different thing.
Pros and cons to that. But the point is when you're starting, pick one to focus on. All right, that's it for me today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/830, 830.
If you have a comment or question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle Hotline. That number is 8449 Hustle, or 8449487853. Thank you so much. I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
