This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there friends, listeners, Side Hustle School community. Thank you for tuning in today. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host, here to talk with you about monetizing your expertise, finding a way to make extra money without quitting your job and by using a skill you already have. I got a question from a guy who wants to make money teaching people how to play video games. That's actually coming up next week.
But I was thinking about it as I was working on today's episode because one of the ways you can profit from your knowledge is through teaching or transferring that knowledge in some form. It's specifically by compiling that knowledge into a detailed guide report or owner's manual of sorts and then selling that material. So this is a kind of a tried and true model that has been around for many, many years. It's not going anywhere. It's definitely still relevant today.
We'll probably be relevant tomorrow and long into the future. So if you're looking for your next idea, this might be it. And to take it further, today's caller has a smart clarifying question. What kinds of guides or detailed reports or owner's manuals sell the best? Not all guides are created equal.
So let's talk about that detailed question and my answer coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, this is Kiliano calling from Toronto. I've heard a bunch of stories of someone writing an owner's manual or some other guide to a certain topic. Also, I think you used to sell guides like that, right? As for me, I like writing and would love to start getting some passive income.
I don't know if I'm a subject matter expert in anything, but I am a quick learner. Before I race off to research and write something that no one wants, do some kinds of guides sell better than others? I assume the answer is yes, but how do I know the difference? I look forward to hearing any tips you might have. [Music]
Yes, I did use to sell guides like that.
And maybe I will again at some point because it is definitely a viable business. For me, I just kind of moved on because I work on projects that I'm excited about and I was losing a little bit of interest just after having done it for so long. But as I said, it's a viable business for sure. So which guides sell better than others? Which kinds?
Now there's a clear answer here. The best guides, organic could be a report. There could be lots of different formats for this. The point is you're transferring knowledge or information, but let's just call them a guide. The best guides provide a blueprint to something specific and valuable.
The buyer should be able to read and apply the information right away and receive a big benefit. So in other words, they should pay for this and immediately be able to apply it. One of my best selling products of all time, which as I said, I no longer sell, but it was called frequent flyer master. And that was about a $50 report. And the promise of it was you can read this report, purchase it, apply the information today and you'll be able to have at least two free plane tickets within a month, basically, probably less than that, depending on how you take action and which path you pursue and such.
So that was very specific, very valuable. And just thinking about it from the perspective of a buyer, something that I purchased, one time I purchased a guide to Google AdWords, which was also I think $50, maybe $100. And that was very valuable to me. I don't do any advertising now, but long, long ago, I was trying to hack the whole Google advertising market. And so this guide was very helpful.
I could read it, apply it immediately, some specific lessons, and it had a lot of value and use to me. So think about that question. What can you share that will help people with something specific and valuable, tangible, and again, immediately applicable? Those are the guys that tend to sell really well. And of course it helps if you can tie that benefit, whatever that valuable benefit is, to something that has a high dollar value, like free plane tickets or like advertising, being able to advertise effectively, spend less money on advertising, achieve a good return on investment, that has a clear correlation to not just value in general, but specific value you can put a price tag on.
So that helps a lot. It could be a lot of other things, but I think that is the broad answer of how you can apply this and develop your own guide or report or whatever you wanna call it for sale. Good luck with that, Killian, and anybody else out there. Listeners, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know your ideas and what you're working on, and I would love to feature them to our whole community of amazing people.
And thank you for being one of those people. Got a new episode coming out tomorrow. I hope you'll come back. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
