This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
I've been hearing from a lot of freelancers recently. Shout out to everybody who is doing freelance service work. And let's see, recently we talked about invoicing, we talked about some tax advice. Today, interesting angle, someone's wondering if their online course, the online course that they want to make is gonna cannibalize the freelancing biz. So with an online course, you're often trying to educate people, train people specifically to do something perhaps that you might have done for them otherwise, at least that's what we've got here.
This is Sarah from Boston. She's trying to figure out, okay, I've got this course coming up. I love the idea of having passive income, but I also have a branding design freelance business, which is how I've made my money, or at least my side hustle money, maybe full-time business, I'm not sure, for the past few years. So how can I do this in a way that actually advances my interests instead of constraining or limiting them? So I love it, let's look at it.
Stick around after the break, we're gonna explore how to diversify without diluting your primary hustle. Or it could be as a means of evolution, but the point is, how do you do it in a way that doesn't negatively impact you? Good question, stay tuned. [Music]
This is Sarah calling from Boston, and a long-time fan of your show. I've built a good reputation freelancing and branding design for small businesses over the past five years.
As I'm considering creating an online course to teach basic branding to entrepreneurs, I'm worried that this new venture might cannibalize my existing freelance work. Should I go ahead with it, or pay closer attention to this concern? [Music]
Hey Sarah, this is a good question, and I have some good news. I think, for the most part, diversifying into online courses doesn't have to erode your freelance business at all. It's often a different kind of person, or at least a person who has a different kind of need, signing up for an online course versus hiring you to do a service.
If I think about some of the services that I pay for, I'm happy to pay for the service. I could probably go out and learn how to do that by watching an online course or otherwise educating myself, but I don't want to do it. I'm happy to have a freelancer or professional handle certain things for me. If you think about it from that perspective, it's just a different market. However, I do think it's smart to think about it upfront, like how am I going to serve different clients or clients with different needs through this expansion?
And how can I continue doing the freelance work that I'm doing now that I enjoy, while also building some passive income, hopefully. So the main thing there is not different from whether you have an existing business or not. You just want to really think about segmentation. Who is the course going to be for? Like what are their core needs?
What are their struggles? What bothers them? How can I provide solutions to their problems, alleviate some of their pain and such? And for your existing clients, maybe here's what is a little bit different. You might just want to communicate directly with them and say, "Hey, I'm making this course and check it out." And if you'd like to take the course, maybe even here's a discount, like a soft sell to them, but also making it clear.
By the way, I'm still doing these services. So I'm not going anywhere. This is just something new that I'm doing. You could keep it completely separate, of course, but just because you're one person and you can't do everything, and you probably don't have a ton of clients in the freelance business, since you are just a business of one, I tend to think it's good to just kind of address everything directly. So I don't think this is a problem.
I do think it's a good thing to think about, but I think you'll be totally fine. And I wish you every success. Best of luck with the new course. Best of luck with the freelancing. All right, listeners, if you have a question, a scenario, something you're working on, a case study, whatever it might be, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
New episodes every day. I'm excited for all that's to come. Really appreciate you joining me on this journey as well. So I'll be here again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
