This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
How can you identify and develop side hustle skills? That's what we're gonna talk about today. Welcome to Side Hustle School. Welcome everyone, friends, listeners, community. My name's Chris Guillebeau, your host.
Today's question comes from Thomas. He is a listener. He's been inspired by all the amazing side hustles, or at least many of them that we featured on the podcast. We've had 2,800 total episodes so far. But Thomas feels uncertain about his own skills and where to begin.
And let me tell you, that's what it's all about. This is the core feature of what we try to do with this show is help people unpack how can they figure out what their skills are, what experience they've had in life that can then be transformed into a money-making side hustle. How do you develop a product? How do you develop a service or create an offer around your business idea? So let's delve into it.
We're gonna talk about Thomas's perspective, and I'll talk about some things you can do, some questions you can ask yourself. It'll just take a few minutes to kind of uncover some potential skills that might be monetized in some way. So that's what today's episode is all about. Let's dive in. How can you develop those skills to turn into a money-making venture?
Detailed question from Thomas and my answer in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hello, Chris, this is Thomas. I've been listening to your podcast and I'm really inspired by all the amazing side hustles that people have started. However, I often feel like I'm not particularly good at anything and don't know where to begin. How can I identify and develop skills that could turn into a successful side hustle?
Are there specific steps or resources you could recommend for someone in my situation? I'll be listening eagerly for your answer. [Music]
I love this question. It is kind of a fundamental question that so many people have when they're trying to start their side hustle or their small business for the first time, especially if they have always worked in corporate or otherwise been outside of the entrepreneurial sector. If they've always just kind of followed this prescribed track in life, then they're like, what is it that I can do?
So the good news is that everybody is an expert in something, everyone has potential, everyone has not just potential, but it's potential that can be realized, skills and talents that can be developed into a money-making venture, a side hustle, a small business, whatever you like to think of it as. So what do you do? Well, you start with self-assessment and I always encourage people to focus more on their skills and expertise and less on their interests or hobbies. So sometimes it's good to ask like, hey, what do I like to do? But it can be more helpful to say, what am I good at?
Like, what is the expertise that I have? What am I an expert in? What do people ask me about? What skills have I been complimented on by others? What problems am I helping other people with frequently?
What do people come to me for advice on? And what do I enjoy solving? Not just what do I enjoy doing, but what problems do I enjoy solving? So focusing on problems and skills together can often give you a good clue as to what a potential side hustle might be, or at least an area or a direction to go in. And then you wanna start thinking, okay, how do I, as soon as possible, start thinking about offers.
So an offer is different from an idea. An idea is kind of generic and ideas like, oh, I've got this business idea, but an offer is something that people pay for. So an offer is a product or a service, which is what we're trying to instill here, episode over episode, that you need products and services. You need to have something that you sell. And so an offer basically includes a few elements.
An offer includes like, what are the benefits? Why does this change my world? Why is this going to change my life if I purchase it? How do I purchase it? How do I give you my money?
And what's the means of doing that? Thinking that way, thinking about offers, concrete offers, as soon as possible is really helpful. So ideate a bit on your skills. Think about how to go from idea to offer. And as part of that, you can also just experiment.
You can experiment a lot. You can start small. I think the wrong thing to do would be to spend months and months on any one particular idea or one offer. I think the better way is to try a bunch of different things or at least explore a bunch of different things. And then that is going to lead you over time to understanding, okay, this is the expertise I have that can be adapted into the Side Hustle world.
Thomas, everybody else out there, like, I am wishing you well. I love hearing stories of people developing ideas and putting them into action. So let me know if something is helpful to you. Let me know if we can be more helpful to you. The show comes out every single day, seven days a week, always completely free.
And you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. That's it for now though. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
