How to Fuel Your Entrepreneurial Mind | Breaking Down Side Income Strategies

What's up, Believe Nation? Today we're going to talk about 7 new ways to make money on the side. So I get asked this question a lot: how do I make money on the side? How do I turn, you know, my job into a business that then I can get my side hustle up first and then create a full-time income off of that? Or how do I take How can I take my business and add something a little bit on the side to help me grow? So today I'm going to give you my 7 ways for making money on the side. Way number 1 is to volunteer. Wait, what? I thought you said I'm making money on the side, now you're telling me to volunteer? Volunteering and creating spec work is one of the greatest ways to get opportunities to help you develop a relationship. So as an example, I look at videos. You guys like my videos. You're watching this video now. One of the guys that did some video work, his name was Rich, and he started off by making a Believe, Buy, You Gotta Love on the channel, and he volunteered and created that video for me. Since then, he's come in and done some videos on spec where he was on camera and he was also behind the camera filming. I've done some videos for his channel, and we expanded that to him getting paid to create some videos for the channel. He was into a certain kind of video, some motivational videos, and he had an idea that matched up with something I wanted to create, and then I hired him to make some videos for the channel. And so that spec work, that volunteer work, led to a relationship, which led to me hiring him. Sticking with the video world, I think about Gary Vaynerchuk and how his videographer, a guy named DRock, pitched him on doing a video series, saying, "Hey, I think you should be filming your content. I think you gotta be out there. You're a thought leader. I wanna help. I'm a videographer." He did one project. He did one video. I think it was the Clouds and Dirt video on Gary's channel, and it took off and it did well, and Gary loved it. He said, "You know what, I like this. I'm gonna hire you to come on and be—" It ended up being a full-time job, full-time career for him, and it worked. And so a lot of times to get in the door, you gotta prove yourself, and a great way to be able to do it is to volunteer or do some spec work to show that, listen, I got talents, I got skills. It helps build your portfolio, but ideally you're working with companies and with people who can turn into paying clients after the initial project is done. Number 2 is to be a connector. I'd be looking at what are some opportunities that are out there where I could be a salesperson for with businesses or individuals that I know have a need. So as an example, I look at here, Toronto Dance Salsa. One of my assistants at the school, her name is Claudia, she has a business where she's reselling internet services, and so she's talking to the companies that she's connected with, and I want to help her out. I'm actually paying more to work with Claudia than I would for my normal internet provider because I want to support her. I want to support her business, her mission, what she's on. And she has a full-time job, and this may become something that becomes a bigger part of her career path, and maybe it doesn't. But I'm doing it because I want to support her, and all she's doing is being a connector, right? She introduced me to the service provider. And she gets a monthly commission for every time I spend money, you know, paying my monthly internet bill. And so you can do that. You can look at who is already in your network who you know has a need, go help them solve that problem, and take a commission off of every sale that's made. If you really love doing that and you go all in on it, that can be your start. Just start selling other services and taking commission at the start. But the more you get to know these businesses, the more you care about helping them, the more you really understand their problems, The more pain that you see there, the more of an opportunity it creates for you to find other services to help them. So you don't have to create anything from scratch at the start. You're just being a connector, bringing two parties together who could use each other. Number 3 is extend somebody else's offering. So whatever product or service that you can potentially bring to a company, I'd be looking at how can I extend somebody's existing offering. So can you build an app? For somebody who, you know, is a thought leader and wants to get into potentially the app business. You know, if you sell t-shirts, can you be the t-shirt provider for this person who now can potentially expand their business, right? Like at TDS, we're looking at bringing in t-shirts for the students and for the instructions and for the helpers. I'm actually struggling to find a local company that doesn't suck with their service to give money to, to help me make t-shirts, right? So can you look at how can you extend somebody's current business help them make more money, help them grow into a new market by working with you on a new potential project. If it's too far outside their realm, then maybe it's not a fit. But if there's a natural logical extension of their business, then it's worth reaching out and showing what you can do. Number 4, sell your sawdust. I'd be looking at what are the things that you are doing in your day-to-day activities, things that you throw away that you may be able to sell. So as an example, look at my high school cafeteria. And one of the things that we would do back in high school, back in the day, is any extra food we had, we would throw into a special garbage bin. So we'd have a garbage bin for the garbage and a garbage bin for the food. And then the school sold that excess food to farms where they would feed it to pigs and other animals. And so selling your sawdust is an analogy for selling your garbage, selling your waste product. Sawdust was considered a waste product, right? You're cutting wood, there's sawdust on the floor, that's garbage, you throw it away. You realize, hey, like, I could actually sell that and make some money off of it. So look at your current process, look at what you're currently making in your business as a product or service, and look at the things that you just take for granted, things that you just throw away, things that is just considered a waste product, and see how can I potentially sell that to other people. So another example is people who are selling ebooks based off their knowledge. So people who have built up a business, they've created a successful YouTube channel, and the product is the YouTube videos, right? The product is the things that you consume on a daily, daily basis on YouTube. The sawdust would be the entire process of picking the right camera and getting better on camera themselves and the gear and the strategy and the SEO and all that stuff. That can be turned into an ebook, it can be turned into a mastermind session, it can be turned into coaching, it can be turned into a physical book, right? It's the byproduct of your actual product or service. So the stuff that you know, the stuff that you maybe take for granted, the stuff that you're just throwing away or saying, ah, like, I know that already, can be turned into a product or service that you could sell to others. Number 5 is solve a problem. And at the end of the day, business is about solving problems. If somebody has a problem and you can find a solution for them, then you're in business. And it may not be a massive business at the start, but if you're looking at your friends, you're looking at your family, you're looking at your community, the people who are already around you, when they're complaining about something, when they're frustrated about something, which is— how many conversations have you had with people where they're complaining, right? Lots. Every time you hear somebody complain complaining, look for an opportunity. Like, here's a friend of mine who is in pain, who has a need. Huh, can I help them solve that? Is there an opportunity here? Does it line up with something that I'm excited about that I might be able to guide them through? Because if you can solve a problem for a friend, or if you solve a problem for yourself, if somebody's willing to pay for it, one person's willing to pay for it, you know, a thousand people willing to pay for it, and it can be the start of a new business. Number 6 is get a part-time job. And again, you may be thinking, what? I thought this is about how to make money on the side as an entrepreneur. Listen, one of the best things that you can do to get an education as an entrepreneur is to go work for somebody who's done what you want to do. Yes, there is definitely value in you being out and you hustling, you trying to learn everything yourself and being in the business. There's also a ton you can learn from somebody who's already done it. And so if I had a business and I wasn't making the money that I wanted to, wasn't having the impact that I wanted to, felt like I should be growing a lot faster than I currently was, I would go try to find somebody who is in that business, who has 10 employees or less, who's a company that I look up to, that I would want to be in a couple years, and find a way to work with them. Find even some part-time thing to work for them, freelance, outsource my services to them, to be a part of their ecosystem, to get as close to the founder as possible. Because the point of getting the job is not just the money, it's to learn. It's to understand how that industry works, how they get business, how they get customers, how they've grown. And take that back to make your business stronger. And so getting a part-time job can be a great way to invest in yourself, not just to make a paycheck, but to get the education while getting paid. Normally you pay for education. Here you are getting paid to learn and make yourself better as an entrepreneur. And number 7 is build a foundation. I think too many people, when they're looking at making money on the side, are just looking for some quick cash, something that's totally unrelated, something they don't really care about or have a passion about. And if that's your mindset, then you're always going to be stuck there. You're always going to be in like the next quick deal, the next quick cash, the next small thing, and you're always doing small deal to small deal to small deal. Where if you want to have ultimate success, it's going to come from building something bigger, and it starts with having a foundation. So a YouTube channel is an example, right? You may start it off, and at the beginning you're not getting a ton of return, right? You're not making a lot of money off advertising, you're not getting a lot of traction, partly because you're still working on your own skills, because you're not great at being a YouTuber yet. It's okay, it's a start. Expect to suck at the start, that's what happens. But you're building a foundation. If you keep working at it, you keep getting better, you keep improving, you keep grinding, you keep hustling, it builds and it builds and it builds and it builds, and you start making more money and you start making more collaborations and you start getting more brand deals, you start getting more opportunities. Because every day you've taken a step forward that you can turn this side thing at the start, which I'm going to start this YouTube channel on the side, which was for me, my YouTube channel was a side hustle. I had my business and YouTube was something that I wanted to experiment with and try. And I tried it and I improved, improved, improved, improved. I took a break for a while. I came back to it, improved, improved, improved, improved. And now it's a significant chunk of what I do or where I spend my time. And so I always have an eye towards if I'm picking something that I want to do on the side, it's leading towards something bigger. Because if it's not leading towards something bigger, then I'm always going to be stuck playing the small game, always going to be stuck doing the small deals, and I'm never going to reach anything massive. So those are my thoughts, my 7 ways to make money on the side, some new ideas for you. Hopefully you enjoyed them. I'd love to know what did you think? What was your favorite rule? What are you going to try to implement in your business, your life? Also, did I miss an 8, 9, 10? Is there something you want to add to the list that has helped you, that you want to bring value to Believe Nation? I'd really appreciate it. Leave it down in the comments below and we'll join in the discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.