Have you ever considered the possibility of not getting a job?
Maybe this is a matter that has been taken out of your hands. Maybe you are currently out of employment.
But the good news is that not only is it very possible to earn money without traditional employment… it’s actually often the smarter and more profitable option!
And moreover, earning money without a job might well just be the future. Many observers suspect that forces such as the internet are likely to force more and more people into working online. It makes more sense for employers to work with freelancers (why be limited the local pool of talent when they can find someone perfectly suited to the job online – without giving up office space or paying for health insurance), and it is potentially much more freeing for the professionals too.
Welcome to the future of work. Welcome to the gig economy.
How to Think About This
So you’re out of a job and now you’re looking at ways to make money online. Perhaps your first port of call is to consider what the best online jobs are, and to look for full time employment that you can do from home.
Or perhaps you’re considering taking one of your skills and selling that online on a permanent freelance basis. You know: becoming a freelance programmer or a coder?
Guess what? That’s still a job. And it’s not quite in the spirit of lifestyle design.
You still have many of the same limitations you would get from working a job:
- You have deadlines to meet
- Clients will breathe down your neck
- You’ll be stuck doing one type of work
- You could be “let go” by your long-term clients
Chances are you’ll end up primarily working for one employer anyway, which is really contracting rather than freelancing!
Instead, what if you had lots of small jobs? What if you did freelance writing, AND you were a freelance programmer, AND you made money from selling an app?
Now you have multiple revenue streams, a very resilient business model, and an excited, varied lifestyle.
In short, you can set up lots of mini businesses and hustles, and end up never tying yourself down to one job.
So what kinds of options do you have?
Selling Services Online
The first? That would be selling a service.
This works the exact same as selling products – because you’re going to create a website and then promote what you’re selling – except you’re not selling a physical product and instead you’re selling your own hard work.
So for instance, if you’re a web designer, you would sell those services and put examples of your work on your site. But maybe you’d rather earn money as a writer? In that case, you can do that too. Other popular options include:
- Being a digital artist
- Writing music for YouTube videos and video games
- Video editing
- Programming.
Your website won’t be the only way you sell this. At the same time, you should also head over to a webmaster form (like Warrior Forum) and post here. Here you can find a large market of website and business owners who will use your services to enhance their business.
Another option is to go onto freelancing sites that include the likes of Freelancer and UpWork.
And guess what? There’s nothing to stop you selling multiple services, or of including some less obvious physical services. I have a friend who has about 20 sites all promoting different services. Sometimes he does SEO, other times he removes pests from business premises!
B2C Services
And note that you can also sell services B2C, meaning that you are selling them direct to members of the general public. Great options include:
- Mowing lawns/cutting hair/teaching piano (market yourself on Fcaebook and by word of mouth)
- Personal training (in person, or via Skype)
- Life coaching
- Business consultation
- Portrait painting!
Create a business on eBay with no experience
Here’s a super easy business model that anyone can use and that can earn you a lot of money.
All you’re going to need is an eBay account and the very smallest amount of capital to use as an upfront investment.
So what you’re going to do to start with is just to buy yourself a small number of items cheaply. The best way to do this is normally from a wholesale site. These sites sell things in bulk at discount rates. The best option is something called Alibaba.com.
Alternatively, you can get cheaper one-off items from garage sales even from second hand shops. If necessary, you can then add value by bundling them together or by somehow increasing their quality.
From here, you’re now going to list those items on eBay and sell them for slightly more per unit than you paid for them.
Once they’re all sold, you should find you have some profit. What you’re now going to do is to reinvest that profit by buying a slightly bigger batch of items. Alternatively, you might buy another type of item in bulk and then sell the two together to appeal to a wider audience.
To start with, you can promote these items through eBay itself and maybe to your friends through Facebook etc.
As you grow though, you might then invest in more promotional channels, whether that means building a website or whether it means paying for advertising.
Eventually, your inventory will grow and grow and so will your revenue. Eventually you’ll probably need to find somewhere to store all your stock and at this point, you’ll have a full-time business. It really couldn’t be any easier!
Tip: If you make a big enough order, you can actually discuss with manufacturers on Alibaba the potential of adding your own branding to items, or even altering the products altogether!
This is considered by many to be the perfect business model…
Whether you’re an internet marketer, a business owner or just someone looking to make a quick buck online; I’m about to share with you a business model that many consider to be perfect.
And it’s called ‘drop shipping’. What this basically means is that you’re going to be selling a product on behalf of a warehouse or a manufacturer (again, through Alibaba) and you’ll be keeping a commission for your efforts. Most likely you’ll split the profit 50/50 which is what’s known as ‘keystone pricing’.
Where things get interesting though, is that you also allow that company to handle the order fulfilment for you and you get to include your branding on the packaging etc. In other words, the consumer believes that it’s you who is making and selling the product and never has any reason to suspect otherwise. But in fact, you’re actually having to do very little yourself in order to complete the sales – you’re really just handling the promotion and then passing on the sales!
It’s easy to see why this is considered the perfect business model as it really is a win/win from your perspective as a seller. Now you get to sell a product and keep most of the profit but you don’t have to do any work. This is the best bits of a reseller, an OEM and an affiliate marketer all rolled into one.
Amazon FBA
Amazon FBA is a concept that is similar to dropshipping. This stands for “Fulfilment By Amazon” and essentially, it’s a program that
Have you thought of using Kickstarter?
In case you’re not familiar with it, Kickstarter is a ‘crowdfunding’ platform. That means that you can get people to fund an idea you have by volunteering to put forward some money and normally this is in exchange for a pre-order, or for some kind of special deal or bonus.
The Oculus Rift began life on Kickstarter. So did the Pebble Watch.
But for a savvy businessman or woman, this can be used for a number of things. For instance, if you want to create a video series on how to make money online… then you could use Kickstarter to get funding to get that idea off the ground. This way, you’ll get pre-orders and free promotion for your idea and you could earn a lot more money than you would do otherwise.
Some bloggers have even successfully used these sites to fund their blogging activities. Penny Arcade for instance ran a campaign to offer the blog ad-free and was successful.
Think outside the box and try something like Kickstarter for a new way to potential earn big!
Of course, you could also just use Kickstarter to fund a product idea. This is actually far more doable than you might previously have thought. Again, you can discuss directly with manufacturers on Alibaba the potential of creating something bespoke with your logo, and then ordering in bulk.
If you plan on creating something really unique, then you’ll need to think about a few more things. That means you’ll need a BOM (Bill Of Materials) that lists all of the individual parts and materials, along with a functional specifications or product requirement document. You’ll also need a 3D design, fortunately there are sites that can help you out with this, such as Idea Bounty and CAD Crowd.
Selling Digital Products
Finally, I’m going to look at one more option for creating passive income (that money that you generate while sleeping).
That’s to sell digital products. Digital products include anything that you don’t actually have to store or send (which significantly lowers your costs, and means you can make 100% profit from your fee). Great examples include:
- Ebooks
- Apps
- Online courses
If you want to sell something like an online course, then the best option is to build a website or social media account, and then to use this to become an influencer. From there, you’ll find it’s surprisingly easy to convince people to pay for information you can provide.
Selling apps or ebooks can work differently. Here, you might opt to go through one of the bigger distribution platforms. For example, if you sell an eBook on Kindle, then you can reach the huge audience that Amazon has on that platform. Choose a title that will appeal to people and you might come up at the top of search results.
Likewise, you can use the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to sell your apps. Creating an app is surprisingly easy with the help of a developer, or a tool – you don’t even need prior coding experience. Either way though, you’ll be able to generate income by solving a problem and those sales will continue with no further input on your part once the business is in motion.
Digital products and passive income work brilliantly as a companion to selling services and other gigs that require you to invest time on a consistent basis.
There are so many ways you could be making money…
Hopefully, what you’ve seen is that there are countless ways to start making money online. What’s awesome about this is that you don’t even need to be limited to just one of them. There’s nothing to stop you from selling services, selling products on eBay and running a blog.
The other great thing? Very few people are doing all these things. These business opportunities are wide open for you to get started.
If you want to get involved just as a hobby and earn some extra money on the side then this is a great option. Otherwise though, any of these can be entire businesses and make you a lot of money.
If all this is starting to get you feeling excited, then you can find a large number of in-depth guides to making money right here on this site. We’ve even included investment opportunities like real estate and stocks. If you combine smart investment with a combination of great hustles and passive income streams, then there is really no need to get a “job” per say. Why box yourself in? Earn a living doing a variety of exciting things you love!
