Five Quiet Skills to Help Transform Your Side Hustling Fortunes

My more successful friends credit these skills for their success

In the digital empire where the side hustle is king, the more of the right skills you can master, the more money you’re likely to make, and the bigger your territory of dominance.

That’s why when you see someone making it big in their small ways, you pay attention to the skills helping bring in those successes.

Among my few friends, I’ve identified some shining stars, those exemplary colleagues crushing it in their respective freelancing fields — photography, writing, graphic designing.

I’ve always enjoyed speaking with them, and anytime I do, I pick up a few clues they sprinkle into the conversation. Here are a few skills they credit for their success in their side hustles.

Knowing how to handle the family and friends conundrum

The argument about dealing with family and friends in business keeps raging.

And look, every situation is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But the best you can do is have a solid system to handle those cases when they come up.

That’s why my super successful friends think answering that riddle starts with clearly communicating conditions to everyone involved -friends, kin, business partners (if any).

To charge or not to charge them for your services? If yes, by how much?

My friends wouldn’t tell me exactly how they handle every issue, as they think every friendship, every family bond is different and must be tackled on a case-by-case basis.

But Frank, a graphic designer, gushes he’s only thankful he has a solid approach for dealing with that. Another, Cee, says she’s happy she had that nailed even before the business got going.

Whatever your case may be, learn to set expectations with friends and family ASAP to avoid nasty surprises down the line.

Assembling a team of advisors

Not the black suit types on Wall Street. Or a team of corporate lawyers on the 50th floor of a downtown office billing $450/hour. Nothing wrong with either option if you can afford it. In most cases, you’ll get the bang for your buck.

But since that’s probably not your market just yet, let’s take our gaze away from horizons afar to nearby. In many solopreneur side hustles, one person plays every role in the rulebook — CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, MD, to name a few. And that could be draining.

While she’s built solid accountability and grit from that, my friend, who sells ladies’ shoes and wigs, told me how she’s informally assembled a team of advisors around her for free.

Her kid sister and mother are the two people she relies on for lots of advice. She turns to a few friends once in a while when those two don’t seem to make sense.

You can also assemble yours for free. Just don’t say you’re making them special advisors.

Your family, your friends, your ex-colleagues, and your neighbors could prove deep reserves of insights. They don’t need to have five-figure businesses to their names. But they may sure know a thing or thing you’re too preoccupied to notice.

That retired banker next door could offer you tips on finance. Don’t disregard the insights of your neighbor who does the backbreaking job in the informal sector.

Even that cocky colleague at the office probably knows a bit more about marketing than you do. Reach out to them once in a while and ask for their suggestions, especially when it’s time to make crucial decisions.

Walking the patience-impatience tightrope

There’s a place for patience in running your side hustle. You need to bide your time and attract the right client. That’s the side of the long game, waiting till the fruits of your efforts ripen.

But there’s also the time to ditch patience and get impatient when the need arises. You need to know when to take the initiative and jump ahead of people before others do.

Some customers will respect your laid-back approach to wooing them, while others will only budge after your incessant badgering. What works for one may scare off the other.

So it means developing a knack for reading your customers’ preferences and knowing which move to make. And when. Like my friends, you must master the skill of walking that patience-impatience tightrope.

That’s easier said than done, but that’s where some of my friends excel.

Building on the familiar

Tech companies love the term disruption. But not every industry lends itself to massive amounts of disruption; not every space thrives on the wonders of disruption.

My friends learned this a while ago, and they’re careful of the total revolution in their services.

Instead, they believe in incremental change. They’ve mastered the skill of going from the known to the unknown, the familiar instead of the unfamiliar.

They embody the most advanced yet acceptable principle.

You could argue the biggest disrupters have made the most money over the last several decades, but how many failures do you think we have for every unsuccessful disruption attempt?

Cross playing

Many people falsely assume running a successful business in the age of the side hustle is starkly different from the old mom-and-pop establishments out there.

You may operate in different industries, but the fundamentals may be the same. Even if the application may vary, the tips may always be similar.

For example, Jude, my mate from high school, runs a side hustle that sells hair cream. She shared how she was not shy about stealing tips from roadside food vendors and adapting these tips to suit his online side hustles.

It was about copying a double entendre name for her product. It’s popular among many university students around town, and business is flying like a kite.

You also need the skill of modifying tips from other industries to suit your case.

Closing thoughts

For many freelancers and side hustlers just getting started, my successful friends have blazed the trail by mastering some skills they credit the most for their success.

It’s impossible to put them all in one article. Besides, you already know many of these points anyway. This post is only a reminder to those who’ve let some of these tips slip from their fingertips.

Pick them back up, dust them up, and see how many of them could serve your interests.