Your Nose is the Bridge Leading You from the 9–6 to a Profitable Side-Hustle
Look no further. Our nose is the best natural opportunity pathfinder we can rely on to build a profitable side-hustle.
Every dog has its day. Same for Mr. and Ms. Nosey.
I am a nosey parker. My 9–6 as a Technology Consultant allows me to poke my nose into my clients’ work, issues, problems, and opportunities they do not see.
This is the trick.
Poking your nose into your clients’ work is like placing your fingers on the pulse. You get real-time, genuine data points.
Not only that.
My long nose led me to build side-hustles that are low in costs, play to my strengths, and ultimately work that I enjoy.
This is how you can start building a profitable side-hustle by realizing the potential of your long nose.
Walk Around and Observe What People Are Struggling With
People do not tell you what they are struggling with. Our long noses help us find out.
I have the hall-pass to do this in my day job because I am a consultant. My job is to serve clients by identifying needs and addressing them.
All clients have needs. The key is to identify the real needs from a thick fog of laments and whining. Yes, clients are humans, after all. We complain when things don’t go the way we want them to.
The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.
When I pop by the marketing and operations department in various client offices, I never fail to discover unmet needs.
Take, for instance, the marketing department.
Every marketing director has the same Key Performance Indicator (KPI) problems. Not enough impressions, not enough views, not enough engagements, not enough conversions, not enough branding exposure, yadda-yadda.
We don’t get opportunities from there.
We have to observe the individual contributors.
When we do, we start realizing they only have one genuine problem. That problem is content creation.
This is what I mean:
- Struggling to craft a weekly newsletter — Content creation problem.
- Pulling their hair out to write a product whitepaper people actually read — Content creation problem.
- Churning out daily social media content to boost their brand presence — Content creation problem.
- Design an advertisement that people will pay attention to — Content creation problem.
You get the point.
Many people are concerned about getting their work done before thinking about results. An opportunity arises when you can help people solve work-related needs.
This is What I Do Before Reaching Out
In short, a barrage of research.
I need to know whether any identified opportunity leads to a profitable side-hustle.
Everyone hustles. The point is, we want to build a profitable side-hustle, not a shit-hustle. No one wants to commit 4 hours of work earning peanuts.
I put my long nose at work.
I poke my nose into the freelancer marketplace, such as Upwork, Fiverr. I go search for services that I want to provide and then study that market.
This is what I do:
- Search the freelancing marketplace for what I want to do — Examples include Newsletter-as-a-Service, content copywriting.
- I run through the first 3 pages of the search results — I check for price points, service offers, reviews, and how the top dogs craft their copy.
- I search on Google as well.
- I seek to identify blue oceans where I do not compete with price.
Take note of the last point.
Never ever compete with price. It is a never-ending slippery downslope towards meager income. You can never win a price war.
Instead, focus on solving the client’s problem with accuracy and speed. Premium services come from the correct identification of pain points.
Many freelancers assume they know what the client’s challenges are. They don’t. They do not know their clients enough to sift out the real issues from the smoke and mirrors.
That is how many freelancers get killed with never-ending work revisions.
Avoid that, and the price war.
Reaching Out via Independent Means and Targeting 1-to-1 Communication
You need to be proficient at poking your nose around if you want to build a side-hustle beside your day job.
Let me take the example of the Newsletter-as-a-Service offer I mentioned.
As a consultant, I get to speak to an army of people. Executives are wired to grow their business networks, so getting their contact information is easy.
However, many workplace issues present themselves at the operational level. Middle-level executives are busy with clearing their in-trays and email inbox. They may not be that willing to give away personal contact information and mingle after work.
I have to search for their digital footprints to reach out to them.
This is what I do:
- I go to Linkedin and connect with them. If we are connected, I will send a Direct Message asking for a coffee chat.
- I will go to FaceBook Messager, Twitter DMs, if they do not have a Linkedin profile.
- If I can find their personal email addresses on Linkedin, I will drop them an email instead.
- The last resort is to do What’s App messages. I have dropped this approach recently because connections tell me it was too intrusive to talk shop on platforms meant for personal use. I respect that.
Of the above, Linkedin worked best for me, followed by playing the ping-pong game on emails.
One point to note.
I have the highest success rate of opening a conversation on Linkedin and the highest deal-closing rate via emails.
Summary
I started Newsletter-as-a-Service for 5 marketing executives, running on a subscription basis for the past 3 months.
I did not start this side-hustle because I can write content and newsletters.
I started it because I poked my nose around for viable opportunities.
The highest side-hustle income comes from the ability to solve immediate, pressing problems.
Also, remember to poke your nose into the freelancer marketplace to do your research. The last thing you want is to compete with freelancers making similar service offers at a much lower price point.
Happy nosing around!
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.