4 Ways to Invest in Your Side Hustle Even if You’re a Beginner
Have you ever said this to yourself:
I don’t need to spend money on my side hustle because I can do it all myself.
I use to say this to myself all the time when I launched my first online side business. After all only I knew how to write the content the way I wanted it written and only I knew how to create the graphics I wanted to create.
I also said the same thing when it came to education. I use to tell myself it would be better if I learned by doing everything myself. After all I didn’t need anyone’s guidance.
How wrong I was.
In this article I’m going to share why you must invest in your side hustle but also share the different ways to go about doing it and where you should start based on your current situation.
So if you are brand new to this whole side hustle thing or you’ve even been running your side hustle for a while and you’ve been thinking about what you should and should not spend money on in your side business read on…
Why You MUST Invest in Your Side Hustle
Here are just a few things you’ll get when you invest in your side hustle:
- You’ll shorten the learning curve
- You’ll be more strategic
- You’ll achieve more in less time
- You’ll grow your side hustle faster
- You’ll earn more
The positives far out weigh the negatives here.
Yeah you could end up wasting some money and you could loose some time but anyone who ever achieved anything had to take a chance.
You have two decisions you can make at this point:
- Path 1: You could not invest in your side hustle and you will grow your business slowly and painfully on a trail and error basis.
- Path 2: You could invest in your side hustle and short cut a lot of the trail and error and hit your goals much faster.
If you’re still sitting on the fence about investing in your side hustle I have a few extra tips for you at the end of this article.
4 Ways to Invest in Your Side Hustle
Below are the four places you can invest in your side hustle.
#1 Tools
One of the first areas you can look to invest towards your business are tools that will improve and make things easier for you. For example, one of the first tools I invested in was a paid WordPress Theme called Thesis.
The reason I bought it was because it allowed me change things on the fly with my site design instead of hiring a programmer to do it all for me.
Another tool I bought was GetResponse which allows me to send and collect emails. This tool allows me to get in contact with the people who want to hear more from me about running a side hustle on a regular basis.
When Should Should You Invest in Tools: When it comes down to investing in tools for your side hustle it’s either to improve a process or make it easier to do.
For example, I could probably use a Gmail account to run my mailing list but I would have to email everyone individually and it would take a lot of time to do it. Instead GetResponse does all the heavy lifting for me so I can focus on more important things.
In the end the tool should be an upgrade to what you already have.
#2 Conferences
Another area to look into is conferences. Conferences are a great way to get to know people in your industry. Today they have a conference for just about anything.
Looking for a conference that talks just about Travel blogging you have TBEX. Looking for a conference for financial bloggers check out FINCON. Need to learn more about social media check out Social Media Marketing World.
You can literally type the topic or niche that you are in and add the word “Conference” behind it and their will likely be a conference you can attend for it.
The best part about these events is that it’s usually full of top notch people you can chat with and learn from.
When Should You Invest in Conferences: The main reason you want to invest in a conference is to network with the people who are there. The sessions are usually the second reason to attend most conferences.
If you’re brand new to your side hustle attending a conference is a great way to get on the radar of people who are in your niche and also meet up with a bunch of people who you didn’t even know were in your niche.
Back in 2014 I attended the FINCON Expo in New Orleans and ended up building some high quality relationships and I even started a mastermind group as a result of just attending that one conference.
#3 Courses
The third way to invest in your business is to buy a course. Buying a course helps you shortcut areas in your business and get ahead faster.
Resource: You can check out all the side hustle courses I recommend here
As an example I’ve bought in upwards of a dozen different courses from starting a blog, to building an email list, to affiliate marketing. The things I’ve learned from these courses has helped me get through difficult issues in my business and get the much needed help.
More than that courses can give you real solid strategies to get you a specific result that you are looking for.
When Should You Invest a Course: If you’re at a crossroads in your business and not sure how to do something or you want to know how to do something better and get the best strategies then investing in a course might be the best way to go.
#4 Help
The final area to invest in your business is to hire some help. Below are just a few different types of people you could hire to help you out with your business…
- Content Writers
- Graphics Designer
- Programmers
- Virtual Assistants
- Web Designers
Believe it or not hiring people to help you out with your business does not have to cost that much. On one of my previous blogs I hired a writing to write one weekly blog post or me roughly 800 words long and it cost me only $15 an article.
When Should You Invest In Help: If you find yourself short on time or you want to offload some of the redundant task that you don’t want to do anymore then investing in people to help you with your side hustle could be the way to go.
Also if you are looking for someone who might be able to offer a more professional touch then this could help you raise the professional look of your business
Where Should You Start Investing in Your Side Hustle?
With the four different ways you could possibly invest towards your side hustle you might be wondering which you should start with. So I’ve put together a few tips to help you out.
#1 It Doesn’t Have to Be Big
To start you don’t have to spend thousands or even hundreds of dollars to invest in your business. My suggestion is to start small and work you’re way up.
For example, when I started my email list I invested in an email service provider like GetResponse which cost me $15. However now that I’m a little farther along in growing my email list I need to learn more about how to grow my list faster.
To do that I signed up to Amy Porterfield’s course List Builder Lab which cost me $297 to shortcut things and avoid a lot of the trial and error.
#2 Start With Where You Are
My second tip is for those of you who need help deciding where to start. To answer that you need to ask yourself this one question.
What is one thing you could do right now that would improve the current situation of your side hustle?
This is a question I ask myself all the time when I don’t know where I should be focusing all of my time in my business. It’s actually something I pulled out of a book I’ve read called The One Thing. (Just giving credit where it’s due)
#3 Be Strategic
Finally, you need to be strategic with things. Don’t buy a whole bunch of stuff all at once. Start simple and pick one thing to focus on.
This is probably one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made over the years is jumping in head first and investing without having any kind of strategy behind it.
The worst thing you can do is buy something just because you have the money to do so. Instead determine what your goals are and then research and choose the tools that align with those goals.
Are You Investing In Your Side Hustle?
Here’s the thing:
Their are a lot of different ways to invest towards your side hustle and grow your side business. The best part is your competition is likely not doing this and it could be a great way to get ahead of them.
So are you investing in your side hustle? If so I would love to hear what tools, courses, conferences, or help you are investing in.
If you’re not investing in your side business, why not? I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.
Cheers!
