5 Tips to Start a Side Hustle Even if You Have No Profitable Skills

Recently a few people have emailed me and said they wanted to start a side hustle but claimed they had no profitable skills they could use to jump-start their business.

While I can agree because I started out in the same way I also know there are still a bunch of different ways to start a side hustle even if you have no profitable skills.

In fact, my very first side hustle started out this way all the way back in 2004.  I joined a multilevel marketing business selling life insurance and investments.

Now I had no clue how all that stuff worked or even how I was going to sell it but I knew that I could learn how to do it over time if I worked at it and that is exactly what I did.

Over time I learned a lot, I got my insurance license, and my securities license, and before I knew it I was selling financial products.

So what is my point here?

You can start a side hustle and do whatever you want.  Just because you don’t know how to do Photoshop or HTML programming, doesn’t mean you can’t teach the people or help them with it.

So to help you get started I compiled this list of tips you can use to help you get your side hustle going even if you don’t have any profitable skills then in next week’s article I’m going to share several side hustles you can start without knowing any technical and profitable skills.

So let’s get to it.

Tip #1: You Only Need To Know a Little More than the Next Person

The first tip is that you don’t need to be the quote, unquote guru of a specific topic.  You don’t need to have years of research and experience under your belt to teach a specific topic.

Nope.

All you need to know is just a little bit more than the next person and you teach it to someone else.  A good example of this for me would be Microsoft Excel.  I know how to use it but I certainly don’t know everything about it.

The thing is I know the basics and I’m sure I could teach the basics to someone else if I played around with it enough I’m sure I could learn enough to be an Excel master.

So, what is something you know the basics of and could teach to someone else?

Tip #2: Find Something You Want to Learn About

The second tip is to consider learning something brand new.  If you don’t have any profitable or technical skills you can teach someone, you actually have a great opportunity in front of you.

What do you want to learn about and teach to others?  The great thing about this is that is you get to make the choice and that’s one of the funniest parts about starting a side hustle is picking what you want to do.

I can think of several things I want to learn more about and teach to others from SEO to doing Periscope.  I’m sure there is something you like to do in your spare time that you could turn into a side hustle.

The trick is you just have to dig a little to get to the meat of it.  Sometimes it just may not be blatantly obvious what you should do so here are a few things you could do.

• Ask a Friend.  Talk to a few of your closest friends and ask them what you think I’m good at or know a lot about.  Close friends will know these things about you and usually share them.
• What do People Commonly Ask Advice for?  Think about the questions people ask you.  What do they commonly ask you for advice on or help with?  A lot of times these are issues that people are looking for others to solve and you could be that person.

So take a moment now and write these ideas down, and remember no idea is a bad idea.

Tip #3: Start With Beginners

My next tip is not a strategy to help you come up with ideas but rather a simple rule to follow as you look for a niche you can serve and that is to start with beginners.

A lot of people think you need to be some advanced guru and that is definitely not the case.  The best place you need to start is with beginners simply because there are always going to be more of them than advanced people.

A good example of this is this blog.  The people I target in my business are people who want to start a side hustle or have just started a side hustle and need a little guidance to get it up and going.

I don’t focus on people who make more than $10,000 a month for one very simple reason, I haven’t earned that much with my side business.

However I do know what it’s like to make $1000 per month because I have done that, and that is why stick to beginners.

Now at some point when I am making a bigger income I could certainly focus on that advanced group but for now, I only want to help beginners get their side hustle up and running and making money.

Tip #4: Give People a Path to Follow

Tip four is to give people a step-by-step path to follow that will help them achieve whatever it is you want them to achieve.

Whether you’re doing blog editing or multilevel marketing people want to be led down a path that helps them solve their problems and the better you can do this the more success you will have.

Giving people a path to follow can happen in a few different ways but the best way I’ve found to do this is by educating people in small doses.  As a good example of this just look at this blog.

Each week I come out with one new weekly article that educates you on how to start a side hustle and start earning extra side income with it.

From there I send out a series of 5 to 7 emails through my autoresponder over the next week that goes even deeper.  Now I plan to do more and add products to this at some point but in the beginning, you just want to give people a basic path that will help them get started.

Tip #5: Look for Problems You Solved in the Past

The final tip is to consider problems you’ve solved in the past for people.  What have you helped people do to solve a problem for them?

Did you help someone fix their bike, mow their lawn, or remove viruses and malware from someone’s computer?  All these things are problems that can be solved and who better than you?

I used to do this when I started my first blog.  People contacted me to write articles for them here and there and for $25 an article it wasn’t a bad gig starting out.

The thing is problems are everywhere and if you can identify a problem and you know how to solve it for people I’m sure you could make some money with it.

So take a moment and write down any problems you’ve solved in the past for people.

Wrapping Up

By now you may have a few ideas popping in your head that you could do but if you still haven’t come up with anything yet don’t worry.

In next week’s article I’m going to share several side hustles you can do that don’t require any technical or profitable skills to start.

Cheers!