How to Start Your Online Side-Hustle in 4 Steps

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Welcome to The Growth Innovator. Exclusive content where I showcase how to start, grow, and monetize a 1-person online business through organic content in 2024.

Today’s Email:

• Addressing the Problem

• Your Target Audience

• The “Differentiation” Approach

• Becoming the Center of Attention

• TL;DR + The Growth OS

Alright, Let’s Innovate:

Before you start your side hustle (or continue building one), here’s what many creators are missing during the process:

1. They focus too much on “best tools or tech.”

2. They focus on the things that don’t matter (posting times, etc).

3. They find ways to prolong the process (waiting for an editor, etc).

4. They focus on a skill they aren’t proficient in.

These are super common. As someone who’s built an online business, posted content, and been in the online world for ten years, I made the same mistakes.

Here’s how you can start a side hustle in just four steps:

Addressing the Problem

First, you can’t go with the “super broad” approach. This doesn’t work.

If you’re selling the outcome of “live financially free and travel the world,” you need more specifics. It lacks what you need to target a specific audience.

Instead, you could try something like:

Helping young adults build a business on LinkedIn while traveling the world.

The goal is to target a super specific problem that, for this example, young adults who are traveling the world have. Ask yourself this:

• What problems are my ideal client facing?

• What challenges keep them from improving?

• What stands in their way from finding success?

Once clear, you can build a system to create, target, and capitalize on your ideal clients.

Your Target Audience

Next, you need to figure out who your ideal client is.

• What are their interests?

• What content do they consume?

• What do they value the most?

• What is their personality?

• What is relatable to them?

Going back to the example I shared above, let’s break down some specific trains that could help young adults achieve financial freedom while traveling:

1. Lifestyle: They work on the go and constantly find it hard to have any time to build the business.

2. Values: They love helping others, meeting new people, and enjoying the ability to have time, location, and financial freedom.

3. Personality: They have a strong working mindset but also enjoy the thrill of traveling.

4. Interests: They are interested in automation, building systems, and turning the “work/life balance” into “life” instead.

This is how you can niche down on the topic you’re creating for.

It’s often better to serve a small group than be too vague.

The “Differentiation” Approach

Next, how will you be different?

Try this:

1. Use your unique background and experiences: If you’ve had any successes as a creator, a student, or a 9-5 worker, you can use that to showcase your uniqueness. Your personal stories and life highlights are fantastic ways to share your story.

2. Create a combination of different services: Instead of providing 1:1 coaching like most creators do, build out a product/service that breaks down exactly what your audience needs. This could be a 3-month coaching program, a cohort, you name it. Bundle them together to maximize the value you can provide.

3. Build a system that hits every point your audience has: Every day that you create content, post videos, or send DMs, constantly target what your audience is struggling with. Create solutions to known problems.

4. Highlight why you are different: Constantly point out what makes you stand out from the rest of LinkedIn. Why should people buy from you? Why should people listen to you?

Build a story online that your audience can’t wait to unravel.

Becoming the Center of Attention

Now it’s time to attract your audience (the fun part).

Here’s how I’d approach this:

1. Completely redesign your social media: Your social media profiles are at the top of the funnel. Showcase what you do, who you do it for, and what success your past clients have seen. The more specific you are, the easier it is to turn prospects into clients.

2. Find where your ideal clients “hang out”: For this step, I’d search on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn for the top keywords for your niche. Find 5-10 creators on each platform that target the problems you are solving. Spend time engaging with these creators to steal their prospects.

3. Mass produce content like a machine: Quality + quantity = the fastest possible growth. If you think everything you post online has to be perfect, then it’s time to change that mindset.

Remember this: don’t use social media to get “tons of impressions” or to “copy the biggest creators” on the platform.

Be yourself.
Share your story.
And help as many people as you can.

This is how you’ll stand out.

My “overnight success” took over six years. Don’t forget that.

Want to Keep Going?

If you are ready to grow a massive audience on LinkedIn while selling digital products, consider checking out The Growth OS.

This 90-minute course will help you develop hundreds of content ideas, create organic content that consistently gets you new leads from social media, build a system to develop weekly newsletter content, utilize templates for growth, gain daily subscribers/followers, and run through building your personalized website.

Join 807 satisfied students here.

TL;DR:

Now that you’ve gone through the full post, here’s what to do next:

1. Choose a skill that you can capitalize on.

2. Find the problems your “ideal clients” have.

3. Build a system to target your “target audience.”

4. Attract, don’t chase. Quality + quantity.

5. Create an irresistible profile on social media.

6. Build a bundle of products/services.

Never get comfortable with what you’re doing. Always look for ways to improve your business online.

I’ll see you next Wednesday!

Cheers,

Alex