Make Money Online - Don’t Forget Your Existing Skills
December 6th, 2007 by Stephen Cronin (5,026 views)A lot of my favourite blogs discuss making money online. I’ve been plotting how I can get in on the action - but I recently had a revelation. While reading about the many different strategies, I’d lost sight of what’s most likely to make me decent money online: leveraging my existing skill set.
Do I Want To Make Money Online?
Yes! When I started this blog, the purpose wasn’t to make money from it. I only wanted to cover my hosting costs. Slowly, I’ve started thinking it would be nice to make more money from it. Maybe take my family out to dinner. Maybe pay for a holiday. Maybe, just maybe, even make a living online…
Why the change in my goals? Because I read so many blogs that discuss making money. That’s right - I’m blaming you guys!
So What Ideas Have You Been Putting Into My Head?
There are a lot of great posts out there about making money online.
Some cover strategies that could generate extra income from this blog, such as Affiliate Marketing, creating and selling an ebook or information product, sponsored posts or displaying ads from WidgetBucks, TLA, Kontera, etc.
Others involve creating additional sites. For example: building niche mini sites and promoting them through article marketing or starting an online store.
All of these sound possible to me. I’m convinced I could successfully implement these strategies. In fact, I’m planning to put more than one of these into place in the near future (but that’s a story for another day).
No Magic Solutions
One thing has stood out with everything I’ve read. None of these strategies will make me rich overnight. Many people point out that making money online is not an easy business. It’s possible, but it’s hard work and slow progress.
So, let’s stop for a minute. I’m spending lots of time learning something new, which is going to be hard work and take time to pay off? That’s fine. But why not make money from what I already know? I should be able to start earning right away. I’d forgotten the simplest route.
Leveraging Your Existing Skill Set
It will be different for everyone, but I’m sure that everyone has some skill or talent that they can leverage to make money online.
Think about your skills. Are you an SEO expert? Provide a website review service. A niche marketer? Provide a consulting service for starters. An architectural assistant? Do some freelance work. Get the picture?
Of course, many people do this already, but I haven’t seen anyone writing about it as a way to make money online. I’m not sure if it’s because people think it’s obvious or whether it’s not glamorous enough. Maybe it’s because there’s not as much mileage in telling people to do what they already know!
Whatever the reason, if you’re not utilising your skills you need to think about how you may be able to do this.
Argument Against Leveraging Your Skill Set
There is an argument against offering services which use your skill set: In most cases, it won’t lead to passive income. To keep the revenue stream going, you will have to actively keep working.
It may be better to spend the time developing passive income streams, which only require minimal work to maintain.
But There Are Follow-on Benefits
In addition to the immediate monetary benefits, there are follow-on benefits of offering services based on your skill set.
Providing services can help you position yourself as an expert in your niche, driving your blog forward and leading to greater opportunities down the line. It’s likely to lead to loyal readers, higher traffic, increased advertising income, higher sales of ebooks and so on.
How I’m Going To Leverage My Skill Set
What skills do I have? I can write WordPress plugins and develop websites.
I have other skills too, but these are the ones I think will best translate into online income. When I answered a WordPress Plugin Rewrite Challenge, I realised there’s a market for custom WordPress plugins and plugin modification that I can tap into.
I’m now offering services, including custom WordPress development. I’m not expecting to make a lot of money (one plan is free!), but it’s more likely to provide an immediate revenue stream than the other strategies are. I’ll persist with those as well, but services offer better short term value for me.
The Final Word
If you don’t offer services based on your existing skill set, you need to consider what services you could offer. By all means, pursue other ways of making money online, but don’t pass up an option which may lead to easy money.
What do you think? Let me know if you agree, or if you think I’m wrong!
Tags: make money online, monetization, services, skills
Awesome. I knew you’d finally see the light.
Stephen:
Great post! Personally, make money online requires not just your skills. It also require you to be creative, be motivated and be ahead of everyone.
For me, I am willing to take on any challenge to learn anything that can help me to reach the goal. I am starting from scratch to learn Internet Marketing. It’s impossible to do everything yourself. So I have to grow with the flow and let someone to do the job that I was good at it.
Skill is important, but it’s more important to use your skills to build a network and get together a group of people to work for you. You will running into situation that your skills is the cause of growing pain.
Since you are in China, you have the best resource available around you.
Have you thought about outsourcing programming to China? There are many talent Chinese programmers who can create program very fast for you. What you need is become the software architect. You manage your programmers to do what you need.
I am seeking a co-founder opportunity to lead a really money to our bank account. I have the idea, but now I need someone to write a program for me.
Interested?
RT, thanks to you! It was important to me to keep the option for free modifications, like the SSF one, open.
Terence, you’re right about needing to be creative and motivated. Also networking is very important too. I agree with everything you’re saying. But I’m not going to outsource the programming (at this point), because I enjoy it! If things really take off, I’d consider that option - but this isn’t entirely about making money yet. As for the opportunity, shoot me an email with some details and we can discuss it.
[…] friendly blogger of mime recently post the Make Money Online - Don’t Forget Your Existing Skills on his More Than Scratch The Surface blog. One of the sign that you are not acting faster than your […]
I agree, that services are key to making money online. But i disagree and think that writing good content can be a service in itself. I like your points.
But it is also important to chose or offer a service that is in high demand and has minimal competition. So its good for people to do a lot of research before they offer a service.
spot on - too many people try to make money online by doing something that they’ve never done before, have no knowledge of etc - then they wonder why no one reads their blog and why it doesn’t succeed - start with something you know and can naturally leverage and you’re in a much better position.
Nice post - glad to have found your blog today.
Darren, Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you agree. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it - but I admit I lost sight of it for a while and many others do too. There aren’t many posts on leading with your strengths, while there are a seemingly endless supply of posts on the strategies mentioned above. It’s easy to get a bit carried away.
Andy, I agree that it’s important to research demand and competition, etc. I’m leading with custom WordPress plugins because there is less competition than I’d face with generic web development. Everyone needs to try to find an angle that maximises the demand for their services.
[…] writes a post on making money online by leveraging your existing skills. Like I commented in it - “too many people try to make money online by doing something that […]
Yes I have various irons in the fire and I’m pondering how best to make some money. I am thinking it through and reading your post reminds me that when I started I had a certain market in mind and I need to go back to that.
Hi Defog, I’m sure there are lots of us who could do with a little refocusing. Thanks for stopping by and good luck with your endeavours.
Thanks for the re-focus.
In fact, writings based around my “core skills” (that I do in my job each day) actually bring in more income from a blog which I stopped writing for over a year ago, than the blogs that I have started since then!
Time to get busy.
Thanks!
[…] Don’t forget your existing skills when trying to make money online […]
When I decided to Blog I had a idea that was unique and allowed me to take advantage of my skills. There are so many blogging about the same thing I really wanted to be a expert at what I do. I only visit blogs I feel that have a expert voice.
good stuff everyone. I’m still trying to figure out how to leverage my existing skills. I come from an artistic background as an actor/director, but it’s such an unstable income and I’m trying to build other revenue streams.
I’ve been blogging about artist issues and artist housing, live/work housing. Everyone I know tells me I have great content, but I still have no readership, so it’s a little disheartening. It’s building slowly, but I’ve hit a plateau and still don’t make much money.
Still trying to figure out how to leverage my existing skills and knowledge for my blog.
Tao, great point! I was thinking in terms of offering services - but why not apply this to the content itself. The more I think about it, the more I think I should have titled the post “Lead With Your Strengths”, because that’s what we’re really talking about. You’ll get the best results by playing to your strengths.
Moviecat, you’re site is definitely unique! It took me a minute to work out what was going on, but wow - it’s definitely worth checking out. I also agree that you have to put yourself into what you do and try to find a unique angle.
Cory, I’m not sure I can help, as I don’t really know your skills or the industry you come from, but here’s a stab in the dark: YouTube marketing is all the rage these days - if you could put together a short movie that’s ‘cool’, you could use that to drive a YouTube marketing service for blogs / websites. Of course, you could also use something like that to give your own site a boost. Might not be feasible, but who knows?
Great post. As someone preparing to begin blogging, I appreciate the important reminder that I’m sure many bloggers take for granted.
Hi Stephen,
I’ve really enjoyed watching your blog develop and this latest is really pleasing to see.
I’ve always thought that your technical knowledge and ability could be put to great use online. As you say, it may not be residual income but if you’re doing what you love and getting paid for it, kudos to you and I wish you every success as you move forward with it. As far as I’m concerned you are truly deserving of that success and a great blogger!
To have scored a comment from Mr Rowse must have made you smile too
I’ve had some strange successes and failures when trying to make money online, but I’m sure you’ll be back to read about those as time goes by.
Anyway - once again, here’s to your successful pursuit of online money!!
Mo
Chris C, Thanks for stopping by and I’m glad this helps.
Mo, Thanks. Yes, I got a smile when I saw Darren had left a comment (and then linked to the post). Well it may have been a little more than a smile!
As I mentioned in my last comment, I’m saving your Make Money Online series to read when I have time to sit down and digest it properly. I’ve been pretty busy lately with other things and haven’t had much time for blogging.
Hi Stephen,
I just stumbled in from Darren’s link.
I couldn’t agree more with you. I’ve been reading the “meta-blogging” blogs for several weeks now, and I too have been getting some crazy ideas in my head. All of my good niche ideas involve something outside my current realm of experience. Then reality hits me: if I don’t know anything about it, why should I think anyone will want to hear what I have to say?
The lure of blogging is definitely the “passive” income. Bloggers would argue that it’s not “passive” persay, but there certainly is a difference between making money from ads and making money from turning in a contracted work.
I’ve added your blog to my feed reader in the hopes that I’ll be able to pick up some useful advice. I also program in PHP/MySQL, so maybe I can relate to this blog more than I can to others. I think Wordpress customization is an interesting idea - the only program is that I’m not sure how good of a designer you are (most programmers aren’t), and there are plenty of designer monkeys out there hacking Wordpress!
That is very true - you make some great points about taking an inventory of your current skill sets before trying to learn something new
Good post. True, I do agree that if you are going to be making money it will work well if you are doing it doing somehting you know about. One thing that is need is creativity. You wont get too far if you are not creative. It will certainly help you in getting ahead of the pack. Good luck.
Great points all around. The trouble is that a lot of people don’t see online income as real work. They somehow think that because it’s internet based that it is going to be easy. I would say that I would have an easier time making money working a 9-5 than running an online income source. This is probably the main reason why people don’t leverage their own skills for the matter; they are only trying to make a quick buck.
Ah, I’ve tried to explain that to people before.
I agree with you =(
I never knew how much work it was going to be…fortunately I like what I am doing and with some hard work I have seen some good results. The time to create the post for me has not been the problem…promoting the page, advertising, social networks, research, but I am really enjoying it!
Hi Saad,
It’s easy to to get caught up with ‘crazy ideas’ isn’t it? That’s the lure of ‘passive income’… I’d say don’t write these ideas off completely, but don’t put all your efforts into them either. Personally, I plan to use a balanced approach - lead with my strengths via services / contract work, supplemented by trying new things which may lead to ‘passive income’.
If you have PHP skills, you should definitely consider writing WordPress plugins (if you can find an idea that’s worthwhile). It can give your blog a real boost in terms of links (PR) and traffic. I’m planning a post in the next couple of weeks examining the benefits of offering a WordPress plugin.
Gerri, I can’t argue with that! Creativity is definitely something that will help you with whatever you’re doing. There are other things which are necessary too, like hard work, committment, etc.
Edman, You’re spot on. Whenever I make a little money online, I’m happy - until I stop and think how much more I’d need to make to get anywhere near what I’m earning from my full time job. Out of everyone who’s trying to make money online, only a few are making enough to live off it - and if you ask them, they’ll say it’s hard work. But there are many people chasing the quick buck.
Moviecat, I think enjoyment is one of the main things! I’m finding the same with my blog - it’s turned out to be more work than I thought, especially with researching, promoting it, social networks, etc as you say. But I enjoy it.
[…] Don’t forget your existing skills when trying to make money online […]
I had a make money online blog. I guess i emphasised the skills i learnt in earlier life. Like with my houses that i bought and things like that. So i agree with what you have to say entirely. Its also good not to post about get rich quick schemes, as i am certain blog readers can understand when things aren’t the truth. I like your blog aswell. Thanks
[…] Stephen points you in the right direction when you decide to make money online. His point is that you should leverage your existing […]
Definitely want to make huge money online but I think that you’ll need a system which you can use as a cash cow where every month you’ll definitely get $$ even though you are not actively involved.
That’s the best online money making system.. multi-level schemes maybe?
Great post! making money online? well yes if you can make it through sleepless nights, millions of sales letters, constant dreams about Adwords and your email exploding with spam…
I think that if you want to make money online you should not try to make money, but create useful quality material: articles, ebooks, posts, and give something of true value, freebies or quality content. The money will soon follow.
Yes! you should always use existing skills to push yourself as far as possible. And on top of that you should gain every trick possible that is OK to use on the internet!
As we know there are bad things to use and good things to use. use the good , loose the bad .
always use what you’ve got when you’ve got it! James
I am a realtor in washington state. I too launced a site to make a little money from adsense and local advertising. It is brand new so I havn’t had much traffic, and I only mad a wopping 1.65 so far from my adsense. I am only looking to make enough money to cover my costs. My main goal is to make money off of the real estate leads.
Admission Essay - Yes, I agree. I’m not saying to forget learning how to create a ‘passive’ income stream. I’m just saying that beginners shouldn’t expect to make money from those methods immediately. In the meantime, why not leverage the skills you have. Multi-level schemes may be best!
Make Money Online - actually that’s a very valuable point! I’m sure many of the A-listers are really where they are because they provided quality content rather than trying to make money. The money will follow as you say.
Nightclub LA - ‘Always use what you’ve got when you’ve got it!’ - I like it! A good philosophy.
Bellingham - Adsense doesn’t work well on most blogs, but with a business like yours, a blog is great for creating extra leads / customers for the business. You should check out Michael Martine’s free ebook, How to Start a Business Blog (it’s great for people who already have a blog too).
I am starting to realise how much of a slow process getting started really is. I think you have a good idea in using your existing skills. I have started trying to write about lots of different subjects and have found it hard.
i believe that there are many definitions in making money online - do you want to make pocket money or big money
if you want big money, you’ll need an automated system to help you make more money with little investments..
Money Marc, Thanks for stopping by. I’ve probably said it before, above somewhere, but I agree with you - it’s hard work and it doesn’t happen overnight, but you can use your existing skills to make money while you’re working on the other plans in the background.
Well, in today’s global economy, it’s not nearly as important to capitalize on your own skill sets. It’s also possible to generate money by capitalizing on the skillsets of others. I mean with all of the outsourcing possibilities of others, you can make money in so many different ways. For instance I outsourced the creation of 20 articles for around $100. I ended up selling them as PLR and making $500. Created a few websites that I sold on Ebay for another few hundred bucks. And all because I was able to use the skills of others.
So, while I agree you should attempt to use your own skillsets. Don’t overlook the possibilities of using the resources of others you can use for your own gain.
Just a thought.
WAR, Very good point.
The only thing I’ll say against it, is that many beginners (and this post is really targetted at beginners) aren’t in a position to spend any money when they are starting out.
If they do have money to spend, this opens a lot of other possibilities, including those you mention above. Looking at your examples (I haven’t tried them myself), that seems to have definite potential. Thanks for making a very good point.
Good post. True, I do agree that if you are going to be making money it will work well if you are doing it doing somehting you know about.
Oh man you are so right. When I got my BA I was left with a worthless piece of paper (in my field). Only job I could find was a teacher … But then I decided to use a less obvious approach and started working online. I can honestly say this was the best decision I have made in a long time
Excellent information, I will get some tips. Bookmarked!
Sarex, Dom, Beton,
Thanks for stopping by guys. I’m glad you all agree! If you’re trying to make money online it’s best if you know something about the topic.
This sounds almost too good to be true. I’m by no means an expert on this, but I would really think this over several times before completely devoting my time. Traditional 9-5 work might be more taxing but I guess It makes me feel more secure..
Dekoracje,
I’m not saying give up your day job - but there are many people who are trying to make money online. Their ultimate goal may be to give up their day job and go pro, but many are struggling to make any money at this point.
What I’m saying is, for those people, rather than spend all your energy on things that are new to you, try to find a way to use your existing skills. Once you start getting some money, expand, try new things, then maybe, one day, you’ll be in a position to go pro. I’m not in that position yet - but it would be nice
i think there is an unlimited opportunity to make money online
whatever you can think of, just put in effort would make it work!
tonometers,
I agree - all I’m saying is it makes sense to use your existing skills as well, rather than just targeting things that are new to you.
I come from a country where the disparity between local currency and US Dollar is huge.
$4000/month seems an ideal earning for a middle class family in US.
but in my country, that much money in a year would buy someone a nice house, a brand new Toyota SUV and there is enough left to get a vacation for a few months.
it’s understandable when in my country, a fresh bachelor graduate who gets $200/month is considered lucky.
All I can say is, online earning is an effective way to earn a huge income.
debt,
good point. It is actually easier to make a living online if you come from a country where the cost of living is lower. I’m living in China at the moment and it would be much easier to make a living online here than it would be if I lived at home in Australia.
This post has become my textbook, thank you!
Penelope, you’re welcome.
I don’t have a fixed method of earning money yet so you can say I am a freelancer . Though I am always on the lookout for high paying jobs including affliate programs.
Hi Cloudstrife,
I seem to have missed your comment - sorry! Thanks for stopping by and good luck!
If you make “blog for people” - advertisement can irritate readers, that’s why you’r? right in leveraging.
I’ve made first in russia blog about relationships… I want to make many as a relationship consultant.. I think i will have results(money) in a few month..
Leveraging is a veru good idea
But not an only one)
On the other hand - It’s good to leveraging skills, that you have not now! If you think that *** niche can bring you money - you can start to learn it and then leveraging, leveraging, leveraging)
P.S.: sorry for bad english)
Aaaaaaa! SORRY!!! Don’t blacklist me, please… It’s mistake…. I didn’t want to post comment 3 times… Please, delete 2 of them and this
Ariston,
As long as you make a decent comment (which you did), I won’t blacklist you. All fixed up now.
Good point. I am a software freelancer working hard. I agree, that this is not a passive income, we must work. You just list some other ways, probably I should try them too.
Thanks
Hi Pavel,
Thanks for stopping by. Long term passive income is the ideal, short term existing skill is where the money is. Good luck!
As for me I prefer to spend the time developing passive income streams because it is take not so much time as leveraging your skill set;)
Antonio, it doesn’t take as much work when you’ve got the passive streams up and running, but it takes a lot of work to get it to that point.
Did anyone succeed in this way for earning money? Where can I read success stories?
Hi Greg,
Not me! But I could have…
I’ve had quite a lot of requests to develop custom WordPress plugins and other web development, but I’ve had to turn most of them down. I’ve had very little time recently.
If I’d accepted all the work which came my way, I’m sure I could have made quite a lot money. That’s without me actively going and looking for work.
I would be interested in hearing how anyone else has gone.
HeHe this reminds me of about 7-8 years ago, I had no idea that you could make money online and the only thing I used to do online was chat over IRC and browse through online catalogs of all sorts of things. Well I once came across an advert that said that you could make money just by having a toolbar running all day (cashfiesta it’s now a well known scam site) well after trying it out I went into research mode. I’ve gone through the GPT/PTR ages (Used to run my own PTR site), Egold bubble games, HYIPs, etc…
I was always distancing myself from the things I like to do because of all this nonsense about people earning a living online. Anyway I got **** off a few years back because I was doing all sorts of silly things to earn a few cents online so I gave up on all that stuff. and started doing things I really do like blogging, participating in forums, webdesign and stuff like that. Surprisingly that’s when I started making a couple of dollars online and I was actually enjoying it (I wasn’t in it for the money).
So for any of you out there here are a few points you should think about.
Most of the people trying to teach you how to make money online are themsleves trying to make money online.
People like john chow who say that making money online is easy are hiding all the tips/tricks and leaving them all under the carpet (If they really told us how they do things they wouldn’t be making a cent because we’d all be doing it)
And the last thing, only do things you like best, practically any hobby can help you make a couple of dollars while having fun, it’s all about commitment and if you really enjoy doing it you’d not mind being committed.
Drunk Text,
Excellent comment, with many great points. I too have found that money is more likely to come if I’m not trying to hard.
Agree! Many people are making money online by selling information about making money online to newbies who want to make money online. At somepoint those newbies aren’t newbies any more and they start trying to sell information about making money online to the new newbies… I’ll stop there or this is going to get confusing.
Anyway, I find it all very incestuous.
how mayny money can i earn online?
CDReview,
How long is a piece of string? A few people make millions, many people make almost nothing. It all depends how hard to you work… Anyway, good luck!
The money will soon follow.
Thanks:) It’s article is good and interesting for me.
I think, that if you want to make money online, you should create useful and quality sites, blogs, content which will be useful for peoples. And money will soon follow in your pocket
All I could say is there are a lot of ways to make money online. After 6 months of finding the method that fits my personality, here I am enjoying every minute of it.
Hi Rome, Glad you’re enjoying it… Good luck!
if you want to make money online, you should create useful and quality sites
I fell for the bubble industry of setting up sites telling others how to make money online at first, fortunately I did not spend much finding out there was little scope there. I also got stung by the paid to surf debacle. Since then I have learned plenty about setting up sites and later turned to paid blogging (not on this domain but on several others). Now I am working harder on building some new content rich sites, and along the way I have picked up new skills. I am actually doing some SEO and I got my client to no.2 on Google for his chosen search terms. That was much more satisfying.
You are right, there are no quick fixes but sharing knowledge or products that readers are seeking is a good long term strategy
I fully agree with you here. Yet, there are also ways that one maybe would not be an expert in that he or she would be able to make money online with. The sky is not the limit I like to think. Thank you very much.
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This is so funny it almost looks like one of my Make Money Online post LMAO!!! And I love how everybody commenting jumped on board quick. I think I have never seen in a post so many times Make Money Online Congrats!!!
Just Love It!!!
Vic
Indeed, you need some sort of skill in order to make money online. Not only that, you need to know how to convert that skill into services that can be useful to your audience in order to make money. Potential is not enough. It’s something that most bloggers chase after, no?
I think this highlights something I’ve thought for a while… “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
Basically, I think a lot of people fail with making money online because the they discover lots of little bits of information about lots of make money online models. This leads to stagnation because they’re constantly discovering the next new thing and getting nothing finished (or worry while they’re doing one thing they’re missing out on the others.
I think some of the most successful at making money online are those that find one thing, be it affiliates, adsense or ebook etc. and then just hammer that without distraction.
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Making money online is an addicting pursuit, there’s no doubt about that. I enjoyed this post because this is exactly how I feel also. You’ve got a great blog here, and I enjoy reading and browsing through your useful info. Thanks!
Excellent post, I begin to make blogs
+1
I agree 100%. Almost all successful internet entrepreneurs have done something close to their skills. Page and Brin were great at datamining and calculation of this data for example.
I totally agree on custom plugins, didn’t know there was anyone doing them but I’m definately going to look in to what you’re doing. (have a lot of blogs that need a little love).
Myself, used to be a pokerplayer and I keep doing what I do best, or close to at least.
Really good post and really good idea. No one actually thinks of concentrating on their strenghts online while blogging. Most are taught to write stuff demanded by SEO to monetize their blogs.
Hopefully it’s obvious that people will use their skills to their advantage. It’s easier than learning new stuff, at least.