Week 2: Earning more money

Home
Blog
Book
Products
- The Book
- Scrooge Strategy
About
- About Ramit
- Press
- Advertising
- Speaking
- What I read
- Write for me
- Contact

16 comments — written on January 11th, 2010

This is week 2 of the 3-week overview course on earning more money. Last week, we learned:

Earn more money: Overview of why people focus on cutting costs instead of thinking about how to earn more.
Attention whiny complainers: Why you STILL aren’t saving money. In which I tear whiners apart and point out barriers that get most of us stuck.
The 3 easiest ways to earn money: An infographic.
Case study: How a venture capitalist started earning money on the side. 25-minute audio interview where we cover mindset, tactics, and shortcuts to earn more on the side, even if you’re insanely busy.

* * *

A few new things:

1. What’s coming this week. I’ll be covering the risks of earning more (perceived barriers), specific tactics on how to turn your knowledge into income, posting some actual email scripts that a successful freelancer used, and posting the Money Diaries of someone who’s earning money on the side.

2. Video office hours will be this Wednesday at 7pm Pacific, where I’m live and answer any questions you have.
When: Wednesday, January 13th at 7pm Pacific (10pm Eastern)
Where: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwt-office-hours
Questions you want me to answer? Ask them below in the comments or during the webcast

3. Get the free advanced course on earning more. If you haven’t already signed up for the free 1-week advanced course, do it: Earn1k.com.

16 comments

Leave your own

1

January 11, 2010
Brianna

Wednesday, January 11th? Do you mean Monday the 11th(today) or Wednesday the 13th?

Looking forward to seeing this happen live. I always miss these things.
2

January 11, 2010
Ramit Sethi

Sorry, I meant this Wednesday, January 13th. I updated the post.
3

January 11, 2010
Tyler WebCPA

Ramit, I am really interested in building a professional practice over the internet, of extending your professional expertise without being limited to your local market. I look forward to seeing it live, I hope it is Wednesday and that way I will be able to.
4

January 11, 2010
Vin

Ramit,

Not going to be around Wednesday night. Anyway we can plan to have this webcast recorded?
5

January 11, 2010
Ramit Sethi

Sorry man, just attend the next one. No recordings for most of these. I’m trying to keep it lightweight and not add additional work on my end.
6

January 11, 2010
amanda

Whenever I check out earn1k.com, I get a message that sign up is coming soon – maybe I’m doing something stupid?
7

January 11, 2010
Ramit Sethi

I’m swamped with traffic, Amanda. Please try again in about 15 minutes.
8

January 11, 2010
Jeff Slobotski

Ramit

Thanks for Week 1—very helpful information to get us thinking, and looking forward to Week 2.

I feel that I have knowledge based information / assets, but not sure how to package & price…will you cover more in Week 2 and beyond?

Keep up the great work!
9

January 11, 2010
RoadToFinancialFreedom

can you do a few more money diaries
10

January 12, 2010
Ben

>Questions you want me to answer? Ask them below in the comments or during the webcast

I’ll be on the webcast, but I’d rather save everyone time by typing this out now:

Regarding barriers, how would you advise someone who doesn’t trust themselves with long-term professional responsibility?

That’s a summary that may require clarification. An explanation:
My skillset has been geared towards serving big business (Fortune 1000) for the past 5 years and it pays well. While I’d love to freelance, in months of reaching out to contacts, I’m consistently met with reluctance. It’s for a problem I can’t solve without starting a larger business. One person is not scalable and has no backup, and big business prefers to contract with consulting firms or body shops over an individual. Experiments suggest that smaller businesses who would benefit from my skills can’t afford my time, even at rates of $30 an hour.

I would change directions or start a larger business, except for one main barrier: I’m afraid of losing interest when people depend on me. I’m not convinced I can stick to running a business for longer than a year. It seems stressful and would require giving up my job. I’m good at what I do and I enjoy it, but freelancing or running a business means doing less of it in order to focus on tedious/stressful business overhead. Essentially, I don’t feel that I can trust myself with that kind of responsibility; employment at least provides a ‘boss.’

I could start on a different direction, but the same fear holds: I fear looking like a failure to my friends and family if I give up on such a project. I’d hate the tedious bits.

Excuse my rambling; such personal issues are hard to discuss rationally. Thanks for your time,
-Ben
11

January 12, 2010
4hr

Ramit,

If you had to make a decision on how a person should invest their spare time on a part time business (beyond their normal job) – assuming no specialized skills – would it be: 1) adsense and affiliate program sales by developing web traffic, 2) develop expertise for eventual consulting, 3) assembling an online store, or 4) none of the above?
12

January 12, 2010
Ramit Sethi

Everyone has specialized skills. If you don’t, I strongly encourage you to get some. Otherwise, you can work on eLance for $3/hour.

Once you do, the options become a lot clearer.
13

January 12, 2010
4hr

Fair enough. I suppose I do have specialized skills, I just don’t know if they are marketable. Does your answer suggest that you lean toward the consulting idea?
14

January 12, 2010
Ramit Sethi

Yeah. I’ll show you how to test if your skills are marketable in upcoming material I’ll post here, and at Earn1k.com.
15

January 12, 2010
4hr

Sounds great; thanks so much Ramit
16

January 13, 2010
Earn More Money as a 3D Animation Freelancer

[...] This month at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi is teaching a course about how to earn more money. [...]