Let’s face it: advice on how to earn real money from home is pretty thick on the ground these days. One of my pet peeves is reading blog posts on how incredibly easy it is to make a living while wearing your PJs.
Hell, maybe it is for some people, but I’m going to be honest and say that it wasn’t for me. It was hard. It took me a couple of years before I knew with complete certainty that I’d cracked the code and that I could make working from home my full time gig on an ongoing basis.
After making a ton of mistakes and getting a whole lot wrong, I think I can point to a dozen cheeky secrets for making it work. I’ll be straight with you here; none of these are particularly easy. But if you can achieve these goals, I firmly believe you stand a really good chance of ditching the 9 to 5 office grind for good.
Do Your Research
Ready for a cliché? Knowledge is power.
1. Read, Read and then Read More.
Luckily, there’s a ton of knowledge out there if you’re prepared to read incessantly and think critically about what you’re reading. Spend a bit of time every day reading about what other people do to make money online.
Properly researched reviews of job opportunities are pure gold when you can find them. Here’s a great place to start: www.ecosecretariat.org. You’ll find this site packed with useful analysis.
2. Look Beyond The Marketing Brochures
This might already be obvious given the previous point, but don’t automatically believe everything you read. Make it a practice to look for hard evidence for every grand claim a potential employer makes.
The world is full of spin doctoring and hype. Don’t fall for it. Oh! and remember what your granddad said about how things which seem too good to be true, probably aren’t? He had a good point.
3. Take Notes Like You Mean It
I only realized the value of writing things down systematically after roughly a year of scrawling thoughts haphazardly on the back of my hand, cereal boxes and files ingeniously named “various notes.txt.”
Do yourself a favor right now and set up a central place where you keep your ideas. Oh! and if you think of a great idea, write it down immediately. Never assume you’ll remember it. I’m positive I’ve forgotten over half of my money-winning ideas because I was too dumb to take proper notes.
Don’t be me.
Know Yourself
Here’s another annoyingly on point generalization I’ve found about building a successful work from home career: be passionate about what you do.
4. Get Scientific In Your Quest for Self Understanding
Before making any career decisions, invest some time building true clarity about what you: a) enjoy, and; b) are above average at.
The TESTQ dream career quiz is a great place to start. This quiz will present you with some simple multiple choice questions which are designed to help you narrow in on what you love doing and why.
This sounds weird, but don’t just assume you already know what you’re great at. I always thought I was naturally gifted at managing teams. It was only after taking some career quizzes that I realized how egregiously I suck at that. I always assumed I was terrible at any kind of detail work, until a few tests informed me I was actually a natural for editing work.
On both occasions, a properly formulated career questionnaire revealed more about me than I already knew.
5. Compare Notes With Industry Experts
But you can go much deeper than quizzes.
Once you start to have a more granular sense of the kind of work you’d like to do from home, it’s time to talk to people. It doesn’t matter how you find these folks — it can be through a Meetup group, an online forum or social media. Just be sure to find a way to get the inside scoop from people who already do the job you want.
Learn from them. It’s a huge shortcut you can use to avoid some rookie mistakes.
6. Think Beyond Money and Prestige
This is a more general piece of advice I learned the hard way. At first, I made the mistake of looking at how much a job “makes,” and what kind of “seniority” it has.
A far more important question is, you guessed it, what do I enjoy? Money and respect will take care of themselves if you find something you’re passionate about. Don’t just think about the end game. Ponder the journey and try to find activities you’ll actually enjoy.
Build Up a Killer Network
Knowing people helps. It just does.
7. Press The Flesh
Look, by now we all know that social media is important. At some point if you’re looking for good work from home, you’re going to need obvious stuff like a Facebook business page and a LinkedIn presence.
They’re important, for sure. I also think they’re a bit overrated. There’s a magic in meeting people face to face. It’s a great way to be instantly remembered. A firm handshake and good eye contact are going to beat a cool Twitter profile name nine times out of ten.
So, perfect the old-fashioned art of pressing the flesh. To get started, you may want to sign up to Meetup. Almost every large city has a group of professionally-minded networkers who get together fairly regularly. Here’s where to learn more.
8. Don’t Just Self Promote. Promote Others
This is especially applicable to social media. Everyone promotes themselves. It’s expected, it’s predictable and *gasp* it’s incredibly boring. Instead of thinking of social media purely as a tool for self aggrandizement, it’s a really good idea to make a regular practice of telling the world about what other people are doing.
The key here is to do it without expecting reciprocation or reward. Do it just because you like what someone is doing and feel it’s worth telling others about it — yes, even if they are a competition!
I can’t say this will instantly mean you accumulate adoring followers who go out of their way to promote you. The vast majority of people you promote or talk about won’t even notice. However, eventually there’s a good chance it’ll yield karmic rewards.
And if it doesn’t? at least you’re not like the sixty gazillion other people who exclusively talk about their own amazing achievements.
9. Consider Getting Expert Networking Advice
Oh man! this one took me shamefully longer than it should have to figure out.
The simple fact is, networking is a skill. It’s one of those things we all tend to think we’re good at intuitively, but without the right marketing chops or personality traits, there’s a good chance you’re missing obvious opportunities.
As you start out, it can be incredibly useful to pay a social media guru to work on sharpening your online presence and helping you find your right networking jam. A social media consultant can help you not just establish followers, but also to build yourself up as an authority on a given topic.
Just look for fiverr.com or upwork.com. There are plenty of reasonably priced social media experts out there, and their insights can yield significant dividends down the line.
Get Creative in Selling Yourself
10. Do it Different
This is a tricky one, but originality is always going to work in your favor. I don’t care if you’re looking to start a MLM, a home landscaping business or a freelance writing enterprise, people are more likely to notice you if you stand out.
Does that mean your profile pic should depict you in blinged up nipple tassels and a flamingo print bikini bottom? Probably not.
But a touch of distinctiveness in how you present yourself will serve you in good stead. You might wish to consider rejuvenating your CV with some striking infographic elements. Try a different style of website or business card. And always spend time getting your written material sharp, interesting and different.
All these touches combined can help make you memorable — and that win jobs.
11. Make it Count
This is a quick and easy one. Can you describe yourself and what you can do in three minutes or less? Can you encapsulate your unique value proposition in one sentence?
No? Then rinse and repeat until you can.
12. Tell it Well
Finally, here’s a point which kind of brings all the above tidbits together into one infuriating yet useful aphorism: you are your story. The most potent product you can sell is your story.
It sounds a bit self-indulgent, but spend some introspective time gaining a firm grasp on how to assemble the facts and circumstances of your life into a short, concise, dynamic nugget of personal meaning. Having something punchy to say about yourself does one really crucial thing. It makes you unique.
For the introverts out there, you’ll probably want to check out this guide by Price Waterhouse Coopers. They’ve devised a handy workbook to help you focus in on who you are and what you have to offer a potential employer. Extroverts, check this out: The Story Studio. This small team of communicators offers workshops and one-on-one training in how to tell a story about yourself which, for want of a better word, pops.
Working from home is a challenge on multiple fronts. It isn’t just about having information. Nor is it just about knowing yourself. It isn’t just about your contacts, nor does it purely depend on your ability to make yourself stand out. It’s a deliciously zesty goulash of all these things. Make inroads on all these fronts and there’s a great chance some awesome work from home opportunities will come your way.