All of us at one point or another have dreamed of turning a side hustle into a full-time dream job. But not all of us have taken it seriously enough to where that dream actually comes to fruition.
There’s a tremendous difference between doing something as a hobby and doing something that you make a living at.
There are two main reasons why so many side hustles fade into oblivion:
The first is when people realize that it actually takes work to make a side hustle a full-time income source, they quit. Here’s an example:
A person takes an online course on how to make money online. Even though the course specifically said that it can take years to make the money you want, said person goes full bore into the project for about a week.
After getting zero results they decide that the project isn’t worth their time and quit.
Too many of us want and even expect instant gratification from a side hustle. The reality is that making a quick buck and having speedy success is highly rare and requires a fair amount of luck to work.
The second reason is because the side hustle just ends up being a hobby. And that’s completely OK.
You may realize that you like doing the side hustle as simply that, a side hustle.
You don’t want to put in the time to make it any bigger and you enjoy doing it because well, you enjoy doing it. Here’s an example:
Someone wants to write a blog. They update their blog from time to time, and enjoy writing it. They have zero expectations of said blog taking off and making millions of dollars.
They are 100% content doing nothing more than updating their blog from time to time.
So how do you make a side hustle a massive venture?
There’s only one way to do this: You have to formalize the side hustle. That means treating the side hustle like a full-time business only it’s part-time.
So what does this look like exactly? I’m glad you asked. I’ll use myself as an example.
My Full-Time Gig
I own and operate 8 different websites. There are certain functions I must perform each and every day (as well as delegate a number of functions) for my sites to not only continue to making money but also to grow.
There are a number of these functions but let’s just list out the main ones:
Those are the four main functions of my job to maintain my business. If I fail to do any of these my business will likely shrink and eventually die.
Yes, there are ancillary things like getting on phone calls, doing research for articles, understanding online advertising, educating myself by reading a ton of industry rags, the list goes on. However, the four main functions above are essential to my business.
My Side Hustle
What’s my side hustle? This site and the branding of the word “Uncoached.” So how do I turn this side hustle into something as successful as my full-time website business?
By doing the exact same things I do for my websites but on a smaller and more manageable scale. So for this venture, what do I do every single day?
All of these functions amount to a little less than an hour each day. However, I know from previous experience if I do each of these functions every single day over the course of say a year, this website will have considerably more traffic than it does now.
And if and when that happens?
That’s when you decide you either want to step on the gas, put on the brakes, or just keep doing what you’re doing.
Stepping on the gas essentially means adding more to your essential function list to ensure more growth.
In my case that could mean eventually hiring a PR team to grow my brand. It could mean tripling my output on all of my social channels. It could mean more content on this website. It could mean starting a newsletter or a podcast, etc etc.
But you’ve got to at least get to a certain point (whatever point you choose that to be) if you want a side hustle to turn into anything more than a side hustle.
You’ve got to have a formal plan of attack and executive that plan consistently over and over again for a long period of time.
And even then you might not get the results you seek.
So remember, if you want to turn a side hustle into anything more, you’ve got to formalize it.
P.S. my website business was originally a side hustle to my previous full-time job. You can always rinse and repeat.
This content was originally published here.