Too many teachers are building their side hustle in the completely wrong way, with the wrong things in mind. As you’re beginning to look into your side hustle or your next career field, there are five things that I want you to think about, or at least consider.
1 | Build a business based on your values.
Your values are what should drive your business, not your why, not the thing that got you to that point.
If you’re somebody who values freedom and flexibility, then you don’t want to build a business that’s going to keep you busy all the time, all year long.
If you are somebody who values being present for people – that’s my number one – then you definitely want something that has some flexibility and allows you to work from anywhere.
If you are somebody who values financial stability, then you’re looking for something that’s going to pay you month after month, something that you can depend on, or something that will at least will give you a notice if anything’s going to change.
The main thing that you should build your business around is your values.
For help with this, I strongly recommend Brene Brown’s book Dare to Lead. In her book, she has an excellent chapter all about values and making sure that you know what your values are. She suggests narrowing your values down to your top two, and I wholeheartedly agree.
So figure out what your values are first, then make sure that you’re choosing a business or business model that actually works with those values.
2 | Be a realistic dreamer.
Don’t be afraid to dream about the possibilities, but make sure that you are not dreaming so big that it starts to feel impossible.
While it is fun to dream about being the people we may see who are making a million dollars working only 20 hours per week, or even the people who are doing a four day work week and they’ve only been in business for a year, we need to be realistic with our goals.
What worked for them could have been because they were able to hire somebody to work with them sooner rather than later. They may have started with an email list from another business, or they may already have a nest egg they can dip into to help build their business.
Instead of working a four hour work week, our realistic goal should be that we only work four days per week and somebody else does the fifth day for us.
Or maybe our goal is just to hire one employee or one virtual assistant of our own by the end of the year or something like that.
We want to avoid dreaming so big that we’re easily disappointed. After all, there is a correlation between having huge, huge, huge high hopes and the possibility of not hitting them.
I would rather you be a realistic dreamer and successfully reach your goal, instead of aiming for a million dollars in your first year and quit because you failed.
What if we realistically aim for $50,000 in your first year? And, let’s keep our mind on those values.
So many people lose their values just trying to hit these outrageous dreams. In all reality, do you really need to make a million dollars this year?
Would it be nice? Sure.
Do you need to? No.
Unless you have some crazy debt going on, you don’t need to do it this year.
Figure out what you actually need, maybe aim a little bit higher than that to start, and then find ways of meeting your goal that feel easy.
Your dreams have to be realistic and they need to be something that’s actually worth accomplishing. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want you to stop dreaming big! I just want you to be realistic because as you get more comfortable, as you gain more confidence, those dreams are going to get bigger. But if you come into this, thinking you’re going to be making a million dollars a year, it’s probably not going to happen right away.
Is it possible? Yes.
Is that the goal? No.
The goal is to have a better situation than you had before. So we are trying to create a value-centered business that is based on realistic dreams that have the potential to be so much more.
3 | Let passion, rather than money, be the deciding factor about the business that you want to build.
Building a business that you don’t enjoy or spending all of your free time working on something that doesn’t light you up probably isn’t worth your extra time, even if it’s making good money.
This one’s a big one.
So often people get pulled into things because they see the paycheck first.
You see that this person is making a thousand dollars only working for one hour or something like that, and then all of a sudden you’re like, “oh, I can do that, I absolutely want to do that.” But – is that the best thing for you? Is working on that thing going to make you feel fulfilled?
Instead, I would encourage you to figure out what you really enjoy doing.
- What is your passion?
- What are your interests?
- What are your hobbies?
Then figure out which one of those has the most business potential, or maybe see how that might be able to play into something else that you want to do or some other business opportunity in general.
Just make sure that as you’re deciding what business you’re going to go into, or what your side hustle is going to be, or what you’re going to put all your entrepreneurial spirit into, ask yourself: is it something that you actually enjoy?
You have to listen to your gut.
If it’s not what you really want to spend your time doing, then you’re just creating another business or another job that you don’t like. We are not here to spend time creating businesses we don’t enjoy, make sure you let your passions rather than money help you make the decision on what business you want to go into next.
4 | Recognize that your time is worth money.
Your. Time. Is. Worth. Money.
Do not pretend like all the time that you are putting into something isn’t worth something. This means you need to make sure that you are pricing accordingly and that you are not disregarding the importance of your time.
When you are starting to build a business, please factor in the fact that your time is actually worth money.
Too often we look at things like selling classroom resources, or we look at things like creating videos and we think, oh yeah, I can do that, all it takes is my time. And after that it’s free.
Well, your time is not free. Let’s make that very, very clear right now, the blog that I am writing is not free. It is something that I am putting my time and my effort into, and therefore it is worth something. So make sure that you’re putting a dollar amount on your time, as you’re thinking about what you could potentially make.
As you’re considering what business you want to go into, and as you’re also doing that realistic dreaming, don’t forget to figure in or consider what your time is worth in that scenario.
How much time are you willing to put in on the front load in order for it to pay off at the end?
Maybe you’re willing to put in four months of full-time work to get this business going off the ground. Maybe you’re not, but that might be what it actually takes to make this thing work. So as you are going through this process, make sure you remember that your time has to be worth something.
Also keep in mind that you do not want to start a business that requires so much of your time that you lose track of everything else.
Is there going to be a time that you have to hustle? Probably.
For most entrepreneurs, that is a realistic part of the journey, but how long can you hustle?
How long do you really have it in you to keep working, working, working, and have your time not be paid off?
Please keep that in mind as you’re starting to decide what you want to do next, your time has to be worth something.
Don’t forget that.
5 | Be resourceful.
One of the greatest things that teachers and school employees do is that we know how to be resourceful. Whether that comes from years of being in schools that are understaffed, districts that don’t have enough money flowing into them, classrooms that don’t have all the resources that are necessary, no matter the circumstance, we still get the job done. This is one of our greatest skill sets.
This is my biggest thing.
As you’re building your business, you have got to be resourceful. We have the ability to find the answers to our questions because the internet is a wonderful place with lots of answers. We just have to know what questions to ask.
As you are beginning to consider your business, remember that there are a lot of answers on the internet and you need to be resourceful and you need to go find them.
If you are going to be a virtual assistant, be great at going to YouTube and researching new programs or different ways to do different projects or ways to be more efficient with the tools that you already know how to use. I took this course to get started quickly as a Virtual Assistant!
If you are considering applying for a position, make sure that you are actually going and looking at the business and thinking about ways that you can actually help them – maybe they use something that you’re not familiar with, go figure out how to use it.
And in addition to being resourceful and actually going and finding the answers yourself, know when somebody is a good investment, know when a coaching program is a good investment.
Be resourceful as you research that person, research their business, research the class that you’re interested in taking, make sure that you trust this person, watch them live, doing something, to make sure that they are not overly edited and all of their social media or anything like that.
If you are choosing to work with somebody, try to get to know the real them.
Be resourceful in all parts of your business. If there is something that you can figure out how to do, figure out how to do it. If there’s somebody that you can pay to make that faster, pay somebody to make it faster, but make sure that you’re doing your due diligence and you are doing your research.
Teacher friends, these are the five things you should consider as you are deciding on your next side hustle or your second career.
