How to Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Business
Do you work full-time but have a side hustle you’re passionate about? Have you thought about how to turn your side hustle into a business that empowers you to walk away from your current gig? Creating a full-time job from your side hustle is not an easy thing to do. It requires time and hard work, but turning your side hustle into your dream job is possible.
How to Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Business
Start With A Positive Mindset
Making your side job a business requires courage to start. This begins with a positive mindset. Positive thinking helps you develop creative ideas that influence clearer and better decisions. It also makes you productive because you have a goal-oriented approach to making your business work. It prepares to manage negative feedback and conflicts that will arise subsequently. Also, it facilitates relationships with others who may help your business.
Determine Your Benchmarks
Ensure you are fully prepared to start your job before you quit your current job. Do extensive research to give you a clearer picture of how to start. Make a comprehensive plan of how you want your career to be, including the short and long-term goals to be achieved. Create your vision, mission statements, and strategies to work around them.
Start by answering a few key questions: How much money do you need to generate each month before you can leave your current day job? How much do you need to invest in your business to get it to that point? Approximately how much time will it take you? What elements do you need to implement to set yourself up for success? Use your free time to do some homework and research the answers. Be honest with yourself, as this would let you know when to take the bold step of starting up entirely.
Find a Mentor
This next step is critical if you want to turn your side hustle into a small business. You will likely need help finding answers to the previous questions and others that will arise as you work to grow your side business. Turn to experts, such as business consultants and accountants, who can provide help. A mentor is another invaluable resource for a budding business owner.
Several organizations specialize in helping small business owners find the right mentor, but you may not need to look that far. Feel free to contact people in your existing personal and professional networks. Choose someone who has been through the process of building a business and understands your strengths and challenges. A mentor can help keep you accountable, show you how to overcome obstacles, and encourage you when feeling low.
Surround Yourself With Like-Minded People
Relationships in business with like-minded people help one thrive, especially if you are starting up. Take time to build a circle of people with experience in what you are about to do. Connect with these people, and share your ideas and possible fears you might be facing. Valuable relationships empower you, create opportunities for you, connect you to other persons of like minds, and enjoy the benefits of hearing their stories, the challenges they faced, and how they could pull through.
Build a Client Base
Once you’ve laid the foundation, it’s time to connect with clients. Don’t let the part-time nature of your business hold you back — client relationships lead to referrals, and referrals lead to revenue. If, for example, you’re working on turning a side business into a full-time job, set time aside every week to connect with your existing clients and make new connections. Building a list of clients may take time, but with regular care and attention, your efforts will yield impressive results.
Invest Your Time Wisely
Your time is a valuable asset; at the initial stage, you may have many activities requiring your time. You may have to assume different positions to make your business work. Knowing how to prioritize these activities is vital for maximum output. It would help if you also built a sense of accountability to keep you on the right track, as you will not be initially reporting to someone else.
To help manage your time for maximum output, break down your activities to prioritize. Create a to-do list of tasks and tick them as you accomplish each. This can be broken down into hourly or daily tasks. Give yourself a deadline to achieve these tasks and do well to celebrate each task completed, as this would push you to achieve more.
Protect Yourself From Burnout
Building a business while working full-time can mean long hours and late nights. However, it’s essential to find a healthy work-life balance. Schedule time to do things you enjoy, from exercise to downtime with the family. Avoid the temptation to keep working until your head hits the desk. In the long run, pacing yourself and avoiding burnout is more productive than pushing yourself too hard.
Celebrate Incremental Success
Quitting your current job may be the goal, but there will be many smaller successes. Find ways to celebrate every accomplishment — launching your website, executing a marketing campaign, connecting with a new client. Share each success with the people around you to let them know their support is paying off. These small celebrations are also an opportunity to look back and see how far you’ve come. Giving yourself credit for minor achievements will help keep you motivated.
Take the Leap
Ask anyone who has turned their side hustle into a business, and they will tell you there’s no perfect moment to jump. Focus on the big things. Go back to the questions you asked yourself at the start. Check in with your mentor. If the foundation is in place and you hit your financial benchmarks, it’s time to spread your wings and fly.
Starting your own business always involves risk. Even the most successful entrepreneurs have stories of ventures that have floundered. But by planning, putting in the time, and taking care of yourself along the way, you’ll put yourself and your business in the best possible position to succeed.
Again, young businesses often benefit from a CEO providing clear leadership, strategic direction, and a unified vision when advancing to the next level. This individual plays a pivotal role in decision-making, overseeing day-to-day operations, and representing the business to external stakeholders. It can be helpful to conduct an executive search if you need this leadership figure to help create a cohesive corporate culture, set organizational goals, and navigate the challenges of scaling a new venture.
Evaluation
Constantly evaluate your progress as your job grows. Create time to revisit your goals, vision, and mission statements to observe if you are on the right track. If you are not meeting up, you can create new strategies to help further meet your goals. Feel free to modify your goals if necessary. Also, get feedback from others to further evaluate your performance and help make subsequent decisions.
Do you know other ways to turn your side hustle into a business?
Jason Butler is the owner of My Money Chronicles, a website where he discusses personal finance, side hustles, travel, and more. Jason is from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Savannah State University with his BA in Marketing. Jason has been featured in Forbes, Discover, and Investopedia.