Okay, that’s enough theory and enough speculation.
You are aware of the gig economy works, you know the pros and cons, and you are aware of all the minute details regarding setting yourself up legally, using common tools and sites, and dealing with clients.
All that’s left is to put all this into practice and take the leap into the gig economy. This might be easier said than done if you’re currently feeling overworked or overwhelmed, or if you have too many responsibilities to want to take that risk.
This chapter is about getting over those obstacles and actually making it happen.
Action Plan: Entering the Gig Economy
I hope all the lifestyle design strategies I provided in Chapter 8 are very aspirational and exciting, but I also realize they are a little abstract. Before you can start designing your perfect lifestyle around the job opportunities available to you, you first need to simply start selling something.
- 1.
Decide what you’re going to do.
Take a look at your skills. Take a look at the market and what there is demand for (this might just mean perusing forums and freelancing sites). Take a look at what you can learn easily. Think about the contacts that you already have, and any routes to market that are open for you. And importantly: think about the kind of work you’d actually enjoy and be happy doing on a daily basis. You might also want to keep in mind what your longer-term goals are and where you are heading with your business. If you are using the gig economy to build your résumé and get rich, or if you are using it to launch a personal project, then those things can help to keep you motivated.
Think too about everything we discussed in Chapter 8 on lifestyle design. How much work do you want to do? What are your priorities? What does your ideal day of work look like, and what types of opportunities are out there that can make that happen? Does the kind of work you’re considering facilitate that? And how can you repackage it so that it will?
- 2.
Think about your terms and packaging.
Selling writing or coding in itself is not a service. Your service will rather be defined by the details of precisely how you are selling these things. What is your turn-around time going to be? How will you deliver the work? Will you offer packages? Do you want to be paid by the hour or by the word or line of code?
I don’t want you to waste months in the planning stages here though. This is something you can think about in your spare time, but it’s also something that you can tweak and iterate upon in the meantime. Just grab a basic working business model and go. This should take no more than half a day to decide. Like I say, you can change it later!
- 3.
Find some spare time.
Try and find some spare time that you can use to do part-time work. Unless you’re feeling particularly bold, the aim here is not to quit your job and then hope that you make enough money to live on. Instead, the aim is to generate some healthy income that you will be able to use as you test your business model before you take the leap. That means finding some time in your current schedule that you can complete the work, whether that’s one weekend a month, a couple of spare evenings, or during vacation time.
- 4.
Set up accounts.
Now build your LinkedIn account, making sure to squeeze every last drop out of your skills and experience to make yourself look as appealing as possible. If there’s anything extra you can do quickly that will help to round out your profile, do that. Remember to make this as targeted to the type of work you want to do as possible.
While there are some limitations to using freelancing sites like Freelancer, PeoplePerHour, and Fiverr, they can still provide some great opportunities and they’re low maintenance. In other words, there’s no reason not to set up your accounts.
- 5.
Get proactive, write ads.
A mistake would be to wait for the work to come in from freelancing sites. Instead, respond to job listings that others have posted and put your name forward. Better yet, advertise yourself on webmaster/coding forums, sites that list professionals in your niche, and anywhere else that your target audience will be likely to be. Finally, try e-mailing or contacting companies directly through websites. Does a business look like it needs a new website? Are they looking for content writers? Is there an agency that might benefit from another app developer? Or an indie games company you admire that you can offer your skills to?
Make sure that you are selling yourself in a compelling manner with a well-written, persuasive script. Think hard about your pricing, and consider changing it, or offering packages and discounts in the future.
- 6.
Complete work, get paid.
I would advise against investing a lot more time and effort into marketing yourself at this point until you’ve started to get some work coming in. The temptation here is to distract yourself by spending lots of time building websites and reading books on business, rather than actually just getting your hands dirty and getting stuck in. The more time you invest now, the more crushing it can be when things don’t work out right away and the more likely you’ll be to give up. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you need anything fancy to start finding work—you just need the right e-mail to land in the right inbox. Until you’ve proven this model can work, you shouldn’t waste your resources and energy on anything else.
For now, you’re going to focus on completing work for clients and getting paid for it. Prove to yourself that you can sustain this on a regular basis and spend some time refining the way you communicate, charge, and manage your time. Don’t try and launch the perfect business out the gate: evolve it with time. As you go, keep a note of your clients’ contact details. Even one-off clients can be remarketed to at later dates.
- 7.
Register your business.
You don’t need to register your business before you begin looking for work, but once you have been earning a little income for a month or more, it’s time to declare that cash and set up your business. As a sole proprietor, that just means registering your income. You’ll do this by heading over to the relevant government web page and then following the instructions. Ninety-nine percent of people reading this will be best served by registering as a sole proprietor to begin with. It’s up to you whether you want to trade under your own name or choose a trading name.
- 8.
Build platforms.
You don’t want to rely on these sources of work forever, though, so once you have established yourself and demonstrated that you can find and complete work, it’s time to build your own platforms. That means creating a website to act as a portfolio and portal (and that you can then later advertise through PPC, or promote via content marketing), and it means creating social media accounts that provide value to the readers and demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.
This is part of the long game. Don’t expect to be able to monetize a blog or YouTube channel overnight: it takes years to build thousands of followers. But once you get there, you’ll have the ability to sell your services for considerably more.
- 9.
Develop.
Now all that is left to do is to take your business big time. That probably means eventually quitting your day job so that you can focus 100% on your new business, or at least going part time in your current job.
At the same time, you should start hunting out bigger and bigger clients, while building on that résumé. Put yourself out there and chase after the kinds of jobs that will turn you into that “superstar.”
Further your own education, seek out new qualifications and experience, and build your platform. Once you’re a well-known tech blogger with hundreds of thousands of subscribers who has worked on massive best-selling projects, you’ll be able to charge enough to live whatever kind of lifestyle you’re hoping for. So, seek out those opportunities to impress and grow.1
This is ultimately all you need to do to build your business. Of course, the day-to-day details are going to vary depending on precisely what kinds of skills you’re selling, but that’s the general gist.
The take-home here is that the most important step is to just start. Don’t make excuses, don’t procrastinate. By the end of this week, you should already have money in your account.
How to Transition to the Gig Economy (Fear Setting)
Now you are aware of to set up your own online business, and you have a pretty comprehensive list of options to get you started.
So, the question is: why haven’t you started?
If you’re like a lot of people, you might now feel a little resistance to go out there and start selling yourself. Maybe you want to read just one more book about it first. Maybe you need to make sure you’ve completed X qualification before you can start? Maybe you just have too many responsibilities to take this risk right now? Maybe you need to wait for a quieter time in your personal life, or in your current career?
The truth of the matter, though, is that there is never a perfect time to start a business; just like there is never a perfect time to get married, buy a house, or have a kid. If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to enter the gig economy, then it’s not going to happen.
And truth be told, you’re probably blowing your fears out of proportion anyway. This is a low-risk decision and one that you should feel confident to make. We’ve already seen that you don’t need to quit your day job in order to make this work: you can easily start gigging on the side and then go full time only once you’re absolutely sure that the business model works. Companies do this all the time when selling products. They will sell a beta version, or they will sell exclusively to a very small audience before investing in it completely—they call it “verifying the market.”
So, there is no real risk. If anything, this could be a fun hobby/experiment to try for a few evenings.
Then why do you still get that knot in your stomach when you think about it?
Unfortunately, this is just human nature. It’s that risk aversion that we talked about earlier. You’re convincing yourself that you aren’t ready to take such a big step. And in truth, that’s probably going to be your biggest obstacle when it comes to unshackling yourself from the desk.
Step one to building your business is to start. And step two is to be consistent. You’ll learn on the job. It’s the precise same as getting into shape. You can read theory and “prepare” yourself until you’re blue in the face. I’ve had friends tell me they haven’t yet started their workout because they need to “read some more fitness books.” Or because they need to “wait for a quieter time in their life.” But nothing will happen until they drop and start doing push-ups. In both scenarios, learning on the job is preferable by far.2
So how do you convince yourself that it’s okay to try (and potentially fail)? We can take some pointers from a school of psychology called cognitive behavioral psychology, or CBT (psychology graduate, remember?).
CBT is a psychotherapeutic approach that has you focus on your thoughts and how these influence your behavior. In this case, you’re going focus on the beliefs that you might hold about going freelance, which focus you accomplish by employing a little mindfulness: being consciously aware of what’s going on in your own head.
Ask yourself: “What I am afraid of?” “What is causing that mental block that is preventing me from just getting started?” “What narrative am I telling myself?”
You’ll lose your current job and end up with no way of going back.
Therefore, you will find yourself with no income, potentially having to sell your home, or becoming unable to support your family.
You will discover that you aren’t good enough, and thereby damage your own self-esteem.
You’ll discover that you can’t do it, and thereby lose the “idea” of someday giving up your job.
You’ll run into tax difficulties and end up being fined.
Your workload will snowball and you’ll end up with too much to handle.
People will scoff at you and think that you’re being stupid, telling you that you should “get a real job” (urgh).
While these might seem like insurmountable problems in the short term, the reality is often that you are actually blowing them out of proportion in your mind. In truth, you can probably mitigate all of these problems or come up with contingency plans. Many of them might be completely unfounded to begin with.
You’ll lose your current job and end up with no way of going back. You don’t have to quit your current job right away, and if you do, you can probably find another one (or even go back to your old one) fairly quickly.
Therefore, you will find yourself with no income, potentially having to sell your home, or being unable to support your family. Most of us have enough to live on for a few months. Most of us have parents or family who are able to support us in the most pressing of times. Many of us can get by on the salary of our partner. If these things aren’t true for you, then consider again that you can probably find other work fairly quickly, or even take out loans, or go on the dole.
You will discover that you aren’t good enough, and thereby damage your own self-esteem. There is only one way to find out. And besides, the point is that this is a learning curve, and you will get better only by doing.
You’ll discover that you can’t do it, and thereby lose the “idea” of someday giving up your job. This is but one attempt at branching out and starting your own business. Most of the “successful” people we read about failed multiple times before they eventually landed on their big idea.
You’ll run into tax difficulties and end up being fined. As long as you try to meet the requirements, the worst-case scenario is normally that you’ll be asked to pay back what you owe if you get this wrong. And getting it right is not as hard as you might think.
Your workload will snowball and you’ll end up with too much to handle. If this happens, you can simply refuse some of the work. That’s the beauty of being self-employed! In fact, this is a very good problem to have. Another option is to subcontract the work. Worst-case scenario, you can book some vacation time from your day job—or from your other clients—to focus on what’s outstanding. You don’t have to give much notice or get permission for this: after all, you are self-employed!
People will scoff at you and think that you’re being stupid, telling you that you should “get a real job” (urgh). So? Anyway, most people are far more likely to be impressed with you for taking a chance.
This is called “thought challenging” and it’s part of a larger process known as “cognitive restructuring.” The ultimate aim? To replace your negative thoughts with positive ones that will lead to positive action. Tim Ferriss, who I’ve acknowledged a few times previously, describes something similar that he refers to as “fear setting.”
Better yet, why not go one step further and use the next crucial aspect of cognitive restructuring: hypothesis testing. This means that you test those fears and negative beliefs by actually doing the thing you’re afraid of in a small, controlled manner.
At the same time, you can also do the reverse and focus on the reasons that you need to take action. That means focusing on your current sense of dissatisfaction, or your fear of being stuck in a rut for the rest of your days. This emotion can be a powerful motivating force that will get you to get up and take action.
Likewise, try to focus on the end goal, on the reason that you really want to make the change. Focus on your “why” (to quote Simon Sinek’s excellent TED talk). Focus on the vision and picture yourself in five years’ time if all goes well.
Remember: motivation is driven by emotion, not logic. So, picture what it could be like to have financial independence and freedom from a manager or set hours. Imagine the things that could be possible with a flexible job, whether that means working on some kind of dream project or means traveling the world with your laptop.
The Power of “The Little Investigation”
The most important thing you can do to allay your fears is to take a “little investigation.”
Take one tiny step in the right direction—or better yet, just glance at it. Think of this as “breaking the seal” as it were. Often, the biggest psychological hurdle is just starting: it seems so massive and yet abstract. It seems like you need to dedicate all this time and mental energy to it.
So, don’t think about the long term. Just investigate the steps you might need to take: whether that means playfully writing out your ad just for fun, or whether it means taking a look at the government website to see how you would go about registering your business. There’s no obligation or requirement to actually do anything. You’re just looking out of interest as a thought experiment.
But once you’ve gotten a better idea of the size and scope of the problem, you’ll find it’s much easier to lose yourself in it. You might find that while taking a look, you make a note of some sort, or perhaps open up an online account. Before you know it, you’ll have completely lost yourself in it: that small bit of momentum will carry you forward until it’s an unstoppable force.
Recently I decided to set up a Patreon account to receive donations for my YouTube channel. I’d been putting it off for ages (there are always more pressing things to do) until I decided to just take a look. Before I knew it, the whole thing was set up. This likewise recently worked for me boarding my loft, and it will work for you setting up your online business.
Just take a little investigation, and before you know it, you’ll wake up a sole proprietor.
The Dream Scenario
While I believe that it is possible for anyone to safely transition into the gig economy, I also acknowledge that it isn’t always easy—and that it’s harder for some people than others. The ideal scenario in which to start working online, then, would be while living at home with parents or while still in school. If you are in a position where you don’t yet have the financial responsibilities that come with adulthood, or if you are in a position where you have a safety net, then there is nothing to stop you going “all in,” taking risks, and building the business you want.
If you’re already married with kids, this dream scenario is but a dream. BUT if you’re reading this as someone who still lives with parents and you like the sound of working online even a little, then I would urge you to take action right now and get started. You’ll never have a better opportunity to pursue risky propositions and test your limits.
Going Part Time
To reiterate: you don’t need to give up your day job in order to become a functioning member of the gig economy. Just as valid an option is to start working gigs on the side, on top of what you’re currently doing, and thereby start testing the waters and ensuring that your business model works as a viable way to earn a living.
But what’s more is that you need never become a full-time member of the gig economy. The amazing thing about the gig economy is that it adapts to fill the space that you have in your current lifestyle. We’ve discussed this already in Chapter 8, but it’s worth repeating: you certainly have the option to work as a freelancer on top of a part-time job. And this can be a great option if it means you reduce some of the pressure of running your own business. It also means that people who need that social interaction and that routine can get the best of both worlds: by working a part-time job that they enjoy as a personal trainer, as a checkout assistant, or as anything else they’re interested in.
This is also a great option for those in stable relationships. If one of you is bringing home a full-time income and you have at least a part-time income guaranteed yourself, then you can afford to take more risks in your self-employed work. At the same time, you still have that potential to eventually expand to full-time freelancing and realize the sense of satisfaction that comes from owning a business of your own. Note that you still need to pay tax this way, however.
Side Income
Another option for using the gig economy to your advantage is to use it as a way to earn a side income—to create a “side hustle,” which is an increasingly trendy option. The same goes for finding ways to earn passive income.
This is another way that you can experiment with the gig economy in a completely pressure-free manner. Essentially, you will treat your time working in the gig economy as a “hobby that pays.” You can do this work in the evenings or on the occasional weekend. Focus on producing work you find rewarding, whether that means coding physics every now and then for an indie game company, for example, or writing articles for big websites. If you get a little extra money, then you can treat yourself and your partner to a nice meal out, you can go on a small trip, or you can invest in a nice laptop. Or you could save it as a backup fund in case you decide to become a full-time freelancer.
Financial Support
Finally, one more possibility is to use the gig economy—and this book—as a kind of “emergency funds” machine. If your furnace breaks, your car battery dies, or you lose some money on a bad investment, having the gig economy at your fingertips ultimately means you have the option to dedicate a couple of hours and earn $20, $30, $50. Just set aside half a Saturday, and you can earn some more money!
Likewise, if you should see something that you want to buy but can’t really justify, just work a couple of hours and then buy it guilt-free!
While I tried to make joining the gig economy full time sound as undaunting as possible in this chapter, I am well aware that it does take a little courage. But the gig economy is not just for the bold: this is a tool for anyone and everyone.
Between Jobs
One last way that you can use the gig economy as a “resource” in this sense is by using it to tide you over between jobs. If you’ve been let go, if you’re currently looking for work, or if you’re unable to work for whatever reason, the gig economy is there for you!
In fact, this can be a very useful tool for those that want to change careers. For instance, if you can’t stand another minute in your current job, then why not leave and do some freelancing until you find something better? OR freelance and use that as a way to give yourself the flexibility to start another career. I always think that this is the perfect option for struggling actors, for instance, or for people that want to volunteer at organizations in order to build skills and experience. This works doubly well if you also gain relevant experience from the gigs you’re working.
Funding
Speaking of emergency funds . . . funding is something that some people reading this will need to consider.
For the most part, selling your own services online is a process that has zero overhead. That’s part of the appeal and it’s part of what makes it so flexible and useful for so many people. But with that said, there are some situations where you will need some kind of funding: if you wish to buy or rent your own office (or you need to), if you plan on investing in an advertising campaign to bring in more clients, or if you need specific equipment.
Alternatively, taking out a loan of some sort is another option if you do want to go with the scarier option of giving up your job and going full time right away. This way, you will have a little cash to act as your fallback and to live off of while you build toward a more stable income.
In these scenarios, you might need to make an initial investment and work for a set amount of time before you reach breakeven (the point at which you’ve paid back any and all initial expense). So how do you get this money?
One option is PayPal Working Capital. This is a loan system that works by charging a set fee determined by how quickly you choose to pay back the amount. While the interest is actually pretty bad once you calculate it, it does have some other benefits. One is that you pay back the loan as a percentage out of your PayPal income. For example, you might pay 10% on any money that comes in. That means that if your clients dry up, you won’t need to pay as much (or any) back. What’s more is that a PayPal loan won’t affect your credit score and the banks don’t even need to know about it (it won’t show up on statements either). This means it won’t affect your ability to, for example, take out a mortgage. That’s a considerable advantage in our line of work, seeing as lenders don’t tend to trust freelancers at the best of times! Note that the amount you can borrow is dependent on your sales history with PayPal, so this option is better suited to those that have been working smaller gigs for a while already.
PayPal Working Capital also isn’t the best option in terms of your APR in most cases (unless you spend a long time paying it back). But it has a number of other benefits for those of us in the gig economy. The fact that it comes out of your PayPal income and doesn’t have any late payment fees or traditional APR (meaning the amount you’re paying back will never increase) makes a PayPal loan a very “safe” option and very convenient.
Other options include taking out a business loan, looking for a small business grant from your government, asking “the bank of Mom and Dad,” or even setting up a Kickstarter campaign ( www.kickstarter.com ). Kickstarter is a crowdfunding site, meaning it is a place where you can get funding to launch a project that people want to see succeed—usually in return for some kind of reward (such as a free gift, called a perk) or accolade (such as acknowledgement in the credits, or a special thank you e-mail). There are other crowdfunding sites that do this too, such as Indiegogo ( www.indiegogo.com ). Note that this won’t be relevant for 99.99% of people reading this, as the audience needs to want the thing you’re building or producing badly enough to be willing to pay lots of money for it, and needs to see that you require their help in order to make it a reality. The only scenario where that’s likely in our case is if we’re providing a very exclusive and exciting B2C service.
Finally, if you can find a client that trusts your abilities and you intend to work with them for a long period, then you can discuss the possibility of getting an advance on payment. In other words, get paid a large amount up front that you then work off.
As mentioned, most freelancers won’t find that they need this kind of investment to begin offering their services. I highly recommend that you avoid taking out a loan unless it is absolutely essential for the running of your business. If you do need a loan, though, then make sure that you don’t ask for any more than you need, and that you aim to pay that amount off as quickly as you can.
Likewise, try to make sure that you have contingency plans in place for all outcomes. That means you should know precisely how you plan on paying back the amount once you start earning (and ensure that the payback scheme suits this plan); and it means you should know precisely how you will pay it back if you don’t earn a single penny from your business venture. The aim here is not to get into debt!
Do keep in mind though that any interest you do pay back will be tax deductible, and that these funding options are useful to hold in reserve as your business grows too—as you might find that you can use them to advertise later on, to pay for branding and other features, or to acquire new tech and resources.
Don’t overcomplicate things early on though. Remember from the steps presented earlier in this chapter that the first thing you need to do is to start offering and providing work. Worry about growing later on, after you have a working business model.
Final Tips Recap
With that overview of funding taken care of, we’re almost ready to part ways. I hope that at this point you’re starting to feel confident that you can go ahead and start providing services on the Web.
Before you go though, let’s just recap some of the most important and valuable tips that you should take from this text.
The Balance of Power
First, recognize that there is a balance of power in any relationship with any client. How that balance plays out will go a long way toward determining how easy your life ends up being. In other words, whether you end up working extra hard as a dogsbody, or whether you end up being able to pick and choose the work you want to do.
Subtle things you do, and small aspects of your communication, will decide this. Have you made yourself indispensable and proven your worth? Or are you constantly apologizing for late work?
Do you agree to unreasonable demands? Do you let the client contact you at every time of day? Are you willing to work for a pittance?
Small aspects of your language can also have this effect. Make sure that you don’t ask permission. Make sure that your clients know that you consider yourself to be valuable—never enter into a business relationship where you are desperate for the client to offer you work.
Communication Overhead
In a similar manner, you should always keep in mind the communication overhead when discussing projects with clients, and you should make sure you’re happy with the “cost” in this regard.
Every minute that you spend chatting on Skype, or answering an e-mail, is a minute that you haven’t spent working. And a minute that you’re not getting paid for.
A lot of clients will be overly fussy. Some are just trying to make themselves feel more professional. Whatever the reason, you will meet plenty who want to have long, drawn-out discussions. Make sure that you avoid this wherever possible and learn to just knuckle down and get the work done.
Becoming a Superstar
One of the most valuable tips I can share is to make sure you are always thinking about your résumé and your portfolio as you work and grow. The more prolific and qualified you can become, the more people are going to be willing to hire you and pay you well. When taking on work, then, don’t think primarily about the monetary reward, but place more stock in the opportunities that could come from it and whether it may be able to one day help you charge more for your work.
Being Specific
While building your portfolio, qualifications, and a varied skill set are all very important, it’s usually better to be more specific when advertising your services. Try to make yourself seem like the very best machine learning expert, security consultant, fitness writer, real estate web developer, or whatever your niche is, not a Jack of all trades.
Work-Life Balance
Estalishing a healthy work-life balance is what attracts many people to the freelance lifestyle in the first place, and protecting that work-life balance is incredibly important.
Thus, it is really rather important that you ensure you keep this as your priority and don’t allow work to run away with you. Protect your free time, and make sure you are designing your work to fit around the lifestyle you want—not the other way around.
If your work evolves into something you no longer enjoy, look at ways you can change that.
The Options
Work in the gig economy part time, and do another job part time
Do odd jobs when you need/want a little extra cash
Use the gig economy to support another objective—to bootstrap another business idea, to find your dream job, or to gain additional skills and expertise
Resilience
Find a wide variety of different types of client. Ideally, that means looking for someone that will pay for work whenever you provide it, or at least someone that will be around for a long time. It also means finding a good mixture of long and short-term clients.
If you can, create some form of passive income.
Increasing Your Wages
If you want to increase your income as someone who is self-employed, it can sometimes be tricky negotiating a better wage. One option is to try increasing your asking price so incrementally that the client doesn’t notice (which works especially well if you charge in some kind of unit, such as per line of code). Another strategy is to break your service down into different types of package that the clients can choose from. Also effective is to try looking for higher paid work and securing that (maybe taking “vacation” from your current clients to test that they are long-term), enabling you to then start a bidding war of sorts.
A Few More Rapid-Fire Tips
Work in coffee shops if you struggle working from home.
If you don’t want to be a digital nomad, you can try traveling in short stints.
Blog, build a social media platform, and/or create a YouTube channel. Creating an audience gives you more clout, more advertising power, and more charging power.
Don’t let anything go to waste. How can you reuse those classes from your code? How can you reuse those Premiere presets?
Think about ways to productize your business.
Cut the communication overhead.
Fill your office with inspiring things (such as a personal hero, or an example of fantastic work that you would like to aspire to) to stay more motivated, and try watching short clips and films that put you in a productive mood.
If you struggle to get started with work, or even with getting over the fear of setting up your online business, “take a little investigation.”
Consistency
The most important tip of all though is consistency. I’ve tried to provide as much advice, commentary, and information as possible to help you make the best decisions when it comes to growing your business. I’ve tried to explain how this can be a perfect route to creating your dream lifestyle, and how you can use it to grow your portfolio and résumé to the point where you’re a titan of your industry.
But all that is secondary. What you mustn’t do is use any of this as an excuse not to get started in the first place. You mustn’t let it put you off, or become overly daunting.
Check the start of this chapter again. The steps involved in getting started aren’t that difficult or complex; in fact, they’re very easy. All you need to do is place that ad, and then start delivering on the work you’ve promised once the requests start coming in.
And then what’s more important than all of the other stuff is that you are consistent. Put in the hours. Don’t hand in work late. Be the best there is at what you do.
After all, we are what we repeatedly do. If you want to run an online business selling tech services, then that’s what you need to do. Starting now. No excuses: get writing that ad!
And if that sounds scary? If that is still too massive a task?
Then just have a look—just launch a Little Investigation into it.
Good luck!