Make Money Online and Escape Your Day Job
written by Nick Cernis on January 13th, 2008
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Escape Your Job (the Safe Way!)
In my New Year post,
28 Ways to Beat the Procrastination Demon,
I said that one of the best ways to become more productive was to find work that you love.
18 months ago I made the switch to work for myself – I love it, and I couldn’t have done it without the web.
Becoming my own boss has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done. A growing portion of my income now comes from the web, but I remember exactly what it was like to take that first leap of faith. In this post I’ll teach you a simple 3-step method to escape your job the safe way and start making your income online.
1) Make a Plan
So you’ve decided that working for The Man isn’t for you any more. You’ve seen others make a living online, and you reckon you’d like some of the pie? Go for it! Here’s where to start:
The two questions you need to ask yourself are:
- Using my skills and experience (or new skills I’m willing to learn), what would I love to do online?
- How can I make a living from it?
My advice is to do what I did – find several things you love that each have the potential to make money online. It gives you variety, and it spreads the risk across several income streams.
Skellie has put together an excellent list of money-making ideas over at Anywired that should get you thinking about your online options. Naomi of IttyBiz has a brilliant list of must-reads to ensure business success. Read both articles and you should be armed with everything you need to make a plan and make it work.
2) Switch and Keep it Safe
There are three choices you can take to switch from being employed to working solo. Only two of them are safe. For the sake of completeness, here’s all three:
a) The Stupid Way
The stupid way, the one you absolutely must not do, is to walk out without a real plan or any spare cash. More businesses fail because of cashflow problems than anything else, so if you just up-and-leave without planning your finances, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.Even if you’ve got a millionaire partner who’ll support your strange business ideas, tolerate your all-nighters and fun new body odour, you won’t be the one laughing when they up-and-leave and you’re left without money and a home. This actually happened to someone I care about. Don’t do it the Stupid Way.
b) The Safe Way
The safe way, the one that almost every business startup book and advisor in the land will tell you about, is this. Save three months worth of your current monthly salary. Use the time it takes to save to refine your plan. Once you’ve got those savings then quit and put your plan into action fast. This way is OK. Just OK. It will see you through, but there’s a better one…c) The Best Way (it’s Fun and Safe)
The best way – the one you should aim for – is this. Start your online ventures now part-time, alongside your existing job. Next save three times your monthly expenditure (not three times your salary). It’s simple but it’s smart. And it really works – it’s the way I did it, and if I’m still smiling 18 months later, you will be too.You know all that time you spend watching re-runs of Heroes and The Simpsons? You could be sowing the seeds for your future success instead. When I decided to work for myself, I sacrificed a couple of evenings of TV each week to work on a business plan instead. I took that plan to a bank manager to set up a business account. I registered a limited company. I came up with a name for all my various ventures. I started selling more crap on eBay.
With the planning and business structure sorted, I spent the next few months calculating my monthly outgoings and putting three times that in a savings account. If you’re like I was, your monthly outgoings probably aren’t too far off your salary, but that small difference will mean you can safely escape your job a few extra weeks earlier and start earning a living doing something you love. Sure, you’ll have to live a little more frugally, but you should now have a trickle revenue coming in from your online enterprises that will build steadily.
3) The Exit Strategy
A quick word about how you leave your old job. Setting your boss’ desk on fire and dancing naked around the water cooler with a bottle of gin in one hand sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? That’s really living the dream. But try to resist the urge. The key when moving on is not to burn any bridges. (Yes, desks count.)
Once you’ve already started your new online empire part-time and you’ve saved a bit of cash to help with the transition, that’s when you craft your polite notice letter and find the richest, most generous person in your office to help plan your leaving do.
By being polite when I left and keeping old relationships open, I still get work from my old place of employment. Only now, I have the luxury of setting the rate I think I’m worth. Don’t burn your bridges now – they could be the route to opportunities later.
What Are You Waiting For?
Don’t put things off any longer! If you haven’t taken action by making a plan within 2 weeks of reading this post, you probably never will. Your life will have gotten in the way.
There is an excellent poem called “Find your Love” on the Howies website that I recommend you read. If you don’t like poetry, there’s a really great image that accompanies it. If that doesn’t motivate you, nothing will (except maybe Steve Jobs’ moving “Stay Hungry” speech).
Remember: make a plan, escape the safe and fun way, don’t burn any bridges, and you’ll be fine. Please, please, don’t do it the stupid way. If you’re that desperate to leave your job then look at cutting your monthly expenditure so you can save less and leave a little earlier.
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Action Points
1) Make a plan by deciding what you’d love to do online and working out how you’ll make money doing it.
2) Work out your monthly expenditure. Multiply this by three to get your savings target.
3) Start saving today. Open a high interest savings account specific to your goal of going solo safely.
4) Start your online projects now. Run them part time alongside your job. You’ll learn a lot, and it will give you a great head start!
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16 comments so far:
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15 Jan 08
09:01
Lipton
Great post, and great clean blog design too :)
15 Jan 08
13:01
Nick Cernis
Thanks, Lipton. Glad you found it useful and like the blog!
16 Jan 08
16:01
Lipton
I wanted to also say, I was a victim of “a) The Stupid Way” I’ve learned a lot from that experience however and its improved my current online ventures…
Biggest tip I took away from that is: follow your passion, not someone else’s crazy ideas.
16 Jan 08
16:01
Nick Cernis
Yup - I would tag a little on the end to your advice too: follow your passion, but have a good plan!
Listening to other people’s ideas is often worthwhile too, but at the end of the day, it has to be your own dream you’re chasing.
Thanks for contributing. Good luck in your online work and play!
17 Jan 08
08:01
Katy
Great tips. The questions remains, what if you’re already at home and paving a way to not “have” to go back to work? What then would you suggest putting into high gear to work at monetization of business ideas?
17 Jan 08
11:01
Nick Cernis
Hi Katy. Thanks for chiming in. The dream of not having to go back to work is a great one, and worth pursuing!
My main advice for someone who’s already at home would be to start something – anything that makes you money online right now! It doesn’t matter too much what it is – you could start an eBay shop, an Amazon affiliate scheme on your blog, or sell photos through iStockPhoto.
Non of these things need as much planning as a full-blown business idea – make your first online income stream something simple so you can start right now! (You might have already done that – if so, great!)
Once you see that income start to trickle in, it’s amazing how it can motivate you to keep building it and add more streams. And once they’ve started to build, then you can use that income to support you while you plan bigger business ideas.
In terms of monetizing online business ideas, my advice is always the same: Monetize from day one. I believe you should aim to sell advertising or have a commercial element to every site you launch from day one. It’s much harder to add adverts or take payment later - the community you’ve worked so hard to build may rebel!
If you don’t want to sell ads, subscriptions, or products at full price when you start out, use introductory rates and free periods to help make them more attractive.
Hope that helps, and good luck with staying independent! Stay tuned to PTO for more tips and take care. I’ve subscribed to imbloggingthat.com and wish you all the best.
19 Jan 08
00:01
John Masters
Your posts keep me coming back :)
19 Jan 08
19:01
Ben
Some great advice there - I’m hoping to make the jump myself sometime soon. Going to take route c :)
23 Jan 08
12:01
Chris
I would like to say that this plan - working your new venture while concurrently working your regular job - is well and good if you are single but for those of us with families, remember that time watching Heroes with your son/daughter/wife/husband is valuable to them.
Make sure you don’t swap out your family time with your new venture time. Your family will resent your new job and what good would getting into your dream job be if your family can’t be there to enjoy it with you?
27 Jan 08
18:01
Robert Eckert
Excellent Blog!Very well designed and focused.
28 Jan 08
15:01
Nick Cernis
@Ben - great stuff! Best of luck and well done for doing it the smart way.
@Chris - absolutely. Work/life balance will be something I cover in the future. I’d never suggest anyone sacrifice relationships with their family; finding the time to start a business is a delicate juggling act, but most folks I’ve spoken with have clawed back time from their life in one way or another, and reducing TV is just one example. (Getting up an hour earlier is another common one that seems to work). If they want it enough, people find a way! Thanks for your excellent comment.