Your Skills Are Worth Money: Banking on Your Brilliance

Last updated on October 18th, 2024 at 11:01 am

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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The economy has been brutal since COVID-19 began. If you were laid off or struggled with underemployment, you have undoubtedly experienced financial stress. But without even realizing it, you may be sitting on a wealth of untapped potential. Everyone has a skill, and sometimes those talents can be harnessed to earn money on the side or as a business.

Melinda Osman has helped people reach their most significant potential and find a healthy work-life balance. Sometimes, it takes an outside perspective to recognize marketable skills. With the right tools, you could build a steady income and even start a business with the abilities you currently take for granted. It all begins with a skills assessment.

Identify Your Talents

Often, people overlook much of their abilities without realizing it. Think about past work experiences and the tasks you were responsible for in those settings. Take another look at your transferable skills — each of the job responsibilities on your resume is transferable. Do not forget to count your interpersonal skills, as they are a valuable commodity that can earn you money.

What if you were able to use your creative talents to earn money? Artistic skills like painting, writing, and sewing can be profitable ventures. You can also use your keen artistic eye to help others and consult on design projects. Creative people are often the most imaginative in assisting others to solve problems and find innovative solutions.

If you struggle to identify your talents, consider taking a skills inventory or aptitude assessment. Once you have narrowed your abilities, consider formulating a career or business around those skills. An essential aspect of using your talents for income is articulating what you offer and marketing your skills effectively with a user-friendly, intuitive website.

Showcase Your Skills Online

As you work with a web designer, think about ways to showcase your skills and products. Offer instructional videos, written content, and affiliate links that can produce passive income as people browse your site. Explore the competitor websites to learn what they offer and how to differentiate yourself and stand out in the market. For example, if you are considering an organizational business, provide a range of services in that niche and a blog. You could create organizational templates to help clients manage their documents and even collaborate with an accountant to offer financial organization tools and advice.

As your plan starts to take shape, consider your marketing strategies. Establish your business on several social media platforms and regularly update them with photos of your work, tips for readers, and pertinent information that reinforces your brand. Every decision you make, from the colors of your webpage to the wording in your social media updates, indicates what your business represents. All of these factors contribute to your “brand.” How you run your business will be impacted by how you structure it. Business formation can affect a lot of your daily functions.

Forming Your Business Legally

Many businesses opt to file in a way that protects them from harm in case of a problem. Filing as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) is an intelligent decision, not only because of the protections it offers your assets but also because of the additional benefits of better taxation rates and reduced paperwork burden. If you file as an LLC, investigate your state regulations or hire a service to do the legwork for you in Virginia.

Your skills can become your source of income when you find the right way to harness and market them. You are just a few steps away from starting your best job yet, working for the best boss of all: yourself.

Guest blogger Elijah Dawson from lookforjobshere.com wrote this article, sharing valuable insights to help you monetize your skills and talents.