Side Gigs for Teachers and Other Smart People Who Know Stuff

I’ve often said that a way to learn to respect all people is to realize that every person you meet knows A LOT more about at least one thing than you do.

So whether it’s the guy cutting your grass (who likely knows  more than you do about gardening, lawn maintenance, and motorized implements and tools) or the lady at your favorite grocery store check out (who I imagine can run rings around most of us when it comes to knowing how and where to find the best coupons on any given product or service), everyone knows a lot about at least one thing.

Sometimes, though, we’re so buried in our own day-to-day lives, that we don’t even realize what we know — yet it’s those same things (all that stuff you know) that’s ripe for a side gig… something you can do in your free time… for a little extra income.

You are the expert at your own life… your own experiences, your own specific pieces of knowledge you’ve spent years and years acquiring in a way that no one else living or dead ever has.

Think about that for a second and let it sink in.  Your perspective on your topic (subject matter) is unlike anyone else’s. The way you organize that knowledge internally is unlike any other person.

And because of our online world, it has never been easier to create side gigs for teachers or just about anyone else.

I’ll focus this article on the three types of side gigs I like best for people who know stuff.

  • Teach it.
  • Write about it.
  • Build a business (online or not) around it.

Now, before we get started, I want to spell out something as boldly as I can.

Building any of these into side gigs can be fun and, potentially, quite rewarding.

BUT… because most people who’ve never built a business before often think that if they build a good product, people will just show up.

You know… the old saying:  Build it and they will come.

Ahh, Grasshopper, not so fast there.

The real work of your business is the marketing… because no matter how good your stuff is, ya just gotta figure out how to get people to find you, and that requires marketing.

A LOT of marketing.

And, over and over. No, I’m not saying it requires any sort of high-pressure sales tactics, but you have to be comfortable getting your name, product, or face out there. It just is that way.

So, if you’re the “I just want to create” kind of person and leave all that nasty business stuff to someone else, unless you have tons in your bank account or a guru marketing partner who’ll be in it with you for free, then you might not want to be creating a side gig to begin with.

But, that’s for a different time, and a different topic.

If you’re ready to hustle, read on…

So, are you up for building your own side gig?

Onward to more details on my three favorite ways to create side gigs for teachers and other smart people who know stuff.

Teaching What You Know As a Side Gig

I guarantee you that whatever you know, there is someone out there who’ll pay you to learn it.

Still a little skeptical?

Check out just this one online learning portal — Udemy — where they have over 55,000 online courses on thousands of different topics. Bet you can’t find a topic where they don’t have at least one course.

Or what do you think about this research study from Global Market Insights that puts the online learning industry at close to $200 billion a year?

Yup, lots of people creating and taking online courses.

[amazon_link asins=’B019YAXS14,B01HSFXSCG,B01J29QG5W,B016A83L2Y,B00UL345DE’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’mindtrekker-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’442295e0-cf06-11e7-a57e-11abf0b3b020′]

LOTS.

If you’re a teacher, check out the 1,000+ short courses at SimpleK12, most of which are created by teachers and school administrators, as side gigs!

Want to present a course for SimpleK12?  Here’s where to go to learn more.

And, that’s just online. What about in-person presentations for professional development?

Virtually every industry has one or even dozens of organizations which provide training and professional development, either at organizations’ places of work or at conferences.

Check out my conversation with my friend Scott Paton about creating and selling courses online, especially with Udemy.

In addition to Udemy, here are some other course creation and delivery platforms you may want to investigate, in no particular order:

Another system I’ve been looking at closely is Kajabi, which is a completely integrated online course creation AND marketing toolRemember my comments above about it all coming down to marketing? That’s what makes Kajabi something worth looking at,  because it creates a one-stop base from which you can run your online teaching operation. (And, the guys who created Kajabi did so with marketing foremost in their plans.)

You may want to check out this webinar to learn not just about Kajabi, but the whole online course creation and marketing world as well.

If you’re still hungering for more, here’s a Kajabi review.

Cautionary Note: If you want maximum control, and not have to worry about a third-party platform going out of business or presenting you with strange or uncomfortable demands, you’ll want to think heavily about building your own site in WordPress (there are tons of great modules — called plug-ins that let you create environments similar to all of the platforms listed above) or another language or tool.

 

Writing About What You Know As a Side Gig

If you can teach, you can and should write. Now, not all writers make good in-person or online teachers, but all teachers should be good writers.

If you can teach, you can explain.

If you can explain, you can organize your thoughts and put them on paper or the screen.

So, if you’re just at the beginning of your writing quest, get yourself around other writers, take a course on how to get published, send out your ideas to publications (book, magazine, and online), and most of all (shocker!)… write.

Start a blog.

And write.

Also learn as much as you can, as quickly as you can about the business of writing.

You can start with the granddaddy of the writing business, Writers’ Market, which will give you more than you ever wanted to know about where and how to sell what you write.

Then you may also want to follow writers who write about the craft and business of writing. You can learn a lot from mega-published author Jerry Jenkins right here.

The whole writing and publishing industry has changed dramatically in the last 20 years.  For book publishing, in the dark ages (pre-Internet) you pretty much had to go with the classical traditional book publishing route… you’d pitch your book to a “major publisher” (or an agent, if you could get one), wait weeks or months to get a decision from them, and then — if you were the 1 in a 1,000 selected — you could go through a one to three year (or longer!) process of getting the thing written and published. Then, if you were lucky beyond all hope, you’d see your book in a few bookstores.

Oh, and then, you might get 10 percent of the total sales of your book.

But, wowie kaplowie — this whole internet thing blew that model to smithereens.

Sure, the big publishers are still around, but if you’re business minded and you don’t mind the production and marketing side of creating books, you can skip all that, set yourself up  as your own publishing company (can be done in less than hour via online LLC company creation services), and have your books printed on-demand, in batches as little as one at a time.

Amazon — which is where everyone, big and small, wants to be peddling their books — has even integrated the whole print-on-demand and sales process in one through its Create Space subsidiary!

Of course, that’s just one option, of dozens, for setting up shop on your own… do a search on print -on-demand and you’ll see what I mean.

Here’s a good article from the Self Publishing Advice Center on a few of those print-on-demand options.

Side Tip:  If you’re a teacher, go ahead and send a short article about your classroom insights or experiences right here at SimpleK12.

 

Building a Business Around What You Know As a Side Gig

Building a business, especially around stuff you know or love, could require a book in itself. Shoot, you could even write an entire series of books around this topic.

So, let me just give you a couple of places to check out to see if if they suit your interests, and then share a story about something that intrigues me as something worth investigating if you’re a product-oriented person.

If your’re artsy, think about selling your creations and wares via Etsy.

If you want to have your own online store, you’ll certainly want to investigate Shopify. Their tagline tells you what they cover, and it’s broad: Whether you sell online, on social media, in store, or out of the trunk of your car, Shopify has you covered.

If your skill set lends itself to the marketing side of things, and you know your way around the online world quite well, you may want to investigate the thousands of affiliate programs out there — when you’re an affiliate, you essentially put banners and other links in your social media, emails, and site(s) to drive traffic to the merchant’s site.

Here’s a good background article on affiliate marketing from Acceleration Partners, an affiliate network that  brings merchants and affiliates (that would be you in this scenario) together.

If you work with teachers or have a site that attracts a lot of teacher traffic, check out the SimpleK12 affiliate program.

 

My Favorite Way to Make Money Online

Al Secunda, The Muffin Man, Sells Via FBA

When you become accomplished at something, you will often find opportunities to help other people do what you do with coaching, consulting, or some other type of advisory service.

My friend Al Secunda, known online as The Muffin Man,  has a small, yet quite successful, side gig selling his products — he focuses on baking and home-related accessories — on Amazon.

Al, and thousands of others, has set up shops for their own products — whether they make them themselves or source them from manufacturers and artisans — right on Amazon.

A few years ago, Amazon created their Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) service, and here’s how the company describes it:

“You sell it, we ship it. Amazon has created one of the most advanced fulfillment networks in the world, and your business can benefit from our expertise. With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you store your products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and we pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products.”

FBA gives Al and all of these other side giggers a huge amount of flexibility.  Because all of the products go straight from the manufacturer (in Al’s case) to Amazon,  he has no need to store physical inventory, he doesn’t have to ship and bill customers, nor does he have to deal with customer service. I put all of those things into the “yay for me!” category when it comes to having a side gig.

Perhaps most importantly for many side giggers, wth something like FBA, Al doesn’t have to be at a specific place at a specific time.

In fact, Al goes about his day (he’s a stay-at-home dad, a professional musician, and he has three or four different side gigs) and works mostly from his smart phone, even while out on his walks with his daughter and dog and while at the park.

Imagine that!

Now, because Al has learned so much about running side gigs on FBA, so quickly, he’s had people ask him for his advice. Well, because that smelled like another opportunity for Al, he’s in the process of setting up yet two other side gigs — he’s creating courses to teach people how to get up and running on FBA and he’s acting as a consultant to larger companies who want to move from brick-and-mortar retail operations to becoming online merchants.

If there’s one downside to FBA and to the whole “wow, this is a really easy way to get into an online side gig business,” it’s that — while the mechanics are easy and can be learned — you simply cannot guess at what products you should be selling. Consequently, FBA is ideally suited for someone who is analytical, loves data (lots and lots of it), and is dogged enough to go through various tests and iterations.

Here’s a recent conversation I had with Al about FBA.

In our chat, we talk about:

  • What is FBA?
  • What attracted you to it?
  • How does it fit for you as a side gig?
  • How do you choose products?
  • Realistically, what are the side gig income opportunities here?

Please have a listen and let me know what you think about FBA as a possible side gig for you.

Here are links to some of the resources Al mentioned in our conversation:

JungleScout.  This is what Al uses and recommends to help find the right products to sell on Amazon, and this is where the research and patience comes in. Please note that I’ve included the link with Al’s affiliate account, so he’ll make a few bucks should you become a JungleScout customer, but you’ll pay no more than you would if you just happen across the site on your own.

Al also says you can learn a lot by scouring the videos on JungleScout’s YouTube channel.

The two podcasts that Al recommends for learning more about FBA and selling online, in general, are:

The AM/PM Podcast by Manny Coats. (Side note: I just love the way Manny tells his story via a set of little factoids in his Snapshot Facts About Me section.)

The Amazing Seller Podcast by Scott Voelker.


That’ll give you lots to chew on as you contemplate your side gig.

It’s truly a brave new world, side giggers, so please go forth and prosper.

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One thought on “Side Gigs for Teachers and Other Smart People Who Know Stuff

  1. Great post! It mentions print-on-demand as a great self-publishing option — if you’re looking to learn even more on the subject, I’d recommend this post: https://blog.reedsy.com/print-on-demand-books/

    It’s a pretty comprehensive guide that covers the costs, royalties, and opportunities associated with four top print-on-demand services: IngramSpark, KDP Print, BookBaby, and Blurb. The post also features a video of BookTuber Mandi Lynn comparing a print book from all four printers — so you can see first-hand the different results!

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