Nine ways that solopreneurs can make more money in 2023.
Life got expensive in 2022. And while some prices are starting to fall again, it’s still not at the level it was before.
This has left the self-employed, solopreneurs and others on rollercoaster incomes to start looking for more ways to make money.
Here are nine suggestions that could help make a little extra in 2023.
Be a Canva Graphic Designer
Despite being the ultimate DIY graphics tool, many people either don’t have the time to use Canva — or don’t have the time to learn how to use it.
This means there is a market of people willing to pay others to make their flyers, banners, social media tiles and other graphics for them — even if it is on Canva.
Build up a portfolio of graphics that you’ve made for others (or make mock-ups of ones that simulate what you could do for a real client) and open yourself up a website using our following tool you could use to make extra money.
I strongly suggest that if you do this, you upgrade to the premium version of Canva here.
Be a Web Designer on Google Sites
This tool will take you around 5 minutes to learn how to use. Google Sites is the web design tool for people who have no idea how to build websites and don’t particularly want to learn.
While this tool was pretty awful for much of the last ten years, it’s really improved now. And while it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of WordPress, Wix or Squarespace, it also doesn’t have the cost associated with those.
Google Sites is a completely free website builder that costs nothing for web hosting or the tool itself. You can build a functional, indexable and attractive website for no cost.
You might consider buying a Google Domains web address for just $18 per year. This will make the address easier to remember.
A complete website with a domain name for $18 a year? That’s pretty awesome — and you don’t have to be a website designer to charge others to do the work for them. Because just like with our Canva tip above, some people don’t have the time to do it and don’t want to spend the time learning it.
Even if it takes only five minutes.
Be an MS 365 Tutor
You would be surprised to know how many people don’t know the basics of Microsoft’s Office Suite.
You are already way ahead of most people if you know how to set up a spreadsheet with basic auto sums and formulas.
If you know how to change a page layout on Word, you are already pages ahead of many people.
And if you know how to use templates to create attractive PowerPoint presentations, you can show off your skills to those who have never learned how to do it.
Sure, there are a million tutorials on YouTube and the rest of the internet. But like our two previous tools, some people don’t have the time to look for the right tutorial — they just want to know how to do it themselves.
So set up a Google Site, open a Facebook page, crank up a LinkedIn profile and start showing the world that you can teach them the basics of the world’s most used office tools.
Be an Event Organiser
You don’t have to open a huge events company to organise events. You can do it at zero cost to start up and what’s even better? You need no qualifications or certifications at all.
Events organisers do the following:
- Meet with a client to see what they’d like
- Call a bunch of suppliers to see how much it will cost
- Provide a quote that takes those costs and adds your own fee
- Then when it’s accepted, you coordinate everyone to deliver the event
While that is a super simplified list of what event organisers do, when it comes to small events with small numbers of guests, it might not be much more complicated than this.
If you offer small event coordination for no more than 50% of your working time, you’ll have found a new source of income that will help supplement any drop in income you might strike in 2023.
Be a Copywriter
If you’re pretty good at stringing words together into readable sentences, you may be the kind of person who could be a decent copywriter.
The trouble with being a writer, though, is that writer’s block is a very real thing.
I write a lot every week. And while I consider myself a fairly good writer, I cannot put the time into writing that I really would like to.
This is where AI writing tools like Writesonic come in handy.
I use Writesonic to do a few things:
- Give me ideas on what to write
- Start the writing process by giving me blog outlines
- Give me well-written social media posts by organising my ideas into compelling sentences
There are a lot of tools out there, but honestly, I haven’t seen one that does as good a job at complete bog writing as Writesonic does.
Be a Coach
There is no qualification necessary to be a life coach, business coach or digital coach. None at all.
You can have a few skills and be a coach. You just need to have a way to promote yourself, demonstrate some credibility and then have a place for people to book you.
So what can you be a coach of?
- Digital skills
- Writing
- Reaching
- English language
- Business Growth
- Starting a business
- Making videos and audio
- Musical instruments
- Singing
- Public speaking
- Gardening
- Pottery, arts and crafts
- Computers
- Wellbeing
- Fitness
And there are a whole lot more things that you can be a coach for.
Try it. There is nothing to stop you from becoming a coach.
Be a social media manager
You probably already do yours. So why not take on a small number of clients and do theirs? To do this, you’ll need a social media posting tool that can handle multiple clients, networks, and channels
I’ve switched between many tools over the years. Two of the best I came across were Sendible and Socialpilot.
But recently I switched back to an old favourite simply because I already own a lifetime account with them and I don’t have to pay any ongoing monthly fee. It’s Sociamonials.
I tried it years ago but didn’t like the interface and there were a lot of things it just simply didn’t do well. And while it’s still not as good as Sendible or Socialpilot, the fact that I don’t have to pay a monthly fee overrides the 5% of things that make the other tools better.
Once you’ve got a good social media scheduling tool like Sociamonials, you’ll find managing other people’s social media properties quite simple.
Be an affiliate marketer
I don’t personally know anyone who got rich being an affiliate marketer. But I know quite a few who have made a decent amount of extra cash that they otherwise wouldn’t have made.
Affiliate marketing suffers from many of the same problems as network marketing. Lots of people who make no money are running around the internet telling us all how we will make lots of money if only we become an affiliate marketer just like them.
Despite the fact that they haven’t made any money themselves.
I have only just started inserting affiliate links into some of my blogs now. The very article contains links to a few products that I use that I have also become an affiliate for. Why? Well, I should get recognised for referring someone. Right?
I don’t have any grand secrets of tips for being a good affiliate apart from the need for you to build an audience FIRST. Then you can add in affiliate links and introduce ways to monetise your content.
Doing it the other way around is just stupid.
Be a niche YouTuber
I’m giving this one a red hot go in 2023. Not by becoming famous, but by building a library of content that is quite easy for me to make, that takes things that I am both good at and find simple to do, and post it on YouTube.
I’ve been doing it for a week and nothing is taking off yet, but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
The method I’m following is to produce videos that appeal to a very specific niche of people who will watch videos like these and then I keep producing more of them so that they will continue to be suggested more of my videos.
Once I reach 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watching, YouTube will invite me to become monetised and I’ll hopefully start pulling in a little cash. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to make up for the time I’m spending making the videos.
Will it work? Who knows! But it’s worth a try.
Got any other side gigs you’re going to switch on in 2023? Tell me about them via dante@clickstarter.com.au.
Dante St James is the founder of Clickstarter, a Meta Certified Lead Trainer, a Community Trainer with Meta Australia, a digital advisor with Business Station, an accredited Digital Solutions advisor and presenter, and the editor at The Small Marketer. You can watch free 1-hour webinars and grow your digital skills at Dante’s YouTube Channel.
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