Building up your side hustle is a great way to secure extra income and potentially build a nice financial asset. This can greatly impact your personal finances, pursuit of early retirement, or put you at ease when it comes to money.
Yet, growing your side hustle income is not necessarily easy and can take some hard work.
In this post, I wanted to share what it really takes to grow your side hustle income in the long-term.
No, you won’t find marketing tips, planning insights, or secrets here.
Marketing and creating a plan are of course crucial, but I’m aiming to be a little different with this one.
Instead, you’ll learn the four qualities you need to focus on for your side hustle to actually make you money and to continue growing in the years to come.
I also thing these apply to all sorts of side hustles, so there is no specific target side hustle audience. If you have a side hustle or are about to start one, this post is for you.
My Side Hustling Background
Before we get into what it take to grow your side hustle income, I wanted to share my background into side hustling.
If you don’t care, feel free to skip ahead (you won’t hurt my feelings).
Since graduating college in 2010, I’ve always been doing or looking for extra ways to make cash. However, at that time, I never used the term “side hustle,” which that terminology really only started getting popular in the last few years (I think?).
Anyway, when you aren’t making much money out of college any little bit helps. I also was working more in marketing, so I wanted ways to accelerate my career and to boost my resume.
Of course, not every side hustle I did benefited my marketing career, but plenty did. Here a few of my side hustles since 2010:
- Freelance Social Media Consultant
- Domain and Company Naming (CrowdSPRING)
- Freelance Web Project Manager
- Created a Music Blog
- Freelance Writing/Blogging
- Current Blog, Invested Wallet
Other people could be flipping stuff on eBay, dropshipping, buying and selling domains, cutting grass, selling ebooks, etc. Tons and tons of side
But to be successful and grow your side hustle income, I think there are four things you need to have. Let’s dive in below.
Related: 7 Side Hustle Ideas That Have Full-Time Income Potential
Passion
For any side hustle to succeed long-term and continue to grow the income, you need to be passionate about it. Pretty obvious, right? But it still needs to be said.
If you create a side hustle you are passionate about or even just have a passion for making money, you’ll have much better odds of succeeding and increasing your side hustle income.
If you lack of passion or excitement, you’ll approach your side hustle as a chore, lose interest, or just not work as hard.
Your passion for your side hustle is what will drive you to get up early, stay up late, work after your day job, and find ways to hustle your way to more income.
Quality
Besides being passionate, your side hustle should be delivering and creating quality. No matter what kind of side hustle it is
You may think this only applies to certain side hustles, but everything you do should be of the highest quality.
Your blog content, your yard work services and customer skills, your communication if you are flipping items or dropshipping with customers, your products you might sell, etc.
Quality is memorable and creates trust with whatever work you do.
This will help with continued work, purchases, and word of mouth referrals whether in your town or online (pending your side hustle). People take notice
Consistency
This is almost similar to quality, but your side hustle work and services
Additionally, it is important when you are just getting started and trying to get traction too, that you stick to a consistent schedule of work.
Some examples of where consistency is key:
- You have set days each week you dedicate to your side hustle
- Your products or services are consistently good, done on time, delivered as promised, etc.
- If you are blogging, you post on a consistent schedule
Overtime, your consistent efforts and performance are recognized and really does contribute to your side hustle income and success.
Mentality
Your mentality is everything when it comes to side hustles and how successfully you’ll be in growing revenue. It’s not always easy to wake up early or work after hours to make extra money or build something of your own.
If you’re one to give up too quickly or your interest fades, it’s going to be hard for you to grow your side hustle income.
Questions to really ask yourself about your mentality. Do you work through challenges? Do you give up in a few weeks because it’s not working? Are you prepared to work, even when tired? Do you have a positive outlook, even if you side hustle isn’t going as expected?
Sure, even having the best and most positive mentality isn’t a guarantee of success because failures can still happen. Yet if your side hustle fails, do you give up completely? Work on it more? Or try again?
Giving up is what creates missed opportunities and leaves you in the future with a lot of, “what ifs.”
Your mentality, with a combo of everything else above, can improve your odds of increasing side hustle income to the next level.
And Two Last Things….
I didn’t mention it above, but luck and timing does play into a bit of your side hustle income too. However, I think luck and timing will not matter in the long-run.
Did you start a specific side hustle at the right time to take advantage of your money making? Did you time it right before others hopped on the bandwagon of your side hustle?
Many times luck and timing do contribute to your side hustle income, but it might only be a tiny sliver to your success. The above four areas are what truly keep your side hustle growing and moving.
Blogging is hugely popular and there is so much content online. Many of the early bloggers that are big now, started waaaay before everyone else. So good timing and lucky to start when they did, right?
However, there are tons of new bloggers now who may have missed the great time to start, but are still making money and selling their sites for six-figures. Sure it might have been easier to start then than now, but it’s still entirely possible.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking to make more money to reach your financial goals, then starting a side hustle might be for you. And hopefully, the above gives you an idea of what it takes to grow your side hustle income.