How to Grow Your Side Hustle into a Successful Business.

Most new businesses these days start off as side-hustles. The evolution of the internet has made it very easy to have a side hustle business while still having a full-time job.

A side hustle literally means you are still working your full-time job and starting a business on the side which will eventually become large enough to be your new full-time priority.

Whether you’re building a business that will allow you to quit your day job and focus on your passion full-time or are just looking to supplement your income, having a side hustle can be a productive and fun way to spend your off-hours and make some money doing what you love.

Here are the five essential tips to turn your side-hustle into a successful business.

1. Create a strategic plan
Before you can escape your full-time job, you need to have a strategic plan for how your business is going to run once you’re full-time. This strategic plan is high-level only, don’t worry about all the nitty-gritty details yet, that’s for the next step!

Write down your vision, mission, values, and goals. Take what you’ve written down in your strategic plan and then map out the first 90-days with all the nitty-gritty details of how you’re going to achieve those goals.


2. Automate Everything You Can
There’s an app for systematizing almost every aspect of your business. Your goal should be to free up as much time as possible to work on revenue-driving tasks that net the highest return for the limited amount of free time you have outside of your day job.

Invest in tools that will allow you to automate as much as possible. For example, automate social media posting with Buffer, send invoices with an invoice generator, use Gmail’s canned responses to avoid typing out repetitive emails etc.

3. Generate more leads
The fastest way to grow your side hustle to a successful business is by generating more businesses that keep your cash flow positive. Look for and embrace opportunities to write about your business in a way that helps your potential customers know more about your business value propositions.

If you haven’t already, consider starting a blog that focuses on your target audience and builds your own email list from visitors of your blog. Building your own email list means that you don’t have to pay for advertising your latest product or service if you’ve got an engaged list of people who love what you produce.

4. Leverage Freelance Talent
Outsourcing some of your tasks to freelance talent is one of your best ways to do more each day. Set a monthly budget for hiring freelancers and virtual assistants from popular freelance websites to handle the mundane.

They also grant access to freelancers that can handle anything outside of your expertise. Identify the areas of your business that must be handled by you, and work towards finding freelancers to take care of everything else.


5. Master your schedule
If you want to grow your business, then you need to get a handle on your schedule. This doesn’t mean you need to fill every hour of every day, it just means you need to know when you’re working and when you’re not.

You need to stick to deadlines and ensure that you’re not dropping the ball when it comes to getting things that matter to your business done.

Conclusion
As a part-time entrepreneur, time is one of your most valuable assets. Every minute count so much that you need to learn how to manage your time and make sure you stay very productive. The best way to work smarter is to automate repetitive task with dedicated software to eliminate basic human touch points in your business.