Do you dream of quitting your day job to turn your side hustle into your full-time job? While it’s definitely a lofty goal, it is doable to take your side hustle full-time. It can be extremely risky, especially if you dive into your side hustle full-time with little to no support to fall back in. In order to successfully make your dream a reality, you need to work strategically. Read on for the tips you need to turn your passion into your full-time job.
Clarify Your Why
Whether you began your side hustle to pull in a little extra money or you’ve found work you’re incredibly passionate about, you need to clearly identify the reason why this side hustle is so important to you. “Having a ‘why’ attached to your goal is vital to success,” explains Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder and CEO of OSDB Sports. “You need to have something that drives you to continue to find success.”
Start by asking yourself why it’s important to you that this business works out. Is it for an increased sense of purpose or love for your work? Is it to provide more security for your family? Whatever your unique reason is for making your side hustle a full-time business, clarify that. “Side hustles are not for the faint of heart,” explains Rachel Roff, Founder and CEO of Urban Skin Rx. “It will become difficult and stressful. In those moments, turn to your ‘why’ as a reminder of what you’re working towards; it can help pull you out of that burnout you’re feeling to realign with your passion.”
Your why will become the ultimate driver in realizing your vision over and over again. Everything will come back to it. Consider writing down your why in a place that you’ll see often to further emphasize why you’re working as hard as you are. Put it on your yearly vision board, have a custom wall art made for your office, or set it as the background on your phone. The constant reminder will help guide you along your journey.
Set Clear, Strategic Goals
The key to finding success in building a business is to set goals that are clear and attainable. Consider your ‘why’ as you determine what the goals are for your business; this is where you’ll need to get technical about goals. “Say you want to generate more income for your household,” Karim Hachem, VP of eCommerce at La Blanca says. “What does that look like for you? How much income do you need to pull in for it to make sense to quit your full-time job and replace it with your side hustle income? Then, figure out how much revenue you would need to generate to meet those financial needs.”
As you map out your goals, you can generate about three–five that make sense for how you want your business to grow, even beyond getting to the point of quitting your full-time job. Think about short-term and long-term goals to clearly visualize where you want this company to take you.
If you already have a side hustle in place, you can gain information from what you’ve done previously. You should have a keen understanding of your target customer and your products or services. To turn a side hustle into a full-time business, you need to be setting strategic goals to help get you there utilizing whatever information you have at your disposal.
“Once you’ve decided you’re going to take your side hustle into your primary job, you have to crunch the numbers,” advises Jae Pak, Founder of Jae Pak MD Medical. “Take a look at your metrics, including sales, profit, traffic, expenses, and more. Once you have a clear understanding of where you are, you can put together goals that align with your metrics and can help you piece together an action plan.”
Craft Together an Action Plan
You’ve determined your goals to bring your side hustle full-time income. Now what? You need to put together an action plan to help you realize your goals. “A goal is one thing; a plan is a whole other beast,” shares Brittany Dolin, Co-Founder of Pocketbook Agency. “You need to identify clear steps to realize your goal. Get as specific as possible with everything from dates to sales.” Specificity in your action plan helps set up a strategic road map to have your goals realized.
As you craft your action plan, don’t try to do too much too fast. Start out small and work your way up. You want to set yourself up for success and often when people try to take on too much, it ends in failure. While failure is often a great learning experience, you want to be smart about what you’re doing right off the bat. There is always room for change and, in fact, you should account for a change to happen and embrace it.
“Be open to making changes as needed,” says Melanie Bedwell, E-commerce Manager at OLIPOP. “An action plan can be a working document. You need to periodically evaluate your success along the path to determine if things are heading in the right direction. If anything is off-course or ahead of the plan, make some adjustments.”
Put in the Time (While Taking Care of Yourself)
Entrepreneurship is a time-consuming task. As a side hustler, you likely have a full-time job to handle on top of whatever you do for your business. That’s a lot of time commitment. “Essentially, you’re working overtime if you have a side hustle as a full-time employee,” shares Ian Heyman, Founder of Male Drip Protection. “You could be working 60–70 hours per work doing two different jobs, perhaps even more. It’s only normal for that to take a toll on you.”
Burnout is an incredibly real struggle people with side hustles deal with. You’re working extremely hard to build up your business and aside from the additional working hours, you could be overexerting your work capacity or making sacrifices in your personal life.
“Burnout can eat you alive,” warns John Berry, CEO and Managing Partner of Berry Law. “When you’re passionate about something, it’s difficult to stop the wheel from turning. You want so badly to find that success that you’ll do anything to get it. But if you reach the point of burnout where you can’t break free, it’s all lost. So take care of yourself along the way.”
The best way to avoid burnout is to be strategic with how you spend your time. Set up a working schedule for your side hustle and also plan for time off. You need that time to help you take a break so you can put all your energies into your ultimate goals.
Utilize Your Strengths and Outsource Your Weaknesses
A key aspect of avoiding burnout is to get some help with your work. It’s easier said than done when you’re operating a side hustle, but there are ways that you can properly manage without overexerting yourself. The biggest way to do that is to hire some help.
That might sound counterintuitive, but if you’re serious about taking this side hustle full-time, it’s worth it to get some help where you need it as you’re building everything up so you can move the needle. “It’s wise to consider outsourcing tasks like social media promotion,” shares Datha Santomieri, Co-Founder and Vice-President of Steadily Landlord Insurance. “There are lots of talented social media managers out there with tons of knowledge on how to leverage those platforms to grow. Trying to do everything on your own is not always the best use of time.”
As you determine which tasks you want to outsource, figure out which ones must be completed in association with your business. “Jot down a list,” Lindsay Malu Kido, CEO of Empower Pleasure recommends. “Outline which tasks you want to complete that speak to your strengths. Then, determine which tasks aren’t your forte. Which ones end up taking the most time that don’t even need to be completed by you? Those are the tasks you can then choose to outsource, which ultimately leaves you more time to work on the big stuff.”
You don’t have to continue outsourcing these tasks for the long term. But as you’re working towards building up your business, it can be beneficial to get some help. Once you decide you’re ready to take on the workload full-time, you’ll have the time in your schedule to take these tasks back and do them on your own, should you choose to.
Conclusion
Tons of people are turning their side hustle into a full-time business. You can absolutely make it happen for yourself. It will take a ton of hard work, especially as you try to juggle multiple jobs at once. But if you put in the commitment to making it happen, the struggle will all be worth it. You’ll be left with a career that you’re passionate about that’s bringing in the money you need, all while being your own boss. It’s nothing short of a dream come true.
