Patrick
It’s official. The Colombian government has just extended the pandemic quarantine until April 26.
While the rest of the world was hoping to get back to work soon, my 7-year old daughter told me yesterday that she hopes the COVID-19 continues indefinitely. Her reason being that she loves that we are spending so much time together as a family. No more 6 AM school busses and bouncing around in the pyjamas all day is totally acceptable.
I, on the hand, have been hard a work trying to identify as many opportunities as possible. Not just for you – my dear reader – but also for myself, as I, too, am looking to build an extra income stream.
Today’s topic is about teaching.
Teaching, is the art of transferring skills, knowledge, wisdom, and stories from one person to another. From one generation to the next. It is one of the main drivers behind our progress as a society and as a human species.
I believe that we all have a skill set. Some people have honed their skills more than others, but you most likely have something valuable that you can teach to other people.
There are many forms of teaching. In the light of this series of posts being about how to make money from home, most people are probably thinking of giving one-on-one classes online. This works well with languages. Like with Cambly, where any native English speaker can earn about $10 USD per hour by having informal conversations with students from all over the world. The iTutor is another platform offering a similar opportunity.
Those ideas are very valid and probably a good place to get started for many. But, essentially, you are just swapping your time for money. You will never make more than the hours you invest into each class.
But what if you could create a teaching system that could make money for you no matter the hour, the day or your location?
Allow me to present you to Teachable.
Teachable is a platform that allows you to create your own courses. You decide the subject and your imagination will be the only limiting factor.
So whether you’re looking to do a course on dating, muffin-baking, a photo-editing, guitar playing, cooking Colombian cuisine, how to play Fortnite, writing, home-workouts, lawnmower maintenance, gardening, parenting, marketing/branding, social media, DYI Christmas decoration, then I’m sure there’s a market if your content is good enough.
Or how about a course on “How to earn 6 figures as an Uber Driver”. Or How about a course for service staff in hotels and restaurants (many of whom have been laid off right now) on “5-Star Service: How to double your tips, sell more wine, read guest profiles and exceeding expectations every time!”
The list of courses you can offer is ENDLESS.
This is something you can do even if you have no technical skills at all. Teachable provides the entire platform, including a sales page, payment gateway, etc. All you have to do is deliver the content.
And if you think that ALL ideas might be taken already, then please think again and remember how many people are on this planet. How many languages are spoken worldwide. If photo-editing already has an oversupply of courses in English then how about teaching it in German or Spanish or any other language you master?
On top of that, each of us have a unique group of followers our lives. Our personal contacts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, email list etc. No one teacher has the entire world as only his or her fans, so there’s plenty of space for your to carve out your niche.
Think about this. If a course sells for $49 USD (most sell for more), then each teacher only needs to sell a few hundred courses in order to turn this into a real profitable side gig or even a real business. And the marginal cost of producing another course is basically zero. So the profit machine can keep rolling while you sleep. Not bad, huh?
You can get started for FREE. No credit card is required to sign up and get started. And once you have your course ready and you decide to upgrade your plan, then the basic plan that costs $29 USD per month and includes unlimited students which is something that most people can afford.
Other ways of teaching…
Podcasting and Youtube videos are other fantastic ways of teaching to a big audience.
Tim Ferriss wrote a great post on how to start a podcast. You’ll be blown away by how much money he makes from advertising by doing these interviews. Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income also wrote an amazing step-by-step guide on how to start a podcast. (He has also released a bunch of free courses and resources on how to get started working from home during this pandemic. You can find them here).
You can build your podcast on ANY subject you like: Comedy, sports, business, agriculture, marketing, relationships, traveling, real estate, teenage problems, depression, music, keys to happiness, meditation, dieting, medical advances, investing, history, culture, art, cooking, trail running, or whatever comes to mind. The most important thing is that you are really passionate about the subject you chose as your enthusiasm will transmit to the listeners. Once you have enough listeners then you can begin selling advertising on your show or you re-direct listeners to a product or service you are promoting.
I have personally participated as a guests in several podcasts that were recorded via phone, so this is absolutely possible to do from home.
By teaching on Youtube, there are basically two ways of earning money. You either earn from the advertisements that appear on the screen before or during the video. Or you give away some really valuable content for free in your video and then try to up-sell viewers on your product via a link in the description below the video. For instance, several people teaching how to use Adobe Lightroom will have a link below where people can buy their presets to apply on their own photos making their instagram life look all glitzy.
Opening an account and building your channel on Youtube is completely free. The phone in your pocket is probably good enough to get you started with any recording. If you plan to record something on your computer screen, the here’s a list of the best free screen recorders. Although not mentioned on the list, Loom is a free screen recorder that I’ve used in the past that I was super impressed by.
As a final note, just make sure that whatever content you produce is either entertaining or interesting. That is rule #1. The second rule is to give 80% of the information away for free. If you’re good enough, they will come begging for the last 20%.
That’s it for today. I’m back to playing Jenga with the kids. I got more ideas coming for you within the next few days so stay tuned.
Patrick
(Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels)
