Simple answer: the point of sale is the place where a customer or client pays for products.
Checkout lanes, ticket booth, “buy now” pages on websites—all points of sale.
Point of Sale in a non-physical space
If you’re a freelancer, your point of sale might be less of a place and more of a time.
Meaning, the point at which you’re paid for your service might be during a particular phase of your project and may not have to happen at a particular place.
You might be paid by check, cash, bank transfer, etc. And, depending on your setup, you might have multiple point of sale options for different clients.
Why is this important?
Only a few of the people you reach with your marketing are actually going to buy from you. You want to learn as much as you can about them. When they’re handing you their money is the right time to get the information you need.
In a nutshell, selling helps you refine your marketing for the next sale.
Cha-ching!
How can I learn more?
All three of Side Hustle Business School’s guided learning tracks (the Freelancer Track, the Content Creator Track, and the Product Seller Track) have an entire section on establishing your point of sale, accepting payments from customers and clients, and using your results to create more effective marketing strategies.
Everyone and everything that makes money has a brand. Your side hustle is no different.
You can sell t-shirts, be a freelance designer, or an up and coming blogger—or have any other hustle for that matter—and probably not get very far without a clear brand.
Can you think of any successful business, side hustle or not, that doesn’t have a brand?
Right.
Do I really need to build my brand if I’m not a big company?
Only if you want people to choose you over someone else. So, yes. 100% yes.
If I can let you in on one secret about big companies, it’s this: they only work on their brands to get you to buy their product over someone else’s. They want you to feel good about their products and, if you’re interested, their companies.
You will need to think like that about your side hustle. In fact, you may need to put more effort into your brand right now than you might think.
You see, those big brands already have many customers all over the world. You don’t. They’re working on maintaining and growing their brands. You’re working on building one. Building a brand requires a lot of thought.
You have a lot of room to create something special. No one knows you yet, so you really have freedom to create and define who you want to be. Larger brands don’t have a lot of room to create because customers already have expectations for how a brand will engage them. Their job is to make sure that every move they make going forward is an expression of who they want their customers to believe they are.
Your job is to build to solid foundation of who you’re going to be to your future customers. Use that to your advantage.
What happens if I don’t get my brand right?
Toil and turmoil!
Kidding.
On a serious note, your brand is the reason that people will or won’t trust you. We don’t spend money on things we don’t trust. We don’t hire people we don’t trust. We don’t answer the door for people we don’t trust.
So it really is important to start your brand on the right foot, even if you don’t get it perfect the first time around. You may make some mistakes and do some things that contradict your brand, but you won’t even know if what you’re doing is right or wrong if you don’t have some basic principles for your brand.
Lucky for you, when you’re getting started, your brand has a lot of room for growth. You’ll be able to try things out and constantly refine your brand by removing what doesn’t work and by doing more of what does work.
You’ll be several steps ahead of the game if you have a clue where to start when launch your brand.
Get Schooled
Each of Side Hustle Business School’s learning tracks (Freelancer Track, Content Creator Track, Product Seller Track) has lessons that help you build a strong, authentic brand. The “How Do I Brand It?” lesson is a perfect primer on getting your brand in order. As you work through the lessons in the Creating Your Platform section (available on each track), you pick up the tools to create a clear brand that people connect with.
Welcome to the wonderful world of getting paid to blog/podcast/share your two cents.
Ready to cover your Instagram account in cute cocktails and beach backdrops while musing over whatever you love to talk about?
Cool. But you need to flip your two cents into a few bucks first.
So, how do I monetize my content?
The obvious answer: charge people to read it /listen to it/watch it. But, I’m guessing you’re here because you don’t want to go that route.
Making money from your free content requires a bit of finesse and creativity. It’s not as simple as setting up a blog and putting a few ads up and expecting to live the high life. Even after you’ve been in the game a while, the checks don’t necessarily just roll in.
If this is going to make you money, you need to be intimately familiar with your topic and the people who want to learn about this topic. You need to be able to answer questions or shed light on something in a way that no one else is doing well.
Note how you if you’re not the only one, you need to be the best one.
You also need to make sure that your content platform is a money-making opportunity for yourself, primarily, and for other people who may want to cut you in on the profits you make them (think brands who work with content creators or other content creators who look for partners).
Being able to tell a story, educate people, and be a consistent resource are all keys to that kingdom.
Where do I start?
There are a few ways to create streams of income from your content, without actually charging people for you content. Some of them involve traditional web ads, but some involve more creative methods of promotion and advertising that may be more in line with the content you want to create and the audience you want.
Do I need to speak differently online and offline?
New entrepreneurs as me this all the time.
On one hand, you want your customers to see you as a professional that they can trust—a professional who seems just like “the big guys”. On the other hand, you don’t want to come off as fake or pretend to be someone you’re not.
So you get stuck in this back and forth battle between wanting to be yourself, but also being afraid that “yourself” isn’t professional enough. You just can’t seem to find a solution you feel good about.
A “happy medium” seems out of the question.
Where’s the balance?
The trick to finding that balance is having a strong understanding of the kind of person you’re talking to and clear knowledge of how to connect with them.
It’s really hard to do this if you don’t know much about your audience. There are ways to be a real human being in business, but it’s almost impossible to get right if you don’t know who you’re talking to.
It’s even harder to get this right if you’re not comfortable sharing parts of yourself publicly—not because you need to share everything, but because you won’t know what to (and not to) share.
How do I decide if I need to speak differently online and offline?
Once you’re clear on who you are and who your audience is (and expects you to be), you should have enough information to develop a voice that works both online and offline. You can still choose to speak differently online and offline, as there might be parts of your audience who you speak to online, but never engage in person.
But…this can make more work for you. The ideal is to develop one voice that works everywhere you go.
How do I find my voice online and offline?
If you’re struggling with finding an appropriate voice online and offline and wish you had a solution already, you should check out “Should I Behave Differently Online and Offline?”, available on each of Side Hustle Business School’s three guided learning tracks (the Freelancer Track, the Content Creator Track, and the Product Seller Track).
This is a tough question to answer because there is no one right answer.
Some people will tell you that you must create video. Some say that blogs are better for SEO. But where does that leave podcasts with over half a million shows in existence?
Well, the right answer has a lot more to do with your business or side hustle than it has to do with what everyone else is doing.
Do I need to create content if content creation isn’t my business’s focus?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Content marketing is a great way to get free attention—which is why so many companies have blogs. If you decide to create content for your business, then you’ll need to figure out which kind of content is best for your brand.
However, you want to make sure you’re drawing the right attention to your side hustle. It’s not enough to just create content. You need to create content for your target audience that’s relevant and establishes you as an authority on your topic.
This is the case no matter which form of content you choose to create.
For example, if you sell fashion, you want to create content around fashion or around the topics that the people you sell fashion to would care about—as long as it solidifies your place as an expert in what you sell.
Choose your content
Side Hustle Business School’s “What Kind of Content Should I Create?” lesson will help you decide which kind of content is best for your, your audience, and your brand.
Beware: this lesson requires you to honestly consider your skills, commitment, and level of discipline.
Where can I find this lesson?
This lesson is available on Side Hustle Business School’s Content Creator Track and Product Seller Track.
