It’s an exciting time for remote work, as there has never been a time in history when industries have opened up to flexible work conditions the way they have today. Flexible work has become the norm; a few examples are the gig economy, freelancing, remote corporate jobs, and online businesses. Technological automation has allowed us to do more today with less time, opening up a whole new set of opportunities. Let’s take on what’s available in 2022!
Identify Your Goals
Before planning a strategy to achieve our goals, we need to know what those are. Before setting intentions for how you will make money in 2022, the first thing you’ll need to do is visualize what you see yourself doing in your ideal life. Sit for a bit and ask yourself, “What’s my ideal job or business? And what do I want my days to look like?” Do you like how it looks? If you’re a creative and you want to start selling your handmade jewelry on Etsy, do you like the idea of packaging, organizing items, shipping orders, sourcing and buying raw materials (if applicable), handling accounting, customer service, and all the day-to-day communication that comes along with it? Can you handle that? If you can’t, don’t worry – there’s a solution, and we will get to that.
You already know what you want to do, right? What do you not want to do? Make a list of both of these items and let’s get back to brainstorming.
What do you want?
How will you do it?
How much money do you need?
Where will you get the upfront cash?
When can you do it (how much time do you have available)?
Where can you do it (do you have the space, if not how much and for how long can you find it)?
Read 5 Steps to Work Your Job While Traveling the World and 5 Steps to 3 Year Product Development Plan to help you put together a plan for what you want to do and how it can be done. Even if you aren’t looking to create a product or travel the world, these posts are useful guides to help you determine what you’re good at. They will help you flesh out the plans you have in your mind onto paper, where you can get down to the brass tacks of creating them into reality. If you don’t have an idea yet and need more inspiration, read Make Money Online in 2022.
Making a Plan
Once you know what you want to do, decide what you’re willing to do to achieve it and figure out what you will need to outsource. Once you have this information, it’s time to put your business plan or freelance plan together. In sales, we know how many sales we need to make our monthly expenses. As a freelancer or a business owner, you need to think about the following questions.
How much do you need to sell? How many blogs do you need to write, how many surveys do you need to complete, or what is your ideal combination of whatever freelance tasks you’re doing? You need to know all the activities necessary for you to complete to make the daily, weekly, and monthly dollars you need to live. Do not leave what you need to do to chance; wake up every day with the predetermined plan for what you need to do that day to make your money. Create a schedule, use a calendar, block time for you to complete each item so you will complete what’s necessary to keep you on track.
If you need help with a business plan, read Business Plan is a Life Plan. Write down what your financial goals are in order to maintain the lifestyle you want, and decide how much you need to earn. Then you need to determine what work needs to be done to accomplish that goal. How many clients do you need, and what’s the average spend per client to make the monthly amount of money you need? What’s the weekly and daily amount of money you need to make? If you’re freelancing, how many resumes need to be sent to job posts on UpWork daily to keep clients coming in. If you’re selling candles on Etsy, then determine how many social media posts and product updates you’ll need to do. You need to know what’s needed to make that money so get that figured out. Also figure in a budget that includes the costs for expenses like advertising, cost of materials, professional services like attorneys and accountants, etc.
Getting to Work
Until you make sufficient money to hire your dream team, you are going to have to do the stuff you dislike, so plan one day a week to do all the stuff you hate doing. Make yourself a special coffee and set up a reward for when it’s completed. Or if you need to do it daily, then give yourself a set time everyday that’s just for the tasks you don’t enjoy. Once you’re making enough money, these are the first things you will outsource.
Keep your focus on the goals, and complete those action steps to achieve them. You have to stay consistent, every day, even when you’re getting really good at what you do and you’re starting to have momentum. Do not take your foot off the gas; you need to keep your head in the game and keep going.
Once you’re making enough money to hire someone or outsource the things you dislike doing, you can delegate these items on a contract basis using UpWork or Fiverr. You will need to calculate what the cost of their work means to your bottom line, and budget that in. If you need them daily, then factor in their daily pay, and if it’s a weekly contract, factor in that cost to be aware of what you need in order to pay your contractors monthly, weekly, and daily. You will need to grow your business, and focus on making the money you’re going to need to cover all your costs and theirs as well, but this can free up your mental energy to focus on what you’re best at and creating new ideas and strategies to grow your business. It can be well worth the upfront costs to delegate and automate, and you will most likely make more money in the long run by growing your team and potential output. The more you make, the more you can outsource to other people, or add tools like technological automation. Automation will help you scale up your business. For example, if you’re selling on Etsy, getting a phone system with an auto attendant, using automate.oi, setting up chat bots for customer service, sending marketing materials, and scheduling your calendar can help you be more efficient so you can spend most of your time running your business or creating what you create rather than doing administrative or customer service work. There are a lot of possibilities for reducing your workload, but these take both time and money, so you’ll need to factor both into your existing budget.
Work at the same level of focus even when you have your business on automation. You can do it – just stay focused on consistency, do the day-to-day activities you already know must be done to bring in the money you need for your life to flow smoothly. You are worthy of success. If you put in the work, it will likely flow well, and when it doesn’t or things go wrong, get back to focusing on what’s working and make changes where needed until things get back on track. Keep your attitude positive and do the work, and all will flow into place.
Mentors
I recommend networking, but not at your own level. There are times for finding peers and there are times for finding mentors – this is the time to seek mentors. I’m a big believer in shortcuts, and mentors are shortcuts. When you figure out what you want to do, you will need to do some networking to find mentors and people who can help you get to the next step. Keep these relationships professional, and always keep people who are attracted to you at a distance. These are not the times for finding a romantic partner, it’s time to grow you and your financial foundation. I’ve found mentors in both men and women, but if you don’t feel like you can do that, stick to what you’re comfortable with. Read Networking Online.
Communicate with your mentors and keep networking. Knowing people who have already accomplished what you’re trying to do will help you gain the knowledge necessary to be successful. Make genuine friendships with the people you like, and keep in touch. I know a lot of people don’t believe it, but there are life shortcuts available, and one of them is learning as much as you can from those who know more than you do. Wherever you can find these shortcuts, take advantage of them to help you get where you need to be faster. Relationships can provide shortcuts, so treasure them, nurture them, and be grateful for how they make your life a lot easier. Be authentic, don’t fake who you are, and of course, always be ethical; your morals and reputation are very important.
To sum it up, find people who can help you get to the next step. A good qualifier is they have already achieved what you want to do. If you want to automate or manage your business and team more efficiently, hang out with people who use Monday.com or work well with Asana. If you are selling a lot on Etsy, find someone who is ahead of you and where you want to be. Namely, seek out people who have made it to the top in their industry, because when you know people who have done what you want to do, they know what you need to know to get to your next level. With this information and support, you will find it easier to get there.
That being said, don’t be an annoying opportunist; you will need to be in the middle, balanced – not too needy, and not offering too much of your time in return for favors. Most people have unique gifts, and there may be some way you can both support and help one another in a symbiotic exchange, so look for what opportunities there are to give and receive. When you find people you genuinely like, you will realize that it’s easy for them to help you and equally easy for you to return the favor. Absolutely never use people, or you won’t get very far.
Don’t invest much time in people who are at your level when networking; I know it sounds harsh, but you won’t get to where you want to be by hanging around people who are where you are already at. You can be friends with them, of course, but eventually as you move ahead, they won’t understand what you’re trying to do, and unless they are also succeeding, jealousy or competition may arise that strains the relationship. Love them from afar if this happens, but stay focused on relationships with people who inspire you to grow and succeed, and people you enjoy learning from.
In short, in order to succeed with your online business plan in 2022, stay consistent with your work, know what’s needed to get to where you need to be, find mentors, and maintain a positive attitude, no matter what. Your attitude is everything, so stay upbeat and work hard to find the success of which you are worthy.
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For more ideas of what you can do online, get inspired with New Ways to Make Money in 2024 and Make Money Online in 2023.
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