Making $100,000 can seem like a daunting or even impossible goal, but with the right strategies and mindset, it’s completely achievable. I know how to make $100k in my first year with my side hustle because I did it myself.
In 2018 I created my first digital course. I had no idea what I was doing, and I certainly did not know how to make $100k with that course, but I took action. I made plenty of mistakes but I also had plenty of successes. And at the end of 12 months I had made $102,000 with my little side hustle.
Whether you have a side hustle that you want to make your full time income, or you just want to grow the business that you currently have, I want to help you do that! I was able to replace my day job as a real estate agent in no time. Within three years my side hustle hit seven figures a year and I retired from selling real estate. Which means that I know that it’s not only possible, it’s easier than you might think.
Simplest way to make $100k
I am a firm believer in SEO. I really do not care for social media. SEO kicks social media’s butt all day, every day in my opinion. Search engine optimization is not only free, it works for you 24/7, whether you’re sleeping, sick, or on vacation. Videos and blog posts I wrote five years ago still bring me leads every week. In fact my real estate YouTube channel was named one of the best real estate YouTube channels of 2022.
Compare that to social media. You have to post daily, or even multiple times a day, in order to get any traction. It’s all about engagement and even the best post you right will only reach about 8% of the people that currently follow you. I would rather right a blog post a week or make a video now and then on YouTube, and reap the rewards for years to come.
And the ugly side of social is that platforms can delete your account on a whim. I had this happen to me in the summer of 2022 and I was so angry! Facebook just deleted my whole personal profile, which means I couldn’t access my two groups with more than 20,000 people or any of my business pages. You can read more about it here.
By using video and blog articles, I was able to drive traffic to landing pages where prospects would opt in to my free offer, like a checklist or ebook. Once they were in my database, boom! Now we’ve successfully taken them off of the platform to a CRM that I OWN. I can’t market to them if they’re all on social media and I’m not on that platform, but I sure can if they’re in my database.
Commit to learning more about SEO strategies and decide whether you will make videos or blogs, or both. I highly recommend that you do both. Keywords Everywhere is a very inexpensive tool to help you figure out blog and video topics that people are searching for. Using SEO in addition to video SEO how I decided to make $100k without working insane hours. I’ve used many SEO tools over the past 8 years and this is by far my favorite.
Fastest way to make $100,000
I love sales funnels. A funnel is the fastest way to build your business. It involves offering a freebie that is so compelling, someone would give you their contact information in exchange for this free download. It could be a guide, and ebook, a checklist, or a video. You create a single web page where they opt-in with their name, email address, and maybe even their phone number. Once they fill in the information they receive the freebie.
Here’s a video I did on my YouTube channel about using funnels in a real estate business, but you can do the same strategy in ANY service or product-based business.
Now you have to drive traffic to that landing page. You will get amazing organic leads from SEO but it is a long-term strategy. It doesn’t happen overnight. So in the meantime you can drive traffic to that page with paid ads. You don’t have to have a huge budget. Even five or ten dollars a day can bring you lots of eyeballs.
Once they opt in for your freebie, they go on to your email list. Now you nurture them until they are ready to buy. When people ask me how to make $100,000, my favorite funnel involves using YouTube videos. Make a video that helps them solve a problem or answers their question. Your call to action in the video is to offer a freebie. Send them to the web page where they will download it, get them onto your email list, and follow up with them for as long as it takes until they either buy, or unsubscribe.
Steps to making your first $100k
Once you have a plan in place, it’s time to start taking action. This means setting aside time each day or week to work on your plan, and being consistent in your efforts. It’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results, but it’s important to remember that success takes time and perseverance. The more consistent you are in your efforts, the more progress you’ll make.
Don’t be afraid to dream big! If you don’t feel slightly queasy when you think of the goal, then it’s probably not big enough. I want you to declare that you are going to make $100,000 and then feel like you want to throw up. That’s when you know you are on the right track!
The year that I declared my goal was $500,000 my mentor said it wasn’t big enough. I was already on track to make that much so it wasn’t really a stretch. When I changed it to $700,000 I wanted to barf. I was terrified. I had no idea how I would do that. And yet, I did. In fact, I made $775,000 that year.
This is because I had to think so much bigger, do things I’d never tried before. You know that saying, what got you here won’t get you there? What got you to this point is not how to make $100k. You cannot do the same things that you did early on to get you to this next big goal. You have to start thinking like the business owner that makes $100,000. What does that person do? How did they spend their time? How much time do they spend fooling around consuming social media content or watching cat videos? When they don’t feel like working today lie around in their pajamas on the couch, or do they suck it up and get to work?
You’ve got to start working on your mindset of being the business owner of the business you intend to have. You know how when someone goes on a job interview they tell them to dress for the job that they want, not the job they currently have? It’s the same idea but with your thoughts. If you currently make $30,000 a year and you take the actions that a $30,000 a year business owner takes, you will forever make $30,000 a year.
When my business was making $100,000, I had to think in a whole new way to make $1,000,000. The million dollar business owner doesn’t do the same things that the $100,000 business owner does. You need to constantly grow and evolve and take risks and feel horribly uncomfortable. It feels like ass a lot of the time. That’s how you know you’re doing it right!
Knowing how to make $100k is only half the battle. Now you have to believe you can do it and take the actions that will be required of you.
How to do this without working insane hours
I want you to know that if you currently have a day job and this is your side hustle, you do not need to have two full-time jobs. You can decide that you will devote 10 or 20 hours a week to this side gig and it can absolutely earn you $100,000. You will be very strategic with your time and you will do things to help you move the business forward with the least amount of effort.
I do not believe in multitasking. I think it’s a complete myth. You cannot be filming a video and answering the phone and reading Instagram posts at the same time. If you constantly stop what you’re doing to do something else, when you go back to the first thing it takes awhile for your brain to get back on track. This is a very inefficient way to spend your time. If you spent 15 minutes doing each thing, you’d be done in 45 minutes. But if you are constantly context switching it will take you twice as long because of all the time spent having to get back on track after each switch.
And if it takes you forever to make a decision, and then once you make it you spend all of your time at second-guessing your decision, worrying that you made the wrong decision, changing your mind and starting over again, then you are constantly going in circles and making no forward momentum.
You will first decide how much time per week you are willing to devote to this business. Then you will make a list of all of the things that you can do to grow the business. Then rank them in order of importance. Cross the ones off the list that are way at the bottom. Work on the most important thing first. Finish it. Then go to the second most important thing, complete that task.
While you are working on these tasks you do not answer the phone. You turn off notifications. You give this task 100% of your focus, even if you’re only doing it for 15 minutes at a time. I can get so much done in 15 uninterrupted minutes, it would blow your mind.
If you are ready to how to make $100k, decide how much time you can spend on this project each week. Time block chunks of time on your calendar. Make a list of the most important things you can do to promote your business, whether it is blogging, making videos, running ads, Direct Mail, whatever you decide is best. Commit to your goal, take action every day even if it’s not perfect, and don’t give up.
You will be amazed at what happens.