How to make money from what you already know

Have you ever thought how you could make money from what you know?

Jon and I were talking the other day and he said:-

“We all sit on this mountain of knowledge that we have accumulated.”

Jon Downing

It got me thinking about the different ways that people make money from what they already know and before you think to yourself “but I’m young and I haven’t learned anything of value yet” then please let me stop you right there – if you’re reading this article then you probably already know more than you think you know!!

While it’s true that for most people, the older you get,the more valuable your “mountain of knowledge” might be – but the truth is that we all know more than we think we know and very often, people will be prepared to pay for what we know – no matter how young or old you are!

When I was a young kid at school, I was a total geek (still am to be honest) and I loved all techie things. Back in those days, the height of technology was a VHS Recorder and one of the most common problems that adults faced was that they simply couldn’t figure out how to set their recorder to record the TV programmes they wanted to watch later. Ask anyone over the age of 60 and they will probably nod in agreement …….

But setting up a recorder was easy for me to figure out – even if I’d never come across that kind of recorder before. So …….. I offered my services to family, friends and neighbours FOR A FEE – yes, it was a small fee, but to me it was a great way to earn money and for them, it was a great way to save time.

I offered 2 kinds of service:-

• I could “do it for them” (cheap service) – this meant that they would have to call me back whenever they wanted to record a show at a different time or day OR
• I could “show them how” (more expensive service) to do it for themselves – this meant that I had to spend quite a bit of time with them to “teach” them how to use their machine and I’d leave them with a handwritten set of very simple instructions

On many occasions, people would ask me to “show them how” and they would get so overwhelmed by the process that they would end up STILL repeatedly asking me to “do it for them” – which ended up being even more money for me.

If you are a young person today, can YOU think of what you can already do, that many adults around you don’t know how to do? I have heard of some very young people starting some very lucrative sidehustles doing some of the following:-

• going to old age homes and setting up Facebook accounts so that grandparents can stay in touch with their children and grandchildren (“doing it for them”)
• running classes on weekends to teach adults how to use social media (showing them how”)
• making courses on how to use your mobile phone to take photos that people will love
• offering to set up Podcasts and YouTube channels for individuals and small businesses
• and many, many more – one young lady I read about even has a (paid) newsletter that explains the latest slang the young people are using and she has thousands of subscribers!

Later on (still at school) I saved enough money to buy a fairly decent 35mm camera in the days when Polaroids and Kodak pocket cameras were more common. Once my friends saw the photo quality of my pics I was “commissioned” by them to take photos of sporting events, hobbies and love interests (with them sitting in on the sessions I hasten to add) for a fee.

Starting out at university doing Computer Science in the early 80’s meant that I was one of the few people in my social circle that owned their own personal computer, let alone knew how to use one! This rapidly led to a very lucrative sideline in computer consultancy and skills training that become a major revenue source once I left university.

I’ve recently read about a university student that earned good money teaching other students the basics of cooking. The young man had always been a keen foodie and had spent many years in the kitchen with his mother before going to uni. He was appalled at the junk food his fellow students shoved in their mouth while they in turn were stunned at the fabulous meals he seemed to so effortlessly whip up in no time at all. He started running classes over weekends and they were so popular he went on to publish a recipe book aimed at students (he was studying law and is now a qualified lawyer I believe).

As you get older, you develop life skills and pick up hobbies that can be monetised in many different ways too. Many people already do this and call themselves coaches, advisors, consultants or some other fancy title and they run courses and workshops and teach people how to do all sorts of things – literally ANYTHING you can imagine.

I have continued to have side hustles to this day and every single one of them adds to my skills in one way or another.

The point is that if you take the time to sit down and REALLY think about what you already know, no matter what age you are, there is bound to be someone (or perhaps even some companies) that would be willing to pay for your advice to “show them how” or for your skills to “do it for them”.

Do it now – you might be pleasantly surprised how you could make money from what you know!