AI transcript
0:00:03 13 ways to get paid for your opinion.
0:00:06 Yes, your opinion is worth something,
0:00:07 and actually, you get paid pretty well for it,
0:00:10 up to $50,000 a month in some cases,
0:00:13 but the most lucrative ways to get paid for your opinion
0:00:16 take more time and effort than simply entering our surveys.
0:00:17 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:19 Welcome to The Science Hustle Show.
0:00:21 It’s the business podcast you can actually apply,
0:00:23 and today, I’m breaking down how to profit
0:00:26 from something we all have, opinions.
0:00:27 Now, we’re going roughly in order
0:00:29 from lowest paying to highest paying,
0:00:31 which is why you want to stick around to the end
0:00:34 to see how some people are making a great full-time living
0:00:35 from sharing theirs.
0:00:37 Number one is the one I just alluded to,
0:00:38 and that’s to take online surveys.
0:00:41 This is probably the easiest and fastest way
0:00:42 to get paid for your opinion.
0:00:45 It is what shows up on everybody’s lists
0:00:46 of ways to make extra money.
0:00:49 These are companies like Swagbucks, SurveyJunkie,
0:00:51 InboxDollars, they’re not going to make you rich,
0:00:52 but they are legit.
0:00:54 They’re an easy way to make extra money.
0:00:56 Plus, you can do them in your downtime,
0:00:58 like when you’re waiting in line or watching TV.
0:00:59 I’ll put direct referral links
0:01:01 to some of Side Hustle Nation’s favorites
0:01:03 in the show notes for this episode.
0:01:04 If you’re consistent with these,
0:01:07 hey, maybe it’s $30 to $100 a month.
0:01:10 Number two is to participate in market research
0:01:12 and paid focus groups.
0:01:15 These ones are always a fun side hustle for me,
0:01:16 and they pay significantly better
0:01:18 than typical online surveys.
0:01:20 In fact, the average compensation for the ones
0:01:22 that I’ve done is between $50 and $150 an hour.
0:01:24 $200, I think, was one of them.
0:01:26 Now, why would your opinion be worth so much?
0:01:29 And the reason for this is that companies
0:01:32 are using your feedback and guidance
0:01:35 to come up with new product ideas
0:01:37 or dictate the direction that they want to go
0:01:38 before they launch,
0:01:40 because it’s so much less expensive
0:01:42 to pay a few people a little bit of money
0:01:44 to get the product right upfront
0:01:46 than launching the wrong product
0:01:48 or with the wrong messaging
0:01:49 or with the wrong design or layout.
0:01:52 The downside to these is it’s hard
0:01:55 to get selected for the studies very often,
0:01:57 and that’s why you can’t really rely on it
0:01:58 as a source of side hustle income,
0:02:01 but it’s like fun extra money when it comes in.
0:02:04 I’ve got a full post on side hustle nation
0:02:06 where I break down the most popular companies
0:02:07 in this space,
0:02:08 but a couple favorites of mine
0:02:11 are user interviews and respondent.
0:02:13 So I’ll link up my full reviews
0:02:14 and direct referral links for those
0:02:16 in the show notes for this episode.
0:02:18 Number three is product testing,
0:02:18 and there’s a lot of companies
0:02:21 that will facilitate different product testing gigs.
0:02:24 One pretty well-established one is product report card.
0:02:26 They’ve been around since 2012.
0:02:28 They do product testing gigs.
0:02:29 They do paid surveys.
0:02:31 They do online focus groups.
0:02:34 The best paying tests that I found
0:02:37 are for these in-home product tests,
0:02:39 and then also the remote interviews and focus groups.
0:02:43 Sometimes in the 75 to $150 an hour range,
0:02:44 great little side gig.
0:02:45 Again, probably can’t count on it
0:02:47 to be a reliable source of income,
0:02:48 but when those gigs come through,
0:02:50 and if you like testing out new products,
0:02:52 could be a fun one to play around with.
0:02:54 Number four is to test websites,
0:02:57 and this is through services like user testing
0:02:58 and Intellizum.
0:03:01 They’ll pay it to give your feedback on websites,
0:03:03 and similar to the market research and focus groups,
0:03:06 in that it’s easier, faster, and cheaper
0:03:10 to gather some screen-recorded, voice-recorded feedback
0:03:13 of somebody trying to navigate your new redesign
0:03:15 than it would be to launch,
0:03:16 especially if you’re a big company
0:03:18 and you’re getting a ton of traffic,
0:03:20 than to have a redesign that’s confusing.
0:03:22 People can’t find the button that they want to,
0:03:25 you would click on, and it’s so much more efficient to do that.
0:03:28 And for that reason, these companies will pay,
0:03:30 well, they’ll pay user testing and Intellizum,
0:03:31 they’ll pay them, and then they’ll share
0:03:35 a portion of the proceeds with testers like you and me,
0:03:38 typically like $10 for every 20-minute test or so,
0:03:41 so what’s that, $30 an hour?
0:03:43 But the downside is they do fill up really fast,
0:03:45 and so you kind of build up a reputation
0:03:48 on these platforms, somebody who provides good feedback,
0:03:49 and you’re gonna be quick on the trigger
0:03:51 when those tests do pop up.
0:03:55 Number five is mystery shopping,
0:03:58 and this is where you get to try new things,
0:03:59 maybe it’s a restaurant,
0:04:01 maybe it’s a hotel, even in some cases,
0:04:03 it’ll stay for free, get some extra money
0:04:04 for writing up a little report
0:04:06 about your experience and opinion.
0:04:08 I’ve done a little bit of this,
0:04:11 mostly through an app called Field Agent
0:04:14 where you would go to your local store,
0:04:15 the app makes it really easy to open up,
0:04:18 they show you the map where the nearby gigs are,
0:04:21 and sometimes you find three or four of them at one store,
0:04:26 typically it is a $3 to $10 gig on checking product displays,
0:04:29 verifying inventory levels,
0:04:31 taking pictures of that product in the store,
0:04:34 occasionally it’s trying out a new product
0:04:36 where they’ll reimburse you and give it a taste test
0:04:39 and write about your opinion for that.
0:04:40 Another one that’s hard to piece together
0:04:43 a consistent income on an app like Field Agent,
0:04:45 but it’s a fun way to make some money on shopping trips
0:04:47 you’re already making, it would be hard to justify
0:04:49 making a dedicated trip just to do that,
0:04:53 and one thing that is frustrating and challenging
0:04:56 is that sometimes the products that they want you to look for
0:04:58 simply aren’t in the store,
0:05:01 or for whatever reason they use this really hard
0:05:05 to decipher acronym about what the product actually is,
0:05:08 just they’re limited to two letter abbreviations,
0:05:09 I don’t know, it’s hard to describe,
0:05:11 but if you use the app, you know what I’m talking about,
0:05:12 so it’s frustrating to think you’re gonna make
0:05:15 an easy $15, $20, $25,
0:05:17 because you saw that several of these quick gigs
0:05:21 were listed at one store only to spend 15 minutes
0:05:23 wandering the aisles, trying to find the things
0:05:25 that they wanted you to take pictures of,
0:05:28 but I’ll link up my full Field Agent app review for more.
0:05:31 Now, for better paying mystery shopping gigs,
0:05:33 Jen Trinidad recommended starting
0:05:35 with the Industry Association.
0:05:39 – Hi, I’m Jen Trinidad of Budget Divas,
0:05:42 and I made about $2,000 a month
0:05:44 on average mystery shopping.
0:05:45 If you’re interested in mystery shopping,
0:05:50 the first place I would go to mspa-americas.org,
0:05:53 they are like the government agency
0:05:55 of mystery shopping, if you will,
0:06:00 so MSPA stands for the Mystery Shopping Providers Association,
0:06:02 and when you go onto that site,
0:06:07 you’ll have access to a list of mystery shopping providers
0:06:11 that have gone through this process
0:06:15 to become a legitimate mystery shopping company.
0:06:17 – Okay, so it’s primarily done
0:06:19 through these kind of directories
0:06:22 versus calling up Target or Walmart
0:06:25 and offering to go check on their employees.
0:06:27 – Yeah, so for someone who’s new at the bottom
0:06:29 of your screen on the right-hand side,
0:06:30 where it says congratulations,
0:06:33 it says Elite Member 2022,
0:06:36 and so those are the companies
0:06:40 that have been vetted through the MSPA,
0:06:45 and are the companies that people would wanna work with.
0:06:47 If you’re on this list,
0:06:50 that means that they’re a great company to work for
0:06:53 and mystery shoppers recommend them.
0:06:55 – All right, so that’s number five, mystery shopping.
0:06:58 Number six is one that not a lot of people know about.
0:06:59 I always felt like this was pretty cool
0:07:00 when I discovered this,
0:07:03 and that’s to write software reviews
0:07:06 through sites like G2 and Capterra.
0:07:08 They will occasionally pay you,
0:07:10 usually through Amazon gift cards
0:07:12 for honest software product reviews,
0:07:16 and I’ve received several of these worth over $100
0:07:18 in total for all the different tools
0:07:20 that I use to run my business,
0:07:22 and what is kind of the secret here
0:07:24 is you gotta leave your first review for free
0:07:27 because during that process,
0:07:29 they’ll ask you what other tools that you use.
0:07:31 What do you integrate active campaign with?
0:07:33 What do you integrate ConvertKit with?
0:07:36 And you could say, well, I’ll use it with lead pages
0:07:38 or I use it with this other tool
0:07:41 or I take payments with Stripe or something,
0:07:44 and then the secret is to not review those right away,
0:07:46 is wait for an email to come through
0:07:48 that offers a little gift card incentive.
0:07:51 Sometimes it’s $5, sometimes it’s 10, 15, 20,
0:07:53 depending on what they really wanna build up
0:07:55 a critical mass of reviews,
0:07:57 ’cause their game, you always peel back,
0:07:58 well, if somebody’s giving me money,
0:07:59 what’s in it for them, right?
0:08:00 Their game is to rank in Google
0:08:02 if somebody searches ConvertKit review,
0:08:04 active campaign review,
0:08:06 and they’ve crowdsourced hundreds and hundreds
0:08:07 of these things and they can say,
0:08:10 hey, on average, it’s worth a 4.2 star rating,
0:08:12 and hopefully somebody clicks our affiliate link
0:08:13 when they go and sign up.
0:08:15 And it’s a pretty smart business
0:08:17 ’cause then they’re gonna get recurring revenue
0:08:19 in the cases of a lot of these software companies
0:08:20 for the life of that customer.
0:08:23 And okay, so it was worthwhile to pay out a little bit
0:08:26 to start to collect those honest reviews.
0:08:28 So anyways, that’s kind of a fun one.
0:08:31 It’s not a ton of money, but it’s a kind of a fun one for me.
0:08:33 So that’s the first half of our list.
0:08:35 Number one, take online surveys.
0:08:37 Number two, market research and focus groups.
0:08:39 Number three is product testing.
0:08:41 Number four is to test websites.
0:08:43 Number five was mystery shopping.
0:08:46 And number six was to write software reviews.
0:08:49 We got lots more ways to monetize your opinion,
0:08:51 including some that could be worth thousands of dollars
0:08:54 a month or more right after this.
0:08:55 You know, the “Science Hustle” show
0:08:56 is here to help you make more money.
0:08:59 And one of the fastest ways to improve your bottom line
0:09:01 is to play the substitution game.
0:09:04 How it works is you find lower cost alternatives
0:09:05 to what you’re already spending money on.
0:09:08 And if you can do it for a recurring expense,
0:09:11 you just scored yourself some reverse passive income.
0:09:14 That’s the cash you’re no longer spending every month.
0:09:16 One of those areas is your wireless provider.
0:09:17 And that’s why I’m excited to partner
0:09:20 with Mint Mobile for this episode.
0:09:22 I made the switch to Mint Mobile back in 2019
0:09:24 and haven’t looked back.
0:09:27 Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month
0:09:29 when you purchase a three month plan.
0:09:30 All plans come with high speed data
0:09:32 and unlimited talk and text delivered
0:09:35 on the nation’s largest 5G network.
0:09:36 You can use your own phone
0:09:39 with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your current phone number
0:09:41 and all your existing contacts.
0:09:42 To get this new customer offer
0:09:45 in your new three month premium wireless plan
0:09:46 for just 15 bucks a month,
0:09:50 go to mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:09:53 That’s mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:09:55 Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month
0:09:58 at mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:10:02 $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month.
0:10:05 New customers on first three month plan only
0:10:08 speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:10:11 Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply.
0:10:13 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:10:16 It was Friday evening after work.
0:10:19 I was about 100 yards away from my condo in Atlanta.
0:10:22 I was almost home when this Pontiac Aztec
0:10:25 comes flying out of nowhere in the second lane.
0:10:26 I lay on the horn.
0:10:30 I brace for impact as it slams into my driver’s side door.
0:10:32 The airbag explodes, I go spinning
0:10:34 and a lot of things go through your mind
0:10:35 in that split second.
0:10:37 But in that moment, I don’t want,
0:10:39 is my family gonna be taken care of
0:10:41 to be one of those things that goes through yours?
0:10:43 Thankfully, I was okay after that crash,
0:10:45 but you never know when your time is up.
0:10:47 And that’s why I wanna invite side hustle show listeners
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0:11:26 So now’s the time to cross this off your list.
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0:11:31 to see if you’re instantly approved.
0:11:36 That’s L-A-D-D-E-R-LIFE.com/hustle.
0:11:39 Ladderlife.com/hustle and big thanks
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0:11:45 Number seven is one of the most buzzworthy side hustles
0:11:46 of the moment or of the year.
0:11:49 And that’s to review products on Amazon
0:11:51 through the Amazon influencer program.
0:11:53 Now, the reason for this is in most cases,
0:11:55 Amazon isn’t gonna pay you to leave written reviews
0:11:57 of the products you buy.
0:12:00 But if you’re accepted into the Amazon influencer program,
0:12:04 you can get paid to create short video product reviews.
0:12:06 And by that, I mean, they’re not gonna pay you up front,
0:12:08 but they are gonna pay you a little commission
0:12:13 if someone buys the product after watching your video.
0:12:15 It says, “Hey, thanks for helping us close that sale.
0:12:17 “We’ll sprinkle a couple percentage points your way.”
0:12:20 And the cool thing is you don’t have to drive any traffic.
0:12:22 Unlike traditional affiliate marketing
0:12:24 where you gotta have the SEO dialed in
0:12:27 or the email list dialed in or the big social following,
0:12:29 this is entirely driven on Amazon.
0:12:32 They post these videos on the product pages
0:12:34 as a way to help close more sales
0:12:36 or as a way to help educate customers
0:12:39 and kind of give the shopper an honest look
0:12:40 at what is this product like
0:12:43 in the hands of actual customers.
0:12:44 And it’s super easy.
0:12:46 Like for me, low production quality,
0:12:50 just shot with my phone, quick voiceover.
0:12:51 I’m usually not even on the camera.
0:12:53 It’s to me kind of pointing the,
0:12:54 sometimes my hands are in the picture,
0:12:57 demonstrating what the product is or how it works,
0:12:58 but super easy.
0:13:01 I made my first $9 after just a few days of uploading.
0:13:05 It’s like, this is probably the easiest $9 I’ve ever made.
0:13:07 You know, maybe around a hundred bucks a month on average
0:13:09 and probably more during Q4.
0:13:11 Very little effort, very passive
0:13:12 once these videos are uploaded.
0:13:14 Connected with other side hustlers
0:13:16 earning $2,000 a month or more,
0:13:18 sharing their opinions on Amazon products
0:13:19 through this program.
0:13:22 It’s become a really popular side hustle.
0:13:26 And when anything like that kind of takes off or blows up
0:13:29 or it’s perceived easy money to be had,
0:13:32 you get a lot of these early adopter gurus
0:13:33 pitching their course on the topic.
0:13:36 And maybe there is some secret sauce,
0:13:39 best practice strategy going on behind the scenes.
0:13:42 But the people I see having the most success with this
0:13:44 are simply the ones who upload the most videos,
0:13:46 who cast the widest net.
0:13:48 I remember meeting this woman
0:13:51 at a podcaster meetup in Seattle last summer
0:13:53 and sharing just how genuinely excited I was
0:13:55 about this new semi passive income stream of mine.
0:13:58 And it turned out she was doing it too.
0:13:58 And she was kind of like,
0:14:01 “Oh, you’re making $100. That’s cute.”
0:14:05 But she probably had 50 to 100 times more videos than I had.
0:14:08 And so she was making way more money per month.
0:14:08 And so I asked,
0:14:12 “Well, how did you get all those products to review?”
0:14:13 I feel like we’re just about tapped out
0:14:15 with the stuff that we have in the house
0:14:16 that’s from Amazon.
0:14:18 And she said, “Oh, that’s easy.”
0:14:19 When I ran out of stuff,
0:14:22 I just started reviewing the stuff at all my friends’ houses.
0:14:23 So that’s one way to solve the problem.
0:14:25 And I’ve heard from other Amazon influencers
0:14:27 that after a while,
0:14:30 brands will actually start sending you free products
0:14:31 to review,
0:14:33 which is another way to keep adding fuel to this fire.
0:14:36 Now, long-term, there’s lots of speculation over
0:14:39 is that low production quality iPhone video gonna cut it
0:14:42 if somebody else is creating a more YouTube style,
0:14:43 more professional appearance?
0:14:45 Like after all, which one is gonna get clicked on
0:14:48 on that product listing page on Amazon?
0:14:49 That’s hard to say,
0:14:51 but for the time being it’s still a pretty low barrier
0:14:52 to entry.
0:14:54 It is a program that you have to apply for.
0:14:58 They do want you to include your YouTube, Instagram,
0:14:59 TikTok.
0:15:00 They want some level of social following,
0:15:02 but they don’t say how much of a social following
0:15:04 that you need to have.
0:15:05 And importantly,
0:15:07 while I’m sure they would love for you to post your product
0:15:09 reviews onto your social media accounts,
0:15:11 that isn’t a requirement once you are accepted.
0:15:12 So that’s number seven,
0:15:14 the Amazon influencer program.
0:15:17 Number eight is another one that you might not have heard of.
0:15:21 And that’s to solve interesting problems.
0:15:24 There are sites like mindsumo.com
0:15:27 where these corporate companies come on
0:15:30 and ask kind of deeper questions.
0:15:33 They try to crowdsource some creativity,
0:15:35 some innovation, some answers.
0:15:36 And in exchange for that,
0:15:39 they’re offering rewards that sometimes will go
0:15:42 from 800 to 2,500 bucks.
0:15:43 So when I was browsing,
0:15:47 I saw questions like what’s the next big food trend
0:15:51 or propose a new way to learn about different cultures?
0:15:53 And so it kind of gets your creative juices flowing.
0:15:56 And if you have opinions about the things
0:15:57 that are being asked,
0:15:59 you can kind of throw your hat in the ring, so to speak,
0:16:01 or throw your ideas out there
0:16:03 and you have a shot at winning
0:16:05 some of these decent prizes there.
0:16:07 So that’s mindsumo.com.
0:16:09 There’s a few other ones that are similar,
0:16:11 but it’s kind of where these companies
0:16:14 are trying to crowdsource some ideas and innovation.
0:16:17 Number nine is freelance writing.
0:16:20 And even in the age of chat TPD,
0:16:21 there’s still a strong demand,
0:16:24 maybe even more so because of chat TPD,
0:16:26 there’s a strong demand for real human writers
0:16:28 who’ve got experience, who’ve got a voice,
0:16:31 they’ve got an opinion on what they’re writing about.
0:16:33 And these companies are hiring freelancers
0:16:35 for website content, for articles,
0:16:38 for email newsletters, for sales copy,
0:16:41 for brochures and training materials.
0:16:44 And freelance writers can command anywhere from 50
0:16:47 to $500 or more per article.
0:16:50 And you can connect with clients through your network,
0:16:53 you can connect with clients through Upwork or Fiverr
0:16:56 like Georgia Austin did in episode 479.
0:16:58 Here’s how she described getting her start.
0:17:00 – I wasn’t necessarily thinking anything
0:17:03 would come of this Fiverr account, but I made it
0:17:05 and I uploaded my first,
0:17:07 I think it was just one gig at the time.
0:17:09 It was a website content gig.
0:17:13 And to my surprise, I got my first order within two days.
0:17:16 So that was an amazing thing to happen.
0:17:17 I wasn’t expecting it.
0:17:20 I kind of expected it to take,
0:17:21 it’s a week to get my first order
0:17:24 or I wasn’t even expecting to get one at all.
0:17:26 And then I just kept getting orders
0:17:27 and kept getting orders.
0:17:30 I did that for about one or two months.
0:17:33 And then I got offered a full-time position
0:17:35 as a marketing manager in New York,
0:17:40 funnily enough, the same day as I got accepted to Fiverr Pro.
0:17:41 And obviously me being me at the time,
0:17:45 I was thinking, it’s gonna be more secure
0:17:48 and maybe I’ll have better career opportunities
0:17:49 if I take this full-time position.
0:17:50 So that’s what I did.
0:17:54 And then I did that for another eight, nine months.
0:17:57 And then the company sadly broke down a bit
0:17:58 because of the pandemic
0:18:01 or had a bit of a rough ride at the time.
0:18:02 I think they’re okay now, which is good.
0:18:05 But then I decided to turn my Fiverr Pro back on again.
0:18:07 And it literally just blew up.
0:18:10 I was not expecting it at all.
0:18:11 When March came around,
0:18:14 my revenue was tripling and tripling every month.
0:18:16 And with that, wizard of content was born.
0:18:18 So quite the journey.
0:18:19 – Sounds like it.
0:18:22 I wanna pause and go back to this initial Fiverr gig,
0:18:24 a website content gig.
0:18:27 There are hundreds, probably thousands
0:18:30 of other freelance writers on this platform.
0:18:33 How did you set up this gig to get eyeballs,
0:18:37 to get exposure, to get anybody paying attention to you,
0:18:39 to get an order within just a couple of days?
0:18:41 – So one thing I did do,
0:18:44 which I actually took this tip from Alex Pazulo.
0:18:46 I’m sure anyone who knows Fiverr knows Alex.
0:18:48 I know you know Alex as well.
0:18:52 So she gave a piece of advice for you
0:18:54 to get your friends and family to purchase your gig.
0:18:57 So obviously other prospective buyers
0:18:59 are really gonna put trust in people
0:19:01 who have a few five-star reviews.
0:19:04 So something that I knew would be really important
0:19:06 to gain that immediate trust.
0:19:09 So what I did is I did some example work
0:19:12 or practice pieces for my friends and family.
0:19:15 And on my two gigs that I had at the time,
0:19:18 I made sure I got five reviews on each gig.
0:19:22 So that really was, I think, the stepping stone
0:19:26 for me to be able to get more orders from real buyers.
0:19:28 So if anyone’s gonna create a Fiverr account,
0:19:32 I highly recommend that you do this strategy.
0:19:33 And it doesn’t have to be a fake order.
0:19:36 And I know that Fiverr, the internal team there,
0:19:38 they’re actually getting quite hot on this.
0:19:39 They know that people are doing this.
0:19:41 So they obviously want every transaction
0:19:43 to be as legitimate as possible
0:19:45 or only be legitimate transactions.
0:19:48 So I would definitely recommend that you do real work
0:19:49 for your friends and family.
0:19:52 Maybe your dad has a medical company
0:19:56 or your mom needs some blog written for her company,
0:19:58 anything, any friend or family member.
0:20:02 Get them to buy your gig, do the job,
0:20:03 and they can leave you a nice five-star review.
0:20:05 And then I can almost guarantee
0:20:08 that you’ll at least get one order come through pretty soon.
0:20:12 – Again, that’s Georgia Austin from episode 479.
0:20:13 At the time we recorded,
0:20:16 she was posting some huge sales numbers,
0:20:18 like up to $90,000 a month.
0:20:21 And she’d hired a team of writers to help deliver that work.
0:20:22 Now, as a freelance writer,
0:20:26 you’re typically following a content brief or outline.
0:20:27 But in most cases,
0:20:29 you’ll still be allowed to sprinkle in bits of your opinion
0:20:31 if the employer is open to it.
0:20:33 And they’ll give you some guidance on to,
0:20:35 as to what kind of tone that they’d like
0:20:36 the finished piece to have.
0:20:38 But that’s number nine, freelance writing.
0:20:40 Number 10 is to write a book.
0:20:42 This is one of my all-time favorite
0:20:44 and most passive side hustles.
0:20:46 And passive, I mean,
0:20:48 after the whole writing the book part, that is.
0:20:52 But my books share my opinion on topics like,
0:20:54 what are the most important items every website should have?
0:20:58 That’s like the small business website checklist from 2014,
0:20:59 I wanna say that was published.
0:21:01 I did how to work with virtual assistants,
0:21:03 starting way back in 2012,
0:21:05 opinion on how to start a side hustle,
0:21:07 like lots of books on this topic.
0:21:10 And over the last decade, that collection of titles
0:21:14 has earned over $80,000 in author royalties.
0:21:15 I can’t call myself a full-time author,
0:21:17 but it’s a fun way to get paid
0:21:21 to put your ideas and opinions out into the world.
0:21:22 That is number 10,
0:21:24 write a book or the self-publishing side hustle.
0:21:26 Number 11 is to start a newsletter.
0:21:28 So email newsletters,
0:21:30 another hot side hustle of the moment.
0:21:33 Low cost, you can eventually monetize with ads,
0:21:34 with paid subscriptions,
0:21:35 with your own products and services.
0:21:39 One fun newsletter and a very opinionated example
0:21:42 that I get is Cody Sanchez’s Contrarian Thinking,
0:21:46 which maybe has rebranded to business buyers.
0:21:47 I don’t know what it is now,
0:21:48 but it used to be Contrarian Thinking.
0:21:51 And in it, she breaks down topics like entrepreneurship,
0:21:54 buying businesses, alternative investments,
0:21:58 all through her quote unquote, Contrarian lens.
0:21:59 And here’s Cody explaining how you might come up
0:22:01 with your newsletter topic
0:22:04 and how she got her first few thousand subscribers.
0:22:06 I typically say to start with,
0:22:09 look for where do people ask you your opinion
0:22:11 on things consistently?
0:22:13 What would you do even if you weren’t getting paid for it?
0:22:16 What are the hobbies that you’d like to get into
0:22:17 and learn more about
0:22:19 and you’re okay sharing your journey on that?
0:22:21 What are you actually really, really good at
0:22:24 that you don’t have to think too much about doing?
0:22:25 And when you answer those four questions,
0:22:28 you’ll find a little short list of things
0:22:32 that you can create a newsletter or a products business
0:22:34 around based on your ideas or your experience.
0:22:35 And there’s plenty of people,
0:22:39 like my newsletters are basically all about building wealth
0:22:42 or building businesses in unconventional ways.
0:22:44 And I’m not saying that I have it all figured out.
0:22:46 My newsletters are usually me experimenting with it
0:22:47 as a former journalist.
0:22:50 I’m like, man, I think you could probably build a business
0:22:53 that makes 100K pretty quickly from an e-product.
0:22:56 Let’s try it, document how we did it
0:22:57 and then tell people how it turned out.
0:22:59 And so anybody could do that with anything
0:23:03 from cooking to incense sales to creating an app.
0:23:05 – Yeah, there’s lots of different ways to go here.
0:23:09 And as long as it’s welcomed in somebody’s inbox,
0:23:11 then people are likely to stick around.
0:23:13 People are likely to read it, to share it.
0:23:15 And tell me about getting this thing off the ground
0:23:18 ’cause everybody’s starting with day one, zero subscribers.
0:23:20 – We actually did a kind of a fun post,
0:23:23 which was zero to 10,000 subscribers.
0:23:24 And how did we get there?
0:23:26 And we did it within 30 days.
0:23:28 Like sort of what would those first 30 days be like
0:23:30 if you were to go from zero to 10?
0:23:33 And so there’s like a couple overarching themes.
0:23:37 Essentially, where you start is
0:23:38 with the people that you already know.
0:23:41 And so I think the most important thing
0:23:44 for anyone who’s starting a newsletter is for some reason,
0:23:46 I don’t know if you felt this when you first create something,
0:23:48 but it’s scary to share.
0:23:50 And so we post it on social media
0:23:51 because it’s sort of out there
0:23:54 and it’s not exactly in somebody’s face.
0:23:56 But what we did that I think will accelerate you
0:23:57 the quickest, your first,
0:23:59 let’s call it a couple hundred subscribers
0:24:02 is we pinged it to all of the people
0:24:05 that we actually know personally via email.
0:24:07 So, did a mail merge to my contacts,
0:24:09 which everybody in their Gmail,
0:24:10 whether you realize it or not,
0:24:11 you have a couple of thousand people
0:24:13 that you’ve been communicating with.
0:24:15 And we just allow them to opt in or not.
0:24:17 Hey, we built a business baby.
0:24:18 Do you wanna celebrate it?
0:24:20 Do you wanna come along for the ride?
0:24:21 Yes, no, maybe so.
0:24:24 Not pushy, no opt-ins,
0:24:26 but allow them to join the journey if they want to.
0:24:29 Because so few people actually follow through
0:24:30 and create things, you’ll be surprised.
0:24:32 I think we had maybe like a,
0:24:35 I don’t know, 30 or 40% of the people we sent that to
0:24:37 actually followed up.
0:24:38 And it’s funny, now I say we
0:24:41 ’cause there is another person that helps me on this,
0:24:42 but we in the beginning, it was me.
0:24:44 So I would start with that.
0:24:45 And then the second thing
0:24:49 that I think is really important to start doing is,
0:24:52 everybody has a couple of people in their lives
0:24:54 that are, I hate to use the word influencers,
0:24:56 but we could use the word centers of influence.
0:24:58 Maybe you don’t know a ton of Joe Rogan’s,
0:25:00 but maybe you know a couple of Joe Schmoes
0:25:03 who have a couple hundred people that listen to them
0:25:07 and who think that their ideas are worth sharing.
0:25:09 And so we kinda combed through myself
0:25:11 and actually made my husband do this too,
0:25:14 the people that we know who have some sort of following.
0:25:16 We just scrolled through our iPhone
0:25:17 and we looked through LinkedIn
0:25:20 and we pinged maybe 20, 25 different people
0:25:22 that were sort of friends of ours.
0:25:23 And then told them about this
0:25:25 and asked if they’d be willing to share it.
0:25:26 And could we share something
0:25:27 or do something to help in return?
0:25:31 And those two things really led to the biggest first,
0:25:34 let’s call it, a couple hundred thousand subscribers.
0:25:37 And then you layer on all the normal things, like–
0:25:40 – Couple hundred to a thousand, not a couple hundred thousand.
0:25:42 – Yes, no, no, no, not yet, one day.
0:25:44 – Now, Cody has obviously blown up
0:25:46 on social media since then,
0:25:49 but back in episode 419, four years ago,
0:25:51 she was in the early stages of her journey
0:25:53 as a center of the influence herself.
0:25:55 So, check it out if you wanna learn more
0:25:57 about how she grew and monetized the newsletter.
0:25:59 That is number 11 on this list,
0:26:01 the email newsletter side hustle, great way
0:26:03 to monetize your opinion.
0:26:05 Number 12 is to start a YouTube channel.
0:26:08 And the example that I wanna point you to here
0:26:10 is my buddy, Marcos Lattak,
0:26:13 runs the channel Whiteboard Finance at press time.
0:26:15 He’s closing in on a million subscribers,
0:26:16 but he’s been at it for several years,
0:26:19 so it’s not like an overnight type of success,
0:26:22 although there are some viral wins along the way.
0:26:24 But Marcos breaks down these complex
0:26:25 personal finance topics,
0:26:27 he gives his opinion on current money events,
0:26:30 and earns a healthy six figure income from home doing it.
0:26:34 And, well, you can definitely spend a lot of time and energy
0:26:37 to create a highly produced video.
0:26:40 Marcos’ videos are more about the content and information
0:26:42 than they are about dazzling visuals.
0:26:44 – If you wanna do something crazy cinematography-wise,
0:26:46 obviously it’s gonna take more time to edit
0:26:48 and it’s gonna take more effort.
0:26:50 Me, I stand in front of a Whiteboard,
0:26:52 and it’s almost like a lesson to a classroom.
0:26:53 A lot of people call me,
0:26:55 they say, “Oh, I wish you were my teacher in high school,
0:26:57 I wish you were my professor in college.”
0:26:59 You explain stuff better than they do.
0:27:01 My format is easy to edit
0:27:03 just because of the way I deliver my content.
0:27:04 So if you look at it,
0:27:07 it’s almost like a blog post or a blog article
0:27:08 turned into a video.
0:27:11 I have an intro, I have a body, I have a conclusion,
0:27:12 and that’s pretty much it.
0:27:14 I don’t move away from the Whiteboard.
0:27:15 Maybe I’ll do some stuff in the field,
0:27:17 but that’s very rare.
0:27:20 So my video editing process over the years
0:27:22 has become very streamlined
0:27:25 and it’s allowed me to basically hit record,
0:27:27 knock out the video, edit it.
0:27:30 I know exactly what I need to do, same subtitle,
0:27:33 same everything, same filters, same settings,
0:27:36 and I can knock out a video from literally outlining
0:27:39 to pushing it to YouTube live
0:27:42 in about, I’d say, three to four hours total.
0:27:44 – And once you have that video live,
0:27:47 it can have a really long lifespan.
0:27:50 Like, those videos can earn views and revenue for years
0:27:53 if it’s on an evergreen topic, which is really cool,
0:27:54 and that’s in sharp contrast
0:27:56 to almost all other social media.
0:27:59 Now lately, I’ve been playing around with Pictori.ai
0:28:03 to pull in hundreds of stock video clips for my videos.
0:28:06 This is a task that would have taken me days, probably,
0:28:08 or a human editor who knew what they were doing,
0:28:09 hours and hours to do,
0:28:11 and it does it in just a few minutes.
0:28:13 So that’s something that I’ve been enjoying
0:28:16 using this year, Pictori.ai.
0:28:18 I think I’ve got a special promo code
0:28:19 for Side Hustle Show listeners.
0:28:21 I can put in the show notes
0:28:23 if you wanna play around with that one as well.
0:28:24 But that’s number 12.
0:28:26 The 12th way to get paid for your opinion
0:28:29 is to share that opinion on YouTube bonus points
0:28:33 if you can do that in a channel around a dedicated topic,
0:28:34 like Side Hustles in my case
0:28:37 or personal finance in Marco’s case.
0:28:40 Number 13 is to build a website.
0:28:43 And this is my favorite way to get paid.
0:28:45 I’ve been doing it for 10, 15 plus years,
0:28:46 is to create this helpful website,
0:28:48 this library of helpful content.
0:28:50 This is like your online home base.
0:28:52 This could be SideHustleNation.com.
0:28:54 This could be the virtual assistant site
0:28:55 that I used to have,
0:28:57 less so with the original shoe business,
0:28:59 not a lot of opinionated content on there.
0:29:00 But it was like, hey,
0:29:01 you wanna find the best price?
0:29:02 In our opinion,
0:29:03 here’s where you can find the best price
0:29:05 on your next pair of shoes, right?
0:29:08 So every month, this is earning thousands of dollars,
0:29:09 like for example, my opinion
0:29:12 on the best Side Hustles of the year and other topics
0:29:14 or the best Side Hustles for this type of persona.
0:29:17 Now, as with most businesses, to be fair,
0:29:19 there’s lots to learn about creating
0:29:20 and marketing your site,
0:29:23 but it can be really, really lucrative.
0:29:24 I mean, for example,
0:29:26 we heard from Shelly Marmer on the show.
0:29:28 She was earning 50 grand a month,
0:29:30 sharing Mexico travel tips.
0:29:31 She lived there full time.
0:29:33 She gave her opinion on the best places to stay,
0:29:34 the best spots to eat,
0:29:36 the best activities to do when you’re visiting.
0:29:38 Now, it looks like, to be fair,
0:29:41 that traffic has dropped as it has for a lot of creators
0:29:43 since the time of that recording.
0:29:44 But that’s not to say it didn’t happen.
0:29:48 There’s still other ways to drive traffic beyond just Google.
0:29:51 And so it’s another way to monetize your opinion,
0:29:53 build that library of content,
0:29:55 build out that website as your online home base.
0:29:57 If you wanna start a site of your own,
0:29:59 you can check out my free six-part video series
0:30:04 on how to do just that at side hustle website.com.
0:30:06 But your opinions do have value.
0:30:09 And whether you wanna monetize them
0:30:10 by taking a few surveys
0:30:13 or by building out a full-fledged online business,
0:30:14 that’s up to you.
0:30:16 Depends on your goals and the time
0:30:18 you have to dedicate to it.
0:30:19 So that is our full list.
0:30:21 I wanna recap it here.
0:30:23 It was number one, online surveys.
0:30:25 Number two, focus groups and paid market research.
0:30:27 Three was product testing.
0:30:30 And I’ve got links to all of the resources mentioned
0:30:31 in the show notes.
0:30:33 So just follow the link in the episode description.
0:30:35 Number four was to test websites.
0:30:37 Can give your feedback on different web design stuff.
0:30:39 Number five was mystery shopping,
0:30:42 either through apps or through the MSPA.
0:30:45 You can find other mystery shopping companies
0:30:46 through there to sign up for
0:30:48 and see if you can get emailed about gigs near you.
0:30:50 Number six is to write software reviews.
0:30:52 Again, probably not a huge money maker,
0:30:53 but could be worthwhile.
0:30:55 Could be a little way to offset Amazon costs,
0:30:57 basically in our house.
0:30:59 Number seven is the Amazon influencer program,
0:31:02 create this little video product reviews for Amazon.
0:31:04 Number eight is to take a look
0:31:07 at creative problem solving sites like Mindsumo.
0:31:10 Number nine was freelance writing.
0:31:11 Number 10 was to write your book,
0:31:14 join the self publishing revolution there.
0:31:16 And 11 is your email newsletter.
0:31:20 And we looked at the example of Cody Sanchez on that front.
0:31:22 12 was the YouTube channel route,
0:31:25 creating hopefully evergreen video content
0:31:27 that can pay you over and over again.
0:31:31 And finally, 13 was to build that helpful website.
0:31:33 Now my preference is I’m looking for side hustles
0:31:35 with either a strong hourly rate.
0:31:37 Like, hey, if I’m gonna trade time for money,
0:31:40 I wanna trade it for a healthy amount of money,
0:31:43 or side hustles that have the ability to scale down the road,
0:31:45 where it’s almost this speculative work upfront,
0:31:47 hey, I’m not getting paid at all for creating this.
0:31:50 But my hope is it can reach a lot of people,
0:31:51 it can serve a lot of people,
0:31:55 and it can make money for months or years down the road.
0:31:58 In any case, thank you so much for tuning in.
0:31:59 That is it for me.
0:32:01 If you’re finding value in the show,
0:32:03 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:32:06 So fire off your text message to your opinionated friend
0:32:08 and say, hey, if you ever wanted to get paid
0:32:11 for your opinion, here are some ideas on how to do that.
0:32:14 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
0:32:15 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:32:17 of the Side Hustle Show.
0:32:18 Hustle on.
0:00:06 Yes, your opinion is worth something,
0:00:07 and actually, you get paid pretty well for it,
0:00:10 up to $50,000 a month in some cases,
0:00:13 but the most lucrative ways to get paid for your opinion
0:00:16 take more time and effort than simply entering our surveys.
0:00:17 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:19 Welcome to The Science Hustle Show.
0:00:21 It’s the business podcast you can actually apply,
0:00:23 and today, I’m breaking down how to profit
0:00:26 from something we all have, opinions.
0:00:27 Now, we’re going roughly in order
0:00:29 from lowest paying to highest paying,
0:00:31 which is why you want to stick around to the end
0:00:34 to see how some people are making a great full-time living
0:00:35 from sharing theirs.
0:00:37 Number one is the one I just alluded to,
0:00:38 and that’s to take online surveys.
0:00:41 This is probably the easiest and fastest way
0:00:42 to get paid for your opinion.
0:00:45 It is what shows up on everybody’s lists
0:00:46 of ways to make extra money.
0:00:49 These are companies like Swagbucks, SurveyJunkie,
0:00:51 InboxDollars, they’re not going to make you rich,
0:00:52 but they are legit.
0:00:54 They’re an easy way to make extra money.
0:00:56 Plus, you can do them in your downtime,
0:00:58 like when you’re waiting in line or watching TV.
0:00:59 I’ll put direct referral links
0:01:01 to some of Side Hustle Nation’s favorites
0:01:03 in the show notes for this episode.
0:01:04 If you’re consistent with these,
0:01:07 hey, maybe it’s $30 to $100 a month.
0:01:10 Number two is to participate in market research
0:01:12 and paid focus groups.
0:01:15 These ones are always a fun side hustle for me,
0:01:16 and they pay significantly better
0:01:18 than typical online surveys.
0:01:20 In fact, the average compensation for the ones
0:01:22 that I’ve done is between $50 and $150 an hour.
0:01:24 $200, I think, was one of them.
0:01:26 Now, why would your opinion be worth so much?
0:01:29 And the reason for this is that companies
0:01:32 are using your feedback and guidance
0:01:35 to come up with new product ideas
0:01:37 or dictate the direction that they want to go
0:01:38 before they launch,
0:01:40 because it’s so much less expensive
0:01:42 to pay a few people a little bit of money
0:01:44 to get the product right upfront
0:01:46 than launching the wrong product
0:01:48 or with the wrong messaging
0:01:49 or with the wrong design or layout.
0:01:52 The downside to these is it’s hard
0:01:55 to get selected for the studies very often,
0:01:57 and that’s why you can’t really rely on it
0:01:58 as a source of side hustle income,
0:02:01 but it’s like fun extra money when it comes in.
0:02:04 I’ve got a full post on side hustle nation
0:02:06 where I break down the most popular companies
0:02:07 in this space,
0:02:08 but a couple favorites of mine
0:02:11 are user interviews and respondent.
0:02:13 So I’ll link up my full reviews
0:02:14 and direct referral links for those
0:02:16 in the show notes for this episode.
0:02:18 Number three is product testing,
0:02:18 and there’s a lot of companies
0:02:21 that will facilitate different product testing gigs.
0:02:24 One pretty well-established one is product report card.
0:02:26 They’ve been around since 2012.
0:02:28 They do product testing gigs.
0:02:29 They do paid surveys.
0:02:31 They do online focus groups.
0:02:34 The best paying tests that I found
0:02:37 are for these in-home product tests,
0:02:39 and then also the remote interviews and focus groups.
0:02:43 Sometimes in the 75 to $150 an hour range,
0:02:44 great little side gig.
0:02:45 Again, probably can’t count on it
0:02:47 to be a reliable source of income,
0:02:48 but when those gigs come through,
0:02:50 and if you like testing out new products,
0:02:52 could be a fun one to play around with.
0:02:54 Number four is to test websites,
0:02:57 and this is through services like user testing
0:02:58 and Intellizum.
0:03:01 They’ll pay it to give your feedback on websites,
0:03:03 and similar to the market research and focus groups,
0:03:06 in that it’s easier, faster, and cheaper
0:03:10 to gather some screen-recorded, voice-recorded feedback
0:03:13 of somebody trying to navigate your new redesign
0:03:15 than it would be to launch,
0:03:16 especially if you’re a big company
0:03:18 and you’re getting a ton of traffic,
0:03:20 than to have a redesign that’s confusing.
0:03:22 People can’t find the button that they want to,
0:03:25 you would click on, and it’s so much more efficient to do that.
0:03:28 And for that reason, these companies will pay,
0:03:30 well, they’ll pay user testing and Intellizum,
0:03:31 they’ll pay them, and then they’ll share
0:03:35 a portion of the proceeds with testers like you and me,
0:03:38 typically like $10 for every 20-minute test or so,
0:03:41 so what’s that, $30 an hour?
0:03:43 But the downside is they do fill up really fast,
0:03:45 and so you kind of build up a reputation
0:03:48 on these platforms, somebody who provides good feedback,
0:03:49 and you’re gonna be quick on the trigger
0:03:51 when those tests do pop up.
0:03:55 Number five is mystery shopping,
0:03:58 and this is where you get to try new things,
0:03:59 maybe it’s a restaurant,
0:04:01 maybe it’s a hotel, even in some cases,
0:04:03 it’ll stay for free, get some extra money
0:04:04 for writing up a little report
0:04:06 about your experience and opinion.
0:04:08 I’ve done a little bit of this,
0:04:11 mostly through an app called Field Agent
0:04:14 where you would go to your local store,
0:04:15 the app makes it really easy to open up,
0:04:18 they show you the map where the nearby gigs are,
0:04:21 and sometimes you find three or four of them at one store,
0:04:26 typically it is a $3 to $10 gig on checking product displays,
0:04:29 verifying inventory levels,
0:04:31 taking pictures of that product in the store,
0:04:34 occasionally it’s trying out a new product
0:04:36 where they’ll reimburse you and give it a taste test
0:04:39 and write about your opinion for that.
0:04:40 Another one that’s hard to piece together
0:04:43 a consistent income on an app like Field Agent,
0:04:45 but it’s a fun way to make some money on shopping trips
0:04:47 you’re already making, it would be hard to justify
0:04:49 making a dedicated trip just to do that,
0:04:53 and one thing that is frustrating and challenging
0:04:56 is that sometimes the products that they want you to look for
0:04:58 simply aren’t in the store,
0:05:01 or for whatever reason they use this really hard
0:05:05 to decipher acronym about what the product actually is,
0:05:08 just they’re limited to two letter abbreviations,
0:05:09 I don’t know, it’s hard to describe,
0:05:11 but if you use the app, you know what I’m talking about,
0:05:12 so it’s frustrating to think you’re gonna make
0:05:15 an easy $15, $20, $25,
0:05:17 because you saw that several of these quick gigs
0:05:21 were listed at one store only to spend 15 minutes
0:05:23 wandering the aisles, trying to find the things
0:05:25 that they wanted you to take pictures of,
0:05:28 but I’ll link up my full Field Agent app review for more.
0:05:31 Now, for better paying mystery shopping gigs,
0:05:33 Jen Trinidad recommended starting
0:05:35 with the Industry Association.
0:05:39 – Hi, I’m Jen Trinidad of Budget Divas,
0:05:42 and I made about $2,000 a month
0:05:44 on average mystery shopping.
0:05:45 If you’re interested in mystery shopping,
0:05:50 the first place I would go to mspa-americas.org,
0:05:53 they are like the government agency
0:05:55 of mystery shopping, if you will,
0:06:00 so MSPA stands for the Mystery Shopping Providers Association,
0:06:02 and when you go onto that site,
0:06:07 you’ll have access to a list of mystery shopping providers
0:06:11 that have gone through this process
0:06:15 to become a legitimate mystery shopping company.
0:06:17 – Okay, so it’s primarily done
0:06:19 through these kind of directories
0:06:22 versus calling up Target or Walmart
0:06:25 and offering to go check on their employees.
0:06:27 – Yeah, so for someone who’s new at the bottom
0:06:29 of your screen on the right-hand side,
0:06:30 where it says congratulations,
0:06:33 it says Elite Member 2022,
0:06:36 and so those are the companies
0:06:40 that have been vetted through the MSPA,
0:06:45 and are the companies that people would wanna work with.
0:06:47 If you’re on this list,
0:06:50 that means that they’re a great company to work for
0:06:53 and mystery shoppers recommend them.
0:06:55 – All right, so that’s number five, mystery shopping.
0:06:58 Number six is one that not a lot of people know about.
0:06:59 I always felt like this was pretty cool
0:07:00 when I discovered this,
0:07:03 and that’s to write software reviews
0:07:06 through sites like G2 and Capterra.
0:07:08 They will occasionally pay you,
0:07:10 usually through Amazon gift cards
0:07:12 for honest software product reviews,
0:07:16 and I’ve received several of these worth over $100
0:07:18 in total for all the different tools
0:07:20 that I use to run my business,
0:07:22 and what is kind of the secret here
0:07:24 is you gotta leave your first review for free
0:07:27 because during that process,
0:07:29 they’ll ask you what other tools that you use.
0:07:31 What do you integrate active campaign with?
0:07:33 What do you integrate ConvertKit with?
0:07:36 And you could say, well, I’ll use it with lead pages
0:07:38 or I use it with this other tool
0:07:41 or I take payments with Stripe or something,
0:07:44 and then the secret is to not review those right away,
0:07:46 is wait for an email to come through
0:07:48 that offers a little gift card incentive.
0:07:51 Sometimes it’s $5, sometimes it’s 10, 15, 20,
0:07:53 depending on what they really wanna build up
0:07:55 a critical mass of reviews,
0:07:57 ’cause their game, you always peel back,
0:07:58 well, if somebody’s giving me money,
0:07:59 what’s in it for them, right?
0:08:00 Their game is to rank in Google
0:08:02 if somebody searches ConvertKit review,
0:08:04 active campaign review,
0:08:06 and they’ve crowdsourced hundreds and hundreds
0:08:07 of these things and they can say,
0:08:10 hey, on average, it’s worth a 4.2 star rating,
0:08:12 and hopefully somebody clicks our affiliate link
0:08:13 when they go and sign up.
0:08:15 And it’s a pretty smart business
0:08:17 ’cause then they’re gonna get recurring revenue
0:08:19 in the cases of a lot of these software companies
0:08:20 for the life of that customer.
0:08:23 And okay, so it was worthwhile to pay out a little bit
0:08:26 to start to collect those honest reviews.
0:08:28 So anyways, that’s kind of a fun one.
0:08:31 It’s not a ton of money, but it’s a kind of a fun one for me.
0:08:33 So that’s the first half of our list.
0:08:35 Number one, take online surveys.
0:08:37 Number two, market research and focus groups.
0:08:39 Number three is product testing.
0:08:41 Number four is to test websites.
0:08:43 Number five was mystery shopping.
0:08:46 And number six was to write software reviews.
0:08:49 We got lots more ways to monetize your opinion,
0:08:51 including some that could be worth thousands of dollars
0:08:54 a month or more right after this.
0:08:55 You know, the “Science Hustle” show
0:08:56 is here to help you make more money.
0:08:59 And one of the fastest ways to improve your bottom line
0:09:01 is to play the substitution game.
0:09:04 How it works is you find lower cost alternatives
0:09:05 to what you’re already spending money on.
0:09:08 And if you can do it for a recurring expense,
0:09:11 you just scored yourself some reverse passive income.
0:09:14 That’s the cash you’re no longer spending every month.
0:09:16 One of those areas is your wireless provider.
0:09:17 And that’s why I’m excited to partner
0:09:20 with Mint Mobile for this episode.
0:09:22 I made the switch to Mint Mobile back in 2019
0:09:24 and haven’t looked back.
0:09:27 Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month
0:09:29 when you purchase a three month plan.
0:09:30 All plans come with high speed data
0:09:32 and unlimited talk and text delivered
0:09:35 on the nation’s largest 5G network.
0:09:36 You can use your own phone
0:09:39 with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your current phone number
0:09:41 and all your existing contacts.
0:09:42 To get this new customer offer
0:09:45 in your new three month premium wireless plan
0:09:46 for just 15 bucks a month,
0:09:50 go to mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:09:53 That’s mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:09:55 Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month
0:09:58 at mintmobile.com/sidehustle.
0:10:02 $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month.
0:10:05 New customers on first three month plan only
0:10:08 speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
0:10:11 Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply.
0:10:13 See Mint Mobile for details.
0:10:16 It was Friday evening after work.
0:10:19 I was about 100 yards away from my condo in Atlanta.
0:10:22 I was almost home when this Pontiac Aztec
0:10:25 comes flying out of nowhere in the second lane.
0:10:26 I lay on the horn.
0:10:30 I brace for impact as it slams into my driver’s side door.
0:10:32 The airbag explodes, I go spinning
0:10:34 and a lot of things go through your mind
0:10:35 in that split second.
0:10:37 But in that moment, I don’t want,
0:10:39 is my family gonna be taken care of
0:10:41 to be one of those things that goes through yours?
0:10:43 Thankfully, I was okay after that crash,
0:10:45 but you never know when your time is up.
0:10:47 And that’s why I wanna invite side hustle show listeners
0:10:49 to set up your term coverage life insurance
0:10:51 with our sponsor Ladder today.
0:10:52 It takes just a few minutes.
0:10:53 You can even do it on your phone.
0:10:55 All you need to do is answer a few questions
0:10:58 about your health and then Ladder’s smart algorithms
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0:11:01 if you’re instantly approved.
0:11:03 That’s right, it’s 100% digital.
0:11:05 No doctors, no needles, no paperwork
0:11:08 when you’re applying for $3 million in coverage or less.
0:11:11 Ladder policies are issued by top rated insurers
0:11:14 with long proven histories of paying claims.
0:11:16 On top of that, there’s no hidden fees.
0:11:18 You can cancel at any time and you can get a full refund
0:11:21 if you change your mind in the first 30 days.
0:11:23 It’s no secret life insurance costs more
0:11:24 the longer you wait.
0:11:26 So now’s the time to cross this off your list.
0:11:29 Go to ladderlife.com/hustle today
0:11:31 to see if you’re instantly approved.
0:11:36 That’s L-A-D-D-E-R-LIFE.com/hustle.
0:11:39 Ladderlife.com/hustle and big thanks
0:11:41 to Ladder for sponsoring the show.
0:11:45 Number seven is one of the most buzzworthy side hustles
0:11:46 of the moment or of the year.
0:11:49 And that’s to review products on Amazon
0:11:51 through the Amazon influencer program.
0:11:53 Now, the reason for this is in most cases,
0:11:55 Amazon isn’t gonna pay you to leave written reviews
0:11:57 of the products you buy.
0:12:00 But if you’re accepted into the Amazon influencer program,
0:12:04 you can get paid to create short video product reviews.
0:12:06 And by that, I mean, they’re not gonna pay you up front,
0:12:08 but they are gonna pay you a little commission
0:12:13 if someone buys the product after watching your video.
0:12:15 It says, “Hey, thanks for helping us close that sale.
0:12:17 “We’ll sprinkle a couple percentage points your way.”
0:12:20 And the cool thing is you don’t have to drive any traffic.
0:12:22 Unlike traditional affiliate marketing
0:12:24 where you gotta have the SEO dialed in
0:12:27 or the email list dialed in or the big social following,
0:12:29 this is entirely driven on Amazon.
0:12:32 They post these videos on the product pages
0:12:34 as a way to help close more sales
0:12:36 or as a way to help educate customers
0:12:39 and kind of give the shopper an honest look
0:12:40 at what is this product like
0:12:43 in the hands of actual customers.
0:12:44 And it’s super easy.
0:12:46 Like for me, low production quality,
0:12:50 just shot with my phone, quick voiceover.
0:12:51 I’m usually not even on the camera.
0:12:53 It’s to me kind of pointing the,
0:12:54 sometimes my hands are in the picture,
0:12:57 demonstrating what the product is or how it works,
0:12:58 but super easy.
0:13:01 I made my first $9 after just a few days of uploading.
0:13:05 It’s like, this is probably the easiest $9 I’ve ever made.
0:13:07 You know, maybe around a hundred bucks a month on average
0:13:09 and probably more during Q4.
0:13:11 Very little effort, very passive
0:13:12 once these videos are uploaded.
0:13:14 Connected with other side hustlers
0:13:16 earning $2,000 a month or more,
0:13:18 sharing their opinions on Amazon products
0:13:19 through this program.
0:13:22 It’s become a really popular side hustle.
0:13:26 And when anything like that kind of takes off or blows up
0:13:29 or it’s perceived easy money to be had,
0:13:32 you get a lot of these early adopter gurus
0:13:33 pitching their course on the topic.
0:13:36 And maybe there is some secret sauce,
0:13:39 best practice strategy going on behind the scenes.
0:13:42 But the people I see having the most success with this
0:13:44 are simply the ones who upload the most videos,
0:13:46 who cast the widest net.
0:13:48 I remember meeting this woman
0:13:51 at a podcaster meetup in Seattle last summer
0:13:53 and sharing just how genuinely excited I was
0:13:55 about this new semi passive income stream of mine.
0:13:58 And it turned out she was doing it too.
0:13:58 And she was kind of like,
0:14:01 “Oh, you’re making $100. That’s cute.”
0:14:05 But she probably had 50 to 100 times more videos than I had.
0:14:08 And so she was making way more money per month.
0:14:08 And so I asked,
0:14:12 “Well, how did you get all those products to review?”
0:14:13 I feel like we’re just about tapped out
0:14:15 with the stuff that we have in the house
0:14:16 that’s from Amazon.
0:14:18 And she said, “Oh, that’s easy.”
0:14:19 When I ran out of stuff,
0:14:22 I just started reviewing the stuff at all my friends’ houses.
0:14:23 So that’s one way to solve the problem.
0:14:25 And I’ve heard from other Amazon influencers
0:14:27 that after a while,
0:14:30 brands will actually start sending you free products
0:14:31 to review,
0:14:33 which is another way to keep adding fuel to this fire.
0:14:36 Now, long-term, there’s lots of speculation over
0:14:39 is that low production quality iPhone video gonna cut it
0:14:42 if somebody else is creating a more YouTube style,
0:14:43 more professional appearance?
0:14:45 Like after all, which one is gonna get clicked on
0:14:48 on that product listing page on Amazon?
0:14:49 That’s hard to say,
0:14:51 but for the time being it’s still a pretty low barrier
0:14:52 to entry.
0:14:54 It is a program that you have to apply for.
0:14:58 They do want you to include your YouTube, Instagram,
0:14:59 TikTok.
0:15:00 They want some level of social following,
0:15:02 but they don’t say how much of a social following
0:15:04 that you need to have.
0:15:05 And importantly,
0:15:07 while I’m sure they would love for you to post your product
0:15:09 reviews onto your social media accounts,
0:15:11 that isn’t a requirement once you are accepted.
0:15:12 So that’s number seven,
0:15:14 the Amazon influencer program.
0:15:17 Number eight is another one that you might not have heard of.
0:15:21 And that’s to solve interesting problems.
0:15:24 There are sites like mindsumo.com
0:15:27 where these corporate companies come on
0:15:30 and ask kind of deeper questions.
0:15:33 They try to crowdsource some creativity,
0:15:35 some innovation, some answers.
0:15:36 And in exchange for that,
0:15:39 they’re offering rewards that sometimes will go
0:15:42 from 800 to 2,500 bucks.
0:15:43 So when I was browsing,
0:15:47 I saw questions like what’s the next big food trend
0:15:51 or propose a new way to learn about different cultures?
0:15:53 And so it kind of gets your creative juices flowing.
0:15:56 And if you have opinions about the things
0:15:57 that are being asked,
0:15:59 you can kind of throw your hat in the ring, so to speak,
0:16:01 or throw your ideas out there
0:16:03 and you have a shot at winning
0:16:05 some of these decent prizes there.
0:16:07 So that’s mindsumo.com.
0:16:09 There’s a few other ones that are similar,
0:16:11 but it’s kind of where these companies
0:16:14 are trying to crowdsource some ideas and innovation.
0:16:17 Number nine is freelance writing.
0:16:20 And even in the age of chat TPD,
0:16:21 there’s still a strong demand,
0:16:24 maybe even more so because of chat TPD,
0:16:26 there’s a strong demand for real human writers
0:16:28 who’ve got experience, who’ve got a voice,
0:16:31 they’ve got an opinion on what they’re writing about.
0:16:33 And these companies are hiring freelancers
0:16:35 for website content, for articles,
0:16:38 for email newsletters, for sales copy,
0:16:41 for brochures and training materials.
0:16:44 And freelance writers can command anywhere from 50
0:16:47 to $500 or more per article.
0:16:50 And you can connect with clients through your network,
0:16:53 you can connect with clients through Upwork or Fiverr
0:16:56 like Georgia Austin did in episode 479.
0:16:58 Here’s how she described getting her start.
0:17:00 – I wasn’t necessarily thinking anything
0:17:03 would come of this Fiverr account, but I made it
0:17:05 and I uploaded my first,
0:17:07 I think it was just one gig at the time.
0:17:09 It was a website content gig.
0:17:13 And to my surprise, I got my first order within two days.
0:17:16 So that was an amazing thing to happen.
0:17:17 I wasn’t expecting it.
0:17:20 I kind of expected it to take,
0:17:21 it’s a week to get my first order
0:17:24 or I wasn’t even expecting to get one at all.
0:17:26 And then I just kept getting orders
0:17:27 and kept getting orders.
0:17:30 I did that for about one or two months.
0:17:33 And then I got offered a full-time position
0:17:35 as a marketing manager in New York,
0:17:40 funnily enough, the same day as I got accepted to Fiverr Pro.
0:17:41 And obviously me being me at the time,
0:17:45 I was thinking, it’s gonna be more secure
0:17:48 and maybe I’ll have better career opportunities
0:17:49 if I take this full-time position.
0:17:50 So that’s what I did.
0:17:54 And then I did that for another eight, nine months.
0:17:57 And then the company sadly broke down a bit
0:17:58 because of the pandemic
0:18:01 or had a bit of a rough ride at the time.
0:18:02 I think they’re okay now, which is good.
0:18:05 But then I decided to turn my Fiverr Pro back on again.
0:18:07 And it literally just blew up.
0:18:10 I was not expecting it at all.
0:18:11 When March came around,
0:18:14 my revenue was tripling and tripling every month.
0:18:16 And with that, wizard of content was born.
0:18:18 So quite the journey.
0:18:19 – Sounds like it.
0:18:22 I wanna pause and go back to this initial Fiverr gig,
0:18:24 a website content gig.
0:18:27 There are hundreds, probably thousands
0:18:30 of other freelance writers on this platform.
0:18:33 How did you set up this gig to get eyeballs,
0:18:37 to get exposure, to get anybody paying attention to you,
0:18:39 to get an order within just a couple of days?
0:18:41 – So one thing I did do,
0:18:44 which I actually took this tip from Alex Pazulo.
0:18:46 I’m sure anyone who knows Fiverr knows Alex.
0:18:48 I know you know Alex as well.
0:18:52 So she gave a piece of advice for you
0:18:54 to get your friends and family to purchase your gig.
0:18:57 So obviously other prospective buyers
0:18:59 are really gonna put trust in people
0:19:01 who have a few five-star reviews.
0:19:04 So something that I knew would be really important
0:19:06 to gain that immediate trust.
0:19:09 So what I did is I did some example work
0:19:12 or practice pieces for my friends and family.
0:19:15 And on my two gigs that I had at the time,
0:19:18 I made sure I got five reviews on each gig.
0:19:22 So that really was, I think, the stepping stone
0:19:26 for me to be able to get more orders from real buyers.
0:19:28 So if anyone’s gonna create a Fiverr account,
0:19:32 I highly recommend that you do this strategy.
0:19:33 And it doesn’t have to be a fake order.
0:19:36 And I know that Fiverr, the internal team there,
0:19:38 they’re actually getting quite hot on this.
0:19:39 They know that people are doing this.
0:19:41 So they obviously want every transaction
0:19:43 to be as legitimate as possible
0:19:45 or only be legitimate transactions.
0:19:48 So I would definitely recommend that you do real work
0:19:49 for your friends and family.
0:19:52 Maybe your dad has a medical company
0:19:56 or your mom needs some blog written for her company,
0:19:58 anything, any friend or family member.
0:20:02 Get them to buy your gig, do the job,
0:20:03 and they can leave you a nice five-star review.
0:20:05 And then I can almost guarantee
0:20:08 that you’ll at least get one order come through pretty soon.
0:20:12 – Again, that’s Georgia Austin from episode 479.
0:20:13 At the time we recorded,
0:20:16 she was posting some huge sales numbers,
0:20:18 like up to $90,000 a month.
0:20:21 And she’d hired a team of writers to help deliver that work.
0:20:22 Now, as a freelance writer,
0:20:26 you’re typically following a content brief or outline.
0:20:27 But in most cases,
0:20:29 you’ll still be allowed to sprinkle in bits of your opinion
0:20:31 if the employer is open to it.
0:20:33 And they’ll give you some guidance on to,
0:20:35 as to what kind of tone that they’d like
0:20:36 the finished piece to have.
0:20:38 But that’s number nine, freelance writing.
0:20:40 Number 10 is to write a book.
0:20:42 This is one of my all-time favorite
0:20:44 and most passive side hustles.
0:20:46 And passive, I mean,
0:20:48 after the whole writing the book part, that is.
0:20:52 But my books share my opinion on topics like,
0:20:54 what are the most important items every website should have?
0:20:58 That’s like the small business website checklist from 2014,
0:20:59 I wanna say that was published.
0:21:01 I did how to work with virtual assistants,
0:21:03 starting way back in 2012,
0:21:05 opinion on how to start a side hustle,
0:21:07 like lots of books on this topic.
0:21:10 And over the last decade, that collection of titles
0:21:14 has earned over $80,000 in author royalties.
0:21:15 I can’t call myself a full-time author,
0:21:17 but it’s a fun way to get paid
0:21:21 to put your ideas and opinions out into the world.
0:21:22 That is number 10,
0:21:24 write a book or the self-publishing side hustle.
0:21:26 Number 11 is to start a newsletter.
0:21:28 So email newsletters,
0:21:30 another hot side hustle of the moment.
0:21:33 Low cost, you can eventually monetize with ads,
0:21:34 with paid subscriptions,
0:21:35 with your own products and services.
0:21:39 One fun newsletter and a very opinionated example
0:21:42 that I get is Cody Sanchez’s Contrarian Thinking,
0:21:46 which maybe has rebranded to business buyers.
0:21:47 I don’t know what it is now,
0:21:48 but it used to be Contrarian Thinking.
0:21:51 And in it, she breaks down topics like entrepreneurship,
0:21:54 buying businesses, alternative investments,
0:21:58 all through her quote unquote, Contrarian lens.
0:21:59 And here’s Cody explaining how you might come up
0:22:01 with your newsletter topic
0:22:04 and how she got her first few thousand subscribers.
0:22:06 I typically say to start with,
0:22:09 look for where do people ask you your opinion
0:22:11 on things consistently?
0:22:13 What would you do even if you weren’t getting paid for it?
0:22:16 What are the hobbies that you’d like to get into
0:22:17 and learn more about
0:22:19 and you’re okay sharing your journey on that?
0:22:21 What are you actually really, really good at
0:22:24 that you don’t have to think too much about doing?
0:22:25 And when you answer those four questions,
0:22:28 you’ll find a little short list of things
0:22:32 that you can create a newsletter or a products business
0:22:34 around based on your ideas or your experience.
0:22:35 And there’s plenty of people,
0:22:39 like my newsletters are basically all about building wealth
0:22:42 or building businesses in unconventional ways.
0:22:44 And I’m not saying that I have it all figured out.
0:22:46 My newsletters are usually me experimenting with it
0:22:47 as a former journalist.
0:22:50 I’m like, man, I think you could probably build a business
0:22:53 that makes 100K pretty quickly from an e-product.
0:22:56 Let’s try it, document how we did it
0:22:57 and then tell people how it turned out.
0:22:59 And so anybody could do that with anything
0:23:03 from cooking to incense sales to creating an app.
0:23:05 – Yeah, there’s lots of different ways to go here.
0:23:09 And as long as it’s welcomed in somebody’s inbox,
0:23:11 then people are likely to stick around.
0:23:13 People are likely to read it, to share it.
0:23:15 And tell me about getting this thing off the ground
0:23:18 ’cause everybody’s starting with day one, zero subscribers.
0:23:20 – We actually did a kind of a fun post,
0:23:23 which was zero to 10,000 subscribers.
0:23:24 And how did we get there?
0:23:26 And we did it within 30 days.
0:23:28 Like sort of what would those first 30 days be like
0:23:30 if you were to go from zero to 10?
0:23:33 And so there’s like a couple overarching themes.
0:23:37 Essentially, where you start is
0:23:38 with the people that you already know.
0:23:41 And so I think the most important thing
0:23:44 for anyone who’s starting a newsletter is for some reason,
0:23:46 I don’t know if you felt this when you first create something,
0:23:48 but it’s scary to share.
0:23:50 And so we post it on social media
0:23:51 because it’s sort of out there
0:23:54 and it’s not exactly in somebody’s face.
0:23:56 But what we did that I think will accelerate you
0:23:57 the quickest, your first,
0:23:59 let’s call it a couple hundred subscribers
0:24:02 is we pinged it to all of the people
0:24:05 that we actually know personally via email.
0:24:07 So, did a mail merge to my contacts,
0:24:09 which everybody in their Gmail,
0:24:10 whether you realize it or not,
0:24:11 you have a couple of thousand people
0:24:13 that you’ve been communicating with.
0:24:15 And we just allow them to opt in or not.
0:24:17 Hey, we built a business baby.
0:24:18 Do you wanna celebrate it?
0:24:20 Do you wanna come along for the ride?
0:24:21 Yes, no, maybe so.
0:24:24 Not pushy, no opt-ins,
0:24:26 but allow them to join the journey if they want to.
0:24:29 Because so few people actually follow through
0:24:30 and create things, you’ll be surprised.
0:24:32 I think we had maybe like a,
0:24:35 I don’t know, 30 or 40% of the people we sent that to
0:24:37 actually followed up.
0:24:38 And it’s funny, now I say we
0:24:41 ’cause there is another person that helps me on this,
0:24:42 but we in the beginning, it was me.
0:24:44 So I would start with that.
0:24:45 And then the second thing
0:24:49 that I think is really important to start doing is,
0:24:52 everybody has a couple of people in their lives
0:24:54 that are, I hate to use the word influencers,
0:24:56 but we could use the word centers of influence.
0:24:58 Maybe you don’t know a ton of Joe Rogan’s,
0:25:00 but maybe you know a couple of Joe Schmoes
0:25:03 who have a couple hundred people that listen to them
0:25:07 and who think that their ideas are worth sharing.
0:25:09 And so we kinda combed through myself
0:25:11 and actually made my husband do this too,
0:25:14 the people that we know who have some sort of following.
0:25:16 We just scrolled through our iPhone
0:25:17 and we looked through LinkedIn
0:25:20 and we pinged maybe 20, 25 different people
0:25:22 that were sort of friends of ours.
0:25:23 And then told them about this
0:25:25 and asked if they’d be willing to share it.
0:25:26 And could we share something
0:25:27 or do something to help in return?
0:25:31 And those two things really led to the biggest first,
0:25:34 let’s call it, a couple hundred thousand subscribers.
0:25:37 And then you layer on all the normal things, like–
0:25:40 – Couple hundred to a thousand, not a couple hundred thousand.
0:25:42 – Yes, no, no, no, not yet, one day.
0:25:44 – Now, Cody has obviously blown up
0:25:46 on social media since then,
0:25:49 but back in episode 419, four years ago,
0:25:51 she was in the early stages of her journey
0:25:53 as a center of the influence herself.
0:25:55 So, check it out if you wanna learn more
0:25:57 about how she grew and monetized the newsletter.
0:25:59 That is number 11 on this list,
0:26:01 the email newsletter side hustle, great way
0:26:03 to monetize your opinion.
0:26:05 Number 12 is to start a YouTube channel.
0:26:08 And the example that I wanna point you to here
0:26:10 is my buddy, Marcos Lattak,
0:26:13 runs the channel Whiteboard Finance at press time.
0:26:15 He’s closing in on a million subscribers,
0:26:16 but he’s been at it for several years,
0:26:19 so it’s not like an overnight type of success,
0:26:22 although there are some viral wins along the way.
0:26:24 But Marcos breaks down these complex
0:26:25 personal finance topics,
0:26:27 he gives his opinion on current money events,
0:26:30 and earns a healthy six figure income from home doing it.
0:26:34 And, well, you can definitely spend a lot of time and energy
0:26:37 to create a highly produced video.
0:26:40 Marcos’ videos are more about the content and information
0:26:42 than they are about dazzling visuals.
0:26:44 – If you wanna do something crazy cinematography-wise,
0:26:46 obviously it’s gonna take more time to edit
0:26:48 and it’s gonna take more effort.
0:26:50 Me, I stand in front of a Whiteboard,
0:26:52 and it’s almost like a lesson to a classroom.
0:26:53 A lot of people call me,
0:26:55 they say, “Oh, I wish you were my teacher in high school,
0:26:57 I wish you were my professor in college.”
0:26:59 You explain stuff better than they do.
0:27:01 My format is easy to edit
0:27:03 just because of the way I deliver my content.
0:27:04 So if you look at it,
0:27:07 it’s almost like a blog post or a blog article
0:27:08 turned into a video.
0:27:11 I have an intro, I have a body, I have a conclusion,
0:27:12 and that’s pretty much it.
0:27:14 I don’t move away from the Whiteboard.
0:27:15 Maybe I’ll do some stuff in the field,
0:27:17 but that’s very rare.
0:27:20 So my video editing process over the years
0:27:22 has become very streamlined
0:27:25 and it’s allowed me to basically hit record,
0:27:27 knock out the video, edit it.
0:27:30 I know exactly what I need to do, same subtitle,
0:27:33 same everything, same filters, same settings,
0:27:36 and I can knock out a video from literally outlining
0:27:39 to pushing it to YouTube live
0:27:42 in about, I’d say, three to four hours total.
0:27:44 – And once you have that video live,
0:27:47 it can have a really long lifespan.
0:27:50 Like, those videos can earn views and revenue for years
0:27:53 if it’s on an evergreen topic, which is really cool,
0:27:54 and that’s in sharp contrast
0:27:56 to almost all other social media.
0:27:59 Now lately, I’ve been playing around with Pictori.ai
0:28:03 to pull in hundreds of stock video clips for my videos.
0:28:06 This is a task that would have taken me days, probably,
0:28:08 or a human editor who knew what they were doing,
0:28:09 hours and hours to do,
0:28:11 and it does it in just a few minutes.
0:28:13 So that’s something that I’ve been enjoying
0:28:16 using this year, Pictori.ai.
0:28:18 I think I’ve got a special promo code
0:28:19 for Side Hustle Show listeners.
0:28:21 I can put in the show notes
0:28:23 if you wanna play around with that one as well.
0:28:24 But that’s number 12.
0:28:26 The 12th way to get paid for your opinion
0:28:29 is to share that opinion on YouTube bonus points
0:28:33 if you can do that in a channel around a dedicated topic,
0:28:34 like Side Hustles in my case
0:28:37 or personal finance in Marco’s case.
0:28:40 Number 13 is to build a website.
0:28:43 And this is my favorite way to get paid.
0:28:45 I’ve been doing it for 10, 15 plus years,
0:28:46 is to create this helpful website,
0:28:48 this library of helpful content.
0:28:50 This is like your online home base.
0:28:52 This could be SideHustleNation.com.
0:28:54 This could be the virtual assistant site
0:28:55 that I used to have,
0:28:57 less so with the original shoe business,
0:28:59 not a lot of opinionated content on there.
0:29:00 But it was like, hey,
0:29:01 you wanna find the best price?
0:29:02 In our opinion,
0:29:03 here’s where you can find the best price
0:29:05 on your next pair of shoes, right?
0:29:08 So every month, this is earning thousands of dollars,
0:29:09 like for example, my opinion
0:29:12 on the best Side Hustles of the year and other topics
0:29:14 or the best Side Hustles for this type of persona.
0:29:17 Now, as with most businesses, to be fair,
0:29:19 there’s lots to learn about creating
0:29:20 and marketing your site,
0:29:23 but it can be really, really lucrative.
0:29:24 I mean, for example,
0:29:26 we heard from Shelly Marmer on the show.
0:29:28 She was earning 50 grand a month,
0:29:30 sharing Mexico travel tips.
0:29:31 She lived there full time.
0:29:33 She gave her opinion on the best places to stay,
0:29:34 the best spots to eat,
0:29:36 the best activities to do when you’re visiting.
0:29:38 Now, it looks like, to be fair,
0:29:41 that traffic has dropped as it has for a lot of creators
0:29:43 since the time of that recording.
0:29:44 But that’s not to say it didn’t happen.
0:29:48 There’s still other ways to drive traffic beyond just Google.
0:29:51 And so it’s another way to monetize your opinion,
0:29:53 build that library of content,
0:29:55 build out that website as your online home base.
0:29:57 If you wanna start a site of your own,
0:29:59 you can check out my free six-part video series
0:30:04 on how to do just that at side hustle website.com.
0:30:06 But your opinions do have value.
0:30:09 And whether you wanna monetize them
0:30:10 by taking a few surveys
0:30:13 or by building out a full-fledged online business,
0:30:14 that’s up to you.
0:30:16 Depends on your goals and the time
0:30:18 you have to dedicate to it.
0:30:19 So that is our full list.
0:30:21 I wanna recap it here.
0:30:23 It was number one, online surveys.
0:30:25 Number two, focus groups and paid market research.
0:30:27 Three was product testing.
0:30:30 And I’ve got links to all of the resources mentioned
0:30:31 in the show notes.
0:30:33 So just follow the link in the episode description.
0:30:35 Number four was to test websites.
0:30:37 Can give your feedback on different web design stuff.
0:30:39 Number five was mystery shopping,
0:30:42 either through apps or through the MSPA.
0:30:45 You can find other mystery shopping companies
0:30:46 through there to sign up for
0:30:48 and see if you can get emailed about gigs near you.
0:30:50 Number six is to write software reviews.
0:30:52 Again, probably not a huge money maker,
0:30:53 but could be worthwhile.
0:30:55 Could be a little way to offset Amazon costs,
0:30:57 basically in our house.
0:30:59 Number seven is the Amazon influencer program,
0:31:02 create this little video product reviews for Amazon.
0:31:04 Number eight is to take a look
0:31:07 at creative problem solving sites like Mindsumo.
0:31:10 Number nine was freelance writing.
0:31:11 Number 10 was to write your book,
0:31:14 join the self publishing revolution there.
0:31:16 And 11 is your email newsletter.
0:31:20 And we looked at the example of Cody Sanchez on that front.
0:31:22 12 was the YouTube channel route,
0:31:25 creating hopefully evergreen video content
0:31:27 that can pay you over and over again.
0:31:31 And finally, 13 was to build that helpful website.
0:31:33 Now my preference is I’m looking for side hustles
0:31:35 with either a strong hourly rate.
0:31:37 Like, hey, if I’m gonna trade time for money,
0:31:40 I wanna trade it for a healthy amount of money,
0:31:43 or side hustles that have the ability to scale down the road,
0:31:45 where it’s almost this speculative work upfront,
0:31:47 hey, I’m not getting paid at all for creating this.
0:31:50 But my hope is it can reach a lot of people,
0:31:51 it can serve a lot of people,
0:31:55 and it can make money for months or years down the road.
0:31:58 In any case, thank you so much for tuning in.
0:31:59 That is it for me.
0:32:01 If you’re finding value in the show,
0:32:03 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:32:06 So fire off your text message to your opinionated friend
0:32:08 and say, hey, if you ever wanted to get paid
0:32:11 for your opinion, here are some ideas on how to do that.
0:32:14 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
0:32:15 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:32:17 of the Side Hustle Show.
0:32:18 Hustle on.
Yes, you can get paid for your opinion — and actually get paid pretty well.
But … the most lucrative ways to get paid for your opinion take more time and effort than simply answering surveys.
In this post, I’ll break down several legit ways to turn your ideas, opinions, and feedback into real income. Combined, these methods are worth thousands of dollars a month.
Ready? Let’s do it!
Full Show Notes: 13 Ways to Get Paid for Your Opinion
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