This is the Day 6 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Now that you know how you’re going to make money from your side hustle, you’ve gotta start marketing the hell out of it. And the best way to promote your side hustle is to, well, tell everyone you have a side hustle! How do you do that? Make sure you have business cards specifically for your side hustle. This is one of the most important things you can do for your budding business and your personal brand. You probably meet people all the time – at parties, at networking events, in the grocery store – that might want to learn more about what you do outside of your “regular job.”

See how a separate business card could come in handy? Even when I was working a full-time job, I kept a stack of personal business cards in my purse to let people know about my blog and where to contact me outside of my 9 to 5. Your assignment for today is to get a set of business cards for your side hustle. You should invest in a pack of at least 250 to start with.

Where to Get Them

My favorite place for business cards is Vistaprint. I’ve used them for the past 10 years because of their low cost, easy-to-use website and quick delivery. And when I say low cost, I mean low cost. New customers get 250 premium quality, color business cards free! (You just pay for shipping.) Click here to order yours. They also have a ton of professional business card templates, but I always keep mine very simple.

Other people swear by Moo cards. I’ve heard good things about using them, especially for promoting your blog or website. They’re a bit more expensive, but the designs they have are more beautiful and sophisticated than anything that Vistaprint offers.

What to Put On Them

• Your name
• Your title (you can use President, Principal, writer, blogger or consultant)
• The name of your blog, if you have one
• Your tagline, slogan or motto, if you have one
• Your blog/website address
• Your email address
• Your phone number (if you want to give it out)
• Your social networks (if you want to give them out)

If you choose to get business cards for your side hustle during the challenge, please share your experience with us in the comments! If you have photos of them, go ahead and post those, too.

This is the Day 5 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Now that you have a functional website that tells people who you are and what your side hustle is, you can begin selling your products or services. Depending on what you’re selling, one of these three methods may work for you in helping to monetize your passion.

Set Up a Paypal Account

To be able to sell your products online through your website, you will need a way to collect money. No matter what you’re selling, you can host a “buy now” button on your site that people can click on to purchase your product. Most merchants use Paypal, which is super easy to set up as long as you have a credit card or bank account to route the money through. Go to the Paypal website to get started. (Note: It will take Paypal a few days to confirm your bank account, etc.)

Create a Hire Me Page

Adding a “Hire Me” page to your website is a great way to let your readers know that you are open for business, whether it be consulting, freelance writing, speaking engagements, etc. On your “hire me” page, you want to list your services and what you clients will receive when they work with you.

Here are a few examples of “Hire Me” pages that you might use for inspiration:

• Artiatesia Deal (freelancing)
• Mom Grind (consulting)
• Michael Hyatt (speaking)

Blog Advertising

If your side hustle has something to do with monetizing your website itself, then you will need to sign up for a service to serve advertisements on your blog. Here are a few of the most popular ones that many bloggers sign up with to earn extra money online:

• Adsense
• Glam Media
• Commission Junction

This is the Day 4 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Now that you have a clear idea of how to talk about yourself in relation to your side hustle, it’s time to start telling the world – online! These days, you are able to do this cheaply and easily using a simple blog as your website. (Yes, if you already have a blog, you really don’t need a separate website!) For today’s assignment, you have two options depending on whether you have a website yet. If you don’t have a website yet, start a blog using Option #1. If you already have a website, improve it using Option #2.

Option #1: Create Your Website

If you don’t have a professional blog yet, I highly recommend you download my FREE ebook, The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Blog. Geared toward newbie bloggers, this easy-to-read guide will take you from soup to nuts in terms of your blog concept, software, design, content, promotion and analytics. Longtime bloggers will also benefit from the marketing angle of the ebook which outlines how to build your personal brand online through blogging.

After you get the technical stuff out of the way, the best ways to make your blog work for you in your side hustle are to:

1. Use it to promote your personal brand and become the “go-to” person in your niche.
2. Write and share great content that helps your audience.
3. Promote the hell out of it.

Option #2: Improve Your Website

If you already have a website, use today to write or tweak your about page using the bio you crafted yesterday. Your about page may include some or all of the following:

• A welcome message
• Your bio
• A professional-looking photo of yourself
• A brief explanation on what your site is about
• Links to some of your best blog posts that illustrate the essence of your personal brand

You can title your about page simply “about” or perhaps one of the following:

• About the author
• About me
• About (your name here)
• About this blog
• What this blog is about
• Who is (your name here)?

Need more inspiration? Check out these awesome about pages from some popular folks in the professional blogosphere:

• Afrobella: http://www.afrobella.com/about-afrobella/
• Danielle LaPorte: http://whitehottruth.com/about/
• Mocha Dad: http://www.mochadad.com/aboutmochadad

Once you create or improve your website, post the link in the comments section below! It may also be useful to look at other participant’s sites to obtain ideas or to offer feedback.

This is the Day 3 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Yesterday, you developed a three-word brand and thought more deeply about what reputation you want to have in relation to your side hustle. Today, you’re going to take that three-word brand and incorporate it into your new-and-improved bio that you will be able to use on your website and social networks to promote yourself.

The reason why bios are so important for side hustles are because if you have a full-time job already, your network may only know you as an HR professional, for example. Then, when you try to sell your luxury candles on the side, people get confused about why you’re doing it and what it has to do with your passion. So, you need to have a bio that you use when marketing your side hustle.

Here is what a great bio should include:

• Your real name and name of your company (if applicable)
• Your side hustle (tell us you do or sell)
• Your “why” (share your passion, mission or reason for starting your side hustle)
• Your education, experience or expertise (related to your side hustle)
• Any special training or certification (credentials related to your side hustle)
• Something interesting or memorable about you

Post your new bio in the comments! It may also be useful to read other participant’s bios to obtain ideas or to offer feedback.

This is the Day 2 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Yesterday, you defined your side hustle and got specific about what you’re selling on the side. For those that are not yet in the process of selling your product or service yet, it may have been difficult to articulate, but at the very least, you’re much closer to being able to market yourself effectively.

Once you’re clear on what your side hustle is, then you should begin to build your personal brand around it. What is a personal brand? It’s essentially your reputation. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And if you want to start a side hustle, you’re going to have to start developing a reputation as the person who has experience or expertise on the particular topic or interest area related to your product or service.

One exercise that I often do with my clients to begin to refine their brand is the three-word brand exercise. Your assignment for today is to answer the following question to help you develop your personal brand:

What three characteristics  do I want my potential clients and customers to think of when they think about me?

These can be personal or professional attributes, experiences, expertise, values or accomplishments that you want to be known for in your business.

Post your “three-word brand” in the comments! Having a clear idea of the personal brand you want to portray is critical in being able to sell yourself and your hustle.

This is the Day 1 post for the 7-Day Side Hustle Challenge. Learn more and join us here!

Even when we think we have a great business idea, it can still be a fuzzy concept until we’re put into a situation where we have to explain it to someone else. Our first exercise will be to define your side hustle in a way that others can easily understand by answering the three questions below:

Three questions to ask yourself to help define your side hustle:

1. What am I selling? (What is your product or service? Describe its attributes. What do people receive when they pay you? Be as specific as possible.)
2. Who am I selling it to? (Who is your target market or audience? What are the characteristics of the people who would want to buy your product or service? What is their gender? Where do they live? Again, be as specific as possible.)
3. What’s so great about what I’m selling? (What are the benefits to the people who use your product or service? Why would they like it? What great things have other people said about it?)

Post your answers to the questions above in the comments! Writing this out will help you define and refine your side hustle and help you begin to talk about it more frequently and market it more effectively.

As much as we complain, you would think that our problems are all caused by other people. If only THEY would change, then our lives could be so much better! Fortunately, that sentiment could not be further from the truth. The truth is, our unhappiness and dissatisfaction in life does not come from other people and what they do or even what they say about us. It comes from the beliefs that we have about ourselves.

It took me a long time to realize that I alone held the key to my own happiness, and that anything else was a defense mechanism developed to avoid my own responsibility for my life. Sure, we can go through life blaming other people for our own unhappiness, but if we are being completely honest, we can see that the majority of our discontent comes from the biggest lie we tell ourselves.

We are not enough.

Our hair is not enough, so we have to get expensive weaves all down our backs. Or spend hundreds on every shiny new product we can get our hands on to make our natural hair more wavy, more curly, more “good.” Everyone knows that our HAIR is our glory! Not, you know, who we are inside as a person.

Our clothes are not enough, so we have to spend thousands of dollars every year to get the latest outfits, shoes and accessories. Who cares about credit card debt? The important thing is not to be left “behind” by wearing last season’s fashions!

Our bodies are not enough, so we have to get butt implants and lipo and botox to be able to “compete” with the next woman. We just want the weight off and the wrinkles gone now instead of developing a healthy lifestyle that might help us achieve those same goals. Everyone knows that the logical standard of beauty is Halle Berry or any of the cover models of Vogue. Duh!

Our degrees are not enough, so we have to keep getting more education and more debt. More Masters. More PhDs. Otherwise we won’t be taken seriously in the workplace. No one will ever listen to us without more letters behind our name. Our voices need validation!

Our suffering is not enough, so we have to constantly “outsuffer” one another and compare how bad we have it in life. We also have to delight in other people’s suffering by tearing them down with gossip and snark both online and offline. Because bullying people on Twitter is fun! Making light of other people’s pain is cool! Besides, everyone else is doing it. Right?

Our love is not enough, so we don’t take chances in relationships. We’ve come too far in life to get rejected or played! We don’t want to put our heart on the line because everyone knows that all men are dogs. Yes, they are animals, not real people. We’d much rather put ourselves through predictable drama by getting into unhealthy relationships than taking a risk on something new that might actually work.

Our talents are not enough, so we don’t go after our dream jobs or start our dream businesses. Why even apply when no one’s gonna hire us anyway? Why start a business when the economy is . . . whatever everyone is saying it is? It’s much better not to try. Besides, then we can complain and commiserate with each other about how we’re underpaid and overworked and our boss is a jerk. Yay!

As you may have noticed, this post is heavy on the sarcasm. It is not meant to judge anyone in particular, but to demonstrate how harmful and unproductive our behavior can be when we believe the lie that we are not enough. It is only when we stop living on autopilot and start investigating our beliefs that we can then stop the madness and get on with the lives we REALLY want and deserve.

Where in your life are you acting from the belief that you are not enough? How would your life be different if you truly believed that you are already amazing and complete, just as you are?