Digital Side Hustles You Could Actually Make Money From

Everyone online today seems to be promoting digital side hustles, be-your-own-boss jobs, work from anywhere, financial freedom, etc. — and, as great as that sounds, many of us don’t fully understand what that exactly looks like. What do you need to do? What skills are required? What will it cost?

In this post, we’ll go over some of the digital side hustles that we think are the most realistic and accessible today and give you some pros and cons of each.

Now, assuming that most of you reading this blog aren’t really interested in going back to school for more education, we’ll be focusing on jobs that don’t require a degree or extensive training.

Let’s do it!

Digital Side Hustles: Marketing Middleman

You might’ve heard of middleman services or bridge businesses before, so let’s break down what that means.

Think of businesses like Uber, DoorDash, or Airbnb — these are all essentially middleman businesses. They exist solely to connect customers to the thing they’re trying to get (a destination, a meal, or a place to stay).

Uber, DoorDash, and Airbnb are not the “thing” themselves, but they’re the method you need to get you that thing.

The crazy part is: these middleman businesses often earn more profit than the actual businesses they’re serving.

What we’re talking about here is specifically middleman marketing services, and no one explains this better than James Bonadies.

In fact, here’s a video of how he explains his business to a five-year-old:

@milliondollarsidehustle

Don’t overcomplicate a business model that my kids get. This is it, in a nutshell 🥜. #marketingagency #localmarketing #makemoneyonline #fireyourboss

♬ Pieces (Solo Piano Version) – Danilo Stankovic

To recap, here James Bonadies started his digital side hustle and turned it into a multi-million dollar middleman marketing empire by doing exactly this:

1. He would search for businesses in his local area. You can simply take a drive one day and start writing down all the small businesses you see.
2. He then would ask the business owners, “Hey, have you ever tried using the Internet to get more leads and customers? Like Google, Facebook, or even TikTok?”
3. Whether they say yes or no, James would then offer to set them up a very simple campaign, and—if he could send more leads and customers their way—they could talk about doing business together in the future.
4. Then he’d make a basic, two-page website with all the information a new customer would need about the business, and run some ads on Google toward it—targeting people in the local area.
5. Once the business owner saw that what James was doing was working, James would offer to continue doing it for them for a fixed monthly price.

If you’re interested in doing exactly this, James has a course that completely sets you up to become a professional middleman marketer. Between the course and the group support, his program completely sets you up to start your own digital side hustle. Simply put in your email address to watch his intro video here!

If you’re not in a place to take a course right now, don’t worry! YouTube has tons of videos on how to launch and monitor Google Ads, how to make Facebook ads that convert, and how to make your website rank higher on search engines.

These are all skills that a small business owner would pay you to handle for them, because most business owners are too busy running their business to properly market it themselves.

Seriously — you could probably watch a few tutorials today, reach out to some businesses in your nearest city, and start making money by this time next week!

Don’t give yourself excuses as to why you couldn’t. Go try it!

---

Digital Side Hustles: Affiliate

Affiliate marketing: selling without actually having your own product/service to sell. This might sound like a side gig, but it’s no joke!

American businesses spent over $8.2 billion on affiliate marketing in 2022, and that number is expected to hit $15.7 billion by 2024.

Affiliates are often content creators who promote a product or service to their audience and, through an affiliate link or promo code, earns a commission on all sales they earn for the company.

Between blog posts, podcast ads, and any influencer’s social media page — you probably run into about 30 professional affiliates per week.

So, how does one become a professional affiliate?

1. You need an audience

Even the easiest affiliate programs in the world won’t earn you big bucks if you don’t have anyone to talk about the product to. Whether you manage a blog, have a 10,000+ following on Instagram, or are growing a Facebook Page — all you need is a digital place where people are finding you.

Whatever your niche is (travel, cooking, plant stuff, business, etc.) find a product or service that works for that niche, and that you think your audience would genuinely benefit from.

Ex: If you manage a healthy cooking blog, an affiliate code to HelloFresh would make sense.

And, as an affiliate, you’re not limited to just one brand deal. Find as many affiliate programs within your niche as you can, and promote them to your audience.

2. You need to find affiliate programs in your niche

Some affiliate programs will require you to apply, which usually means they’re looking for specific types of people with specific audience sizes who have specific interests. If you’ve got an audience of over 4,000 and you talk mainly about one topic, start doing research on affiliate programs within that topic.

Chances are, you’ll find products, programs, and courses that all target the type of audience you already have. And with so many brands looking for micro influencers today, it only takes about 4,000 followers to qualify!

3. You need to create good content

Do not overlook this step. There’s no point in getting that affiliate title if you can’t maintain an audience with it. The key here is focusing on providing good content to your loyal followers. If you start promoting products in every post, chances are your audience will get tired of it.

Remember, people are there to hear what you have to say, so make it valuable even when you’re promoting something. This is why step two is so important — if you can find products and services that you already use yourself, the integration becomes even easier!

Easy rule of thumb: if you feel like you’re being “salesy” you probably are.

Be conversational. Be authentic. Be you.

---

Digital Side Hustles: Consultant

Why do most people not know exactly what “consultant” means?

Well, think of it as essentially the opposite of a full-time employee.

A full-time employee gets paid by a company to put in a specific amount of hours per day (normally eight). That employee typically gets paid the same amount regularly, regardless of what they have on their plate.

A consultant, on the other hand, gets hired for a specific service. Therefore, a consultant isn’t on an hourly contract, but a result contract. Pay me X amount and I will get you the Y result you’re looking for.

There’s a reason why this term is becoming more and more prevalent today. People are slowly seeing the value in being paid for your skills instead of being paid for your time.

See the difference here?

There’s a great story about a ship repairman that exemplifies this perfectly:

A giant ship’s engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one professional after another but none of them could figure out how to fix the broken engine.

Then they brought in a man who had been fixing ships since he was young. 
He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away and the engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote to the man; “Please send us an itemised invoice.”

The man sent an invoice that read:

Tapping with a hammer………………….. $2.00

Knowing where to tap…………………….. $9,998.00

Effort is important but experience and knowing where to direct that effort makes all the difference.

The moral of the story here is that if you have a skill that’s sellable, you can charge what that skill is worth. And, chances are, you have sellable skills that you’ve not even thought about.

Instead of being a general social media manager, find one aspect of social media management that you feel you’re really strong at.

Maybe it’s creating content that performs well.

Or sending emails that get clicks and sales.

Or optimizing Google ads so clients get a better bang for their buck.

Find one service to hone in on, and learn as much about it as you possible can. Then, all you have to do is talk about your expertise. Make posts about what you know works, and share it in social media communities.

It’s only a matter of time before people start reaching out to you, asking questions, seeking advice — and then all you have to do is one thing:

(Pay attention here, because this is where a lot of consultants go wrong…)

Just talk about what you know. Don’t even think about the word “selling.”

You’re not selling. You’re sharing knowledge. And by sharing knowledge, the sales will come — because people will see that you’re more knowledgeable than they are and they will want to get you to handle their task for them.

What do you need to become a consultant?

Having tools in place like your own website or social media page where people can find you, learn about your services, and get in contact with you are obviously a must.

Outside of that, you really only need a couple things:

Skill

Knowledge and ability to talk about that skill

A way to send people invoices and accept payments.

That’s it.

Don’t overcomplicate it and assume that you need degrees and huge portfolios and resumes. Yes — some people might ask about that stuff. Some corporate clients might want a portfolio and resume, and that’s really up to you to decide if those are the types of clients you’re looking for.

Our thoughts on resumes are simple: results speak louder.

I would personally rather show someone what I’ve accomplished than hand them a list of skills I’m trying to sell. Make testimonial videos of other people you’ve helped. Show screenshots of results you’ve gotten. And then package it together in a document that you can simply send to people when they want to see it.

What’s your skill? What could people learn from you?

---

Digital Side Hustles: Freelancer

Piggybacking off the previous section, what is the difference between a consultant and a freelancer?

Fair question. The lines are a little blurry.

Consultants mainly sell knowledge, and therefore can be hired on an hourly or flat-fee basis. If a company was looking to improve their email marketing strategy, they might bring on an email marketing consultant to look at what they’re currently doing and advise on how to improve. That company could pay the consultant for their advice, and will typically pay per hour of time spent developing that strategy.

Now, when it comes to implementing those changes, that company could offer to pay the consultant to actually carry out his/her suggested strategy, or they could take the new strategy and hire an email marketing freelancer.

Freelancer and consultant are sometimes used interchangeably, but the distinction is usually that a consultant gets paid for their knowledge and advice, whereas as a freelancer gets paid for actually doing the work.

Both get hired for a specific assignment or project, but freelancers more often get to maintain regular customers that they carry out projects for.

Using the email marketing example: it would be common for this company to hire the consultant once for their advice, whereas they might hire the freelancer on a monthly basis to actually do the email marketing work if the consultant’s rates were pricey.

The difference between calling yourself a freelancer VS a consultant really just comes down to what you actually want to do for people.

Do you want to give them advice, and then set them on their way? Or do you want to actually do the work yourself?

All that being said, the skills and supplies you need to become a freelancer are very much the same as that of a consultant.

You need a skill that businesses will pay for.

You need a way to send invoices and take payments.

You need a way to keep track of your business expenses.

Being a freelancer essentially means being self-employed — which opens the door for a lot of business “write-offs” when it comes to tax season.

If you’re a freelancer who works from a room of your apartment, you can actually claim some of your day-to-day expenses including

• Internet costs
• Heat and electricity
• Rent
• Gas (make sure to clock your mileage when driving to / from client meetings)
• Even some food bills (think of meeting clients for coffee, etc.)

Now, we wouldn’t advise to jump into being a freelancer just to cut down on your taxes — remember that being self-employed comes with some responsibilities too!

Whether you call yourself a consultant or a freelancer, it’s important to find yourself a solid accountant who can walk you through what to do at tax season, and how to get the most out of your business.

---

If you’re interested in learning more about opportunities where you can be your own boss, here’s a post we’ve put together on one of the best be-your-own-boss-jobs we’ve discovered so far!

---

If you’re interested in making money online, but have no idea how — you are an inspired idiot!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to see our interviews with successful online entrepreneurs AND get cheatsheets on how their businesses work so that YOU could replicate them.

No spam. No fluff. Just valuable, entertaining business content to get you started on your dream of working for yourself!