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3 Lucrative Side Hustles You Hadn't Thought Of


The gig economy continues to pick up speed. Over 30% of the US workforce is part of it.  Companies such as Uber, Lyft, Fiverr and other similar companies are allowing people much more flexibility in the way they work.  Some people make a full-time income from this, others use it to pay the bills in between jobs. Increasingly though, it’s an excellent opportunity to grow your own side-hustle business.  

There is a tonne of information out there on side-hustles you might want to consider, but here are a few you might not have thought of but could be extremely lucrative. 

Manage Properties On Airbnb - Even If You Don’t Own Them


Every night, 2 million people stay in a property they rented on Airbnb.  There are over 650,000 hosts worldwide.  

The continued growth of this sector provides you with a great opportunity to generate an income from property management.  

So, how do you make money renting out properties on Airbnb if you don’t own any property yourself? 

There are a lot of people who think about renting out their property, but often they either don’t have the time or confidence to do it themselves.   Perhaps they have a small property which would not generate enough income to justify their time. 

This is where you step in and offer your property management services.  Property owners will hire you to manage their Airbnb listings from end to end:  - Photographing and listing the properties on Airbnb - Replying to messages from potential guests - Confirming reservations - Guest check-in - Cleaning and readying the property for the next arrivals

You can realistically charge 10%-20% of the booking total to your clients.  If someone pays $100 for the night, you can make $10-$20 dollars or between $70-$100 dollars per week.   
That may not seem like a life-changing amount, but that is for one property.  If you have 10 properties on your books, that’s $1000 dollars per week and so on.  

You can start off by approaching existing hosts and offer to make their lives simpler by handling all of the work in renting our their property.  
Another good idea is to approach real estate agents who perhaps have empty properties on the books that they are having trouble either renting or selling.  They can continue to make money from these properties in the short term while trying to find buyers or tenants. 

Become A Scuba Instructor - Wherever You Are


If you’re already a keen scuba diver or qualified instructor, you may have thought about using your skills and teaching it for a living.  

While packing your bags and heading to a far off shores with blue seas and beautiful beaches might be the ultimate dream, it’s not always achievable.  Don’t let that deter you. 

You can still use your skills to make money, even if you’re not near the sea.  A lot of basic diving skills can be taught in a local pool, which can be hired out as and when needed to hold private scuba courses for individuals or groups. 

As a side-hustle, this does have a larger setup cost as you will need to make sure you have the necessary scuba and diving equipment, dive computers, certifications and all necessary insurance.  

One of the great things about it is that there is not a huge amount of competition as it is a very specialist skill.  

It is also less time-intensive than some other side-hustles as it can be done on evenings and weekends to fit around your job and that of your students. 

Become An Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is helping businesses to sell their products and services online - and getting paid an ‘affiliate commission’ to do so. Your sales are tracked via affiliate links and you are paid based on the number of sales made through it. 

Have you ever been on a website, reading an article and noticed a disclaimer along the lines of ‘this article contains affiliate links’? 

The most popular affiliate program in the world is the Amazon Associates scheme, that pays out hundreds of millions of dollars in affiliate commission every year. 

As with most things in life, if someone is telling you that you can make a fortune from affiliate marketing without doing much work, it’s likely to be a scam. However, when it is done properly, affiliate marketing can make you a good side income. 

The majority of major online retailers have affiliate schemes now, you just have to create content and 81% of publishers/sites use affiliate marketing in their content.  

In 2018, 16% of all orders placed online were attributed to some kind of affiliate marketing activity.  

In order to get started, you need to find your niche.  Things like weight loss products are incredibly competitive and you may not make a dent in this particular market for years. 

Try instead to look for a niche that is not a free-for-all, but not so obscure you won’t find an audience. 

There are a number of ways to make money as an affiliate marketer. The main ones being: 

Pay per Sale

By far the most common payment term.  You receive a percentage of the sale price for every sale that results from your affiliate marketing activity. 

Pay Per Lead

This is a complicated system that is more common is high priced services. Instead of being paid a percentage of a sale, you are paid for driving traffic to a site to perform a particular action (subscribing to a newsletter, taking a free trial, completing a survey)

Pay Per Click

Affiliates are paid for driving an increase in traffic to a business’s site.  This is less popular now. 

Though affiliate marketing is often marketed as a passive income, it requires a lot of skill to identify products, create content and drive traffic to your site.

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