Your monthly salary is already gone before the middle of the next month. It’s not your fault really, things are just too expensive and you are trying your best to stick to that monthly budget that never works.

The temptation to spend more money on wants rather than needs is ever-so-present.  Is it that lovely designer bag you are eyeing at the boutique on your way home from work? Or those beautiful shoes. Omg! I love shoes. The makeup kits, the human hair wigs/weaves, etc.  The list is endless. Hey, as women, it seems as though our wants are insatiable. It is in our nature I guess!

When I hear  the term, “live your best life,” I say to myself, “how is that supposed to happen if I’m not able to cater for my basic needs?”  I’m not saying being high maintenance but at least, looking good and the ability to take care of oneself and feel good amongst  peers.

If you are struggling to manage your monthly income I think it’s high time you started looking into a side hustle.

A side hustle is any type of employment undertaken in addition to one’s full-time job. It’s a job that provides supplemental income.

But please bear in mind that the fact that you have a side hustle doesn’t mean you should quit your current full-time job.

I’m not going to sit here and write a list of side hustles you should do. Rather, I would say that you should discover yourself and know what works best for you.

Find a way to monetize your hobby: For instance, I make beads for fun, and I was surprised to visit an art exhibition and saw some handmade beaded necklaces being sold for N5000  and above. That gave me the idea of turning my hobby into a side hustle. Ask yourself what do you do for fun?  Some of you can make beads just like me, bake, sew, write, make hair,  do makeup, and the list is endless. This is the time to turn it into a cool side hustle.

Create something new: Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, once said, “there is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration.” If you need a side hustle badly you can start where you are.  We are in the digital world, use it to your own advantage. Once you have an idea of what you want to do — take a moment and Google “How to Make Money Doing x,” where x is the thing you want to do. I guarantee you’ll find plenty of content to help you along your way.

Give it time: No business is magically successful overnight. Not even your side hustle. It takes time to grow. Sometimes business may be slow, but don’t give up.

I hope you find a side hustle that works for you, and enables you to live your best life regardless of the economic situation.

Photo Credit: Black Beautiful

I started selling human hair and the business was doing fine until my girlfriends who partied every weekend wouldn’t pay up their debts. I was literally chasing them everywhere until the business crashed

I started another business selling designers bags and shoes. This business lasted for 6 months and it crashed again, for reasons I can’t pinpoint.  Then I started selling makeup and beauty products. I really struggled in this business because I bought counterfeit products by mistake. This really affected my customers’ trust and some of them never bought anything from me after that horrible experience.

I decided to seek professional help, seeking answers to my predicament. Why were all my my businesses failing?

I will be sharing some tips for running a successful business, which I learned from a business coach. This may be of help when you decide to start a new business venture or if you are going through some challenges.

1. Be Passionate About Your Business: Never delve into a business venture just because it is trending. Instead, go into a business because you have passion for that business – if it excites you and makes you want to put your best foot forward.
2. Patience and Persistence is the Key: Forget all the beautiful pictures and comments you see on the social media pages of successful business women.  The truth is that you have no idea how they started. You only see the pretty pictures but not the blood, sweat, and tears it took for them to get there. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Be patient and be persistent. Trust the process. Soon, you too will have a thriving business.
3. Use Social Media to Grow Your Customers: Over 1 billion people are on social media, that means that your potential customers are out there on social media. Why not run some sponsored advertisements to advertise your products? You never know who is searching for what you are selling.
4. Sell Quality: Quality is non-negotiable. You don’t want your business to have bad reviews, do you? This can cause a lot of damage and scare away potential customers. Be sure you are selling quality products/rendering quality services, not just posting pretty photos on Instagram.
5. Sell Your Business at Every Opportunity: Don’t ever be shy about your business. Talk about it as much as you can to whoever will listen. Out socializing? Make some new acquaintances and let them know about your business. At church for Sunday service? Introduce yourself to the person next to you, and tell them about you business. Etc etc. You never know, they just might be your potential customer.
6. Learn How to Put a Structure in Place for Your Business: You can do this by seeking the advice of people in your field who have succesfully run their businesses. Also, you could sign up for any entrepreneurship classes in your area.

Got some additional tips? Feel free to share with us in the comments section below.

In 2013, she organized a training program aimed at teaching women how to start their own Ankara Accessories business in order to achieve financial empowerment.

To her greatest dismay, not a single person paid for the training. Instead of quitting, she went back to the drawing board and decided to learn how to use social media to market her training programs. This led to a turnaround in her business as she started getting customers for her training program and requests from people outside Lagos and even outside Nigeria.

She could not travel to all the cities she was getting requests from, and decided to launch an online course so that people could have access to the training program regardless of where they lived.

This experiment turned out to be a great success as people paid for her online course from all over Nigeria and from over nine countries. Unknown to Stephanie, she had stumbled on the online education market, which was on the rise and is now projected to be worth $325 billion in 2025. A recent example of this is LinkedIn’s acquisition of Lynda.com, an online courses provider.

Five years later, Stephanie has gone on to launch 20 more online courses across multiple niches, and has trained over 600 women across nine countries. She has also built an online community of over 20,000 people.

Seeing the gap in the knowledge market in Africa, and the need for millenials to have access to information that can help them grow more successful businesses, Stephanie launched Trayny, an online educational platform that creates and manages online courses by Africa’s most trusted leaders.

She has also developed a signature framework on how to create and launch online courses, so that more people can gain financial freedom by sharing their knowledge through online courses.

It also contains easy-to-implement steps for finding your voice, building an online community around your topic and marketing your course online.

Through this book, Stephanie gives women (and a few bold men) the tools to live independent and financially free lives while creating impact and opportunities for others.

Knowledge is the New Gold is the new guide for women everywhere who want to be more, do more, have more and leave a lasting legacy.

She shares all this in her new book, “Knowledge is the New Gold”. This game changing book which will be out in the month of June, is filled with expert tips, tried and tested strategies and proven practical advice on how to turn your knowledge, talents and experiences into a goldmine.