Make Money As a Teen by Working for Yourself

There can be several challenges to finding a job as a teen. You may be too young to be employed, or too inexperienced to get hired. Working for yourself can give you the control over what you are doing and when you are doing it, as well as the extra cash you may need for the future.

Steps

Preparing for Greatness

  1. Discover what you are good at. Everyone excels in some ways over others. To be really successful, find that thing which sets you apart. One way of doing this is to make a list and start looking for patterns, like “skills people compliment me on.”[1] Don’t limit how you think about skills. They come in many forms.[2] Some examples are:
    • Interpersonal skills
    • Responsible and reliable
    • Artistic
    • Technological
    • Community oriented
  2. Assess the demand for your skills. Is your community in need of your product or services? Is there competition nearby? What makes the thing you are offering really stand out?[3]
    • Research online to see what others are offering.
    • Ask people you know.
    • Create a survey and collect some data.
  3. Find your passion. What are the things you are really passionate about? What do you love in general? Animals? Kids? Computers? Writing? Drawing? If you were to draw a Venn diagram of these three elements:[4] your skill, the demand for them, and your passions, the sweet spot would be right in the middle where all three elements overlap.

Exploring Your Options

  1. Use your hands. If you enjoy the outdoors and working with your hands you may want to try your hand at agriculture. Make sure that you plan for winter and summer months to keep your business in practice. This could mean lawn care in the summer and snow shoveling in winter. You could also consider painting houses and general maintenance.
  2. Care for animals. If you have a passion for animals, there are plenty of people who work long hours and need help caring for their pets. Look into starting a dog walking and pet sitting business. Dog walking is a consistent job needed on a daily basis. Consider involving a friend to assist you should you be sick or unavailable. Pet Sitting can be a boost of your income on an irregular basis.
  3. Use your people skills. Working FOR yourself doesn’t necessarily mean working BY yourself. You may have fantastic people skills which you could put to work caring for others. This could mean child care, but there are also plenty of elderly people who could also benefit from your assistance and your company.
  4. Advance with Technology. There is a good chance that you are more skilled with computers than the aging owners of your local businesses. Jobs requiring your technological skills could span from setting up software to organizing digital files to creating websites. Make an online presence for yourself by creating your own website which showcases your skills.
  5. Draw on your artistic talents. Artists don’t have to starve. Jobs abound for graphic artists if you are capable of transferring this skill to the computer. If not, look for work designing posters for local bands or businesses. See if you can get some of your work into a local gallery or public space like a coffee shop or restaurant, and place a placard next to each print with the title and purchase price. Make sure the business owner has your contact information to facilitate the sale. Their assistance is worth a percentage of the sale. This should be agreed upon as part of the agreement before hanging your work.
  6. Write as a freelancer. Writers can submit work to online and print magazines. There are also plenty of options to work freelance as a blogger or content creator for businesses. Take the work you have already created and send it to publishers seeking content which relate to your style or topic. Seek out businesses attempting to increase marketing and offer to blog for them or even write content for their promotional material. You will need to understand the company, their mission, their style, and their audience on order to represent them accordingly.
  7. Post on social media. Who would have thought that all that time you “wasted” on Facebook and Instagram could really pay off? Well, it literally can. You could be an expert available for freelance work as a social media manager. It is helpful to familiarized yourself with social media dashboards like Hoot Suite and Sprout Social. These offer tools to manage multiple sites, organize content, and schedule posts.[5]

Getting Started

  1. Acquire the necessary tools. Be sure you are prepared before you begin. You may require certain tools to be able to do the job. If you don’t have them, get them. If you cannot afford them, find “investors” to help by offering them a reward. This could be your parents or a “crowdfunding” effort like GoFundMe or Kickstarter.[6]
  2. Find clients. Assessing the need for your product or service should have given you a relatively good idea of who your potential clients are. It’s important to understand your audience. Consider some of their characteristics and you will know where to find them. Think about who they are and what they might do on a daily basis. Your peers may be easy to find because you know where they hang out. Parents may best be reached at grocery stores and local parks.[7]
  3. Sell yourself. There are plenty of ways to promote yourself. You can do this in an online market like Craigslist, through email, and using printed material. Be creative. You can print on plenty of items other than just posters. What best represents the impression you want to make? What will really catch their attention?

Making it Happen

  1. Research the laws. Now that you are working for yourself, you make the rules...sort of. There are different child labor laws in every state. Make sure you understand any laws which may apply to you, then follow them. This will ensure you can keep your business up and running without any concerns.[8]
  2. Set a schedule. It is great that you can work whenever you want to, but sometimes you won’t want to and you will have to do it anyway. Set a schedule for yourself and stick to it. Keep any potential distractions at bay until you have gotten the job done.
    • Assess your current schedule and find the best fit to work around it.
    • Consider getting up early and getting work done before the rest of the day throws other responsibilities at you.
    • Turn off your electronic devices unless they are necessary to getting the job done.
  3. Do good work. Quality over quantity is an important guideline to remember. It doesn’t make sense to work a lot if you have nothing to show for it. If you do the job poorly, you will likely have to start over and do it again. Doing the job well leads to efficiency and satisfied customers. These customers may even recommend you to their friends and get you more work.[9]
  4. Balance your budget. Once you start making money, make sure you know what to do with it. Create a budget to be sure that you are reaping the benefits of your work. Continue to invest back into your business to keep it running and even improve your product.
    • Track your spending. Write down everything you spend money on. You should invest in your business first. Spend money on tools which will keep your business running smoothly and advertisement which will get you more work.
    • Add up your income. Write down every penny you earn at your new job.
    • Compare your income to your spending. You should be saving at least 5-10 percent of your income.[10] If your expenses don't include rent and bills, your savings should be much higher. If you are spending more, or almost as much as you earn, you will have to make some changes in your lifestyle and find places to cut costs.
    • Open a bank account. Keep your savings in a bank account. If you can find one which accrues interest, that’s even better.



Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-find-out-what-youre-good-at-2015-4
  2. ↑ http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-skills.html
  3. ↑ http://www.inc.com/guides/201109/how-to-assess-the-market-potential-of-your-new-business-idea.html
  4. ↑ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/VennDiagram.html
  5. ↑ http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/09/23/5-top-social-media-dashboard-tools-to-manage-your-social-accounts/
  6. ↑ http://www.crowdfunding.com/
  7. ↑ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/159542
  8. ↑ http://www.youthrules.gov/law-library/state-laws/index.htm
  9. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-liguori/8-things-to-know-when-you_b_5621163.html
  10. ↑ http://www.nomoredebts.org/budgeting-guidelines
Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Make_Money_As_a_Teen_by_Working_for_Yourself&oldid=358408"