Summary of the text below: How do I market myself?
Where is the gap in my knowledge? My brief position: I owe ~$73,000 in a student loan, currently earn about $20,000 a year. My expenses are kept low, but between a $630/mo. student loan payment (or 37% of my yearly income) and my job, I basically break even every month. My monthly pay is based on my costumers, so when they are sick, or their car breaks down, I'm left with a smaller paycheck. I'm tired of this.
My job is entry level, and I'm hoping to jump to a higher paying one (although seasonal) in 6 months. I've been reading MMM, ERE, and Your Money or Your Life, and have finally realized that I don't have to look to someone else to provide the income to me. I've started looking at the skills I do have, and trying to find ways to leverage them to bring in my own income, apart from an employer.
Basic facts: 23 years old male, single.
Skills:
- Computers
- Intermediate skills in HTML and CSS
- Proficient Microsoft Excel
- Tech savvy with most devices
- Selling on ebay/amazon
- Electronics
- Basic skills at soldering and electronic repair
- Labor
Able bodied, capable of manual labor (but have more to learn before I would call myself a handyman)
- Piloting
- Finance - I enjoy making my budget every month and generally managing money (but have only done this for myself, never for someone else). Generally enjoy statistics, and numbers.
- Teaching (currently a flight instructor, so have experience with this in teaching technical skills, one on one.)
- Carbon fiber/fiberglass manufacturing
- I enjoy fixing things, project management, organizing.
- I work fine in teams, but my best work is done alone.
Things I'm not opposed to/have thought of:- Walking dogs
- Shoveling poop
- Shoveling snow
- Mowing lawns/yard work
- Personal Assistant
- Tutoring
- Basic web developing/wordpress (I'd have to learn wordpress)
- Teaching people to drive manual transmissions
- Computer repairs/IT for individuals
- Airplane detailing
- Aircraft ferry service
What I'm currently working on:- Building a website related to piloting, hosting high quality images, statistics, and information useful to people in training.
- Learning javascript/more web development
- Helping a friend with finances in his vending machine business (a startup, and I'm learning quickbooks through it)
Personal blocks I'm aware of:- Taxes/insurance/legal side of pulling in income from my own ventures.
- Actually getting the business and costumers. I'm consistent, willing to work hard once I have a task, but actually putting myself out there is more challenging.
So, I guess my question becomes: how do I put these skills to work? What does it take to actually build a costumer base when you don't have one, and don't have a reputation where someone would say "I know a guy who can do that for you!" I'm aware that I am fully capable of running my gig, but yet I'm not, and trying to figure out how to bridge that gap. There are a number of wealthy people in the city I live in, and I feel that's a good place to look.
I'd love to hear your experience on taking action, what you did, and what got you past some of your blocks to action.[/list]