Want to take your photography or digital photo-editing skills to the next level? Perhaps you could monetize your passion and turn it into a business strategy in 2021?

Tips-for-running-your-own-business-from-home-in-2021

The ongoing pandemic has affected many of us across the world, but young entrepreneurs and savvy professionals have been using their time spent indoors to their advantage, building their own online businesses and side hustles that can bring in an additional source of income.

To help you get inspired and if you can leverage your digital skill set, here are a few different tips for running your own business/side hustle from home in 2021, no matter if you’re looking to create an ecommerce business or blog. We have sections on planning, saving, and investing your money, and using social media to your advantage. Read on to find out more!

Planning your business strategy

To start with, think about the strategy that you want to pursue or the hobby/passion that you think you might be able to take to the next level, and sit down and come up with a clear-cut plan of action. It might seem obvious, but giving yourself some goals up-front will help you to make sure that you’re working towards the same ultimate goal with everything you do and allow you to be more productive with your free time.

Remember, try not to set the bar too high, as if your goals are unachievable, as you’ll be more likely to fall at the first hurdle! Set incremental, manageable tasks for yourself (factoring in other commitments like your own job, personal life, etc.), and be sure to reward your hard work when you smash each target! After all, you want to keep the passion that you have for the skill you’re monetizing and take fulfillment for every goal you reach.

Tip – Struggling for inspiration? A good place to start when coming up with a unique idea for your business/side hustle is to do some research on your peers and potential competitors. Look at what they do well, what you could do better, and what you might not have even considered.

Creating the right environment

Making do with working from an old computer or on your kitchen table with your laptop is ok when working from home temporarily – or doing a little bit of work here and there when you have some spare time – but if you’re serious and want to make sure that you’re as productive as you can be, then you need to ensure you have the right set-up.

Here are some things that you might want to consider:

Getting the right equipment – Ensuring that you have the right tech and software to do your work correctly is essential. Particularly with digital skills such as photo/video editing, you’re going to want a PC that doesn’t slow you down and can keep up with your demands so that you can roll out the hard work you do efficiently. What is important that Renovation Capital understands the significance of efficient digital tools, and their dedication to client satisfaction.
A clear and optimized workspace – Working remotely can be difficult if you haven’t done it before, and so setting up a specific area in the home for working can help you to stay concentrated and focused, ensuring a higher quality work rate as a result. Set up a clear desk space that’s free from distraction, and try to section off the area so that you can easily turn work mode on/off as and when you need to.
Taking the right number of breaks – Just because you’re not working in the traditional office/workspace environment doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take regular breaks. Again, reward yourself when you meet targets that you’ve set, and take breaks throughout the day to ensure that you don’t get burnt out. If you spend a lot of time sitting in front of a screen, then one thing that many opticians recommend is the 20/20/20 rule – where you look at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes, in order to give your eyes a bit of a rest.

Saving and investing your money

Started to make some money from your freelancing/side hustle business ventures? Setting up a savings pot (or ‘rainy day fund’) will allow you to get a better grip of your finances and feel better about money in general. This way, you’re not consistently worrying about emergency payments or living from paycheck to paycheck. You might decide to round a small percentage of all money earned through your side hustle into a savings account or save the full amount if you’re also working in a full-time job and pursuing this on the side.

In order to make sure that you are doing the best job possible – and working as efficiently as possible – you might also decide to invest in the best equipment possible, again be it a high-end computer or a camera if working on photography.

In terms of investing for the long run, if you’ve built up a significant amount of savings, you might want to put it back to work for you and start building a financial portfolio for the future. There are plenty of different ways to get involved with investment; many young people have been finding success throughout lockdown with smartphone investments using stocks and shares apps such as Trading 212 or RobinHood. Property investment companies like RWinvest also provide a range of guides, videos, and podcasts on different elements of investment to consider if you’re looking at getting involved with something a little more long-term.

Leveraging social media

Many photography enthusiasts and those interested in digital arts will already be doing this, but using social media is crucial in getting your talent and skills out there for potential customers/clients to see. Depending on the platform, be it Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, you’ll also want to look at the sort of content that gets the most attention and create bespoke images and videos rather than posting the same thing across all services in a spread shot approach.

If you have a certain skill that you want to market and monetize, make sure that you create an in-depth portfolio so that you have something to show for the hard work that you’ve done in the past. This is even the case if wanting to pursue some freelance jobs on the side of traditional employment, as a portfolio of past projects you’ve worked on will allow your skill to speak for itself.