3 Factors to Consider When Picking a Side Hustle

A side hustle is an essential part of building wealth and creating the means to do more with the limited time we have. Many people have never even considered having a source of income outside of their day jobs.

But wouldn’t it be great to rid yourself of the financial pressures you face? Not having to worry about the end of the month and what your bank balance is?

Starting with a side hustle is now easier than ever, but it might be worth considering these 3 factors before you jump straight in.

Time
You need to make sure whatever side hustle you decide to embark upon is suitable for your time commitments. Some side hustles require much more time than others. Blogging for example is extremely time consuming. Although it may be one of the most profitable side gigs it might not be suitable for your lifestyle.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a hustle that does suite your needs. There are countless ways to make extra income, you just need to explore your options and pick what you are able to commit to. Here are just some examples of side hustles that do not require a great deal of your precious time:

User testing
eBay Flipping
Rent out Car
Rent out House
Complete tasks on TaskRabbit
Online Surveys
Recommended article: 29 Awesome Side Hustle Ideas To Make Extra Money

Skill
Obviously the more skill a side hustle requires, the more profitable it will likely be. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t develop and learn the skills needed to do any side hustle you want. It just means it may take more time before you jump in and start making money.

But this is something that you should carefully consider.

Investing in education is the best way to significantly increase your earnings. And this is where many people fall short. You see, it’s so easy to think $500 or $1000 is a massive outlay and not worth it.

But you will be able to develop and learn the skills required to perform a side hustle that could make this initial investment back and more. And that is the key to investing in yourself and your ability to earn more money in the future.

Passion
Do you need to passionate about your side hustle selection?

Well, the truth is, it helps.

And it helps a lot.

There are so many things you could do to earn more money outside of you main source of income. Bu the chances are you have hobbies and interest. And this could actually give you a leg up over the competition.

Take for example a music teacher. They work at a school doing 40 hours a week for standard teachers pay. This is great, but the teacher wants to improve their life and make more money.

Now they could consider starting a blog or running Facebook ads. Both are great side hustles and would do the job perfectly.

But if the music teacher considers their skills then an ideal side hustle is right under their nose. Giving music lessons on the side means they can charge a decent price because they are already qualified and they can get started right away.

This won’t be the case for everyone, and if you don’t have any obvious skills that you can monetise, don’t worry. Remember, skills are transferable and the side hustle options are many.

But having a passion is a great way to start side hustling the right way – and it means you can make even more money.

The Components of a Brand Manual

Overview

This first section provides an overview of the document, explains the purpose of writing it and identifies its target audience. Usually written by the firm’s top executive, the introductory message usually includes the story behind the brand and the benefits it brings to the customer.

Brand Vision, Mission, Objectives and Values

Every firm, should have these elements strictly defined and communicated. These elements help the firm create a more profound connection with its customers, and provide inspiration and focus to the internal personnel. The brand manual is the perfect place to have the vision, mission, objectives and values clearly mentioned.

Marketing Strategy
One of the most important sections of the document, this part summarizes the firm’s competitive advantage, including the main differentiation points and supporting elements. It is particularly important for the internal personnel and external service providers to understand the uniqueness of the firm in the competitive environment so they can work towards sustaining that competitive advantage and properly communicating it.

Slogan
An integral part of the branding strategy, the tagline/slogan summarizes the brand positioning in a just a few words, and should be included in all the communication materials. The brand manual should address the do’s and don’ts of using the slogan, such as typography, colour, spelling, punctuation marks, and location on the page and vis–vis the logo.

Brand Personality
People often describe brands as persons. Each has a distinctive “personality” that has to be crafted and consistently promoted in the marketing collateral. In order for a designer to create materials that facilitate an emotional connection between the brand and its audience he/she has to fully understand when human characteristics the brand should reflect. Multiple factors contribute to its personality: tradition, colours, fonts, imagery, and communication style, to name just a few. A comprehensive document provides insights on how the brand should “act”.

Brand Name
One of the most powerful assets of any firm, the brand name should be correctly communicated and used. The guidelines should describe what the name symbolizes, the correct spelling, the fonts associated with the symbol, and the inclusion (or not) of the registration mark. Some companies go to greater details and even recommend generic names that can be associated with their brand name.

Symbols
The logo is the most distinctive and visible element of a brand’s identity. It is also the symbol that’s most frequently used by the internal personnel and external suppliers. As a result it is important for brand managers to implement strict guidelines regarding its usage, such as the Pantonecolour(s), background colours, alternative colour variations, minimum size requirements, and placement. Make sure you also list the elements that are not acceptable, such drop shadows, boxes, fonts and sizes.

Photography

In Marketing, photography is used to convey the brand personality in a simple and direct manner. Brand imagery also help position the brand in the mind of the consumer: Apple, for example, uses product key shots to highlight the elegant design and leading edge technology. In order for your marketing collateral to reflect a consistent theme, take time and write the specific attributes that photography should convey. This will make your collaboration with photographers, graphic designers and advertising agencies much easier. It will also makes choosing stock photography faster as many websites have implemented filters that allow you to get the results you want quickly.

Visual Identity

Colors become very often associated with brands. Think of the UPS brown or DeWalt yellow for example. A typical brand color system consists of primary colors (most frequently used) as well as secondary, and even tertiary ones (used for backgrounds, headings, subheadings, paragraph, bullet points etc). The guidelines should include a visual listing of the colors in each category (including the Pantone number), as well as details on the proper use of each color in the communication process.

Real-Life Examples
Any designer will appreciate real-life examples of how the brand elements are being used in communication materials (print, web, advertising) and public relation campaigns. The last pages of the document usually include screen shots of the website, catalogue covers, newspaper ads, PR announcements, signage, merchandising, and branded clothing. These real life examples really help with maintaining the brand consistency. Brand manuals differ from one company to another, and the suggestions above are by no means exhaustive. No matter how simple or complex, a brand guideline document is guaranteed to save marketers time and cause less headaches.

Breakthrough In Solving The Problem Of How To Evaluate A Product Manager

Oh do I have a tasty dilemma for you this time around! I’ve been working with one of my clients who is setting up a brand new product management department. He’s faced with a challenge that you’d think would be more common than it appears to be: just how should you evaluate the job that a product manager is doing?Product Managers Are Not Project ManagersThe newly minted manager of product managers was struggling. It was the beginning of the year and one of the things that he had to do on his list of tasks was to set up annual goals for his team.This manager was coming from a project management background. In his first pass at creating goals for his team this training really came across: all of the goals had to do with meeting dates. Clearly there’s more to being a product manager than this.He was facing a revolt from his p-management team when I was brought in to see if I could broker a solution to this problem. The manager had a valid need to be able to manage his p-managers, but they also had a reasonable expectation that they would be measured based on what a product manager does, not on what a project manager does.Say Hello To The Puppet MasterI stated out by having a talk with the manager who was trying to come up with the goals. It turned out that he really didn’t have a clear understanding of what product managers do. In a nutshell, he viewed p-managers as sort of a “super project manager”. The only problem with this is that the company had project managers who worked on every product’s team. Clearly there had to be something different in what these two groups of employees were doing.I then took some time and met with the p-managers themselves. It turns out that they were all busy doing exactly what you would expect a product manager to be doing: studying markets, guiding product developers, and putting out fires.After having collected all of the available information, I brought the manager and his team back together. I started this meeting out by taking the time to explain to the manager the role that product managers played in his company.Right or wrong, I used the analogy of a puppet master (you know, those old-time puppeteers who controlled the puppets by pulling on strings connected to their hands and feet). I pointed out to him that the role of the p-manager was not so much to do things, but rather to make sure that things got done. P-managers are like information hubs. They ensure that the right information gets to the right person at the right time so that they can accomplish a task.The difference between a p-manager and a project manager can be murky at times. However, I pointed out that if the p-manager told the project manager to build a 3-wheeled car, the project manager would make sure that the car got built on time and on budget. However, when the car flopped in the marketplace, it would be the p-manager’s fault because he had said that a 3-wheeled car was what the world needed.A New Way To Evaluate Product ManagersWhat was needed here was a new way to evaluate product managers. Others have discussed this topic and they’ve focused on getting the product’s requirements correct. I think that this is important; however, the p-manager’s job does not end there.What I told the manager and his team was that a much better way to evaluate product managers is to focus on the four areas that a product manager actually controls. These all have to do with the up-front work of determining what product to create, creating the product, and then ensuring that the product is a success once it’s been made.The four areas include: knowledge of the market, providing a well understood business strategy, empowering the company with product tactics, and directing the creation of product related content. Each one of these areas has plenty of room for individual performance metrics to be created that can be used to evaluate how well a p-manager is doing his / her job.What All Of This Means For YouP-managers, just like every other employee in a company, need to be evaluated in order to determine if they are doing a good job. The problem is that nobody really seems to have come up with a good way of doing this.P-managers are not project managers. This means that the traditional management metrics of delivering a product on a given date and keeping it on budget, don’t really seem to apply to p-managers.What a p-manager does is pretty much all “behind the scenes”. We deal in relationships as we get people to do different things at different times. We are an information hub that provides the right information to the right people at the right time.A much better way to evaluate product managers is to focus on the four areas that a p-manager actually controls: knowledge of the market, providing a well understood business strategy, empowering the company with product tactics, and directing the creation of product related content.The performance of a p-manager can be measured. However, you need to be very careful to do it in terms of what a product manager does, not what a project manager does. Once you establish the proper metrics to measure your p-manager by, you’ll be able to determine just how successful your products are going to be.