You can earn 65438+ ten thousand on weekends. Can photography support itself as a sideline?

A few days ago, a friend asked me, "Wenchuan, I have been paying attention to you for several years and have always liked photography. I have graduated for a year now, but I haven't picked up my camera for a long time. I want to know if I really like photography. "

"I want to ask you, how did you turn your hobby into a job? Will you feel very uncomfortable? "

"I don't feel bad, because I have never taken photography (service) as my only main business. If you only make a living by photography, you may be reduced to shooting everything, such as baby banquets, activity photography, pet photography and children's photography. Sometimes it's really hard to meet picky guests. "

"But if we change our mind and turn photography into your sideline, is it feasible?"

A hot word some time ago was "just need sideline business", which means that there are too many kinds of consumption patterns now, and young people with surging consumption desires often have low salaries, which leads many people to do more sideline business to get more compensation to improve their quality of life.

And I've always been a professional.

Pain and pleasure.

I went through three periods from selling once to making a single profit, and then selling once to making a long-term profit.

1

The main business is students.

Sidebusinesses are designers, photographers and presenters.

I haven't asked my family for money since I was a sophomore. I set up a flag for my parents at that time. I am ambitious, saying that I will earn my living expenses in the future, and I will start to make money by taking orders with my three-legged cat PS Kung Fu.

At first, I took orders from a Witkey website, and some small employers issued demand tenders. For example, if he wants to make a poster of 500 yuan's activities, or a menu of 200 yuan, and a leaflet of 100 yuan, a group of people will design the first draft as required to bid.

Employers took a fancy to their designs and adopted them, so the designers got a fee.

People who want to be, like me, who only know the simplest PS operation, can only make up for it by diligence. From 8 am to 2 am, there will always be some winners.

▲ The first design order from 500 yuan took two days.

At that time, my living expenses were 1 1,000 yuan. In theory, I only need to win four or five bids, or one or two slightly larger bids, which is enough to eat.

But in fact, after winning the bid, the design has to be changed. Sometimes the employer dawdles and changes it after more than half a month. If the money has not been received, you will face the dilemma of having no money to eat.

Later, I became fascinated with photography, and began to be a photography apprentice to others. Slowly, I was able to take some Taobao photos myself.

However, after all, there are still few photos and the time cost is high.

This road is impassable, find another way.

So I began to take orders outside and use my hosting skills to be the host of commercial activities.

▲ Help Canon to host the "Girls Love SLR" activity.

Compared with designers and photographers, the host had several advantages for me at that time:

Based on the above reasons, I started to be a commercial activity host (and also a photographer). From my sophomore year to my senior year, I maintained my students' main business and tried other sideline activities, earning hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars a month.

2

The main business is students.

The sideline is the host and the self-media person.

Advertising after graduation, and since then I have entered the life of an overtime dog. The salary is very low, and I am forced to be the most skilled host on weekends, barely maintaining tens of thousands of income.

But there is a contradiction:

-I usually work overtime and go out to take orders on weekends. I'm a little tired.

▲ The work schedule of 2065438+05 is almost full every month.

Similarly, some friends around me also have their own main businesses, such as taking photos on weekends as part-time photographers. For example, a single order 1200 yuan, seven orders a month, can barely earn 65,438+million a year.

But this is a way to exchange time for money, and time cannot be much. Once you stop working, your income will stop, and it will always be hard money. If we want to break this vicious circle, we have to find another way. I think of new media.

So in the case of very saturated workload, I began to explore how to make new media.

three

The main business is new media.

The sideline is the host and lecturer.

Later, I quit my job and became a photographer. At first, because of the unstable income, I can only continue to be a host or a photographer on weekends to help my family.

But later, after the number of fans gradually increased, I had my own small team and began to have a slightly stable income. I began to reduce the number of presenters (I finally realized my wish not to be a presenter this year) and put more time and attention on places that can create more long-term value and increase more "after-sleep income".

For example:

I have developed a video course for 5000 people. At present, there will still be transactions on various platforms without any promotion.

I wrote a book that topped the list of new photography books in JD.COM, and the publishing house completed the marketing promotion behind it. I get royalties for every extra book I sell.

▲ Search for "Cai Wenchuan" or "Time and You" in JD.COM Dangdang Tmall.

There is not much subsidy for long-tail advertising traffic brought by writing a WeChat official account.

These are all "non-working income", that is, "after-sleep income" that can be brought by not working, just like the rent obtained by renting a house to others and the year-end dividend obtained by an investment company are all "non-working income".

If "monthly non-work income" is greater than "monthly fixed expenditure", it proves that you have achieved small-scale "financial freedom".

four

Ways to increase income

At the same time, I also began to raise my "unit price". If according to the income of e-commerce:

Revenue = flow x conversion rate x customer unit price x profit rate

To increase revenue, we only need to increase traffic, conversion rate, customer unit price and profit rate.

And put it into personal income:

Personal income = unit time price (hourly wage) x working hours x explicit benefits x implicit benefits

The most obvious way to increase the single unit price (hourly wage) is to master relatively scarce skills.

For example, I used to make flyers (everyone can do it), with a monthly salary of 8 hours 100 yuan and a unit price of one copy (hourly salary) 12.5 yuan, but I realized the mystery of flyer design from distributing flyers and upgraded to a designer (not everyone can do it), with a monthly salary of 4,500 yuan, which is a single copy according to 22 working days.

Followed by working hours. As mentioned above, others have a rest on weekends, and I have to work for two days on weekends. If I directly increase my working hours by at least 16 hours, my income will definitely be higher.

Explicit benefits can be simply understood as social security, provident fund and afternoon tea movie coupons purchased by the company for you. Although it is not cash, it can also be included in income.

Invisible welfare can be understood as the halo that the company covers your head, which makes your worth double and get the treatment that you could not get originally.

My practice is to make myself more valuable by accumulating influence when my working hours are relatively saturated. For example, as a host before, an activity may cost two or three thousand yuan, and I will talk about it from beginning to end. Now being a sharing guest, an activity costs tens of thousands of dollars, and sharing only takes half an hour.

This is the so-called realization of influence. An ordinary host can influence thousands of people at most at a large party with thousands of people, but the appearance of a slightly influential guy at an event may help the brand to be known by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, all this is based on our own strength and influence.

To sum up, to increase (sideline) income, either you have your own "non-work income" or you increase the "unit price per unit time".

If you understand this, you won't be entangled in such issues as "hobby becomes work" and "can photography support yourself as a sideline?"

five

Nobody wants to count money every day.

While writing this article, I went to take a shower and suddenly thought of a very interesting topic, standing at twenty.

The ancients said, "Twenty is for learning, and thirty is for standing". In their twenties, when they are full of energy, it should have been a day for young people to travel and study everywhere and establish a world outlook and outlook on life. However, due to family reasons, they often cannot be free and easy, mature prematurely, take responsibility prematurely, and become a quiet adult prematurely.

If you can choose, who wants to stand up early and stand until you are twenty?

Life is a vivid life.

I don't think many young people around me, including me, can do it.

So, if I have a daughter, I hope she won't be sensible too early.

Should cry, should make trouble, should hit the south wall, should see love rat, should see love rat.

Who stipulates that life situations should follow the same mold?

That is beside the point. Over.

(This article was written on September 27th, 20 19)