Quantify Your Skillz
Last night I gave a talk at Rutgers. It was a small talk, which enabled me to quickly abandon the lecture format and start talking to people one on one. It turned into more of a group coaching session than anything else, brainstorming side businesses for everyone there. As RO kindly noted on his blog, this morning someone on FB asked how to make a quick $400 and I buzzed out a quick idea on tutoring four people in something you know well and charging them $100 a piece.
That’s all well and good, but it still leaves the question: what am I going to teach? What am I going to sell?
Obviously unless I know you, I can’t answer that for you. What I can tell you is to approach it as we would in Strategic Sorcery, which often starts with breaking things down so you can take a look at what is really there.
1. First make a list of every job you have ever had. Add to this every hobby that you excel at. Now add your magic practice, not just as one item, but each individual task. Don’t worry about marketability yet, just get it down there.
2. Take each of those items and put them at the top of another piece of paper. Break down every skill used in those jobs and hobbies. Lets say you work at a warehouse. You have knowledge of proper lifting technique, safety requirements, how to read MSDS sheets, taking inventory, report generating, forklift driving, packing, etc. Do the same with your hobbies and your magic practice. Lets say that outside of work you like to practice martial arts and in your magic practice you specialize in energetic shielding.
3. Highlight the things that you like to do the most.
4. Reeces that stuff together! See what makes a good match. Perhaps a DVD on stretches (that you learned in Martial Arts training) aimed at people who do manual labor? Classes at your local continuing education program. Maybe Energy Shielding for Martial Artists? Maybe Energy Shielding for executives. Maybe breath work (learned from your shielding).
5. If your skills don’t match up perfectly, look a bit outside yourself at skills you can become competent in quickly, or at people who would be interested in what you do. Take the energy shielding thing and market it for Law Enforcement personel (you would be AMAZED at how many cops I know are into psychic/occult jazz).
Point being, by looking at yourself and breaking your skills down you can get a fresh perspective in just how much you have to offer, and perceive new ways to apply your skills.
