If you have been successful in your personal and business life, you know how much hard work it took. Every step of the way, you pushed through with willpower and grit. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
Even with hard work, sometimes things don’t fall into place, and everyone who has succeeded at anything has made mistakes along the way. You learn from these mistakes and come through stronger than before.
That said, if someone had prepared you with advice and guidance, you would have gotten to where you are much more quickly. You know that you can be that person for someone else. In fact, your hard-earned wisdom can be so helpful that it is worth paying for. Many people pay big money to life coaches who do exactly this.
Without becoming a life coach, which requires financial investment and a process you might not feel you need, there are still ways to share your wisdom while profiting from it. In particular, you can write blog posts and articles around relevant topics.
Here is how you can go about it.
Create a portfolio
In theory, you could build your own blog from the ground up, using advertising and social media marketing to bring in income. However, this is a saturated niche. There are too many highly successful blogs giving out bad advice for you to stand out without spending a ton on advertising.
The more reasonable option is to start writing for websites which already exist. These sites will pay you for your articles, and you can start pitching ideas immediately. But you are going to need a portfolio to present your talent and prove that you can write engaging and actionable articles.
Of course, you can’t share links to past jobs until you have completed past jobs. To get those initial jobs, you can use a free portfolio website that allowing you to use a free domain name, hosting and a free designed template. One of the most known companies for it is Wix.com. You will be able to share your writing fast and easy with no other expenses. Consider the topics about which you have a fair level of expertise and write a post that you yourself would have wanted to read.
This portfolio is more important than a resume. Also, since your portfolio articles have not yet been published, you can send them as completed pitches to interested websites.
Write thought leadership articles
Creating a portfolio will help you establish yourself as a writer. But it takes writing thought leadership articles to prove you have something to say.
Thought leadership is a particular type of approach to content that positions you as the expert. However, you need to earn this title. When you are writing thought leadership articles, you are making a statement that is well researched, relevant to the cultural zeitgeist, and brings something new to the table.
In other words, a piece about how bitcoin can earn you money is considered a regular article. A piece about how the history of the euro projects the future of bitcoin would be considered thought leadership (if you could somehow make the comparison work!).
Thought leadership is so impressive because a minority of people are in a position to write this way. It is your precise experience in your industry that gives you the knowledge to construct thought leadership pieces that are actually innovative.
Find hosts
To start making good money from your wisdom, you will need to find someone who will want to pay for it.
This part of the process is a lot less exciting than actually writing the articles. However, it is probably more similar to work you’ve done in the business world. You need to find appropriate websites which are accepting pitches and pitch your articles to them. The good news is that there are tons of resources online.
Start off by going to websites that you frequently visit. Look for their “contacts” or “submissions” tab. There they will tell you if they are accepting pitches and how to send them. If you have a favorite website – such as Forbes, or Inc., etc. – you can search for articles about how others have fared when pitching to them.
Another approach is to go to Who Pays Writers? This is a platform where writers share their experience with websites and publications. They share how they were treated, how their pitch got accepted, what they were paid, and how long it took to get paid.
Finally, it is a good idea to read up on how to write a pitch that works. Have a look at the following resources:
How to Write a Guest Post Pitch That Gets Accepted Every Time
How To Write A Perfect Guest Post Pitch (We Asked 84 Editors)
3 Guest Post Pitch Emails That Got the Gig
With this information, you are all set to start sharing your wisdom and experience with the world. As long as you go about it with confidence in your intuition, you will come up with some great ideas.