Did you know that the average person has up to 700 skills! Now you know.
Everyone out there is unique; you are unique in your own way, and in fact, there cannot be any other replica of you. As a fact, your uniqueness places you at a vantage position over others in certain areas.
Every skill is sellable and profitable; you only need to learn how to monetize your skills, which is why I wrote this article.
I can’t focus on every skill out there, but I hope that after reading this, you can look inward and identify the skills you possess.
Now, the thing about monetizing your skill, is that it isn’t so much about competence; it is about your ability to market and profit from the little you have.
Some very skilled people fail to monetize their skills. This same people are on Twitter tweeting “where ona dey see this money wey ona dey spend”. Yet, someone less competent is able to monetize the same skill.
I mean it’s good to learn new skills, but the downside of adding to your skill is you may end as a Jack of all trade and a master of none.
Which is why the first step is to take stock of your skills.
Contents
1. Taking Stock of Your Skills
I’ll share a rather personal experience. Trust me it changed a lot for me.
I was at the time on a 60 days productivity challenge with a group of friends I met online – we set daily goals and reported on our progress every night. As part of the challenge, I was to read a book and I chose Smart Money Woman.
Honestly, I don’t remember if I finished the book or if anything I wrote down was a direct result of what the book said, but I recall having a hunger for growth.
At the time an older friend of mine got an all-expense paid trip to Dubai to write a movie script. I felt challenged. I wanted to close writing deals that were worth millions and included paid vacations.
So, I opened the note app on my phone and created a file I titled Maximizing my earning potential. In it, I created a chat box that looked somewhat like what is provided in the table below. I went on to list all my skills especially all that was connected to the area I wanted to specialize. The goal was to better monetize my skills to the best of my ability.
10 Skills You Can Learn During Isolation
Now I knew my skills in my head, but I never listed them down in this fashion. Someone I respect often told me that, writing crystallizes vision. He was probably quoting a book. If you know the original quote, kindly leave a comment.
After listing my skills, I shamelessly wrote my current earning capacity on each of the skill. Some I earned fairly but not frequently, some I hardly made profit. I also wrote the earning capacity of my colleagues in Nigeria and my colleagues outside Nigeria.
Boy was I selling myself short!
Frankly, I wasn’t even selling.
The truth felt like cold concrete and I let the chill run through my blood.
I created a new column for skill assessment.
2. Assessing your Skills
Skill assessment is a fair way to grade yourself. I judged my work against others and highlighted the areas where I needed to grow.
There must be something about this older friend who was earning way more for a similar skill.
No, I did not download a course on Udemy or Coursera.
Instead, I challenged myself and took a job that allowed me to apply what I had regarded as the least of my skills. With the job I was able to grow the weakest skill.
My older friend and colleague had mastery and I needed to gain mastery.
You’d think I would have sought employment as a scriptwriter. I did not. The thing is creative writing was easy for me. None creative writing was a tough job. I could do it but not as easily as I could create fictional characters. But my skill as a fictional writer wasn’t paying as well as the skill of writing nonfiction.
In mastering this weaker skill, I gained an edge over other full time fictional writers. I grew my reputation and updated my CV.
Back in school, there was often a debate between students of Literature and students of Linguistics, often times, one group wanted nothing of the other.
Frankly we were sticking with our comfort zone.
A skill can be anything. Binge-watching movies is a skill. Someone gets paid for quality check on TV. Monetize that skill!
In the business world, I find myself threading waters I would never have imagined. Am I a better nonfiction writer? Not exactly, but I’m a lot better than I used to be and oh, It’s a fully monetized skill.
PS: It helps to review your CV. Not all jobs will ask you for paper CVs. Matter of fact, my what sold me on that job was my social CV.
Which brings me to my next point: Positioning
3. Positioning
You can have the right skill and be great at it, but you may still not make profit if you stick around the wrong customers.
I started engaging people who were experts in this particular field. I listened to their arguments and asked questions. Mind you these people didn’t hire me, someone else saw my response and engaged me to do a job for them.
I stopped reading about the creative aspects of my skill and rather focused on the business side of things. I was listening to marketers and regular entrepreneurs explain life experiences. After all, life is a business.
I’ve met good writer who are admittedly better but are poorly positioned in the job market, so they earn less than what they are worth.
The sad part is they are comfortable with their position.
Whatever your skill is, you can’t grow financially if you remain comfortable.
4. Growth
That deal that got you all excited, someone else is earning way more than you can imagine.
Change is inevitable, but growth isn’t. Trust me, I wish it were that easy.
Growth is a conscious desire for change. I didn’t quote that.
If you want to monetize your skill, you have to be deliberate.
- Appraise your skill
- know the market value of your skill
- position yourself
- Grow and rebrand
That’s it. It looks easy but most times people are their own nemesis, especially creatives. You need a combination of skills to survive.
Learning is great, but it inhibits growth because many have been stuck in the cycle of learning. They keep learning but can’t convert the knowledge into smart business. At some point, you have to pull the plug and actually practice in order to grow.
If you are especially great at what you do, here are a few articles to help you navigate as an entrepreneur.
5. Monetizing your skill
Registering a business is good, having a brand name is great, but sometimes you have to do it the old-fashioned way; treat every skill as a business deal; gain mastery in business.
I terrorized my family a lot while growing up. In a good way. Smirks.
I used to charge everyone for anything they needed help with around the house. I required money to swap chores and to fix things around the house. Not only that, but I was firm on getting paid. It was funny but between those cold negotiation I was learning the art of negotiating and putting value on any skill I had.
There are moments people would approach you, and they may request to have a job done for free. Some may arrogantly say it’s your way of paying your dues. Others may genuinely want help. I usually ignore the first group and the second group I let them name the price they can afford. Why? Your skill is worth something no matter how small, so trade it up – always.
Remodeling Old Businesses
You don’t have to have a new idea or a never before seen skill.
Sometimes, you can start from outside and work your way inside.
What do I mean? You can observe market trends in your area and position your self by grooming on an old skill to fit the market demand.
When Netflix announced Netflix Nigeria, I knew many filmmakers would want their films on the platform. I also understood that one of the requirements for Netflix was that all movies must be subtitled. I was a skilled scriptwriter, but I had to learn how to create SRT files in order to prepare myself for the film market.
