There’s a lot of people my age who got a degree in some random area that doesn’t automatically translate into a career. Some people I’ve worked with over the years seem lost and find themselves in a job in order to get by.
These jobs usually provide enough money and benefits in order to live life, but not enough to buy a house, start a family, etc.
There’s a viable path to take if you want to upgrade and that’s learning some skills that directly translate into higher paying jobs. Better yet, they stack into being valuable for setting up your own businesses.
You don’t have to go back to college, you can learn these things on the internet. Another benefit is that people looking to hire for these positions don’t care about degrees, just that you can get the job done.
I discovered these skills by learning them myself and updating my linkedin page to reflect that. After updating my linkedin page completely, I noticed that my page was getting viewed by recruiters.
There are people whose job it is to find talent in certain fields and hire those people for corporations.
Due to the fact that relatively few people actually are skillful in these areas and fill out their linkedin page completely, it provides a nice gap for you to stand out.
SEO
You can learn all about how to do SEO online.
This is one of the easiest things to learn how to do. Spend a few months actively doing SEO on different sites just to get experience in what to do.
This involves using screaming frog, link building, semrush, ahrefs, etc. Get familiar with the tools, technical SEO, and just start doing it.
It will drastically help your experience if you start your own site and use your knowledge on yourself. This way you can show potential employers specific examples of how you used SEO for your own benefit.
Although this is an old article, the points are still very valid on how to get started doing SEO. Learn about it, do it, show others what you can do.
The great thing about this if you are good is that you can always find another agency. I know one gentleman who parlayed his skills at an agency for 2 years only to move to another agency and make about 50 g’s more per year.
Copywriting
Copywriting is salesmanship through writing. Learn this and you’ll be an absolute standout from everyone who thinks they are an internet marketing guy.
I got contacted by so many recruiters on linkedin merely because I did a copywriting job for a pharmaceutical company and put that on my profile. Recruiters see copywriter and pharma and they equate that to value.
Copywriting is very easy to learn.
Understand the basic concepts by checking out this page.
Read every article on that site and practice the techniques.
Next, find old magazines and look for the ads. Get out a piece of paper and copy the ad from the magazine onto the paper. Do this over and over again.
The reason this works is that your mind will start to subconsciously pick up on patterns used by copywriters.
I like to use old issues of Black Belt Magazine because they still have old ads selling crazy martial arts dvds.
Good copywriters are able to pull in a lot of money each month based on their ability to convince other people to buy shit. They are in high demand.
Video Editing
One of my friends is a video editor. I had no idea that he did this until last year. He works for a company but would routinely do freelance work on the side.
The reason I add this is because with today’s technology, it’s extremely easy to learn video editing compared to the past.
Back in the day you would need expensive machines called avid to be able to do it. Now I can do top level video editing from my laptop.
I just talked to him recently and he got a new laptop specifically to edit that cost him only 800 bucks.
The barriers to entry in this field are so low but the rewards are so high because no one does this in the internet marketing field.
Once you start learning how to video edit you’ll start seeing television in a new light. One of the ways I saw the value in this was by watching WWE. Next time you see WWE or UFC, check out the video packages they do right before a match to hype up the fight. A video editor got paid a lot to make those video packages.
I did a search on youtube for “Adobe Premiere tutorial” and found hundreds of videos showing you how to use the software.
Take some random videos you have on your phone, upload it to your laptop, then start experimenting. Do this enough and you’ll become fluent enough to be able to market your skills.
Don’t want to work for the man?
All of the above skills can be learned easily online and turned into a freelance business instead of working for someone else.
You can go a few directions with learning these skills, or do all at the same time. You could go work for an agency pulling in a high salary, you could work freelance and hustle all day, or use these skills on some business you are running. Either way, if you’re learning skills like these, you’re setting yourself up to be secure in the 21st century landscape.
Versatility.
This is just a small sample of the stuff you could implement to free yourself from the typical 9-5 jive.
Any other skills you think could be added to the list? Leave a comment below.
-Tate
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