You don’t need a ‘job’ in the old-fashioned sense anymore. You’re generally better off these days if you secure your income, on your terms, without being tied to any one employer. It’s riskier to rely on a single employer (job) than multiple customers or clients (your own business).
Here are 10 high-paying remote career that let you be your own boss:
1. Course-creation
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Create an online program composed of written material, audio, and/or videos to teach people about a specific pain point. Courses are powerful because they can be replicated and scaled, so the income generated is theoretically unlimited. For example, if you’re good at Poker, you can teach people through an online course how to level up their game so they can make a living from playing professionally.
2. Personal coaching
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Coaching is similar to consulting, but there is one main difference: your intention with clients is less about telling them what to do step by step. Coaching is concerned more with encouraging the client to lead themselves via the power of their insights. This is why many forms of coaching are separate from a specific niche, though they can be, such as a relationship coach.
3. Marketing or freelancing
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Hundreds of individuals and companies need to market their products to be seen, develop relationships with customers, make money, and grow. You could provide a service as a solo practitioner or scale this support by working with a growing team in the form of an agency. Marketing yourself as an agency also tends to attract higher fees because you’re perceived as a brand rather than an individual.
4. Sponsorships and affiliate commissions
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Not every content creator needs to rely on selling direct products or services off the back of sharing value online. If you build an engaging newsletter or podcast, for example, you can be sponsored by various companies to create income. If you have built an audience, you can also sell the products of others and take an affiliate commission for those products you promoted to a sale.
How do you garner a presence online? According to research from Harvard Business Review, it’s all about what and how you post. It’s important to relate to your audience, to make sure your sources are from credible sites and outlets, and that your original content is thoughtful, insightful, and useful.
5. Lead-generation support
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Many businesses need help finding new leads that can eventually become paying customers and clients. Your job is to find such prospects and bring them to this client.
You bring them business, whether it be through landing page conversions, ad creation, or getting on calls. This can be lucrative because you’re providing a service that translates directly to money earned.
6. Consulting
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You can consult other people and businesses on a topic if you have expertise in a specialized area. Many people on Twitter, for example, consult others on how to grow their social media following. Consulting means guiding people to do what you have already done.
7. Membership modeling
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When you make a name for yourself around a specific area of expertise, you can set up a membership model so your audience can support you. For example, you could create content for the web around digital art and then set up a paid membership for people who want to join a community of other artists and get access to bonus membership content for a monthly fee.
8. Leading a workshop or online class
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You can lead a workshop or class, online or offline, in practically any area. You can guide a group as a yoga instructor online, for example, or lead a workshop on how to be a better creative writer. You can sell tickets via social networks, newsletters, or even cold DMs. If you sell a $60 ticket to fifteen people twice weekly, that’s a $7,200 per month business.
9. Designing or illustrating
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I built a design and illustration business in my twenties with no prior qualifications. I started by selling stock artwork online, which progressed to getting hired by clients worldwide for my designs. Website and graphic design services are required by brands across the web.
It takes a few weeks to become skilled enough to start making money as a designer. Not good at art or any kind of design? Don’t be discouraged; research from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success shows it only takes 20 hours to learn a new skill.
Once you do, start reaching out to ideal prospects and conversing about their needs. You can also make money selling digital design assets like templates.
10. Large group coaching
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Workshops, group coaching, or online seminars are exciting and lucrative sources of income. Find something people need that allows you to teach or coach a large group of fifty or more people on a Zoom call, for example.
I create a group like this to teach online writing for business growth. This combines a cohort-based model and an online course to give students direct coaching, the accountability to do the work, a community feel, and access to online course material. This is also highly scaleable and is providing many with a seven-figure income
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps people build money-making personal brands with their knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.
