What Skill Can I Learn In 4 Months To Earn Decently?

What skill can I learn in 4 months to earn decently?

A few years ago I jumped into the freelance world and I since I really didn’t know what I was doing, I decided to start with a skill I knew - bookkeeping/financial analysis.

Guess I figured this would be the best place to start, as I had my Master’s in Accounting/plenty of experience…

Which in theory, would’ve allowed me to charge high rates…

But within the first 60 days, I realized this wasn’t the case.

It didn’t matter what type of companies I reached out to or how well I explained my services, I could never get anybody to pay me over $35/hr…

So after hitting burnt out and getting tired of working non-stop just to pay the bills, I finally decided to look around - seeing if I could find anybody else who was in my situation…

And during this time I came across a case study that really caught my attention.

I won’t bore you with all the details now, but long story short, it was a guy who was getting paid $125/hr for writing…

And that was crazy in itself, but to take things one step farther - he did all this without having any relevant education or experience.

To be honest with you, I actually didn’t believe it at first…

But I was desperate so I looked into it anyway, and through another round of random events - I was able to connect with another freelancer who was in a similar situation…

And although he wasn’t quite as “advanced” (only charged $95/hr), I was still amazed he was able to charge that much without any professional education - so I reached out to him, seeing if he could tell me how he did this.

To my surprise, he asked if I’d be able to jump on a phone call the following day…

Which we did, and after a little bit of small talk - he started telling me the secrets he used in order to charge high rates.

Now you have to remember, at this point I was still very new to the industry, so I didn’t understand half the terminology he was using…

But in the simplest terms, he told me how companies will always pay more money for something they can use as a long-term asset - not a recurring expense (i.e. bookkeeping).

Now this made sense and I could see where he was going, but after that’s when he really blew my mind…

Telling me how the most lucrative skill he’s found so far is marketing automation.

In other words, there was people out there who could literally build a system once, then let it sell forever…

And that sounded absolutely amazing to me, so that evening I went out and started looking for a few different ways I could learn this lucrative skill.

Came across a few different people I wanted to learn from, but after comparing my options and trying to find my best fit…

I finally decided on the most expensive option, and started the course immediately after that.

At first, I was extremely excited to learn all this, as it was brand new to me…

But a couple weeks later, I had to get realistic and admit something I really didn’t want to admit…

I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

In other words, I could tell this skill was something I wanted to learn later on down the road, but I could all tell it was going to take awhile…

As it included a lot of tough subjects, such as:

• Content marketing
• Creating highly-converting landing pages
• Crafting email funnels that nurture cold leads into hot prospects
• And finally, sales pages that finalized the process and turned the prospect into a paying customer…

So after realizing this, I decided I needed to just pick one component, become an expert in it, then after making some money with this…

Then I’d grow from there and learn the other skills/areas after that.

Like most people, I thought about starting with the big dog first, going straight for the sales page…

But after realizing this wouldn’t make sense as that’d take me the longest to learn, I decided to start with the first step in the process:

Creating landing pages

Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely scared to do this, as I thought it was limiting my opportunities and didn’t know if I’d be able to make a full-time income doing so…

But I went forward with it anyway, and after learning this skill in 2 weeks - I decided to go out and create a test run for myself.

By this time I’d actually started looking around for landing page jobs on Upwork, and after seeing how most companies struggled to get a measly 1% conversion ratio…

I made this my benchmark, or in other words, I wasn’t going to start applying to landing page jobs until I was able to get a 1% conversion…

So that night, I went out and made a sample landing page that offered a free ebook for aspiring bookkeepers.

FIgured this was the best place for me to start, as it’s one of the few things I knew…

Then after creating this, I setup a Facebook Ad campaign and went to bed after that.

Woke up a little later the next morning, and after taking care of a few tasks that morning…

I finally checked the campaign that afternoon, and I’m not going to lie - I was beyond amazed.

At the time I think I was actually getting a 25% conversion ratio, but I’d only had like 60 visitors on my landing page, and knew I needed to get a larger sample size before having “true” results…

So I waited a few more hours, then after reaching 100 visitors - I decided to take a screenshot of my results:

And started looking for landing page jobs after that.

I found a lot of opportunities I knew I could do, but every time I thought about it, an overwhelming amount of self-doubt hit me…

Asking myself why I was qualified to apply, as they were asking for “experts”...

But after doing this for a good 20 jobs or so, I finally decided to say screw it and just apply to one job.

To be honest with you, I didn’t expect to get this job, and really thought it was going to be a “warmup” proposal…

But the next day, I actually received a response from this guy - telling me he loved my work and was very interested in moving forward.

He gave me a few other pieces of information after that, then after looking into everything…

I noticed something terrifying, this guy was a really big deal.

Now obviously I can’t say much for confidentiality purposes, but let’s just say…

He’s been featured on every large publication you can think of, and is a high-ticket consultant that companies pay a lot of money for…

Which was scary and made me want to bounce, as this was my first job and didn’t think it’d be a good start…

But I couldn’t help but look at his conversion rate, and realize how terrible it was.

It was one of those deals where I wanted to run, as I didn’t feel like working with him…

But at the same time, I knew it was an amazing opportunity for me to start my career - and let’s just say, I’m really glad I did.

We were able to dramatically increase their conversion rate after that, and this actually led to a lot more opportunities afterwards…

Which officially kickstarted my career as a landing page copywriter.

Now I’m not saying I was quick right away, as with every skill, it took a little bit of time to gain confidence and speed up the process…

But it also didn’t take long before I was landing jobs that honestly paid me $400 for 4-5 hours of work…

And the crazy part?

Clients never even batted an eye at the price (which, if it makes things any crazier - they were always Upwork clients as well)...

Because they knew these were assets they could use forever, and EVEN IF I was just able to increase their conversion rate by a mere 2-5%...

That alone meant a significant increase in their business, and is the same reason why I truly think creating landing pages is the best skill anybody can learn right now.

Of course, I’m not saying it’s “easy” and something you could start tomorrow…

But I am saying that it’s a defined skill and you can learn it pretty quick, then once you’re able to get conversions…

People never mind paying a lot of money for it (no matter what your experience level is).

I actually taught somebody how to do this 2 months ago, really just to see how well the information worked…

And even though she had absolutely no idea what a landing page was when she first started, within a mere 5 weeks…

She was charging $40/hr and landing clients right away:

So long story short, there’s a few different options you can take, but from my experience…

Every company is willing to pay a lot of money for marketing automation, so if you can find one component of that, specialize in it and grow from there…

Then that’s a skill you can (easily) learn within 4 months and make a decent amount of money off it.

P.S. And if you’re interested in learning how you can do this for yourself, then check this out