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Thoughts on Specialized Skill to learn.

Superbia

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Instead of spending my free time playing video games and endlessly scrolling though twitter, I've learned that my time would be better spent learning a specialized skill. I've had an interest in copywriting for a while now, but I'm looking for input from the community on other specialized skills.

Thoughts?
 
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Any new technology, whether it's AI, VR, AR, IoT, etc. is worth learning. Copywriting can be also profitable since it's just sales multiplied and sales skills are always valuable.

I'd suggest learning copywriting along with AI. Get good at writing copy with Jarvis.ai and you can quickly build a nice freelance career out of it, then build a business out of it.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Don't forget, a specialized skill can related to physical labor as well, or specialized use of tools. It does not need to be computer related.
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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Instead of spending my free time playing video games and endlessly scrolling though twitter, I've learned that my time would be better spent learning a specialized skill. I've had an interest in copywriting for a while now, but I'm looking for input from the community on other specialized skills.

Thoughts?
Like MJ said, have you considered all of your most obvious options?

Maybe you have an uncle who does excavation and you could learn how to use a Bobcat.

That would set you up for some sweet deals with local government and other businesses. Dirt work is lucrative for the business owner / crew leader.

What kind of jobs have you held in the past? That's also a good place to start
 
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Superbia

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Like MJ said, have you considered all of your most obvious options?

Maybe you have an uncle who does excavation and you could learn how to use a Bobcat.

That would set you up for some sweet deals with local government and other businesses. Dirt work is lucrative for the business owner / crew leader.

What kind of jobs have you held in the past? That's also a good place to start
I've an uncle that does electric work and has his own small business here I'm my hometown. I could handle transitioning to a blue collar job. I'll talk to him and look into other blue collar jobs in my area. I'm always driving pass projects such as construction and powerline work. But this time ill note the company and look into what kind of skills they are looking for.
 

Superbia

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I'm making a list and Ill dive into each job and use the process of elimination till I've made a decision, then Ill let you nerds know what I decided to learn.
 
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Guest-5ty5s4

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I've an uncle that does electric work and has his own small business here I'm my hometown. I could handle transitioning to a blue collar job. I'll talk to him and look into other blue collar jobs in my area. I'm always driving pass projects such as construction and powerline work. But this time ill note the company and look into what kind of skills they are looking for.
Ok hear me out on this one.

One of the richest people from my city was a man who owned an electrical business. No he did not do the work himself - he was the business owner and he wore a suit and talked to bankers and accountants, etc. A good friend of my parents was actually this man’s investment manager - he claims the electrical biz owner was investing $100,000 per WEEK at one point - and ultimately started his own charity with his wife.

That being said, working as an electrician for some time could expose you to the industry. You can make and save up some cash. You can even learn sales skills by talking to clients.

When the time is right you could take over your uncles business, buy another electrical business, or start your own.

The important thing then is to identify your path to scalability, profitability, and investment or exit.

Good luck!!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Ok hear me out on this one.

One of the richest people from my city was a man who owned an electrical business. No he did not do the work himself - he was the business owner and he wore a suit and talked to bankers and accountants, etc. A good friend of my parents was actually this man’s investment manager - he claims the electrical biz owner was investing $100,000 per WEEK at one point - and ultimately started his own charity with his wife.

That being said, working as an electrician for some time could expose you to the industry. You can make and save up some cash. You can even learn sales skills by talking to clients.

When the time is right you could take over your uncles business, buy another electrical business, or start your own.

The important thing then is to identify your path to scalability, profitability, and investment or exit.

Good luck!!

And here's the hook: simply answering the phone and showing up on time is a great value skew. I can't speak for other places, but getting a tradesman to my house to fix something is like inviting someone over for a root canal without anesthesia. Hell, I can't get someone to answer the phone, despite all those so-called Yelp 5 star reviews.
 

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Any new technology, whether it's AI, VR, AR, IoT, etc. is worth learning. Copywriting can be also profitable since it's just sales multiplied and sales skills are always valuable.

I'd suggest learning copywriting along with AI. Get good at writing copy with Jarvis.ai and you can quickly build a nice freelance career out of it, then build a business out of it.

At this point, I'm convinced that a HUGE opportunity exists in implementing existing AI for businesses. I'm trying out AI tools for some of my client's campaigns to see what they can do and although there's a lot of kinks to work out, this represents an insane opportunity that isn't just for engineers, but for problem solvers who understand the basics and can implement the technology for companies.
 
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Guest-5ty5s4

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And here's the hook: simply answering the phone and showing up on time is a great value skew. I can't speak for other places, but getting a tradesman to my house to fix something is like inviting someone over for a root canal without anesthesia. Hell, I can't get someone to answer the phone, despite all those so-called Yelp 5 star reviews.
Absolutely.

Answer the phone. Show up on time.
Have professional uniforms, have a training program that works. Have a system for everything (over time, not on day one)
 

Superbia

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At this point, I'm convinced that a HUGE opportunity exists in implementing existing AI for businesses. I'm trying out AI tools for some of my client's campaigns to see what they can do and although there's a lot of kinks to work out, this represents an insane opportunity that isn't just for engineers, but for problem solvers who understand the basics and can implement the technology for companies.
My thoughts exactly. We're living in world where technology is becoming more and more prevalent. I see specializing in any tech field could be extremely profitable.
 

Superbia

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I started learning Python today! I invested in a course on Udemy but was wondering if anybody had a book to recommend ?
 

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I started learning Python today! I invested in a course on Udemy but was wondering if anybody had a book to recommend ?
Did you decide to pursue programming?

Just asked my brother who is a software programmer and he recommends "Python Crash Course 2nd Edition" if you are a complete beginner in coding and python.

Wish you the best in your journey.
 
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Superbia

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Did you decide to pursue programming?

Just asked my brother who is a software programmer and he recommends "Python Crash Course 2nd Edition" if you are a complete beginner in coding and python.

Wish you the best in your journey.
Yes. I’m learning python to get started and I’m using it as a stepping stone to eventually create my own products.

thanks for the recommendation
 

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Do know if you plan to use platforms like upwork or freelance you are competing with overseas coders. I knew something was murky in the waters when videos on youtube that all introduced coding (python, R, C++ whatever) with millions of views had a lot of indian commenters and stuff. And im into pc hardware stuff (VLSO, PCB design, FPGA, verilog..) and 80% of the videos teaching it is someone out East.

Then I watched videos on youtube titled "I tried upwork for ___" and the ones I saw simply said yeah they made money working hard, but very small money. Because it was so many people willing to do work in Argentina and Bangladesh for literal pennies on the dollar.

Nothing wrong with that, theyre playing the market as they should. But I dont think its our arena anymore.

Yes you can value skew, yes you can specialize yes being Western can have advantages. But so can living in The Amazon. Dont have to choose such a playing field. When you can find other venues imo.

Ive very limited knowledge but maybe look for projects or something you can work. Or even develop and sell versus trying the old school way. Saw posts on reddit 7 years back talking about this as an issue.

Very limited intel, just my contribution.

Edit: Saw other vids where people made good money on upwork but they did stuff like music production, 3d modeling etc

Edit 2: Also remember posting my photos for touch ups on Freelance and legit everyone was from Central Asia. HOWEVER all their portfolios besides like 3 people sucked. But even the 3 that were good only wanted like 30-40 bucks.
 
Last edited:

Superbia

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Do know if you plan to use platforms like upwork or freelance you are competing with overseas coders. I knew something was murky in the waters when videos on youtube that all introduced coding (python, R, C++ whatever) with millions of views had a lot of indian commenters and stuff. And im into pc hardware stuff (VLSO, PCB design, FPGA, verilog..) and 80% of the videos teaching it is someone out East.

Then I watched videos on youtube titled "I tried upwork for ___" and the ones I saw simply said yeah they made money working hard, but very small money. Because it was so many people willing to do work in Argentina and Bangladesh for literal pennies on the dollar.

Nothing wrong with that, theyre playing the market as they should. But I dont think its our arena anymore.

Yes you can value skew, yes you can specialize yes being Western can have advantages. But so can living in The Amazon. Dont have to choose such a playing field. When you can find other venues imo.

Ive very limited knowledge but maybe look for projects or something you can work. Or even develop and sell versus trying the old school way. Saw posts on reddit 7 years back talking about this as an issue.

Very limited intel, just my contribution.

Edit: Saw other vids where people made good money on upwork but they did stuff like music production, 3d modeling etc

Edit 2: Also remember posting my photos for touch ups on Freelance and legit everyone was from Central Asia. HOWEVER all their portfolios besides like 3 people sucked. But even the 3 that were good only wanted like 30-40 bucks.
Yeah, I’m not trying to take my skills to upwork. I’m learning skills that’ll allow me to be able to develop my own products
 
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woken

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Yeah, I’m not trying to take my skills to upwork. I’m learning skills that’ll allow me to be able to develop my own products
Knowledge about manufacturing, outsourcing, stocking inventory, shipping, marketing, finance.

Most of these( apart from finance) vary a bit or more from product to product.
 

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And here's the hook: simply answering the phone and showing up on time is a great value skew. I can't speak for other places, but getting a tradesman to my house to fix something is like inviting someone over for a root canal without anesthesia. Hell, I can't get someone to answer the phone, despite all those so-called Yelp 5 star reviews.
i had a hp bell laptop once. I remember I sat on the phone for a few hours with someone from India who couldn't speak English very well, and trying to tell me how to fix my laptop. I remember being aggravated the call went to India in the first place and kept asking myself why I was speaking to someone from India, when I was in America.
 

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I've read about some people doing $100K alone on Upwork with their copywriting skills (Case in point: Lex). You'll probably find people in other fields making that amount on the platform. Most freelancers on there that earn low pay do two thing wrong:

1. They devalue themselves
2. They don't know how to sell themselves well

You can be the greatest developer in the world! But if you can't ask for the rates that accommodate you and can't instill your client with confidence that you can get the job done, you're a goner XD

If you know how to to do the opposite of those two things well, and you can get the job done... you're gold!

You can use it to gain real world experience of projects that involve Python, which is tons more valuable than just practice (Though practice enough that you know you can get their job done).
 
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Prince33

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I've read about some people doing $100K alone on Upwork with their copywriting skills (Case in point: Lex). You'll probably find people in other fields making that amount on the platform. Most freelancers on there that earn low pay do two thing wrong:

1. They devalue themselves
2. They don't know how to sell themselves well

You can be the greatest developer in the world! But if you can't ask for the rates that accommodate you and can't instill your client with confidence that you can get the job done, you're a goner XD

If you know how to to do the opposite of those two things well, and you can get the job done... you're gold!

You can use it to gain real world experience of projects that involve Python, which is tons more valuable than just practice (Though practice enough that you know you can get their job done).
It's 2021, not even 2016, not even 2011. The word is out about 'freelancing', 'work for yourself',' coding' etc. And the whole world knows. You hustling and valuing yourself is no different than the guy in Cambodia hustling and valuing himself.

You code 18 hours a day, he codes 18 hours a day. He watches self help gurus and listens to tony robbins every morning and so do you. You take cold showers, he takes cold showers. Both of you have killer portfolios, sell yourself well and know 9001 languages.

Difference? He'll do the exact the same thing and can live like a king off $30 a day. For you that's poverty even in Wyoming. And in 2030 when the word gets out even more that $30 a day may become $15 a day once people in rural Malaysia get word of the game.

Just saying nowadays you gotta include geo-game. Not that simple anymore.
Now if you move yourself... thats a solution. And nowadays living in a western country isn't all the glory anyways.

Yes, value skew and all that but this online arena is another ball game now. Really gotta think deeper than surface skews. Especially just 'work harder and sell yourself better'. That's 2014 game before videos with millions of views teaching you SEO are litered on youtube for free.

Can it be done now? Hell yeah. But if 1000 people do upwork I ponder how many become a Lex. Especially if Lex started before now. But most people dont put in the work. So most wouldn't.
 
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Andy Black

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Yeah, I’m not trying to take my skills to upwork. I’m learning skills that’ll allow me to be able to develop my own products
… and develop products that people will buy!
 

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If a niece or nephew asked what specialised skill they should learn so they could make a bit of money on the side, then I’d tell them the following:

You’re already ahead of many business owners, purely because you can use a computer, smartphone and understand social media.

Find people in your current network that you can help by doing something really simple, but visible to others.

Maybe you just use Canva to knock up graphics for social media accounts, websites or social media/blog posts?

Keep doing that and maybe start taking over their social media campaigns, or content marketing? Which could lead to web design/development, running paid ads, SEO, whatever.

But start with something simple and figure out how to get people to let you do it for free, then how to get paid for it.

Do not go on courses or spend months or years learning some skill to avoid helping people
and earning any money.

Help a few people for free first. Get some case studies, word-of-mouth, skills, and confidence.

Then figure out how to get paying clients - ideally on a monthly package.

Focus on monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

And listen to this:
 
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And in 2030 when the word gets out even more that $30 a day may become $15 a day once people in rural Malaysia get word of the game.
@ZF Lee you live in rural Malaysia.
Wait until 2030 & you could make the princely sum of 15 bucks a day.
You hustling and valuing yourself is no different than the guy in Cambodia hustling and valuing himself.

You code 18 hours a day, he codes 18 hours a day. He watches self help gurus and listens to tony robbins every morning and so do you. You take cold showers, he takes cold showers. Both of you have killer portfolios, sell yourself well and know 9001 languages.

Difference? He'll do the exact the same thing and can live like a king off $30 a day.
Or move to Cambodia now and live like king on 30.

PS be kind when you refute his notion that Cambodia enjoys a higher standard of living than Malaysia, he's only 14.
And he's American.
'nuff said.
Or perhaps there's a town called Malaysia in Wyoming?
 

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@ZF Lee you live in rural Malaysia.
Wait until 2030 & you could make the princely sum of 15 bucks a day.
I don't think even 15 bucks a day is worth it for the freelancing 'effort'.

$15 a day isn't a lot even if you convert from USD to RM.
I'll do rough maths...multiply $15 by 4 to convert arbitrarily to MYR (provided currency fluctuations all equal) to give us RM60 a day.

Multiply by 31 days...earning RM1860 a month.

That's just around the salary of a minimum-wage office worker or McDonalds management trainee...
I think there's more work that can be done in raising prices and selling for freelancing (or any self-employment in general) to make sense.

My usual modus operandi these days for charging clients on Upwork is to charge a multiple of their budget, as long their job specs are sound and they can give me enough details for me to make a good proposal. It helps me stand out, where other freelancers either low-ball or just match the client's price exactly.
 
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Kevin88660

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I've read about some people doing $100K alone on Upwork with their copywriting skills (Case in point: Lex). You'll probably find people in other fields making that amount on the platform. Most freelancers on there that earn low pay do two thing wrong:

1. They devalue themselves
2. They don't know how to sell themselves well

You can be the greatest developer in the world! But if you can't ask for the rates that accommodate you and can't instill your client with confidence that you can get the job done, you're a goner XD

If you know how to to do the opposite of those two things well, and you can get the job done... you're gold!

You can use it to gain real world experience of projects that involve Python, which is tons more valuable than just practice (Though practice enough that you know you can get their job done).
I think most people who charge “too high” are delusional and are making the second mistake thinking better marketing will solve the problem.

Just browse this forum and see how common the advice is to “never deal with client who see the cost but not the value” then proceeds to ask where to get a free software for a certain function and how to hire the cheapest online assistant from Philippines.
 
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Last edited:

Tom H.

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It's 2021, not even 2016, not even 2011. The word is out about 'freelancing', 'work for yourself',' coding' etc. And the whole world knows. You hustling and valuing yourself is no different than the guy in Cambodia hustling and valuing himself.

You code 18 hours a day, he codes 18 hours a day. He watches self help gurus and listens to tony robbins every morning and so do you. You take cold showers, he takes cold showers. Both of you have killer portfolios, sell yourself well and know 9001 languages.

Difference? He'll do the exact the same thing and can live like a king off $30 a day. For you that's poverty even in Wyoming. And in 2030 when the word gets out even more that $30 a day may become $15 a day once people in rural Malaysia get word of the game.

Just saying nowadays you gotta include geo-game. Not that simple anymore.
Now if you move yourself... thats a solution. And nowadays living in a western country isn't all the glory anyways.

Yes, value skew and all that but this online arena is another ball game now. Really gotta think deeper than surface skews. Especially just 'work harder and sell yourself better'. That's 2014 game before videos with millions of views teaching you SEO are litered on youtube for free.

Can it be done now? Hell yeah. But if 1000 people do upwork I ponder how many become a Lex. Especially if Lex started before now. But most people dont put in the work. So most wouldn't.

Nah, you're 100% wrong. Dude in Cambodia charging $5 hour is not as good as I am.

Yes, there are good programmers all over the world, but if they are good then they charge for it.

$100/hr programmer and $10/hr programmer are not the same thing. Geography is not a factor, only skill and ability to communicate. If anything, being from the Western world is an advantage: clients will pay me more and choose me over the competition more often just because they feel more confident hiring an American.

I started out making like $1/hour competitng with guys in India. As my experience went up, my pay went up and the competition thinned out. So I'm not making this up, just trying to give you the reality of situation.
 

Tom H.

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Don't forget, a specialized skill can related to physical labor as well, or specialized use of tools. It does not need to be computer related.
I used to be a machinist. They were dying to keep me in the shop. I'm sure I could've gotten significant equity in the business if I'd agreed to commit 100%.

Most of the machinists in the U.S. are retiring. It's a trade that requires real skill, so manufacturing companies will fight to get you. As an employee, it's not Fastlane, but you can earn a decent salary and you can get on the job training for a real skill.

We bought out another shop that was just one guy with a CNC lathe and a Bridgeport and a bunch of good clients. He had built a valuable business based on his skill as a machinist. So I think manufacturing can definitely be Fastlane if you have the ability and can figure out start up costs. The owners of the shop I worked in were not poor.
 

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