Beyond the Hustle: What to Do When Your Side Hustle Gets Real

There’s nothing like a good side hustle to make the ends meet when the bills are bigger than the paycheck at the end of the month. There is no true definition of the word. A side hustle is the job you have when you don’t have a job, or when you are underemployed. As a source of income, it can’t stand alone. But you wouldn’t survive without it.

Another attribute of a side hustle is that it is likely not the thing for which you went to school. It is not the thing you ever expected to make a living doing. You may not even be particularly proud of it. And that is just one of the reasons it can be a little awkward when you wake up one morning and find that your side hustle has become your full-time career.

If you are very clever and very lucky, that career has turned out surprisingly well for you. The thing about accidental careers is that there is a lot for which you didn’t plan up front. So if you are in a position where your hustle just got real, these are a few things you might need to add to the mix:

 

A Call Center

 
At some point, your one smartphone is not going to cut it. You could have clients. And those clients will have questions, and needs, and issues, and, and… Pretty soon, you are going to need some help with the phone. It will start with one person and one phone, then three, then a call center.

The best way to deal with that situation will probably be some type of cloud call center solution. This can become a major component of the sales and marketing strategy of a young business.

You will need access to everything from predictive to progressive dialers. On the service side, protocols from ACD to CTI. A call center does not have to be a room of 50 people. And when you are ready to sell to more than one person at a time, a call center of some kind might be the answer.

 

A Retirement Plan

 
Side hustles don’t come with retirement plans. So exactly what happens if you don’t have enough money for retirement? The smartest thing you can do is make sure you never have to address that question. So the moment your side hustle becomes your major source of income, you need to consider one of the many solutions available for retirement savings.

It is not just retirement, you also need to make arrangements for health insurance for the self-employed. Medical bills are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy. No one ever plans to get sick or injured. We can only plan for how we might pay for such an eventuality. So be sure that your plans include retirement and health insurance. These are two of the biggest oversights of those moving from side hustler to CEO.

 

An HR Person

 
You know that your side hustle has become a real business the moment you have to hire someone. It is also one of the biggest risks you will take in business. To hire someone is to engage in a legal, regulatory, contractual relationship. You are no longer just some entrepreneur who can do anything they like. Just ask all those tech geeks turned CEO and being sued for sexual harassment. Once you hire someone, it is a whole new ballgame.

Set yourself up for victory by using a temp service until you can make your first real hire. When you do, make it an HR person who can navigate the reality of becoming responsible for someone else’s employ. You are not just dealing with their hopes and dreams, but the welfare of their family. Depending on the laws in your particular state, letting that person go can be a real challenge down the road. If you are not an HR specialist, you are going to need one.

A call center, a retirement plan, and an HR person are just a few of the things you are going to eventually need when that side hustle gets real. And that happens a lot more often than you might think.

 
 
What resources have you found useful as your side hustle has picked up steam?