What do you do when broke? To elaborate, for me, broke here means not just having no money, but also having a broken limb. That was my situation for the longest two years of my life. In those two years, I was at home, recuperating from a fracture surgery, unable to even pay my medical bills, and depending on my parents and younger brother. Okay, this is not a sob story. Things turned around for me when I learned high-income digital skills. I am not a millionaire yet, but I’ve been able to move into my own apartment, help out my parents and pursue my dreams. In this article, I want to show you the top 10 high-income digital skills for 2021 that can turn things around for you.
What is a High-Income Skill?
Just as it implies, high-income skills are skills that bring in high income, of at least $10,000 monthly or $150,000 annually. For the purpose of this blog, our focus is narrowed to high-income digital skills.
Why Should You Consider A High Income Digital Skill?
What I love most about these skills are that:
- You do not require a degree. People want to see results and not a pile of certificates.
- Can be learned within a short amount of time, if you are focused and determined.
- Can start earning even while learning.
- Can be done 100% remote, giving you flexibility just in case mobility is an issue, like it used to be (still is) for me.
- Scalable. You can build out an online business from any of these skills. Most agencies actually started out this way, with the founder expanding to take on more clients, inevitably creating jobs.
What Are The Top High Income Skills For 2021?
Without further ado, here are the top 10 high-income digital skills for 2021. I list them alphabetically.
- Ads Manager
- Affiliate Marketing
- Crypto Trading and Investment
- Digital Marketing
- Forex Trading
- Graphics Design
- Podcasting
- Software Developer
- Transcribing
- Video Creation and Editing
- Writing
- Miscellaneous
- Bonus: Emerging Technologies
Ads Manager
Gone are the days when businesses online solely depended on organic traffic for their monthly revenue. These days, target ad traffic is the secret sauce for huge income. Moreover, not only businesses run ads, nonprofits and even election campaigns now leverage ads for multiplied reach. These now need someone to manage their ads, be it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, YouTube, and anywhere else, so fare online.
Affiliate Marketing
Remember that time you were passionately telling everyone you knew to visit a restaurant where you had a great time? What you were actually doing was affiliate marketing. Does that pique your interest? Awesome. 😎
Affiliate marketing is simply recommending helpful products to others and earning a commission from the vendor when someone buys it. Nowhere in this definition do you see spamming anyone anywhere with products they don’t need. Products could be physical and digital. The key to succeeding with affiliate marketing is to have a warm audience that trusts you and a product that does what it promises. There are tons of popular affiliate platforms out there like ClickBank, Share A Sale, Warrior Forum, JVZoo, and lots more. According to Scaleo, almost half of affiliate marketing earn over $20,000 annually. That’s a neat side income. Moreover, with affiliate marketing, the profits compound. Meaning it may be little at first, and then surge later on.
Crypto Trading and Investment
If you are yet to hear about crypto, it’s possible you’ve been living under a rock in the past decade. Few understand it, yet millionaires are minted daily; governments want to ban it, yet banks want in on the fun. That’s crypto for you. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency market capitalization sits at $1.94 trillion! I’m sure you also want in on all that action.
Before you dismiss it as another fad, remember that money has always evolved along with the age of revolution. It is obvious that just as cowries is to the stone age, the digital currency will be to the digital age. What we are not yet sure of is if governments will allow private decentralized digital currencies like bitcoin, ether, and others to continue to operate. In any case, you have nothing to lose learning about crypto trading and investment. For one, you can make money off your knowledge. Secondly, tons of people are looking for someone to teach them and coach them to trade and invest in this digital gold.
Digital Marketing
When you think about anything marketing in a digital way, then you have digital marketing. It is multifaceted as one can actually focus on just a niche. For instance, we have ads manager, a subset of digital marketing, on this list of top high-income digital skills. Although, over time, one will need to develop a T-shaped competency where they have a broad knowledge of all aspects of digital marketing and then deep competency in a core aspect. Other facets of digital marketing include email marketing, content marketing, social media management, media buying, community management, and so on.
Forex Trading
Since the world does not have a global currency, gold is not able to serve this purpose for several reasons, executing transactions between two countries would involve foreign exchange, short for FOREX. One cannot just walk into a British restaurant with dollars and expect to pay in dollars, they will first need to exchange their dollars for pounds. Loss and profits are made in the process of this conversion. Some have figured out how to conduct trades that bring about profits more often than loss. Just like crypto trading, one can profit off this knowledge for themselves or get paid to teach others how to profit too.
Graphics Design
Pictures they say are worth a thousand words. Graphics aid creativity and imagination. This is why image-heavy platforms like Instagram thrive. Graphics are used in as many ways as you can conceive, from celebratory to fundraising, to publicity to an advertisement, to education and entertainment. Businesses, individuals, governments, and organizations will always be in the need of graphic designers for their creative needs.
Podcasting
Humans are always looking for more ways to save time by multitasking. And this is actually one of the factors behind the rise of podcasts. It became a way to productively spend long commutes, exercise both the mind and the body, while exercising or cooking, or doing tasks requiring low focus. Over the years podcasts have grown from rants and long-winded talks to being used by brands and businesses for educational and instructional content for staff and customers. According to Infinite Dial 2020, 55% of the US population has listened to at least one podcast. This means over 155 million people in the United States alone are listening to podcasts. This is up from 51% in 2019.
Also, a lot goes into the creation and publishing of a professional podcast. There are scripts to be drafted, audios to be edited, transcripts to be created, and several other activities. Having someone with experience to handle all of this will improve the quality of podcasts produced. Moreover, podcasts can be expanded into books, workshops, or even courses.
Software Developer
Just a little over a decade ago, the unicorn companies in our world were those dealing in physical products. Today, not only have some of those unicorns fallen from their high positions, but most of the current unicorns sell products you can not touch. These products are called software. The majority are content to fold their arms and lament the theft of their jobs by technology, but conveniently forget that while technology will take away some jobs, it will also create new jobs. The key is to stay Future-Proof. Software developers are in high demand, especially in new areas like data analytics, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence.
Transcribing
It basically means turning audio to text. This one is dear to me and if you know me personally, you’ll know why. Inclusion is not only about black lives matter and minority people. Inclusion also covers anyone who would be excluded because they do not ordinarily fit. According to World Health Organization (WHO), over 5% of the world’s population is either deaf or hard of hearing, with more on the way there. That’s over 430 million people missing out on audio-related content. Such exclusion!
Okay, so back to Transcribing. Why would anyone even need to transcribe audios and videos?
- It boosts SEO for podcasts, audios, and videos. For now, Google Search is heavily dependent on text. This is why you have alt text for images and other files on WordPress.
- Some have gone on to refine transcriptions into articles, books, and other projects like courses, workbooks, etc. I mentioned this when talking about podcasts.
- It ensures those with hearing loss do not lose out on such awesome content. Fortunately, Google Chrome Browser now has a feature that gives live captions for audio playing from the browser on the laptop.
Take note of these three reasons, they will be helpful when pitching prospective clients. I wish it is something I could do, I would’ve ditched writing. 😃
Don’t ask me how to transcribe, it’s pretty easy, listen and type out what you hear. But you will most likely need some tools and software to aid you with time syncing and converting to a .srt file. If this skill interests you, please do more research.
Now, let’s talk about monetizing and getting clients. This is specific to transcribing. A more general approach for all the high-income skills discussed is just ahead. The riches are in the niches. So, even with this skill, I will tell you to pick a niche. Let’s use the blockchain and crypto niche. 😁 Find out the top 10 podcasts in that niche. Transcribe the latest episode for each one of them, if they do not have transcripts published.
Armed with your sample, email each one with something like this:
“Hello xxxx, I am a transcriber in the crypto industry. I just transcribed your last episode, at no cost, and would be glad if you could publish it and acknowledge me.
There are some good reasons to have transcripts for your podcasts. (Remember those three reasons I mentioned earlier? Use them here and get creative).
If you like my work, I would be happy to jump on a call to discuss a possible retainer.
Thank you.
F8″
Now, what this does is kill three birds with one stone.
- You have samples you can use in your portfolio.
- You show, not tell prospects how good you are at what you do.
- You get free marketing as there are people who will see the transcripts and your acknowledgment.
Video Creation and Editing
I can bet you a Tesla that if you were asked to choose between text and video of the same content, you are most likely going for the video. This is exactly why video is allowed on all social media platforms you can think of. This inevitably means the need for videos by individuals, brands, and organizations is high. All you need to do to convert a fraction of the millions of possible clients is to learn how to create jaw-dropping videos. That’s not all, brand perception means many want to ensure the videos they put out there are professional and meet up to standards. This is where video editors use their magic wands and turn plain videos into masterpieces.
Writing
I could probably write a book under this heading alone. Just in case you were wondering, the high-income skill I used to turn things around for me, it is writing. Precisely digital content creation. Funny enough, if you had told me before then that I would be a writer, I would’ve just laughed out loud. But here I am, earning a living from stringing words together.
Like digital marketing, writing is also multifaceted. Consider this list below.
- Article writer
- Copywriter
- Tech writer*
- Finance writer
- Academic writer
- Health writer
- Technical writer*
- Creative writer
- White paper writer
- eBook writer
- Ghostwriter
- CV writer
- Blog writer
- Scriptwriter
- Course content writer and lots more writing niches.
*Please, note that tech writing is different from technical writing.
You can try out a few to see where you’re good. For instance, I was never good with news writing, so I rejected offers to write for news sites.
Miscellaneous
This is for honorable mentions of digital skills that can still bring in high income. This is where I mention meme creator, tik toker. Trust me, I have actually seen these vacancies on angel.co. Some of the jobs of tomorrow are not even yet existing. Also, skills that have to do with talent management, project management and business development can feature here especially as Digital-Native companies are growing.
Bonus: Emerging Technologies
Artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, and other emerging technologies out there are features here because these skills can also be delivered remotely.
How to Learn High Income Skills
You have to learn before you can earn.
- The first step is to pick one skill to focus on. Don’t even try to juggle more than one. FOCUS.
- Next is to consume as many free resources on it as you can find. Good ‘ol Google and YouTube are your friends here. At this stage, I usually don’t recommend paid resources. Because these free resources will give you some good foundation and especially help you decide if you really want to go ahead on that path. Give yourself a time limit. You don’t want to remain on the free resources forever.
- Once you have a good foundation, it is time to move on to paid resources. As you consumed the free resources, you would have come across recommendations for paid resources. Go for the ones you can afford and you are convinced has what you need.
- Practice by offering your digital skills to those who need it for free or discounted. They will be your first clients and help you build a portfolio and testimonials.
- Share your progress and learnings with others online. Your content will draw in more leads who may book your services.
I’ll end this post with: “You Miss All The Shots You Don’t Take.” Having all this information is not enough. Act on them and build your knowledge. Remember there’s a difference between information and knowledge.
