Ten thousand dollars a year sounds like a big number. It’s $833 a month.
That’s it. That’s the number standing between most families and a completely different financial life.
I wrote Put More Cash in Your Pocket in 2009, when families were losing their homes to foreclosure by the thousands. That statistic stopped me cold. If those families had known how to make $742 more a month, most of them would have kept their houses.
Not $742 saved. $742 made. New money.
So let’s talk about making money outside your job, starting with your first $10,000. I’m going to give you my Fast Cash Formula, show you how to turn one skill into a much bigger check, and hand you the daily habit most people avoid: asking until ten people tell you no.
Get a pen. You’re going to want to write this down.
The 12/4/5 Formula Turns $10,000 Into $50 a Day
I call it the Fast Cash Formula. Twelve months, four weeks, five days.
Round $833 up to $1,000 a month, just for easy math. Now break it down:
- $1,000 a month is $12,000 a year.
- $1,000 divided by 4 weeks is $250 a week.
- $250 divided by 5 days is $50 a day.
Somebody always raises a hand and says, “Loral, there are 13 weeks in a quarter.” Yes. Some months have an extra week. I don’t care. These are averages. If you want to get nitpicky and be right about your numbers, you will talk yourself right out of making any money.
So the real question is simple. What can you do for $50 a day?
Start with your hourly rate. A landscaper usually bills $25 to $50 an hour. A copywriter bills $25 to $75, and the really good ones get $125. I know bookkeepers who top out around $160 an hour. For most of you, $50 a day comes down to two hours of work.
Sell a product instead? Same math. A piece of jewelry that sells for $50 means you sell one a day.
“What can you do for $50 a day? For most of you, the answer is two hours.”
Why Your Closing Ratio Matters More Than Volume
Here’s the part beginners miss. Selling one piece a day does not mean talking to one person.
When you start, you’ll close about one in ten. That’s a 10% closing ratio. So one sale takes ten conversations.
Most people answer that by chasing more people wrong move. The gold is in your closing ratio. Go from closing 10% to closing 20%, and you double your revenue from the same number of conversations. Same hours. Twice the money.
Get better at the conversation, and the income follows.
Some businesses don’t close in a month. I have a client who restores and refurnishes old furniture, and some of those projects run for months. Renovations work the same way. If that’s you, use the law of averages across your pipeline and keep your eye on $250 a week.
But if you’re starting, pick the simple, fast thing. I call it the twenty-first-century lemonade stand. You can even bundle it into a weekend project.
“Don’t chase more volume. Get better at the conversation.”
The More You Take Off Someone’s Plate, the More You Get Paid
Your fastest raise doesn’t come from more customers. It comes from doing more for the customers you have.
I have a client family in Tennessee with seven kids, and all seven have businesses. For a long time they sold parties around one thing: a truck full of video arcade equipment they drove to events. Then they asked a better question. What if we ran the whole event? Now they charge event management rates, and the game truck is only one piece of it. Over one summer they did $55,000. Dad quit his job.
My mom was a cake decorator. A great one. She got hired for wedding cakes, and once she got there, she ended up bossing everybody around. You wonder where I get it. She told the florist what to do because she needed the flowers for the cake. She told the caterers what to do because they set up around the cake. Eventually she became the whole wedding coordinator, and her price went from one cake to the entire event.
A dog walker I worked with had something more valuable than she realized. When people hand you their house key and their dog, they trust you the way they’d trust you with their kids. So what else can you do? Pick up groceries. Grab the dry cleaning. Collect the mail. Package it all together and serve someone’s whole life.
Now go technical. “I can build a website.” Great. That’s a little old school now that AI is everywhere. So who’s shooting the video? Who’s writing the copy? Who’s taking the photos? Add those, and you stop selling a commodity and start selling a package.
“The more you take on to support somebody, the more you get to charge.”
Pick the Fastest Path to Cash, Not Your Passion
Make a list of every skill in your household. Yours, your spouse’s, your kids’. Then ask one question: where can we monetize this the fastest?
Not the thing you love. Not the thing you’re passionate about; the easiest one.
Teachers, you can tutor. Music teachers, stop driving house to house and teach virtually. “How do I see their hands on the keyboard?” You use cameras. Look at the doctors who moved to telemedicine. No running around, no clinic staff who can’t book appointments properly, more patients, more money. Almost every professional service can follow that model.
In Put More Cash in Your Pocket, I lay out example after example: dog walkers, tutors, caterers, power washers. Each one started with a skill they already had. That’s the whole point. You don’t need a new skill. You need a new way to get paid for the one you’ve got.
Get to $250 a week. Then $1,000 a month. Then keep increasing it until you hit $10,000 a month, which is $120,000 a year. At that point, most of you face a real decision about whether to keep your job.
“Not the thing you love. Not the thing you’re passionate about. The easiest one.”
Ask Until Ten People Tell You No
Once you’ve picked your offer and priced it, build a web page. Keep it simple. It doesn’t need to be some giant integrated website. State your offer, your price, and how to reach you.
“But Loral, I don’t have a database.” Yes, you do. It’s called your phone.
Go to 10, 15, 20 people. Tell them what you’re doing and ask them to share it with others. Then use the way I sell. I call it ask-tell-ask:
- Ask what they want.
- Tell them why you’re the solution.
- Ask for the money.
Here’s the behavior that makes it work. Every single day, you make offers until ten people tell you no.
If you have a job, your day looks like this. In the morning, message 10 to 20 people about your offer. Maybe it’s $20 or $25, so three sales cover your day. At lunch, do it again. No more lunches with your coworker friends, because you’re becoming an entrepreneur. In the evening, follow up with phone calls.
Keep going until you collect ten no’s. You’ll start to see a rhythm. You’ll start to see the money pick up.
“It’s not difficult. It’s different.”
Start Today
Employees wait for the paycheck. Entrepreneurs create revenue from the minute they wake up. You’re used to an ACH deposit landing twice a month. This is a different behavior, and I promise you, it’s not difficult. It’s just different.
Here’s your week:
- Run your 12/4/5. Write down your monthly number, then your weekly and daily numbers.
- List every skill in your household and circle the fastest path to cash.
- Set your price and count how many sales or hours it takes to hit $50 a day.
- Put up a one-page offer and pick 20 people from your phone.
- Start asking with ask-tell-ask, and don’t stop until ten people say no.
Want to know what’s been holding your money back? Take my financial personality quiz.
Start thinking money. Solving problems is just meeting someone else’s needs. Serve people’s lives, and you’ll become a great entrepreneur.
Go to AskLoral.com. Ask a question, make a request.
