It’s easy to go through your career taking the same paths others did before you. But small, simple tweaks can make a huge difference in your lifetime.

One of my readers, Alexander, writes:

“I’m reviewing NIH grant proposals right now and seeing your tweets made me think of something that might interest you — doing the “expected” career progression instead of the one that makes sense. Typically, biologists who want to do research as a career go to grad school ($22K annual stipend; I did this part and learned a tremendous amount) for 5-6 years and then do a postdoctoral fellowship ($40K salary; ridiculously low wages for someone who is now a subject matter expert in their research area) for up to 6 more years before becoming assistant professors ($65-70K or so starting). I skipped that postdoc stage and I’m currently a 33-year-old “senior scientist” with my own research grants, etc (the normal age for that career point is about 42). Although there’s certainly the usual mix of luck and me maximizing my exposure to luck in my having leapfrogged that whole postdoc phase, the thing that I find really jarring is this:

When I talk to friends and acquaintances who are going through grad school now, they frequently don’t even want to entertain the possibility of making this kind of “jump” themselves. I’ve tried to pitch them on it, and been told, “It doesn’t work that way.” When I offer myself as proof, I’m told, “You’re a special case.”

I though that might interest you, given your appreciation for the psychology of success. I’ve personally found it a little tiring, although I have realized that the set of peers I chose to spend time with in grad school match my outlook, which makes sense — I picked positive, productive friends (who are now doing quite well in positions at consulting firms and major biotech companies). Still, I find it odd that people don’t like the idea of jumping ahead if it’s demonstrably possible.”

Few things I’ve noticed:

• I used to hear friends complain about money, and I would rush to tell them what to do. Even when I knew the objective “right” answer, they never, ever listened to me. Instead, their eyes glazed over and they ignored me. Eventually I started resenting them for not listening (which is a ridiculous reaction on my part). After 1.5 years of this, I decided to implement what I called the Honey Pot Strategy, where I let the right people come to me, via this blog. It has been a miraculous change. People are smart: Only the right people come, and the wrong people realize this site isn’t for them, and leave (that’s why I don’t mind when people say they’re unsubscribing from this site). Read more: Bob Bly, the noted copywriter, writes about why he never gives unsolicited advice.
• People feel comfortable putting others into buckets. “Oh, you study economics” or “Ah, you’re a product manager.” I do it. You do it. We all do. But when you start doing something “weird” like doing a side job, or earning $1,000 on the side, or even doing a free internship, people generally get uncomfortable. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most important result is that it makes us question what we’re doing. Yet if you think about it, why would you care what people who are not doing what you want to do say? The reason, of course, is we are profoundly social, and our reference groups are broad. Even if I think your job sucks, you’re still my friend, and I’m still influenced by your judgment. In some of my advanced courses, I teach people how to deal with this.
• Doing offbeat, “weird” things early in our careers can produce huge rewards. Witness this blog, my comedy blog “Things I Hate,” or even the “You have died of Dysentery” t-shirt that I created. None were created to make money. Yet each one played a pivotal role in opening up doors. The challenging thing about doing offbeat, weird things is that there’s potentially huge upside, but you don’t know for sure. In general, people don’t like doing things that don’t have a clear ROI, especially as they get older. That’s why people consistently ask, “Can you guarantee I’ll make $1,000 in Earn1k? How do you KNOW that taking people out to lunch will work?” You don’t know. Otherwise everyone would do it.

I cover specific tactics in my writings on entrepreneurship, my entrepreneurship bookmarks, and my Earn1k course.

As expected, I’m only staying for the tech part of it, then quickly leaving before the film/music stuff starts. I don’t think they would appreciate my taste in Jodeci and Whitney Houston. And I would not appreciate their lack of marketing abilities.

If you’re around, come check out my talk:

What: “Building a Bulletproof Personal-Finance System”
When: Saturday, March 13th at 11am
Where: Hilton G
RSVP: http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/431

Bonuses:
1. Book signing afterwards at 1:50pm (RSVP)
2. I’m revealing 10 things I’ll be covering at the talk at twitter.com/ramit

Excerpts:
- What I’ll cover at SXSW (1/10): How can you use the psychology of money to automate your finances? http://bit.ly/dhEInt #iwillteach
- What I’ll cover at SXSW (2/10): How did I make $127,000 in one hour last month? http://bit.ly/dhEInt #iwillteach
- What I’ll cover at SXSW (3/10): How do you handle irregular income & expenses (e.g., freelancers)? http://bit.ly/dhEInt #iwillteach

Not going to be at SXSW?

• Read my bookmarks on psychology and finance
• Hire me to speak at your event
• Go watch a bunch of videos of me yelling at people

So why is it considered a catastrophe when housing prices drop?

Last week, I asked you to identify the cultural assumption in this screenshot. Here’s what I was thinking of:

Isn’t it funny how “home prices falling” is assumed to be a bad thing?

You never know how American your assumptions are until you go to another country. That’s because in the United States, we have been systematically taught that housing is a good investment and that prices must go up. Ask your parents why they bought their house. One of the top 3 reasons will almost certainly be, “It was a good investment.” Yet I’ve shown very clearly that for many people in many situations, it is not. In fact, housing is often a terrible investment.

Yet the illusion persists, whether it’s my friend wanting to buy a million-dollar house with no research, or people saying things like, “I wish I’d bought more real estate” after incurring a paltry 1.2% return rate over several decades.

As a result, you get media reports that implicitly echo the cultural assumption that housing is a good investment. The way they describe the housing market — oops, “housing recovery” — influences and reflects our cultural assumption. Let’s take a look at a headline from a major national news publication:

Interesting…it’s a “housing recovery” when prices are getting expensive. Would you say that with toothpaste?

Also interesting: Why is it a painful decline when young people and other first-time buyers get more affordable housing?

Alice in Real Estate

What if we discard the assumption? Let’s try: For each of these screenshots from major media sources, I’m including the opposite cultural assumption below it.

As Warren Buffett said in his 1997 Chairman’s Letter to Shareholders,

“If you expect to be a net saver during the next 5 years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period?

Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall.

This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.”

Why “higher house prices = good” persists

Deep-seated beliefs like this exist for multiple reasons. What might some of them be?

1. American culture believes that home ownership is a right that everyone should have (it’s not).
2. Since most newspapers are written by and read by older people — whose wealth is predominantly (and mistakenly) tied up in their houses, it only makes sense that real estate prices “should” increase. As a result, you see words like “recovery” and “crash” rather than “bargain.”
3. Unlike toothpaste or other commodities, there are ancillary effects of changes in real-estate prices. If one house price declines in a neighborhood, there are spillover effects that affect nearby houses. This is why neighbors and realtors will do anything to prevent a house from being sold at a low price, including throwing in things like cars and TVs instead of lowering the list price.
4. Crooked organizations like the National Association of Realtors and banks use every trick in the book to prevent house prices from actively reflecting the market price. Remember how, in Chapter 6 of my book, I described example after example of how Wall Street firms use disingenuous tricks like survivorship bias to obscure how poorly performing most of their funds are? The same is true of real estate. Where there’s lots of money in commissions, there is virtually always shady behavior, obscured facts, and whispered promises that never turn out to be true.

In fact, this cultural expectation goes to the very highest levels of the U.S. government. In a speech, President Obama said:

“This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” Mr. Obama told a crowd here, in one of the communities hardest hit by the housing crisis. “It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy. And by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everyone.”

It’s fascinating, but unsurprising, to hear the President’s explicit goal is to “shore up housing prices for everyone” — and, you could argue, maintain unaffordably high rates for most young people.

It’s not that simple

For young people, every time the market goes down, you should be cheering for your own individual finances. You can acquire investments at lower prices and you have a long time for the market to grow.

Yet, paradoxically, lower housing prices do represent a clear risk to the American financial system, whose growth is predicated on consumer spending, which is in turn strongly influenced by housing prices. That’s why this crisis is so serious and confusing. (See the President’s full remarks here.)

Just because virtually every media presentation decries the “rapid decline” in housing values doesn’t mean that applies to you. “Higher house prices = good” is a cultural assumption.

You can read more on my page about real estate investing.

What other money assumptions are there?

I’ll start:

• People who have money waste their money (also known as “It’s OK when I spend my money on something for fun, but not you” — see comments)
• Immigrants are better at money than you are
• People who spend $20,000+ on their weddings are dumb (same as above — see comments)

What money assumptions have you noticed?

One of these was art school. After an art session one day, I brought home my drawing of a tree. It was so bad that my normally supportive mom actually said, “Umm…if you’re going to draw a tree, why don’t you make it look like a tree?”

This explains a lot about why I hate artists (and most non-profits).

Not just because I hate art, but because artists are terrible at marketing themselves and constantly adopt worthless beliefs like:

• “Charging for my art is selling out”
• “Good art markets itself”
• “My goal is to get in a gallery”

I wrote about this in detail when I wrote Attention Whiners: Why you STILL aren’t saving money and highlighted that it’s not tactics, but mindset that often separates people who do from people who whine.

So when iwillteachyoutoberich reader Cory Huff read my guidelines for writing a guest post and pitched me on the Myth of the Starving Artist, I jumped at the chance to run it. Yes, he might accidentally teach a lesson to these godforsaken artists, but mostly it’s just a chance to mock these terribly self-destructive beliefs.

Cory, take it away.

Cory Huff: The Myth of the Starving Artist

Last week I heard a story about an artist who makes handmade buttons at parties. For $3 he will come to your party, do a custom painting on a 1 inch by 1 inch canvas, and then turn it into a button for you.

For $3.

I couldn’t believe it. Neither could everyone around me who heard the story. It seems like everyone there knew that this artist should be charging more. Too bad that artist didn’t.

Compare that to my friend, we’ll call him John. John makes sculptures. They range in size from very small to very large. He has a thriving business where corporations call him and ask him to build something for them, and they pay whatever he asks. $30,000 – $50,000 was his last asking price that I heard.

What’s the difference? It’s a matter of beliefs.

The Starving Artist Myth

Many artists have bought into a romanticized notion that art is somehow more legitimate if it is created by poor people. This notion was popularized in the mid-19th century by the writer Henri Murger, who wrote Scènes de la vie de bohème a famous French novel about a group of poor artists living in the Bohemian quarter of Paris. The book was wildly popular and it became trendy to be a poor artist.

Over the last 150 years, Murger’s ideas became entrenched in popular culture, and artists hold to the notion that art is a product of the financially unsound and morally superior.

The Starving Artist Myth forces artists down a path that isn’t helpful.

Recently, a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that she was trying to raise some extra money because she wanted to move to NYC to pursue her dream. I was really excited for her because she’s a tremendously talented artist. I messaged her and offered to help her come up with some good ways to do that (I do a lot of work with artists, especially in teaching them how to sell art online). A week went by without hearing from her, then two. I messaged her again, hoping to use her as a source for this article, but a week later all I had heard from her is that she’s too busy working at her survival job.

Many artists believe that the poverty and suffering that comes from this kind of busyness is conducive to better art – but I disagree. Being in touch with emotion and having strong technique make better art. Poverty and suffering are distractions that pull us away from being able to do the things that we really love doing.

Artists are not the only people to fall into this trap.

It is my opinion, and some will want to lynch me for this, that artists and entrepreneurs come from very similar backgrounds. They have a passion for something that can make a difference in people’s lives. They want to do that passion all the time – some of them just don’t know how to support themselves while doing it.

How to Dispel the Starving Artist Myth

Remember: Normal = Poor. Crazy = Rich. People expect a lot of crazy, creative things from artists and entrepreneurs, and they’re willing to pay for it. Whatever you do, do it with gusto. Look at Ramit. He teaches people how to be rich, and he does it with flair and excitement, and a lot of passion. He makes people some people angry – but he’s making a ton of money doing it. People love him for the passion that he has. If people love someone like Ramit, they’ll love artists even more (sorry, Ramit – as much as you make fun of us, people love artists).

Do something people love, and eventually it will catch on. When I first saw Etsy.com, I thought it was garbage. All I saw was a bunch of home made doilies that weren’t even all that well done. But you know what, people LOVED Etsy. Artists who turned up their nose at the site now sell original works for over $3,000. Etsy has developed a reputation for having high quality, original merchandise that appeals to buyers of all kinds.

Take advantage of the Warhol Economy. Andy Warhol created a movement that revived New York City. City planners took advantage of the burgeoning art scene to create incentives that attracted more businesses to the parts of New York that were dying. There are cities all over the country that are desperately trying to attract artist communities to their cities. You can read more about it in Elizabeth Currid’s PhD dissertation turned book, The Warhol Economy (which, by the way, is a great example of how to turn your god-given talents in to money).

Give yourself permission to make money. This is one that I struggled with early as an artist, and again as a budding entrepreneur. I didn’t believe that it was possible to make the kind of money that I make now. I would sabotage myself by passing on opportunities because I didn’t think they’d really pan out. When something great would happen to me, I would tell myself it was luck and that it probably wouldn’t happen again. Once I flipped that switch, it changed everything for me.

How did I flip that switch? I’ll simply say that it took two things: changing the connection between my self-worth and money; and learning what I needed to do in order to make money.

Protect your vision. When you aim to change your life many people around you will attempt to take you down. Most of the time it won’t be intentional. Your friends and family, as well as coworkers and other acquaintances, will question your decisions, even your motivation. This can be demoralizing and cripple your efforts before you ever get started. Find people who encourage instead of question and support instead of doubt (or, even better, you can call out whiny complainers before they gain any momentum).

“But I don’t know how!” It’s almost impossible to make it as an entrepreneur without some help. Whether you pay someone or find an amazing mentor who will help you for free, you need someone more experienced than you to help out.

Who knows what the future holds for that $3 painter or my actress friend who wants to move to New York City? It could well be that they find their niche and end up fabulously successful – but first they’ll have to make the decision to be ready for more. They’ll have to stop believing in the Myth of the Starving Artist.

Cory Huff is an actor turned entrepreneur who does freelance social media consulting, and teaches artists how to sell art online at TheAbundantArtist.com.

My Earn1k course — to help you earn your first $1,000 on the side, and beyond — has been live for 3 weeks.

Instead of telling you how it’s going, I thought I’d let my users do the talking.

What have you learned in Earn1k that you didn’t know before? Please be SPECIFIC.

“Having too many ideas is not an acceptable excuse. Also, you don’t need an original idea. Just do better than crappy people.”

“I learned a better process of how to narrow down a niche by what questions to ask. Learning which areas I should devote more my time to (figuring out what is MOST essential for your business) was also a great lesson because I can sometimes get caught up on some of the non-essential things (i.e. go to networking events, get business cards, etc.)”

“-To start with a narrow niche focus and broaden if necessary. The point is to actually start doing things that matter.
-Ask for referrals. Ramit recommends “Referral Flood.” Noah: Ask each client for three referrals, and “Who do you normally hear about this stuff from?”
-From Tim and Ramit: Don’t rely on willpower. Develop habits to avoid having to think about every detail every time you encounter it. Form new habits to create new behavior.”

“I thought that online surveys would work well for getting in the head of your market. I found that there is nothing better than meeting face to face with potential clients. The meetings are so dynamic that the information is so much richer and full of potential products and services that you would never be able to capture with a survey. Surveys have their role, but you can’t design a survey to deliver this much essential information.”

“Step away from the computer and GO TALK TO POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS.”

What have you DONE after watching the Earn1k material? Please be specific: Include details about what ACTIONS you’ve taken.

“I have contacted three potential clients, one of who is very close to becoming a paying customer. I have adjusted my game plan, focused, found a niche that I think is the right size and scope, and learned a lot from my conversations with existing customers.”

“1. Wrote up the 3 most important things to do for my business (price list – which i already have, contact 3 customers, contact 3 mentors).
2. setup a surveymonkey page for customers to fill out
3. Contacted 3 people from my target market. Meeting with two of them this weekend.
4. Also contacted so far 1 person who is in the same business I am interested in and seems to run it very well. Asked for 30-60 minutes time to meet and chat
4. Added my business info to local google information.”

“The number one thing I’ve done is throw most of my planning out the window (swallowing my pride in the process) to start talking to people. I’ve volunteered with a non-profit and planned trips to talk with important figures. I put my website on hold. My interviews and calls are much more concise and market oriented (”what would you like to see?”) instead of my previous questions (”blah blah blah…what do you think of my idea?”). Finally, I’ve done my best to get out of idea-land and make concrete moves. This means less reading/writing time and more email/phone/social time.”

“After watching the videos, I keep the worksheet and pdf files of the lesson open on my laptop as I go through the material again. I also find myself going back to read the transcript the next day.”

“1. Identified an additional service I could offer in my current freelance gig, and negotiated an increase in hours to do this work (grant writing: $500+ this month)
2. Talked with a colleague with a similar market who offers different services than I do, getting her feedback about what she saw the market needing that was not currently supplied.
3. Sent 3 emails to potential clients for coffee/lunch dates
4. Sent a survey out to participants in an event I recently facilitated”

What specific steps will you be taking this weekend to earn more on the side?

“I am replying Sunday afternoon. I have already had my call with Susan, and I gathered a lot not only from that, but from listening to the other people on the call. I will be sending Susan my email conversations with my prospects so she can give me advice on them. I’ve gotten the contact number I needed to proceed with my marketing strategy, and plan on calling that person (non-client) this evening.”

“I will send out at least three emails to current students this weekend. On Tuesday I will be back at school and will actually speak to potential clients.”

“1. Set up a meeting with my current freelance gig to get feedback / testimonials
2. Send 3 more emails to potential clients
3. Outline questions for potential client meetings
4. Do that extra work on grant writing that I negotiated!”

“Just had a great phone conversation with someone I contacted via email. Have another in-person meeting set up for next week. Will prepare some follow-up emails using the techniques/tips I learned in the Office Hours”

I’m so impressed with the caliber of Earn1k members.

Want to earn more money The Earn1k course is closed for now, but you can get on the Earn1k list to get notified next time it opens.

Want to save money? Check out my savings program, The Scrooge Strategy.

The Earn1k launch — for my new course on teaching people how to earn their first $1,000 on the side — was one of the largest I’ve ever done. Last week, after the launch dust settled, I did a post-mortem call with my team, and I thought I’d share some of the results with you.

Even though they sound dark and ominous, “post-mortems” are some of the most useful things you can do when launching a new project. A post-mortems is simply an analysis of what worked, what didn’t, and what you can learn to improve next time. Doing this helps keep you sharp and stay ahead of 99% of people who never do this (the Craigslist Penis Effect in action).

Here are some things we learned that might help as you try to earn more money or launch your own project.

Costs matter — but not as much as revenue does. This is especially true if the costs are non-scalable, like a one-time fee for a support system. In other words, you can scrimp and pinch about paying someone $2,000 or $3,000. Or you can just make 10x more with a better product/marketing and make the point irrelevant. This is the benefit of releasing amazing content, not run-of-the-mill BS that anyone can copy.

Measuring is important, but pick your battles. I like to measure myself in a lot of areas. But it came down to deciding to measure something — or just make it better based on our intuition. We chose to improve the launch rather than measure everything. The downside is I don’t know exactly what caused some of our results. I hope to figure it out in future launches.

Lots of communication problems. Once you get above 2 people, communication starts getting very complicated. We used PBworks, Google Docs, Etherpad, email, and phone, and we still weren’t all on the same page. This is why there are so many collaboration tools. This is also why it’s such a hard problem.

Have ridiculously detailed backups. After a technical snafu that cost me over $10,000 in 10 minutes, we created an insanely detailed checklist, including…

POTENTIAL PROBLEM — SOLUTION

…with every conceivable technical problem that we could encounter. This was detailed down to the level that, if my home internet failed, my shoes were already on so I could run to a friend’s house, who was standing by so I could jump back on a webcast.

Again, I never cared about this in my early days, and you shouldn’t if you’re launching something for the first time. But now, after growing for years, even a few minutes of launch downtime can cost me a lot. (And I’m just a teeny tiny player. Imagine the resources a company like Amazon dedicates to this.)

There are red flags for users who will never become customers. At my last company, our head sales guy told me an interesting thing: He said, “When prospects call up and ask for XXX [specific word], they will never buy.” In other words, non-buyers identify themselves with certain phrases, and you need to learn to identify them. For Earn1k, whenever someone’s FIRST question was, “How much does this cost?” I knew they would likely never buy. That’s because they focused on cost, not value. The people who asked, “How much can this help me make — and how do I know it’s worth it?” were much more likely to buy.

People will pay for content if you demonstrate enough value. We sold out of our $2,997 tier in 1 hour because we spent a month showing people to focus on value, not cost. I never expected to sell out. Yet I now know I under-priced that tier. So next time it will go up — dramatically.

Blogs have extreme variability in the quality of users. Most blogs have 90%+ freeloaders, aka people who never want to pay for anything and get mad when a blogger charges for anything. I love driving these people away from iwillteachyoutoberich as fast as possible. While the blog will remain free, I’ve consistently showed you guys why paying for value is important, and we now have an audience of people who are willing to invest in themselves — and don’t believe in fixed-pie syndrome.

People like when you turn away business for genuine reasons. I turned down over $100,000 of customers. I screamed at people who asked if they should join while they still had credit card debt, and told them to get their debt under control before going back. We refunded a $1,500 customer who treated iwillteach staff poorly and sent her packing. And we didn’t serve a $75,000+ segment on purpose (see below).

We were surprised: People LOVED this. It caused them to sign up more. Why? Because they knew the focal point wasn’t to gouge everyone and make as much money as possible. As I told them, “I don’t want everyone. I want the right people.” People respond when they know something is tailored for them, not everyone.

Measure your projections to see where you were wrong. At the beginning of each project, I create a simple table/spreadsheet of the results I project. The first 5 times you do this, you will be terrible. (Once, I did a projection and forgot to include one conversion #…which meant my results were 90% off…in the “bad” direction. Oops.) But each successive time, you’ll learn small ways to get better. In this case, we created 3 projections — Low, Middle, High — and then compared the projections to the “actual” results. We learned some fascinating things, including areas that we totally forgot to factor in. Next time, we’ll be better.

The $75,000 problem: As I said, we sold out of our top ($2,997) tier. Here’s an interesting thing: I could have sold at least double the number of seats over the remainder of the launch. But I intentionally turned down $75,000 in revenue. Can anybody guess why?

I know that’s different than most of the stuff I write on iwillteachyoutoberich, but I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you have questions and I’ll answer them in the comments.

By contrast, I quietly and systematically polished my resume for over 100 man-hours in college until it gleamed perfection. I know, I know…this is what makes me irresistible to women.

Anyway, a few months back, I got in touch with Brazen Careerist to do some co-promotion since we both have similar audiences. But I’ve held off on mentioning them until the right thing came along.

Tonight Penelope Trunk (of Brazen Careerist) is doing a “Resume Boot Camp” webcast — Wednesday, 2/10 — and I thought you guys might want to check it out.

I recently took a look at some of your resumes for an upcoming project, and they were just terrible. I wish I had time to fix every one of them, but hopefully this will help you get a good start.

It’s tonight: Get details about the free Resume Boot Camp (Wed 2/10)

Today I’m thrilled to announce a totally new course called Earn Your First $1,000 On The Side.

The short version: An all-new course that I’ve been quietly developing for a year, which includes 16 super-specific lessons on finding a profitable idea, testing it, finding clients, pricing, marketing, all designed to help you earn $1,000 (and more) on the side — every month. Also includes hours of gorgeous HD video strategies and tactics, Master Classes from people like Tim Ferriss (4HWW) on specific topics like marketing, time management & productivity, and psychology. Course registration ends tomorrow — click to see course details.

Q: What’s surprised you so far?

A: “The level of polish, thought, and effort that goes into every aspect of it so far. It is seriously the best looking, most relevant material I have seen online.”
–Ned White, Earn1k preview member

The detailed version: For the last four years, the #1 requested topic on my site has been “how to earn money.” Yet I’ve resisted creating a course for you guys, because most of the “earn money” courses I see are sleazy SEO plays or worthless courses that give you the same information you could find on Google. ‘Pick a market! Make a business plan. Network a lot!’

Give me a break.

But last year, when I went on my book tour, I met my readers in Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver…and all over. When I asked them what THEY wanted me to write about, they all said the same thing: how to earn more money.

I asked them what questions they wanted me to answer, and here were some of the most common:

• “I already have a full-time job. Can I really earn $1,000 on the side without spending 60 hours/week?”
• “I don’t know which skills could actually earn me money. How do I decide what to do?”
• “What can you teach me that’s new? I already know the stuff on Google.”

Their questions were really surprising.

That’s when I started seriously thinking about building the single-best course on earning money anywhere. Not just high-level advice, but specific strategies and tactics to help you use your skills, find a market, and charge competitive rates for side income.

You saw the first 3 weeks of January with all-new posts on earning more money, niche-ing it down, getting in your customers’ heads, and using a step-by-step process to earn money on the side.

As we’ve worked on this course for the last year, I wish I could go back to all those cities and tell my readers:

• You DON’T need to spend 60 hours/week to earn $1,000 on the side…
• You DON’T need to set up a sophisticated website or become an SEO master…
• You DON’T need to get 10,000 Twitter followers or set up a YouTube/Facebook/LinkedIn page…
• You DON’T need to create an ebook or product to earn your first $1,000…
• You DON’T need to become a legal expert on business licenses…

Instead, you need to spend the majority of your time GETTING PAYING CLIENTS. Amazing when you eliminate all the BS.

It’s not just about the money

When I asked readers why they wanted to earn more money, the biggest reason across the board was NOT just about the money.

Actually, the #1 reason I got from you was to be able to eventually leave your job and work for yourself or travel.

Knowing this, I focused on not only new tactics to earn more, but the psychology of your own barriers — the barriers that are keeping you in a “meh” job. Are you too busy? Not sure where to start? Nervous about investing thousands into an unproven idea? The Earn1k course breaks it down step-by-step.

All these barriers (and more) can be systematically tested and used to help grow your side income.

In fact, here’s what some people said about the the preview version of Earn1k, which contained just a fraction of what the full course contains.

“I don’t feel scammed! No offense Ramit, but I’ve been burned by empty promises from other online courses. Also, I feel like I’m being taught and pushed to act, rather than merely inspired. It’s completely different than my other experiences. At this place in my life when I’m feeling poised to make changes and earn more money, it would be self-sabotage not to do it.”

–R. Cree, Earn1k preview member

“I am surprised how much I have gotten out of it, honestly. I came in thinking I might pick up some tools and tricks that could be used in my current business or to start my next one, but now I want to try freelancing. I knew in the back of my head that I shouldn’t try to make everyone happy, but you really hammered ruthless niching enough that it finally clicked for me. More niche = more rare = more concentrated demand = higher $/hr.”

–Blake Wager, Earn1k preview member

“Ramit’s course has already completely changed my perspective from what *I* want to what the *customer* wants. Learning about marketing is icky (for me), but also painfully eye-opening. I’m seeing that I was a fool when I started this, thinking only about me and what I wanted to sell. Now I am seeing why my original plan would have flopped before it even started. And why so many others’ do as well.”

–Karen, Earn1k preview member

All new material that you won’t find on my blog

The full Earn 1K course contains all-new, step-by-step content. This isn’t the kind of material you can find by Googling “freelancer” or “earn more money” (try it, you’ll see). To create the single best course on the market, we…

• Surveyed thousands of freelancers and full-time employees to see where the biggest barriers are
• Assembled a team of top freelancers to help put the course together, including specific solutions for turning your idea into income, finding your first clients, setting your rates, and marketing yourself
• Hired a videographer to produce professional-quality video for the course
• We hired a transcription team, in case you prefer text
• Hired audio editors and professional designers

You can’t find this material anywhere else. It’s an investment to help you earn your first $1,000 on the side — and remember, you can make that income over and over again.

What’s in the Earn1k course

Here’s how I put the course together:

All-new, super-specific material in hours of professional HD video. This isn’t some 50-page ebook. I hired a professional videographer and created hours of HD video to demonstrate a structured process to help you earn money, crush psychological roadblocks, and take the years of tactics I’ve been developing and apply them to your market. Perfect if you want to learn the material at your own pace. Transcribed for your convenience..

Group calls and private forums to keep you motivated and address your specific skills. Many of us want to be held accountable. We want to see how others are handling the roadblocks that inevitably come up. And when we get stuck, we want to know how to push through instead of getting stuck. The course includes weekly group calls (recorded if you can’t make it) with live Q&A

Ready-to-use, field-tested scripts that we’ve used to ramp up our own freelancing and consulting businesses. We deliver detailed, ready-to-go scripts that we’ve tested and refined over years of successful freelance work. Including:

• Pitching via cold email, with real-world examples and followup scripts
• Questions to ask your client to build trust and uncover hidden problems, overcome objections and speak to desires
• Actual questionnaires used to get inside your customers’ heads and get a deep understanding of your clients’ business (I use this in my own business)
• How to charge a firm price and handle price objections
• Scripts with Key Convincer Phrases to use with your clients so they acknowledge your value and happily pay your fee (most people never use these)
• Upselling & getting more work at the end of the engagement
• How to end unprofitable engagements without burning bridges
• The most effective way to follow up with clients that are slow to pay (or aren’t paying at all)
• How to ask for referrals that will snowball your freelance business

Access to the private “Earn More Insider Sessions.“I flew in my team of freelancers to San Francisco, where we got together to film private sessions that show you dozens of the best techniques we’ve created, tested, and engineered to help us earn significant amounts of income on the side

Master Classes from the best guest speakers on the planet. I assembled people who are master practitioners on specific topics — for pricing, marketing, identifying your customer, building a sales funnel, and time management — and convinced them to come together to teach you in private Master Classes

Powerful real-life case studies. Learn how people just like you are earning serious side income doing freelance project management, graphic design, software engineering, writing, Excel consulting, dog walking, professional room-organizing (really), and more. Comprehensive case studies where we ask them all the questions you want to — How much are you really making? What was the biggest waste of time? How’d you convince your customers to pay? Listen to them on the go or read the transcribed versions we’ve put together for you.

Office hours with me (Ramit) and my instructors. Private access to ask your questions and get specific answers — including how we’d write that pitch email or phrase your pricing increase. We’ll be here to make sure you have a helping hand in starting to earn money on the side

Inside stories that we’ve never revealed before. This isn’t some college textbook. We’ve added our own stories of ridiculous clients, tricks and techniques we’ve heard from other freelancers, and case studies on how others earn money on the side. Think of the best college class you ever had, where people wanted to be there.

Week-by-week course overview

Top tier spots are already sold out

Tier 1 of this course included everything I listed above, plus private coaching with I Will Teach You To Be Rich instructors. We sold out of this premier level within just 2 hours of our initial private launch. We’re getting close to selling all the seats for our Master Classes – featuring speakers like Tim Ferriss and Pamela Slim – as well.

When I created this product, I never imagined there would be this much demand, and this much positive response. It’s shown me that people are hungry to to learn how to effectively and efficiently earn money on the side, so that they can one day be independent and high-level freelancers that set their own terms.

What being a member means

I built my own course on this topic because I personally tried so many other popular ones only to find that they were more of the same old material that didn’t get me results.

I invested tens of thousands of dollars of my own money into developing this course, flying top-notch freelancers across the country to contribute their expertise, and putting together the best lessons anywhere. I only care about developing super high-quality material that you can’t find anywhere else.

This is premium, never-before-released material, and because we’re teaching you how to earn money, you can re-use the system over and over again. How much is it worth to learn how to increase your earning power, earn extra money whenever you want, and replicate your money-making month after month and year after year?

We give you lifetime access to the course material once you’ve joined as a member. Use it now to grow your business, and refer to it whenever you like.

FAQ

Q: I don’t have an idea. Should I join?
A: That’s the point of the course — to help you find a PROFITABLE IDEA and implement it. In fact, if you had an idea, it probably sucks. In the course, we teach you how to rapidly test it to see what’s profitable and what’s not. You don’t already need an idea. It’s not about a magic idea — it’s about testing them.

Q: How much time do I need to do implement the course?
A: 5 hours/week minimum (2 to watch weekly course material, 3 to implement). Don’t kid yourself — the more time you put in, the more you’ll get out of it.

Q: I’m really busy and this isn’t a good time for me. Can I do this later?
A: I’m not sure if/when I’ll offer this again, and if I do, it will be significantly more expensive. You get lifetime access to the course so you can check it out whenever you want.

Q: I don’t have enough money to join
A: Then you should not join, and focus on savings instead

“I was really convinced that I couldn’t afford to pay the full course (and I wasn’t even gonna try to) but now I’m really decided to get a spot in the course I will become a thief if I have to. You really made me think in value rather than in cost. That’s a lesson that I will remember all my life.”

–Vladimir S., Earn1k preview member

Are you ready to invest in yourself? Learn how to earn your first $1,000–and more–on the side. Check out the full details (course enrollment closes tomorrow, Friday 2/5).

Go here: http://earn1k.com/join/

The Briefcase Technique

This is just one simple example of the hours and hours of HD video in a new course I’m launching, called “Earn Your First $1,000 on the Side.”

Live webcast tonight, Tuesday, 2/2

So tonight, I’m hosting a special webcast.

In the webcast, you’ll see…

• 2-3 “teardowns” of people’s freelance ideas: I’ll get them on the line, analyze their freelance business, and show them how to skyrocket their earnings. Live.
• What the #1 mistake of people who try to earn more money is
• The first public look at the new “Earn Your First $1,000 on the Side” course — choose which course is right for you

How to attend the live webcast

• Date: Tonight, Tuesday, February 2nd

• When: 7pm Pacific
• Where: http://www.earn1k.com/webcast
• Backup URL: http://earn1k.weebly.com if something goes wrong

The webcast will not be recorded.

Oh yeah. On the webcast, I’ll also answer this question:

Why did I turn down $60,000 cash last night?