Has COVID shaken up your career path and sent you looking for new opportunities? If so, you may be asking yourself how to make $100,000. It’s that exciting number where you break through from 5-figures to 6-figures per year.
According to IRS figures, less than 20% of tax filers report an adjusted gross income of $100,000 or more. So, landing a six-figure job will put you in the top one-fifth of earners within the United States.
Earning a six-figure salary also makes it easier to save more of your income to invest.
Looking for actionable advice on how to make six-figures with skills you can teach yourself during the lockdowns?
Let’s explore six practical options below.
How to Make Six-Figures
While some people mistakenly believe their earning potential is fixed, this simply isn’t true. If you acquire valuable skills that are in high demand today in 2020, you can immediately command more income—whether it’s from your current employer or a new one.
You may also be able offer your newly acquired skills to others in your spare time, creating a small business or a second stream of income.
Here are six skills that you can teach yourself to immediately command higher income potential.
1. Paid Media
Learning paid media is an insanely powerful way to make yourself more valuable in today’s marketplace. Paid media can include running:
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- Google Adwords
- Display Ads
- Video Ads (YouTube)
- Social Media Ads (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok and more)
Every business owner and entrepreneur is looking to hire for these positions, because today in 2020, nearly everyone has a smart phone within a few feet of their body.
Plus, digital ad spending in the U.S. surpassed traditional ad spending for the first time in 2019. With people staying home in droves due to the Coronavirus, it is surging even higher in 2020.
Best of all, you can often learn paid media skills in a few short months using either a course, YouTube videos, or simply reading the tutorials and how-to’s published by each ad platform.
2. High Ticket Phone, Video or In-Person Sales
If you learn sales skills, you will always have money. To learn sales, you’ll need to understand the sales process, which involves prospecting, fact finding, handling objections, closing and follow-up.
What most people don’t know is that sales is a skill that can easily be learned, and sales people who sell high-ticket products can readily make $100,000 to $250,000 per year.
Again, this skill set doesn’t require a college degree and can be learned within a few months of dedicated study.
There a dozens of books that teach sales or you can learn this skill-set from the sales training expert, Grant Cardone.
3. Podcasting / Audio Production
With podcasting on the rise, everyone who hosts a podcast is looking for people with expertise in studio set-up, show summaries, transcriptions, and distribution across the various apps.
Teach yourself to be an audiophile – a person who is enthusiastic about high-quality sound reproduction – and you’ll have immediate value in today’s economy.
According to the website Podcast Insights, there are now over a million podcasts and 30 million total podcast episodes. According to Apple Podcasts, there are more than a half million active podcasts produced in 100+ languages.
Clearly, with audio production and distribution on the rise, the demand for skilled audiophiles is high.
If you can help someone to set up a studio, produce a show, distribute it and improve its quality over time, then trust me, you’ll be indispensable.
4. Video Production and Distribution
Video is one of the biggest trends in of the last few years, with an estimated 81% of businesses now using video as a marketing tool.
Increasingly, companies are increasingly using video to market their products. With the recent COVID-19 lockdowns, this trend is further accelerating on a global basis.
If you learn how to record, edit, and distribute high-quality video, you’ll be in demand. Very, very high demand.
If you need evidence of this, just look at the massive global brand that Gary Vaynerchuk (“Gary V”) has built on the back of video production and distribution.
If you needed further evidence of this trend, there total number of people who use YouTube has reached 1.3 million worldwide. Plus, 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and close to 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube per day. Wow.
Clearly, knowing how to film high definition video, with clean audio and compelling editing, is going to be in high demand.
Companies will be seeking—and competing over—individuals who can film, edit, format, re-purpose, and importantly, distribute video content across multiple platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and websites.
5. Post Production Skills
Increasingly, businesses are using one piece of content, such as a single video, and then chopping it up into numerous content marketing pieces to be used across various platforms.
For example, a single video clip can also be turned into a podcast, short video clips for Facebook and Instagram, quote cards for Twitter, and a blog article for use on a website. This skill set is known as “post production work” and it is needed by nearly every company and brand worldwide.
Curious of an example of someone who is building an empire using post production work? Again, the answer is Gary Vaynerchuk.
He’s hired an enormous team of well compensated employees who specialize in this scarce and valuable skill set. It’s how “Gary V” has become a household name.
In this field, you may not command six-figures immediately, but if you persevere and prove that you’re helping to drive company revenue by making the brand omnipresent across the web, your salary has the potential to increase to six-figures and beyond.
6. Copywriting
Copywriters are writing professionals who create written content for use in advertising a company’s products or services. The reason companies hire copywriters is to create compelling text that informs a targeted audience and influences them to buy.
In short, copywriting is the art of writing to sell—that is, persuasive writing.
The reason copywriters are highly compensated is that the words they craft appear in the ads that drive sales and the pages that collect payment, so it’s not hard to measure their impact on a company.
Acquire this skill through books, courses, or by studying the copywriting “greats” like Gary Halbert.
How to Earn Six-Figures in 2023
Remember, your earning potential is not fixed. You can and should increase it over time by learning increasingly valuable skills—skills that are needed.
With all of the recent market changes caused by coronavirus, the skills above are going to be in greater demand than ever before. Capitalize on this market opportunity and go after your first six-figure year today.