A couple of year ago, I was in need of someone to design a logo for one of my sites. There are a number of avenues that I could have chosen to meet my design needs but for various reasons I settled on a small logo design company. What I got in the end wasn’t quite what I was looking and the whole process was pretty much a waste of time and money. One thing that I put it down to was that the designer could not quite visualise my vision.

When I came across 99designs, my mind went back to my failed attempt at getting a logo designed. After reflecting on that attempt, one thing I thought would have been good was having pool of designers working on my project. If I had known about 99designs back then, it would have been the obvious choice for my design needs. The main reason for this is the crowdsourcing nature of their service. It would have given me access to a different designers all submitting concepts for me to chose from.

In a nutshell, 99designs is a creative design marketplace where designers submit concepts based on client needs. The client then chose’s the concept that best fits their needs and the winning designer gets paid.

• client posts a design contest that includes specifics of what they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay for the design
• designers start working on the project and send concepts through to the client
• client provides feedback on the concepts and designers make necessary tweaks to get the design just right
• after a few days the client chose’s a winning design from a large pool of concepts and the winning designer gets paid
• client receives the final design and the copyright to the work

Their services are not limited to just logo designs. They have designers that can cater to all of the following design needs:

The fact that you get to select the best design from concepts submitted by multi designers increases the chances of you getting what you want. Since there are number of people working on your project, the chances are much higher that there will be someone who can visualise exactly what you want and design it for you. An added bonus with 99designs is that if you aren’t happy with what you get, they have a 100% money back guarantee. You’ve got nothing to lose and a great design to gain.

There are countless numbers of jobs that are continually being outsourced by individuals and organisations and posted on freelance marketplaces such as oDesk, Elance and Freelancer.com just to name a few. The good thing about a lot of these short term projects is that you can work on them from the comfort of your own home and for anyone from anywhere in the world.

So many of us have expertise and knowledge that we don’t make full use of and these can range from web design, graphic design, writing, mobile app development, marketing, social media and the list goes on and on. More often than not, these areas may be something that you have taken up as a hobby and enjoy doing and they could be turned into an income stream. The thing is, there are a lot of people out there in the world who are looking for people with certain areas of expertise to help them complete projects they are working on.

In this day in age, finding freelance work is not that difficult as you can simply go to marketplaces such as those mentioned above and search for something suitable. That may not be ideal for everyone as one marketplace may not suit your needs as well as another. DoNanza is the perfect solution for people who want to be able to search for jobs available across the web. They are in a nutshell, a site that aggregates freelance projects from marketplaces and crowdsourcing platforms across the web. This increases the chances of you finding something that suits your needs without having to visit multiple sites.

They also have a publisher program that allows users to add a widget or project board to their site and earn money. Publishers are paid when users bid or work on projects. Publishers are also paid when employers post projects directly on their board. Payments are sent out monthly via cheque or PayPal.

Here is an example of a project board – Ninety Nine Ways Job Board

Freelancing is something that you should look into if you are out to make a little extra money or even take up full time. This is something that is open to anyone and everyone, the only requirement is that you are knowledgeable on whatever it is someone may need work on and that you can deliver!

The other day, I was looking around at what kinds of jobs are being advertised at the moment and I was surprised to see the number of positions popping up that have to do with social media. A couple people that I follow on Twitter have even managed to establish themselves as social media specialists and are managing accounts of a few small businesses.

All this got me thinking about the number of people who spend a lot of time on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and know their way around them and have managed to build up quite a presence. A lot of people do it just for fun but the knowledge that they have acquired through their use of social networks could be used to land them a job as a social media manager. I came across this video of how Kate Buck went from being unemployed to earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. As you can see from the video, she has gone a step further and teaches people how to become social media managers.

Details on the classes can be found here:

As you can see, if you are already into social media and want to make a bit of money from it becoming a social media manager is a very viable option that you can even do part time and still earn a considerable amount of money from.

I recently met a guy who is in the last year of his honours degree in Biomedical Science. The thing that struck me about him was how he is funding his education and getting money for his living expenses.

Sam (not his real name) had originally wanted to study medicine at the University of Auckland. He breezed through the Health Science first year papers and got excellent grades which guaranteed him a place in the medical programme. But, after a bit of contemplation he decided that medicine was not for him and he continued with biomedical science.

Sam is an intelligent individual and has a real passion for science. Early on in his university career he noticed that a number of his peers would approach him when they needed help with course related work. He then made a decision to start charging students for his services and to his surprise they were more than willing to pay.

Over time tutoring has become one of his business ventures to the point where he runs tutorials specifically geared towards students who are trying to gain entry into medicine. Tutorials are held 5 times a week and students are charged $40 per session. During the quieter times of the semester classes have an average size of about 25. If you do the math that’s:

• 25 students @ $40 each = $1,000 per night
• 5 nights @ $1,000/night = $5,000 per week

As you can imagine, when it comes to test and exam times, the class size grows and he could get up to 35 students (but that is really pushing it). That nets him:

• 40 students @ $40 each = $1,400 per night
• 5 nights @ $1,600/night = $7,000 per week

To add to that, he also runs UMAT workshops during the semester breaks which bring in about $7500 for 3 days work.

As you can see, he makes himself a good amount of money doing something that he is good at and most of all enjoys doing. Yes, he does get a bit tired at times because he does have other things to attend. Besides the money he gets a lot of satisfaction knowing that he has helped a number of students in achieving their goals and getting into the medical programme. These students have gone on to recommended his services to other prospective medical students and this has helped his business grow.

What Sam has done here is taken something he knows about and enjoys doing and turned it into a very lucrative revenue stream. Anyone out there can do the same because being a tutor is not limited to tutoring subjects such as chemistry, biology or physics. It can be absolutely anything from guitar lessons to hairdressing to using the internet and so and so forth. Everyone has something that they are good at and that being said, there is bound to be people out there who are looking for someone to teach them a thing or two about what you already know and enjoy doing.

If you know what you are good at and think that people would pay for you to tutor them, go out and find those and see just how far you can go.

This is a guest post by Demis of I Just Want Your Money. It just goes to show that anyone can come up with their own unique way of making money.

The first I felt the pinch of the “economic downturn” earlier in the year was it really punching below the belt. As a freelance visual effects artist working on feature films, often moving from film to film without much of a break, suddenly a huge hole of up to 6 months had opened in the local visual effects industry – scary no matter which way any of us were looking at it (for individuals and companies alike).

Fortunately for me, my wife’s job pretty much covers a lot of our basic living costs (including mortgage) for those times when things have occasionally gotten a bit lean, but this year was looking pretty mean, and I had to come up with a better solution than “house-husband” to fill in my days before the industry picked up again – whenever THAT was going to be.

Initially coming to be during an alcohol-fueled brain-storming session on my couch (“brain-storming” being a polite way of saying “the beer was doing the talking”), the idea behind ‘I Just Want Your Money‘ was actually inspired by those crazy Nigerian email-scammers – you know the ones! My wife and I were complaining about the larger-than-normal volume of spam mails we’d been experiencing that week, and I said something along the lines of : “… You know, if those guys just grew a pair and simply came right out and asked me politely for some cash, I might just give them some…”, as opposed to the constant lies and trickeries contained in those types of scam tactics.

Of course, the timing was perfect – with that same thought planted in my mind a few days later, I started putting together a website based entirely on that idea : be honest with people about my intentions (i.e. “I’m not doing too well with work right now – please give me some cash”), and follow it through with as much value-add as I can.

But how would I “value-add” on the website equivalent of the homeless guy in the street?

Simple – my “option 2″ was born, where I come up with as many fairly stupid (yet often fairly handy) items or services that I could do myself with minimal cash-outlay and minimal time, and post them all on the site.

At the lower end of the scale, there’s options like :

- for $10 I’ll make an ‘Awkward Phonecall’

- dob in a cheating boyfriend, tell a colleague about their terrible body odor, ask a guy/girl out for somebody else… you name it.

- for $25 I’d do a sexy dance on YouTube to whatever song they wanted. Ok, so I’m not much of a dancer, but I certainly give me my all.

- for $100 I’ll get my wife to nag you (she really is quite excellent in that regard) for an entire week, ideal for people who really need that little extra motivation to get organized!

… right through to the top-dollar options such as :

- for $10,000 I’ll fly anywhere in the world and do anything they want me to do – attend a highschool reunion as date, come and help someone out at tax-time, come play keyboards at someones wedding reception… in Kenya. Whatever they could come up with, so long as I wasn’t breaking any laws (or cheating on my wife!)

Taking a day of my time to set up (using default Paypal merchant facilities) I threw the link at my Facebook friends, and waited. Within 3 hours I’d covered all set-up costs and was starting to get into the realm of pure profit… I just wanted their money, and the punters out there seemed more than happy to part with their spare change!

So, how’s it doing now?

The set-up was a couple of months ago now, and to date the site has pulled in thousands without a heck of a lot of maintenance or upkeep. The best part is that all the while I’ve still been plucking away at my REAL job taking whatever I can get when opportunities arise, then filling in the off days performing “Sexy Dances”, making “Awkward Phonecalls” and doing anything else waiting in my inbox! It hasn’t made me a rich man, but it has certainly taken the edge off things for someone who went from two incomes down to one-and-a-bit almost overnight!

Curiously enough, the phonecalls have been the big winner for me – it has out-performed any of the other various services I put up on offer, and fortunately for me, it is also the one which costs me the least to do! Think about it – I can call any phone number in the world for, let’s say, 2 cents, for the minute or so I need to actually make my phonecall. WIth a price-tag of $10, that’s really not such a bad profit margin. Of course, the hard part isn’t dialing the number, but having the guts to cold-call some random stranger and deliver a potentially messy message to them, keeping a straight face! (For instance “My neighbour has been making way too much noise during sex – can you let him know to keep the noise down for me?” is one of my all time favourites. Just stop for a minute and consider how that call would go down if YOU were the recipient!)

But what about the “Option 1″ income? I’m still quite surprised just how many people have thrown me a few dollars expecting nothing in return apart from maybe an email thank-you! These good-will donations have probably made up about 20% of all cash received, which really says a lot about the generosity of the good people on the internet! I suppose the website is just funny and cocky enough, that even if somebody isn’t willing to fork out for something as useful (yet attractive) as a $25 Autographed Headshot of yours truly, they still might laugh just enough to pass me a dollar!

The big question for me is what happens next?

It’s only a matter of time before my career get’s too busy again (often 15-hour-days in this industry!) to be bothered shaking my behind on YouTube anytime someone requests it. I also don’t want to keep saying I’m unemployed once I’m actually busy, so plans are already underway to take the best performers on the site and revamp the whole angle so that I can keep it alive long after the recession has gone! The guys I work for some of the time now are already getting fairly used to my “Awkward Phonecall Breaks”, so I’m sure I’ll be able to keep those going, as well as whatever else I can think of to keep the cash flowing!

For now, I’m keeping it real, keeping it honest. What started as a joke over a few drinks has become one of the more entertaining chapters of my online life, and while there’s still a willing audience, I’m going to keep on shaking it!

Skype has an advice and services directory where users can get advice by voice or video over Skype Prime. It gives those who have a bit of expertise in areas such as Relationship advice and Counseling, Computer and Internet, Business and Personal finance and other areas a way of making some extra money by helping people out.

• Download Skype
• Set up a PayPal account (to get paid)
• Open Skype, go to Account > Earn money with Skype Prime and follow the instructions
• Name your service and how much you wish to charge
• Create a directory listing

Many of you are skilled at a number of things involving computers that you do as a hobby. This can include things (word choice) such as graphic design, web design, programming and so on. You may have been at whatever it is for a while and perfected it or you may just have natural talent. You may want to consider getting yourself set up and selling your services online.

There are a number of freelance websites where you can list your services and get found by people who need to get a particular job done.

Elance which has been running for a few years is one of the leading freelancing platforms. Elance works on a bidding system where providers bid on projects. As a service provider, you will need to build a profile which will include your experience, skills and portfolio. From this point on you can go out and look for work. Clients may also ask you to bid on projects that they have open. If your bid is selected you accept it you can contact the buyer to discuss the project details and start working.

Buyers pay for services rendered through the Elance Payment System from where they will be available for withdrawal. Depending on where you are in the world, you can withdraw payments via Automated Clearing House, cheque or wire transfer.

There are fees associated with using their services. There is a monthly membership fee which is dependant on the membership plan you choose to use and the services you provide. These fees range from $11/month to $199/month. There are four membership plans which include Courtesy, Limited, Professional and Select. The higher the plan you choose, the more access you have to membership benefits and a higher monthly bid allotment. If you exceed your monthly bid allotment you are charged $1.50 per additional bid. They also charge a project fee which is a percentage of the transactions and ranges from 6.75% to 8.75%. One draw back that I see with their service is that you may not end up making much for projects if your bids are low and you have to pay monthly and transactions fees.

If Elance does not seem like a viable option to you an option to take into consideration is Bizreef. They are a new company that got up and running this year and already has 25,000+ providers signed up. They run on a system very similar to Elance. You list your services and you can wait for people to find you or you can bid on projects. They seem to lean more towards buyers seeking out service providers and if they can’t find any then they can open a project and wait for bids to come in. One big point of difference between from Elance is that it is FREE to list your services or bid on projects.

After sign up, you go on to fill out a service profile where you list all the services you will offer and wait for business to come in or go out and seek it. Bizreef has more categories in which to list your services which is good as the service that you have to offer may not be listed on Elance. Another good point about BizReef is that they offer 18 currencies and you could get paid out in your own currency. Payments made out via cheque, Google Checkout, PayPal or wire transfer.

The other side of the coin is that you can use Elance to find a professional or BizReef for Anything you need! You can find someone to get a job done at a price that you can afford. This will also save you the time and trouble of looking around for a place to outsource your project. The great thing about these services is that money is paid in escrow and only paid out once a project has been completed and the buyer is satisfied with the finished product.