Starting my own Brand: What I’ve learned since 2010

Hey, it's Cherene Francis here! In today's blog, I will share how to make money online in 2024. I am an actor, producer, and creative in Toronto. I have been earning money online since 2010. Before, it was super cool and well-known, but now it's the norm and industry standard. The last time I was employed was in 2013. I've been on my own, in my own business, gaining so much knowledge and hard-learned lessons from doing things on my own two feet, and I'm going to share everything I can with you. 

Especially if you are creative and a work-from-home mom like me, this will be a game changer because you will have the flexibility to make money on your own terms. It's also a very fulfilling way to do what you want, work with whom you wish to, and do work you love.

Now, all of it isn't sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. There will always be some hard, challenging things you will need to learn. If you continue reading through my blog, I'll give you as much insight and inspiration as possible to get your business off the ground. The suggestions I will also give you are taken from real-life experience, working with clients, and consulting with other online companies. So here's my brand.

And as you can see, it states what I do. Firstly, I'm an actor and a producer; I create and direct films and write for films. Most importantly, I am a creator. So overall, I'm behind or in front of the camera. I love to create digital content, which is why I made my brand around that. 

15 Ways to Make Money Online

Today,  I will be sharing 15 ways to make money online. Choose the one that fits your interests, your goals. Some of them take longer to generate income. Others are really fast and lucrative. in my opinion, my favorite. I will share that at the end. Be sure to read through to find out which one's best for you!

Starting with a Personal Brand

The number one thing that is most important for making money online is having a brand. And if it can be a personal brand, even better. A personal brand is a story that you share with your audience. It's about how you help your audience achieve their goals and desires. 

Creating a personal brand is a combination of your own stories, interests, skill sets, lifestyle, and your audience's interests and lifestyle, et cetera, et cetera. The combination of your audience and you coming together is a beautiful story of transformation, of people experiencing success, of people learning and growing from your content through the content you create. 

This can then be monetized through all of the things that I just mentioned. You don't need to do all of them. It's better to focus on one, two, three, or multiple streams. But you want to launch them only on time because it can be challenging.

One of the ways that I monetize my brand is by doing a lot of branding and marketing, coaching and consulting, content creation, storytelling, and creative consulting. It's all in the same wheelhouse. As a creative entrepreneur and actor, you could do the same thing wherever you are in your wheelhouse.

Now, you want to think about your website, personal brand, and social media properties as the place where all things can be monetized, where you can find clients and generate income. 

Voiceovers

So voiceovers make a ton of sense. I mean, if you're already an actor, why not? If you are a non union actor, you can look for non union work as a voiceover artist. If you are on Google, there is a list of job boards sites that allow you to connect with employers looking for voiceover actors. Voices.com upwork another great platform for voiceovers is ACX, right? 

So if you want to do narration, you can come over here and make yourself a profile and start auditioning for voiceover work. 

User Generated Content (UGC)

Now, this one's great for actors. It's the same, just like voiceovers. Head to websites like Fiverr, type in actors, and you'll see many other examples of businesses hiring actors for promo videos and social media content. It's also called UGC. UGC stands for user-generated content. 

I am a fan of both Upwork and Fiverr. So, there are a ton more freelance platforms that also look for this type of work. But the keyword is UGC, UGC creator, and all of that; it takes the form of a presentation. So if you're skilled working with a camera, you should be if you're an actor? All of that is great if you want to be able to monetize your content. 

Affiliate Marketing

I've been making money this way the longest, and it's the most passive of them all. It's where you have to create a unique URL link, and when people click your unique link, you get a commission. I'm going to show you how that works. 

For example, this is a video that I have. It's called Lucrative Side Hustle.

I recommend Fiverr. And when I suggested it, I made a note there. I get a small commission for referring you. So commissions could be anything. It depends on what you are referring to or what you recommend with your affiliate links; you could also put your affiliate links in your blog. 

You could sign up to share a sale and become an affiliate partner with brands to promote a product. And you again get a commission. There is an affiliate program for it and CJ commission junction. These have been around. Furthermore, these platforms were around when I was doing this back in 2010. 

There's a lot more of them today. Anytime you have a product that you like, I recommend finding out if they have an affiliate program and then using that affiliate, putting it in your blog or social media links. I also love earning money through advertising, specifically on your branded website. 

Advertising

Google Adsense is one of the leading advertisers that's really easy to plug and play. So people buy ads on Google, and when you take a particular tracker and put it on your website, you can earn money. And it's very well done and super easy. 

For example, this is my blog. I don't use this form of revenue right now, but when I started and had a stylist and fashion blog, I would have Google Adsense on the sidebars here. 

You could put it in this section or above or anywhere in your blog you want to put it. Whenever you have that tracker there, if someone clicks on it, you get paid per click, and it's very effective. It's a very passive way to do it. If you have a lot of traffic you're generating for your blog, you can make money that way, even in your sleep. 

Becoming an Influencer

This one is very popular and omnipresent these days, other than advertising on your website. With Google Adsense, you could do the exact same thing on every social media platform. On YouTube, some creators are monetizing with their ad programs. Facebook has a way that you can monetize and TikTok Instagram.

They all have their own specific way in which you can monetize your social media following. And on the same topic, brand deals are very similar. So the difference between brand deals and just having debates on, say, YouTube or Facebook is when an outside brand, you have a deal with them. Before signing, reading all the fine print before you make a contract deal is crucial. 

For example, it could be creating an X amount of videos for us of you eating our cereal brand. This is very similar to the UGC creator content we saw on Fiverr. They overlap in more ways than one and are different enough to keep them separate. You will want to ensure you're not crossing any boundaries, especially if you are a union actor. 

But again, having brand deals is awesome because you not only could have it on your social media outlets and following, but you could, again, make a brand deal for your blog. And just like with affiliate marketing, there are websites dedicated to pairing brands that want to have influencers or social media, content creators, actors, etc. 

They will be pairing you together. So, for example, if you're an influencer, you would click this button. If it were a brand, they'd click the other button. That's one way that you can monetize your website and all your other social media platforms.

Creating Digital Content

One of my favorite ways to make money online is through digital content. This can be through selling ebooks, audiobooks, courses, cheat sheets, etc., whatever you can publish and make apps. All of that is something you could create, sell, and make money online. One of my favorite places to go is Kajabi. I'm just putting this out there: I'm also an affiliate with Kajabi. 

Kajabi hosts my website and blog, and it takes my payment as a consultant and coach. People also were able to log in and purchase my short film. I have a course there as well. This is a course on content creation that people can buy. I have ebooks here.

What else? So much like an app, Kajabi allows you to create an app if you want to be a coach and have an accountability community. So that's one way for you to post your content and monetize it. 

Amazon also lets you publish your ebook through their KDP program, Kindle Direct Publishing. If you want to write books, but they don't need to be long, you can print coloring books, crossword puzzles, word searches, and journals on demand with Amazon. 

Another cool thing about them is that there's this ACX program, which is where you can publish audiobooks to Audible. And it's a wonderful platform for you as an author to create, publish, and make money. And if you want something more simple, there are websites like Gumroad and Shopify; there are so many others similar to them. 

The list goes on and on, where you can create a digital product, host it for yourself, and come and buy it. Like this person is selling, it looks like their album. Let's see, people are selling graphic design stuff, self-improvement, health stuff, photography, business, and money. Like the topics go on and on, fiction books. So you could sell digital content, books, courses, templates, all that sort of stuff.

Making and Selling Products

Creating and selling handmade products is another great way to make money online. If you're an artsy person and you like creating physical things, then you’re gonna love Etsy. 

This is a marketplace where if you're creating physical products and selling them, this is the marketplace to do that—necklaces, jewelry, books, planners, bags, and clothes. There's so much you can sell here. Create your own store and so much more. You could also embed this store into your website, whatever you create here, which is why I love Etsy. I'm always shopping here and you should too. 

Become a Reseller

You may love to thrift, and you like to buy old or vintage things, resell them, and have a few pieces that are not your style anymore. eBay is a great place to do that. You can also use apps to start selling items right now. If you go to your App Store and type in resell or sell used items, you can begin setting up your own store. You may be reselling a themed thing or something in a niche market. It could be that you collect trading cards, for example, or sneakers, which are now popular to resell. It could be like clothes from the 90s, a focus on clothes from days gone by, generally, things you can find stacked up in your uncle's garage—a great way to clean out your closet and make money online.

Selling Photos and Templates Online

If you have a knack for graphic design, you can create your graphic templates and then resell those assets. There are many people involved and flocking to Creative Market. I love Creative Market; I'm also an affiliate with them.  There are tons of other websites where you could do this. Vector graphics and Shopify are places you can sell website themes, social media, and templates. Canva templates. I've bought a lot of Canva templates from here. There is so much that you can do with these assets. Pick an area that you'd like to focus on and start selling. You could also sell stock images as well. 

If you are a photographer and taking pictures is your passion, you can add those photos and videos here. Here is one platform where you can upload any of your photography, and people can buy them, and you get paid for it, right? So, create an account, start shooting, and submit your content so you can start making good money. 

Drop Shipping Products

Disclaimer: This is one that I haven't really gotten into myself because it can be a little iffy, depending on what platform you're choosing. Drop shipping is basically when you have a website, someone goes to your website, and let's say they purchased lip gloss, and the lip gloss is a specific brand. What happens is someone will give you money. So you might say sell it for $10. And when you get that $10, the company ships lip gloss to them for you, and it might cost you a total of, say, seven dollars for them to sell the item, package it, and ship it to them. So that's just an example. You had to do nothing. All you had to do was collect the money and give the company their cut while you would keep the profit, which would have been $3 in that example.

So here's Aliexpress. The only thing is, depending on who your drop shipper is, it could take forever to receive an item. It could be concerning if you're unable to ship fast enough. Here's another one: CJ drop shipping. This is similar to the CJ affiliate program. But again, there are millions, as it says, of products that you can list on your website as if they were your own product. Still, it's another company, and then they send it out for you. 

Selling Print on Demand Products

T-shirts, hats, mugs, sippy cups, journals. As you can see, there's Printify. They will print on demand, meaning that you don't have to say, buy 100 t-shirts and then sell them all based on someone's transaction that places an order. They will ship it for you. You will be responsible for designing whatever picture goes on the item that you're selling. Then, you upload the graphics to that platform, and they sell it once somebody purchases it. So it's printed on demand, and you don't need to stack a hundred boxes in your garage.

Here's another one. Gelato. There's tons of sites to choose from. Again I'm just picking out the top websites for you to be able to make your own products without the inconvenience of hoarding them in your house. 

Website Testing

I've done this one before and haven't done it in years, but it still works! Website Testing is, essentially, you get paid to test websites out. You just sign up and create an account. They'll let you know when there's a website to test, and you make a couple of bucks. Sometimes, it's a good amount, but they might ask you for two minutes on a website and pay you $10 for two minutes of your time to try out a website. I've done it before. It's efficient and easy to make money this way, especially if you want a stress-free side hustle. 

Coaching, Consulting, and Freelancing

Suppose you have a specialization or expertise in a particular area or topic. In that case, you can coach or consult with individuals and companies to help them reach their goals. You can start today and start to see thousands of dollars. You could literally quit your job in three to six months with something like this. Let me give you a few tips on this. I will go deeper on this topic in another blog post.

For example, on my website, I have a section offering freelance services in branding and marketing. 

If you visit my website, you can see that I offer services that help people with their personal brand. If this is something that you need as an actor or you want to start a consulting business or coaching business, I help people with their branding and storytelling that sells. 

 Another way to do this is to plug into freelancer platforms. Fiverr is a place where I also list some of my services. I am an avid user of Fiverr, so you can see whatever I have listed. I am also able to represent my branding here, such as a Marketing consultant and other services related to writing. At the time of writing this blog, I am a pro seller, which is in the top 2% of sellers on the marketplace. 

In the marketplace, you can become a top seller. Being a top seller means you are very good at your job.

I'm a pro and top seller, meaning I make a really good income from Fiverr alone. If you go to Fiverr, for example, and you type in a stylist, you'll see some people offering services on fixing your style and helping you pick out which clothes to wear. 

Are you good at fashion? You don't have to have gone to fashion school to start. You just got to build your profile here. Health coaching, graphic designers, writers, and voiceover artists are available here. There's so much that you can do on this platform. Health coaching, holistic breath work herbal strategy. There are people that are selling a bunch of coaching and consulting work. You can do business coaching here, social media consulting, and more. That's Fiverr in a nutshell. 

Join Fiverr Here! (I get a small commission for referring you)

There's also Upwork—which is practically the same thing. I just searched for a copywriter, and people are making money hourly. Upwork was where I started first, and I think it's a great platform. Again, coaching and consulting are excellent choices, especially if you want to be a social media manager. 

You can find a business that will pay you $1,000 a month and more to manage their social media for the month. If you're trying to quit your job, or you want a lump sum of money rather than just getting a few dollars here and there. All you need is a couple of clients, and you are making a reasonable lump sum of money online before you know it!

Other Freelancer Platforms:

UPWORK: https://www.upwork.com/

FREELANCER: https://freelancer.com/

You Can Do This!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read through my blog. If you want more inspiration and insight on how you can make money online as a creative entrepreneur, always remember, you can do this. You can be fulfilled in creating the life you want and it’s all in your hands!

If you're interested in accessing my links, check them out below:

I Built My Website and Host All My Courses on KAJABI

My Fiverr Business Profile

Join Fiverr Here! (I get a small commission for referring you)