High-Income Skills
These are high-income skills and businesses that are relevant today. They don’t take that much experience to get started, won’t cost thousands of dollars, won’t take years to make money with, and they’re all in demand right now. These skills are ranked into different tiers, and the first is
SKILL #1: CREATING VIDEO CONTENT. It’s important to be very specific about this because video content creation is actually a pretty complex skill that includes many smaller sub-skills within it. Running a YouTube channel means that creating a video is not just sitting in front of a camera and talking. There’s so much more that goes into it. First, you need to know your niche that’s hours and hours of experience and tons of expertise that go into a video.
First: Research and Expertise
Then, you have to be a researcher. Every video starts with it looking up information, trying and testing different tools, gathering data. In a way, it’s working a little bit like a journalist, digging into topics and finding the most valuable information to share. If it’s a tutorial, you have to first learn how to do something yourself, and then show it in an easy, chunkable way. Then you have to be a good writer scripting out the video, organizing the information in a way that makes sense and keeps the audience engaged. Next, you have to be a presenter, learning how to speak on camera, how to deliver information clearly, how to keep energy up throughout a 10 to 15-minute video. But it doesn’t stop there.
Setting up the Studio and Editing
You also need to know how to set up a studio understand lighting, how to set up the camera, what settings to use for the best image quality, what frame rate, and so on. And then there’s video editing. Most content creators these days need at least a basic understanding of video editing even if it’s not complicated Hollywood-level stuff. At a certain level, video editing skills come into play when putting together footage, recording screenshare clips, doing the zoom in, zoom out, cutting out mistakes, searching for b-roll videos, syncing up audio. The point is, content creation is not just one skill it’s a bundle of skills that all work together.
Scaling and Mastering Content Creation
Technically, you can use different people to scale for example, not editing every video and instead using an experienced video editor for that part. But having at least some experience editing yourself is necessary, otherwise how would you know if the video editor is doing a good job? And that’s exactly why it’s such a high-income skill, because when you master content creation, you’re bringing massive value to any business or brand that needs to build an online presence. It can be your own business, or you could be an in-house video content creator for another company. The pros of content creation are that it’s extremely high in demand right now. Every business wants to create content. Every entrepreneur wants to build a personal brand. And very few people actually know how to do all of these different components well.
Pros and Cons of Video Creation
It’s also highly scalable. Once you understand the full content creation process, you can either do it yourself for clients or you can build a team around you and manage the process. The cons? It’s very time-intensive. It requires you to learn multiple skills at once. And there’s a lot of competition at the entry level because everyone thinks they can create content just because they have a smartphone. But if you can position yourself as a full-stack content creator who understands the entire process from research to filming to editing to publishing, you can charge premium rates. That’s why this is considered an S-tier skillset. Some brands reach out asking to record videos that they’ll publish on their own channels.
Skill #2: AI Automation
AI Automation and Efficiency
This is one of the best skills you can learn right now. Number one: AI has that “wow factor” within the market no matter what industry you’re selling it to. AI automation can be done in so many ways. It’s basically using tools or software to help businesses make their life easier. it could be to save them time, it could be to make them money, it could be just to sync processes up. The pros of AI automation are that it’s scalable, it’s future-proof, and AI tools are pretty low cost.
Industries for AI Automation
It’s also easy to demonstrate value propositions to businesses. There are overlooked industries also called “boring” markets. that need AI automation and that no one is looking into. For example, the waste and recycling industry, health care, elder care, pet care, and many more. As for the rating, AI Automation is an A-tier skill. The income potential is amazing and it’s future-proof, but it doesn’t reach S-tier simply because it can be a little harder to get into without a fairly technical background.
Skill #3: Software Consulting
Consulting for Businesses
If you have a technical background, it will be easier to learn AI automation. This involves working mostly with businesses, which means you can charge significant fees and your clients will have the budget to pay you. Businesses all use different software, and often they are run and managed by people who are far less tech-savvy. If you are a millennial or younger, you likely grew up on the internet and know how to use different software. For example, you might be familiar with an app that many people use for their personal life, but that many businesses also use to manage their operations. If you can get good at using that software, you can become a consultant who helps and trains businesses in how to use it.
Consulting Examples and Expertise
It might be hard to believe without any corporate experience, but businesses will hire consultants to teach them basic things they could learn themselves from the internet. The reason they do that is because business owners don’t have time. For example, a YouTube channel focused on 3D software used by architects and architectural agencies can lead to companies reaching out for Zoom sessions to teach their team members how to use that software. A 1-hour 1:1 consultation in that space can command $400.
Pricing and Software Variety
For group coaching calls, the rate is even higher. And most businesses will book a bundle because 1 hour usually isn’t enough time, making it easy to issue invoices for a few thousand dollars per client. That’s a pretty high-income skill. 3D rendering software is just one example, but there are hundreds of different software tools that businesses commonly use: email marketing tools, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Asana, QuickBooks, Web flow, Zapier that’s just a few. There’s so much software out there that businesses rely on.
Learning the Language of Business
A really valuable aspect of software consulting is how much you learn by doing it. You learn how to price your services, how to sell them, how to persuade someone over a Zoom call to buy your services. You learn the language of business — how to speak to entrepreneurs, how to speak in terms of return on investment. None of this is taught at university. You only learn this by doing it. For that reason, software consulting ranks at A-tier.
Essentially, this is the process of running ads on platforms including Facebook, Google, and TikTok. It’s one of the skills that’s easy to sell because you are offering businesses profits. If you help a business make $10k for each $3k ad spend, they will keep coming back.
Skill #4: Media Buying (Paid Ads)
Demand and Scalability of Ads
It’s a very in-demand skill because 90% of companies run ads. Income is also very scalable because you can charge retainers signing clients for 6 or 12 months upfront rather than month to month. It works in any niche, so it’s always going to be one of the best skills out there. You can learn a lot about running ads just by reading the documentation in the Help Centers of each platform. All of them also have a ton of free educational resources online you just need to invest your time and effort to learn. Since it’s a very good skill but it’s quite hard to convince your first few clients to work with you before you have any stats to show, it ranks at A-tier.
Skill #5: High Ticket Sales
Talent and Negotiating Skills
This is one of those skills that directly results in people making money, and it’s a fantastic one because it applies to any industry and is very scalable depending on the kind of market you work in. It’s a skill, but you also need to have a talent for it. If you’re a naturally good negotiator and can speak with confidence with any kind of person in front of you, then high-ticket sales could be worth trying. Initially, you will be trading your time for money directly until you gain some experience. Sales has a reasonably steep learning curve you learn through practice, but in order to get practice, you need to have some results.
Breaking into High Ticket Sales
So it’s one of those chicken-or-the-egg situations. The best way to break into it is to find a company that’s willing to train you. Many high-ticket sales companies especially in industries like software, coaching, consulting, real estate, or insurance will hire people with zero experience and put them through a training program. You might start as a “setter” or “appointment setter” where you’re just booking calls for the senior closers, and then work your way up to becoming a closer yourself. Most high-ticket sales roles pay either a base salary plus commission or pure commission. The commission structure usually ranges from 5% to 20% depending on the industry. So if you’re selling a $10,000 coaching program at 10% commission, that’s $1,000 per sale.
Economics and Transferable Skills
Close 10 sales in a month? That’s $10,000. Close 20? That’s $20,000. The income ceiling is incredibly high. And the beautiful thing about sales is that it’s a transferable skill. Once you learn how to sell in one industry, you can take those skills to any other industry. The fundamentals of understanding human psychology, handling objections, and closing deals those principles apply everywhere. Sales is always going to be in demand, making it an A-tier skill. The only reason it’s not S-tier is that you are trading your time directly for money until you become very good at it and can build a team around you.