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A good example of multiple streams of income at
work in traditional business is the modern newspaper. A newspaper company brings
in revenue in three ways: by selling the papers, by selling advertising space,
and by selling classified ads. Each of these is another stream of revenue for
the newspaper. Furthermore, some newspapers have added an additional stream by
charging for access to their online content.
For the home-based business owners like
yourself, the key is to follow the advice of the old saying: "Don't put all of
your eggs in one basket." Instead, you should work on developing multiple
streams of income.
Think in terms of a river. One river may have
hundreds of small tributaries and streams emptying into it along its path.
Without these waterways, the river level would fall considerably and may one day
disappear completely. The same is true in business. Your revenue is like that
river; it needs to be nourished by many sources, not just one. If that one
source slows down or dries up, the negative impact on the flow of your revenue
is dramatic.
Once you understand why you need multiple
streams of income, the question is how do you create them. One home-based
business owner who specialized in writing secured her multiple streams of income
by owning her own business, doing freelance work for two other companies, and
teaching a class at a local business college.
Another home-based business owner joined
affiliate programs offered by big name retailers and earned money by
imaginatively incorporating them into her heavily trafficked web site.
Still another took his existing product which
was designed to help marketers produce effective e-zine articles, made some
minor changes, and re-packaged it as a tool for students struggling to write
school essays.
As these examples show, multiple streams of
income can be derived in a number of ways if you think creatively. The key is to
look for ways that complement your existing business.
If you sell gourmet cookies, for example, you
could produce cookbooks. If you work with Internet marketing, set up an online
bookstore full of marketing books via an affiliate program. If you design web
sites, teach a course on it at your local college or offer it online through
your existing business site.
The possibilities for establishing multiple
streams of income are endless. But you must always remember that the key to
successfully managing multiple streams of income is not to lose focus on your
primary revenue generating activity.
Have you ever been to a web site so covered in
ads that you could not tell what service or product was even being sold? Most
people have. The people who run those sites do not realize that visitors are not
coming to see banner ads for other companies' products, but to learn more about
theirs.
When visitors are bombarded by these other ads,
they leave in frustration. In the long run, the site loses money because it
simply isn't generating enough sales to justify charging a decent rate for
advertising. The idea is balancing these other ways of earning you money without
taking away from the income stream you already have.
Once you have your streams in place and learn
how to maintain this equilibrium, your revenue will flow like a steady river and
will keep your home-based business on solid ground.
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