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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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