Last time I introduced the concept of Multiple Streams of Income. The idea being that, by not relying on a single source of income, you build a more secure financial base.
I also pointed out that, in order to give you the financial freedom you need, each income stream has to work on auto pilot. You really cannot be involved in all the traditional tasks of business in more than one venture at a time. So how do you achieve this perfection?
Two possible ways – the simple and the relatively more complex. So let’s take the simple first!
1. Agency or Affiliate Programs
Basically this involves selling other people’s goods and services (usually on-line though not necessarily). Look for products and services that match your own interests and that you can be enthusiastic about.
Seek out suppliers that deliver quality products and excellent customer service and who also sell via agents or have a good affiliate program. They will then pay you a commission on everything you sell on their behalf. They are responsible for all production, delivery, customer service, billing & collection, after sales etc. And often they will pay your commission direct into your bank – you don’t even have to take the cheques to the bank!
By going down this road, you relieve yourself of most of the administrative & operational chores of running a business. All you do is recommend great products and services to people and watch your bank account fill up!
Another great advantage to being an affiliate is that you can always add to or even replace your affiliate programs as market conditions change. Not an easy thing to do with a business of your own.
You can get more information on affiliate marketing from my latest website:
www.learnaffiliatemarketing.co.uk.
2. Multiple Businesses
This is much harder but ultimately more rewarding if successful. As an affiliate you can build up a very nice income, but you will not build a saleable asset. By building multiple small businesses you get the benefits of multiple income streams plus multiple business assets.
An ideal way to approach this method is to look for niche markets. Niche markets specialise in a specific area of interest, e.g. hobbies sports etc. or are focused on a particular group of people, e.g. accountants or guest house owners or people who want to lose weight….. etc.
On-line you can find these markets by looking to see what people are searching for in search engines such as Google or Ask.com. Two tools you can use for this are:
www.wordtracker.com which gives you the top 500 search terms each month and
www.google.com which has an excellent search term suggestion tool.
Off-line, go to your local newsagents and scan the magazine shelves – they are literally stuffed with special interest magazines. Look at the classifieds in the back for an indication of what others are selling to readers of the publication. Read the articles and letters pages to find out what this group of people are most interested in. This will give you some ideas of things you may be able to sell to them.
The most important thing to remember is – do one thing at a time and really focus on getting it right! Pick one niche. Research it thoroughly, look for products or services that can be easily obtained and sold to that market. Ensure that your business can be set up in such a way as to automate it. Then focus on building that one business until it is running smoothly on auto- pilot and making a good profit.
Once the first business is up and running, you can repeat the process as many times as you want. Just make sure that each business is monitored to ensure that it doesn’t “fall over” when you are not looking. It’s a bit like the “plate spinning” juggler at the circus – all you have to do is keep the plates spinning! 🙂
