 "Your Online PR and Free Content Source" Submit Your Articles, Press Releases, and Books/Ebooks, Get Free Content |
 
|
|
"Your Online PR and Free Content Source" Submit Your Articles, Press Releases, and Books/Ebooks, Get Free Content |
|
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Multiple Streams of
Income
|
My
understanding and adventure with multiple streams of income all started back in
1990. I was a stay at home mom at the time with a two-year-old and a newborn. My
husband, who managed a major retail shoe store, decided he was tired of working
80 hours a week and quit his job for an outside sales position. Within a few
days, he discovered cold calling to be a totally different animal than selling
shoes to people in a mall. But there was no turning back. He quit the job and
began his search for new employment.
Things
were tough. When he couldn’t find a job immediately, he tried selling
insurance for a friend, but that wasn’t his bag either. After a few months of
this, we began to think that I might need to start looking for a job. I had
advanced computer skills and was qualified for most office positions in the
newspaper. I remember coming home from my first interview and sitting at my
kitchen table with the overwhelming feeling that getting a job and leaving my
small children was not the path I should take.
That
afternoon in May of 1990, an idea I’d had a few years earlier popped into my
mind. I’d always thought it would be fun to teach people computer software
from my home – you know, the way people go to an instructor’s house and take
piano lessons. They could come to my house and take computer lessons.
Right
then, I got the number for the classified ad department out of the newspaper and
called to find out how much an advertisement in the help wanted section would
cost. It was only about $5 for a Sunday run, something I could easily afford and
they’d bill me later. So I hung up the phone and wrote my first advertisement.
It went something like this:
“Are
you being turned down for jobs because you don’t know WordPerfect, Lotus or
PageMaker? Call ###-#### for individual, hands-on computer training that fits
your schedule.”
The
ad ran the next Sunday, and I immediately had two students enrolled. I was off
and running with no curriculum or any idea what or how I was going to teach
them. I set to work creating my own computer lessons and the rest was history.
In a few more months, in October and November of 1990, I had over 40 hours of
training per week booked on my calendar. Many times there were 2-3 people in the
classes. To me, it was nothing short of a miracle.
But
computer training was a seasonal business. For example, from Thanksgiving
through around mid-January no one wanted to take computer classes. So I learned
to sell gift certificates for discounted classes. I always got the name and
address of anyone who called in response to the newspaper ad so that I could
mail them course schedules and outlines. I took this list and mailed everyone
who’d ever expressed an interest in my classes around the holidays offering a
normally $130 class for only $99. They could put it on a gift certificate for
later use or to give to a friend. People bought them to go along with new
computers they gave family members for Christmas. Or some people just bought
them while they were a good deal, and then took the classes later.
After
about three years of teaching computers from home, I had it down to a science. I
knew how to structure classes, how to place ads, how to keep people coming back
for more and telling their friends about me. As a matter of fact, even now I get
the occasional call from someone wanting me to teach them a software program,
and I haven’t been doing computer training in over seven years!
In
1993, I first got online with
From
there, I got into Web design and online marketing. In 1995, my friend Alanna
Webb and I partnered to create the Web’s first online mall. Over the years,
I’ve kept writing and kept creating Web sites until I have a plethora of
online products and services that continually bring income in increasing ways
and means. Today, my revenues come from the following sources:
Multiple
income streams give you security. You can’t count on one employer, one client
or one method of earning money. You have to stay on what Alanna Webb refers to
as “the bleeding edge” not just the cutting edge. You can do that by staying
in touch with your customers and prospects and by listening to what they need
and want. Don’t be satisfied selling them only one product or service.
Discover their needs and fill those needs with back-end products and services
that will smooth out your cash flow and bullet-proof your business.
Everyone
is different with different skills and talents. Your multiple income streams
will be different than mine. In this book, you’ll learn some standard means
and methods for packaging your knowledge in proven ways to not only earn the
money you need, but also give the public what they want.
It
all starts with you assessing your resources. What talents, abilities, strengths
and tools do you have? Are you good at sales? Do you communicate well with
people? Can you write? Do you have a flair for the artistic? Do you have a
unique skill or ability that others do not? Do you know how to sell things on
eBay and Amazon? Write down all your skills and talents.
Then
write down all the physical resources you have. Do you own a computer? Do you
have a color printer or a scanner or a digital camera? Can you burn CD’s or
DVD’s? Do you have an unlimited long distance plan? Do you have one of those
little gadgets that can record a phone call? Perhaps you have a cell phone? A
parcel of land? A van? A pickup truck? Write it all down – write down anything
of value that you have that could be used as a resource.
Now,
think about your friends and family. What do they possess that you have access
to? Do you know someone who is a fantastic marketer? Do you know someone who is
a copywriter? A lawyer? A mechanic? A chef? Everyone you know is a resource to
you. You are not an island! You have access to the talents, skills and resources
of everyone around you. You may have to give them something to gain access to
what they have, but their knowledge, skills and resources are available to you.
Let
me give you an example of what I mean here. My friend, Alanna Webb, and I have
been developing internet communities since 1995. We have lots of friends who are
webmasters of large internet communities which represent millions of page views
of internet traffic per month. A couple years ago when the bottom fell out of
the banner ad industry, many webmasters were struggling financially. Through a
serendipitous string of events, Alanna learned about a type of advertising that
some advertisers were buying up like hotcakes and paying excellent rates.
Not
only were our sites candidates, but so were those of our friends. So together,
we started an advertising network and sold these advertisements on all of our
friends’ sites. In a period of 6 months, we sold over $50,000 in advertising
revenues for our friends and ourselves. It helped a lot of people put food on
the table while solving a marketplace need.
So
as you assess your resources, look beyond yourself! When you think creatively,
you make the pie bigger for you and those around you.
Step 2: Brainstorm Money-Making Ideas
Now
that you have your list of resources in front of you on a sheet of paper, read
over them and start asking yourself:
Brainstorm
a list of at least ten ideas that have the potential for making money. Take some
time if you need it. Carry this list around in your pocket or purse and as you
think of ideas, add them to the list.
Now
that you have the ten or more ideas listed, you’ll want to select the one(s)
that fit with your overall mission or theme. In “A
Christian’s Guide to Surviving a Home Business” I go into depth on
how to create a mission statement for your life. Whatever income streams you
decide to implement, make sure they fit with your overall mission.
Anytime
you develop a new product or service, you should evaluate it against your
mission to see if it fits. Sometimes, I don’t stop to consider this and I run
off in a direction that feels right without necessarily evaluating it against my
mission. For example, for over ten years now, I’ve been writing non-fiction.
Then a couple years ago, my distributor suggested I try fiction. There was one
particular story about my fourth great-grandmother that I’d always wanted to
write, but didn’t think I had what it took to write fiction.
Through
the encouragement of my friends and my distributor, I decided to give it a try
and discovered that I absolutely loved it. I started running with the genre and
found that not only did I have a knack for it, but it gave me an immense amount
of joy.
After
I’d written several novels, I took a breath and stepped back and thought,
Wait, how does this fit in with my mission? How does writing fiction fit in with
my entire business plan? At a glance, one would think, what in the world does
writing historical fiction have to do with helping talented professionals
deliver their message to the online world? That’s the tagline for my business,
after all. I’ll have to admit, it has very little to do with it.
But,
it does have a great deal to do with my mission statement which I wrote over a
dozen years ago. Part of it states, “I am a seeker of truth who makes truth an
integral part of my life and personality, thus enabling me to share that truth
with others…. I am woman who builds others up, helping them to be the best
they can be...”
Fiction
is such a wonderful way to share truth. I could preach at you through
non-fiction and tell you what to do and how to live and what’s going to work
for you and what won’t. Or, I can show you these things and implant them deep
into your heart with a moving and compelling story. Fiction has an amazing power
to impart truth and reach people who may never pick up a self-help or a
non-fiction book.
So,
as you evaluate your ideas, open your mind a bit to the possibilities. Do try to
stick with a theme, but evaluate things against who YOU are, not against what
your BUSINESS is today. Your business may change. I started out in computer
training, then went into consulting, then to Web development and now if someone
asks me what I do for a living, I’ll say I’m an author. Occupations change,
but who you are at the core – what your mission is – should expand and
augment on a central unwavering theme.
Step 4: Keep a Record of All Your Ideas
Select
one or two ideas and pick the one that is the most logical next step. Which one
would be easiest for you to implement? Which one gets you the most excited?
Which one feels the best and is most in line with your mission?
Start
with that one and move forward a step at a time. If there are things missing
that you’ll need, start with what you have and trust that what you need will
come to you as you need it.
TIP:
Listen to customer complaints. I
remember when I first started doing Web work. When I’d get a complaint, it
would hurt my feelings and I’d get defensive and try to explain why what I was
doing was the best way to do it. Then, something changed and I started seriously
considering every complaint I received. After all, if one person complains, then
there could be hundreds who had the same problem who didn’t take the time to
say anything. Once I started doing this, some of my very best improvements,
ideas and money-makers started coming from listening to customer complaints.
Once
you’ve created one product, immediately put into place back end products. For
example, if you’ve got a product that cleans the fuel system of a car like
nothing else, then write an ebook on car care secrets. Something like,
“Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Car Last 10 Years Longer.” You
could sell it as an ebook. You could offer it as a teleclass. You could create a
car care video and demonstrate all the ways to self-repair and maintain your car
so that it lasts 10 years longer. You could have a car care email newsletter
that helps you stay in contact with new customers so you can announce new
products and services as they’re developed.
A
good example of evaluating your resources to create back-end products is what Marcia
Lynn McClure and I did on her Web site. Marcia’s customers are readers who
enjoy romance novels that don’t offend their moral sensitivities. They are
typically women, married or not, often religious, who run the gambit from
16-year-old’s to 75-year-old grandmothers. These women have an insatiable
appetite for romance without the shock of traditional dime-store romances.
Because clean romances are hard to find, they’re always waiting with baited
breath for Marcia’s next book.
When
I first met Marcia, we set to work evaluating what she had and what we could do
to create some back-end revenue streams for her. She had a Web site and was
taking orders with Paypal. The first thing we did was add a secure order form so
she could take credit cards. This made a significant impact on her sales. Then,
she told me she’d written nine novelettes for friends and family over the
years and had done nothing with them. So, I suggested we create ebooks out of
them and sell them on her site. Over the course of a year, she released these
ebooks one at a time. It brought in a good flow of income and helped curb the
voracious appetite of her readers.
Then,
because her readers not only like her books, but also read other clean romance
authors, we pooled our resources and created “The Clean Romance Club” at http://www.CleanRomanceClub.com
so they could get some of my books as well, and we did a revenue split.
Next,
we created a fan site for Marcia called “Captivating
Kisses” where her readers can keep up with what she’s working on, read
sneak peeks of her new novels, be the first to read new ebooks or gain access to
ebooks that she won’t sell anywhere else. They get everything from recipes to
funny stories. They can even log on to live chats each month to visit with
Marcia personally. It’s basically like playing in the sandbox with the most
popular, fun and creative kid on the block.
Now, when someone buys one of her books or checks one out at the library, they look in the back and see her Web site, visit it and find lots of backend products and services they’ll enjoy. This is what you want to do. You want to lead people from one product or service to another. Make sure you know what your customers want and give it to them!
Continue
on to Chapter 2: Building a Business to Last
Back to the Table of Contents
|
SheLovesGod
| Books
| Create A WOW
| I Am Joyful
| SyndicatedWriters |
ReadyToPublish |
EzineBuilder |
Good News |
LocateACoach
|
|
Media Room -
For Writers -
Writer Signup -
Get Content -
Info Desk -
About
IdeaMarketers is a Project of Pehrson Web Group |
Please Note: IdeaMarketers is a free-forum where
anyone may sign up for a free writer account or publisher account and post. It is always up to the
discretion of the visitor to decide about anything mentioned on the service. We do not personally
endorse any company, person, product or service listed on our site unless we explicitly say we are endorsing them.
