The other day I was hanging out with some friends who do variations of what I do. Basically, we all work online is some capacity. This friend who I will refer to in a gender neutral way to protect their privacy was talking about how COVID had affected their business. They’d been in business, working online for years, but they’d been 100% positioned in one area of focus. Credit cards and content connected to it. The weird thing is that we’d met up for lunch the first week of March and I expressed some concern that they were so heavily positioned in one space. And I thought that they weren’t doing some of the things that could balance out their business income. Within two weeks of that conversation COVID would shut down basically the entire United States and by the end of April my friend, who was making great money before, had to find a job. The reason I’m recording this episode is to share why freelancers and other entrepreneurs must diversify their income and 7 steps you can take right now to grow and attract new revenue into your business.
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How to Grow Your Business from Day One . This is a quick guide sharing some of the steps that I took to grow my business when I didn’t have a ton of money to reinvest and I wanted to get the most bang for my buck when I did spend.
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Show Notes
- Reason #1 Why you need to diversify your income-Your industry can dry up overnight. While I’m in the personal finance space, I never wrote content about credit cards or travel for other businesses. For people in the travel, hospitality (restaurants) credit, and education space never could they have imagined their industry coming to a grinding halt for well over a year. Because of that, companies stopped: affiliate programs, contracting external writers, and even lending standards have changed for credit cards. 9-11 and the Swine Flu created similar contractions in those spaces.
- Reason #2-Just like your stock portfolio, it’s important to create balance in your business revenue. One of the most fascinating things to watch during these crazy times is how businesses have pivoted and created new income streams. For businesses that are able to survive this wild moment in history, they will be much better positioned as a business moving forward. For digitally based businesses you should ask yourself “Am I doing everything that I can to help people work with me and use my services?”
- Reason #3-Highlight different skillsets that you may currently be underutilizing. In fact, part of the reason I got feed up with my old 9-5 was that I wanted to grow certain work skills that they wouldn’t let me use in the role that I was working in.
- Reason #4-Diversify your income streams to take pressure off of your main income stream. For example, I’ve currently built out 9 income streams with a focus on passive income. The great thing about this is that I’ve built up predictable income into my business and it’s eliminated the pressure that I used to experience before I began focusing on passive income.
- Reason #5-Just Say “NO!” One of the worst things that I dealt with in the beginning of being self-employed and transitioning into entrepreneurship was having to say “yes” to everything including projects that didn’t serve me well. I no longer deal with this issue at all. In fact, I say “No” all the time without worrying about harming my income. It’s a wonderful feeling.
- Reason #6-Change Your Mindset-I will be candid and say that diversifying my income from the beginning of 2018 until now has been a humbling and unnerving process. I had to fight Imposter Syndrome, underpricing, feeling awkward about sales, and improving my product(s). But, with each small win and each failure my confidence grew and my mindset changed. I’m so thankful that I took that risk because diversifying my income is serving me well now.
- Reason #7-Rethink How You View Your Digitally Based Business-For the past 5 years I’ve known a ton of freelancers and I’ve noticed that the one’s who grow their income and sustain their business view their businesses in a very specific way. They weren’t just providing a service to other organizations/people they were very intentional about:
- Growing their income
- Focus on measuring metrics each month. What isn’t measured doesn’t grow.
- Letting go of clients that don’t serve them well quickly
- Using projects to grow their personal brand
- Understanding that they ARE a personal brand
7 ways to Diversify Your Income
You can begin the process of diversifying your income starting today
- Step #1–Remember your skills are transferrable. If you know how to pitch for one type of project, it’s likely you can use that same skillset in another area of interest that you would like to work in.
- Pitching
- Marketing
- Sales
- Copywriting
- Coaching
- Freelance writing
- Podcast editing
- Video Editing
- Step #2 Cultivate another area of expertise.
- Once you’re an expert in one space and are getting consistent results, you can focus on becoming an expert in another area of interest. I have a friend who is a freelancer extraordinaire and they systematically became experts in four different areas of interest.
- Step #3 Always consider how the projects you’re working on can grow your personal brand. I actually spoke with my friend Maddy Osman, The Blogsmith, about how she does this and you can listen to her episode for inspiration.
- Step #4-Create a one and done product that you can sell while you’re asleep and doesn’t require you to do anything beyond the product sale. Here are some ideas of one and done products that you could consider.
- Ebooks
- Courses
- Guides
- Templates
- Pre-recorded webinars
- Step #5 Always Be Pitching-This doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down and doing actual pitches each day. Pitches occur in a number of different ways. Here are just a few ways you can always be pitching your expertise:
- Do traditional pitches
- Pitch to be a guest on other platforms
- Vlogs
- Podcasts
- Via your paid projects
- Participate in panels
- In large Facebook groups
- Add people to a resource that you’ve created. Grow your email list
- Build relationships with other people in your niche
- Help others
- Step #6-Create Ways to Highlight Your Expertise-I didn’t just create my Money on the Mountain event to help the attendees, I also created it to help myself professionally.
- Create events
- Showcase your knowledge on panels
- Write ebooks
- Take on leadership roles in your niche community
- Step #7-Become known for “something” Make it easy for people to know what you do and who to share your expertise with.
Resources Mentioned
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This is so true, it’s crucial to have multiple soon income.
I’m not playing around with just having one source of income.