6 Quick Ways to Stabilize Your Business with Multiple Income Streams

The old adage, “Don’t put all of your eggs into one basket,” is especially true in today’s economic climate for any business, especially if you want to create multiple income streams.  Just as you would never let all of your income be derived from one or two clients, creating a diversified business where you have multiple income streams is the key to success with an online service business. If one income stream tapers off for a time, you are adequately covered by the others.  I have been doing this very successfully in my business for the last 8 years.

Where things become confusing for your prospective clients is if you have income streams that are all over the map and serve different target markets, like a career coach who buys, renovates, and flips homes on the side.  It’s quite challenging to run a business like this because you’re actually running two different businesses in this example, as the streams don’t relate well to each other at all.  I recently experienced a situation where a career coach I’ve been following emailed his list about real estate development, which really annoyed me. I’m not interested in real estate development, nor do I expect to hear from that person on that topic.

The easiest way to create multiple income streams in a service business is to create off-shoots of what you’re already doing serving the same target market in your core business. This has been referred to as “going deep” with your customers and providing them with additional products and services rather than “going wide” into other markets.  In this way, you can create a great client transition process that would provide multiple ways to serve the same clients.  Believe me, it’s easier to continue to sell to people who’ve already purchased from you than to try and cultivate new clients.

Here are 6 quick ways to stabilize your business with multiple income streams:

1. Consulting/Coaching.  Can you work with clients in a more in-depth fashion than you do currently?  If so, you may want to add consulting or coaching to your income stream mix.  Or, if you can help colleagues in the same industry grow their businesses, coaching or consulting in your own industry may provide the additional revenue stream you have been seeking.

2. Done for You Services.  If you’re a coach or a consultant, adding done-for-you-services are a great option for members of your target market who don’t want any part of doing something themselves.  So, if you’re a career coach who routinely helps clients polish their resumes, perhaps you could add a done-for-you resume service where you create a polished resume for your clients.

3. Affiliate Marketing.  I love making money from recommending products and services that I already use in my business.  This is an easy sale for me, as I’m an affiliate only for products and services that I have used or that have come highly recommended by a colleague that I respect. There’s nothing sweeter than getting my monthly PayPal notifications of payments from various affiliate programs to which I belong.

4. Membership/Continuity programs. If you have a great deal of content lying around in your hard drive, a membership site or continuity program may be in your future. This is an effective way to create a recurring stream of income in your business.

5. Teaching/Training/Speaking.  Are others interested in learning the “how-to” of what you do?  Then adding teaching, training, or speaking to your revenue stream in the form of teleclasses, live events, or webinars will add a healthy income stream to your business.

6. Information Products.  Whether you have developed your own or sell PLR (Private Label Rights) products, the sale of information products can be a lucrative revenue addition to your business.  Developing products that are sold at different price points serve as a reasonable price alternative to help your target market solve a problem if they aren’t able to hire you for 1:1 assistance.

Take some time to determine how you can “go deep” with your target market and add multiple revenue streams that complement what you’re already doing. You’ll soon discover a sense of relief to have the extra income should circumstances cause your income to drop in another part of your business. Barbara Winter talks about the notion of Multiple Profit Centers in this episode of WeMentor Mondays podcast.

Want to discover how to diversify your profit centers? Schedule a Profit Sparkers 1:1 Session with me at http://bizsmartmedia.com/profit-sparker-session/