New Year, New Business Model?

Last month, I attended a seminar where one of the speakers commented that everyone should have at least seven sources of income. That way, if one market slows down, you have others on which you can concentrate until it picks up again. I'd always heard that it was a good idea to diversify your investments to spread your risk, so this also made good sense.

When I set up my writing and editing business several years ago, I designed it with a few separate streams of income built into it, so I felt good about that. But seven? The most I could come up with inside my business was five, and four of those required that I personally do work to fulfill the orders once I'd sold something. Since there are only so many hours in the day, that limited the amount of additional work streams I could add. There had to be some other way to add passive streams of revenue, ones that required minimal input on my part.

Seeing how my IRA lost about 40% of its value in the stock market last year, I decided to pursue education to avoid such future losses, but also to make my investments another income stream. And I've been looking at affiliate marketing and e-commerce for about the past eighteen months without taking any real steps to incorporate them into my business, so I figured it was about time I really learned how to do that. So there are my two extra streams to give me my seven.

How that affects my existing business is that I'm holding off on accepting any new clients until at least spring of 2010. I will continue working on projects for existing clients. The rest of my time is devoted to getting my new revenue streams up and running. This will include an update to my existing website and the creation of two new ones. I'm excited about the possibilities ahead! Learning new things is always fun. And all that extra income that will be coming my way from the new ventures is also exciting.

What about you? Do you have seven separate streams of income? If not, maybe the new year is a good time to look at adding some.

Here's wishing you a happy holiday season, whichever ones you celebrate, and much success in the new year!