Many of you have the opportunity to change your lifestyle, and start building momentum towards your financial goals just by making changes to your income/expenses. I am not talking about getting a second job, or even starting a business. I talk a lot about ways to create income streams, but what about increasing cash flow? Creating income can be a daunting task, that requires investment risk of one’s resources, and increasing cash flow requires discipline. Tuning your income streams and cash flow to the right frequency can make all the difference in receiving a clear signal to reaching your financial/lifestyle goals. Too much adjustment of one over the other can lead to that signal becoming fuzzy or distorted.
Understanding the differences between capital gains and residual income should be common knowledge for anyone, let alone an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, from elementary to high school, we are conditioned to accept capital gains as the most realistic means for making a living. Each have their pros and cons, but I want to make it very clear that it is a matter of choice as to how you make your living. I think people tend to lean towards capital gains for reasons I explained in “If Money is Too Taboo then Try Adding a Dash of Value”, where I was talking about how money is stigmatized as the root of all evil and how it should be “earned”. If you are self-employed and making a living at what you are passionate about, then I can see how that mentality could work for you. In “Entrepreneurs Create Options to Gain Control” I explain why entrepreneurs are interested in opportunities that create residual income. Residual income is about gaining control, and attaining control is about gaining freedom, but the best way to make that happen is to create options that offer value.
Traditionally, content creator websites are funded by ad sponsors and/or the affiliate revenue business model. The rise of crowd-funding has revolutionized the way content creators connect with their fans. Imagine, as a content creator, you just focus on your craft as a:
· Musician · YouTuber · Web Comic Artist · Writer & Blogger · Indie Gamer · Video Producer · Author · Podcaster · Animator · Artist · Photographer …and the fans of your content become the sponsors of your content by opting to become patrons that support your work. Patreon is a crowd funding platform created by Jack Conte and his friend Samuel Yam that serves as an alternative to the traditional ad revenue business model. It gives content creators a place to set up their own personalized hub for the most engaged/supportive members of their audience.
All businessmen double as salesmen, but not all salesmen double as businessmen. If you aren’t able to sell then it is going to be very difficult to go into business for yourself. Selling in this context doesn’t just mean making money through direct exchange of tangible value, but also through the ability to sell ideas. The businessman is the individual who will create a system that can deliver that tangible value, and can bring ideas that were once only thoughts of one’s imagination, into reality. The following are some characteristics I have noticed, since becoming an entrepreneur, that help me identify a salesman from a businessman. The reason why I believe this is important is because each are driven by different agendas and if you are trying to work with others to reach certain goals, than it is imperative for the success of said goal(s) to make sure you are aligning with the right individuals that will help you reach those goals.
No matter where you are in the world-wide-web, there are some basic fundamentals to creating online money making opportunities, and most revolve around this simple system. Just the act of setting up this system will open the user up to an abundance of money making opportunities all across the net. I call it your “Virtual Business Alias” or v.b.a. There are only two simple steps to setting up this account, but a multitude of reasons why it will open many doors for you to make money online, as well as make it easier to manage opportunities as they present themselves.
In part two we discussed the importance of content creators, and how they give life to an otherwise stagnant website. Why that content gives a website life comes from the results of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization is a process meant to increase a website’s visitor traffic. Think of this concept as what will determine the difference between someone’s business (website) being in a popular shopping mall, or a corner store somewhere on a side street. That is my best analogy of what SEO represents for your website in terms of receiving visitor traffic. This is a profitable market online, because getting first page results on search engines means more sales for your business!
In part one, we discussed the differences between web design and web development. It hasn’t taken me very long to figure out the model behind a living breathing website. Think of web design and development as the embodiment of your business. Once your business has a body, you are going to want to give your business a voice. This is how your website becomes a brand, and where content creators come in handy.
Regardless of where you reside, as long as you have a WIFI connection you have the opportunity to earn an income. The industrial age is over, and the informational age is reaching full swing. The days of grabbing a shovel and getting to work is no longer a plausible option for everyone to fall back on, for generating an income. Technology continues to replace many of the jobs human beings used to perform, with a new and efficient way of getting the same jobs done with little to no human involvement (see “What is happening to All the Jobs?”).
The doom and gloom ends right now, because the internet has made possible, the creation of over 1.2 million jobs in just over the past decade! As of 2013 the pay rate for information technology (I.T.) jobs are almost twice that of the national average. The industry that includes internet marketing, ecommerce, and intellectual property has hundreds of billions of dollars (over $400bil 2ndQtr2013) in rotation! If you want to position yourself to earn a piece of that delicious pie, you are going to need to acquire some specialized knowledge and learn new skills. No need to go in aimlessly, because I have compiled a list of the most wanted skills to give you some direction and general understanding of their value.
I have already covered how to create multiple streams of income. Now I want to take a closer look at the employment stream to dissect the reasoning that determines the strength of the cash flow, and the sustainability of the current. The employment stream can mean you have a job, employed to work for a third party business, or it can mean you are self-employed working for your own business. A person may yield the most value from an employment stream by leveraging their individual potential to succeed. What this means in English is that the employment stream will only cash flow if an individual continues to spend effort. Once an individual has either decided to stop working or physically reaches a point where their work demands aren't able to be reached, the stream loses strength and the cash will cease to flow.
You can read part one here.
As the world’s population increases so does the demand for goods and services. This puts a strain on small businesses to become more economically efficient in order to increase productivity and create a convenience that meets customer demands. If there are not enough entrepreneurs collaborating and creating businesses to meet these demands then the cash-flow begins to over-flow within the small businesses that are trying to keep up. With no competition around, these small businesses feel the pressure to expand. This is one reason why big business and global corporations develop. |