To Become a Millionaire You Need 7 Streams of Income
So is it time to start building 7 businesses??
I used to think that I needed 7 businesses to reach 7 figures. As I've learnt more about business, I’ve realised that running 7 is borderline impossible (for me anyway). I only have one business and this is how a feel at least 84% of the time.🙂
But only having one business doesn’t mean I can’t still make seven streams of income. Let me explain.
The Premise
I would like to preface this by saying, if you feel like multiple businesses would work for you, then go ahead and build them. No one is stopping you. I’m just here to give my people who like peace (I use the term ‘peace’ here very lightly😅) an alternative to the serial entrepreneur life.
I have a bunch of business ideas that I still want to explore, but for now, I’m going to focus on making Femme Brand Co. and my personal brand 7-figure businesses. ‘How?’ you might ask. The answer is diversifying my income. Essentially, diversifying your income is about finding new ways to make money within your business. If you have a product-based business, you could think about offering a service that compliments your products or trying a subscription model. If you have a service-based business, you can introduce complementary services to allow you to upsell. Alternatively, you can offer products to complement your services or collaborate with another brand that does.
On the surface, FBC is a consultancy firm, we provide a service that helps women to build their brands. For a while, I was content with the money we made from consultations and projects. But projects and consultations can be sporadic. When I started to dig deeper, I learnt that there are many ways we could be helping more clients and making more money.
My 7(ish) Streams of Income
I’m going to share with you the ways I plan on diversifying FBC’s income, both through the business brand and through my personal brand. Seven is a great number to aim for, but don’t let the number limit you. If you have more than 7 potential streams, feel free to explore them. It’s usually best to focus most of your time and effort on the high-earning streams, but don’t underestimate low-cost products and services. If any of these ideas pique your interest, explore ways you can make them work for you and your business.
Brand Strategy & Consultancy
This is our primary source of income. Currently, we work on a project by project basis, but we’ll be moving more to a retainer model for deeper relationships with our clients (and more predictable revenue). Strategy and consultancy are the most in-depth ways to build brands. Because these are the most valuable services and they require so much of our time, they are priced the highest.
Content Strategy
This is an example of a service that compliments our current services. Adding Content Strategy is a way to upsell, but that’s not the sole purpose. Helping our clients with Content Strategy allows them to see how their Brand Strategy can be actioned. This is also a way for us to continue to consult in a way that is helpful and useful for our clients. Content Strategy doesn't take away from our Branding services, it’s just a way to build on them in a way that is valuable to our clients.
Collaborations
Collaborations with other agencies and freelancers are another way we help our clients and make money. On top of building strategies, we help our clients to execute strategy with services such as design, marketing and PR. This helps our clients to have a seamless experience as we manage their projects, and it also allows us to build strong partnerships with other brands that are mutually beneficial.
Events
Physical, digital and hybrid events make up the community aspect of our business. There are so many types of events to try out and choosing the right ones is dependent on who you are as a business and what your audience wants. Our main focus is educational workshops & seminars and networking events (with a twist - you’ll see more about that soon😉).
Digital Products
Digital products are super easy to make and they allow you to sell to your audience worldwide without added costs like shipping and customs charges. We create e-books, workbooks and other online resources that help business owners to build their brands in their own time and at a much lower price point than a 1-2-1 strategy or consultation. This is a great way to make regular passive at very low costs. Once the products are created, all you need to do is promote them!
Physical Products
Beyond potential FBC merch (I’m working on it before anyone comes to my DMs to shout😭), we're also working on developing some great physical resources to help as many people as possible build their brands. This helps us to cater to the segment of our audience that prefers to do things offline.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions are a way for us to package all of our events and digital products to give our audience unlimited access at a discounted price. This is also a great way of creating a stable income instead of relying on ad hoc projects and sales.
Content
There are many ways to monetise your content (not so much on Instagram🥴 but that’s a conversation for another day). We’re working on creating more content that can be monetised. A few examples are ad revenue on YouTube, having affiliate links in your blog posts, and gaining sponsorships on podcasts.
Sponsorships
This is more for my personal brand than the business. But partnering with brands you love and creating sponsored content is a great way to make money. Building a following and community on social media helps to build your credibility and get you noticed by brands. Just make sure that the brands you partner with don’t affect your business income.
Find Balance
The reason I chose to create all of my revenue streams from one business is focus. I knew that having multiple businesses would mean that my time and effort would be divided. Because of this, I wouldn’t be able to give my all to any of my businesses, resulting in reduced output. I never wanted anything I put out to be half-hearted, and so creating streams of income with one overall goal made the most sense.
Each of our streams of income has two common goals; the first is to create a collective of strong women-owned brands that connect with their target audience. Beyond that, we want to give the women running those brands the tools to grow. Anythingstream of income that doesn’t align doesn’t make the cut. If any new stream affects the overall output of the others then we have to evaluate the opportunity cost. The point of using this strategy is to ensure that I’m not spreading myself too thin across businesses. This also means ensuring that I’m not spreading myself too thin across this one business.
If you’re looking for ways to make multiple streams of income, consider diversifying your income for one business instead os starting more businesses. And when I say consider, I mean really consider. Take a day to map out potential products, services or partnerships that will help bring in more revenue. You’d be surprised at what you can come up with.
Let’s get this bag!🤩