Marc's Blog

Multiple income streams cut down on financial risk. If one of your income streams dries up, you have several other income streams to focus on. Unfortunately, most people see the value of multiple income streams when they get laid off or quit their jobs…and the former has been happening too often lately.

Building each income stream requires effort. Some income streams provide you the luxury of setting them up once and then forgetting about them later. Other income streams require continuous work to make the same amount of money each month.

You should continue working on your top income streams…even the most passive ones. A little extra work on a passive income stream will increase your monthly earnings.

Do the work once and keep getting paid for it.

But how can we start to incorporate multiple income streams into our businesses? How do we build up the next income stream while focusing on our existing ones?

Identify Every Viable Option

Before you decide to add a ton of work to your schedule, identify every viable income stream you can pursue. Viability is in the eyes of the beholder, but if you want to make a full-time income from your business, you’ll have to ignore some income streams such as surveys.

Some income streams may have a short-term role in building up your wealth.

While Uber can provide you with some quick cash, most drivers struggle on the platform. A while back, CNBC covered a story of an Uber driver working 30 hours a week to make $500.

Gas, car maintenance, repairs, leases, and other expenses are not factored into that final number.

Uber represents a side hustle, and many income streams start out as side hustles. However, earning $17 an hour at a job with piling expenses isn’t the way to go either.

Side note: Airbnb make a lot more sense as a side hustle than Uber if you are okay with renting out parts of your home for brief periods of time. Perhaps not during COVID-19, but before and after the pandemic, Airbnb represents a more viable option.

To identify viable options, simply think of as many income streams as you can and write them down. You can also look for articles containing a massive list of ways to make money.

After you complete your list, do some research on each item. Some initial research will help you come across the articles detailing how difficult it is to make a living as an Uber driver.

If you were to research another option such as Airbnb, you would see that it is possible to make a full-time income through that platform alone. Some Airbnb hosts make $10,000 each month, but the earnings certainly vary.

That article does a great job at providing a realistic perspective of Airbnb. You can make a lot of money through Airbnb but it does take some work and planning.

The key thing we’re looking for at this stage of the income stream analysis is proof in the concept. While the average Airbnb host makes a little over $900 each month (which can go a long way towards chipping off your biggest expense), some Airbnb hosts make $10,000+ each month from the platform.

When you see that someone makes that type of income each month from a platform, it proves the concept.

While not every author, coach, or training course instructor makes 6-figures from their craft, some people make that type of money…and it’s those people that prove that you can do it too.

My rule of thumb is to only pursue an income stream if that income stream alone can provide you with a full-time income.

Finding Time For The Income Streams

After identifying the income streams, the next step is to find time for each one. You don’t have to address every income stream at once. Rather, you can focus on a few that you believe will yield the most results.

Some income streams are set up and forget streams where you put in the initial work and then keep collecting money.

Dividend investing is a great example of this. After doing some initial research to determine the best stocks for your portfolio, you make the appropriate investments and continue to receive the dividend payments as long as the companies keep giving them out.

When you are first starting, commit an hour to each income stream each day. If you have fewer income streams (i.e. 3 income streams), you can pour more time into each one.

If you have more income streams (i.e. 10 income streams), you can choose which ones you’ll pursue today and address the other ones tomorrow.

If you have a busy schedule, consider utilizing the book ends of your day for the bulk of your work. Waking up early before everyone is awake or working into the night when everyone else is asleep gives you the opportunity to work under fewer distractions.

Fiverr has exploded in popularity and presents itself as a great side hustle. You can list your services on Fiverr and start attracting customers. 

Not only can you find a bunch of great services as a buyer, but as a seller, you can make a full-time income from Fiverr alone. One Fiverr seller has made $1.5 Million from Fiverr so far.

While $1.5 Million would certainly be nice, most Fiverr sellers don’t make that type of money. For them, momentum within their own sales is more important than the promise of possibility. You can make over a million dollars on Fiverr, but going from $0/mo to $100/mo on Fiverr and building from there is how you hit bigger milestones.

If you want to start making money from Fiverr and turn it into a lucrative side hustle, use these 5 strategies.

#1: Create More Gigs

The more gigs you create, the more potential customers you can attract. Customers who enjoyed your work from one of your gigs may buy a different gig from you in the future. Fiverr allows you to create up to 5 gigs at the lowest level, and you can create additional gigs as you gain more experience on the platform.

If one of your 5 gigs doesn’t perform well and you don’t have a sufficient seller’s level to support additional gigs, you may want to unpublish one of the underperforming gigs and put a new gig in its place. 

#2: Tell Your Audience About Your Gigs

While you can get customers from Fiverr’s search engine, you should share your gigs with your audience. Sharing gigs with your audience generates momentum and can help you gain traction on Fiverr’s algorithm.

Eventually, Fiverr will kick in and you’ll get a steady stream of customers. When this happens, tell people about your offers off of Fiverr so you keep the 20% cut Fiverr would normally get.

It’s well worth giving Fiverr 20% of the proceeds when they bring in the customers, but once you’ve built momentum, create your own sales pages and lead your existing customers to those sales pages rather than Fiverr. 

#3: Pay Attention To Popular Gigs

Naturally, some Fiverr gigs do better than others. Pay attention to how Fiverr gigs in your industry perform and look for the winners. Creating gigs that complement or are similar to the top Fiverr gigs will give you a better chance of gaining traction.

I suggest a blend of Fiverr gigs around topics that are in heavy demand (and likely heavy supply) with some of the more niche topics that have lower demand but significantly lower supply.

#4: Offer Add-Ons

Fiverr used to be a place where you paid $5 for a task to be performed. Now you can make $100s from a single order .Including add-ons to your individual gigs will increase the average purchase price of the customers you serve.

Add-ons will vary based on your gig and which services you offer, but almost everyone can provide an add-on that delivers the order 1 day faster in exchange for an extra $5 or more depending on the intensity of the project.

#5: Look At Your Data

Your Fiverr analytics will give you a better idea of how people engage with your gigs. You can see which gigs convert at the highest rate, get the most impressions, and the most clicks. This can help you decide which gigs to focus on and what gigs you create in the future.

The analytics you get from your gigs is very basic which allows you to quickly get important data without diving too deep into the numbers. 

Pay attention to how each of your individual gigs performs and adapt accordingly.

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There are lots of businesses you can start easily from your own home. There are businesses that you can get off the ground for little or even no investment.  All you have to do is find out what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. 

To establish what you are good at, you need to make a list. List all of your strengths and weaknesses and from here you will be able to narrow down business opportunities that are right for you. Making a list that includes your personality traits will allow you to see opportunities that suit your lifestyle and most importantly your personality.

One of these opportunities that you may be interested in pursuing could be becoming a life coach. If for example you are passionate about supporting others, and helping others to achieve success, then why not create a life coaching business. Start up costs are minimal, especially if you set it up from the comfort of your own home. As a coach you will get to meet lots of diverse and interesting people along the way. It is ideal if you love and thrive on networking, meeting new people and helping people be the best that they can be.

Skills and Traits Needed to be a Successful Life Coach

Helping others achieve success is super rewarding and can be quite addictive. Some of the traits and skills listed below will allow you to be the best life coach you can.

1. Dedication – All your clients will be different and so you must be dedicated to helping them achieve their goals and aims no matter how challenging.
2. Focus – Do not try and do everything. A successful life coach builds up a good core network of other professionals that they can turn to, be it nutritionists or even business advisors.
3. Persistence and Perseverance – No two clients are the same, and so no two have the same needs. You will need to persevere with clients who may struggle to change or adopt processes you are teaching them.
4. Organization – You will be juggling lots of things including other people’s work and emotional baggage and so it is very important you are highly organized. Having things cluttered and in a mess is not going to help you or your business succeed.
5. Drive and Direction – Keeping going even through the rough patches – having a clear direction and path to go down is a must. Supporting your clients requires drive and direction. Your drive and direction to succeed will positively rub off, and influence your clients.

Building a brand and a reputation as a trustworthy life coach will of course not happen overnight, but over time it is achievable. Take some time out to plan who your target audience is, pay attention to trends, and follow closely what clients are looking for in a coach, and you will not go far wrong. Finally it is important to take some time out for yourself. Coaching other people is emotionally and mentally draining. Looking after yourself, eating right, exercising and putting your mental well being first is crucial to your success, and longevity as a life coach.

Launching a podcast is exciting. You get to embark on a new project that enables you to meet many people along the way whether it be the guests you interview or the people who listen to your show.

When most people think about launching a podcast from scratch, they get overwhelmed with all of the moving parts. A podcast launch can be as simple or as complex as you make it, but it’s important to focus on implementing each individual step rather than the entire picture.

If you’ve ever considered launching a podcast, this article will provide you a shining path you can use to go from idea to launched podcast.

Start With The Topic

Some podcasters in the making want to launch a podcast but aren’t sure which topic to choose. If you’re using your podcast as a business, ask yourself what topics you have no problem talking about for the next 10 years.

If podcasting becomes your main source of income, you won’t want to stop in the middle of the journey. Continuing to host a podcast becomes more difficult if you stop enjoying the topic or the topic becomes less relevant (i.e. if your podcast is centered around a fad).

If you already have a business, connect your podcast with your business. If you teach people how to paint, host a podcast around painting. The podcasts that are easiest to monetize are the ones connected to existing businesses. That way, you can promote your services to your guests and listeners and start making money before you land your first sponsor. 

Get Guests On Your Show

Once you figure out your podcast’s topic, the next step is getting guests on your show. For the sake of momentum, it’s important to reach out to guests before you figure anything else out…even the tech or how to be a great host.

This is how I launched Breakthrough Success after failing at two previous podcast launches and giving up on them halfway. When you reach out to guests and some of them say yes, you’re suddenly committed to learning the tech and how to be a great host within a limited timeframe.

It’s a hard deadline you force upon yourself, and we all perform better with deadlines.

When looking for initial guests on your show, look for other podcasts in your industry and reach out to people who have guested on those shows. These people have already been on podcasts and understand the experience. If you can, interview fellow podcast hosts in your show’s early days as you can ask them for feedback after the interview and know that you’re getting an expert opinion. 

You can also reach out to friends and colleagues to be on your show. As you get more comfortable with interviewing guests, get more specific about the types of guests you’re looking for. 

Some people use their podcasts as lead generation resources and interview guests who fit within their client avatar.

Selecting The Right Hosting Platform For Your Podcast

Before you start recording interviews, it would make sense to determine where these interviews will go. Which platform will you use to publish your podcast?

While there are many options to choose from, my two favorites are Libsyn and Captivate. Libsyn is better if you’re only looking for basic stats and publish 1-2 episodes each week. You can start a podcast on Libsyn for as little as $5 per month. The price increases based on gigabyte storage, so uploading many episodes to Libsyn each month may force you to select a higher package.

Captivate is a better option if you want to start multiple podcasts, want some extra assets, help with marketing, and more detailed analytics. Captivate starts at $19/mo and is based on downloads. If you have 3 podcasts that get a combined total of 5,000 monthly downloads, you pay $19 each month versus having to pay $5 per month (or more than that) three separate times on Libsyn. This can add up if you have to select higher packages on Libsyn.

However, if your show becomes massively popular, you’ll have to pay more on Captivate although you should be getting sponsors at that point.

If you want to save some extra money with Libsyn, you can use the coupon code Breakthrough to get the rest of this month and the following month for free.

Get Comfortable With Zoom

Zoom has become a popular choice amongst podcasters and podcast guests. Consider doing a practice recording session with a friend so you fully understand how to use the platform.

You will have to provide each guest with your Zoom link and password so they can properly join the meeting. Also, make sure you record the interviews. Forgetting to record the interview will result in a lot of time wasted from you and the guest. 

You can either automatically record Zoom meetings once they start or manually hit the record button when you are ready to go. I prefer the latter option as this makes editing much easier. You can keep a sticky note nearby that says “Record” so you won’t forget. 

Prep For Each Interview

Preparing for an interview isn’t as challenging as it sounds. All you need is a topic, your guest’s bio, and some questions. It’s common for beginner podcast hosts to write some questions in advance, but as you get more experienced, you should stop writing questions in advance.

If you don’t write questions in advance, you are forced to listen to your guest and come up with questions based on how the conversation flows. This will also reduce your prep time.

Using a calendar app like Acuity or Calendly or Sprintful to schedule interviews will significantly speed up the communication process and allow the guest to provide their bio for you. I copy and paste the topic and bio the guest gives me and then don’t have to do any prep work for my episodes. 

The Post-Production

Once you record an episode, the last steps are editing the episode, writing show notes, uploading the episode, and then publishing it.

I suggest starting with very basic editing where you just cut out the beginning and end. If there is a notable blip in the middle of an episode, you should cut that out as well.

You can speed up your editing and show notes writing process with the Podcast Show Notes Workbook. This workbook is essentially a cheatsheet for every episode where you can write down important points you want to incorporate in your show notes and the timestamps for your editing.

For instance, if someone makes a mistake in the middle of an episode, it’s better to know they made the mistake at the 15 minute mark than just “somewhere in the episode.”

This Show Notes Workbook allows me to write show notes without going back and re-listening to the episode, a big time consumer for most podcasters.

All that remains is uploading your podcast episodes to Libsyn or Captivate and then publishing them when the time is right.

Podcasting is as simple or as complex as you make it, but if you follow these strategies when launching your podcast, it will get easier and yield more results over time. 

Want to learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your podcast. Discover the ultimate podcasting tips and strategies that will help you with all of your podcasting goals!