Juggling multiple income streams is not an easy thing to do for most people at first, and the stress of trying to keep things going and the uncertainty of where your next paycheck is going to come from can be enough to send you running back to the corporate rat-race of having a job. 

However, juggling multiple income streams doesn’t have to be difficult if you follow some basic, common sense strategies which will help you to keep your sanity as a “Multiple Income Stream Entrepreneur”:

(1)  Make Sure You’re Honest With Everyone From the Get Go – If you’re planning to make money from multiple income streams, make sure you are completely up front with that whenever you get involved in projects with people.  Take the time to discuss how much time and energy you will have to devote to the project you’re working on so that there is no ambiguity.

There are a lot of cool projects you can get involved in out there once you start looking for them, but often times you may be getting involved with business owners who are used to working with employees who do nothing but the thing they are employed to do.  You need to be up front with them on timeframes and schedules, otherwise the difference in expectations is going to blow up in your face later on.

(2)  Keep Your Expenses Low – Multiple income streams are like little roller-coasters.  Each income stream will fluctuate in the amount of money it makes in any given month.  Sometimes the stars will align and all of your income streams will make a lot of money in the same month.  When this happens, don’t run out and blow all that money or get into a lease on a new Mercedes.  Unlike a job, where your income is usually quite stable, being an entrepreneur means that sometimes you’ll be making a lot of money and other times not as much.  You need to discipline yourself to keep your expenses below your income so that even on a slow month you’re still able to pay your bills.

(3) Aim To Make Two to Three Times Your Target Income –  Let’s say that you have five income streams and you’d like to make $5,000/month.  You should aim to make $2,000-$3,000/m from each income stream and not $1,000.  That way, if all the income streams work out, you’ll make $15,000/m, but chances are that some income streams will make more money than others and you’ll end up making around $5,000.

(4) Look For Complimentary Income Streams – One of my income streams is this Blog.  Another income stream I have is Affiliate Marketing.  When I write articles about Affiliate Marketing, it helps my Blog grow so the two income streams are complimentary.  Also, learning how to write content helps me with my Affiliate Marketing as well.  Then, I also do consulting for businesses looking to expand their online presence.  My Blog presence and my Affiliate Marketing helps me with that as well.  Do you see how my income streams are interconnected?  Each one is separate, but interconnected and they help each other out.

When you’re presented with an opportunity to develop another income stream, take a look at your other income streams to see how they will help your new income stream and vice versa.

(5) Be Ruthless In Your Billing – Imagine if you were an employee at a job, and on your payday your boss told you that he doesn’t have your check ready yet, and to come back the next day.  The next day he tells you he mailed you the check instead, so you’ll have to wait a few days for it to come in the mail.  A few days later you still don’t have it so you call him and he says he forgot to mail it.  How long would you stay an employee there?

It’s imperative to adopt the same ruthless billing in your business ventures.  If someone wants your services, charge a fair price and get paid right away.  Do not allow people to walk all over you by stretching your payment by a few days, weeks or months.  Here’s a simple fact from the business world that might help you out when dealing with billing and getting paid for your work: Businesses will ALWAYS try to stretch their payment terms on every payable that they can.

That means that if they can pay you a few days late with no consequences, they will.  You must be very clear on your payment terms and then follow up immediately.  The squeeky wheel gets the oil, so the more assertive you are and the more you follow up on payment the quicker you’ll get paid.

Don’t get offended if people don’t pay you on time if you don’t follow up.  That’s how everyone in the business world is.  It has nothing to do with you or how good your services are, it has everything to do with how strict you are on your collecting policies.  Find ways to get paid for your services immediately or better yet up front.  Make it easy to pay you by having multiple payment options available like Paypal, wire transfer, check, etc.

(6) Create a Schedule – Create a weekly schedule for yourself and keep track of which projects you’re going to work on during each week.  It’s very easy to fall behind on projects when you don’t have a boss keeping tabs on you.  You must become a good manager of your time and schedule, or else you’ll be forced to go back to a job where someone else does this for you.

Either you discipline yourself on this, or someone else will.  It’s your choice.

(7) Focus on The Right Projects at the Right Time – I have a few income streams that are somewhat seasonal.  Meaning, it is much easier to make money with them from January to April than it is during the summer months.  Learn to identify the seasonal cycles of your income streams and focus on the right income streams at the right time to maximize your results.  For example, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for me to try to focus a lot of energy during the summer months on this income stream that doesn’t do very well in the summer.  That would be kind of like owning an ice cream truck and trying to sell ice cream in the winter time.

(8) ABFAGP – Always Be Finishing And Getting Paid – There is a big difference in having multiple income streams and having multiple projects started.  I used to be the master of starting projects and never finishing anything.  I’d start a whole bunch of projects but never finish anything and so I would never get paid on anything.  Multiple Income streams means that you have multiple income-producing projects going on at the same time.  It does not mean that you’re starting multiple projects at the same time that will all hopefully one day pay you something.  If you try to do that, you’ll go broke.

This Blog makes me money every month.  It’s an income stream.  My affiliate marketing campaigns make me money every month.  They are income streams.  I have other income streams that make me money.  Where a lot of people get confused and give up on the Multiple Income Stream strategy is that they never even develop a single income stream.  They start multiple projects that are actually EXPENSES for them, and not income streams and before they make any one project profitable, they jump to the next.  That strategy results in “Multiple Expense Streams” not “Multiple Income Streams” – big difference.

Learn to finish your projects at least to the point where they begin to make an income for you in a semi-passive way before accepting another income stream.

(9)  Don’t Be Afraid to Let Projects Go – Have you heard of the saying “Quitters never win?”  Well, when it comes to business projects, sometimes you’re going to ha
ve to “quit” in order to win.  Sometimes you’ll find a project and you’ll think that it’s a great addition to your Multiple Income Stream strategy, but then later you’ll find out that it’s a huge time sucker or a huge energy sucker and just isn’t worth the effort.  If that’s the case, drop it.  Move on.  Don’t try to beat a dead horse for two years just because you don’t want to be a “quitter”.

I’m always finding new ways to make money and trying out different things.  Some things seem really good at first and turn out to be disasters so I drop them.  Other projects resonate with me more and more the longer I keep them around, so I focus more energy on those.

The great thing about having multiple income streams is that if you have 12 income streams producing income for you every month, dropping one of those income streams isn’t usually a big deal, compared to quitting a job where that one single job represents your entire income.

(10)  Minimize “Stupid Time” – What is “Stupid Time”? Let me explain it like this.  You know when you’re an employee at a job and you get paid per hour or on salary and you’re at work and you’ve finished all your work for the day but there is still two hours left in the day, so you basically spend the next two hours pretending to look busy while really doing absolutely nothing productive?  Well, that’s “stupid time”.

As an hourly employee, “Stupid Time” is really something that your employer pays for, but as an entrepreneur it’s costing you money.  Don’t engage in “stupid time” activities if you expect to make it as an entrepreneur.  If you can get the answers you need to some questions you have from someone over the telephone or via Internet chat, don’t waste your time meeting up with them for lunch and spending 4 hours of your day in “Stupid Time” just to get the answer to a few simple questions.  You’re not getting paid to waste time anymore.  Your time is very precious.  Learn to value it, or nobody else will.

I’m not saying that you can’t have a lunch meeting with someone, or that you can’t take some time to relax and enjoy your life.  What I’m simply saying is that you are not getting paid for “stupid time” anymore so stop doing it. 

I hope these tips help you to develop and be able to juggle more income streams as an entrepreneur.  Let me know how else you’re struggling as an entrepreneur.