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Multiple Online Revenue Streams

Unless your business is producing a million dollars every day on autopilot there’s always room for growth. Analyzing the performanc

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e of your profits, diversifying your income sources and generating multiple streams of revenue enables you to take your business from where it is now to where you want it to be. An interesting aspect of revenue, the critical lifeblood of every business, is that even when flowing through a business’ veins that business could in fact be slowly dying. How does the blood of a business, the source from which the life of your business stems also possess the capacity to harm your business? Neglect. An imbalanced focus on a business’ core product or service offerings can create an unhealthy case of tunnel vision for business owners, causing a detrimental overdependence on a single revenue stream; your business could severely suffer if that stream runs dry. Regardless of the size of their operation, every business owner should establish a comprehensive revenue strategy and create multiple streams; supplemental tributaries feeding back to the main body of your business.

Revenue Streams for Short-Term Supplementation

While business owners are always advised to carefully consider the long-term health of their company and build with longevity in mind, businesses still require immediate sustenance during their formative years. Incorporating multiple streams of revenue provides this short-term supplementation. It’s also important to recognize that not all individual revenue streams are intended to carry the entire weight of a business by themselves. And if you’re feeling frustrated by minimal returns on some of your supplemental revenue streams or simply can’t seem to justify the time investment, you might gain new perspective by breaking down your overhead and dissecting some of your recurring expenses. An additional source of revenue could produce enough to pay for your monthly office supply costs, employee Christmas bonuses, or upgrades for your e-commerce website. Even if it’s only enough to enable you to reinstate donut-Friday you’ll still succeed in boosting employee satisfaction, which transfers over to improved customer satisfaction, and this further increases revenue. Plus, multiple, secondary revenue streams can have a cumulative effect as well, combining to create lucrative momentum for your business. At first, they simply provide basic nutrients, but they eventually produce enough income to help businesses break even and eventually reach the point where positive cash flow has been achieved.

Get Paid Multiple Ways for the Same Product or Service

The less time, energy and materials required to produce a product or service, the greater the profit. You can significantly improve your profit margins by developing multiple ways to earn a return on the same core products or services. We’ll use a marketing consulting company as an example. Suppose this business offers their consulting services as their primary source of revenue. They could then create a webinar sharing some of their best-kept secrets and sell tickets for virtual seats, requiring minimal extra effort since they’d simply be sharing expert information and guidance normally included with a client consultation. Next, this same business can then sell the written version of this such as a professional, glossy pamphlet, which adds up to the cost of a one-time fee for a digital transcriber (or intern) and an inexpensive order from an office supply store. The next step would be to sell the audio version of the webinar, and possibly additional supplemental materials after that. Finally, the business can then sell an all-inclusive package with all of the items bundled under one price (bundling products and services provides one of the best ways to provide customers with greater value and still be able to produce a larger profit).

Google AdSense Marketing

Google AdSense marketing provides a convenient option for adding yet another revenue stream to your business, and it’s free to use! Online publishers and webmasters can choose from flexible advertising options that include custom website search results ads, website ads, and mobile Web pages and apps. Among the most devoted users of Google’s AdSense program are avid bloggers. That’s because fresh and unique content is essentially the most powerful factor online. Peerless content pulls people in from the search engines and revenue is made when they click on the ads or complete the call-to-action displayed in the ad. Google automatically loads the most relevant ads for you according to your content. Although Google makes it fairly simple for Internet users to create an account, there are many factors that affect your revenue potential. Having an AdSense expert set up and maintain your campaign will improve your numbers.

Affiliate Marketing

Business may be war, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to be your enemy. Affiliate marketing provides a way to quickly form no-obligation alliances. There are two primary options for this type of marketing: 1) You can set up your products or services to be sold on someone else’s website (personal or commercial) and they earn a predetermined percentage/commission for any sales they make, or 2) you can advertise someone else’s offers on your site and earn a commission for sales made through your site. Almost all affiliate marketing is set up so that the affiliates never have to handle the other company’s products (e.g. orders are delivered via drop-shipping or directly from the affiliate’s warehouse).

Informational Products

Businesses can also generate additional revenue by selling relevant, useful information through their website, such as informational articles, e-books, industry news, price and rate updates, product catalogues, buyer’s guides, newsletters and a variety of other helpful resources. Your website visitors’ top incentives for buying information from you stem from the desire to learn something unique, gain insider access to exclusive information, discover how to make more money, and how to achieve time freedom. An additional benefit of information selling is that you’re simultaneously marketing yourself as an expert in your industry and an authority on your niche market.

Leading the Way to More Revenue with Lead Generation

You can also take advantage of the opportunity to optimize your website revenue by incorporating lead generation tools. Static websites acting as one-page business cards are dead and gone. If you’re not taking advantage of some of the newer features then you’re missing out on the potential for additional revenue since not everyone who visits your website will immediately purchase your products or services. But that doesn’t mean that they never will. Promoting your business online and driving traffic to your website is very challenging, time consuming, and often expensive work. Therefore, you must capitalize on every visitor that lands on your website in order to optimize your ROI and get the most out of your online marketing efforts. Create multiple opportunities to close the sale by including lead generation forms throughout your site. Lead generation tools allow you to capture vital information about your website visitors. A name and e-mail address is all it takes to establish a touch-point and maintain communication with your prospects. Follow up with them to: remind them that they left products in your e-commerce shopping cart; offer discounts on their next purchase, send product and service updates, offer free trials and more. You can also create another revenue stream using lead generation tools on your website by selling the leads you generate to a third party. (Protect the integrity of your company and respect consumer privacy by stating that their information may/will be sold to a third party.)

Save More to Earn More

It’s also well worth mentioning cash management’s capacity as a pseudo stream of revenue. From strict budget adherence to bartering for business, the less money you spend, the less you have to make. As part of this, maintaining well-organized, detailed financial records will support a smooth tax process for your business and improve your chances of securing another form of revenue…tax write-offs. Similarly, you can look to inventory and shipping methods such as drop-ship and wholesale (buying bulk quantities for discounted pricing) options to attain better values, increase savings, and increase your profit margins.

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Successful Vendor Relationships are Crucial to Your Online Business

By Mark Alford

Whether you’re looking to jumpstart your ecommerce startup business or increase your business’ online presence, getting connected with the right vendors is a key element for any successful business venture. First, a word of caution. There are a seemingly endless number of online vendors to choose from today, offering flexible options that can provide supplemental to vital support and capabilities for your business. Unfortunately, as the World Wide Web continues to expand and offer a growing number of helpful resources and tools, the number of potential pitfalls continues to rise as well. Deciding which vendors to trust can easily amount to a full-time job. With many vendors requiring sensitive information, both your wallet and your identity need to be carefully safeguarded. An effective method that businesses can employ to protect their wallets and identities is to avoid vendors who offer rates that are a mere fraction of industry standards. While there probably are a few honest vendors simply trying to grow their startup companies or create a wedge between you and their competitors amidst a tight market, ludicrously low prices typically indicate fraudulent activity.

Bootstrapped business owners are especially vulnerable here and need to fight the temptation of too-good-to-be-true pricing. But this doesn’t mean that you will have to figure out how to squeeze an out-of-price-range option into your tight budget either. Bootstrapped businesses and small-business owners should first review online forums for feedback and reviews direct from other consumers and fellow entrepreneurs. Online forums provide the perfect platform for Internet watchdog efforts, helping others avoid fraudulent, low-quality, and ineffective vendors. And it always helps to research the age of a company as well. It may cost more to do business with the vendor that’s been around longer but the higher quality of service they can provide will eventually help you more than make back the difference.

For businesses with bigger budgets, the most efficient and cost-effective approach to finding the best vendors is to go through a service that specializes in vendor relations or contract a company that has naturally developed an extensive network of vendors throughout the course of their business. This grants the most direct path to getting connected with trustworthy and reliable vendors. In addition, those who have longtime, ongoing relationships established usually receive some degree of discounted pricing, and a percentage of this savings is then usually passed down to their clients. Additionally, businesses achieve larger profits when they have an optimal amount of inventory in stock according to their individual inventory control ledger accounts; profits shrink with too little or too much inventory in stock. Leveraging existing vendor relations may help your inventory control efforts. This is because businesses with solidly established vendor relations tend to receive some flexibility with their ordering, allowing them to slim down or catch up on inventory according to customer demand.

Certain vendors also offer drop-ship capabilities which allow you to have your items shipped directly from their warehouses to your customers; no need to handle any products. This allows you to save a significant amount on inventory costs. And your customers are completely unaware of the middleman; the item is delivered exactly as if it were shipped directly from your own facility. You can also increase your revenue potential through vendors that offer wholesale opportunities. Wholesale vendors allow you to purchase items at significantly discounted pricing when bought in bulk or when minimal recurring sales numbers are satisfied. This cost savings can give you a very competitive edge in your market.

In addition, you can also grow your business through an excellent variety of innovative and intuitive tools provided by media, marketing and advertising vendors. Leveraging quality vendor relationships verifies the quality of the ads, the reach and exposure of their ad placements, consistent timing, and the marketing deliverables. And having the right vendor relationships will also grant you flexibility in defining your target audience, allow you to take advantage of geo-targeted marketing, and expand upward into niche vertical markets as well. The most advantageous vendor relationship help power your business and expedite its growth. Carefully research your options or contract someone who specializes in this area for the best chance of dominating your market and setting your business up for long-term success.

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How Foreign Imports Improve Your Bottom Line

By Mark Alford

Of course, supporting our domestic economy and buying from local companies is preferable to allocating parts of our business operations overseas. However, the major benefits granted by certain aspects of foreign business affairs such as imports are often too great to ignore, especially for small-business owners and startup companies. Businesses can increase profits, grow faster and offer higher quality services and products by taking advantage of foreign imports. Among today’s top sources of imports are China, India, and Mexico. While the practice of trading and importing between these countries and our own isn’t new, it should be considered a brand-new endeavor for each business owner looking to set up imports for the first time. Yes, much of the groundwork has been laid out for you and you can start importing much quicker than what was once possible. However, there are still a number of important laws and regulations that must be obeyed to ensure a smooth process void of unnecessary penalties, fines, and other costly mistakes. Regardless of how well established the import operations are between different nations, the presence of international commerce equates to some very serious implications if necessary steps are mishandled or neglected.

Learning about just the fundamentals of getting started with the import process often proves to be a massive time-hog for small-business owners. And the amount of time spent on planning and execution necessary to ensure that all factors are accounted for is often enough to detract from other critical money making tasks. This is why growing numbers of startups and entrepreneurs are seeking out non-competing companies and fellow entrepreneurs with established import operations. Furthermore, incorporating import operations within your own system that have already been set up by another entrepreneur or business grants the massive benefit of an established relationship. This allows you to save a significant amount of time hunting for viable import sources. An extremely vital element of established relationships such as these is trustworthiness, which helps to ensure: all materials and services offered by the export company are completely legal and comply with international regulations; reliability of product delivery; consistency of order turnaround time; and dependable quality. Leveraging established relationships with import services also helps to protect your business against fly-by-night and financially unstable companies.

There are multiple ways to incorporate imports within your business model. What’s likely the most prevalent reason for using global imports is the access to significantly cheaper goods and materials. Businesses can choose to incorporate imports as part of their global supply chain sourcing or they can import finished products. Primarily, this grants businesses the ability to 1) maintain their existing product/service pricing and purchase greater quantities of goods to amass larger inventories and increase their sales potential or 2) purchase the same quantity of goods while raising their product/service rates to increase their profit margins. The best approach to be taken regarding these two primary options is typically determined by a business’ specific industry and the degree of its inherent product/service pricing flexibility as well as the level of competition. For example, a company selling basic notebook paper probably wouldn’t have much flexibility with the price at which they sold their product, so they would be better off taking advantage of import opportunities as a means of buying more materials for less money. And the less competition there is the greater the profit margin a business can exercise.

Other businesses use imports as a means of providing their customers with unique, rare, hard-to-find, and hard-to-get items. This grants business owners virtually exclusive access to niche markets and vertical markets and is therefore an excellent method of reducing one’s competition as well. Businesses can choose to import goods and materials to their own inventory facilities, rented warehouses or storage services, or directly to their customers via drop-ship (no handling of product).

Finally, for the fiercely patriotic business owners strongly against importing goods or services, it’s important to remember that few things are absolutely permanent in the business world. Many businesses have begun by making use of foreign imports when their capital was low and then switched back to domestic-only dealings when their positive cash flow reached sufficient levels. From this we can see that it helps to look at one’s business in segments or graduated goals, outlining top objectives with the specific steps necessary to reach each point.

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Developing a Strategy for Capital

By Mark Alford

Capital is among the top concerns for the vast majority of owners of small businesses and startup companies. There are five fundamental forms and sources of capital: venture capital, equity capital, working capital, debt capital, and angel capital. When asked the question of which type of capital is best for your business, the simplest answer is whichever type best allows you to generate income. The specific industry you’re in as well as your particular business model have a strong influence on the type of capital you should pursue for building your business. The protocol you establish for the use of your revenue is another important factor that you will want to carefully consider. In terms of your business’ worth, capital is the amount of its assets that surpass its debts or liabilities. While some businesses choose to pay out their revenue earnings, other businesses opt to fund their companies based on positive cash flow, reinvesting a percentage of their earnings back into the company.

Venture Capital

Companies in their early stages, possess significant potential, characterized by high risk, and growth startup companies tend to benefit the most from financial capital provided through venture capital (VC). This is a form of private equity that earns a return through ownership of equity in a company. Likewise, those looking to fund their business can solicit funding from venture capitalists to help them get their business off the ground and catalyze explosive growth.

Equity Capital

Owners of brand-new businesses often opt for equity capital as a means of catapulting their businesses forward. Business owners generate equity capital by selling equity that they have built up in their company. This can be accomplished by selling stocks directly to the public or with the assistance of an investment firm.

Working Capital

Working capital (WC) is the measurement of a company’s liquid assets that are available for immediate use. This is also referred to as operating capital. The valuation of companies is often done through the calculation of their net working capital (assets that exceed liabilities; discounted cash flow). Companies should always closely monitor their working capital as this will help them determine their potential funding and reinvesting opportunities for growth initiatives.

Debt Capital

Businesses can generate debt capital by requesting a loan. This can be accomplished through a secured loan through a financial institution for a fixed amount or through an unsecured loan such as a credit card. In either case, a benefit of this form of capital is that the business owner maintains full ownership of their company since the creditor is paid for their loan via fixed annual percentage rates; not stocks.

Angel Capital

Others companies have been able to start and grow their businesses with angel capital. Angel investors typically come in the form of wealthy individuals who invest via their own personal finances or through angel groups or networks that pool their assets. Angel investors earn a return on the angel capital they provide businesses through convertible debt or ownership of equity in the company.

Capitalize on Your Opportunities

There are a variety of opportunities for capital and it’s critically important to carefully weigh all of your options in order to achieve optimal health for your company.

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The Physics of Startups

By Mark Alford

The cumulative challenge facing startup businesses can be described in simple physics terms regarding energy in its two fundamental forms: kinetic (energy in motion/active) and potential (stored, built-up energy). Starting a business from scratch is one of the most demanding endeavors one can take on, requiring significantly more effort/energy to operate than businesses that have been around for at least a few years. This is because they haven’t yet built up a significant client base or revenue stream (potential energy) and have yet to solidify their daily and long-term operations guidelines. They’re forced to exert energy for each and every task they wish to accomplish, operating purely based on kinetic energy. However, as a startup business’ potential energy increases through the investment of time, money and effort, so too do the potential rewards.

Startup businesses should first determine whether they’ll be operating as a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), corporation, or as a nonprofit organization. While figuring out this critical part of starting a new company, business owners and operators would do well to set up their tax system right away. The longer you wait to set this up the harder it will be to record, organize, track and file all of your important tax information later. Taxes can actually represent a strong ally for small-business owners if taken care of promptly and properly (e.g. tax write-offs, rebates and credits).

Developing a business plan is essential to optimizing a startup business’ potential energy. Key to a new business’ success is careful investment and budget planning. Will you fund your operation based on personal finances, debt capital (funds that must be paid back; loans), equity capital (funds not required to be paid back; investments made by outside parties), venture capital (investments made in exchange for some type of ownership in your company; stocks or control over decision making), or even fundraising (nonprofit organizations)? Next, you’ll improve your money management by deciding how you’ll use your earnings. Will you take all profits and reinvest them to build your business through positive cash flow or will you use those earnings for immediate payouts? Establish what methods of funding and cash-usage you’ll incorporate and then do whatever it takes to stay within the parameters of your budget. (If you can’t afford it, either don’t buy it or find a way to get it for free or barter services/products for it).

Startups are also faced with the important element of establishing pricing and profit margins as well as revenue strategies. This will largely depend on the types of products and services they offer. Selling physical products requires an examination of materials, manufacturing, shipping, etc. Selling services necessitates consideration of the time required to deliver/execute such services as well as the level of training and qualifications their employees/service providers will require. And less tangible factors will also need to be valued by startup owners in order to solidify their profit margins. For example, where a majority of a business’ costs are front-end costs related to development, such as with informational products, the startup-business owner is responsible for researching and assessing the perceived value of their offer in addition to how much revenue is required to recover product-development costs.

Any small-business owner can tell you about the exhilaration of seeing their business reach the point where it starts using built-up energy. A prime example of this is branding and marketing. In the beginning, startup businesses are essentially faceless entities without a concrete identity. The goal of consistent branding and marketing is to generate enough recognition and awareness where one’s business essentially starts selling itself (using built-up potential energy) instead of having to constantly pitch your business to others (kinetic energy).

This leads us to a critical point often taken for granted by startup businesses, establishing a niche market. Pinpointing a niche market grants one of the most powerful means of achieving a competitive status. Otherwise, without a niche market a startup-business owner is essentially a single solider going up against an entire army. Drill down and establish a small section of your target market to slash your potential competition and go after those prospective clients with vastly improved clout.

Developing your unique selling proposition (USP) and your corresponding elevator pitch will help you accomplish that. Your USP is your business’ kernel of distinction; what makes it different from all the other businesses in your market. And your elevator pitch is what you’d say to someone to describe your business and what you offer if you had just 30 seconds to say it; as if you were in an elevator with a prospective client and needed to pitch your business before they exited the elevator. Develop your USP and elevator pitch and incorporate them throughout all of your branding and marketing.

All marketing and sales efforts should be made with a specific volume in mind. Although every business owner hopes for a wildly successful marketing plan, it’s essential to have sufficient product and service processing and support in place. Companies can get into just as much trouble taking on too much business as they can taking on too little. Employing volume control ensures that a business will be able to provide high-quality products and services backed by appropriate customer service measures for each and every client while generating optimal profits. Each business has its own threshold, requiring startups to carefully determine what their own particular numbers are for this important equation. This also highlights the importance of establishing the lifetime value of a client: how much revenue can be produced throughout the course of one client’s dealings with your company. This provides critical help in determining your target cost per acquisition.

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Enterpreneurism in The Age of Technology

By Mark Alford

Entrepreneurism is now more prevalent than ever before, growing at an all-time high rate and expanding into virtually all areas of industry. Regardless of the current health status of any economy, true entrepreneurs recognize that opportunity awaits those willing to knock. This illustrates one of the most poignant marks of success for an entrepreneur where those with the right vision are able to detect a need or gap that can be filled and exercise the persistent attitude necessary to develop that virtually non-existent, outlying area into an entity or enterprise that is eventually considered the norm.

From this, we can see that a major component of entrepreneurism is vision, possessing the ability to see where a positive difference can be made, especially where there is little to no current level of activity or competition. Once the need has been identified, follow-through is just as important if not more so. A majority of small businesses will fail within the first year or two of starting up because they fail to follow through on their original initiatives, essentially losing sight of why they started.

If you fail to plan, plan to fail. Successful entrepreneurs live by goal generation and the implementation and accomplishment of those goals through the development and execution of clear strategies. Creating timelines of your intended success and maintaining proper goal management are processes commonly associated with the most successful businesses. Creating timelines and goals will also help you firm up your capital generation strategy (e.g. Angel, Venture, Equity, Loans). Proper money management and budgeting often begins before there’s any money to count. Plan your cash allocation before you begin spending (e.g. allocating funding for the areas of greatest need and growth potential, which may not necessarily be the most interesting or exciting areas of your industry).

In addition to persistence, it’s critical for entrepreneurs to harness their pride to some degree and acknowledge that they will be able to build their businesses bigger and faster through the incorporation of outside help. Otherwise, entrepreneurs who insist on taking on the entire business world by themselves frequently find that they’ve become spread too thin. Taking on tasks that an individual isn’t completely qualified for and taking on more projects than they can devote a sufficient amount of time towards causes many entrepreneurs to simply tread water instead of moving towards their intended destination, eventually sinking to the bottom.

An ideal means of staying afloat is to identify a mentor. Working on your business under the influence and inspiration of a mentor is an ideal way to stay sharp and focused, building with precision and purpose in order to accomplish more goals in less time. Find an individual who has already experienced what you’re going through and take advantage of learning from their mistakes so you can avoid making the same ones. Having survived the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur, starting, a seasoned entrepreneur will be able to provide you with confidence-boosting reassurance and motivation. You will need to work very long hours and a total exhaustion of resources is sometimes a necessary part of the process before your venture is able to leave the ground. Every additional degree of support you can get will have a significant impact and help prevent you from giving up.

A mentor can also come in the form of a collective spirit, surrounding one’s self with other like-minded people to: share ideas (keep the knowledge pool fresh), feed off each other’s excitement (enthusiasm is contagious and it fuels success), and create a vital support network (the simple ability to vent frustration to others who understand what you’re going through helps rejuvenate business-growing focus). A mentor creates accountability which also helps keep entrepreneurs moving forward towards their goals.

This is commonly where we see the formation of corporations and the development of operations standards. Although entrepreneurs typically enjoy a certain degree of rogue status, able to accomplish a great deal through their lightweight and mobile-ready status, there still exists the vital necessity of protecting one’s assets, intellectual property and much more. Therefore, an essential part of entrepreneurial growth involves researching one’s options for liability protection (e.g. Limited Liability Company (LLC) and S Corporations(S-Corp).

Truly successful entrepreneurs find out how to tap into the areas that they’re best at and stick to them, seeking out the help of others to fill the gaps. This also allows an entrepreneur to stick to their highest income producing areas, maintaining the most efficient and powerful approach to doing business. While a can-do attitude is an excellent catalyst for success, it can also be dangerous without the right controls, direction, or parameters applied. Focus, endurance and the ability to pool resources will see you reach previously unfathomable heights of success.

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