How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income

One of my favorite things about being an Internet Entrepreneur is that I can literally wake up in the morning with an idea for a new product and have it become a reality by the afternoon. Or I can find new ways to promote an existing product. Or I can join a new affiliate program or pursue a joint venture. Every time I repeat this process I create a new stream of income to add to my existing revenue base.

I firmly believe that the key to business success is this: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. What do eggs and multiple streams of income have to do with each other? If you spread your eggs across many baskets you can still make omelets even if one of those baskets goes away.

Similarly, if you have multiple streams of income, the loss of one income stream will not devastate you the way losing your only stream would. If you rely on only one source of income and that single income source goes away (ever been downsized, laid off or fired?), you are left broke and desperate. This is why every successful Internet Entrepreneur that I know has multiple streams of income.

This is also why I encourage my readers, newsletter subscribers, and ebusiness clients to establish multiple streams of income, which is extremely easy to do online. Here are a few pointers to get you started.

Create Your Own Info Product
Regular readers of this column have heard me preach this sermon before. Creating your own info product is the best way to generate a new income stream because it is so easy to do, so easy to distribute, and offers maximum profit potential. I can wake up with a topic in mind, sit down at my computer and within hours have a short book or report that I can turn into a downloadable ebook and immediately offer for sale on my website.

Anyone can create an info product themselves or farm out the actual writing to someone more adept. If you've got an idea it's easy to find someone to do the writing for you. I've covered this topic before, but it's worth visiting again because it is one of the best ways that I know to create a new stream of income.

Become An Affiliate Marketer
This is one of my favorite ways to create multiple streams of income because there are hundreds (if not thousands) of affiliate programs that you can sign on with and begin making money immediately. As an affiliate marketer you market a company's product or service and when you send them a customer or make a sale you are paid a commission.

You can sign on with as many affiliate programs as you like and each one has the potential of creating another stream of income for you. Many Internet Entrepreneurs have become millionaires without ever having a product of their own. They did it by promoting affiliate programs

I talked about affiliate programs in a previous column and you should refer to that column for an in-depth discussion of affiliate programs.


Click here for Tim's Top 10 Affiliate Programs.
Start An eBay Business
Selling on eBay continues to be one of the more popular ways to make money online. If you are willing to put in the time and energy required to make the business a success. eBay is also a good option for existing businesses to expand their reach by selling online.

Everyone from small used car dealers to giant companies like Dell Computers have discovered that eBay is an excellent place to hawk their wares simply due to the huge number of folks who visit the eBay site on a daily basis. Nowhere else on earth will you find such a large pool of potential customers.

Consider these numbers: · There are nearly 69 million eBay users who spend $59 million every day. · Most eBay sellers are home-based businesses that sell every- thing from porcelain dolls to locks of Elvis' hair to $100,000 Mercedes convertibles to $5 million dollar vacation homes.

Market Your Services Online
Are you a computer programmer? A writer or editor? A graphics artist or website designer? If so, you can market your services to customers around the world and it doesn't cost you a dime.

You can offer your services to customers on websites like elance.com or rentacoder.com. Basically you register with these sites and when someone posts a job that falls within your area of expertise you can bid on the work. For example, I needed a logo for one of my online businesses so I went to elance.com and posted the project for bidding and within hours I had a dozen graphic artists bidding for the job. I sifted through the profiles of everyone who bid on my job and picked a graphic artist who did the logo for less than $50.

Granted, I did not pay top dollar for the logo (to get it done locally would have cost ten times the amount I paid), but the designer probably spent an hour or two knocking out the 5 designs I got back and the work came to him, he did not have to spend a dime on marketing his services.

These are just a few ways to create multiple streams of income. There are hundreds of other ways to make money online. No matter which ones you pursue, just remember, the more streams of income you have, the bigger your money lake becomes.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies and is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs.

Tim's latest book is "The 30 Day Blueprint For Success!" We asked 58 Top Internet Money Makers: If you lost is all tomorrow and had to start from scratch, what would you do to be back on top in the 30 days? Their answers just might make you rich!