Posted by Have you heard of Pareto’s Law? He said that you get 80% of your results from 20% of what you do.
And I’m here to tell you that if you buy into this “Law,” then you’re losing money.
No, I’m not saying Pareto wasn’t one smart dude. Nor am I saying he’s wrong. What I am saying is that as internet marketers, we’ve been looking at this rule all wrong.
I had one of my coaching clients make a list last year of all her different income streams and how much they earn her each month.
Her income streams included email marketing, software products of her own, info products of her own, coaching services, her continuity program and affiliate continuity products, apps and several other sources.
Yes, altogether she was making a lot of money. And yes, 3 of her income streams were much larger than the others. It didn’t come out to 80% (more like 68%) but you could see how some income streams were definitely more valuable than others.
She asked me if she should dump the other income streams and just focus on the big 3.
After all, that’s pretty common advice, right? Focus on what’s already making you bank and don’t worry about the small stuff.
But things can change online in a heartbeat. Google changes it’s algorithm, or a government agency makes new rules that change everything.
You’re an Amazon affiliate making good money and one day you wake up and you’re banned. Amazon says you broke one of their rules and they won’t even tell you which one. It happens.
Or your ecommerce business is getting tons of sales but then Facebook shuts down your ad account. It happens.
Or you have your own website and your products are earning you 4 figures a month or even 4 figures a day. Then without warning Paypal shuts down your account and your sales are at zero. It happens.
A big income stream today can be gone literally tomorrow. We’ve seen this happen too many times to think we’re immune, which is precisely why you want not just one or two highly profitable income streams, but SEVERAL.
It’s not about being greedy, it’s about being smart.
So, here’s the advice I gave her: Take these smaller income streams, the ones that are turning a small profit now, and ramp them up. Choose one and concentrate your efforts to increase that income stream and put it on autopilot.
Then choose a second income stream and do the same. Don’t neglect your other income streams in the process. But focus each month on one income stream and figure out how to make it bigger and more automated.
She took my advice, and after six months she had not 3 big income streams, but 7. And she’s got security, too. Because now if half of her income streams go down, she’s still got 3 or 4 that are continuing to pay off.
If you have more than one income stream, you might want to do the same. See how you can increase the smaller streams, and then put it on automatic so you don’t have to spend a lot of time on it while you move on to the next one.
If you only have one income stream, then maybe it’s time to add a second, and a third.
You’ll make more money and have more security.
It just makes sense.