Just like investing, earning business income should not be done from only one source. When you invest, you choose a wide variety of different types of businesses in which to invest in order to leverage losses and keep them to a minimum. The same thing can be accomplished with your business income if you diversify the places from where you can earn, and the types of products from which you can earn.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have; you can multiply your earnings by creating multiple streams of income.

First, create a product or service. Then figure out different ways to make money from it. You can offer a whole sale price for your product and even a bulk order discount on services. You can sell your product full price on your own website or if it’s a physical product in a store.

You can recruit affiliates (start with customers) who will promote the product and/or service for you. You can write a book, and open up a coaching business or consulting business. You can even teach a class about your topic. These are all different income streams surrounding the same product or service.

You want to have a good mix of active income and so-called passive income. Active income are activities you perform directly to earn revenue – such as providing a service like coaching, writing, administrative work and so forth. Passive income is when you do work once, and are paid for it indefinitely. This would be something like writing an eBook or information product, or selling memberships to a club.

The wonderful thing about earning money from a multitude of sources is that if one goes south, you’re not going to starve. Let’s look at an example of writing one book.

Your Book: How to XYZ

Sources of income for your Book How to XYZ:

* Direct book sales
* Product recommendations via blog and book
* Consulting/coaching with people who want to do XYZ
* Speaking at events about XYZ
* Teaching courses about XYZ
* Selling other people’s related products
* Advertising relevant ads on your blog about XYZ
* Writing for magazines about XYZ

These are all legitimate ways to make money just due to one book. The book could have been born out of another money-making activity such as being a contractor, virtual assistant, writer, graphic designer, internet marketer, or something else entirely like a health and nutrition expert. Whatever your niche you can make money doing the things listed above, creating multiple streams of income that far exceed the potential income from just one activity.

The idea of multiple steams of income works for bricks and mortar businesses too. If you sell a widget retail, you can now offer it wholesale, and attract affiliates to sell for a commission – thereby creating three streams of income from one product. You could expand that further by writing a book, recommending other products, consulting with others and so forth.

It’s not hard to create multiple sources of income once you start considering all the ways you can earn from one product or service.