2 Income-Strategies You Can Use to Free Up Your Time

Posted on June 23, 2009
Filed Under Articles

By Leesa Barnes
Leesa Barnes

Over the years, I’ve learned from some of the best minds in online marketing, such as:

Milana Leshinsky, Alexandria Brown, Kendall Summerhawk, Melanie Benson Strick, Ramon Williamson, Suzanne Falter-Barns, Michael Port, Scott Stratten, Kim Castle, Andrea J. Lee and countless others whose information products I’ve digested.

Although their strategies differ, the one thing they all agree on is that you should create multiple streams of income in your business. There are many ways to generate money in your business, but we can group them into 3 broad categories.

They are either fixed, leveraged, or residual. Of these, only 2 can free up your time.(And you’ll notice that I left out passive because in my mind, no income stream is truly passive. In other words, you’ll need to do something in order to keep moola rolling in).

Let’s go through each one by one:

Fixed – The dictionary defines fixed as “not fluctuating or varying.” In other words, this income streams doesn’t move. Sadly, the income of most consulting and coaching businesses are set up this way. You would charge the client an hourly rate and then you do a certain task during that hour.Examples of this are hourly coaching sessions or website development. As you’ve probably noticed, this model doesn’t scale. You have very little free time to create new products or services because most of your 30-40 hour week is tied up working 1-to-1. That means your income will be stuck at a certain level which is typically the mid to high 5-figure range. At this point, all you’ve done is replace the salary you’ve received when you worked full-time for someone else. As Kendall Summerhawk said on her blog on the same topic, “You end up not only feeling burnt out but feeling broke too, even though you’re working plenty hard.”

Leveraged – In her book Coaching Millions, Milana Leshinsky describes leverage as “creating the content once, then repurposing it in different formats and at different price points.” This is the first thing I teach my clients to do to help them transition from a fixed income stream.Examples of leveraged income are recordings from a workshop that are sold on DVD as a home study course or blog posts that are published as a physical book. The whole idea is to create the content once, then produce it in a variety of formats.

Residual – When an old television show goes into syndication, most actors will get a small royalty. This is a similar concept that can be used in your business. I first came across this strategy through Milana’s book, however, I’m going to define it a little differently from how Milana did. Residual is when you create a product or service and then you earn money through a subscription model. My monthly membership club, Lead Attractor School, falls into this model. So too does a licensing program. Also, if you sell a service, you can collect money monthly. Online shopping cart systems, such as Cartville, are a great example of this.

Of these 3 income streams, only leveraged and residual can free up your time. And if you want to learn which specific strategies I use in my business, join me on my free preview call series where I’ll share with you how I earn an extra 4, 5 and 6 figure income per month, all while enjoying a 4-hour workday. Reserve your spot for this no-cost call.