Go Where They Want You

If there’s one dream all platform creators share, it’s the desire to earn a living full time from that platform. While some people get lucky, must of us have to increase income through the slow, strategic expansion of our business.

But what if there was a way to generate several new revenue streams from your platform in a relatively short amount of time?

Diversify Your Asset

A little bit of this, a little bit of that. It’s one of the most basic strategies in investing, and one of the wisest. When you diversify your financial assets, you hedge your bets against the unpredictable ups and downs of the markets.

When it comes to your intellectual assets (your platform), it’s important to diversify, too. Consider Dave Ramsey and the principle of the debt snowball. The idea is simple: if you want to get out of debt faster, focus on the smallest debt first. Once it’s paid, apply that portion of your budget to the next largest debt. Before you know it, every possible dollar is working overtime to knock out your debt and move you closer to freedom.

The debt snowball is liberating advice. But imagine if Dave only told people about it at conferences. How much business potential would be left on the table? Because Dave’s success is so visible, you already know the answer to this.

But odds are, you have a simple, helpful message that can be expanded into any number of opportunities.

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From a Speech to a Business Plan

To better explain, let’s take a look at a scenario that Dan Miller laid out for Michael Hyatt’s readers a few years back. Imagine you are a public speaker with a strong message (like the debt snowball) who charges a fee of $2,500 per speech. If you book 20 events a year, you can expect to earn an income of $50,000. While you love what you do, you’d rather be earning more? You could increase your fees and risk losing bookings, or you could aggressively pursue more events at which to share your message. While these could work, it’s not a plan you can count on.

But thankfully, this is not the only way. In fact, Dan suggests several. Here are five opportunities to take your core message into new territory and earn additional income in the process:

1. Product Sales. There are numerous ways to convert your core message into tangible products. Let’s say you wrote an ebook and priced it at $10 per copy. If you could sell 1,000 copies per year, that’s an additional $10,000 in your pocket. You could then create an online course that goes deeper on the topic and charge $300 apiece for that. Sell 100 courses a year and you’re looking at an extra $30,000. Product sales add up fast, don’t they?
2. Live Events. What if you expanded your message into a live workshop event. You could provide hands-on coaching and facilitating networking with a group as small as 20 people. Again, if you charged $300, you’d be looking at $6,000.
3. Affiliate and Referral Commissions. Amazon’s Affiliate Program is easy additional money. Every writer and blogger recommend favorite books and products. Affiliate sales help you get paid in the process. You can even earn referral commissions for events you attend by promoting the events to your audience. Many event hosts will happily provide you with a referral program if you can help boost their attendance.
4. Coaching. As you travel around and speak, inevitably you will meet people who want more focused guidance than you could provide in a 45-minute conference session. One-on-one coaching allows you to generate a regular monthly income. You could even charge different rates based on different depths of service.
5. Membership Fees. Does your platform generate strong engagement? Why not start a membership site! From women’s exercise programs like Sweat to learning how to play guitar with Six String Country, many platforms have found incredible success charging a small monthly fee for continued access to content.

These options really just scratch the surface, but hopefully, the takeaway is clear: if your platform’s message can generate revenue in one stream, odds are you can expand that message in a number of different directions and dramatically increase your income in the process.