LeBron James, the leading scorer for The Cleveland Cavaliers, decided that he was going to leave the team and go play for the Miami Heat when he came up for free agency.
This left a lot of fans upset and bitter.
Also, a lot of local small business owners were upset as well.
You see, a lot of the small business owners in Cleveland just placed their businesses on the way to the arena expecting that they would stay profitable just because they were close to the arena.
Also, the team itself placed all their championship bets on how well LeBron James performed.
I know you are thinking that this is a nice history lesson, but what does this have to do with my small business.
A lot of business owners rely on one stream of income.
They rely on one service or one product to bring in revenue.
The rest of this article will explain why this is not a good idea and what you can do to avoid becoming like the Cleveland Cavs if your "star player" (your main source of income) decides to leave town.
Many entrepreneurs are service providers.
They are writers, virtual assistants, speakers, or coaches.
They specialize in being good at the main service they provide.
While it is good to specialize, here is the problem.
What happens if you get sick and can't perform whatever task it is you have decided to specialize in? Your income vanishes.
Your "LeBron James" of income generation just left your city for another one.
Now what can you do to avoid this scenario? I am so glad you asked that question.
To avoid this scenario, you must build other sources of income while you are building your main income stream.
The next section will give you a few ideas on how to do that.
You must have additional income streams to survive any economy.
If you are a service provider, consider creating an infoproduct related to your service.
If you are a virtual assistant, maybe you could create a guide on how to outsource.
If you are a speaker, you could do a teleseminar, record it, transcribe it, and offer that as a product.
If you are a coach, you could create a membership site where you would offer group coaching to the people that paid for a membership.
You could also find affiliate products related to your niche and sell those.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating additional streams of income for your business.
Relying on one source of income is a bad idea.
That product could stop selling.
The advertising network that is serving your ads could go out of business.
Your main client could find someone cheaper.
While it is difficult to manage multiple projects, always be on the lookout for additional revenue streams.
Look for things that can be easily integrated into what you are already doing.