Whenever a new freelancer comes to me asking for advice, I tell them to make sure they have a range of income streams.
On a basic level, that means not putting all your stock in one client when the work might dry up. You could go from earning decent money to nothing in a matter of minutes.
It’s important to have a range of clients so if you lose one, you’re not screwed financially.
But, at the advanced level, diversifying your income streams actually means having lots of sources of income; not just your freelance work or a single business.
Here are some examples:
Freelance work with a bank of clients
Royalties from short stories published to Kindle
Rental property income
Revenue from sponsored blog/social media posts
Income from speaking gigs
Sales of digital products (templates, ebooks, downloadables)
Physical product sales (merchandise, handmade soaps, vintage clothing, upcycled furniture etc.)
Payment from monthly subscribers (from your membership site, Patreon, Twitch etc.)
You don’t need all of these to live a comfortable, secure life but just two or three can really help should one income stream go south.
I’ve seen a lot of freelancers stuck after a client has pulled out, or a project has finished. There’s a whole other newsletter in keeping a steady supply of clients going and building long-lasting relationships with them but it’s still important to diversify.
The list above isn’t exhaustive and some of those points might take years to reach so don’t be afraid to start small: Upload those stories you wrote as a teen to Amazon, create downloadables and list them on Gumroad, start selling your art on Etsy, invest in a stocks and shares ISA to buy a property, or maybe set up that YouTube channel you’ve always talked about.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a financial advisor but one of the biggest things I’ve learned over the years of being an entrepreneur and freelancer is that job security is hard to come by. It’s only in recent years that I’ve been able to mitigate the fear of all of my income drying up by making sure it’s coming from lots of different sources.
Want advice or just want to chat about job security as a freelancer or business owner? Reply to this email.
The Art of Freelancing Masterclass series
I’ve teamed up with Lauren Razavi and Tiffany Philippou to bring you a series of masterclasses to help you thrive as a freelancer. The first takes place tonight (2 July) at 5pm BST but there are two others you can join us for: personal branding and finding clients. All the details are here.
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Social Experiment
As prep for a Racing Mentor course, I’ve been sending messages to people on social media to build basic relationships to see how much easier it is to sell to people you have a rapport with.
A very simple message sent to a LinkedIn contact about a great video he posted resulted in an offer of work. The conversation ran like this:
Me: Hey, great video! Do you do much of these on social media?
Him: No, we don’t have time! We’ve got loads of photos and videos like this.
Me: Oh no! What a shame. I think social media is really valuable, especially when you have great content like this.
Him: I’d be willing to chat about how you might help us with this…
It was that simple.
Part of this is down to the fact that I have ‘Content strategist’ in my LinkedIn tagline. But it also goes to show how much can happen when you go into a conversation with no agenda.
The takeaway from this is that you should be consistently building business relationships, as you never know what may come from them.
Jess Recommends
🖥️ Read: How to Build a Community Around Your Brand - I spoke to Shami Kalra, founder of Omologato — a watch brand with a die-hard following — for the Jet Social blog all about how he’s build a large following. Creating this sense of community and belonging is so important when it comes to repeat business and referrals.
💌 Subscribe: The Tiff Weekly - Tiffany Philippou writes about the things that have happened in her life. These vibrant stories can teach us so much but it’s also a wonderfully personal insight into societies expectations of ourselves.
Read more from Jess of All Trades:
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