As I have read through the Bigger Game series, I have come to realize that there is an underlying assumption that the reader is engaged in an online service and/or information product business. There’s no mention of physical product or manufacturing. I understand those are different problems, and that’s not where Dave focuses his efforts. I just want to make it clear that Dave is taking his own advice and focusing on a specific target market.
Given that assumption, in 7 Simple Income Streams That You Can Actually Create, Dave lays out an excellent progression for converting your expertise, services, and knowledge into income. If you are already doing business as an online knowledge worker, you are quite likely using one or more of these techniques to generate your income. The income streams that Dave discusses are:
- Tighten your niche – get your stand-out skills out front where potential customers have a reason to choose you.
- Build small products from consulting – This works especially well if you find yourself solving similar problems over and over again for different customers. Charlie Gilkey’s Email Triage product is a great example.
- Use a membership site to fund content development – This works well after you have a following and reputation. It rewards your true fans and enables you to work ahead, not behind
- Targeted co-consulting, intra-disciplinary co-op team building, cross-disciplinary team building, and positioning yourself as a resource for other team builders – all variations on a theme. After you have established your niche around your expertise and knowledge, tie it into other people’s niches, either across levels of skill or across related skills needed to pull together larger projects.
Dave has pulled together a set of approaches that can strengthen your offering to bring new business and increased income to your online service/knowledge business. If you are engaged in this type of business, I strongly encourage you to read 7 Simple Income Streams That You Can Actually Create.
Love how your writing style has evolved. Casual, easier to read and browse. You Rock!
Interesting post, Mike –
Many of us tend to be too general when offering services. You’ve given some great examples here of what you can do when you focus. The starting point is to get very clear and specific about what you do best for your clients – as you say, Dave’s workbooks can really help with that.
@Joshua thanks! I really appreciate the positive feedback. The casual tone definitely feels more comfortable and fits me better.
@Kim, you’re so right. The breakthrough for me was realizing that tightening the niche doesn’t stop you from doing other related work of broader scope. It just puts the strongest and most noteworthy aspects of your offering front and center to start the conversation about what you can actually do for your prospect.
Nice post, Mike. Halfway through I’m like, “What? What 3 income streams am I missing?”
And as I just started consulting with a company selling physical products online, I’d love to hear of any similar approaches toselling physical products.
Good point – I should have used numbers instead of bullets to make it clear that I rolled up 4-7 into that last bullet. You make a good point about physical product, or for that matter even software products. Most of the online marketing advice we see these days is geared toward info products. I guess we’ll have to learn about the physical products together as we go.
Thanks for putting together this mind-expanding list. I particularly enjoyed this comment on the last bullet: “After you have established your niche around your expertise and knowledge, tie it into other people’s niches, either across levels of skill or across related skills needed to pull together larger projects”.
There’s really no end to what we can do when we think about all the possibilities.
Liz, you’re absolutely right – it’s always good to look for opportunities to partner with others and build out both your network and theirs. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you have to always do everything by yourself.