Many solo professionals or consultants source their work through employment agencies, through existing relationships, and some through their own marketing. Many suffer the ‘feast and famine’ cycle of clients and often struggle to build a regular client base, experiencing a lower-income than when employed permanently, often working excessive hours and eventually falling back into a full-time work. Here are 5 strategies to use to generate recurring revenue and avoid that ‘feast and famine’ cycle through the multiple income stream business model.

Which ever way you look at Business Development, growth or expansion; there are three key things, and only three that you can do to grow your business:

1. Change the product or the service that you deliver and develop new products in your existing market.
2. Change the markets that you sell to, taking an existing product into new markets or you can diversify combine the two, a new market, a new product
3. Take what you already do and do it quicker and cheaper, than you before.

There is, arguably a fourth way and that is to combine all three.

The Multi income stream defines 5 possible income streams.

Active Income

Most consultants will be familiar with active income, where you sell your one-to-one time to clients; it is time-consuming and expensive – expensive for you to win new clients because of the amount of time and effort that it takes, and also expensive for your client, because you are delivering your service on a one-to-one basis

Passive income

Passive income is where your knowledge enables you to create information products in the form of E-Books, CDs and DVDs, enabling you to reach a wider audience. Obviously there is a large investment in time and money to create content, however there are many benefits. Automation of the process enables you to concentrated your efforts in more productive areas.

Recurring income

Recurring income can easily be generated through membership sites or web-based subscription tools. There may come a time in your business where you may generate more passive and recurring income than through active clients paying for your one-to- one time.

Leveraged income

Leveraged income is where consultants deliver their service to a group thereby leveraging their income. The key benefits of this type of income is that you, the consultant, are able to reach a wider audience in the same amount of time that you would for a one-to-one client. The benefits to your clients are that they benefit from your knowledge at a reduced cost, compared to one-to-one delivery and they are also able to learn from interaction with other members of the audience.

Affiliate income

Affiliate income is often used by consultants and coaches to generate an income by promoting other people’s products. There are two types of affiliate income; one is commonly used by Internet Marketers where they make a living by selling third-party products and services over the Internet, the second, is where coaches and consultants have used other services and products and believe in them so much, that they subscribe to the vendors affiliate programme.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Many of us believe in collaborative principles, and some of us believe we operate according to those principles. But if we really stop and think: what does it mean to be collaborative, what arises? It’s a nebulous term that surfaces frequently but with little substance. Here are seven ways for you to add a little more meaning to the term “collaborative” while becoming a more effective leader in the process.

1. Reframe your role
As we imagine ourselves as leaders, the picture often comes with inarticulate assumptions, judgments, beliefs about what our roles are, and are not, about. Is your role as leader to delegate, motivate, inspire, redirect, dictate, or teach? What does it include and what is outside boundaries of your leadership?

A collaborative leader sees their role as a facilitator and coach. It is not one of control or dictatorship, but one of guidance and empowerment. A facilitator (note the root word facile) is someone who makes it easier for others to do their jobs effectively; someone who enables work to be accomplished.

Think of your leadership role as one of coach and facilitator.

2. Be explicit
You can help someone else be more effective by being explicit. About everything. Be explicit about your intentions and motivations for sharing information, your expectations, your disappointment and excitement about someone’s performance.

Collaboration requires transparency. People can’t work together if they’re not on the same page, and they won’t be on the same page if you’re not explicit about the work. Often we don’t even notice when we’re being implicit because it’s so ingrained in our work culture to limit people’s exposure to information. Simply start to notice when you’re leaving certain things implicit. See what happens when you simply make something that is typically left implicit explicit.

3. Set the context
In order to trust a situation and to understand how they fit into it, people need to have the background information. Every situation has context, and making that context explicit helps create environments of trust and safety, thus fostering growth and development. This is one way to be explicit, and it also helps you practice your emotional awareness.

4. Tune in emotionally
Emotional intelligence is absolutely essential to effective leadership. If you are in touch with them, your emotions can serve as a weather-vane for the stickiest of leadership situations. Your emotions can also be the messenger of your intuition. Harnessed constructively, the wisdom contained within emotions can benefit the tough conversations you need to have with those around you.

5. Build and maintain ownership
People know when something is theirs. It is usually an easy, intuitive process to decide if something is ours. Is the computer on which you’re reading this article yours? How about the chair you’re sitting in? It becomes a little trickier when you’re assessing your ownership of an intangible object. For example, is this article yours? You might think no, because you didn’t write it, but I did give it to you. How about your most recent meeting at work? Was that your meeting, or were you just showing up to someone else’s meeting?

Building joint ownership for work products and processes is critical to leading collaboratively. If you can help encourage people to really own their work, the rest falls in place because people care for what they own.

6. Hold people accountable
Some leaders assume that collaborative teams are always easy on each other because collaboration can have a warm and fuzzy connotation. In reality, the opposite is true. High performing collaborative teams hold each other accountable, are candid about their desires and limitations, and have open relationships rich with feedback – both the positive and negative kind.

It is not easy to belong to a collaborative team where each contributor is required to show up to both themselves and the team in a way they hadn’t before. Create a high accountability environment for the best results. People will start to step up, and they’ll also think twice before committing to something, therefore becoming more impeccable with their word.

7. Assume the best
Collaborative teams don’t rely on someone’s authority to get work done. They rely on cohesion and joint ownership among the team. Even if you are in a position of authority, relying on your authority to convince others to perform is draining and ineffective.

Assuming the best about people’s intentions can help you take proactive measures to help others do good work. If someone is defensive, they’re probably feeling attacked. If someone is withdrawing, they probably feel disconnected. If someone is not meeting their goals, they probably need more guidance or support. When others appear to be a certain way, look at the problem from the perspective of what you can do to help it, and assume the best about the person. It will result in getting the best from them.

Leading from a collaborative paradigm can feel like more work up front, but is easier and more rewarding in the long run.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Integrated PR is not about social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), nor about traditional media (TV, radio and print). It’s about both. The important thing is to use as many different channels as possible to deliver your message. That’s not to say that just using radio advertising, or a campaign on Twitter, is a bad thing. My contention is that you should use as many options as you can in a single campaign.I define integrated PR as A PR campaign which delivers a single core message, using both traditional and social media.

First, you need a message. The art of good PR is to be able to convey the right one, in the right way, at the right time, to the right audience. The essence of a message is always the precise detail we wish to impart.

So, how do you create this core message for your integrated PR campaign?

Here is a checklist of the most important elements:

Identify the Single Most Important Idea

People remember very little of what they see or hear. The most effective PR campaigns focus on the most important message that you wish to communicate, since that’s what you want people to remember.

If you have several messages you want to deliver, save the less important ones for another time. One message that is remembered by your potential clients is worth dozens of half-remembered ones.

Keep it simple

Don’t use jargon, or industry-specific terms. It’s impossible to over-simplify a message, but easy to over-complicate one.

Make it Memorable

We are besieged with messages every day, through radio and TV, adverts, conversations and the like. Your job, when delivering your message on the media, is to make it something that people will remember. Think of words and phrases that are a little unusual, or conjure up an image. If your message is seen as a picture, even if you are on the radio, it will be much more memorable.

Make it Relevant

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential audience and think what they will find engaging, All you have to do then is to deliver what they want to see or hear.

Ask Yourself “So What? “

Imagine yourself hearing your own core message. If your immediate reaction is, “so what?” the message doesn’t work. You need to be able to capture the value to your audience in whatever you say.

Be Sincere

If you want people to believe you, you have to be sincere. You have to really believe what you are saying. That is why it is very important for you, as a company spokesperson, to be involved in drafting the core message. It will be very difficult for you to recite words given to you by a PR person if you are not fully confident that they represent your opinion.

In summary then, your core message needs to be simple, relevant, memorable, beneficial and of course, true. How hard is that?

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Lifecasting

Nowadays, it is not enough to podcast, in order to create and maintain personal branding. Instead, you might want to consider sites like Qik.com and UStream.tv for doing live videos. Here you are provided with your own profile that will be able to record live audio as well as video. This can be then, streamed and experienced by a viewer who is tuned in to your site. From his/her side, the viewer can communicate with you through messaging. As a result, you get instant feedback on your ideas and offerings. If successful, you could then take the entire recording and post in on your web page as a blog.

Cross Promote Your Blogs And Mailing Lists

Generally, mailing lists are maintained so that you can segregate your most loyal followers and provide them with personalised answers to their queries. Nevertheless, take stock of the actual amount of time you can give to answering personal mails before you think of mailing lists. Blogs and their updating are very important, as it is the primary awareness-building centre. However, you might want to create a sort of interconnection between your mailing list and your blogs so that they feed off each other’s success. This type of cross marketing can prove very useful, especially at the initial stage of personal branding when the number of users in the niche is low.

Ad Placing

While your website is gathering interest, you can also use it to create some passive income. AdSense is one avenue that you could look at. Through AdSense along with personal branding, you can put up certain third party advertisements on your page and you are paid every time a user clicks on it.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

From top business executives, to people striving everyday in their communities. From traditional corporations, to the internet, “branding” has become one of the most significant marketing practices to date. We have all become accustomed to the fact that our favorite brand will consistently offer a certain level of quality.

We are so bombarded by product brands that we are barely conscious of them much of the time, but most of us have at  least some level of brand awareness. We can repeat their ad slogans. Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell! or Energizer, it just  keeps going and going and going… But most important for the companies that make brand-name products, is the fact that we look for them when we shop.

The business world has long recognized the value of creating a recognizable and clearly defined “brand”. When you are  looking for clothes, don’t you seek out brand names like Nike, Donna Karan or Gucci? At the grocery store, do you purchase generic lemon cake or Betty Crocker? Odds are that you’ve developed a preference for one brand or another in almost every type of consumer good you purchase.

The companies behind all of those brand-name products and the millions of other goods and services being pitched to you everyday, believe that a strong brand creates a bond with consumers by giving them something of value and by consistently delivering on their promise of doing it. Companies with powerful brands have learned that we will keep coming back to their products and services, and sometimes pay a premium price for them, if they consistently deliver on their “promise” of giving us what we want or need.

Think for a moment about the people you value most in life. Aren’t they people who deliver something you value? They have skills, knowledge, or personal characteristics that add to the quality of your life. Their “brands” or reputations carry a promise.

The individuals who are most successful in the world today, are those who offer the greatest value to the most people – just as those products and services with the strongest brands are the ones that offer us the greatest value.

Today’s marketing experts attribute the development of brand images for products and services to the advertising world. David Ogilvy, one of the masterminds of advertising in the 1960′s, popularized the idea of creating a lasting brand image for products in order to create long term customer loyalty. Ogilvy believed in selling not just the product but also the physical or psychological benefits that are “promised” in the products advertising and marketing.

Marketing scientists who study consumer buying habits say that brands can become so powerful that people will actually incorporate them into their everyday lives. One example of this phenomenon is the Eddie Bauer brand, which you will see not only on rugged clothing but also on home furnishings, bedding, baby furniture, rugs, lamps and garden accessories, not to mention the special edition Ford Explorer.

Successful companies like Eddie Bauer and others such as Circuit City, Best Buy, Apple Computer, Montgomery Ward, Sears and the like, spend millions and millions of dollars creating, advertising and building their brand names so that you and I will ask for their products. These giant companies understand the long-term benefits of building a brand that stands out from the crowd, and so should you!

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Identify Your Target Audience

This is the most important thing you should take care of while promoting your business. Identify the audience which would be interested in buying your product depending upon the location, gender, age etc and then advertise about your product on places online or offline where your target audience is mostly found. For example it could be some forum or community online or offline where you advertise about your product.

Establish yourself as Brand

Everybody likes to buy branded products. Hence try to establish yourself as brand. Wear t-shirts imprinted with your brand and encourage your employees too to wear your company t-shirts while going to client meetings etc. Create a professional website and participate with your audience in various social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook etc

Educate your Clients

The more you educate your customers; the more they will buy from you. Your promotional campaign should not only contains a sales pitch but it should also answer the common questions and problems which your customers are facing. Your promotional campaigns should tell them about the advantages of buying from you.

Freebies and Giveaways

Everybody loves getting things for free. Try giving out your services or products on trial basis for free so that you can get a chance to convert them to customers in future. You can also distribute some promotional items which your potential clients use a lot. For example if you are selling computers, you can create custom flash drives printed with your logo and distribute them among your customers. So every time a person would use that flash drive he would think about your brand.

Local Directories and Magazines

If you provide services in a specific area then you can get your business added in to various local directories like Yellow Pages, local magazines and newspapers. Since most of the people these days use search engines to find any information you can add yourself to online local listings, Google local results, Yahoo local business directory. Most of these directories are free and can get you good number of customers each month.

SEO and Online Promotion

SEO is the process which helps to increase your website visibility in various search engines. Since most people prefer to buy online these days and use search engines to find products you cannot ignore search engine  optimization (SEO) of your site. You can also use paid advertising methods like Google Adwords to advertise your website online.

Each business is different and needs a customized promotional campaign but these general tips would definitely guide you to plan an effective promotional campaign for your startup.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

1. Good Logo Design Service

A good brand has a good logo. It is so important. You can hire a freelance for the logo design, but we suggest a crowd-sourcing marketplace like IamaSource, crowdspring, logomyway, etc… Especially the first one, revelation for the 2010, has a friendly and really proactive customer care. Anyway with these kind of services you can save some money and get a lot of ideas for your logo.

2. Blog

Being on the web, you should always remember that content is the King, so your business needs to provide high quality outputs. To do this a great way is having a blog. A blog is useful to be known from the people that are surfing the net and that belong to your niche. Also search engines love blogs and their keywords! Always important o include some geographics references on your blog articles.

3. Craigslist

Free ads, lots of eyeballs. A lot of entrepreneurs say that they got more clients from a service like this than from AdWords. You can set up your business account on your local Craigslist and start posting your services under the right category.

4. Analytics

Website analytics give you valuable information about how people visit your website, where they came from, what pages they visit, and in some cases, who exactly visited. The information is invaluable if you take your website or blog seriously. Google analytics is a good, free option. But I also recommend a more detailed package like the one I use from Visistat, which offers a free trial.

5. Facebook Page

Social Media Marketing is so much important and you can’t miss it. Set up a free Facebook page and use it to socialize with, and engage customers. Anyway, as everything, a good strategy must be followed being stuck to it, without loosing the natural sense of Facebook, that is being social.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Quite simply, a brand is a business’s promise to its customer. It defines what they can expect from its products or services, and it distinguishes its offering from those of its competitors.  When we hear the brands Microsoft, Google or Starbucks, we immediately know exactly what to expect and what they are renowned for.  I always like to think of a brand as the personality of a business, a unique combination of qualities that makes it stand out from the crowd.

As someone who spent 20 or so years in conventional marketing before joining a network marketing business, what struck me immediately was how little importance was attached to branding by most distributors. An army of people, marketing the same products and the same companies, using exactly the same tools.

And what hit me even harder after a year or so’s experience was this. Nowhere is branding of more paramount importance than in network marketing.  There are two key reasons for this:

1. We all do business more readily with people who know, like and trust us.

That’s precisely why every new distributor is advised to start by creating a “warm” list of friends, family etc. and approaching them first. But when that list has been exhausted and you’re casting your net more widely, it’s vital to differentiate yourself from the hundreds of other people out there who are also pitching their products and opportunity.

If you invest some time and effort into branding yourself personally, as an expert and business owner, you’ll find it so much easier to attract people to you and to recruit them into your business. If you don’t bother with personal branding, then you’re really little more than a commissioned independent representative.  That’s not the way to network marketing success.

Never forget that people join you – not your business!

2. You will still have a business – no matter what happens to your company!

What would happen if the company you are now with decides to discontinue its operations or goes bankrupt?  If you’ve simply been promoting its products and opportunity in a similar fashion to all the other distributors, you’re in danger of being left with absolutely nothing to show for all that time and effort.

But if you’ve been focusing your efforts on creating and building your own personal brand, you will have built up your database – a loyal following of team members and prospects who trust you and want to work with you.

Then, when you decide to join a new network marketing business, a good percentage of your loyal followers will come with you.

And because their main loyalty is to you, not your company, you will have the opportunity to market additional products and services to them on an ongoing basis.  Offering incredible value to them and creating important additional income streams for you.

There are numerous ways of branding yourself, such as starting your own blog, writing articles and building a presence on the social media sites.  I’ll be covering these, and many other personal branding strategies, in future articles.

To discover how to attract endless prospects online and generate multiple income streams for your network marketing or home business, visit www.savvyonlinenetworker.com.

Susan Tindale – Attraction Marketing for Networkers and Home Based Businesses

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Image and Culture

The image and culture you choose to develop for your business should be reflected in the name and logo you select. Everything from font to color selection to logo design should work together to provide a mental image consistent with the type of business you run. There are a million fonts available these days, and it is essential that your business name be not only readable, but also come across as consistent with your idea of the venture’s image. Psychology studies have established that different colors promote different emotions and have different inherent meanings to people, so be sure the colors you select make sense with the image you want to convey (even if they aren’t your own favorites).

Designing Your Logo

Designing the right logo can be difficult, but there are several options for those who are not particularly artistically inclined. First, there are professional designers and graphic artists who will listen to your ideas and design several logos for you to choose from. This option can be expensive and sometimes frustrating — if you decide to outsource the logo design, be sure to interview several professionals and look over their previous work.

There are also a number of good logo design software programs that are reasonably priced and easy to use. Anyone with basic computer skills can figure out how to use these programs, and the better ones include a wide range of styles to choose from. If you design the logo yourself, come up with several samples and share them with friends and family — often outsiders will see problems or features that you don’t.

Use a Tag Line

In addition to your business name and logo, consider developing a tag line to further describe the work you do and identify key words or phrases that are meaningful to your target customers. A tag line can be particularly useful if your business name does not clearly explain what the company does or if you have a particular aspect that sets you apart from the competition. Identifying key words or phrases is also important in building your brand.

If your business lends itself to creating a new term, so much the better. The drink company Energy Brands coined the term enhanced water and they use it on every piece of marketing that goes out the door. If creating a new word or phrase is not feasible, then at least find the words and phrases that accurately and memorably describe what you do and how you do it. Then work them into your marketing materials.

Protect Your Image Assets

Once you have developed a comprehensive identity package, spend the time and money to protect those assets. Filing for a federal trademark is not particularly difficult or expensive, so it is surprising how few business owners protect their primary asset under federal law. If your business name is a term in the common use, you may not be able to protect the words, but you can protect the logo design, jingle, or any other proprietary identification of the venture. The trademark doesn’t guarantee that no one else will use your name, but it does provide you the ability to sue them if they do…a definite advantage if any copycats try to infringe on your business idea.

Use Your Image to Build Your Business

Creating a branding package is an absolute must for any new business. The key to effective branding is to maintain consistency, both in terms of reflecting the actual image and culture of the business and in terms of the marketing materials you develop. But developing the identity package is just the first step — only a well-developed and followed marketing plan will get your brand the recognition and loyalty you need to succeed.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

In a Women’s Entrepreneur Success Survey I conducted, the #1 category chosen out of 44 to define “Success” was “Faith”. It can be assumed that accountability to God, or a higher purpose, helps you work with strong values, ethics and morals; based on charity, kindness, compassion, and the genuine passion to help others. Also, having faith may help you learn from your failures quicker, have less fear, and take more educated risks, because every experience (good or bad) is one step closer to goal attainment for all the right reasons.

2. Empowerment of Self – The Ability to Chose

Empowerment is about learning there are choices, in which you have the right to be the healthiest and happiest person you can be today. One critical choice in the self-empowerment process is to enter into self-discovery process that leads to self-acceptance and results in self-love. You will reach your personal and business’ greatest potential, once you master this equation: Self-Love = Self-Discovery + Self-Acceptance.

3. Exercise Balance with Your Family

Since your family gives you the most personal fulfillment, it is important to always prioritize your business accordingly. Choose to live life with your family, not because of, or for them by making excuses to yourself, such as “work comes first”. After almost facing death, I learned that I must always: Work Wisely + Play Plenty = Rest Reassured.

4. The Enterprise Must Include the Power of Power Networks

As a conductor of your own enterprise, you can not see yourself as a one-woman-show. You must choose to utilize the power people in your life, by asking for help when you need it, and effectively delegating in order to capitalize on your strengths and that of your power network. When certain experts are not represented in your power network, you must actively seek advisors or mentors and develop a team of specialists, so the benefits are received by everyone involved in the power network – the true Power of Power Networks.

5. Experience Success through Principles That Work

Rather than re-invent the success cycle; read, study and try different principles proven to have worked in the numerous business-improvement resources available to you. Choose to learn something(S) new every single day.

Give this one a try: The Empowerment Equation to Success:

Desire + Action = Success

Action = 5 A’s: Acquisition, Affirmative Attitude, Accountability, Asking, and Accomplish.

Visit EmpowerWomenNow.com often for updated professional empowerment tools as well.

6. Exclusive Business Brand

Brand yourself as the exclusive business in your target market. The more you invest your time, money, efforts, and human resource in developing your Unique Selling Proposition, once your clients start rolling in…their loyalty will last for their lifetime and that of their offspring. The power of being the first and only means you have no competition. Therefore, your clients have no one else to turn to. Always chose to be a specialist at something…not a generalist in everything. Dare to be Your Best Self! [Beware: Once you start succeeding at what you do, you WILL have competition. At which time, it's critical to build alliances...not enemies.]

7. Establish Systems to Maximize Time

You must establish as many systems as possible (i.e., priority planning, to do’s, office hours, meeting days, etc.) to be time-efficient. Streamline all your business protocols for maximum productivity that includes but not limited to your daily, weekly, monthly and annual duties and responsibilities.

8. Expand Your Marketing Reach

Diversify your online and offline marketing portfolio. Always be open to try something new, different and creative, but never stop at a one-time opportunity. Repetitive efforts are rewarded the most. Areas include: website, blog, article submission, local and internet press release campaign, venture partnerships, link exchanges, charity sponsorships, public speaking, radio interviews, teleseminars, volunteerism, search engine optimization/marketing, building power networks, and hosting local events.

9. Experiment for a Positive Bottom Line

For every new formula, system, or marketing campaign you try, you must always test and track your results. Stay accountable to your bottom-line by being patient enough to see results and persistent enough to gain the most from your efforts. Don’t give up too easily, and don’t let dead-weight pull you down. Always be cost-conscious.

10. Envisioning Goes beyond Goal Setting

Envisioning your goals means being able to apply all your senses to the moment when your goal is achieved. Basically, you need to touch, taste, smell, feel, and hear your goal already accomplished, so that moment becomes so vivid in your mind, that you will become happy and empowered right now.Your positive focus will fill your workdays with fun, and you’ll always be proud of your efforts rather than disappointed with your unfinished tasks. Coming from a Type-A personality, this is easier said than done; but having just written this down, I’m now accountable to you. Now, I challenge you to stay empowered and keep our power network alive!

Please share your comments and feedback, by leaving a quick note at Empowering Women Right Now Blog. This Women’s Empowerment Cycle can’t roll without ya!

Ponn M. Sabra, The Women’s Empowerment Queen, is the best-selling author of “Empowering Women to Power Network, and Founder of Empower Women Now. Hop over to to get empowered today!

Article Source: Ezine Articles