In this episode of The Real Truth About Business, Michelle explores the concept of diversifying income within your business and beyond. She shares personal insights and actionable tips to help listeners embrace various income streams.

Summary:

In this episode, Michelle discusses the importance of diversifying your income, both within your business and through unrelated opportunities. She emphasizes that it's okay to explore multiple income streams to reduce risk, align with personal passions, and achieve your financial goals.

Key Takeaways:

1. Diversification Mitigates Risk: Diversifying your income across various sources reduces vulnerability to downturns or challenges in one area of your business.
2. Exploring Unrelated Income Streams: You're not confined to a single niche or revenue source. Michelle encourages listeners to consider diverse income opportunities, even if they seem unrelated to their current business. Passion and alignment are key.
3. Creating a Pie of Income Streams: Think of your income as slices of a pie, where each slice represents a different source of revenue. These "slices" can include your core business, related ventures, or entirely separate endeavors.
4. Balancing Your Revenue Pie: Determine the financial impact and contribution of each income stream to your overall revenue goal. Some streams may provide a significant portion of your income, while others offer supplementary support.
5. Aligning with Your Vision: Your income streams should align with your personal goals and values. It's essential to find a balance that allows you to achieve your financial objectives while enjoying what you do.

Remember that diversifying your income doesn't mean neglecting your core business. It means expanding your opportunities to create a more robust financial foundation and a more fulfilling entrepreneurial journey.

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Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of The Real Truth About Business. I'm excited to be here today. This is a topic of conversation that has been coming up a lot lately, and it's the topic of diversifying your income. And that could mean a lot of things when it comes to your business. It could mean diversifying your income within your business through different offers and different levels of offers.

It could mean diversifying your income through completely different channels, like having multiple different offers, being multi-passionate. And I just really wanna talk about all of them because I've been having a lot of this conversation with people, myself included. I'll give you a little backstory of kind of how this has been coming up in different things or whatnot as always, because I always wanna share stories and whatnot.

Quick reminder though, before we dive into today's episode, if you are not part of the Sunday morning brew newsletter coffee crew, I can't remember exactly what I'm calling it, the brew crew I think is what it is, definitely grab the link in the show notes and get on my newsletter list. I've got some fun stuff coming and it's really designed to just give you that dose of strategy to begin your week, right? So there's strategy, there's a take action tip.

There's all kinds of things and then also I've been sending out some other little random you know strategic planning things especially as we get towards the end of the year there's going to be a lot of strategic planning stuff coming. So anyways, if you haven't jumped on the list yet click on the link in the show notes and definitely do that. So anyways, what do I want to talk about is that diversifying your income? I talked to a mentor of mine and he calls this

like slices of your pie, or legs of your business, or arms, whatever, it doesn't matter what you call it. But basically, it's really about not having all your eggs in one basket, right? We've heard that before, you've heard it multiple times. But let's talk about diversifying your income within your one business. So if you're an online service provider, solopreneur, using myself as an example, a coach, right? Diversifying your income could look

like having one-on-one clients, it could look like having a group program or mastermind, it could look like having passive income products, like a product-based sales funnel, things that work on Evergreen. Evergreen, like the rapid fire formula is gonna be an Evergreen workshop, that type of thing. So you can have these multiple different options inside your business. The problem with this, or what I find to be one of the biggest issues with this is that

people get overwhelmed with what to promote, right? And when you're promoting all the things, it's kind of difficult and people can get confused and then they shut down, they don't know exactly what to offer to work on or how to work with you or whatever. And so, but also when you go through periods of recession or pandemics or life events, because they keep coming, right? Like they're not gonna stop happening, life events or global events, anything of that sort, you know,

One offer may take a little bit of a hit, but when you have a little bit more diversified income, other areas of your offer might not, right? So your one-to-one coaching may really dwindle, but your product sales might increase, right? And so this is why it's important not to promote all of them at the same time, but to have multiple different income and diversifying it. But...

One of the things I really wanna talk about today, I mean, we could talk all things, that's more offers related. I mean, if you wanted to really diversify your offers, we can do that in a rapid fire day. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes for that. They're $197 and that's a perfect opportunity. We just spend the whole day together on Boxer, not Boxer, WhatsApp, and we really just go through and really look at your offers and really look at like, when you're gonna promote what, and the marketing around each one of them. Anyway.

But what I really, really what I mean by diversifying your income really in the conversation I've been having lately is really thinking outside of the box and really truly diversifying like even non related things like non related to the online solopreneur service based world. I think we have been brainwashed in the online space, especially in the online space.

that like you have to scale your business to 250,000, 500,000. You have to make, you know, $50,000 a month, right? And if you're not doing that, then your business isn't successful and you haven't scaled it well enough and all this bullshit. And in reality, like, and I believe that too, like my big goal this year was 250,000. I even changed half my passwords to include that. Not that I'm using them anymore. So I didn't just share my password information.

But like it was everywhere, right? Like it was everywhere. It was in my plans, 250,000, blah, and all this stuff. And then I don't remember exactly when, well, in all honesty, we started watching the show Suits, which I'm sure if you have not watched it, like definitely dive into it. I like am still mourning the fact that we're done with it. Like I loved it. I got so invested into it. And one of the characters in there, not to be a spoiler alert by any means,

does a lot of, he really has a heart to serve and he loves to do pro bono work, right? And so they work for this big, massive corporate, high level, they're like corporate attorneys, right? You're talking seven, eight figure deals on these, with these organizations that they're working with. And, but he really loves doing some pro bono work, but the corporate work feeds the pro bono work, right? And so,

That to me was such an eye-opener in the sense of that you can diversify your income, right? Like the $250,000 that I'm aiming for in the next year, whatever, that was just like my next big goal, doesn't all have to come from coaching because the reality is, is that the way I enjoy coaching, which is through the rapid fire model, which is through one-to-one, I...

it's going to be very hard to get to $250,000 in that model, right? Because I also enjoy my time, right? And so I have to look at what are some other ways, and this is what I really am been trying to work with a couple of clients on too, is that it doesn't all have to come from your independent solo business, right? I have another client who is getting into like the Airbnb, but

with RVs, right? And she's loving it and she enjoys working with it and it's passive and she likes setting it up and she's doing all this stuff. And I really tried to tell her like, look into that. Like that gets to be a substantial leg to your business. Like all of your income does not need to come from the consulting side of her business. It gets to come from roadside, you know, her retreat business or whatever that looks like. And that's where I'm really thinking about diversification is that

Is there some type of fractional work? Like even myself diversifying my income, I work part-time for the dog trainer in the management, you know, strategic management role. I went on as an employee just because it made more sense for what we were trying to do, right? That's a leg of my income. So the mentor I have calls him pieces of the pie, right? And so my entire pie looking at it means making X, Y, Z number of dollars, right? It's even probably more than 250 when I think about big, big five.

Five year goals. But the reality is, is I don't want all of that income to come from Michelle De Nio coaching or Michelle De Nio consulting, right? I want some of it to come from one-to-one coaching with Solopreneurs and ServiceBase and teaching the rapid fire model. I also really, really miss working more in the manufacturing space and in that corporate side, because there's a side of my brain that is not being used that I really miss.

Um, right. And so you've got corporate contracts on one slice of the pie. And then I have the dog trainer is a management role on another slice of my pie. And then I have my one-to-one coaching and rapid fire is another slice of my pie. I have the evergreen webinar or workshop, right? I'm going to turn that into another slice of my pie. I've got my focus visionary mastermind next year that's coming up. That's another slice of the pie. Right. And then I have.

ideas for products and journals. I have an entire slew of journals that I've created and planners and workbooks and all of that I want to sell on Amazon, right? I used to have an Airbnb business. We used to have an Airbnb in our inside our home, right? And so I think the problem that we all have is we have this tunnel vision that income has to come.

from one specific, right? Like you jump into the online space, I'm a coach, I'm a consultant, and I'm gonna scale this business to 500,000 or a million dollars and blah, blah. And the reality is, is that just, for the most part, like it can be done. I'm not saying it can't be done, but there's a lot of people out there. I know that part of the reason you're struggling with it is because it doesn't really align with what you're trying to do and you have these other passions and you have these other things.

And so one of the take action tips I want to give you right now is to really think about all the different areas in your life that you can make money. And I did this with that client that I was telling you that enjoys doing more of that RV side. They also have a third business. And so ultimately what I asked her and tasked her to do with is take all three of them and figure out like...

Where do each one of them, what is the financial impact that each one of them is going to have? What's the financial goal and projection for each one of those to hit your overall big revenue goal for your businesses, right? Your entire empire of money-making businesses. And I really want you to think about that too. Think about, I don't know if you guys follow James Wedmore at all. I have followed, he's been one of the biggest name coaches that I've followed for a very long time.

Right. And he has business by design. That's one stream of revenue. He has gotten very, very big into the Airbnb side. I know he's got a ton of Airbnb's in Sedona or in the Arizona Scottsdale area. And so that's another stream of income for him. Right. And that is something else he's obviously very passionate about. I have another coach that I follow in the UK, who I absolutely adore. And his entire brand is around coffee.

coffee and espresso and all these things. And so he launched an actual coffee. Like he tested it, they got the whole beans, they have it white labeled. Like he has now his own brand of coffee, which again, falls in alignment with his coaching business, but not really, it has nothing to do with it. It's just some, it was a passion project for him and he tried to do it, you know, he put it out there. He's written a couple of books. One of the books he actually goes, he did like ghost writing for

his father who passed away and he sells that it has absolutely nothing to do with his business, but it's part of his overall empire and legacy that he's trying to create. And so when you have all of these diversified income streams, I'm not saying you can build them all at one time. You really can't. It's very hard to build all of these businesses at the same time, but you can look at and figure out what are the pieces of your pie.

Like what areas are you neglecting? Is there something that you used to do that you really, really enjoyed that you miss, right? Is there an opportunity for revenue that you've kind of pushed aside because you felt like you needed to go all in on the online space and maybe there's a side of you that wishes that you were still doing something else? Do you wanna get paid to do speaking? Do you wanna get paid to be in publications? Do you wanna do...

like paid guesting on podcasts, do you want to run workshops? Do you want to get into the corporate companies? And, and corporate doesn't mean it has to be like a Pepsi style corporation, it could be a, you know, a $5 million corporation, a $3 million corporation, small business is really what they consider that. But it's still more corporate when in comparison to the online space, if you understand, you know what I mean? If that makes sense. And so I really think that, you know,

One, diversifying your income and your income streams reduces risk because there is very little chance that all of them are gonna go to shit at the same time. Like it's very unlikely. The mentor that I have, he runs an apparel business and then he has kind of this other government. It's an entirely different like government contracting space that he's in. And when COVID hit, his apparel business kind of took a tank, right? Because there was no sports needing.

um, jerseys and all of these things. And there was no schools, there wasn't any afterschool activities or sports or any of these extracurricular activities that would typically buy mass levels of apparel from him. And so his corporate and his government contracting thing is what carried him and his entire apparel company through the pandemic. Right. And so having these other streams of income really allows you to

looking into doing some more corporate stuff in the manufacturing space, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I feel like my one-to-one business isn't going where I want it to go. It's not that I don't, it's just I like having, I like having the diversification. There's also a bigger reason here, which again, I'm gonna talk about another podcast about pricing, but I feel very, very strongly about price points in the soloconore space and where.

what it means to me and where I wanna be. And in order to hit my life and revenue goals and keep my pricing where I wanna be, they're not in alignment, right? And so I always talk about this when we do a lot of strategic planning, like are your goals in alignment with what you're currently executing? My pricing is not in alignment with my bigger revenue goals and my big vision. So I need to add in other things in order to do that because I'm not.

willing to raise my prices to a place that's going to get me to where I want to go revenue wise on this one particular income stream. So again, that again, pricing is the next episode. So stay tuned for that. But do you see what I'm saying? Like it's really what's in alignment. What is your heart calling you to do? Is there certain areas like you all had?

other jobs and other careers prior to becoming a solopreneur? Is there something from those careers that you miss doing? Is there something else you could be doing that could be another stream of revenue that really wouldn't require a brand new business, right? I'm not saying you have to set up multiple different businesses and all of that. I'm just saying like there's opportunity here to bring in little pockets of money in multiple different ways. That's what my goal is. Okay.

And so I would really just again, encourage you to think about like, what are all the different areas of your business that bring in revenue, right? Even if it's in your offers, if it's just simply in diversifying your offers, is it something I would even caution you on the passive income side. I could do a whole episode on passive income too and how passive income really is a passive, but I don't wanna get into that. I think if you scroll back like,

I can even try to find it, but there's an episode about that from my other podcast. I could probably even link it. But anyway, diversifying either your offers or your income, and really thinking about what other ways do you want to... Even if you don't know how to do it. I was working with a client the other day and I was like, okay, if you really enjoy doing more of the consulting side versus the implementing side, why don't we look into doing some bigger...

corporate trainings. She loves to teach, she loves to educate, she loves to train, and she's like, I don't even know how I get started with that. Right, I understand that. I'm not saying you have to know how to get started with it, but I'm saying open up the possibility in your mind that it could be another revenue stream without having to add more clients, without having to add more time on your calendar, right? Like, there's just so many other things that you could be doing.

And I think we've just been a little brainwashed in the online space that you have to do everything. Like you have to scale every single minute of what you're doing to this multiple six figures. And for a lot of us, like it doesn't even feel good. Like I can't even imagine the thought of it. And you know, I think for so long, we've been told that like we have money mindset issues or we have like inner.

you know, child trauma, which I'm sure we do, and I'm not discrediting that. I'm not at all discrediting that. But what I'm also saying is that it's not for everybody, right? Like scaling a coaching business or consulting business to multiple seven figures might not be what everybody wants to do, right? Like it may not be what feels good. And if it doesn't feel good, that might be why it's not happening. And that is what I had to really sit with.

being super honest and vulnerable and being totally truthful with you right now is that I was really starting to feel like, oh my God, am I not cut out for this? Like I know I am a really fucking good coach, like really good. And my strategic brain, especially after I just pulled off that freaking three day surprise party with 40 something people from all different states, like that was so strategic and

But in just in general, all the businesses that I'm working with right now too, like I know for a fact that I am really freaking good at what I do. And yes, that sounds cocky. And yes, that might sound a little arrogant to some of you that are listening, but it also is a place of confidence. I've worked hard to get to that level of confidence knowing that I know that I'm good at what I do, right? And so if I feel that level of confidence, why have I not hit multiple six figures yet? And the reality is, is because

in my heart, it's not how I want to serve people, right? It's not how I want to serve the solopreneur. And I know now exactly how I want to serve. And I know exactly what my pricing needs to look like. And I also am very honest with myself to say that it's not in alignment with my big five-year goal to be location independent, right? And so that...

piece of it gives me a piece towards that goal. But I also know that I need to bring in some other bigger things and step even more out of my comfort zone because I know that I can walk into some of these bigger companies and really be beneficial in the inventory and production management space, right? And so that is what is going to help support their bigger vision here while still also allowing me to serve in a way that makes me.

feel good to everybody listening to this podcast, right? So I think overall, I want you to just really sit with that. I want you to sit with the question of, is there something else that you really enjoy doing that you would love to make an income stream? Do you need to diversify your offers? And if you have multiple business ideas or multiple business areas,

How much of the pie do each one of them need to bring in? Does this revenue stream need to bring in 10% of your overall revenue goal? Does this one need to bring in 50% of your overall revenue goal? What do the slices of the pie look like? How big are they? And then once you have that, then you can really start to figure out the plan. Maybe you have a couple slices of your pie that are 10 or 15% and you don't really have the bandwidth right now to.

dive into them. That's okay. They can be part of your strategic plan moving forward, right? Like, this is something I'm going to work towards. I can't do this right now because I have to get this income stream solid to where it's producing at least 25% of my revenue goal. And then once it is, then you can move on to the other places, right? And so really looking at it from a strategic standpoint, but also understanding that there's so many options out there.

and we don't have to get pigeonholed into the online space. It doesn't have to be funnel after funnel after sales, lead magnet after webinar after masterclass after, like you don't, that's not the only way to make money in this world, right? Your everyday business owner is not making money through lead magnets and sales funnels, right? They have a sales pipeline, but.

Like the dog trainer, they don't have a lead magnet. It's all referral business. It's all relationship based. So again, like your brick and mortar style businesses prior to the online space, they built business very differently. And there's a side of us that needs to get back to that as far as I'm concerned. And diversifying your income will allow you to do that. So that's what I mean by this. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing. Like I said, this is a conversation that was like,

all over the place for me. Like my brain, I just, I love having these conversations and really figuring out the strategy around it and I could keep going on about it. But what I really just the whole ultimate goal, like too long, didn't listen. What I really want you to take away from this is that it's okay to have multiple streams of revenue and diversifying it and it can be related or non-related.

that right there is the number one key takeaway from this is that you get to diversify your income in unrelated ways to your current online solopreneur business. Right? Like you get to diversify that and anybody that's telling you can't, I would tell them to go shit in a hat. I mean, seriously, let's just be honest. Like you get to, you get to make those choices. Do you have to have a plan for it? Yes. Do you have to be strategic about it?

Yes, do you have to make sure that it's not going to tank what you've currently built? Yes, I'm not saying you can just dive in, right? With no plan, but I'm saying it's possible and it can be done and it's extremely successful. And a lot of these big names, you think Tony Robbins, he only has one revenue stream? No, they have investments. They have a ton of things that are unrelated, right? A lot of these big name people have a lot of very odd, like,

all over the place. They have so many different streams actually follow a guy I met in person at an event like he's young, he's like 24 years old. He started out just teaching people how to do credit like credit hacking and then he got into Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and then he got into health, like his physical health. Now he's doing business coaching he's doing it like, but he's doing all these things and some of them are absolutely unrelated but they all fit into his pie.

And I think that's what's the biggest key piece there. The best piece of advice I'm passing along from my mentor too is that you get to make a whole pie, but your whole pie doesn't have to be made up of the same slice. Not every slice has to be the same flavor. So figure out what your slices of pie are. Call them legs of your business, arms of your business. I don't care. Mind map it out. What do they look like? Ultimately, it's got to lead to one goal, your ultimate goal, your biggest vision.

but then figure out what those arms look like. All right, and then you put the strategy around it. And then if you don't know how to do that, you will call me and we work together on it. But anyway, that's as far as I wanna go with that. I could keep going, but I'm gonna cut it off. So get your name on the list for the Sunday Morning Brew. I've got some fun freebies and stuff coming out for that. And if you have any questions, let me know. And if you enjoyed this episode,

and you love this perspective, share it. All right, I'm on the IG train again, so don't forget, tag me on IG. All right, love you guys, talk to you soon.