What To Do When Times Are Hard
In the years that I’ve been an online entrepreneur, I’ve seen some pretty bizarre times. I remember the days when advertisers were paying crazy sums of money for sending them traffic – far more than the visitors were ever going to spend – and I remember the day too when they figured that out.
There have been times when the checks I’ve received have been enormous and there have been times when the pink slips I’ve had to hand out have been heartbreaking.
That’s business. It has a cycle, and it will always have its ups and downs.
There’s nothing you can do about those rises and falls, but you can prepare for the bad times even while you’re enjoying the good.
Some of that comes down to laying aside money. Savings plans are always important but they’re vital for entrepreneurs. When you’re stepping out on your own, you have to bring your own safety net too.
But much of that preparation is about creating revenue streams.
All of my websites have multiple revenue streams. AdSense is the most important but I also make sure that I build affiliate relationships, promote my own products, and earn from impressions as well as ad clicks. Some of those streams are steadier and more reliable than others. AdSense, for example, produces a regular flow of income. Affiliate revenue however, depends on good products being available that I want to recommend. (I can’t recommend something that I don’t like.) Receiving revenue from multiple sources though doesn’t just mean that I’m maximizing the value of my websites. It also means that if one channel were to suddenly collapse, I wouldn’t be facing disaster.
And, of course, that’s just the website revenue. Our software, apps, and mobile marketing provide other sources of income.
The good times then are periods when you can enjoy your income — you’ll have worked for it, after all — but they’re also the days you need to be digging foundations, adding revenue streams and preparing for the difficult times ahead.
Because they will come. As will the good days after them.
