Is your business profitable? If you answered no, then you probably need to make one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions: to make more money.
Welcome to part two of my New Year’s Resolution mini-series; this week is all about ways to increase your income.
If you only just earn enough to cover your bills and expenses, then you probably need to make more money. Ideally you should try to earn enough extra to enable you to save some each month. You need a little money set aside so that if you receive an unexpectedly large tax bill, or your car breaks down, then you can pay for it without getting an overdraft or maxing out your credit card.
You might also want to set aside some money each month to pay for your summer holiday – everyone needs time off work to relax after all – or just have some funds in reserve so that if your business occasionally has a quiet month then you can still afford to pay yourself a salary!
Any links marked with an asterisk (*) are affiliate links, which means if you buy through them I might get a small commission (that will probably be spent on pretty fonts). This is at no extra cost to you and I only share products and services that I use and love.
So how do you make more money?
Increase your prices
The most obvious way to start earning more is to charge more for your services or products. Try find out what your competitors are charging and compare that to your own prices. If your rates are much lower than everyone else’s, it’s a sign that you’re undercharging, so definitely think about increasing your prices.
But if your prices are similar, consider if a price increase will send all your customers running to your competitors – you don’t want to price yourself out of the market. Try to find a way to show your customers that the value you provide to them is worth paying more for, such as better quality products or unbeatable customer service.
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Cut your expenses
Something else you can do right now to help your finances is to cut your expenses. Review all your expenditure and look for ways to cut unnecessary costs; for example, do you really need that magazine subscription? Or could you find a cheaper supplier for your broadband?
It’d be a good idea to review both your personal and business expenses as there are probably savings to be made in both areas.
Create other income streams
If raising your rates and cutting your expenses won’t make much difference to your finances, you could look for ways to create additional income streams. There are several ways you can do this:
Create a passive income stream
Passive income is “an income received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it” (Wikipedia). Sounds great, doesn’t it?
It’s ideal for creative professionals – passive income opportunities exist for other professions, but I’m going to focus on those for creatives since that’s what I have experience in.
If, for example, you’re a graphic or web designer, you probably have unused concepts and graphics cluttering up your hard drive, so you could try selling them through one of the many stock graphics sites, such as GraphicRiver*, Creative Market* or GraphicLeftovers.
There are sites out there where you can sell illustrations, photos, website templates, WordPress themes, music files, tutorials… Basically, whatever you create there’s sure to be a site to sell it through.
You could start by selling unused assets from your usual work as, with minimal polishing, they’re ready to upload and sell. Then when you have time, create new pieces of work to sell. It’s an ideal way to fill any gaps between your other projects.
Due to the number of stock sites out there though, your items will have a lot of competition. So it’s good to promote them via your own website and social media sites to ensure regular sales.
You might also like: 10 ways designers can get started with passive income
Add affiliate links to your blog
If you run a blog one way to generate income from it is to add some affiliate links to it. With affiliate links other companies pay you for sending them new customers via links on your site.
The amounts you’re paid tend to be quite low so if your blog doesn’t have much traffic, you probably won’t earn much from it. As you get more readers, however, your earnings should grow.
The affiliate links could be in the form of banner adverts, or they could be text links within your blog posts, such as if you mention a particular site in a post, add an affiliate link to the text – by doing this I’ve received a pretty good discount on the monthly fee I pay for accounting software*!
If you ever review products on your blog, such as books, you could join the Amazon affiliates program. When people click through to Amazon from your blog and make a purchase, you’ll earn money.
With affiliate links I’d recommend focusing on quality rather than quantity. Put too many banners and links throughout your blog and your readers could get annoyed and stop visiting. So don’t get greedy. Instead, limit your links to products and services that are both relevant to the subject of your blog and that you think will be useful to your readers.
If you sell services, create a product
If your main source of income is selling your services, try to think of a related product you could create and sell. You could write an eBook sharing your expertise, or create a physical product, such as my new range of greetings cards (shameless plug!).
You could sell them through your own website, or through third party sites like Big Cartel or etsy. (Want 40 free etsy listings? Create your shop at http://etsy.me/2DuSFl6*)
If you sell products, create a service
If, on the other hand, your main business is selling products, you could start selling you services as well.
For example, you could use your experience to run training courses on building a successful retail business. Or you could offer consulting services to startup retailers.
Those are just a few ideas for ways to increase your income; hopefully one or more will help you to achieve your New Year’s Resolution to make more money.
Read more posts in this series:
Improve your business with a New Year’s Resolution
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