One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear as an online entrepreneur is that you should develop multiple streams of income. It seems wise, especially when you consider the danger of putting all of your eggs in one basket.

But that generalization gets overblown in the worst way, causing marketers to spread themselves so thin, they never get to experience true success. In fact, for many people, this is polar opposite of the advice they should be taking.

Multiple streams of income is a concept that involves having more than one business model or niche. Sometimes, people will do so many things at once – selling info products, offering freelance services, trying out affiliate marketing, dropshipping, selling printables and more.

Instead of embracing a multiple business model approach, let’s consider a strategy that has you fully focused on excelling at one thing. This is what most truly successful, top notch entrepreneurs do when you study their business carefully.

Usually, the ones touting a multi stream approach are doing it because newbies feel more secure having backup plans and they aren’t fully sure of which direction they should commit to.

Having Multiple Streams of Income Dilutes Your Productivity

One of the most important things you can possess as an online entrepreneur is productivity. Whether you have one business or multiple branches, it's important to keep up with the output your consumers demand, as well as what will keep you competitive in the marketplace.

When you are trying to manage more than one business, you're spreading your own energy, focus, and resources thin. This is bound to have an impact on how effective you are at being productive throughout your day.

Each business model is going to have its own list of tasks and a timeline they must be met within if you want it to be a success. If you are not able to keep up with that level of productivity across all branches, you will see each one of your businesses fail, without ever delivering any income stream whatsoever.

You have to think about more than just output of content. You're also trading your energy and your mental capacity whenever you switch gears and have to work on a different project in a completely separate manner from what you were just working on.

This is known as being a Jack of all trades and a master of none. You want to excel at one thing rather than have a little bit of experience and effort spread across a wide terrain.

It's better for you to have excellent results with one business than it is to be mediocre or even a failure in many different businesses. Each one is going to require you to hone your skills in a way that allows you to beat your competitors when it comes to the attention and investment by consumers.

You should have a focus on quality, not just quantity of deliverables when it comes to your target audience and what they are looking for. If you are trying to keep up with three to five businesses, you're going to find it difficult to even be productive, much less ensure the quality of what you are doing.

It’s More Complex Managing More Than One Business Model

When you are trying to learn the ropes of being an online entrepreneur and achieve your success goals, it can be enough of a struggle as it is to gain an understanding and apply principles in a way that allows you to generate income.

If you are trying to manage more than one business, you are burdening yourself with an extremely complex and overwhelming task. You have to stay informed about everything going on within each business model.

For example, if you are an affiliate marketer on Amazon, you have to not only manage their rules and guidelines that are continuously changing, but what Google and other search engines expect from product reviews they ranked highly.

If you switch gears to work on an info product, you have to look at the rules of the platform, networking etiquette, affiliate recruitment, and other issues that are difficult for even the most organized entrepreneur to manage.

The list goes on and on, with the more business models you add on to your strategy. Not only does the knowledge you have to absorb increase, but your time management becomes more difficult as each project begins to demand your attention in order to profit.

It’s Hard to Gain Traction for Your Brand with More Than One Branch

It’s also more difficult if consumers are viewing you as spread too thin. If your brand is trying to be a catch-all, it doesn’t instill confidence in your buyers and subscribers that you have the expert knowledge they need.

Your brand needs to be focused to reflect a top tier level of service and production. If someone looks up your name, they shouldn’t see five different businesses. To them, it won’t look impressive – it looks desperate, unorganized and concerning.

Imagine someone Googles your name and sees that you sell anti aging info products, promote dog care items on Amazon, sell bath bombs on Etsy, and offer virtual assistant services as a freelancer.

You have to be able to carve out an identity for your business that is clear and consistent. Ideally, this will be centered around your skills, talents and interests that reflect a passion for what you do.

Expenses Rise with Each Business You Tack On

If you’re a new marketer, or someone financially struggling, you’re going to find your costs and overhead rising with every business you add. Instead of just a domain and hosting for an affiliate blog, you might decide to add on several more businesses.

As an info product vendor in another niche, now you’re looking at paying for yet another domain, maybe a ghostwriter or editor, graphic designer or tools, and more. If you decide to add on a membership program, you now need a platform like AMember, which is costly and presents you with a big learning curve.

If you’re selling something tangible on Etsy or Shopify, you’re going to have to add the materials and shipping costs to that and don’t forget about fees you’ll pay across multiple platforms or paid ads you have to run to generate traffic, too.

To learn all of these new business models, you have to pay for courses, tools, and maybe even coaching to get you to a place where you can become profitable with your new add-on venture.

Streamline Everything Into One Business Model While Protecting Your Income

You don’t have to put your income at risk by focusing on a single business and niche. You can protect it in different ways. First and foremost, abide by rules and regulations as well as proper etiquette related to your business model.

Don’t engage in any risky behavior, like spamming or breaking rules of the platforms you’re using in order to turn a quick buck. You can also protect your income by utilizing multiple platforms, rather than just one.

For example, if you sell info products you can put your courses on ClickBank, Udemy, JVZoo and Warrior Plus as well as sell direct to customers on a platform like Systeme, Thrivecart, etc.

Multiple streams of income may sound tempting, but it can sometimes serve as a detriment to your overall success. If you’re determined to branch out, make sure that you’re making one business successful and profitable before you begin adding anything on one at a time, allowing you to properly manage your expansion.
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When you're learning the business of online marketing, you're going to find a lot of products and endless instructions about what you should be doing to build a lucrative business online.

But very rarely do you see anything about what you should not do.

There's a good reason for this. Many of the very people who are teaching Internet marketing are the ones engaging in bad behavior, so why would they want to shine a light on it?

Only the people who abide by a certain standard of morals and ethics are going to steer you in the right direction about avoiding any complications that could paint you in a bad light and make you look like an unethical or immoral entrepreneur.

Below, you are going to read about seven of the most common behavioral patterns that many marketers utilize in order to make a quick buck off the backs of their customers. This is something you need to know both as a consumer and as a marketer yourself, to ensure that you don't become a victim or a perpetrator.

Stealing Other People's Products and Selling It as Your Own

Imagine you start a business and you work hard brainstorming what you can do to set yourself apart. You learn your craft. You study the needs of the marketplace. You work hard.

You finally launch a product and you’re so proud. Give yourself a little pat on the back for a job well done. Weeks or months later, someone emails you and says, “I think someone else is selling your product as their own.”

How angry would you be? Now you may have been informed that “Everyone does it.” And many people do engage in this type of dirty and unethical behavior. But you want to maintain a good reputation for original work and top quality.

Why would you throw away customer and affiliate relationships by stealing from another person who did all of the work? If you go that route, then you’re no different from an armed thief who walks into a jewelry store and robs them.

You just did it in a virtual space. Stole from the original product creator. The person who spent hours creating the product – who has kids or a family to support. This happens to many product creators.

It’s prevalent with people who steal from others who write private label rights content, who develop software and plugins, who create info product courses and more. Not only will people think you’re a scammer and a thief for selling someone else’s product as your own, but you can get into more trouble, too.

They can send a DMCA to your domain and hosting accounts to have your site taken down for violating their copyright and ownership of the product. The platform you sell on might ban you – so do you really want to go that route? .....

Becoming your own boss is often touted as a fast track to freedom, financial stability and personal satisfaction. This is a career that gifts you everything in terms of flexibility and income potential.

But it’s not achieved without hard work and perseverance. There is no blueprint (regardless of how many people use the word in the title of their products) that tells you step-by-step everything you need to do to go from broke and worried to thriving with your earnings.

Very rarely has someone come into this business without some sort of need, and it’s often financial in nature. But even if you’re not struggling financially, you might be hoping to make this work so you can say goodbye to the stress of the corporate world – or just maximize your enjoyment in life.

If you’ve been struggling up until today – trying to figure out which business model, niche or tasks to implement to help you achieve your goals, you need to step back and conduct an analysis of what you’ve been doing so you can put yourself on the right path from this moment on.

You have to pinpoint the problems that have plagued you so that you can most past them. There are some common things holding people back in this industry. One is a lack of commitment.

The follow-through most newbies have for projects is dismal. They get excited about the hype of an idea and race out of the gate, only to lose enthusiasm, often from a lack of confidence, and they quit before they see any success.

Some people choose a business model or niche that’s not right for them. If you’re not good at creating an eBook or video course, you either have to take time to learn how to do it, hire someone to do it, or switch to a business model that’s a better fit for you!

That might be affiliate marketing or digital printable downloads. Maybe you decide to become a FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) entrepreneur or dropshipper. What gets you hooked on Internet marketing isn’t what you have to be stuck with.

There are dozens of business models out there, regardless of how you got interested in this industry. The same goes for niches. You might be a newbie who hung your hat on the idea that the make money online niche was where you’d earn millions.

But if you know nothing about it (or are trying to pursue another niche that you just can’t get excited about), switch gears! There are thousands of niches – broad and narrow – that are just waiting to have someone step in and lead the target audience in a way that only you know how to do.

There are those who refuse to spend any time learning, and instead expect someone to take time out of their busy schedule to walk them through it while holding their hand. Once you get out of school, nobody enjoys the learning process usually, but if you can muster up some enthusiasm or at least determination to spend time learning each day, it will help you in all areas of your business.

What do you need to learn? Learn more about your niche. Learn better copywriting skills. Learn new ways to build a list. Learn how to utilize the different features on all of the social media platforms.

You can learn search engine optimization strategies and email marketing tips. You might learn time management hacks or ways to motivate your subscribers. There’s no end to the amount of tips and hacks you can absorb if you just dedicate a little bit of time each day to elevate your knowledge.

You might not be looking for workarounds, and feel like you’re held back by tools or courses that are too expensive for you to afford – or you don’t understand something, so you feel sidelined.

Sometimes, there’s a free way of doing something that you may not know about. For example, CamStudio is free whereas Camtasia isn’t. So if you felt stuck not being able to edit your videos, there’s a solution within your budget.

You have to be willing to put yourself out there and ask for help. Not everyone will ask you to mortgage your home and pay for a five-figure coaching program. In fact, most of your fellow entrepreneurs are going to answer questions simply because they remember what it was like to feel lost or stuck – and they love helping a go getter!

You may have spread yourself too thin. Ever heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades – master of none?” Don’t be that person! Pick a lane and stay in it. Don’t try too many business models (and two is too many if one isn’t profitable yet).

Don’t start building five niche websites before one is turning a profit, either. You don’t want to water down your focus or your expertise. Content creation takes a lot of time and focusing on building one virtual entity up into a massive authority site is better than putting a little bit on many domains.

Get yourself on a consistent schedule. It doesn’t have to be at the same time every day – but have the same areas mapped out that need to be accomplished. Check emails. Spend time learning. Network.

Develop new content for your blog, social profiles and info products. Research and test things. Don’t waste time looking back and beating yourself up about why you didn’t do it right the first time.

There’s an old proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” The only thing you can control in this journey is what you do today – right now.

So grab the bull by the horns and create the success you deserve. Say goodbye to wishful thinking and engaging in the blame game. Only you can set aside your fears and frustrations and build the kind of business you can be proud of.

The power of choice is one of the most powerful tools people have in their lives. It is one of the most important ideas in business too. It can be used to make decisions, offer people a variety of options, and motivate people.

Choice encourages people to buy your product, shows that you care about your customers and their preferences, or it can be used as a way to make them feel like they are in control. In other words, the power of choice can help you reach your goals, improve your relationships, and make better decisions.

Here’s how to leverage the power of choice in business.

To Increase Customer Engagement and Satisfaction

If a customer has choices, they are more likely to be engaged with your business and satisfied with their purchase. The Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) published a study that found that the more choices people have, the more likely they are to purchase. This phenomenon has been observed from online shopping to grocery store shelves.

To Reach Your Goals

The power of choice allows the individual to make choices that they are confident in and helps them achieve their goals. Choices enable people to work towards their goals more efficiently and effectively. They also help people feel better about themselves and their future.

To Improve Your Networks

Networking is all about finding connections that will help you in your business. The more choices you have, the more likely you are to find a connection that can help you in your business.

To Make Better Decisions

The power of choice significantly impacts business, leading to increased decision-making skills and better customer satisfaction. And to help customers make more informed decisions, businesses add new choices as they offer more products.

For example, a business may offer different coffee beans to please the most discerning consumer. The customer could choose the coffee they prefer based on many factors, such as what it tastes like, the type of bean, or where it was grown and harvested.

As you can see, the power of choice in business is a crucial tool to use that helps you reach your goals and grow more effectively. Without the power of choice, you may go down a path that doesn't outline your target audience. Furthermore, it provides the tools your customers need to feel heard and valued.

A successful business owner is confident, knowledgeable, and works hard to achieve their goals. Additionally, to be successful you need to have a clear vision for your company and know what you want it to do.

Successful people in business understand how to engage customers, market their products, negotiate strict terms and lead a team of workers. They also know how to raise capital and work with investors. A business owner must be able to communicate clearly while making decisions that solve problems for their company and its employees.

To become a more successful business owner, follow these six tips.

Know Your Industry Well

Understanding the industry in which one operates is vital for success in any field, especially when it comes to business ownership. The more knowledgeable you can be about your industry, the better you will be at your job.

Be Clear on Your Goals and Objectives

To achieve success, you need to have clear goals set out before you that will help guide you through your journey as an entrepreneur. Having goals and objectives may seem obvious, but you may be surprised to learn that many people do not take the time to lay these out for themselves – and sadly, it can be detrimental to their success

Be More Flexible

Be open to adapting your business model or strategy to succeed. This will require a lot of flexibility and persistence, but the rewards can be massive if you find the right solution. Of course, you must first identify what works in your market and then modify your business model as needed.

Monitor Your Analytics

Keeping track of your numbers or analytics is vital to making the right decisions for your business. For example, if a marketing plan doesn’t gain the conversions you need, you know you need to adjust it or make a completely new one. However, it is also important not to obsess with your numbers. There is a healthy balance between monitoring to making good business decisions versus obsessing because you are unsure about your plans.

Engage and Involve Your Customers or Target Audience 

Knowing your target audience is only the start. You also need to engage, interact, and involve them as much as possible once you establish them. This is the key to sustainable loyalty.

Network with Other Business Owners 

Networking is essential to establish yourself within the industry further. Customers or your audience want to know they can trust you first. Networking with the right people also helps you create more valuable content through collaboration with others.

Following these tips will ensure you do what is required to become a successful business owner. Successful business owners understand their target audience and are fully engaged. In addition, they are flexible as they realize change is inevitable; they commit to lifelong learning of their industry, and they are aware of their business numbers at any given time.

Mentors provide guidance and advice to a person or group by sharing their expertise and experience. A good mentor will help you grow in every way, including new business and work skills, by helping you hone your principles, morals, and values. They should also be able to offer constructive criticism when necessary to help you develop the skills needed to improve your career or life.

In other words, a mentor can guide you through your career, share your experience, and offer advice. Mentors can help you make proper decisions about your future. They can be found in many different places such as in the workplace, school, or even within a family. A mentor can be anyone from a family member to a friend or co-worker, but they are most often professionals in the same field as the mentee.

Here are four tips on finding a good mentor.

Make a List and Start Asking

Start by making a list of those you would love to be your mentor. Even if it's impossible, still write it down. For example, if you want a famous mentor, they will likely not help you, but you never know. Your list of potential mentors will give you a good idea of the qualities they need to have to help you grow and gain the information you need to be successful and happy.

Once you have your list, find a way to reach out to them and ask. Sometimes all it takes is asking for them to provide mentorship.

Be Clear about Your Needs

Before working with a mentor, be clear about your goals and expectations. Knowing what you want from the relationship is essential before getting started. What do you need from them and hope to achieve from the partnership? If you are not ready to answer these questions, you need to figure them out before reaching out to people. This way, you can find the right mentor for you.

Research within Your Industry

Find someone who offers mentoring as a service by researching within your industry. This can be done by looking through social media or making a simple Google search. You can even go directly to industry leaders' websites to find out what services they offer aside from their main gig.

Provide Something in Return

A healthy mentor and mentee relationship is not only one-sided. Believe it or not, you too can offer something to your mentor. For example, allowing a manager over 70 years old access to your life at 30 years old can be invaluable for them too.

Finding the right mentor for you can be challenging but it’s very much worth the effort. Mentors have the crucial knowledge from their experience to help you improve your skills and grow. However, it is vital to find the right mentor to make it worthwhile. The wrong mentor can leave you confused, lost, and demotivated. With these tips, you can be sure you find the right mentor for you.

The Power of Ethics in Business and Why It’s So Important

Business ethics focus on how your business should act to achieve its goals, while seeking to avoid harming other businesses or their employees and customers. In other words, business ethics sets the standards for how you and your employees run your business and act while running the business. Usually, these ethics reflect your values, morals, and high respect for your customers and others.

Here are five reasons why ethics are important to your business success.

They Improve Your Reputation

When you provide the same high level of service or experience for your customers every time, you set a positive reputation and expectation. This influences your audience to become loyal customers as they know what to expect. It even promotes word of mouth as they are more likely to share with friends, family, or co-workers.

They Allow You to Meet Your Customers Needs

Proper ethics means you value your customers' needs more than your own. If your customers are not happy or successful, neither are you. Meeting your customers' needs is the only way you can truly be successful.

They Improve Your Decision-Making Skills

Establishing business ethics from the start means you know what actions to take to get there. This makes the decision-making process easier as you have a clear plan to follow.

They Increase Your Profits and Investment Potential

Businesses that lack ethics or follow questionable ones reduce their investment potential. Investors need to know your abilities to be certain that they will receive a return on their investment. They know that questionable ethics means your business plan is likely unfinished, making you not a worthy investment. Proper business ethics means you are willing to make a trustworthy deal and have the resources to take consistent action to return the investment and more.

They Improve Your Productivity and Decrease Costs

Proper ethics leaves less room for mistakes. That’s because ethics act as a guideline or instruction book. That makes it more clear how to achieve appropriate results. Consistency ensures that you make fewer mistakes, and that alone will improve your ROI.

Establishing proper business ethics that keep your customers' needs first is important to establish sustainability and demand for your business. Through proper business ethics, you can keep your customers happy and increase productivity and profits.

Using Tools and Templates to Cut Corners Effectively

One great way to utilize tools and systems within your online entrepreneurial business is to embrace the concept of tools and templates. Many newbies like to hang on to old fashioned ways of doing things because it's what they're used to.

If there is a tool that can quickly and easily help you achieve any of your goals, you may want to set aside the funds and invest in it. For example, instead of having to methodically map out your search engine optimization (SEO), you could use a plugin on your blog that has a form that you fill out to ensure everything is taken care of.

Templates are a great way to systemize elements of your business. Canva is a great example of this. This is a free tool that also has a professional paid level, that you can use to create many different things.

You can tap into readymade templates that you can use for things like eCovers, slide presentations, social marketing posts, and more. Using their free system, you can tailor these items to whatever types of fonts and colors you prefer.

If you want to, you can even create your own templates to use within their system over and over again. You can start from scratch once and then return to your own template repeatedly whenever you need to make a new object.

You can also create a template for things such as sales letters. If you sell the same types of things over and over again, it makes sense to have a template that you have tweaked to perform well for you, where you can simply update it for each new launch...

Delegating and Outsourcing to Free Up Time

Because your time is so precious as an online entrepreneur, you want to hand over any tasks that makes sense for someone else to do. Not everything is able to be handled by another party.

In fact, you don't want it to be. Part of the reason you got involved in this career may be because you want to be your own boss and make all of the decisions. There are some things that only you can and should be handling.

But there are many tasks that are considered grunt work or menial tasks that you can put on to someone else’s plate so that you can work on more important things. Think of everything you do in your business that takes a lot of time and effort.

For example, content creation can be a very tedious task for many online marketers. You may not have the skills it takes to be able to turn out content for your info products, email autoresponders, social networking posts, blog posts, and more On a regular basis.

Finding a good ghostwriter or using private label rights content can be a great way to outsource the task to someone else. If you use a ghostwriter, you will be assigning a specific piece of work to someone else and waiting for it to be completed.

If you want to outsource the content aspect, but you don't have time to wait, then you may want to invest in bundles have private label rights content that allow you to edit and tweak the verbiage and put your name on it as your own.

Another thing you can outsource or delegate to someone else is the publishing of that content anywhere you need it. And administrative assistant can post to your blog, put the content in a social marketing group for you, and send out an email on your behalf.

The key to success in delegating like this is to find someone that you trust. They must be reliable in terms of time and consistency. You don't want to hire anyone with a volatile personality who may try to sabotage your business at the first sign of a disagreement...

Working in Bulk and Automating Your Tasks

When you are trying to achieve your goals in incremental steps, it often causes you to go slower burn if you put all of your focus on one task and knock it out as a whole. A good example of this would be writing product reviews for your blog.

For many people, creating content means they have to put themselves in the right frame of mind and get in a certain groove where they are not distracted and can be on a roll for an extended period of time.

Working in bulk is a very effective method for some tasks that need to be done on a regular basis. If you are an affiliate marketer, then it stands to reason that you will need to publish product reviews on a regular basis.

Instead of spending time each and every day to write those product reviews, you could spend one or two days of the month creating 30 days’ worth of reviews. Then, instead of keeping them stored on your hard drive, you could enable a system where you take each product review through a publication process.

Blogging is one task that can be easily automated on a WordPress platform. You can queue up your product reviews to go live each and every day for a month or longer. In fact, you can create a publishing schedule that you can refer to so that you can see what topics will be published and when.

You can also develop mini systems for each of your tasks. For example, for those affiliates needing to publish product reviews on their blog, you might create a systematic approach to that process.

You could start by pasting the body of the content into the blog area. The next part of your system could be to make sure the product is properly hyperlinked. Then, you could insert any images or graphics that you wanted to include...