It’s recently come to my attention that I’m not the only person who’s had to consider some alternative forms of income after the 2009 real estate crash. There’s something strong to be said about riding out the storm that we’re seeing in real estate. You’ll definitely reap the rewards when things pick up again. What I’ve done is created a GROUP called “Secondary & Residual Income” to help share various ways to acquire supplemental income while the times are a bit slow.
Yes, I’ve been told that Premier Asset Services is picking up again. But it’s only a matter of time before they get what they need and it dries up for a few months. I’m sick of the high peaks and valleys that REO/BPO has, so here are a few ways to make more money in the meantime without interfering with your real estate business:
- Start a side business on the Internet
- Network Marketing
- Consulting
- Outsourcing
- Freelancing
- Sell Skilled Services (interpreter, bookkeeping, tutoring, resume writing)
- Write and Sell an eBook
The key to pulling this off without causing your business to suffer is efficiency. There are a couple things that you must think about before diving into something like this. First of all, you want to make sure that your real estate business is operating smoothly even when you’re not available. If you don’t have efficient work flows for phone calls, emails, lead management, customer management, contract management, and appointment setting then you need to begin here. Once you have this in place you can consider a secondary form of income.
There are 3 types of income:
- Earned Income (trade hours for dollars)
- Portfolio Income (interest gained on investments)
- Passive Income (money is made while you sleep)
We’re going to focus on Earned and Passive income. If you have Portfolio income, then I’m sure you are already past this lesson. Selecting a second income source is tricky. Personally, I chose to “diversify” be choosing 3 sources of income: 2 Earned incomes, and 1 Passive income. The earned income generates money for me much more quickly, however; the day I stop working (sick, death, retire, accident, lose clients, etc) is the day my money dries up. The passive income generates money at a much slower rate, but it will keep producing money for the rest of my life regardless of how many hours I put in.
Once you have selected your next business start meeting with professionals who will give you good, honest, sound advice. WARNING: Your relative and/or friend who is broke, bankrupt, and foreclosed on is not considered a good source of this advice. Examples of good advisers are: local business attorney, bookkeeper, business manager, supervisors, experienced entrepreneurs. Share your business idea and ask their opinion.
After you select the next business you’ll pursue it’s time to set up a strong infrastructure. This varies depending on the type of business you set up, but here’s the goal:
“Generate the Greatest Amount of Income with the Least Amount of Effort without Sacrificing Integrity”
This takes a lot of prep work and research. There’s no “silver bullet” to accomplishing this, but you can gather some opinions to get a good idea on what might work.
If this is something you’re interested in, I suggest you check out NFSTI’s latest Group called “Secondary & Residual Income”. The link is below:
[bc_group slug="secondary-residual-income"]
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