The Benefits of Having Multiple Streams of Income

Issue #70 Productivity August 8, 2022

All solopreneurs are entrepreneurs, but not all entrepreneurs are solopreneurs.

Many entrepreneurs start their businesses to make a profit and with the intention of growing, expanding, and even selling their companies in the future.

Most solopreneurs start their businesses to keep them profitable, but still small and independent. For most solopreneurs, growth and expansion mean adding more streams of income while maintaining their relatively small size and definitely their independence.

Adding multiple streams of income to your creative and/or solo business can be a good thing.

TeamOwens313 then. TeamOwens313 now.

Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I’ve been a solopreneur since July 2008, starting my first business after setting up our “umbrella company,” TeamOwens313 LLC in December 2007.?

Between 2008 and 2017, my company expanded to three businesses, a book, and a podcast that eventually published over 200 weekly episodes.

Then, in September 2020, just after my 12th year in business, I decided to retire for good. I closed down everything—all of my businesses and my podcast. I even finished some sewing and knitting projects that I’d put on hold.

In December of 2020, I received a call from a dear friend who needed my help and expertise on an important part of a project she was working on for one of her clients—someone I knew and highly admired. So I came out of retirement for just that one project.

Well, you can guess what happened next: one previous or newly referred client after another asked to work with me, and I couldn’t say “No.” I was excited, of course, but I really didn’t want to have three full separate but related businesses as I did before. I was supposed to be retired!

So in February of 2021, my husband and business partner and I sat down, reviewed our past business successes, and thought about what we wanted to do for the next few years.?

In March 2021, we renamed our original TeamOwen313 company to the TeamOwens313 Global Creative Community. The “TeamOwens313” part of our name refers to the fact that we are a team, our last name is Owens, and the area code for Detroit, where we live and are headquartered is 313. The “Global Creative Community” part of our name reflects the experience and expertise we’ve gained from working with creative professionals all over the globe since 2008.

We’ve always done more than one thing.

“Multiple sources of income” has been a thing for a long time. When working with and coaching creative professionals, I’ve often talked with people who had one client they depended on for all of their income, which worked fine until it didn’t—the client quit or moved on or other things happened and the person had nothing else to fall back on except maybe a new “GoFundMe” campaign.?

Hubby and I each have our own separate business initiatives and we also work together on a few parts of the overall company. But we still always work together, even indirectly on everything we do.?

You can also do more than one thing.

Adding additional streams of income is not really hard, but it does take work, determination, and consistency.

Ask yourself: what else can I do and especially what else do I like to do that I can add other components to my business without sacrificing my core business?

What additional income would I like to add to my business?

Often networking with other creative professionals like yourself can give you great ideas and important and valuable resources that could help you to add additional streams of income to your business.

Think about it!

We invite you to join us!

Networking opportunities, one-on-one or group coaching sessions, online branding and marketing training, and relevant print, audio, and video resources are what we offer to members of the Global Creative Community.

We are re-opening the Global Creative Community and the Branding and Marketing Academy on August 15, 2022.?

Watch this space for more information before, during, and after the opening date.

You can also sign up for our private list to be notified about everything happening with GCC and BMA at this link.