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Not only do the global or national economies have their ups and downs, your professional experiences do, too.

To boot, trends in our industries come and go.

The composition of your team changes.

People who were dedicated to specific projects, business areas, or clients might leave for a variety of reasons.

If you’re an employee, those changes can affect you even more, so having a diversified set of ways to make money can give you security, as well.

No matter if you own the joint or if work for an organization, you don’t want all of your eggs in one basket.

And in today’s gig economy, it’s even easier to bring in extra income during your off hours.

CRAFT SEVERAL REVENUE STREAMS

One of the things that we can do to protect ourselves or our businesses is to make sure our sources of income are diversified.

For our purposes in today’s podcast episode, diversified means that the money you earn in your life or business doesn’t all come from the same place, and you have different revenue streams from different kinds of products or services that make up your total income.

The financial experts recommend a business have seven different types of revenue streams.

That applies your personal life, as well.

There are tons of ways we can add revenue streams to our businesses or our lives.

THEY MIGHT INCLUDE

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every communications professional looking to diversify, but during the episode, I discuss what it looks like in my businesses and for me personally.

Online courses (four of them currently)
Published books (three of them)
Speaking engagements
Coaching
PR services
Paid board appointments
Equity in a business or two

TO FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN

If you want to start to plan for a rainy day, there are three things you can do right now to figure out your next steps:

Spy on competition and organizations you admire
Talk to your clients
Talk to your peers, colleagues, vendors, suppliers, and partners

SPIN SUCKS PODCAST

In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast episode, we talk about:

Why it’s important to start planning for the inevitable now
The different types of revenue streams you can create for yourself or for your business.
How to decide which are best for you, your goals, and your family.

What are the different revenue streams that make up your business or your personal life?

If you don’t have enough of them, what are you going to try?

Please share your thoughts and stories in the comments below.

About Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm. She is the lead blogger at Spin Sucks and is the founder of Spin Sucks Pro. She is the co-author of Marketing in the Round and co-host of Inside PR. Full bio