small business money tree

You probably started your business because there’s something you like to do and people told you that you have a knack for it. Your initial success as an entrepreneur can give you a heady feeling, a lot like learning to ride a two-wheeler: Hey, I can actually do this! Look, there’s even some money in the bank. Wheee!

After a while, you develop new ambitions. The initial thrill of supporting yourself can eventually become a grind once you realize how much money goes to your landlord, taxes, and all the other necessary underpinnings of your operation. The freedom to create, to set your own schedule, to decide what clients you want to serve are all unbeatable aspects of self-employment, but you’ll also want to take a vacation or carve out time to devote to developing new aspects of your business. If you’re lashed to the wheel, busy producing income and “minding the store” in some sense, your time becomes an inestimably precious commodity.

You can raise your fees, but you’ll inevitably hit a ceiling in the amount of income you can produce. With a conventional business model you will only be able to increase your income slowly. If you’re running a business because you want financial independence, you’re much more likely to reach your goals if you have a source, or multiple sources, of passive revenue.

If your business is new, now is the perfect time to start applying this idea. If you’ve been in business for years, this is also the perfect time! When you become curious about how passive income is possible, for you, you’re thinking like a real entrepreneur.

This concept is associated with get rich quick schemes, but can legitimately serve as a pillar of your business model once you figure out how to apply the concept to your setting and talents. The advantage it offers is that when you’re receiving income through passive sources, you generate more money than is possible through your own time and efforts.

One simple way to earn passively is to rent out space within your home or business. This will require some maintenance and upkeep on your part but if you price the rent within market rates it can be worthwhile in proportion to your time invested.

Setting up a business model around recurring payments can be a labor-free way to make money; for example, your insurance agent receives a commission every time you renew your policy, but doesn’t have to sell it to you over and over.

A wellness instructor delivers a talk, records it, and sells the DVD wherever she does her next training. Over time she is earning money repeatedly from the one time she gave a talk.

You can also leverage your time and skills so other people are generating income for you. Hiring associates into a professional firm, developing affiliate relationships or a general contractor keeping a profit margin on sub-contracted elements of a job are all ways to create passive income. A franchise is the most fully developed example of this possibility.

Passive income is a vital element of a sustainable business plan. It’s not a dream, a myth or a scam. How can you innovate and expand on your current business so a small source of passive revenue is built in this year? It could help you plan next summer’s vacation!

The Awesome Party Squad is not a band, or a gang, or a silly hardcore crew or something like that…it is a social order, if you will, that works for the common good by making everything around it more radical. Having existed since the dawn of time and space, Squad members have been responsible in some way for nearly every great thing that has ever happened anywhere, ever.

-UrbanDictionary.com

“Dude, I just met up with this new website guy and he was a total bro. His studio space blew my mind, it was completely chill.”

“Yeah, no, I know, right? The dude who deals with my site is really good people, you have no idea.”

Do your clients and customers look forward to dealing with your business? If asked, would they say it’s a literal pleasure to work with you? If you and your staff aren’t radiating enjoyment and enthusiasm, you’re probably not as busy- or as wealthy- as you’d like to be. You know you’re really on the right track when you wake up in the morning thinking, “I’m running my own business! And I get to go to work today.”

After all, Americans spend about $700 billion a year on entertainment, purely because of the way it makes us feel; it serves no practical purpose, but we obviously value it highly. Are you doing everything you could in your business to deliver that kind of value?

You still have to educate your customers on why they need you, and deliver the outcomes you promise; that’s a given. To stand out, you also need to give them high-quality emotional and sensory experience. Why do people spend $300 on tickets to see Madonna or Lady Gaga perform? Simply because it makes them feel alive, energized and sexy.

Of course we want those we serve to experience us as highly responsible, to believe that we’re reliable and know how to act appropriately. But does that mean we can’t use humor and show that we enjoy our contact with them? We can convey friendliness and lightheartedness anywhere we work, even if we’re dealing with serious matters.

Human warmth and caring go a long way, and don’t have to involve cracking jokes or kidding around; when your customers experience their contact with you as sociable, inviting and comfortable- much like the atmosphere of a good party- they’ll want to return to you for services and tell their friends about how much they appreciate you.

Legendary companies like Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines enroll their staff in the Awesome Party Squad as soon as they’re hired. Employees are encouraged to be warm and real with customers and are given permission to handle difficult situations with independent judgment.

Professions that involve sensitivity to private matters like dealing with people’s money or personal lives require that we earn clients’ trust in order to do business with them. The way we can let people get to know us isn’t necessarily by talking about our own personal lives or circumstances, but by demonstrating some of our own personality and spontaneity.

There’s nothing wrong with a dentist’s office sending a birthday card, or an insurance agent remembering that a client’s daughter plays high school basketball, but this is ordinary. We form extraordinary relationships when we greet clients with eye contact; when we pause enough to really listen to how they are; when we share a spontaneous, genuine moment of laughter because of a slip of the tongue or unintended pun.

Watch for opportunities this week to make your employees and customers feel they’re being treated exceptionally. I promise you’ll find some if you look, and how do you suppose you’ll feel then?

Dude. It’s gonna be awesome.