How To Generate Income on Demand

If you own a business, you should be able to generate income on demand. Real business ownership means you have built something that you have control over and can influence to generate income.

That likely feels a bit uncomfortable if you’ve always waited for your customers to come to you.  Waiting is passive, you do not have any control. Generating is active, you have all kinds of control.

If you’re in startup mode and this way of thinking is new to you, there are some additional tips at the bottom of this post that will help you get your business ready to be able to generate income.

Here are my top four suggestions for how you can generate income, on-demand:

1. Offer a promotion on a product or service for a limited time.
   
   Grocery stores are a master at this. Every week, they publish a flyer and offer promotions on specific items to encourage traffic and sales in their business. They do this to generate income and sell specific items that they want to liquidate.

2. Offer something new. This can be the release of a new product or service that is of value to your community or audience. You see fashion retailers do this regularly when they have new arrivals each season.  A service-based business can do this too, by offering a new way to engage services, perhaps in a group setting, or at an event.

3. Offer something extra.
   
   If you already have a base of clients, you can offer to sell them something extra. Amazon does this with their “people who bought this item also bought these things….” By showing consumers other options that they might benefit from, you create an opportunity to generate additional revenue.

4. Ask for a referral.
   
   There is no better advocate for your product or service than a happy client. Panda Planner (a product I use) always ships me a referral code that I can share with a friend who might be interested in buying their product. Whether you have a product or service-based business, there are ways you can ask for referrals to generate income.

You can do any of these things provided you get comfortable with one crucial aspect of owning a business.

Selling.

Marketing is how you attract people to your business, but selling is how you generate income. If you’re afraid to make an offer because you don’t want to be too “salesy”, I guarantee you’re losing money in your business. You’re actually failing to act like an owner, and you’re acting more like an employee who is waiting for someone to buy.

Wouldn’t you prefer to have a bit more control over the revenue outcomes in your business?  Wouldn’t you like to know you can depend on yourself to accelerate or slow business down anytime you want?

Here is the one time this gets tricky: When you are in Service-Based Startup Mode

At the start of this post, I said I’d share some tips for those of you who are in start-up mode.  This is the most ambiguous time in your business and it can feel like a waiting game where you have absolutely NO CONTROL. It doesn’t have to be that way.

When you’re in startup mode, especially in a service-based industry, it takes time to build your reputation and to attract an audience who is interested in what you do. It is in these cases that you must be bold and confident about making your offer; otherwise, it’s going to take you a long time to generate sales.

You must be strong enough to face the possibility of “no” when it comes to selling. Keep moving forward and have strong faith in yourself and the service you’re offering. You need to do marketing to build credibility, but marketing on its own is not enough.

You cannot market without making an offer, or you won’t sell anything.

Interested in learning more about generating income and selling your product or services?
Take advantage of The Pilot Project – a FREE online program designed to help business owners develop a business model based on marketing and sales!