📝 My Journey to Seven Figures: Exploring Diverse Income Streams
As someone who has always been interested in entrepreneurship and building wealth, I knew that diversifying my income streams was key to achieving financial success. In 2018, I began my journey of building new and diverse income streams, little did I know that this would eventually lead me to hit seven figures in 2022. In this article, I will provide a detailed account of all the income streams that got me to seven figures, which will hopefully give you enough information and motivation to help you get on your way.
💰 Affiliate Marketing: A Simple Yet Effective Income Stream
Affiliate marketing has become all the rage recently, and it's for a good reason. This form of income might be a little difficult to understand at first, but when you break it down into its basic concept, it's actually quite simple. Affiliate marketing is essentially an arrangement where you market a company's product or service, and you get a commission from the company for any sale that you make. To put it simply, affiliate marketing is kind of another form of sales.
Because of the fact that I have a YouTube account and I coach people on how to sell on Amazon, which requires using online tools and services, people will often ask me and rely on me for my recommendations, some of which have affiliate schemes that pay for referrals. So you might see links like these in the description of my videos, and every time someone decides to click on my specific link and then purchase a product that I've recommended, I'll get a small cut of the sale price and make money in the form of commission.
Pretty much every big company has an affiliate scheme of some sort, and that even includes Amazon, who will give you a commission if anybody purchases a product that you've recommended. Whilst commissions might seem pretty small individually, they do add up quite a lot over time. So if you have an audience of some sort, whether that be on YouTube, social media, or via a blog, affiliate marketing is well worth learning about and implementing.
📦 Amazon FBA: My Biggest Income Stream
I made a six-figure profit with my Amazon FBA business in 2022. It was one of my biggest income streams and definitely the most important for reasons I'll explain at the end of this article. I follow the private label selling strategy of Amazon FBA, which is where I research a product to sell, brand it, manufacture it, list it on Amazon, and then get Amazon to store, ship, and deliver the product directly to the customer.
The best part of Amazon FBA for me is how little time it takes once you've put the initial work in. Last week, for example, I spent around four hours working on my Amazon FBA business and made around three thousand pounds profit. That's a rate of just over 700 pounds an hour, which is pretty astonishing when you actually think about it, and it's way higher on an hourly basis than all of my other income streams.
In episode 19, I started an Amazon FBA Training Academy, which has since become one of my proudest achievements to date due to the community that has been created and the results that have been produced. Since I created the academy, I've taught over a thousand entrepreneurs how to sell on Amazon through the private label selling strategy, and I'm continuing to onboard new students every single month. We've had great successes throughout the years, with lots of my students hitting the 10K and 100K clubs, which is an incredible thing to see.
🎥 YouTube: A Fun and Engaging Income Stream
Coaching and teaching students through my Academy is a paid opportunity, so it takes its place. YouTube can be a huge income stream for some because Google shares a portion of its ad revenue with its creators. Whilst my numbers aren't particularly huge at a couple of hundred pounds per month, every penny counts in the game of expanding and diversifying your income streams.
Now, ironically, this income stream for me probably has the lowest reward for the highest amount of effort. But having said that, after four years of filming videos pretty much every single week, strangely, I do actually quite enjoy it. And of course, it gets me visibility and helps boost my income streams from affiliate marketing and the Smashes Academy. So although YouTube ad income is still relatively small compared to all of my other sources of income, it's enjoyable, and it's an important one to have in boosting my profile and diversifying my income.
📝 Writing Amazon Listings: A Low-Paying Income Stream
Another income stream that I was able to create thanks to my knowledge of Amazon FBA relates to optimizing and writing Amazon listings on behalf of my students, subscribers, and anyone in my Facebook group. This was something that I developed after a few years of selling on Amazon after being asked multiple times for my help in putting together a compelling listing. And after seeing just how many poor quality listings there were on Amazon that could easily have been improved by somebody that knew what they were doing.
This income stream is definitely one of the lower paying ones when you take into account how much time it takes me to do. And that is exactly why I trained my wife how to do it very well so that I could focus on working on my other income streams that I'm actually a lot more efficient at.
🏠 Rental and Investment Income: A Passive Income Stream
As someone with a background in finance and accounting, growing up, I always appreciated the benefits of saving, investing, and compounding returns. So rather than spend my earnings on Lambos, clothes, flying business class, and so on, instead, I put my profits into income-generating assets, with the most recent example being a rental property in London.
Now, I'm not saying that whenever you make a profit with a side hustle or that you receive income from your job that you shouldn't treat yourself now and again. But in my view, when you're young and you have lots of spare time without any commitments, you should be using that time and any additional cash that you have to learn new skills, build new businesses, and invest in as many income-generating assets as possible.
Once you've built a six or seven-figure income-generating empire, then you can start splurging on fast cars and nice clothes and so on. And that's a mindset of mine that I pretty much had all through my late 20s. And it's one of the key reasons that I've been able to learn and build out so many different income streams and eventually buy a property in London, which I rent out for some easy passive income. This has worked out nicely, and every month so far, without fail, I get a paycheck from my tenants without putting in any work at all. So this is a 100% passive form of income, and because of that, it's something that I'll always value.
💼 My Day Job: A Steady Income Stream
This one may surprise you after all of this Amazon FBA stuff. You're probably wondering why I even still have a day job in the first place. It's true that I make enough money from my other income streams to live comfortably, so why am I still working a full-time job that can at times be pretty time-consuming and stressful?
Ultimately, it comes down to three key reasons. Firstly, I work in banking, which is a career that is well-paid, and despite being stressful at times, it's pretty interesting and challenging. Secondly, most businesses, particularly Amazon FBA ones, require an investment so that they can be grown. When I first started in 2018, I used my job's income to kickstart my Amazon FBA business. And since then, because of me continuing my job, I've never had to pay myself from my FBA profits, which has allowed me to grow my business much faster than if I had.
As of today, I'm projected to turn over one and a half to two million in 2023, which absolutely would not have been possible in the same amount of time had I quit my job and relied on Amazon FBA to fund my lifestyle. When it comes to Amazon FBA and pretty much any business for that matter, the more money that you can retain, recycle, and reinvest, the faster you'll be able to grow, resulting in you achieving a higher valuation.
Additionally, Amazon FBA isn't particularly time-intensive once you've put in the initial work. I only spend around four hours a week on my FBA business, which has become very easy to maintain with a small time commitment. Thanks to me utilizing automation systems and freelancers, I've outsourced a lot of time-intensive tasks like PPC advertising so that the tasks that are required for me on a weekly basis are actually pretty minimal. Due to this, if I were to quit my job, I'd probably have a lot of free time on my hands, sat around in my pants watching Netflix, which isn't really something that I want to be doing. My day job gives me the chance to keep my brain active, learn from some very smart people, whilst also providing myself with a decent income stream, all things that I value a lot.
🎉 Conclusion: The Power of Learning a High-Income Skill
So the seven income streams that have allowed me to grow to seven figures are affiliate marketing, my Amazon FBA business, my Amazon FBA Academy, YouTube, writing Amazon listings, rental and investment income, and my day job. And you'll notice that out of those seven, five are related to a skill set that I developed solely because of Amazon FBA.
Without me learning that and taking action back in 2018, there's no possible way that I would have been able to grow multiple income streams that cumulatively come to seven figures. What we often don't realize about learning a new skill is how many opportunities come from that as a result. I initially started out with the intention of just learning Amazon FBA and making money from solely selling products. But because of the fact that I learned a skill set that is pretty valuable to have and one that I became very, very passionate about, I saw an opportunity and was able to go on and create four other income streams that just wouldn't have been possible had I put off the opportunity and decided to just carry on with my job alone.
Learning just one high-income skill back in 2018 set off a chain reaction, which has allowed me to build and diversify multiple income streams, become a more knowledgeable, skilled, and happier individual, and as a bonus, make even more money as a result of that. So if you're sitting watching this now and you have just your job as your sole income stream, I highly encourage you to use my journey as a template for knowing what's possible. Use YouTube to research the side hustles out there, learn one that interests you the most, and then take things step by step to grow and diversify your earnings as much as you can, just like I have.
🌟 Highlights
- Affiliate marketing is a simple yet effective income stream that can add up over time.
- Amazon FBA is a lucrative income stream that requires little time once you've put in the initial work.
- YouTube can be a fun and engaging income stream that helps boost your profile and diversify your income.
- Writing Amazon listings is a low-paying income stream that can be outsourced to free up time for more efficient income streams.
- Rental and investment income is a passive income stream that can provide easy income without putting in any work.
- A day job can provide a steady income stream and the chance to learn from smart people whilst also providing yourself with a decent income stream.
- Learning a high-income skill can set off a chain reaction of additional earning streams and make you a more knowledgeable, skilled, and happier individual.
❓ FAQ
Q: What is affiliate marketing?
A: Affiliate marketing is essentially an arrangement where you market a company's product or service, and you get a commission from the company for any sale that you make.
Q: What is Amazon FBA?
A: Amazon FBA is a service provided by Amazon that allows sellers to store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers. Amazon then picks, packs, and ships the products to the customer on behalf of the seller.
Q: What is rental and investment income?
A: Rental and investment income is a passive income stream that comes from owning rental properties or investing in income-generating assets.
Q: Why is learning a high-income skill important?
A: Learning a high-income skill can set off a chain reaction of additional earning streams and make you a more knowledgeable, skilled, and happier individual.
🌐 Resources
- [Amazon FBA Training Academy](https://www.smashessuccess.com/amazon-fba-training-academy/)
