“Advertorial: There is an Investors Forum on the 15th of June, 2008 (This Sunday) at the Lagos Travel Inn (Toyin Street Ikeja, before Water Parks) at 2pm sharp. This meeting is free for New Nigeria Club members. We’ll be having as guest the MD Property Consulting Company from Dubai, who will be around to offer a unique property deal to interested investors, we will also be providing information about the New Nigeria Investment Club and other exciting opportunities. To book a sit, kindly send a text to 08033469632 indicating your name and email address. Non New Nigeria Club members will be required to pay N30,000 to attend or attend strictly by invitation.”
“A Property Investment forum will also be holding on the 14th of June, 2008 – 2pm (This Saturday) at Realty Point Ltd Office 3RD FLOOR, ONIGBAGBO HOUSE, BESIDE BOLA MEMORIAL CHURCH, BY ABULE B/STOP, 29 MOBOLAJI BANK ANTHONY WAY, IKEJA, LAGOS.”
A friend walked into my office last week, with only one question in mind – “How can I generate multiple streams of income?” From the way he spoke, he had gotten to that point in life, when what is reasonable to do is cry out for help. I tried as best I could to enumerate some basic steps for creating steady streams of income.
If you are wondering whether or not you need this, you probably aren’t ready, at least not yet. Being an employee often offers one the disadvantage of not thinking about this type of thing for a long time. With a sure salary coming at the end of every month, what’s the use of multiple streams? It will be good that you learn ahead though, particularly as we’ll all stop being employees one day. And if you have not developed extra sources, particularly passive ones for yourself, your later years might not be so rosy. When push comes to shove, your net value is the difference between your inputs and outputs. If we borrow from the bathtub theorem, the water the bathtub retains is a function of how many faucets and how you are plugging the drains.
Key tips to creating multiple streams of income
1. Investing
Do you have investments? You must have! No matter how bad things are at any point in time, you should have investments. You should have long term investments, and short-term investments. You should also have a balanced investment portfolio, featuring low, medium and high risk opportunities based on your current age. Here are some of the vehicles I would recommend.
1. Join an Investment Club
2. Play the Stock Market (Local and Global)
3. Venture into Real Estate or Penny Real Estate
4. Forex Trading
5. Invest with a Fund Manager
6. Invest in a New Venture
Over 6, I’ll score myself 6/6. How will you score yourself? It is essential that you learn about these vehicles and start balancing your portfolio. If you really want to learn and can make out time for it, I can organize time to explain it to you.
2. Borrowing
Do you now how to borrow? We all grew up learning and hearing that debt was a bad thing. It’s not! There is a how to borrowing, and every successful business person as learnt that. In fact, business magnates like Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki will tell you that if you don’t know how to borrow you are not ready to grow. I believe that your ability to get credit facility is a measure of your credibility. It also doesn’t need to be the bank, it could be family, friends or foes. If nobody in this world is willing to give you a few thousands on any great idea you have, what everybody is saying is that they don’t trust you. Borrowing is about starting small and building credibility and trust as you grow. All of us need leverage, borrowing is cheap leverage. Imagine I have a deal that has the potentials of doing 100% returns. Let’s say I need 10million Naira to take advantage of one of such opportunities, based on my projected ROI, I would have made 10million Naira profit, i.e. 100% ROI. Now imagine I had 10million Naira and instead of participating in just one, I get a loan of 90million Naira from a bank or a friend and I guarantee him an interest of 30% after one year, on the money. I’m borrowing, so I can give guarantees, the person is absolutely shielded from the risks of investing. At the end of the exercise, I invest 100million Naira, and have N200million (with N100million as profit). I return the banks initial N90million and pay an interest of N27million as interest on loan making N117million. What I have left is N83million, if I remove my capital and it leaves me with N73million, that’s over 700% ROI. What did I do, I borrowed wisely. I am happy, my friend is happy, life is good. You need to learn how to borrow intelligently, you need to know when to borrow. It’s a skill set you might need to learn. I have a guaranteed returns arrangement I do for people based on certain investments I have, I take them loans given to me… are you willing to give me your money? Your answer is a test of my credibility đŸ™‚ In borrowing I rate myself quite highly as well, I borrow, yet I never owe, because I ensure I don’t miss deadlines. How do you rate yourself?
3. Selling
Whether you like it or not you will sell something, yourself, your talents, products, ideas, initiatives, perspectives e.t.c. There is a lot of money to be made in selling. So, what are you selling? There are opportunities to be agents for many products, and to many companies, are you taking advantage of any? “But I don’t know how to sell?”, you better learn! I didn’t know how to walk, talk or run, but I learnt, so can you. Learn how to sell for crying out loud, it will make a difference. It’s as basic skill trust me, don’t be fooled that you have professional sales people in your office. We are all into Sales, whether we admit it or not. How are you perceived at work today? You have been unconsciously selling that? What can you sell or be an agent for?
1. Intellectual Property (Books, CDs, Tapes, Magazines,e.t.c.)
2. Brokering (Buying cheap and selling at a margin)
3. Property (Standard Agent Fees)
4. Ideas
5. Products (physical, web-based, vouchers, e.t.c.)
6. Time/Skill (Facilitation, Consulting, Project Management)
In selling over 6 here, I’ll rate myself at about 90%. I do almost everything you’ve read here. I’m not showing off, I’m just saying anybody can do it, and so can you.
4. Consulting/Problem Solving
You can make money proffering solutions to problems, or being a part of problem solving. Consulting is about leveraging on your knowledge, skills and abilities to meet the need of a company. We all have abilities, we can all develop skills and we can all acquire knowledge. Do you know anybody that your services could be useful to? Why not volunteer to add value? Why not offer yourself and see if anything on earth is really free? What can you do well? Can you help organize an event? Can you help beautify it? Can you help facilitate a program? Can you help manage a companies PR? Can you help promote a brand? Can you help in any way? Why don’t you offer your services to someone who will appreciate it, rather than waiting for perfect opportunities? Can you do this?
I consult, and it’s been a bit rewarding. I also still offer help to people for free, and somehow, they pay it forward into the future. I can see my path as smooth and easy, it’s because of the things that people have paid forward into my life, for services rendered without charge. What need are you meeting today?
Are you interested in multiple streams of income? Why not start balancing all these avenues today.
