What is an “income lever”?
An “income lever” is an activity that uses leveraged force (higher than a 1 to 1 ratio) that you can apply, delivering more income than just a job as a salaried employee.
In other words, these income levers are businesses that create residual income to continue far beyond the initial effort needed to set them up and keep them operating.
We leverage different types of productivity tools in our lives every day.
A wheel is a productivity tool that enhances our lives.
Leveraging the power of the wheel, we can move large items (a dolly), easily travel long distances (car), improve manufacturing (think conveyor belt), and the list is endless.
What about electricity?
Combustion?
These are just some productivity tools we leverage daily to improve our lives.
What about you?
What about you?
Are you a lever?
Are you being leveraged?
Early in my career, I realized I was a “lever” my clients and suppliers used to enhance their businesses.
For example, when I was a performer, a producer would hire my “act” as a portion of their show to enhance their product (their show). Years of rehearsal, training, and practice would be “leveraged into” the production.
Over the years, I worked to “move up” the ladder to be the person applying the lever as a performer, technical director, director, headline entertainer, producer, and ultimately an executive producer, building a company that produced thousands of live productions enjoyed by millions of people around the world.
Who Really is the “Boss”?
The Circle of Boss
Guess what?
After all these years, I am still a lever for someone else.
You always are – even if you work for yourself and are the “boss.”
It is not a bad thing.
I have been the “boss” for years and still don’t feel like the “boss.” I think it is an illusion – there is no such thing as a “boss.” Your clients and customers are the “boss,” ironically, most don’t feel like the “boss” either.
I think Bruce Springsteen is probably the only “Boss” in the world.
The Power of Understanding Levers and Leverage.
There is power in understanding leverage and how it applies to you personally.
Once you know how you leverage (and how you are leveraged), you can decide how and when to use these levers to help yourself and when to stop being leveraged to your detriment.
“Leverage” has developed a negative connotation.
Debt and leveraging workers are probably the two negative things that come to mind when discussing leverage. Unfortunately, negative news gets more press than positive news (I can’t even watch the news anymore – it is just too depressing).
Let’s look at the perception of debt and leveraging a workforce.
Debt is Only One Type of Lever.
Is debt bad?
Is a mortgage bad if it enabled you to purchase your house?
Debt is a thing; it is a lever, and it is neither good nor bad. I wouldn’t say I like debt, but I have used it to enhance returns. The mortgage crisis gave loans to people who could never pay them back so people in the lending industry could make more money.
The PEOPLE in the industry hurt their customers, not the debt itself. If they cared about their customers instead of their bonuses, they would have told them to buy the $100,000 house instead of the $300,000 house.
Leveraging a Workforce.
Yikes – this one sounds terrible to me, but is it really?
Spun another way: how does creating a company and employing people sound?
Companies leverage workers to complete the workload for their clients in exchange for salaries for their employees.
Is this bad?
If it is a sweatshop and you don’t train and protect your staff, it is terrible, but again, this is caused by the PEOPLE in charge of the workforce.
So, What Are Some of the Income Levers – the Businesses that Create Residual Income?
Online Businesses
Online businesses leverage the power of the internet to reach billions of people worldwide, providing services, merchandise, information, advice, and virtually anything.
Leveraging the power of the internet has turned the business world upside down, enabling entrepreneurs to start new businesses for a small fraction of the cost of doing so ten years ago.
Some examples of online businesses that create residual income are:
Real Estate
Real Estate businesses range from buying and selling real estate, operating real estate, managing the real estate, or providing tools to the real estate industry.
Some examples of income-generating real estate businesses that create residual income include:
- Investing in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
- Real Estate Crowdfunding Investments
- Apartment Rentals
- Residential Rentals
- Commercial NNN Rentals
- Real Estate Management Tools
Stocks and Bonds
Investing in income-generating stocks and bonds is a classic way to build a portfolio of residual income generation.
Done correctly, a diversified, income-generating investment portfolio can secure your financial future. Some income-generating strategies you can use to increase residual income from stock and bonds are:
- Dividend Stocks
- Bonds
- Mutual Funds
- Closed-End Funds
Alternative Businesses that Create Residual Income
Some alternative businesses that create residual income are in fact specific niches in various industries.
These businesses, or “alternative investments” as they are sometimes known, carry more risk but with the opportunity of more reward.
Some of these industries are newer and can also provide opportunities to entrepreneurs willing to be leaders in a fledgling niche industry.
Some examples are:
- Cryptocurrency Mining
- Cryptocurrency Masternodes
- Oil and Gas Technologies
- Alternative Energy
A Real World Example of an Income Lever
An income lever that creates residual income can range from the businesses that create residual income to the tools that help support those businesses.
Think of it this way:
Anything that saves you time making money is an income lever.
For example, if you are building an online affiliate marketing business, any tool that speeds up the process from conception to actually making money is an income lever.
These tools leverage your time to create money-making businesses that produce residual income. These levers also remove the barriers blocking your way to getting started.
I leverage the training, website hosting, IT support, community, and simplicity of the Wealthy Affiliate platform for my affiliate marketing business.
Using their all-in-one platform, I can quickly scale the business into multiple affiliate marketing websites and control everything from one portal.
It saves me hundreds of hours and allows me to focus on building the business versus being slowed down by non-money-making minutiae.
Looking at the math, a premium Wealthy Affiliate plan is $49.00 per month or $1.61 per day.
Actually, I pay annually for the service and get a discount to $497.00, or $1.36 a day!
That is .95 cents a day for a tool that includes:
- teaching me how to create a new business stream,
- hosting up to 10 websites with high-speed hosting,
- one-click email creation and hosting,
- a website management platform,
- technical support,
- domain registrar,
- content writing platform,
- a website builder tool,
- and even includes an excellent keyword research tool.
You can sign up for Wealthy Affiliate for free here and try it out.
Wealthy Affiliate is the top affiliate marketing platform and provides courses, hosting, domains, and support all in one place. Join for free today!