As I've mentioned recently, I probably won't meet my income goals for the month again... Why? Well, for one thing I'm not giving it my all, and two, a lot of my private clients have gone MIA over the past couple of months or have made severe cut backs. I've also made some cut backs on the time that I'm willing to work for lower paying clients as well. This is all fine and dandy, part of being a freelancer and part of pruning - however I've been so focused on private clients for the last five months that I haven't gathered up any high quality back up eggs!
My realization of this is what has brought about the creation of today's TTT topic on variety. Private clients are great, content sites are great, survey and gpts are great - but to get the most security and the most money in the bank, you need to maintain variety!
1. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I've said before, The More the Merrier but it turns out this doesn't just apply to the number of eggs you have in basket. On top of wanting to have a number of legitimate work from home jobs and projects running simultaneously, you also want to have a wide variety of them. Get involved with some private clients, some websites that pay for content and anything else you can.
This way when your big bread and butter client vanishes, or your favorite static site changes their policy, you won't be left high and dry.
2. Don't limit yourself to one type of work... Unless you want to of course. There are a million and one ways to earn money from home via the internet. You can write, you can do website rating, you can be a personal virtual assistant, you can do social bookmarking etc - unless you only enjoy doing one single type of work, don't be afraid to mix it up so that you don't get bored or burnt out.
3. Always be prepared to start over. While I hope it never happens to any of us, it's definitely possible that it will - one day, every single one of our eggs could break. If that ever happens, be prepared to pick the shells out of your eggs and scramble up an omelet. The idea of starting all over is scary, but once you mastered the process once, you can easily do it again.
Keeping a good mix of eggs in your basket is a great way to decrease that chances of having to completely start over from scratch in the legitimate work from home jobs world. If you use all your resources, find private clients, public sites and don't be afraid to do things from all ends of the spectrum you should be able to keep your income strong, even when things get shaky.
Other Posts You May Enjoy:
* TTT #12: Fighting Off Distractions
* What. A. Day.
* Friday the 13th
2 comments:
How true that last section is! I have been working from home since 2003 and in that time have had to start over three times. The third time was the most recent. With the economy "eggs" change and some just don't make it to the frying pan anymore. Your blog has helped me so much in this third trip down restart alley. There is always something else out there. We just have to be willing to work and find out what works for us as contractors.
Wow 3 times! That's not too bad (I don't think at least). I'm already having to partially rebuild my nest of eggs, but I know I can do it!
I'm glad you've found this blog helpful in terms of encouragement, and I'm glad that you popped in to share your experiences also :) You're a true inspiration with 7 years of experience under your belt!
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