At one point in my life I fully embraced the idea of Multiple Streams of Income (MSI). I read the book by my now friend, Barb Winter “Making A Living Without a Job”. Barb has MSI down pact. Between her book, newsletters, seminars and other projects she makes ends meet. For anyone interested in MSI her book is a must read.

I fell in love with the concept of MSI. I thought, “Wow—this is terrific I’m interested in a lot of things…this can work!”

You know most businesses practice MSI. Very few firms can survive selling or marketing a single item.

But anyway let me concentrate on MSI and the individual.

First off let me say I think it is easier making smaller, controlled incomes with MSI, but if you desire a larger income ($50,000 per year or more) most people need to specialize. Let me explain my reasoning.

I view income in a supply/demand kind of way…you’ll gain more income as what you do becomes more valuable to someone that wants to pay you…makes sense right?

At lower income levels the amount of knowledge/skills/experience you need is obviously less than what you need at higher income levels. And it’s the ‘market’ that determines this.

You also need to remember no matter what endeavor you are trying to earn income from it is competition that will have a great affect upon your earning potential. In a future post I’ll more thoroughly discuss the concept of competition. This is something I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while now and just haven’t had the chance.

Many folks can with a little study and persistence can become good enough in an area to enter the market and swap their skills and talents for money or whatever they're bargaining for. Most often the amount they earn is directly proportional to their skill set…large skill set—large income.

As we all know improving one’s skill set takes time, money and a good teacher. A ‘teacher’ can appear in many shapes or forms.

Say you want to be a MSI person. What do you do? Most feel you should concentrate on those things that require the least amount of additional training, money or experience before you can stand up and say, “I can do ‘x’ better than most people, and I deserve ‘$xxx.xx’ for that.” Because time is short most MSI people do things that require little in additional training, money or experience. The result is they choose to do things that become highly competitive areas. These ‘occupations’ have a low barrier to entry and attract many folks that are looking to earn an ‘easy’ buck. This is why the Internet is so popular with the MSI folks and the ‘Work at Home’ people. But the flip side is competition drives down the profits for everyone…good, bad or indifferent. Sure a few people catch lightning in a bottle and make out extremely well but the rest of them? Profitless business. I don’t think this is a good way to go.

Many MSI make things even worse for themselves by trying to do things that require totally different skill sets. The most successful MSI people like Jay Conrad Levinson tie their many MSI projects together with a common thread. In Jay’s case it is his marketing skills.

The next problem facing those looking at MSI is that many are forced to exchange time for money rather than a skill set for money, which is much less time intensive. Time is the great equalizer, you can spend your time earning $x per hour or spend it earning $x + $y per hour. Quite often to get both ‘$x and $y’ you need a higher skill set, i.e. more training and better teachers (better experience).

The trouble is (I believe) that our inherent tendencies and circumstances keep many of us from improving enough in one area to earn a substantial income much less trying to become good enough in multiple areas in order to earn a cumulative high income.

Face it most of us (I’m raising my hand!) have limited attention spans which makes learning (and mastering) very difficult. The time thing is a big deal also, heck how much time do you think I spent thinking about and typing this post? That time I used was robbing another activity…and possibly an activity that I could use to improve my income greatly but I made my choice and have to live with it.

It comes down to the fact that if you want to be a successful MSI person you need to pick your occupations very carefully and hopefully they link together somehow so that your need to acquire the skill set demanded to earn income is as short as possible. Or hopefully, you’re involved in MSI activities that require virtually no time on your part. For example I market a variety of audiocassette programs, which I clear a few hundred dollars per month on. My $ per hour income from this occupation is about $50…not bad. But again the key is I spend very little time and effort on this.

I’m not a very good MSI person, even though I still do derive income from multiple sources. I know my MSI tendencies have held my income back.

We live in a ‘winner take all’ society. It is 80/20. And to earn a majority income you have to be in the top 20% as a ‘value creator’. Staying in the 80% will get you whatever everyone else is getting—and those are gains that are average or less. It takes effort to be a 20% performer and if you’re a practicing MSI person the time and resources available to you to become a top 20% performer will be limited…quite often severely. And to compound the problem many MSIers (again I’m raising my hand) start a project but never advance it to the point where it is producing income.

The key to producing income (in my opinion) is specialization. Use the time, resources and teachers available to you in order to become a top 20% person. And if you have to be an MSI person, then actually finish the project before you jump into something else.

Some might say that being an MSI person is ‘safer’. I don’t know if that is true of not. Personally I think being a top 20% value creator is easier. I say this from a pure business point of view. I work with a couple thousand different businesses in my part of the state and I can tell you 95% of those businesses (a variety of businesses from retail, manufacturing, wholesaling, high-tech, low-tech, small business, large business) do not come anywhere close to maximizing their potential. Many screw up on marketing, some on human resources, and some on a management level, some on an employee level. Many businesses succeed strictly due to luck or longevity. Any type of serious competitor could come in and take market share from these businesses. Maybe things are different in Australia but in the U.S., most businesses are very vulnerable from my perspective.

Over the last year I’ve cut my MSI activities down considerably. I follow one rule…one project in one project out. I’ve found for me this works best.

The bottom is that I believe to earn $50,000 or more it is easier as a specialist rather than a generalist.

I thank you for your time,

Mike Winicki