A Google search of “multiple streams of income” yields very interesting results. Al Gore’s Internet is full of articles that are full of advice on how to achieve the goal of money flowing from several sources with minimal effort.
However, these advice articles are short on specifics and long on sales pitches. The goals of the Alpha Jag, South Hickory Holdings and our umbrella consortium Rising to the Top are aligned: building communities, sharing information and providing resources to help people on their journey towards independent wealth.
I’ve been on this journey for about 20+ years and I believe I’ve finally built the momentum towards fully achieving that goal. 2024 for me is about reaping what I’ve sown over the last 4+ years. In this article, I’ll be sharing my focused plans for multiple revenue streams that I expect to begin flowing in Q3 of 2024. I will revisit these goals in future content. But for now, here are the 3 income streams I’m nurturing right now.
- Conversa Elevated: My business partners and I have invested a lot of brainpower, time and capital in our bar concept. We are building a unique brand and believe we have an opportunity to expand with additional hospitality concepts. For me, this will be the engine of my business investments: a set of systems and processes that work in harmony to generate revenue… ideally with a limited amount of time investment from me. My goal is to take the return on investment from Conversa to invest in real estate opportunities. We have hired strong management to oversee the execution of our business systems and brand. Our investment team will function like a board of directors once we have our full concept in place. This will not be a completely hands off investment. However, we avoided the trap of creating “S quadrant” jobs for ourselves. The key discipline will be to truly invest with my distribution from Conversa profits instead of treating it like income. I expect Conversa (and any additional brands we create) to have ups and downs. The goal would be to create consistent cashflow from the “I quadrant”.
Borrowing from Robert Kiyosaki’s cashflow quadrant concept, my approach would look like this (see my article “A Practical Breakdown of Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant”):
- The Four Skillets Group: This is the parent entity for our hospitality investments. Conversa is the first of what we hope will be multiple concepts. Relationship building, “board of director” responsibilities and strategic planning will be a critical component of expanding our portfolio. To achieve this, we will use some of the returns from Conversa to fully operationalize the Four Skillets Group. I intend to be one of the “employees” of the Four Skillets Group to ensure we are executing on the vision. Again, using Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant, this would generate “E quadrant” income: time for money.
This income has high tax consequences. Plus, the idea of time for money is the concept that causes most people to seek additional revenue streams. However, I am an “employee” in a business in which I have significant ownership stake. This isn’t a return to corporate America. This is a “job” in the sense that I want hands on control of the strategic direction of our business.
My goal is to cover my daily/monthly living expenses from this income. The difference between this income and being self-employed is that I expect my business partners to hold me to a degree of accountability for my performance relative to growing business.
Again, using some of Kiyosaki’s concepts from Cashflow Quadrant, this income looks like this:
- E-commerce: I am taking a 3-pronged approach to drive E-commerce revenue.
- Amazon Seller – We are going to source products (starting with one) and sell them in the Amazon marketplace. Researching this, it takes a while to plant this seed and nurture it into a sustainable revenue model. However, I am excited about this revenue stream as it will allow me to learn about the global manufacturing to consumer supply chain.
- Alpha Jag – I am developing this site to be optimized to do affiliate marketing (see my disclaimer page) and to also feed my associated Shopify site. My Shopify site will be focused on business and lifestyle focused products and events to help folks progress in their corporate careers and/or generate multiple streams of revenue. Links will go to my consulting and project management LLC/business umbrella that will be used to drive another revenue stream. That stream, like the E-commerce bucket, are “S quadrant” income streams.
- Black Alum Gear – This income stream is definitely going to take a collaborative effort from my Teams. My goal for this one is to progress Black Alum Gear from an “S quadrant” to a “B quadrant” income play. I have been almost obsessed with the idea of creating my own platform-based marketplace that flies under the radar of the major players. The niche market we’re after with Black Alum Gear has existing providers. However, we think we can present a great product and support model that allows us to scale this.
Overall, it’s important to take all three of the E-commerce strategies into account, create common processes and synergies to streamline operations and leverage outsourced support to automate operations and support on this.
Okay… so that’s it. Well, that’s a lot! Focusing on three streams at once is daunting. I’ve tried this with multiple streams and it didn’t work. However, most of my time was tied up as a corporate executive. However, I can focus on the e-commerce strategy with an awesome team in place at Conversa focused on building the brand. Stay tuned to the Chronicles for progress updates.
This is doable! I could be wrong. But, I doubt it!