This week I’ve talked to 5 job seeker clubs and one business owner meetup.  Tomorrow in Danville I do my last presentation and then I fly home for a 40 hour rest before I go to present a bunch in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

One thing that came up in a presentation was the idea of creating different revenue streams that can either replace your job income or complement it, to add stability to your income.

Two books I recommended in the presentation:

The Four Hour Workweek. I haven’t read the book but I read his blog and loved, loved LOVED this post: Engineering a “Muse”: Case Studies of Successful Cash-Flow Businesses. Sometimes we think “starting a business” means something too big and complex, but it doesn’t! Read that post…

Crush It! This is GaryVee’s first-of-ten books and, to be honest, I thought it was pretty weak.  But in the end he shares business ideas that he thinks can be awesome and amazing, and I got energized just reading this thoughts on those ideas.  You can go to a bookstore and browse through the book just to find those ideas (I think they are in the appendix?).  Awesome ideas.

Who knows what YOUR idea is… but I want you to think about it.

Can you make $1 doing it?  Can you make $100?  If you can make $100 you might be able to make $500?  If you can do that, maybe you can get to $2k?  If you can get to that, how can you get it to $10k?

Sure, it takes work… but it can be exciting and energizing… and it’s a great idea for your own career management!

I recently shared, as a Favorite Friday, my multiple income streams.  Then, I wrote about job seekers having creating multiple income streams. M. Shane Smith, a friend and job seeker advocate in the Twin Cities, sent me an email about it and I asked him if he would share his thoughts with you.  Here ya go!

Looking for a job in today’s economic conditions will be a challenge. But, IF you’re willing to learn and put in the time and effort, you will be successful. Before you start looking at multiple revenue streams, I always encourage people to get their head on square with a positive attitude.

(1) Learn: how to sell yourself with resumes, social media, business cards, your 30 second commercial, reading books  and even keeping track of your job search and contacts. Three books I recommend are: I’m LinkedIn-Now What???, Jason Alba, Resume Magic, Susan Whitcomb, 101 Smart Questions, Ron Fry.  Of course, take advantage of JibberJobber.

(2) Time & effort: Spend at least 30 hours per week researching key companies, people, participation in career seminars (online or in person), networking groups and networking with others. Your personal brand will be much stronger if you help others (making more deposits) rather than just taking (the withdrawals) contact names. This is not a time to relax and “take time off.”

OK, you’re doing the work; you know what you want and where you’re going. Now let’s look at multiple revenue options, knowing everyone is in a different situation:

1. Unemployment benefits. While not much, it helps.
2. Find a Part time job #1. Some may think of this as a survival job. (20-30 hours per week) Holidays are a great time to land these jobs. Temp job services should not be overlooked.
3. Find a part time job #2. One that maybe is nights or weekends. (10-20 hours per week) This could be cleaning houses, yardwork, house sitting and more.
4. Volunteer. Sure, you may not make money, but the contacts you make could be worth much more than money.
5. Consult. Do you have talents that you can charge $20- $100+ per hour? Think about it. If so, get business cards and go get some projects.
6. Selling personal property. Need cash? Sell personal property before you go under water. This could be a car, house or other items that can bring in some cash during this difficult time.
7. Move. Yes, move to another state where there is LOW unemployment. No one is asking you to live there forever, but sometimes we have to do what we can and things change.

During this same time period, keeping looking for job like you just had or better yet, your dream job!

Things change and sometimes we have to make adjustments in our lives to pay bills.

Stay positive, learn, share and grow during this time of adversity.

M. Shane Smith is a founder or a founding member of over five job networking groups in the Minneapolis St. Paul area that have help thousands of individuals.  His involvement in networking groups and passion for helping others can be seen by his LinkedIn profile. During his last transition of 23 months, he implemented many of these ideas to keep the revenue flowing. Today, he has returned to work, commuting between Minnesota and California.

What do you think?

Friday I reshared some ideas on creating multiple streams of income. I get emails from people who own a business saying they are doing the same thing – creating multiple products/services that can generate various types of income (passive, etc.).

I think some job seekers (or happily/unhappily employed people) wonder if they can have multiple streams of income, and if so, how do they do it?

Let me relate a story.  Growing up I knew my dad, who worked for the government, could not have a side business.  Not only did he work all the time (so he had no time to pursue something else), there were policies in place precluding him from having a side gig.

That, I thought, was normal.

I didn’t think too much of it. I was that typical worker-bee who wanted to do good stuff for the company and not have side distractions.  No big deal.

Then, in my job search I had a really interesting interview.  It was after I had launched JibberJobber and I had my mind set on having JibberJobber run as a little side project that might make a few hundred bucks a month.

I asked the interviewer, who was at the VP level, if there was a problem if I had this little side business.

His reply floored me:

“Not a problem – the manager across the hall has a movie theater and the one down the hall has a such-and-such business, and …. “

My thought?  Why didn’t I get this memo???

Why was I trusting 100% of my income to one person when I could have had side gigs that were producing a few hundred, perhaps a few thousand dollars each month?

Talk about securing my own income!

I missed the boat on that one…. but I walked out of that room thinking NEVER AGAIN.

The funny thing is, most of the people who were involved in the decision to lay me off had their own side gigs – other income.  Why was I so blind?

Can you have a side gig? Yes, you can.  Don’t wait until you NEED the extra income, though.

I LOVE the concept of having multiple revenue streams.  When I got laid off in January, 2010, I had 100% of my income disappear overnight.

I never, ever wanted to be in a position where one person (or worse, a committee) could take away 100% of my income.

Enter: Multiple Streams of Income.

One day I sat down and listed out all of my revenue streams – I was surprised to find I had 10 of them.

I wasn’t working all of them, but I was planning on working on them.  Others were producing a pretty good income. I decided to share what most of them were… I hope you get inspiration from my sharing this to figure out what your own multiple streams could be:

• Revenue Stream 1: JibberJobber User Upgrades
• Revenue Stream 2: JibberJobber Partnership Program
• Revenue Stream 3: Books I write
• Revenue Stream 4: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 5: Professional Speaking
• Revenue Stream 6: Consulting
• Revenue Stream 7: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 8: (not announced yet)
• Revenue Stream 9: Information Products
• Revenue Stream 10: Miscellaneous

It’s not necessarily a path to sure wealth and jets and engines… I’m not talking about get rich quick or schemes or anything – it’s all about securing your own income and having more control because of a certain degree of diversity.

What about you?  Can you have multiple streams of income?

I’ve (virtually) known Peter Osborne for a long time. He’s an executive I met in his job search and we’ve followed each other over time.

Peter recently launched a new site/service/club (what do I call it??) to help people consult while they are in transition, or as an alternative to a traditional job.  His new site is Consultant Launch Pad.

This is brilliant because … how do I put this, so many OLD people aren’t going to land a satisfying job.

How’s that for a stereotypical age discrimination statement?

Really, though. Age discrimination is out there… while Peter’s services/site is not just for those facing age discrimination, I would like to think many people who are facing discrimination as job seekers can go into a company through the side door as a consultant making 3x+ the amount they would make as an employee.

Yeah yeah, I know, it’s not for everyone. But, some people need to earn some money while they are waiting to land that sweet job.

And consulting is a way to do that.

Check out Peter’s Consultant Launch Pad… it’s brand new so it might be rough around the edges, and I know he has a fantastic vision to grow and evolve it… for now, it’s a great start!

I know Pam and Jill… and strongly encourage you to sign up for this no-cost webinar tomorrow. From an email Jill just sent out:

Hi All, In the past few weeks, we’ve seen numerous articles on how long it’s taking  to find a new position today. Plus, there’s been lots of talk on the need for job seekers to be entrepreneurial and the growing trend for people to have multiple jobs concurrently. That’s why this upcoming webinar is so darn important for you to attend. It’s about how to live, survive and even thrive in this changing economy of ours. You need to attend, even if you desperately want to return to “cubicle nation.” Why? Because it’s really about taking back control of your life again. UPCOMING F-R-E-E Webinar Escape from Cubicle Nation When: Wednesday, January 20 Time: 1pm ET, 12 noon CT, 11am MT, 10am PT Busy at that time? Sign up now and listen later Click to register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/844810859 The collapse of our world economy in 2009 brought tremendous hardship, but also tremendous opportunity.

If no work configuration is secure, we are all self-employed. This gives us many ways to earn a living, if we just know the way to research opportunities and market ourselves as employee and entrepreneur.

Join Pamela Slim, business coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation as she guides you through a way to develop a career strategy that will translate regardless of your personal work situation.

In this session you’ll learn:

• The starting place for any career path: a sound life plan
• The critical steps to start a business
• How to build a supportive tribe of supporters, peers and mentors to further your opportunities

Register now: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/844810859

Self-employment is SCARY, but so is long-term unemployment.

For that matter, so is working for a company and not ever knowing when you might get the ax.

That word has been on my mind a lot this year.

I think I’m disrupting an industry, right now.

I won’t have many fans from within that industry, but everyone tells me the time is ripe to disrupt it…. someone is going to do it, why not me?

I want to be in charge of the disruption.  Or at least, one of the early disrupters.

This year, tens of thousands of people have had their careers disrupted.

Instead of being in charge of the disruption, they have been disrupted.  Many feel like the carpet was pulled out from under them.  Some got up fine, others lay on the ground wounded.

Would you rather be a disrupter, and have some control over the direction (or at least feel like you have some control), or a disruptee, and lay down wounded, wondering what the heck’s going on?

The year is over.  The decade is over.

Next year, next decade, is YOURS.

Disrupt.  Or be disrupted.

I retired the Personal Branding Award series a few months ago and said I was going to start a new series…. well, this is it.  I want to interview people who are doing something DIFFERENT.

There is an irony I live with every day.  Some people think I am hear to help you land your next gig… to find your dream job.

You see, I personally don’t think a dream job exists… not in the way it did a few decades ago.  Even if you find the dream job you might not have it after 6 months or 6 years.

You are always in transition, always a job seeker, and thus, always CEO of Me, Inc.

Part of that, as I’ve mentioned before, is to figure out personal income security.

That’s what this series is about – thinking outside the box of “I’m getting my dream job soon!” to “I think there are other ways to crack this (income security) nut!”

Welcome the first person in the series – Gary Vaynerchuk (aka, GaryVee).

Gary is beyond a rockstar, although he’ll deny it.  His energy makes me think all I’m suited for is a government job… but he claims it  is not the craziness or energy that makes you WIN.  No, not win, that makes you CRUSH IT! Crush it is the name of his new book, which should start shipping today.

I interviewed Gary for about 45 minutes, you can listen on the BlogTalkRadio channel.  Lots of gems to apply to your own career here.

And check out his book Crush It - it’s less than $15 at Amazon.  I’ve got mine in the mail and I’m anxious to get into it!

Friday I said I’d share a bonus idea regarding the business of cleaning garbage cans…. they guy I wrote about it supposedly makes $300 – $400 a day.

I was talking to my unemployed cousin about doing this and I said:

I guarantee you, as you knock on doors, whether you get the job cleaning the garbage can or not, people will ask you what kind of work you are looking for.

Think about it… if you do this you are showing a good, strong attitude, work ethic, creativity, humility, etc.  These are things that employers look for.  I’d gladly introduce someone like this to a networking contact.  I’m not positive that this person would be the right hire, but this person is out doing something to make it happen, rather than wait for the job to come in.

This might be one of the best networking tactics you employ – and you can make some serious money each day!

I was checking out some local Utah business blogs and read one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Jeremy Hanks.  I’ve met Jeremy on a number of occasions and love watching the progress of his super-cool company.  He has achieved a lot and I look up to him as an example.

He recently wrote a blog post called Unique Service + Hard Work = Opportunity.  This is a terrific story, and one that we can learn from.  It starts:

A couple days ago, I got a knock on my door, and a guy that was wearing blue rubber gloves was there when I opened it. He said something like: “I lost my job a while back, and got sick of not working, so I’m out providing a service today. I’ll clean out your garbage cans for $10 each, or two for $15. I use a pressure washer and industrial strength bleach and I literally climb inside them and scrub them by hand.”

I hired him on the spot, for two reasons: 1. my garbage cans were nasty; 2. I’d have hired him anyway, because here’s a guy down on his luck making his own.

read the entire story here…

The story is awesome… remember the Thom Singer post where I talk about pride and humility?  I doubt this guy is too proud… don’t you think? In the next paragraph it says:

He says a lot of days, he makes $300-$400…

Can you believe this?  I absolutely love this.

$300 – $400 – that is a lot of money.  Here’s the math:

$300 * 5 days = $1,500/week

$1,500 * 4.33 weeks in a month (avg) = $6,495/month

$6,495 * 12 months = $77,940/year

That is a LOT of money.

In my neighborhood we have a ton of people who want to mow our lawn, or do our carpets.  But never have I had anyone come up to wash my garbage cans for $10.  I would pay it on the spot.

Why am I sharing this with you?  Some of you are beyond getting anywhere with your job search.  This is an idea that can help you pay your bills… even save your house from foreclosure.

Want a bonus idea?  Check the blog on Monday and I’ll share why this business idea is the bomb.