Peaks And Troughs
Posted on April 26, 2006 by Yaro
April is the busiest month for me because it’s the only time when the North American and Australian seasons cross over for one of my businesses. Consequently April is like Christmas and just like the retail industry, I rely on “my Christmas” heavily since there are some fairly dry months ahead (ironically enough – around the real Christmas is the worst time for me).
Like many small business mine goes through peaks and troughs. In a typical 80/20 Rule relationship, I generate 80% of my income in 20% of the months in the year (roughly).
What I don’t like about this pattern is the unpredictability, which is just something you have to get used to as a business owner. I can never be certain if my April will be as good as it has been in the past. Of course on the flip side January has occasionally surprised me with an unusually high bounty. You just never know what is around the corner.
Consequently I’ve learnt that I don’t like being dependent on one source of income. If 100% of my livelihood was based on seasonal fluctuations I don’t think I could stomach the roller coaster ride for long, although I know many small business owners do (you crazy people!). I decided very quickly to diversify and always work on creating more income streams – income streams with different peaks and troughs so as to minimize the overall financial impact of any one “bad season”.
While you can never be 100% confident in your future (such is life), not having all your eggs in one basket, besides being sound logic, feels a lot better too. When you are not dependent on a single income stream in your business, or even a single business, you enjoy more freedom and flexibility. You can pick and choose which clients to work with and which opportunities to chase because even if things don’t work out perfectly it’s not the end of the world. Overall you have enough peaks to balance out the troughs.
Yaro Starak
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Author: Yaro (355 Articles)
Yaro Starak is an Internet business and blogging expert. He runs the successful Internet business blog - http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com and teaches about how to make money from blogging at http://www.blogmastermind.com. You can contact Yaro at - http://ReplytoYaro.com
2 Responses to “Peaks And Troughs”
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Jen Blackert
- 27th Apr, 06 05:04am
I like the way you put this, it makes you realize — you just have to go with flow and create multiple streams of income.
I take a deep breath and smile as I wish I had the kind of popularity as you do.
Yaro
- 27th Apr, 06 10:04am
Hi Jen – breathing is good yes!