Around 2,000 B.C., the cultures of the Caucasus region developed the spoked wheel for their horse chariots…
This technological breakthrough allowed their war chariots to travel faster and for much longer distances. As a result, they moved deep into the Greek peninsula and united with other Mediterranean people.
The superiority of their chariots allowed them to break up the dominant Minoan culture that was in place, and lead directly to the development of the classical Greek city-states of Sparta and Athens.
For this reason, the spoked wheel played an important (but little recognized) role in kick starting Western civilization.
And as you may have read about in The Predictable Profits Playbook, adding “spokes to your wheel” plays an important part in building your business…
Think of your business as a wheel…
If you only have one or two spokes on that wheel, then you’re probably in for a bumpy ride. Lose a spoke… and your business is likely to crash and burn.
In order to guarantee a smooth ride, you need to build a wheel with multiple spokes. This means developing a diverse range of revenue generating strategies (aka “spokes”).
At the same time, you should be testing your existing spokes to see if they are weak or likely to break.
When you have a diverse range of lead generation and conversion strategies, you can be sure of a predictable – and smooth – ride.
Why Diversity Is More Important Than Ever Before
It’s no secret that the many (if not most) industries are experiencing some pretty turbulent changes… Technology is upsetting old ways of doing things.
That’s why having a diverse range of lead generation strategies is more important than ever.
At one time, you could be fairly confident that a yellow page ad would provide a steady source of leads, but the Internet completely changed that…
In fact, the total consumer references to print directories declined from 12 billion in 2009 to 7.4 billion in 2011.
Businesses who relied on the Yellow Pages saw their flow of leads drop significantly, and it’s not just technology that can upset a lead generating strategy…
Regulatory changes like “do not call” lists can take an approach that once worked wonderfully… and make it no longer useful at all.
I experienced the dangers of single lead source first-hand when I ran a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign for one of my clients…
To give you an idea of its success, my client happily paid me $26,000 a month in performance-based commissions (this, in turn, meant he was making much more than that every month).
Things were great, but when Google changed its algorithm, my commissions instantly dropped by almost two thirds!
Within a few months, I was down to just $1,500 month in commissions. If I’d developed a diversified source of leads, the impact would have been greatly minimized.
More recently, we saw the same problem with businesses relying too heavily on certain SEO strategies. Google algorithm updates such as Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird completely transformed what worked to rank a website…
In many cases, these changes occurred virtually overnight – giving businesses very little time to react.
The Value Of Being Consistent
The idea of constantly identifying new revenue generation strategies may seem a little overwhelming… but it doesn’t need to be. It just takes working on a daily or weekly strategy to identify income-generating strategies that work your business.
Some general strategies include:
- Pay Per Click advertising
- Product launches
- Social networking
- Print advertising
- Television advertising
- Radio advertising
- Direct mail
- Retargeting
- Joint Ventures
There are at least 50 different sources I could mention off the top of my head…
And each category can branch off many more spokes. Take print advertising, for example – this may include advertising in the newspaper (local, national), magazines (each one is a new source), a co-marketing effort inside of a newsletter, etc.
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Committing to generating new lead and income sources requires discipline…
It can be tempting to just hammer away at what already works, but if your business is too reliant on just a few “spokes,” it may be in a lot more danger than you realize…
Ask yourself: how many spokes do you have in your money wheel?
In your corner,
Charlie