Will your income survive?
Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home had a bit of a weather trouble.
That’s probably an understatement. It is good that not much harm was done.
Yep, you read that right.
I’m holed up in a hotel right now because a small tornado touched down in my neighborhood on Thursday. Although a few people had some injuries in my town, for the most part everyone is OK, thank goodness.
What would happen to your income in a situation where you couldn’t do business as usual?
For most people, weather bad enough to close their place of employment means they have no income. Basically, if you get paid by the hour if and you can’t put in an hours worth of time, you can’t get paid.
What if you’re self-employed?
Obviously if your place of business is your home, and your home is damaged due to weather, you’re in even more serious trouble. Most likely, for some period of time, your income probably isn’t going to cross your mind. Eventually, you will realize that you need to start worrying about your business.
As an online business safer?
Some are. Many online businesses to not require you to be there every day. However, some can lose quite a bit of money without daily upkeep. You may be able to go for a few days or even weeks. However in many cases, if someone’s not there your income will start to decline. That’s why we see so many guest bloggers during the summer. Bloggers know that if there are not daily posts to their site even when they want a vacation, traffic can quickly disappear.
Maybe you can run your online business from a laptop?
That’s great. Hopefully your laptop is safe with you. Are you able to get somewhere where you can use it. You need two things: power and an Internet connection. There are cases where you may not be able to obtain either one. While something localized like a tornado may allow you to find what you need reasonably close, larger weather problems like a blizzard or hurricane may mean travel is not possible.
Of course, you can’t really move a brick-and-mortar business.
I once had a similar situation to Wendy with a tornado. While our business suffered no damage, we had no electricity for several days. Forget things like electric cash registers and computers. Just lights to see in the building were a concern. We were fortunate when a customer offered us use of his power generator for a few days. While we were not able to do any real work, at least we could find our customer’s orders in the computer.
There are other things besides weather that can put you temporarily out of business.
In some cases being out of business temporarily can put you out of business permanently. Let’s face it, many businesses and most individuals have very little of a safety net. If we don’t work, we don’t get paid, and we can’t pay our bills.
It’s called linear income.
If you don’t work, you have no income. If you do work, we have an income (at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work). You may have something saved as a backup for the proverbial rainy day. Many do not.
There are businesses that provide a residual income.
A residual income is an income that you continue to get paid in the future for work you do today. Residual income is not that easy to find though. Most of the time and we think a residual income you think of the author of a book, the movie industry, and maybe the music industry. These people do the work and then continue to see income whenever their work is read, viewed, or listened to. Still, in most cases their income stream tends to die out after time. Eventually, everyone who is interested in their work has already purchased it.
There are some other industries that have residual income.
There are some cases where a one-time sale can create a long-term income. In some cases, a cell phone dealer may continue to make a commission on your monthly charges as long as you stay with his plan. The insurance industry may provide one of the best forms of residual income. Your insurance agent continues to get paid every time you pay your insurance bill. However, many insurance companies are making that a little more difficult.
Still, a residual income is something to really look for.
It’s the one type of income that can take a little bit of stress off your shoulders when life happens. When you know your income will still be there, you can concentrate on what matters most at the moment. That’s something that’s really worth looking for.
So why don’t we all have a residual income?
Honestly, because most people won’t work for future reward. Work now, get paid later, does not sound as good as work now, get paid now. It’s the lure of quick money. It’s not so much greed, but instant gratification and current needs vs. future plans.
Also, there is a lot of fake residual income out there.
The idea of residual income is what makes so many people look at multilevel marketing. Yet, for many reasons, almost nobody finds residual income at multilevel marketing. It’s why so many people who start multilevel marketing companies, have also started many multilevel marketing companies. There’s no real residual income. Just a quick buck for a few lucky ones and onto something new.
Do you have a plan B?
Do you have a backup plan? It’s considered wise to have a few days of food and water and other necessities in case of some disaster. Do you have a disaster plan for your income? It could be weather or it could be a social or economic disaster. It could be local or it could be regional. Would your income survive?
