Maximizing income

- Maximizing your income sounds great, doesn't it? However, it's not quite as easy as it sounds. We can get so caught up in the day-to-day operations that you miss opportunities to optimize your revenues. Let's examine three areas that will help you maximize your revenue stream. First is marketing and branding. Let's be clear. Regardless of what industry you find yourself working in, you're actually in the marketing business. Every business venture is reliant on sales. The only way to maximize sales is to make sure your target demographic knows you exist. Here's what you can do to assure that your marketing stays consistent regardless of how busy you get. Allocate at least 25% of your day every day to marketing functions. I personally try to do 40% and I know it can be hard, especially if your business is a side hustle. That being said, invest the time. Here are examples of what that might look like. Call current clients and ask for referrals. Call past clients to see if you can be of help now. Write blogs. Creates videos. Posting on social media. Sending out newsletters. Attending a networking event, or giving a speech on your business. There are countless other examples of marketing functions. Stay vigilant, even when you're scrambling. Marketing is what keeps a healthy pipeline. The second area for maximizing is sales acumen. Now, what do I mean by that? It's how well you can assess the situation, call up the knowledge you have and then apply it. While marketing gets the word out about your business, sales acumen seals the deal. The best thing you can do to improve your sales acuity is to perfect your sales language. I'm talking about your phrasing, your vocabulary, and your tone. Learn to ask open-ended questions to uncover client problems you can solve. Elevate your vocabulary to be more agile in conversations and better influence others. Train yourself to manage your tone of voice to communicate friendliness, confidence, and poise, even in the face of objection. A lot of solopreneurs are frightened of objections. Don't be. Objections are normally signs of interest. Having a strong sales acumen includes the ability to turn these objections into new clients. Finally, you need to understand your expenses. You maximize your revenue when you keep more money. We all have expenses but unchecked spending eats profits. In my own business, I recently uncovered a whole lot of money that was going out on services and memberships I wasn't using and didn't really need. I dropped or consolidated them and cut my expenses without losing value. For me, it was easy to get caught up in the automatic monthly deductions without really understanding how much was being spent. Here's your assignment. First, track how much time you normally spend on marketing activities. If it's not at least 25% each day, increase it. Second, find one sales training course and take it. The better you are at sealing deals faster, the more you maximize your revenue. You can even start here on the LinkedIn Learning platform. Finally, do what I did with expenses. Interrogate your monthly expense report and see if you can trim some fat. By doing all of these, you will optimize your revenue and keep the pipeline full.