“What is your number? This is the crucial question everyone should ask themselves in their careers. If you don’t know your number, you are like a hamster running on a wheel – never satisfied, never able to celebrate how close you are to achieving your goal.”
These are the words of Vumi Msweli, renowned business woman and career coach who addressed Safreans during a recent webinar. She specialises in connecting people from where they are in their careers to where they want to be.
What’s in a number?
Your number should be meaningful to you as an individual. It can be your monetary goal, the legacy you want to leave, the lives you want to touch, or the need for more time, more freedom or more travel opportunities. Once you know your number, it is easier to formulate a strategy to achieve it as soon as possible.
Why diversify?
Vumile regards only one revenue stream, built around one particular skill set, as a high risk. “The average millionaire has seven different revenue streams or sources of income that protect them against risks. If one falls apart, the others are still going. This is why it is important to diversify your career.”
What problem are you solving?
To get started, a very important question to ask is, “What problem are you solving? If you know the answer, you can do it on many different platforms. I solve a problem for people who are frustrated at work. I do it via my radio show, magazine column, TV show, in class, with my clients, Instagram live, and Tik Tok. Understanding the problem enables you to see opportunities down the road. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will lead you there.”
“Have a clear plan on how to diversify your career. Look at the long-term and deploy different strategies at different times – it changes the game fundamentally.”
Analyse your skills for different revenue streams
Look at your current employment situation – identify your skills, what you can teach and on-sell to other people, and what access and skills you can gain from your current clients. Identify what you are good at, what you love, what you can replicate in other parts of the world – earning dollars and benefitting from currency fluctuations. If these skills can solve problems and earn money, you can add them to your revenue streams.
One skill set can create four to five different revenue streams. A freelance photographer can for example take photos for different magazines, teaches others, sells images and creates a photography coffee table book that sells whether the photographer is there or not.
Different revenue streams can include your remuneration or salary, the hourly rate you charge for your service, intellectual property rights you sell, rental income from property, returns on your investment and royalties as people leverage what you have created.
| Do an audit
Do an internal audit by analysing the following: · Time – How can you redeploy your time to generate a better return? Are you bogged down with admin, with no time for strategic work? Hire someone and use your time effectively as a powerful resource. · Technology – Leverage technology to help you. · Access to market – Who can help you to access your market better? · Human Resources – Who are the people who can help you to get there? · Market – Who is your market, who do you need to penetrate, and what is your current reputation? This determines how much you can charge. · Systems – How can you make your operations and routine more efficient? What do you need to build, modify, edit, release or automate? · Entrepreneurship – Are you self-employed or an entrepreneur? People who are self-employed do everything themselves – if they’re not there, nothing gets done. Entrepreneurs build systems around them so that they can step away and the business continues. Strive to be an entrepreneur by diversifying your career. |
| Get practical – activate the game changer
Procrastination is the enemy of progress. If you tend to postpone, things are less likely to happen. Therefore, adopt a practical approach: · Build the plane whilst flying it – Don’t wait for the perfect circumstances. Get cracking while enroute. · Use your mornings and weekends wisely – recharge to restart. · Put an hour aside daily to get strategic work done. Work on the business, not just in it. · You can earn and learn by doing it – attend classes on integration. · If you don’t put time aside in your diary for strategic work on your career, it is not going to happen. An hour a day is a game changer. |
| Tips
· If you don’t have the experience, volunteer to work with someone who does. · Use apps to automate like Fiverr and Canvas. · Use other people’s resources – simply ask them. · If you don’t have the finances, use the power of bartering. · A little less sleep can give you 30 minutes of strategic work per day. · Use your time wisely. · Learn the art of collaboration to compete. · Join Master Mind groups. · Know that the journey of diversifying your career and establishing the seven revenue streams, is a long one. |
More about Vumi
You can visit Vumi Msweli at https://vumimsweli.com/ and follow her on all social media platforms.