Multiple Profit Centers

If I had to choose one idea from all my self-employment research that has had the most influence on my thinking, it would have to be Barbara Winter’s discussion of Multiple Profit Centers.  In her wonderful book, Making a Living Without a Job, she says,

"Rather than thinking in terms of having a single source of income (as we are trained to do when we see our income tied to a job), the savvy entrepreneur thinks about developing several income sources.  With planning – and an openness to additional opportunities as they come along – you can create as many income streams as you desire."

Diversifying my income streams has been on my mind a lot this week.  While not wishing to detract from my efforts at building my freelance paralegal business, two important things are true.  First, I don't fill up 10 hours of every day on my freelance business; there are days that I spend that much time on it and more, but there are other days when I don’t have  client work, I’m caught up on my marketing projects, and I don’t have a networking event to attend.  Second, I embarked upon this entrepreneurial journey with a number of other dreams I wanted to pursue in addition to freelancing as a paralegal.  My passions for food, wine, cooking, entertaining were big determiners of my choice of location; these and other passions are things I would love to turn into a series of businesses some day.  Hence, I’ve devoted a lot of time this week to laying plans for the Multiple Profit Centers Barbara Winter talks about.

For example, I’m looking for a  local part time job.  One obvious reason is supplemental income, but there’s another even more important reason.  I want an arena in which I can interact with people in the community (outside of the legal field), provide customer service, learn as much as I can about an angle of business I haven’t had an opportunity to experience yet, having spent most of my working life in big law firms.  I want a chance to closely observe another successful business owner, and see what lessons I can apply to my own future businesses.  I’m the first to admit that there is a big learning curve for me in being an entrepreneur.  I believe that any part-time employment experience in a field other than law will be invaluable as I seek to build a series of successful home businesses for myself.

I also have another small business idea I’ve been toying with for a while now.  It’s too new and nebulous to discuss much yet, but it involves my passion for food and wine pairing.  So I’ve been bouncing this idea off of my foodie and wine-loving friends, and putting plans in place for some practice runs for my idea.  I realize that I will need to develop a sound business model through trial and error, and develop both the skills I will need and some expertise in the field before I can hope to earn income from it.  Fortunately, I can’t think of anything more enjoyable than putting on “practice” food and wine events with friends.  It’s quite energizing to me to think about and plan this, and having an ultimate goal of turning something I love so much into an income stream gives a sense of urgency to the project.  (Look for future blog posts about this on my sister blog, Sonoma Sip.)
 
And just yesterday morning, I dreamed up another idea for a possible small business involving another of my long-term passions for plants and gardening.  Who knows where that idea eventually will go, but I’m enjoying the creativity of the brainstorming process.

I didn't set off on this journey merely to create an income for myself.  I want to create a lifestyle, one in which I am doing what I love, utilizing all my skills (paralegal skills to be sure, but not only those), enjoying my life.  I look forward to seeing where it will all lead me.