Increasing Your Income

I'm happy to tell you that you can increase your income whether you have a job or not and whether or not you already own your own business. In order to increase your income you only have to look at expanding. Expanding your market, yes, but more importantly, expanding your mind and getting a handle on your own income thermostat. The most important aspect of increasing your ability to attract more money into your life is first and foremost a mindset. If you can change your current thinking, you can most certainly change your income.

Before I get too far into the various ways that you can go about increasing your income, I want to share with you why I believe that increasing your income is a much better way to get ahead in life then reducing spending. First of all, we all tend to repond better to carrots than we do the stick. Nobody wants to go on a diet and we don't do well in general if we feel deprived in other ways as well. This also applies to spending. But beyond that disciplinary standpoint, there is also the standpoint of the economy at large. The only way to expand the economy is to spend money. Money makes the world go round. If everyone were to tighten their purse strings the country could very well spiral out of control economically. I'm not saying that this simple blog is even remotely influential enough to cause this type of economical downturn. I'm just sayin'... It's better for your psyche if you go out and spend. So why not increase your income rather than turning into a miser?

Now... how to increase that good ol' cashflow? If you're currently employed, you might try asking for a raise. I don't recommend it in this ecomony, unless you happen to know that your company is currently handing out raises to others in the organization. If you do go to ask for a raise, be sure to back it with a strong business case. Do not go to your superiors like Oliver, with his little, wretched, outstretched hands asking "May I have more, please?" You must be able to make your case in terms of the business's bottom line. Point out the ways that you've managed to save the company money while things have been lean. Show how many hats you've been wearing and point out your accomplishments and the things you do that nobody else can do as well as you. Be positive, be assertive (not aggressive) and most of all be smart. If you ask with intelligence and make a strong business case for the raise. There's a good chance that you can get that salary increase. If not, you may hear the reasons why it can't be done right now, and maybe even a commitment from management to increase your salary at a specific future date. DO NOT TRY THIS tactic if you have any black marks on you record. It could go horribly wrong and backfire on you.

If you're out of work, you're certainly not alone. Unemployment in the U.S. is at nearly 10% and has been that way for over 2 years. Look around you. 1 out of 10 people you know are probably looking for a job right now. But I'd like to challenge you to continue looking for a job, but go out and start doing things for other people. You can volunteer and/or donate your time to any non-profit organization. These orgainzations are full of people that are in high positions in companies and are looking for people who work hard. If you show up and start giving your time away for free and you do a great job with a positive attitude, that kind of stuff never goes unnoticed in the market place.

Now if you're not feeling that charitible, you can start your own service based business. Service businesses can be started with little or no start-up capital. It's just you, providing a service for someone else in exchange for money. If you're an accountant, now is the best time of the year to offer to do people's tax returns. Nobody likes doing their own returns even if it is simple to do it yourself online. It's tedious and unpleasant work for those who aren't good with numbers or for whatever reason. By the way, if you're good at this kind of thing, it doesn't matter if you're looking for work or you already have a job, you can earn extra money doing this, and this time of year only rolls around once every 365. It won't be back until the first quarter of 2012. Any skilled worker can offer up any number of services to make extra cash. You can mow lawns (or shovel snow) depending on where you live. You can babysit, you can housesit, dog sit or even spend time with an elderly person and provide in home care. If you're good with your hands, you can offer up home repairs, our neighborhoods are filling up with elderly folks who simply can't do these kinds of things by themselves anymore (sorry Mom). How about car repairs? Nobody wants to spend the kind of money they're charging at the shops (what are they now? $90, $100 an hour?) never mind the dealers. No matter what you're good at, chances are that there are people who live close to you that really need the service that you can provide, especially if you can undercut the competition by a few percent or more.

There is a downside to starting your own service based business. It's just like having a job. The truth of the matter is that you're simply exchanging your time and talent for money. This exchange, takes time out of your day. I prefer setting up businesses that can pretty much run themselves with very little daily effort on your part. However, most of these types of business opportunities require a pretty hefty investment to get started. The general rule of thumb in business is that the more investment capital you have, the less work you have to do yourself. This is why the service based businesses are great for those who are out of work. They don't require a great deal of capital to get their business off the ground. If you have the cash to spare, why invest it in the bank for pennies on the dollar when you can invest in yourself and start a business that will make you real honest to goodness ROI? The more you spend the less leg work you need to do. You can provide venture capital for other people's businesses, or open a franchise and hire a bunch of people who actually work the business. These opportunities are available like no other time in history. But like I said, they require a large cash outlay to launch. Having said that, there are opportunities available to you on the internet that you can start with a fraction of the amount of invesment capital as these other more expensive choices. The beauty of doing business online is that your store is open 24/7/365 and you don't have to pay college students to steal from you while they "watch" your store. If you are even a tiny bit curious about starting a business of your own online, I encourage you to visit my website. If not, maybe you already have your own business and maybe you already have a website.

So what if you already have your own business? How do you give yourself a raise if you're already working your fingers to the bone doing business for yourself? Easy... Expand. If you're business is already a big success, duplicate it and build it out. If you are not really successful enough in your business to build it out yet, you can give yourself a raise by increasing sales in your existing capacity. By improving your business's sales and marketing efforts, you can increase sales, and as a result, your own salary. How? Well, I could tell you, but I'm not going to do it here. I, again, will instead refer you to my website and encourage you to take a good look at what Dream Outfitters offers. We have education, proven tools & systems, and a community of like-minded professionals who are all earning decent cash by learning Sales, Service and Internet Marketing just to name a few of the subjects found in our online university. But don't take my word for it, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. All I ask is that when you do decide that this business opportunity is right for you, please come back to us at Dream Outfitters. You'll be glad you did.