Creating Multiple Income Streams


The last Jonez blog was a bit heavy lol, but today I'm going to lighten it up and talk about something we can all relate to. MONEY lol! If you're looking to increase your profitability as a producer, multiple streams is THE way to do it! Although this post is primarily for music producers, I'm sure everyone can find a nugget or two that will help them out! Thanks for reading! 

All of our life we are taught to go to college, get a job, work there for decades, and retire to a comfortable and secure financial future. Unfortunatley, in today's world, that system doesn't quite work so smoothly anymore. Jobs (especially GOOD paying jobs) have become hard to come by even for people with college degrees. Many people are caught up in the cycle of working to pay bills, never having much of anything left to actually enjoy life off of. Due to all these things, people have resorted to working at multiple lower paying jobs to generate the income they need. Even though the money is being generated, their quality of life suffers dramatically. So how do you escape a life of working to pay bills? Multiple streams of income! 

How do you create multiple streams of income as a producer? 

1. License your beats in as many online places as possible for residual income. There's a huge market of artists looking to license beats and realistically you cannot reach them all with your marketing efforts alone. Create your own website and also sell your beats on other sites like Soundclick, Beatstars, Myflashstore, etc. Also try to join already established production team sites like Shadowville, Anno Domini, JeeJuh, etc. By licensing your beats in multiple places, you can make a VERY nice residual income off of that singular time investment of creating the beat(s). This is your top income generator as a producer. I currently license my tracks in 5 different places.

2. Create other unique residual streams. This is one of the major parts I discussed in the last blog. You have to assess your talents/skills and come up with a way to turn that into unique downloable products. This could be a beat tape, an album, a drum kit, a subscription website, a blog (making money via ad revenue),  information products, etc. Also, if you have funds to invest, you may want to look into non-music related residual streams like the stock market, real estate, parking lot ownership, laundry mat ownership, vending machines, storage unit ownership, etc. Get as many income streams on auto-pilot as you can. I'm currently working on 4 unique residual income streams to launch in 2015 and I got a few more ideas while writing this blog! I write these for myself too ya know lol! 

3. Get your music in situations that will generate publishing/royalties. Publishing/royalties is also residual income. This can come in the form of artist placements and placements for tv/film/games/advertising. Although publishing/royalties from artist placements are only really significant with big projects, you can get some VERY nice royalties from synch placements! Established music industry producers are getting MORE money from tv/film placements than in the record industry!!! Rodney Jerkins, A.K.A. Darkchild, has said exactly that (click to watch video). I know people doing the tv/film/game music grind full-time. I currently get publishing/royalties from artist projects but am working on jumping into the synch side of things as an additional stream! One thing I was told though is create two different catalogs. Make one catalog for all artist related stuff (selling beats online, etc) and create a totally separate offline catalog for synch stuff. As I get more knowledge on the synch side I'll definitely share!  

4. Get paid for services rendered. Most times producers will stick to services like custom production or mixing but there's so much more! You can do consulting/training in your area of expertise, be a session musician, freelance studio engineering, open your own full studio, offer music services for weddings/funerals (I can't STAND doing funerals but if you can manage it go for it), create jingles for companies, etc. Since music is such a big part of life there's a lot that can be done with it. Also don't neglect non-music related services! If you can cut hair, be a barber on the side! Do you love driving? Be a courier on the side! I've been a courier on the side for many years and if you get the right route it can be VERY easy money. Are you good at landscaping? Do it on the side! There are two guys outside cutting my lawn right now as I type this because I don't have time to do it myself lol! Take a good look inside yourself and you'll be surprised what kind of services, music related or non-music related, that you have to offer! Recently I've discovered something in myself that could be a VERY lucrative service and nobody is doing it! Working on it for 2015! Being the first one to jump on a lucrative service or source of residual income is the BEST position to be in! Read that again lol! 

When you're coming up with your multiple income stream plan, you want to make sure and incorporate more residual income sources than services. Why? Time is money. Residual income continues to be generated after the initial time investment but services usually result in a one time payment. You want to make sure you have a lot of residual things going so while you're out rendering services, you're getting paid on top of getting paid.

While making all this money is awesome, make sure you're using it correctly. Money is just a tool. Don't go crazy balling out buying all this stuff you don't need. It's ok to splurge every now and then but wise investing is the new retirement plan. Make sure you're pooling a percentage of your profits into Roth IRA's, CD's, Bonds, etc so that you're saving/growing money for your future. Some people call all of this stuff hustling lol, but multiple income streams is the future! Also some streams will be smaller than others and that's ok! The point is they all add up to one big lucrative income so be patient when trying out different ventures. Eventually you'll come up with the perfect combo that works for YOU! Hopefully I've given you a few ideas to get your wheels turning. I wish you much success with your plans! See you next tuesday! -Tone

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