7 Tips for a Smoother Ride on the Self-Employed Income Roller Coaster

You know what no one told me when I was getting ready to quit my day job and go into business for myself?

How much I would miss that steady paycheck.

I mean, sure I was earning a lot less than I would make being self-employed, but at least I knew exactly when my check would arrive, and exactly how much it would be. It was small, but predictable. We could make a reasonable budget.

When you’re self-employed, all that goes out the window. Suddenly you have to deal with the feast or famine reality freelancers and small biz owners everywhere know all too well.

7 Strategies to Smooth Out a Rough Ride

1. Cut your expenses. Before we made the leap into full-time freelancing, the best decision we made was to pay off the car and the credit cards. They weren’t huge bills by far, but those few hundred dollars can feel like a massive burden when your income isn’t steady. Without them, all we had to worry about was the mortgage and keeping the lights on, which meant our base income level was really low. That not only eased the month-to-month money stress, it also let us tackle the second strategy…
2. Fully fund your emergency savings. Not so you can dip into it during a lean month, but so you’ll have the peace-of-mind that comes with knowing you can. That cushion gives you a wider comfort zone, and it means you’re a lot less likely to undercut your own pricing out of fear, which can actually harm your ability to land new clients or make more sales.
3. Cultivate multiple streams of income. I have no idea if the whole 7 streams of income tale is true or not. In fact, this article suggests you only need three. Here’s what I do know about my business: When product sales are slow, affiliate commissions make up the difference. When affiliate commissions are down, client work keeps the bookkeeper happy. Hey! That’s three for me… millionaire status, here we come! 🙂
4. Build funnels to keep the money flowing on autopilot. It doesn’t matter what your business model is, email funnels let you automate some of those streams of income you’re creating. Start with an irresistible free offer to entice a visitor to opt-in, then follow up with more value and strategic offers for affiliate promotions, services, courses, and other products.
5. Learn to create cash on demand. When I quit my day job, my dad was worried I was giving up my financial security blanket. It’s a dad thing, I’m sure. The truth is, self employment can be much more secure than even the best job. All you need to do is learn to make offers that convert. That can mean connecting with clients to get a new project rolling, emailing your list with a flash-sale offer, or even creating and launching a brand new product.
6. Sow seeds for the future. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to find yourself on a money-making hamster wheel. You know the one? Where you have to keep running or the money dries up? Yeah, that’s no fun. But you can get off that hamster wheel from hell if you aim for a daily balance of what my friend Angela calls “now money and later money.” Now money is the cash-on-demand plan. Later money is planting seeds that will bloom in the future: write a blog post, build a new funnel, work on that course you’re creating, update your resources page. It won’t be in your hands next week, but those seeds will produce fruit down the road.

Here’s something else that makes the cash flow smoother: Systems.

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