As a career professional, you are already fully occupied with 50+ hours of work / week, and then between taking care of your family, your house and pet, it leaves you with little precious time for generating an extra source of income, leave alone a large extra income.

 

So how are you supposed to work towards developing a side-business, a source of generous extra income?

 

First off, understand that developing any type of extra income business, short of taking a second job, is a long term process. In other words, you need to devote at least

 

·         One year in the pre-launch phase

·         One year in the launch phase where you will be putting efforts in without rewards

·         Finally, in the third year since you began, you will start seeing a net-profit.

 

Generally, after year three, if you have formed your business well, the number of opportunities to expand your business will begin growing, at which time you will once again need to balance your time and possibilities for your side-business. It is a happy situation to be in, but nevertheless, something to take care of.

 

Almost all types of extra income businesses, big or small, require significant upfront effort. The quality of that effort and the direction in which it is expended can make a difference in time to profitability for your extra income business.

 

Use the pre-launch time for:

 

·         Seeking out a business idea that has that unique value proposition that has people cutting a path to your door. This is the single most important factor in seeing your business through to success. It is also an important determinant on how much upfront effort you need to put in before you see profitability.

·         Performing competitive analysis - Use the pre-launch time to fine tune your offering further by performing competitive analysis and establishing the superiority of your offering.

·         Participating in message boards and discovering if there is a real thirst for what you are offering.

·         Develop a community either through message boards, or your own blog, and establish yourself as an expert. This community will follow you and purchase your products once you are ready.

 

The pre-launch year is obviously then critical to finding instant success in your business.

 

After launch, ensure that

 

·         You are consistent in your offerings, and are available to handle any and all issues. Familiarity and frequency are the best roads to creating trust in your brand.

·         Develop your business processes - in other words, develop your business first. Not the sales, not the marketing - but focus on your business. Of course you must do all the activities that result in sales- but having great processes puts you in place to make and run campaigns, track results, respond to changes and keep improving your service.

·         Make sure all your business requirements - license, insurance, agreements  are in place at the time you go live.

·         Do not give up in the face of tepid response. Folks need time to familiarize themselves with you and your offering.

 

One year after launch, consolidate your position:

 

·         Record which marketing efforts work best for you (it can typically take up to three years before you have a string of techniques that work well for you!)

·         Find out which part of your offering is the most coveted, and expand your efforts around that area

·         Gain permission to mail to your clients and develop an ongoing relationship with them. This will give you opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell to them, as well as gain referrals from them.

·         If you have done a good job with your business processes, you will be in position to bring in help (if you can afford to) to further expand your operations!

 

So how much time would all this take?

 

·         During pre-launch, devote at least 10 hours/week to this effort.

·         During the launch year, devote 20-25 hours/week to your extra income business.

·         After about a year into the business, depending on if you have set your business up for being taken over by any help you bring in, you may end up spending as little as 15 hours/week to 30 hours/week. This shows the importance of putting good processes in place to manage your business easily.

 

Thus overall, a career professional such as yourself can indeed develop an extra income business with a large income that accelerates your road to total financial freedom  but you must use the limited time available to you wisely.

 

Of course businesses can and will fail in spite of upfront preparation and market analysis, and it will be invaluable experience to learn from and correct in future endeavors. But so long as it does not fail because of lack of preparation and ongoing effort - then you know that you have not failed. A well executed business will teach you more than anyone can ever teach you or you can learn from reading!