Don has officially banned exclamation points from post titles. Usually I’d be a pain in the ass and throw one in anyway, but considering our main page was littered with them, I found it hard to argue. We’ve been persistently delving away at potential business ideas, and along the way came across a great post over at ittybiz. It’s a great post that sums up our recent efforts.

The gist of it is something that we’ve been striving to for a long time now. Having one job as your sole breadwinner is a great way to set sail for fail (My fiance hates that phrase so much that I had to use it). If anything goes wrong, like say, *ahem*, the economy goes in the dumper, you’re screwed because your income immediately goes to zero. If you’re looking to obtain financial security, it’s not about a giant house with ubermortgage and an SUV in the driveway, it’s how many income producing eggs you can fit into your basket.

Of course, not all eggs are created equal. I’m not saying you should go pick up 3 jobs at once or run yourself into the ground. You can build up other income sources through hobbies or by passive and residual means. Let’s look at my current breakdown of income sources:

• Adsense
• Freelance Writing (This includes blogs, financial columns, and one-time assignments)
• Link Sales
• Affiliate Sales (Go Amazon!)
• My brokerage account (This produces a MASSIVE $10.00 a month in dividends)

Now, I’m getting by right now with these sources, but there are some areas that I’d like to bolster. My brokerage account in particular needs an injection of funds to take advantage of depressed stock prices and to provide a more reliable source of income. As a result, I may actually *gasp* take on a full time job on top of my current work load in order to flesh out additional sources of residual and passive income. My brother is not a particular fan of the idea since making money from investments does take a significant amount of money, but I feel like it could be an important source of passive income.

What about you? What keeps you diversified across different income sources?

I don’t pay much attention to such things, but apparently the last update knocked down my Google Pagerank a peg or two. What could this mean? Well, since I’ve allowed some contextual advertising on the site, that’s a possibility. On the other hand it could have been nothing at all, as Google tends to work in mysterious ways (my niche site portfolio can vouch for that fact.

So what will I do? Probably not much, though I’ll cut down on sponsored content in the weeks to come. You guys would like a little more quality to the posts anyway, right? As always feel free to leave me some feedback on what you’d like to see. There are thousands of finance blogs, and I know I’m a bit more unorthodox than most. I don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about how to spend less on lattes or traditional personal finance. Instead I move more toward financial self-sufficiency. Being able to do what you want, when you want it, without going bankrupt too.

Perhaps this just means I need to tailor my message a bit better, so expect to see some more in-depth and focused content in the days to come.

But what about area where competition is heavy? Sites like SJA Mobile operate in a niche supposedly so full of advertisers that its very hard to get anywhere. Trying to get your message to pierce through thousands of others to attract visitors is, to some marketers, an insurmountable task. What’s important to realize is that sites are usurped all the time in the engines, and competitors who were seemingly toothless have managed to one up their larger, more well equipped opponents (think of Google when it originally took on Yahoo!).

Given enough persistence, effort, and the ability to present your idea differently and more efficiently than your competitors, and you can break into saturated niches and even profit heartily from it.

Thus far, I’ve put off getting another “real” job in lieu of building up portable freelance work. If I can get to the income level I aspire to, its unlikely I’ll go back at all! If after another month or two I haven’t reached my goals, then no problem, its back to the 9-5 grind for me.

Much of what I’ve been doing has been content production. From laptop reviews to MMO blogs, I’ve managed to pick up all sorts of writing opportunities. Having a portfolio of sites/blogs to display as a demonstration of your experience has really helped out in this regard. I love it. Every assignment is different and allows me to do what I like to do anyway, read up on various topics and write a well-researched review or blog post! I’ve also been doing some web development and online marketing work. Google recently updated its pageranks, and 3 of our niche sites pulled in a solid pagerank. One of them even managed a PR of 4! This makes the sites much more attractive to advertisers, and I’ve already started putting lines out for potential bites. Not to mention the obvious advantage of portability and independence, and I’d say (knocking on wood right now) that things are going well.

Being the conservative frugal person that I am though, even when I make enough money I have a nagging worry in the back of my mind wondering if I’ll be able to keep the pace up. Part of being a freelancer means that you have to constantly drum up additional work. Some assignments may be longer-term, but ultimately you’ll be bringing in new assignments constantly. The uncertainty of it makes me a little nervous, but getting out of your comfort zone is all part of the challenge, after all.

So let’s break it down. If you recall, I need to make $123 (ish) per day, 5 days a week to make an acceptable (meaning I could live on much less, but I like having more than I need for saving and traveling) living. At present, I’ve averaged $65.37 per day this past week. Hmm, looks like we’re short. However we’re putting up some more sites this week as well as additional writing work. I’ll keep you posted as I go along!

I’ve noticed a paradigm shift in my approach to work and productivity since I started working for myself. I’m not sure if this is common amongst entrepreneurs or if I just happen to be in a lackluster job previously, but my view of work has changed quite a bit since leaving my job. Lets take a look at one important before and after.

Getting Through The Work Day

Before: I’m here and I need to be productive so that my boss notices and I get a good raise or at least a good review that I can use as fodder for my next position. If I go the extra mile, the company will profit and I, by association, will as well…hopefully. My efforts won’t be directly compensated, but if I work hard enough I’ll get promoted or paid better, maybe.

After: I need to make X amount of money today. What is the best way to do this before the end of today? I can do A, B, and C, and that should generate Y amount. Let me prioritize my tasks by profitability, doing the most profitable activities first as thoroughly as possibly, then work my way down the list. If I run out of things to do, that means its time to brainstorm and come up with new sources of income. I have to keep working, because for every hour I’m not working towards additional income, I’m not getting paid.

This has been a huge change. Whereas I’m sure for most people, there is some leeway in your professional responsibilities and sometimes things are just slow. However even if you don’t have anything to do, you will still be paid for being there and “working.” Once you’re on your own however, if you decide to slack off or avoid work, you simply won’t be paid or bring in revenue. Conversely the harder the work, the better you will be rewarded (depending on the activity and task). Everything you do well and get paid for goes directly to you. There isn’t some superfluous entity (the company) you’re expected to help out for some sort of vague benefit like a promotion or raise. If you don’t do the work, you don’t earn revenue.

Another big difference in working for yourself is that there is no value in face time. No one cares if you can do your work in 4 hours, 6, or 8, they just care if it gets done. If you’re writing for a site, the site doesn’t care how much time you spent on an article, all that matters is if the article meets the site’s standards in terms of quality and length. This gives you a lot more potential to work smarter, not harder. Your earnings potential is based on how many sources of income you can create, via passive (our adsense portfolio) or active (my freelance writing) work.

Its fascinating and frightening at the same time. On one hand I’m excited by the prospect of having it put all on me. My success or failure isn’t based on corporate politics or the company’s bottom line, only my own. We’ll see how things turn out, especially if the interviews I have lined up go well and I end up tossed back into part time work or a 9-5 once more. Will I want to go back?