You've probably heard this old idiom, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and know what it means - don’t concentrate all your assets or resources in one thing or place because you risk losing everything all at one time.
For internet marketing the more popular way of stating this idiom is to say, "Diversify." In other words, after you've mastered 1 form of advertising, go on to another or when you've started making money with 1 product or service add another. And the reason behind these types of statements is simple. If you concentrate all your efforts into 1 form of advertising or on 1 product or service then you risk losing all your income if that form of advertising or product is removed.
Now I'm sure my parents told me these words of wisdom at 1 time or another but the first time I heard the words and actually understood what they meant and how they should be applied was when an investment advisor said them to me. His advice was about how not to invest the money for my employee 401K. He said, "If you invest your 401K in the company you work for then your gambling 100% of your income and retirement income in that company because they pay your wages, manage your retirement program and all your 401K investment earning will come from their profits. Do you really want to put all your eggs in 1 basket and have 1 company responsible for everything? If something happens to them, you lose everything."
At the time these words were said I was working for the oldest and largest phone company in the world. It had been in business since the 1800's and had always been a growing and profitable business. However I am a very cautious gambler and since investing is a form of gambling to me, I decided to take his advice and invest in other things. As it turned out, this proved to be a wise decision since the phone company was later broken into smaller companies and the 401K investment stocks turned into stock for whatever company the employee then worked for. The smaller company I worked for started going through some very rough times and I saw the stock value go from over $40 a share to around $1 a share in a matter of days. Since many employees had put their eggs in one basket, you can only imagine the deep depression and anxiety that filled the workplace.
After the experience above, I am now a staunch believer in that old idiom and have used it to make many business decisions. Not only do I diversify my advertising methods and sources of online income but I also use it when choosing my online services.
As you know there are many places online that offer package deals like; domain registration and hosting, hosting plus products to sell and complete business packages with hosting, products and autoresponder services. I've joined a few of these memberships and used them because they're usually a good deal. However I've never used only the services from a single membership site for my entire online business because that would make my entire business dependent on one membership site.
And not being totally dependent on one source of services has saved my business several times. The last time was just this year when I had to move my list from a membership site autoresponder service to another.
In this particular case the membership site offered complete business packages with hosting, products, autoresponders and several other things. When I joined I couldn't afford to pay a lot for everything I needed to start my business so this membership seemed like a great way to get started. And it was!
However, I still followed the idiom's advice and used the services that cost the most (products and autoresponder) from the membership site and bought the less expensive service (hosting) elsewhere. Then when I started to make some money I invested some of it by finding other suppliers for my products. This turned out to be a good decision since the products from the membership site recently changed and I could no longer use them the way I had designed my business.
Now losing my autoresponder service was a big blow to my business however it didn't bring my entire business down. I still had my site and my products and could still make sales. I moved my list and put new forms on my sign up pages and had my business back on track in a couple of days. Imagine how long it would have taken had I needed to move my site and find new product suppliers!
When you're first starting your online business it's easy to fall into the trap of relying on one service or membership site to take care of your business. They have it all, provide good service and offer a great savings. And using them to get started is fine. However, as soon as you can, start diversifying where you get your services. When you're making money online don't risk losing it all by being totally dependent on one provider.
To Your Success,
Susan
P.S. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.
Tags: don't put all your eggs in one basket, idiom, risk, risk losing it all, diversify
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