How to Make Money
There are two main sources of income: income from work and passive income from assets. Income from work involves exchanging time for money. Passive Income involves income generated from a specific asset whether it’s a real business, investment portfolio or real estate property which generates recurring income after initial setup.
Your Final Goal: Multiple Sources of income
Your ultimate goal should be to gradually build and manage multiple streams of income. Eventually you should have recurring income in the form of consultancy or a high payed work, passive income from assets (investment portfolio, real estate property) and capital in the form of physical assets like your home and real businesses.
Wealth formula
The most important formula related to wealth you should memorize is the following:
Wealth = (Value + Price) x Leverage
Value
Value is the service you offer to other people perceived by them in exchange for money. Focus on developing products, services and ideas which serve others and are used to solve their problems.
Price
The higher the value provided, the higher the price you should charge. The bigger the problem you solve, the higher the transactional amount.
Leverage
Leverage is determined by the number of customers, ease of spread, and speed with which your service or product can be offered. The more people you can serve the more money you can make.
Your aim is to first build value and offer it to a small group of customers for a low price. Once you built reputation you can gradually increase your prices and scale to more customers using your network, existing reputation and the Internet.
Your Products & Services vs Human Needs
Maslow’s hierarchy
Maslow argues that humans have a series of needs, some of which must be met before they can turn their attention towards others.
Maslow classifies the needs that humans needs as follows:
- Physiological: breathing, food, water, sleep, sex, homeostasis, excretion
- Safety: Security of body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, property
- Belonging and Love: friendship, family, sexual intimacy
- Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others
- Self-actualization: morality, creativity, problem solving, lack of prejudice
As a general rule of thumb businesses that serve the basic physiological and safety needs are the safest businesses to work or invest since they are immune to economic downturns and recessions. Businesses serving the rest of human needs are highly dependent on economic growth health. During recessions, many of these businesses fail leading to job layoffs and investment losses.
Cyclical and Defensive Sectors in an Economy
All businesses of an economy are classified in different sectors of an economy. There are two types of sector categories: cyclical and defensive sectors.
Cyclical sectors are sectors whose earnings are sensitive to economic growth whereas Defensive sectors are sectors whose earnings are not affected from economic growth.
For example clothing is a cyclical sector whereas food and beverage are defensive sectors. During economic recessions, cyclical sectors are hit hard while defensive sectors are less affected.
| Cyclical Sector | Defensive Sectors |
| United States | |
| Energy | Consumer Staples (Food, Beverage, Tobacco) |
| Materials | Healthcare |
| Industrials | Telecommunication services |
| Consumer Discretionary (Retail Products) | Utilities |
| Financials | |
| Information Technology | |
| Europe | |
| Automobiles & Parts | Aerospace |
| Banks | Food Producers |
| Oil & Gas Producers | Beverages |
| Oil & Gas Equipment and Services | Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology |
| Mining | Telecommunications (Fixed and Wireless) |
| Industrial Metals | Utilities (Electricity, Gas, Water) |
| Chemicals | |
| Construction & Materials | |
| General Financials | |
| General Industrials | |
| Industrial and commercial services | |
| Media | |
| Personal Goods | |
| Real Estate | |
| General Retailers | |
| Technology (Hardware & Software) | |
| Travel and Leisure |
Your Income Strategy
Click on each link to find more information and tools provided by MacroVar to maximize your income based on your skills, knowledge and experience.
1. Full-time job
2. Independent Worker
3. Entrepreneur
4. Use your Assets
Option 1: Full-Time job
Since your current financial state is fragile, you should focus on finding a job which is offered by an employer in a safe sector and combines the highest paying salary with the lowest time of engagement. To learn more about which sectors of the economy are safe click here. The safest employer with the minimum effort required is the public sector.
The benefits of being an employee is the relative security provided, a path to grow your career, training and support and personal benefits like pension provision, illness and maternity.
The biggest drawback of being an employee is that your financial resources are linked to a single customer, your employer. If your employer decides to lay you off or goes bust you suddenly lose all your income. This is the reason why it is important to gradually diversify by increasing your sources of income. Another major drawback is the lack of flexibility. You can’t manage your time and your revenue per hour is fixed to your monthly salary.
Pick a High-Paying Job
MacroVar Jobs is a database created by data offered by the BLS allowing you to analyze what salary to expect by profession, sector and location.
Tbd? Use MacroVar Jobs to find the ideal job in your area and get notified on new opportunities based on your profile. Fill out your user profile, to allow MacroVar find new job opportunities based on your profile.
Sectors / location / vs your skills – find ideal match, BLS database, monitor new jobs in your location with our app, new skills
Searching for a job
When searching for a job, you need to see this job-hunting process from the employer’s perspective. The employer will hire an individual in order to fulfill a company’s specific need.
Your objective is to find what they need, and convince them you are the best available person to meet tha need.
Searching for a job is easier than ever. LinkedIn, Indeed, Hired are three of the most highly profiled website to look for jobs. However, the best way to get to the best jobs is to take advantage of your personal network.
Moreover, your introduction letter, cover letter and resume should fulfill what a specific company is looking for.
For more information om your strategy when searching for a job read the book 48 days to the work you love by Dan Miller.
Maximize your Benefits as an Employee
Your goal is to become indispensable in an organization. You must maximize your effort in order to get promotions and pay rises.
Here is a list of steps to maximize your contribution to an organization which will lead to the benefits you will receive from the organization.
- Identify by discussing with your boss or manager which are the goals and timeframes of your position which provide the maximum benefit to the company
- Identify and suggest revenue generating ideas for the company
- Identify and suggest cost cutting ideas for the company
- Manage your time efficiently to achieve the maximum output. Learn more about time management here
- Put the customer first and over deliver
Option 2: Freelancer or Part-time jobs
Start earning money and solve your financial strain fast by offering your services in digital platforms.
The employment landscape is changing globally. Companies are shifting their operations from hiring full-time employees to hiring full-time or part-time contractors depending on the organization’s changing needs. 30% of the US population is self-employed.
Digital platforms connect buyers of services with independent workers. MacroVar will provide you with the knowledge and tools to take advantage of this huge trend to boost your income. You can use these platforms to find work and use them as your primary income or as supplemental income.
The benefits of independent working
Independent work has the following benefits for you: 1. You can start working instantly and earn income, 2. you get access to a large pool of clients, 3. The platform guarantees quick and reliable payment, 4. If you provide good services you build a reputation which will help you grow your future business, 5. since you have more than one client, your income is diversified and less dependent on one client.
The drawbacks of self-employment is harsh competition faced, you need to continuously search for new clients and you need to have discipline to manage yourself.
MacroVar tools
Use MacroVar Projects to monitor and get notified instantly on new projects posted on Upwork, Guru, Freelancer matching your profile. Use instant notifications to be the first to apply for a specific project.
How it works
The steps you need to get started are: 1. Sign up, 2. Create your profile, 3. Set up your payment option, 4. Search for projects suitable to your skills, 5. Start working and collaborate with clients using online message, 6. Get paid. You can setup your account and get started within 15 minutes.
Here is a list of steps to maximize income as an independent worker:
- Build a professional profile and constantly strive to develop your reputation and brand
- Be the first to bind on a specific project using MacroVar Projects service
- Follow MacroVar sales tactics and show professionalism and expertise to win new clients
- Start with a low hourly rate to be competitive and win new projects. As you complete projects successfully and your reputation improves increase your hourly rate to earn more
- Offer high quality services and over deliver
- Manage time efficiently to maximize your output
- Once your online reputation is high, try to leverage online platforms by building a business using online contractors
- Use your location as an advantage to attract clients looking for workers in the same city, country
- Cross-sell other related services to your existing clients
- Keep educating yourself, acquire new skills to expand your services
- Use some of the financial resources to develop your brand outside these platforms
Option 3: Start a business
If you can provide a service like marketing, consulting or software development you can start your own company and scale it up. There are many examples of individuals which started as freelancers in Upwork.com and Guru.com and ended up forming big teams and reached revenues in the six figure range.
Option 4. Use your assets
Use Airbnb to rent out a room: You can rent out a room in your home, or even the entire place for a day, a week or longer.
Rent out your parking spot: If you live in a busy area, you might be able to rent out your parking space when you’re not using it.
Rent out your car: You might consider renting your car out for some easy cash using sites like flightcar.com
Get a roommate: if you have a spare room in your home, getting a roommate is one fast way to raise cash.
Sell your assets: You can sell any of your assets if you’re not using it for some easy cash.
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