How To Build Multiple Income Streams

How To Build Multiple Income Streams

Sean: And you talk about spokes and I’m wondering during this pandemic, what happened to be new spokes?

Because I’m pretty sure with the way things were going on for you, you’ve managed to figure out some new potential spokes, or you actually built those spokes already by now. I’m wondering how did you discover them and how did you get them connected to your business?

Sensei: I’ll stick with real estate right now. My real estate business is the largest business out of all my businesses. Be honest with you. I haven’t had to create new spokes for this business. I already had them. I lost a few spokes because my real estate business is education. We offer nine different educational courses to teach people either to build a real estate business or build a real estate portfolio.

We have coaching consulting. Those two things are completely different. And then we have the investment opportunities, where we help people build a real estate portfolio for residual income so they can retire financially secure. The spoke that fell apart in this business here is our education. I do live events.

I believe and I know for fact that I get better statistics teaching people hands on how to build a real estate business than to do it over online or from zoom or an online course. The pandemic hits. I can no longer do that. I can’t go out in the public and do that anymore. I’m stuck. So I’ve lost a lot of revenue on the live education side. That hurts, but it doesn’t hurt me as much as it hurts my competitor. Because I have a lot of competitors that solely focus on that. Now, maybe they’ve been able to make up a difference because they have some online classes, but people like to commune. They like community. So when they want to learn how to build a real estate business, you will have a good percentage of people that want to learn online.

But I find those people that want to learn online are really not the ones that going to be successful because they want the easy way. I can’t kick you online, but I don’t mind getting in your face and making you do something when we’re in person. Cause I’m going to make you do it, whether you like it or not, because you’re going to learn how to do it.

And I’m going to make sure that you’re going to become a positive statistic for my business because ultimately it helps me and it helps you. Even though that I’ve lost revenue there. I have been able to focus my energy more on real estate sales, which make more money. On my education, education makes money, but I find more enjoyment out of the education.

My investments make much, much more money than the education. I don’t find as much enjoyment because I’m really behind a computer screen all day doing it. There’s no physical activity with that. So even though I lost revenue there I’ve gained revenue over here. And in the meantime,  like I mentioned to you before, I’ve been invited to do several reality TV shows.

That’s a hit and miss. There’s no guarantee that you’ll make it. And I don’t even want to do that. I want to be more like the United States Navy seal – it’s under the radar, able to capitalize on things that no one else can find it. I don’t want to be in the spotlight where everybody’s looking at you. I don’t need the fame.

I got a radio voice. I don’t have a TV face. So now I’m thinking, you know what? Okay. So I can’t teach live. Now. It’s time for me to open up a podcast and I want to be like Sean.

Sean: You are Sean.

Sensei: Oh yeah. I forgot.

Sean: A lot of things opened up for you as well as for me and for a lot of other people out there. She and the Philippines cloud kitchen is really booming.

Everyone still wants to eat good food. They don’t know how to cook or no one cooks at home. They buy from all these cloud kitchens, mom, and pop stores. And because these mom and pop cloud kitchens don’t know how to market. Suddenly you have a lot of social media marketing, freelancers popping up. And I know that you were also able to discover some new income streams.

Affiliate marketing or other, other sources, maybe new side businesses. Would you say that these new income streams were able to supplement the business that you lost or the business that slowed down during the pandemic?

Sensei: Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, I’m going to take the wheel analogy here. Okay. It’s important that if you have this hub and your hub is you and your business, that you learn how to develop and recognize opportunity and then develop these different income streams. And these different income streams can be related to the niche of whatever you’re in, or they can be something a little bit different.

So for an example, If you have this hub and I’m not going to use the bicycle wheel, but let’s just say it’s a wheel – water wheel. Okay. And, and this water wheel, we control dams around here. So water can go into the hub. Now, these, these waters are income streams, right? They’re streams of cash, flowing money going into this hub.

Now we would all love to have every stream. You know – gushing water into our hub, but reality is, is that that’s not reality. It’s not really going to happen. So I might have this hub and I might say, okay, the acquisitions of buy and sell real estate is pretty strong and, consistent going here this way.

But then the consulting and coaching is it’s just trickling it. Well, I’m getting some money out of it. And my affiliate program over here, it’s flowing in, but it’s starting to become a trickle. And then I’ve got these distress sellers and these, and these very eager buyers that want to flip properties, not necessarily buy and hold, but flip properties.

And that’s picking up because we’re this trickles now turning into a consistent stream. And then I’ve got this marketing with real estate over here that is actually doing okay because, because I’m able to reach outside of my boundaries and that stream is now starting to gush in.

I’ve got this balance wheel going on. And now when the cycles of economics or in real estate, and this example, change and rotates, maybe this one stream over here that was gushing in is now just becoming consistent. And this consistent one is now trickling in, but the trickle is now gushing. I’ve created the best I can a balance into my business.

And that’s what most people lack. You can’t start that way. Going back that skyscraper, if you try to build multiple levels at one time, it’s impossible. You have to start with the foundation, a solid strong foundation. And that takes most time to do, then you can add on that first level and then that second level. When you master that and you got it, then that third level.

Sean: Makes a lot of sense. And again, I love the analogies and I’m sure our listeners would love it and learn from it as well, guys, if you love whatever it is that sensei has been teaching. We are going to have his links in the show notes. Just look for leadershipstack.com, go there and look for this episode with Sensei Gilliland and you will be able to find in the show notes where you can get in touch with him.

And we’re down to our last question. Sensei. If you had one big advice to struggling entrepreneurs out there, they got hit by the pandemic. They might just be in the startup phase or they might already have scaled up, but the pandemic just kind of wiped out a lot of these folks in their wheels. What would your advice be?

Sensei: First off, you’ve got to stick with your bread and butter. What you know, that is working in your business. Right. Okay. Now that’s that’s before your question. So you’re going to stick with that, but to turn it into something that’s premium, that’s not just bread and butter. You need to consult with someone  that can’t fill in the gaps.

If you have this vase, and right now your vase is cracked all over the place and you’re putting water in it. And that water is money and time and energy and sacrifice and blood and tears. It’s just leaking out the sides. You can’t plug it up, but the one of the best way is to seek counsel getting that goes back to the Bible, right?

Seek counsel. Get counseling because that coach, that consultant can take a look at different angles that you may not be seeing to help quickly patch that crack. To plug that hole, to retain some of that money, to be able to fill that vase with water without having any leaks. If one thinks they can do it by themselves, you will be a lonely person on a ship at the bottom of the ocean. Name a successful captain out there that sail the ship by him or herself.

Name of a team out there that is one a championship by themselves. Here in Los Angeles, we have the LA Lakers basketball team. We have the greatest basketball player of this generation, but he cannot win it by himself. And the team that he’s got is not working. So they’re constantly trading in and out players, consulting, coaching, consulting, coaching, and that one player has many consultants and coaches.

Consulting for finances, consulting for speech, consulting for appearance and attire, consulting for dribbling, you know a psychologist, a counselor many just for that one person to keep him on top of his game, whether it’s finding a very inexpensive consultant or someone that you can afford is a gain.

And that consultant doesn’t work just like any sports team, you release them and you draft somebody else.

Sean: That is amazing. And Sensei, if people could find you online, where would you want them to find you?

Sensei: You can simply just find me a blackbeltinvestors.com. Go to blackbeltinvestors.com. Google my name Sensei Gilliland, you’ll find me everywhere.

Go to blackbeltinvestors.com.  For more of our home website, remoterehabs.com  for properties. If you’re interested in that. Or go to your links, go to your page and click the links.

Sean: It was amazing. I would say amazing learning from me today. I love your analogies. I’m sure our listeners would love it as well.

Thank you so much for being on the show, and we’re better for it.

Sensei: Oh my pleasure. And I hope you get a lot of likes for this show.