9 Income Streams You Can Build as an Employee, According to Codie Sanchez
Written by
J. Arky
Edited by
Jenna Klaverweiden
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From Wall Street to Main Street, Codie Sanchez is leading a revolution in personal finance and wealth. The author of “Main Street Millionaire” is on a self-proclaimed mission “to create 1 million financially free humans through business ownership.”
Using her experience from nearly two decades of working on Wall Street, Sanchez has a YouTube channel that offers advice, tips and insights for ways to find fiscal independence without a degree in business or finance.
For those who are looking to increase earnings while still working a regular job, Sanchez has a video that breaks down the nine income streams you can build while an employee, which comes from her own personal experience.
Corporate 9-to-5
This is a hard truth, admitted Sanchez, but the first $100,000 you’ll make will most likely come from your earned wages with a corporation or company. Sanchez broke it down that, for her, it was 20% salary, 30% of carry (or what she owned in the company), 35% to 40% in bonuses and 10% to 15% in commission.
Sanchez pointed out that it is a great way to start earning money, but your salary should not be your sole source of income because it may dry up at some point.
Service Business
Sanchez noted that there are many things that you can leverage to up your earnings, with a top one being time.
“Anytime you can trade your time for somebody else’s money, that’s going to be your superpower,” Sanchez said.
She did this herself, starting a service business that helped people in Latin America do what she was doing in the United States, essentially creating introductions and paths toward business in the region. It was done with a then-colleague of Sanchez’s and a few late hours after work.
Consulting
Another mechanism of leverage that Sanchez brought to attention was expertise, which comes only with time and experience. However, it can lead to a great source of income. You can consult in fields in which you are the top of your game and have the resume to back it up.
You can start by offering some consulting calls for free — just don’t do it forever.
“Take the thing that someone pays you for in your salary or other high area of performance, and do it one-off by the hour,” she explained.
And this can be pretty lucrative. As reported by Foundr, consultants can make an average of over $8,000 per month, though that number varies based on the number of hours worked, the type of consulting done and more.
Sit on Boards
There are lots of ways that you can utilize your expertise, but sitting on the board of a company that is in your industry is another excellent method for adding to your income streams, according to Sanchez.
A huge hack that Sanchez passed along for those wanting to sit on a board is this: Find their “who” to solve their “how” or “what.”
Basically, if you can connect business leaders to solutions via your network, that can be your biggest asset to sitting on a board.
Speaking Events
You can use your background and expertise to host speaking engagements, where lots of people get your advice, wisdom and answers to their questions in a group setting.
“If you can find a specific niche,” Sanchez explained, “especially in a niche where other people make money or they bring in attendance, then you too can get paid a lot for speaking at events.”
Info Product Site
Should you find yourself in the position of getting asked for your expertise on multiple subjects, Sanchez suggested that an info product site could be another fruitful source of income.
Here you can create a guide and post frequently asked questions, which could help you generate some passive revenue. It might not be much annually, but it’s not exactly nothing either.
All you need to start this, in Sanchez’s professional experience, is cash, curiosity and crowd. Take a little bit of money to create your info product, tap into a burning need and see how large of an audience is asking for this kind of expertise.
Newsletter Affiliate Sales
The next tool of leverage that Sanchez highlighted was brand awareness, which she used to turn what people knew about her and her personality into an income stream involving newsletter affiliate sales.
Start by asking these questions.
- Where do people ask for your opinion?
- What would you be doing even if you weren’t getting paid for it?
- What are the hobbies you’d like to get into?
- What are you really, really uniquely skilled at?
Find these answers, and then offer them via your newsletter. Just make sure you like writing and you can commit to writing a newsletter a week for a whole year, according to Sanchez.
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are another option. But this works at scale only if you have defined your brand, have cultivated a massive audience, and are willing to commit to pushing a product or service from a specific sponsor on your public-facing channels or social media networks.
Sanchez warned there is no set amount of pay and you might have to start with payment in the form of free products. However, if you are willing to put in the time, start small and don’t mind sharing the profits with a sponsor, there is money to be made without quitting your day job.
Airbnbs or Laundromats
The last leverage that Sanchez encouraged viewers to take stock of is money — advocating that when you make money, it is important for you to continue growing your money.
If you can be the backer of buying a home to turn into an Airbnb or invest in a laundromat business, for example, there is money to be made without lifting too much of a finger. As reported by Airbnb, it’s estimated that hosts in the U.S. made an average of $14,000 in supplemental income from Airbnb last year.
Just make sure you have a partner who is willing to manage the businesses if you are putting up the cash to start these kinds of money-generating enterprises.
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