Power Your Research w/ Dr. Sheena Howard

Maximize Your Income with Three Game-Changing Strategies

• Dr. Sheena Howard

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What if you could increase your income without working more hours? In today's episode, we reveal three game-changing strategies to elevate your financial success. 

Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Speaker 1:

You could cut lawns in an urban area that has row homes right, or you could cut lawns in a suburban area where the value of their homes are half a million dollars. The same exact service that you're offering to this population you could be doing in a different population and charge them more. I don't want my work to be stuck behind an academic paywall. I want to leave a legacy, I want to reach my potential and I want to change lives. This podcast, power your Research, is my attempt to help the smartest people in the world do that very thing. My hope is that you use the lessons I share to make more money than what your higher ed job can ever pay you. I've done it, my clients have done it, and so can you. My hope is that you'll apply what you learn here and one day join the Power your Research program where you can work with me one-on-one. Today, I'm going to give you three ways to increase your income. So these three ways that I'm going to share, I've actually used and so I know how they work and I want to share them with you. So the first, very surprising way to increase your income is a referral system, and this was surprising to me and kind of new to me within the last year and year and a half, but it has some really cool benefits outside of even increasing your income. But it has some really cool benefits outside of even increasing your income. So a referral system is a relationship that you might have with actually somebody that may be doing some services for you, or an adjacent company that doesn't do exactly what you do but maybe does something that your current clients may need as well. And with a referral system it basically works like this If I send you clients and they sign on with you, then you give me a percentage of what you make from that sale. So that's one way you can increase your income without really doing much. So this might look like a link inside your current program or inside your current course that someone clicks on to book a call with your affiliate and they jump on the call, they make a sale and then you get 15% of that sale. So I've actually made over thousands of dollars this year with just referrals with people that I have a relationship with that I know do good work because I've actually used their services or worked with them before. So this is different than just sharing affiliate links right, just sharing a link and getting a month free. This is actually something that involves a relationship with these referrals so that you can build a system that works for both of you.

Speaker 1:

And the second part of this that has an added benefit is that sometimes the referral system might not involve you getting a percentage of the sale. It could just involve you getting more free services. So, for example, let's say you have a virtual assistant that does monthly tasks for you. You could have a referral system with that virtual assistant that says hey, if I, every time I send you a new client and they sign on with on with you, you know they'll give me 10 free hours of virtual assistant work, so that that puts money back in my pocket because it's money that I now don't have to spend just because I referred someone to a virtual assistant company that I already am a fan of. For these to work, in my experience they take some relationship building. They take a little time to learn about the different services that you've used, that you like, that you want to engage in this type of partnership with, because it makes it super easy to refer someone to something that you're a fan of.

Speaker 1:

So first way to increase your income is starting a referral system. The second way to increase your income or is to sell the same thing you're already selling, but to a market that you know has more money. So you might be selling something that is working for you, but you want to increase your income, but the target market that you're selling to just doesn't have the money. So, for example, let's say I sold I don't know help with studying to college students. Well, college students typically are broke, right, we know that, and so you can't increase your price with that target audience too much. Otherwise you wouldn't make any sales, not because they might not want to pay you, but because they don't have the money. But if you wanted to teach people who are already in the professional world, who are already working full-time, how to better their studying habits, for I don't know a certification that you're trying to get, a person that is working full-time probably has more money for the same services that you were offering a different target audience.

Speaker 1:

And so I run an academic branding company and my target audience is PhDs. Most of the people in the program are either faculty members or are in administration, or they have a PhD and they're doing some sort of full-time job out here in the real world. Hey everyone, real quick. I don't run any ads on this podcast, so I have to rely on word of mouth. If this podcast has helped you in any way, please share it with a friend and follow me, dr Sheena Howard, on LinkedIn, where I give more free content on building your brand as an academic. If you tell me you came to my LinkedIn from the podcast, I'll make sure I accept your request Selling something to that target audience. I know they have money, right? I know they can afford the program that I'm giving them and I can make a promise to them that, hey, I'm going to help you increase your income, I'm going to help you increase your platform so you can have leverage to make more money, and so I could have a branding company that serves all different types of target audiences. But I chose professors because I am a professor, I know the psychology of professors, but also it's a great, viable population that has more money than, say, someone that isn't a PhD or isn't a faculty member, right?

Speaker 1:

So the second way to increase your income do the same thing before a target audience that has more money, and I'll give you two more examples. You could cut lawns in an urban area that has row homes, right? Or you could cut lawns in a suburban area where the value of their homes are half a million dollars. The same exact service that you're offering to this population. You could be doing in a different population and charge them more, right? Another example I'm a writer and I write books for celebrities and CEOs and social impact companies. Now I could write books for influencers and small businesses, but they wouldn't be able to pay me 50,000 plus to write their book. They probably would be able to pay me 50,000 plus to write their book. They probably would be able to pay me 10 or 20,000 if that. And so the same service. I'm just offering it to a very specific target audience that I know has more money. So that's the second way to increase your income in 2024.

Speaker 1:

And then the third way you can increase your income is to just sell more services to current and past clients, clients that have already paid you, clients that have paid you in the past. What else do they need from you to help them reach their goals? They may need more of the same thing, but you don't know that because you haven't reached out to them. So this time of year I like to reach out to clients that have paid me this year that I did good work for and I know I did good work because I do good work, because I'm very anal. I reach back out to them and say, hey, I'm still here, let me know if I can help you with anything, and a lot of times they're excited oh yes, actually I have this project that I need you to help me with, and they trust me because they've already paid me money and I've already done good work for them in the past.

Speaker 1:

You could offer the same services to people that have already paid you, or new services to current clients. So in a branding company like mine, I'm teaching academics how to increase their visibility, authority and income, and they're going to get results guaranteed. But there may be other things inside the program that they don't feel like doing, and so I could offer them new services to help and assist them. Maybe they want to get their blog started and they want a ghost writer to write all the blog posts. Right, I could offer current clients who already know I do good work, who are already getting results, something else.

Speaker 1:

So those are three great ways that I've used that I know work. Some of them take a little bit of time to nurture the relationships, but if you're building a brand, if you're increasing your visibility, authority and income, you're building off of your past work right. Every day you're building relationships and nurturing them and learning something new, and so you're already in the process of moving towards these things, and so hopefully this will help you move towards these things with more intention so that you can increase your income. I hope this video helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments down below. So I hope you have an amazing day and I hope this was helpful you.