Do you have a Stepney?

The old models of scooters had a spare tyre attached for replacement, like we have in cars. All Bajaj Super and Chetak owners in India would fondly remember the Stepney.

You need a Stepney in life too, especially now when the future of both life and work seem uncertain.

As an individual, you need more than one skill to ensure a guaranteed source of income.

Be a master of one. But it pays to be a jack of few trades.

As a business, you need to de-risk your revenue — don’t rely on a few customers or one line of products or services.

De-risk, Diversify.

Get a Stepney.

How?

As an individual, develop more than one employable skill. There’s more than one thing you are good at.

Take me for an example: I am a content writer. I am a business coach. I can work with tons of data — create MIS reports, dashboards for data driven decision making. I am a Six Sigma Black Belt and can work on process improvement projects and train people on using Six Sigma. I am good at customer service and I know how to cook some great dishes.

See there? More than a couple skills that can get me a job if need be. That is my insurance.

While I continue doing what I love, I have the insurance of some other job skills.

However, can these pay enough. I have created a nice skill tracker to help you answer that. That’s another of my key skills — love creating templates for various personal and business uses.

Download the FREE Skill Tracker.

What do you do as a Business?

Two things for sure:

1. Don’t rely on one or a few customers. Always monitor the revenue share of each of your customers. This is especially for B2B businesses. As a thumb rule, make sure no single customer accounts for more than 20% of your total revenue. If you can keep that under 10%, that would be best.
2. Never rely on one or few sources for new business acquisition. Such as over reliance on paid campaigns, one star sales rep or organic search etc. Cultivate 5 to 6 sources for new business leads.

That’s it for today folks. You get the message :-)

Get a stepney (back up) for your business and career. De-risk. Diversify.

Would love to hear your suggestions too!

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