The Best Way to do Nothing (and still get paid)

I've had my laptop in a workshop for repair for the last few days, and during that time I've had the disappointing situation of wanting (and needing) to do work both for business and for univeristy, but not having the means to do that work.

In business, if you were to lose some critical equipment for a few days, there is a good chance that the inward flow of money would cease temporarily - and that is one thing that none of us want to happen. It doesn't have to be like that, though.

In the absence of my critical equipment (my laptop), I started to wonder:

"How can I make money when I'm not able to do any work?"

The answer? Create systems to provide an income where no work is needed to maintain that income. Not only will this provide an income stream when normal work activities are on hold, but it also provides a nice little bonus on top of the income earned from normal activities.

Take a typical retail business for example. They have a brick-and-mortar premises where customers can browse and buy products, and this operation is running well. The owners are good friends with their suppliers, who ship fresh products to the retailer on a regular basis.

In a freak accident, their shop was destroyed by fire. All of their stock in the store was ruined, and it would be weeks before they could begin selling from the store again.

Not all is lost. These retailers had a website which they used to update customers on newly introduced products, and to display contact details and a bit of information on the business. This website gets visited regularly by customers to see the new stock coming in.

(And now I get to the point. Apologies for the long story.)

The retailers can use these regular visitors to their advantage. By turning their information-only website into an online shopping cart and catalogue, they are able to fulfill the website's current purpose (informing customers about products) while also being able to handle sales online. Because of the relationship between the retailer and supplier, the supplier agreed to receive orders directly from the website and to ship them to the customers' addresses. The retailers collected the income from the website sales and paid the supplier for the stock - an operation which could easily be run from a home office.

Weeks later, when the retailer was back and trading again from their store, they noticed that sales on the website hadn't slacked off at all. In fact, they were getting more and more sales, even from international customers! A nice little bonus to add to their normal trading revenue, and a lifesaver when things go bad with normal trading.

And here's the brilliant thing: the retailers had very little more work on their hands for a whole lot more return. They effectively increased their productivity by doing a bit of work upfront, and then doing nothing later on!

The moral of the story? Have a think about how you can create and use side systems to add to your earning potential. In fact, I want to hear some of the ideas that you have had or are having.


I'm still working on getting those marketing books from the library, by the way. This week has been riddled with public holidays, and the library hasn't been open. I'll get them soon...