Do you ever wonder why professional athletes get paid so much more than people in most other professions, even when those professions are vital to society’s basic functions?
There’s a common myth that the difference in pay is a result of the skewed priorities of our culture as a whole. But the truth is, the difference in income has nothing to do with society’s priorities and everything to do with the way pro athletes run their business.
In this article, I’ll reveal how athletes do business in a way that’s completely different from doctors, teachers and other high-importance professionals, and how you, too, can get paid like an athlete.
Strategy #1: Serve More Clients at Once
The trouble with being a schoolteacher or a surgeon is you can only serve so many people at once. Athletes, on the other hand, serve millions of people through stadium tickets and TV programs with every game they play, so the cost of their salary is divided among many people instead of just a few.
As long as your income is limited by the number of people you serve, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be paid as much as a pro athlete.
But when you create a course, product, program or event that can serve thousands of people and give them great value, your income is limited only by your ability to market yourself.
Strategy #2: Use Affiliate Marketing
Another reason for pro athletes’ high income levels is their effective use of affiliate marketing.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, affiliate marketing means promoting another person’s product in exchange for money. Athletes do this very well – some of them actually make more money by endorsing products than they do by playing sports.
If you want to gain exposure to a wider audience or to make money by selling other peoples’ products, here are three steps you can take to get started:
- Find some people whose products and services complement, but do not compete with, your own. For example, if you specialize in marriage advice, you could approach people who focus on dating but not on marriage.
- Start with service. Offer to promote them to your email list, social following, and any other community in which they have influence.
- Once you’ve established a relationship, ask if they’d be willing to promote you.
Strategy #3: Get Support and Focus on What You’re Good At
Professional athletes don’t make the stadium snacks. They don’t hold the cameras, tend the grass, or manufacture the equipment. If they did, they wouldn’t have enough time and energy to practice and stay on top of their game.
So instead, they play their position on the team and focus on doing the things that only they can do.
In your business, focus on the things you’re good at and enjoy, and that only you can do. Too many entrepreneurs wait too long to hire help, thinking it will save them money, only to find that it actually costs them money by preventing them from spending enough time on the activities that create revenue.
If you’ve been spending a lot of time on unpaid tasks or things you aren’t good at, rather than marketing and serving clients, it’s time to take a look at your schedule and see what needs to go.
Are there unskilled or low-skilled tasks you can delegate to your family or outsource on sites like Fiverr?
Are there highly-skilled tasks, such as copywriting, that could make you a lot of money if you hired a professional to do them better than you could?
See what’s taking up the most time and make it a priority to remove it from your schedule.
Getting paid like a pro athlete doesn’t happen overnight. But these three actions will put you on the road to success.
Are you running your business like a pro athlete? If not, what steps do you plan to take in order to change that?
I look forward to reading your comments.
Stephanie O’Brien is a copywriter, marketing coach, entrepreneur, novelist, and self-growth addict. She specializes in helping people to connect with their clients in an authentic way that builds trust and inspires clients to take action. To learn more about her, and to discover how to attract more clients with ease and confidence, visit www.captivatingcopywriter.com.
