According to Wikipedia, leverage is “A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot” and “By extension, any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.”  

Most of us were doubtless first introduced to the concept of leverage as we explored the wonders of the Teeter-Totter in our schoolyard or at the nearest recreational area.  Initially, we played only with same age kids – and weight class – and we were perfectly content with the lever and the pivot being preset.  

However, as we got a little older and started playing on the teeter-totter with older and heavier children – we quickly learned that if we could change where the other child sat (thus for practical purposes changing the length of the teeter-totter relative to the fulcrum), we could easily lift children who weighed a lot more than we did.

When we think about gaining leverage by re-purposing content, we’re still concerned with the second aspect, but we can begin to play around a bit with the length of the figurative “lever” and the placement of the figurative “pivot”.  We do this by re-purposing content.

When we simply re-use content, we aim for largely the same market segment and use effectively the same tools and media to reach them.

However, when we re-purpose the content, we adjust our focus to a different use, typically for a slightly different market niche, and we may also exchange the media as well.  

For example, a lot of affiliate marketing businesses sometimes conduct live events; e.g., a workshop, seminar, training class, etc.  

If we’re smart, we plan (from the beginning) to re-purpose available content and extend its value to a larger audience.  In the example of the workshop, seminar, training class, etc., we will be smart to audiotape and/or videotape the event for subsequent distribution via audio or video files, CDs, DVDs, etc.

Re-purposing extends the benefits of leverage beyond simply re-using existing content – it extends our marketing efforts into additional market segments, thus increasing overall exposure of our products and services, and ultimately increasing the bottom line.

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If you are in the middle of beginning a web based business, the last thing that you want is someone adding to your list of decisions you need to make. However there is a topic that requires your attention during these early stages of business development.

While the term positioning seems like just another example of marketing jargon, its importance can’t be stressed too much. Positioning is identifying what there is about your business that allows it to stand apart from all of your competitors–and, of course, communicating that to all of your potential customers.

-Service – Nearly all businesses claim they have great service. If you can provide exceptional service compared to your competitors, your customers will remember you. I remember calling a sour plumber to try to get him to my home for a plumbing emergency on a weekend. He acted like he didn’t want my business and then told me it was going to be $200 for him just to show up, no thanks. I called roto-router who gave me amazing service, a guarantee, and the bill was less than the other guy’s service call fee. I now use that company for all my plumbing, whether emergency or not.

-Extraordinary Features and Appealing Benefits – Positioning is not just about what makes you different, it’s also about what you emphasize. Folgers announces to the world that it’s “mountain grown coffee” ( a feature). Guess what? All coffee is mountain grown. Folgers just claimed this feature before anyone else thought to mention it. What is there that none of your competitors are talking about, yet?

-Price Point – This doesn’t necessarily mean you have the lowest price. You may be the most expensive in town, and that’s OK if you convince your customers you’re worth it.

-Negative Features – Is there something you don’t have that annoys customers of your competitors? I’m not saying use negative advertising, but just mention the feature and tie it to a benefit. I’m annoyed when I have to pay for parking to go shopping at Mall. Instead of touting free parking, a mall that wants to speak to me might declare, “you’ll never have to pay for parking”. This drives home the pain of shopping with a competitor without going negative.

-Credibility – Many companies tout how long they’ve been in business. All of these things build trust in the mind of the consumer. What trust-building factors do you have that the competition does not?

-Others – Literally anything that differentiates you from your competitors can be part of your positioning strategy – your clever URL, your hours of live help, the way your site looks. Small business owners need to think creatively here.

You will spend a great deal of time later developing your online business. You may even make adjustments to your positioning as you experiment and discover what is working for you and what isn’t. Immediately, though, you must start working on your marketing positions. They are too integral to your long term success to postpone.

The Wikipedia dictionary defines leverage as “A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot” and “By extension, any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.”  The second component of that definition has the most applicability for online businesses.

Leverage is frequently defined in either economic or mechanical terms, but it has a much broader applicability, including the internet marketing industry.

So how shall we interpret “any influence” for our online businesses?

One of the fastest and easiest ways for an affiliate income business to gain the advantage of leverage is by re-using available content.  Most of the ebooks currently advertised on the internet reflect content that has been re-used, although some may have been originally written as ebooks, most began as a single blog post, or a response to a customer email, perhaps even a collection of Frequently Asked Questions.

In the world of finance, the benefit gained from leverage is generally described as a ratio of some sort, for example, a debt-to-equity ratio.  Such ratios are useful for accountants, but that is not the audience I’m addressing here.

How can we calculate the leverage advantage to be gained from re-using our existing content?  Consider the following simplistic example:   Assume you could write a single document for one customer in ten hours and then sell it for $50.00.  You have earned $50.00, but it would have taken you 10 hours to earn that $50.00; in other words, you have earned about $5 per hour (less than the current minimum wage) for your work but you would not have made any profit on that sale. 

Assume, however, you take that same document (modified to remove any customer-specific or proprietary information) and offer it as an ebook on the Net for $19.95, and that you ultimately sell 100 copies of your new ebook.  You would have earned $1995, less the $50 it cost to develop the initial document take away another $5 to customize it for any customer/proprietary info, leaving you with a much larger profit of $1940.00.

That’s the benefits of leverage, specifically the advantage resulting from re-using existing content. 

Once we become familiar with leverage, we can learn how to apply it in many different ways to our home businesses.  This article has addressed one of those ways.  Other articles describe additional ways that affiliate businesses can improve ROI by using leverage.

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The purpose of leverage is to return the maximum advantage with least effort.  Specifically, for affiliate businesses, that means greatest profit with smallest personal involvement.

Preceding articles described ways of obtaining leverage by 1) re-using content, and 2) re-purposing.  In this article, we’ll focus on increasing leverage by outsourcing routine, or non-value-add work, and any work that simply doesn’t fit our personal skills, experience and/or nature.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman described some interesting findings from 25 years of Gallup organization research – initially in their book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, and subsequently elaborating on those findings in later books.  Two of their findings, that are important for online marketers and home-based business owners are these:  1) Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses, and 2) Acquire staff for talent.

The world of online business has a rather large learning curve and involves many different skills.  Unfortunately, few people are personally skilled at all of them – and even those who are may not be making the best use of their available time and other skills should they focus on their weaknesses.

William of Occam, best known for “Occam’s Razor,” has stated:  “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.”

Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek” is a big proponent of the use of virtual assistants to handle repetitive, non-value-add tasks or other non-favored tasks.  Contrary to popular opinion, outsourcing is not limited to the world of giant corporations, but given the low cost of international virtual assistants, even small, online companies can afford to outsource many tasks to virtual assistants.

Many internet marketers elect to outsource writing articles.  They see the value of article marketing, but either don’t like to write, don’t have the skills, don’t want to spend the time, so they outsource article authoring to ghost-writers. 

Another task you might consider outsourcing to a virtual assistant (or call center) is the telephone and email follow-up required for lead generation and sales closings.

If you focus on your areas of strength, you gain the benefits of leverage and multiply your results, whereas, focusing on your weaknesses will only marginally improve your results. 

Which would you rather do – multiply your results, or simply see incremental improvements?

If you like what you’ve just read, and would like to learn how to leverage your efforts, and become a millionaire – get the FREE Infinite Income Plan report and put your income on autopilot.