Wikipedia 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 is the most relevant for home businesses.

Leverage is most often expressed in either monetary or mechanical terms, but it has much broader application to a lot of contexts, including the world of internet marketing.

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

One of the fastest and easiest ways for a home-based business to maximize our profits is by re-using existing content. I’m sure you’ve seen the countless ebooks currently advertised on the internet - most of these are examples of re-using content, although some may have been originally written as ebooks, most started out as a single blog post, or a response to a customer email, perhaps even some FAQs.

Financially, the advantage gained from leverage is typically described as a ratio of some type; e.g., a debt-to-equity ratio. Such ratios are useful for bookkeepers, 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 that it takes you 10 hours to write a document for use with a single customer and then sell it to that customer for $50.00. You have earned $50.00, but it took 10 hours of your time to earn that $50.00; effectively, you would have earned about $5 per hour (less than the current minimum wage) for your time and made zero profit.

If, however, you take that same document (customized to remove any proprietary info) and offer it as an ebook on the internet for $19.95, and that you eventually sell 100 copies of your published ebook. You have now earned $1995, and if you deduct the $50 it cost you to create the primary text with a reduction of another $5 to customize it for any customer/proprietary info, that would leave you now with a profit of $1940.00.

This simple example demonstrates the benefits of leverage, specifically the increased profit gained from re-using existing content.

Once we become aware of the concept of leverage, we discover many different applications to our home-based businesses. This article has addressed one of those ways. Separate articles describe additional ways that affiliate businesses can benefit from leverage.

If you like what you’ve just read, and would like to learn how to use leverage to help put your income on autopilot, get the Infinite Income Plan here.