Robert Allen's 5 Rings of Infopreneuring Riches

In his bestselling book Multiple Streams of Income, Robert Allen talks about the different levels of infopreneuring. He calls these levels the "five rings of riches."

Imagine you are standing inside a small circle. This is the first ring. The second ring is bigger; it contains you and the smaller circle. The third ring is bigger still, and so on, out to the fifth ring. As your information empire grows, and your knowledge and experience grow along with it, you can expand into bigger circles.

Ring 1: Sell Your Core Expertise
In the first ring, you are making money by turning the knowledge in your head into a marketable skill. You might be a florist, a mechanic, a web programmer or a sales trainer. It doesn't really matter. All that counts is that you are good at what you do.

Ring 2: Teach Others Your Core Expertise
Once you've established yourself as an excellent florist, mechanic or web programmer, you can make money by teaching others your specialized knowledge. You can deliver do-it-yourself information to general consumers (eg. how to create an elegant floral arrangement) or guide others interested in entering your field (eg. how to run a successful florist shop). Or you might do both.

How do you deliver this information? This is where you jump into the plethora of information product formats. You might create books or special reports, offer teleclasses, record a video, or all of the above. Multiply all the topics you could teach by the possible formats, and you get a sense of just how deep this ring can go. You could make a great living without ever venturing farther than the second ring.

Ring 3: Teach General Skills
Somewhere in your travels through rings 1 and 2, you probably learned a general business skill or two that helped you succeed. You might have collected some insights about time management or discovered a knack for sales.

In ring 3, you expand your information empire by teaching these general skills to others. Again, you have a full range of product formats to choose from. Use your imagination.

Ring 4: Sell Other People's Products
By ring 4, you will have successfully taught many people both specific trade know-how and general success skills. And all along, you've been keeping an opt-in database of these customers. (You have been keeping this information, haven't you?)

You can now make money selling other people's products to your database of loyal customers. You might enter into a joint venture with another infopreneur, or endorse another's product for a cut of the proceeds. Just make sure you maintain the integrity of your relationship with your clients, and always abide by privacy regulations concerning the sharing of your customer's personal information.

Ring 5: Support Other Infopreneurs
By the time you reach the fifth and final ring, you will be an infopreneuring expert. Allen suggests that this is the time to offer services and advice to other infopreneurs.

Which ring are you in? Which one would you like to be in? Think about the opportunities at each level and how you might apply them to your own situation. There's a whole round world of prospects (five of them actually) waiting for you.

Reference
Multiple Streams of Income: How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth
© 2000, Robert G. Allen