Get maximum results with minimum effort. Sounds great doesnt it? The key is leverage. You can get a huge result from relatively little investment of resources. Weather its time, money or intellect, you only have so much. The key is to use your resources as a lever to really explode your income!

A great example is real estate. You control a relatively large asset with a fairly small investment. Say you have a property worth $250,000 that you got with a $12,500 down payment. Leave aside for a moment the fact you probably could have acquired that property using little or none of your own money. In most real estate markets a realistic annual appreciation is 8%. You would gain $20,000 in value the 1st year alone. You have used the power of leverage to get a staggering 160% annual return on your $12,500 investment! With real estate, you can also get additional leverage from tax advantages and rental income that are available. So its pretty easy to picture real estate as an example of leverage.

Another example is selling to an account versus selling retail. When you sell to an account, you leverage your initial efforts into a long term revenue stream (the best kind!). It may take more effort initially to close the account sale, but that is more than compensated by the steady sales that can continue to roll in for years. You can now just maintain the account, which takes much less effort than it takes to get it in the first place.

One form of leverage that you just cant afford to ignore is your network of contacts. Weather its a mailing list or just a social network, you can use your network to meet better suppliers, make sales, generate referrals and find great investment deals. In short, your contacts could be the most valuable form of leverage you have.

Multi-tiered affiliate sales and marketing programs are a fantastic example of leverage. You can lever your effort and money spent to gain your affiliates into a solid revenue stream. The second tier, and beyond if applicable, all give you additional sales through no more investment on your part. If you get productive affiliates, your affiliate tiers could easily generate more revenue for you than your direct sales. Once again, leverage.

Employees are definitely a form of leverage for a business owner. Their efforts are leveraged into revenue, and hopefully, profit for the business. Every dollar the employer pays the employee in compensation is leveraged into a larger dollar amount.

If you arent using leverage, its going to be a long haul. You must use leverage to maximize your efforts. Analyze everything you do in your business. Make sure you are leveraging all your resources to achieve your goals. It will be a much shorter climb to the top.