For a business, cash flow is key. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling socks on the main street or you’re a leader in your industry, every business model boils down to the cash account. In fact, disruptions in the cash flow are the most common reason for business failure.

One way to guard against this potential threat is to create a steady stream of passive cash flow from a diverse range of sources. Planned carefully, passive income can keep your business afloat when the rent soars or customers disappear. Here are are five ways you can earn passive income for your business:

Support a blockchain by operating a node

Blockchain technology is still relatively underdeveloped, but the infrastructure is robust enough to compensate those who participate on a deeper level. One way to get paid in cryptocurrencies is to operate a full node. A full node is a computer program that fully validates transactions (blocks) on a particular blockchain. And if you want to know which masternode coins are currently the best to focus on, you can find all Coins checked at Masternodes.com.

Full nodes get compensated for their computing power with a percentage of the total transaction fees on the network. If you or some of your employees are tech-savvy enough to work with this nascent technology, you could create a source of passive income for the business.

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 Rent out free space on your network

Another, perhaps simpler, way to generate passive cash is to rent out the extra space on your hard drives. Blockchain projects like Storj and Filecoin offer a fixed return for every gigabyte you offer on their network. Think of them as decentralised versions of Dropbox or Amazon Web Services. Depending on how much disk space you put up, you could be compensated handsomely.

Peer-to-peer lending

Online peer-to-peer lending has been around for years, but the platforms have only matured recently. Publicly-listed LendingClub is probably the biggest p2p lending company in the world. Of course, investing in loans won’t work if your business is starved for cash. But for businesses with money lying around, boosting the yield is a great way to generate passive income.

The total yield on your p2p lending portfolio is difficult to predict and depends on a range of different factors, but the regular rate fluctuates between 6 per cent APR  to 36 per cent APR. That’s noticeable better than a corporate savings account or fixed deposit.

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Royalties on intellectual property

The music, stock photos, logos, graphic designs, and online content your business generates are all valuable assets that can be rented out for passive income. The yield you can expect in licensing fees and royalties depends on the level of sophistication and demand for your assets. If you have a rare patent for a useful piece of software, for example, you could expect a hefty chunk of passive income every month.

Rent out free space

Leasing more office space than you need is a common problem. Fortunately, there are a lot of services which allow you to list your free space or share your existing space with other companies. Not only does this help you generate passive income, but it can also help your team collaborate with a third-party group.

Source: Unsplash

Creating a steady stream of cash flow is the best way to ensure your business survives and thrives over the long term.

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