Author Archive | Christina Watkins

I’ve got a friend who has used this business model for years as a ‘side’ business.

Funny thing is, his side business earns more than many full time businesses – about $10,000 per piece of software per year.

And yes, he doesn’t own any of this software himself, which means he never has to deal with programmers or customer complaints that the software isn’t doing whatever it should be doing.

Here’s how it works:

Find free software that people use – for example, cloud storage, help desk software, popular WordPress plugins, membership software and so forth. You might want to concentrate just on software that is used in the online marketing world, or you could branch out into other niches.

You’re looking for software that is somewhat popular, but ideally it’s not all that simple to use.

Anything come to mind? Forums are a good place to search. Look for a number of posts from people all looking for help with the same software, and you’ve found a winner.

Now then, you can either do the next step yourself, or outsource it to someone who knows a lot about the software. If you’re doing it yourself, you’ll need to get really good at using the software before you proceed.

You’re going to put together a tutorial that shows people how to use the software. Your tutorial is going to assume they know next to nothing about it, so that anyone and everyone can benefit from it.

Take them through all the steps of installing and using the software, along with all the features they might not even know about. The point is to make it super simple for almost anyone to use the software, once they have your tutorial.

Charge a modest amount for your tutorial – nothing over the top.

You might want to add a “done for you” option or upsell in which the software is installed and set up for the customer. You can do this work yourself, or outsource it to someone else.

And inside your tutorial, place links to the paid version of the software, along with anything else that will help the reader to make the best use of the software.

All of these income streams add up.

And buyers are easy to come by, because many times people are desperate for answers. They’ve already wasted time trying to get the software to work, and they’ve wasted more time on forums and help desks trying to get the help they need.

By the time they find your tutorial, they are more than happy to hand over several dollars to get the job done, or even more money to have the job done for them.

As you can see, we’re targeting people already familiar with the software who need help.

But that’s only half of your customer base.

The other half is people looking for a particular solution.

For example, they want to know how to set up a membership site without paying a monthly fee for software. You can recommend the solution they need, and the software only has a one-time payment.

Better still, you’ll show them exactly how to install and use it.

Of course, you won’t name the software on that sales page.

And yes, you will need two different sales pages. The first one targets the group who is having trouble with the software, and the second one targets the group looking for the solution the software provides.

Want to make even more money?

You can sell private label rights or resell rights to your tutorials.

And you can also get affiliates on board as well.

This can be a great product to sell via paid advertising – both in the ‘fix a problem’ format and the ‘here’s the solution you need’ format.

The work involved in doing this is small versus the money that can be made. It won’t make you rich, but if you put out just one of these a month, you might hit six figures.

And the shelf life of each tutorial will vary according to how popular the software is. You’ll be able to sell some for only a few months, while others might be good for a year or two before you need to update them.

It’s a perfect little side business that doesn’t require much startup cash – just the ability to find software that’s confusing people or solving a real problem, and creating the tutorials for your customers.

And don’t forget – you can also sell more solutions to your new customers after they purchase the tutorial. In fact, this alone can double your profits.

Get busy, and go make some more money by helping other people solve their problems!

When you first get started online, you might be worried. Frankly, you probably should be worried. Yes, you made sales this month. But will you make sales NEXT month? And how will you pay the bills if you don’t make sales?

It can be scary going from a job where you know exactly how much you’ll get paid and when you’ll get paid to working your own business online.

In your business you might have a banner month and then two months of starving followed by a mediocre month followed by (hopefully) another banner month.

Thus, the question becomes, “How do you get stability in your business – and your income -as quickly as possible?”

Or… how do you KNOW for a FACT that next month you can make the mortgage and eat, too?

Simple – continuity programs. Call it what you want – memberships, recurring payments, monthlies, etc.

It all boils down to getting people signed up into a continuity program so you can continue to get paid month after month.

Now you have a choice here: You can either promote other people’s continuity programs, or create and promote your own.

If you’re acting as an affiliate, then you don’t have to worry about sales funnels, membership content, customer service and all of that. You just need to focus on making the sales.

Drive the traffic, offer your own bonuses and do what you’ve got to do to get people signed up.

The problem, of course, is that in exchange for less responsibility, you also have less control and more competition.

The membership site owner has control over content. If s/he takes a “churn and burn” mentality and doesn’t care about keeping members happy, then people won’t stay long. You’ll have to continually make new sales, which isn’t what you’re looking for.

You want stability. That’s why you only want to promote truly great memberships and continuity programs that deliver a ton of value.

As to competition, you are competing with every other affiliate who is promoting the same program.

If you have your own list, then this isn’t that big of a problem. After all, people on your list know and love you, right? And so they’ll follow your recommendation.

Unless they’re on someone else’s list (they are) who has already promoted the program. In which case, you’re not going to make many sales.

Promoting affiliate memberships is a give and take. Less responsibility, no control and lots of competition.

And this is why you might want to start your own membership. Look around and see what people in your niche desperately want and need, and then fill that want with your site.

Outsource the content creation if you can, so you can focus on the important part – filling it with people.

Once you’ve got your membership site up and running, it’s time to get busy promoting it. Use every technique you can think of and track everything.

Find out what your best sources of traffic are, and then put all of your effort into just those methods.

For example, maybe you buy traffic from Facebook, Adwords and solo ads. You also get free traffic from guest posting, forums and social media.

9 out of 10 new members are coming from Facebook, so what are you going to do?

Drop all of your other methods and focus exclusively on Facebook advertising.

Get your conversions up and your costs down and now you have a viable way of getting a continuous influx of new members into your site.

Want even more members? Show affiliates how well your offer is converting, and you can get them to promote your membership site, too.

There are plenty of affiliates out there who want that continuous, month to month income that a good membership site provides. All you have to do is show them that your funnel is converting and members are sticking.

Naturally, there are a lot more details than this to starting a membership site. But hopefully this gets you thinking in that direction.

Because if you want true financial freedom as quickly as possible and with as little stress as possible, then almost nothing can beat having your own successful membership site.

One more thing – the first site is the hardest. Once you have a membership site that’s clearing at least a couple of thousand dollars each month like clockwork, continue to build on that one while building your second membership site, and so forth.

Create a membership empire to secure your finances, and then you can experiment with anything you like.

Security first, right?

So many products are simply a rehash of other products, and the same goes for books.

Someone wants to write a book on persuasion, so they buy five books on persuasion, read them and then take all the best ideas from the books and write a new course or book or whatever.

But what if you want truly unique, stand-alone info that no one else has?

Then you’ve got to go to the sources.

Let’s say your niche is cat care, and you’re in a forum where people are discussing how they helped their cat get over a certain illness. In that forum you meet Jessie, who found a way to cure her cat in half the normal time at one-tenth the normal expense.

You contact Jessie and ask for an interview, which you then turn into a product. No one else has this information because it’s something Jessie came up with in her veterinary practice, or wherever.

You now have a product no one else has. Split the profits with Jessie, and do it again and again with people who know stuff that no one else knows.

For example, you can dig through various niches and find people doing new, unique, unusual things, or people who have just achieved some sort of milestone, or anything special that solves a problem or gives a benefit that people want.

Do an interview over email, Skype or any method you choose. Let your subject know you’re thinking of using this in a product, and that you’ll share the profits. Almost no one will turn you down on this, especially if you’re working outside of the make money niche.

And now you have an endless source of truly new, helpful info that you can turn into posts, products and books.

This is a great way to make a big name yourself in any niche. Pretty soon people will be approaching you, asking if they can share their discoveries in exchange for a slice of the profits.

Simply write up the info they give you, pad it out as needed, write some sales copy and get busy selling it.

This is a perfect business model for almost any niche outside of IM where money is being spent.

And it works especially well if you’re solving people’s urgent problems – like getting kitty over her illness twice as fast at one-tenth the expense.

In Chip and Dan Heath’s book ‘Decisive,’ they lay out three ways to make truly excellent decisions that can have a very positive impact on your business and your life.

1: The Vanishing Options Test

In 1994, Quaker Oats made the decision to buy the drink company Snapple for a whopping 1.8 BILLION dollars – perhaps one of the worst business decisions of all time.

They didn’t consider any other options. Believe it or not, no one in the company even argued not to buy it or suggested an alternative.

If they had simply expanded their choices by asking, “What other options do we have?” they would have been far more likely to make a better decision.

Do you decide to do things without giving yourself multiple options first? Do you limit your choices before you even start?

For example, instead of asking, “Should I promote this product to my list?” Ask yourself what other products you might promote instead that would be a better fit for your list.

Instead of asking, “Should I buy this piece of software or hire this person for my business?” Ask yourself what your other options are to get the task done.

Here’s why it works: Anytime you give your brain a ‘this or that’ option, it’s hemmed in by just those two possibilities and won’t think any further.

Instead, ask yourself, “What options would I consider if my current options disappeared?”

By giving yourself multiple choices instead of just one or two, you greatly increase your odds of making a good decision and even the best decision for you and your business.

The key is to expand your choices before you narrow them down.

2: The ‘Tell My Friend’ Solution

In 1985, Andy Grove, President of Intel, faced a problem – should he end the company’s line of memory chips, or not?

Management was torn on the question and Andy didn’t know what to do.

So he asked himself, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he or she would do?”

Now the answer was obvious – get out of memories.

The right question made a tough problem easy.

This question helped him to overcome the biggest enemy to making the correct decision: Emotions.

You’re angry at your husband so you don’t talk to him. You’re excited about getting the exact make, model and color car you want, so you overpay. And so forth.

These decisions are clouded by emotion, and if it weren’t for that emotion, you would make different decisions.
Here’s why it works: Your emotions cloud your logic. So instead of asking what you should do, ask, “What would I tell my best friend to do?”

This helps you to look past your emotions and makes even the toughest decisions easy.

3: The ‘Test it Now’ Solution

In the late 1990’s, Bill Gross wanted to sell cars on the internet. He was sure the idea could work, but at the time it was risky.

Would people spend $20,000 on a car they’d never seen, much less test-driven?

Bill didn’t try to guess. Instead, he engineered a test run by hiring a CEO for 90 days to do one thing: SELL ONE CAR over the internet.

Usually we do the opposite. We go all in on a decision without having a clue if it’s the right one or not.

We spend all of our time and resources on this risk, when we could have gotten our answer with one small test.

For example, why hire someone as a full time employee when you can hire them for one project and see what they do?

Why spend six months creating a huge information product when you can create a small one in a day and see if there is a market for it?

Here’s why it works: We often get so fired up about a new idea, that we don’t even take time to find out if it will work or not. But by running a small test, we can see if we should proceed or go in a different direction.

Whenever possible, create a small test to find out if you’re on the right track.

“Why am I guessing when I can run a small test and know for certain?”

That’s it – three techniques that can save you a load of headaches and money in your online business and in life.

You’re just starting out and your list only has 500 or 1,000 people.

While it’s true you would gladly trade your small list for one that’s 100 times bigger, it’s also true that if you treat your little list right, you can still make really good money.

How does that work?

By getting personal.

First, answer emails that you get from your list. When someone reads your latest email and takes the time to write to you – answer them. You’ve only got 1,000 people on your list, so odds are only 5 to 10 will ever write to you at a time. Yes, you can do this. Keep it personal.

Second, let your list members know that they are part of a very small, intimate, private community by telling them. Otherwise they’ll assume you’ve got a gazillion people on your list and don’t give a flying flip about any of them.

Third, email them daily. Yes, DAILY. Keep in constant contact with them. Update them on the latest news and give a tidbit here and there about yourself.

Fourth, care about their success. If you really, truly care, then it will show in your emails to them. Communicate how important they are and that you want to help them succeed in a big way.

Fifth, hold open Q and A sessions over webinars, Skype or your favorite platform. Don’t charge anything, and let your subscribers know it is only for your list. You’re creating the feeling that they belong to a small, exclusive, private group.

Sixth, send out emails that start with something personal, such as, “Hi (name) – I wanted to contact you personally because I think you might be a good fit for my coaching program.”

Seventh, ask for their help or opinion on something and then answer every response.

Doing these little things will keep your list engaged and interacting with you.

And when you send out an offer for just 10 people to get personalized coaching at $500 a month, what do you think will happen?

Odds are you’ll fill those slots in less than a day with no additional effort at all. You might even have a waiting list of people who didn’t make the first ten slots.

What happens when someone emails their list of 100,000 with the exact same offer? Surprisingly, there’s a good chance they’ll have trouble selling those ten slots, even though their list is 100 times bigger.

You can make great money with a small list when you take the time to get personal with your subscribers.

There are only so many hours in your day, which is to say, you can only do so much.

In the beginning of your business, you’re probably doing everything yourself.

But as things start working and making money, you’ve got to scale it up if you want to keep growing the business.

If you don’t scale, then you can’t grow beyond the point of what you can do alone.

That’s why you want to begin outsourcing as much as you can. And the easiest way to do it is to record yourself performing each step of your business, so you can hand the recordings over to an outsourcer to do these things for you.

Either write it up, take screenshots or use video recording.

And no, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re simply going to hand it to an outsourcer and let them take over the task for you.

Remember, your goal is to work ON your business, not IN your business.

Otherwise you will have trouble hitting six figures and you will never come close to that magical seven figure income.

Here’s a ridiculously easy business you can run from Facebook using Facebook groups. It won’t take you much time, and it can net you a tidy little profit each month.

Better still, you can create as many of these as you like. Grow them big enough, and you might make far more than $1,000 a month, too.

Plus, you can either do it yourself, or outsource the work – it’s up to you.

Here’s how it works:

First, create a private Facebook group. This is going to be a free group, and you can do it for any niche where money is spent.

For example, if you’re in the IM niche, you might title your group something like:

• Shortcut copywriting techniques for non-copywriters
• Easy and fast SEO for non-SEO people
• Latest and hottest ways to get tons of traffic to your offer
• Techniques for doubling and tripling your conversions
• Simple methods for building massive emails lists fast
• Etc.

You can populate your groups with free WSO’s, from Facebook itself, as bonuses to other people’s products and so forth. You’re offering a tremendous benefit for free, so it’s not going to be difficult to get members to your groups.

You might even limit the number of members you take, since that will make it seem much more exclusive and valuable.

For content you’re going to do one or more of the following:

• Write your own content
• Hire outsourcers to write the content for you
• Get guests to write your content for free
• Use high quality PLR. Not junk, just the good stuff

Whatever content you use, be sure to break it down into brief daily posts.

All you need is short snippets of content, because the members will do the rest of the work for you. They’ll ask questions, respond to questions, give opinions and so forth.

Your group will take on a life of its own, which is terrific. You want to encourage as much interaction as possible to keep people coming back time and time again.

So now the big question is… How do you monetize this?

There are three ways:

First, promote your own products. You’ve got to do this in a very soft, non-pushy way. Done right, you’ll make plenty of sales without turning anyone off.

For example, you might answer someone’s question, then refer them to your product for even more info.

Second, promote other people’s products (affiliate products) using the same method.

Third, if you don’t want to sell products or you want to make even more money, you can sell advertising on the timeline.

If you think about it, you’ve got a highly targeted group of people who are super focused on this one area of interest.

Basically, you have a terrific prospect list of active, interested people.

Whether you are selling your own products, affiliate products or advertising, you’re going to make money.

Let’s talk more about getting advertisers. These advertisers would LOVE to convert your members to their deal.

Limit your ads to just one per day, and call them the “Sponsor of the Day.”

Of course, advertisers can book as many days as they like.

Post the ad in the morning and keep it as the pinned post for the rest of the day.

Charge maybe $50 to display the ad for a day, which compares favorably to solo ads.

If you sell all 30 days of the month, you’ve made $1,500.

Only allow that one ad per day, and don’t let your members post affiliate links.

How do you find advertisers? Many times your best source will be from within the group itself. You can also let your email list know about the opportunity, and you can offer your ad slots to anyone who is in your niche and has a product to sell.

I recommend starting one group and learning the in’s and out’s of running this type of business. You’ll need to invest perhaps 15 minutes each morning for adding content and answering questions, and then check back 3 or 4 times during the day.

Once you get a good feel for what you’re doing, expand to related niches and even branch out to completely unrelated niches, too.

And of course you can outsource the entire process.

While you’re not going to make a fortune from just one group, several groups can yield you a full-time income.

I feel almost silly writing an article on this topic, because I can sum it up in one sentence:

Write about your own personal experiences in story form.

That’s it! People love stories – especially true ones – that show you overcame an obstacle, solved a problem, created something positive and so forth.

So if you’re writing a blog post about how to increase traffic, use your own examples of what you did, how you did it, and the results. If you can flavor it with storytelling skills that keep your reader riveted, so much the better.

And who better to show you how to tell a story than professional stand up comics? These guys and gals live and die by the story – they either get it right or they’re booed off the stage, and being booed is not funny or fun.

The steps to great storytelling according to comedians?

1. Be Brief (don’t ramble – get to the point)
2. Give Details (the useful ones – don’t bog the story down with useless stuff)
3. Use Story Twists (surprise is a wonderful thing)
4. Work the Crowd (or in this case, your readers)
5. Act Out The Characters (difficult to do in a blog, but I’ve always thought lending your own personality or character to your writing is extremely important)
6. Practice (write often – the more you write, the better you’ll get)
7. End on the Biggest Laugh (or point if you’re a blogger)

Get the details on how comedians tell great stories here:

http://www.askmen.com/money/how_to_400/443_how_to.html

Implement these storytelling tips into your blog posts, and you’ll engage your audience on a deeper level, and keep them hooked on your content.

If you decide you’re going to do something, do it.

They’ve done dozens of studies over the years and they’ve found there is one major difference between successful people and unsuccessful people:

Successful people launch.

They get started.

They get on with it.

They just do it.

Unsuccessful people get the same ideas and the same information, but they’ve always got an excuse for not starting.

Let’s be candid – You can discover these outsourcing secrets the easy way or the hard way, but you’re going to find this out sooner or later.

The hard way is the way most marketers do it. They make mistakes when outsourcing, lose time and/or money, and then learn from their mistakes.

I propose we cut out all that nonsense and I’ll just tell you what you need to know here and now. Ready?

1: Outsource customer service as soon as humanly possible.

Reason why: If you don’t, you’ll waste half of each day doing things like answering support tickets, changing email addresses for members who changed their email address (yes, that is a thing) issuing refunds, answering questions and so forth.

That is time you could spend doing something else like… let’s see… wait, I know – MAKING MONEY.

Your focus should be on building your business, not answering support tickets (“When I log in, I see a funny thing at the top that says I’m logged in… is that what it’s supposed to say?”) I’m not kidding, that is a real support ticket I once received.

Another reason why: Your virtual assistant who is handling your support can shield you from the negative ninnies. What’s a “negative ninny,” you ask? It’s that person who buys your product and then rants on for 6 pages on how awful your product is, how awful you are and so forth. You don’t need to hear that stuff. Just tell your V.A. to handle it for you without ever telling you about it. (In this case, refunding the person and removing them from every list is all that’s required.)

And by the way, if you’re thinking that your products will be so great, everyone will love them, well then I know you haven’t created any products yet.

I don’t care if you invent the method for turning pixels into gold, someone will hate it. And that’s okay, as long as you don’t have to hear about it.

2: Outsource the things that bring you profit FIRST.

So let’s say you want to outsource website building, content creation, product creation, sales writing, software creation and so forth.

Ask yourself this question: What’s going to bring me the fastest return on my money?

That’s the project to outsource first.

Maybe you pay someone to create a product for you, and then you turn around and sell that product to hundreds of buyers. BOOM! You’ve just made your money back and much more.

But what if you don’t have any customers yet? And no list? Then maybe you need to outsource the building of your squeeze page so you can start list building so you can start selling stuff to your list.

Whatever will put you in profit first is the thing you need to outsource first. This way you are not coming out of pocket by thousands and thousands of dollars without a return.

3: Pay outsources based on the JOB, not by an hourly rate.

You want to know going in what it’s going to cost you to get a specific job done. And a true professional will be able to tell you exactly what it will cost.

A lot of marketers make the mistake of paying by the hour to get a job done. So not only don’t they know exactly what the job will cost – they also don’t know if the outsourcer is dragging the job out longer to make it pay more. Yes, it’s been known to happen.

The exception to the non-hourly rule?

Your virtual assistant or customer service person. Because of the nature of their work, in most cases paying them by the hour is the way to go.

4: Outsource work you’re putting off.

Did you create a new product, but you haven’t edited yet? Or maybe you haven’t built the website or made the sales letter.

All the time you invested in creating that product is going to waste. Outsource someone to do what you haven’t done, so you can get it online and start making sales ASAP.

5: Outsource what you’re not good at, and what you don’t like doing.

Sure, you love building websites, but let’s face it: You haven’t updated your website skills since 2007. Or you know how to write sales copy, but you HATE doing it.

Those are things you should be outsourcing. By focusing on your strengths as well as strategically planning your business, and letting other experts handle the rest of the work, you’ll make more money faster than if you try to do everything yourself.

6: Outsource the instrument playing while you conduct the orchestra.

There may come a time very soon when you have a system in place for making money. It could be as simple as creating a product in your niche, write several pieces of content preparing people for the product, record several videos leading up to the launch, and then launching.

Yet all of that is a lot of work. You’ve got sales copy to write, JV’s to contact, swipe emails to write, etc.

If you can afford it, outsource everything you can so that you can focus on working ON your business instead of IN your business.

People who focus on working on their business while outsourcing a lion’s share of the work tend to make 5 to 10 times as much money as those who work in their business.

Sort of a no-brainer, don’t you think?

7: If you haven’t yet outsourced something – what are you waiting for?

If you already have an online business, or you’re in the process of building one and you haven’t yet outsourced something, odds are it’s simply because fear is holding you back.

Go to Fiverr, Upwork, Craigslist or Warrior and outsource a small job, just to see how it works. I promise, you’ll be hooked and your business will grow twice as fast.

There is not a seven-figure internet marketer out there who doesn’t outsource. So isn’t it about time you did, too?