The headline might read like a joke but I’m actually serious. You already know there are internet marketers who have literally made enough money in online marketing to purchase an actual mansion or two or ten. The question is, how do they do it?
And the answer is, in my opinion, diabolically simple.
Maybe the best kept secret in online marketing is that everything new is simply a variation of something old. There really is nothing that is breakthrough new. But we make it seem that way to our buyers by using the following method:
Step 1: You purchase a product or two or three on how to make money online using a certain technique.
Step 2: You implement much of the information and steps you learned in the product(s).
Step 3: Along the way, you kept careful track of what worked and what didn’t work, along with your known ideas and innovations.
Step 4: You create your own ‘breakthrough’ product that demonstrates how YOU managed to get these results in your own business and you sell the heck out of it.
Step 5: You repeat the process.
Whoa. Sounds too simple, right? You were hoping for the magic formula hidden under a golden rock guarded by warrior elves and ankle biting gnomes.
Nope.
Choose a method. Research it to find out what’s working for others. Get busy. Make notes. Improve the system, find a new twist or apply your knowledge to a new niche. Make a product or course that teaches others what you’re doing. Sell it. Repeat.
You’ll be making money from what you’re doing AND from teaching others how to do it.
A lot of people think that to be a coach or consultant, you must have built a few million dollar businesses and have a ton of experience under your belt. Not true.
To sell coaching services, you have to be really good at ONE thing. Just one.
It’s up to you what that one thing is.
Maybe you have a unique traffic system. Or you’re really good at guest blog posting. Or you can make videos that set people’s hair on fire.
Whatever your one thing is, if you’re good at it, there are people out there that want you to show them what you know. And they don’t just want a 20 page pdf or even a set of videos.
They want one-on-one HELP.
And that’s where you come in.
True, in the beginning you might charge lower prices for your coaching.
But as soon as you can show you get results not just for yourself, but also for others, it’s time to raise your fees.
And don’t even let anyone tell you that you can’t coach. Don’t even let you tell you that.
People need your help. It’s selfish not to offer it.
It is a win/win for both you and your new clients to get them off to a fast start. Leverage your knowledge to help others, grow your business and create a new income stream through coaching.
If you’ve decided that you want to work from home with your own business, you may need to have a form of steady income while you finish creating products and developing your business infrastructure. The good news is there are a number of ways in which you can bring in some extra income while you get your business off the ground.
Provide a Service – If you plan to make your own products and sell them, you likely have skills that other people will want to use. Try finding out if anyone needs the types of service you could offer. Perhaps you’re good at graphic design, database management, transcription, or something else entirely. Put it out there and people may buy your time. A couple places you could start listing your services for hire are popular freelance sites such as Fiverr and Upwork.
Get a Part-Time Job – If you can’t wait for services to take off, you can get a part-time job. Sign up to be a substitute teacher or a temp at an agency, or head over to your nearest fast food place and you’re likely to be hired on the spot.
Get a Work-at-Home Job – There are many legitimate work-from-home jobs that you can get pretty quickly if you have experience, education and skills. Look for call center work, and you could be bringing in extra money within the month.
Sell Items on eBay – Have too much stuff in your house? Try selling some of it on eBay. You can also buy from stores on sale, and then sell for a higher price on eBay. Believe it or not, everyone isn’t able to get to the same sales you can.
Sell Items on Amazon – This is the same idea as eBay, but you may not be aware that you can sell your old books and pretty much any items that Amazon sells, right from your home office. You can even ship some qualifying items to their fulfillment service and then sit back and collect checks as Amazon does the heavy lifting for you. Look up “Fulfillment by Amazon” to learn more.
Have a Yard Sale – One of the fastest and most reliable methods of bringing in some cash is the old-fashioned yard or garage sale. Or go virtual and use services like Craigslist or VarageSale to sell your unwanted household items to local buyers.
Sell Your Body – Seriously, you can sell your blood, plasma, breast milk, sperm, and hair to appropriate locations. Sometimes it’s not very quick, such as with sperm and breast milk which require a lot of tests, but with blood and plasma you can walk right in, answer a few questions, give and get paid on the spot. With hair, you may have to locate a hair broker, or try selling it on eBay.
Babysit or Dog Sit – One of the fastest ways to make a buck is to babysit or dog sit, but make sure you do it in their house or you’ll have to worry about licensure. Tell everyone you know that you would like to babysit or provide animal care (or both). Truly caring caregivers are in high demand and if you choose this path, you’ll find many opportunities to earn extra income this way.
Return Stuff You Don’t Use – Have you made recent purchases and the tags are still on them? Do you have the receipts? Typically you can take those items back for a full refund. If you’re not using them right now, why not take them back. Most of us have far more stuff than we need anyway. Even online purchases from Amazon are easy to return for a full or partial refund.
Rent Out a Room – Do you have an extra room or two in your home that you could rent out? If you do, extra money is just a few clicks away. Use services like Airbnb (The Unique Alternative to Hotels) to list your property and start attracting renters today. Or go old school and list your room in the classified section of the newspaper. Either way, if you’ve got some extra space, you can turn it into cash!
Join a Medical Experiment – Human trials and studies are often conducted right in your area at your local hospital. You can usually find out which studies are being done with a quick search on the net. You’ll be paid for your time, and get free healthcare for the associated issue.
Join an Affiliate Program – Affiliate programs give you the opportunity to join free or for a small fee and sell other company’s products for a commission. Some affiliate programs pay 40% or higher in commissions simply for sharing their products with others, and many people have been able to turn online affiliate marketing into their full-time income. In fact, take a look around my website today and you’ll find some of the top affiliate programs that I’m using to make money from right now.
Never lose hope or let a lack of money in the present moment keep you from moving forward in your life or business. There are always ways to get cash when you need it while you get your business off the ground. It simply requires you to stay positive and look for opportunities. Then be decisive and take steady action toward your goals.
Would you like to know how the highest-ranking affiliates are making their sales?
Here’s how to find out:
Research the top selling evergreen products at places like JVZoo and Warrior Plus. See who is winning the leaderboard competitions and then get on their lists.
You might have to do a little Googling to locate their sites, blogs, squeeze pages or whatever, but it’s not that difficult. Join their lists and then watch their emails.
Join their lists and then watch their emails.
You’ll see how they warm their lists as well as the exact email sequences they use to sell products.
Don’t copy their emails word for word, but do study them and figure out what makes them work. Then write your own.
You’ll have email sequences for all of the best evergreen products, written in styles that you already know convert. Plug them into your autoresponder and make sales!
When I got started in online marketing, I was lucky. Someone told me exactly what to do, and I didn’t know any better than to follow his instructions to the letter. I looked at it this way – the guy was a selfmade millionaire. I was broke. So what was I going to do – take what he told me and ‘fix’ it?
Somehow make it better? Improve upon it? There’s an old expression: If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. I took his instructions as gospel and did what he said. Soon I was making so much money, I was frankly astounded.
The biggest mistake I see new marketers making is they try to innovate. They have a better idea. A better system. A better method. And they almost always fail.
Look, there is a place for innovation once you know what you’re doing…
… But not when you’re first getting started.
Imagine you’re teaching someone to drive, and they get a great idea: ‘Why not just beep the horn when they’re about to hit someone? This way that person can get out of the way, and they never need to step on the brakes.’
See how crazy that is?
But it’s exactly how new marketers tend to think: “Forget the old ways, I’ve thought of a better way no one has ever thought of before.”
Uh-huh.
Instead, if you want to meet success quickly in this business, take a system that is already working and copy it.
Yes, that’s right – I’m advocating that you flat out copy what’s already working.
Are you in the diet niche? Then do this: Purchase the top 5 or 10 diet information products. Pay close attention to every step of the funnel. Take screen shots and notes. Pour through the products and see what’s good about them and what’s missing.
Then create your own product based on what you’ve learned, and set up a sales funnel based on the funnels you went through. Do this and I almost guarantee you’ll have a good selling product.
Online marketing isn’t hard if you’ll simply do what’s already working. But being human, we tend to think we can do better. Or we think we should do better and that it’s not right to copy systems that others are using.
But all industries are built upon the knowledge of those who went before – even those that innovate like crazy.
I’ll give you an example: It’s July 2003 and you’ve just co-founded Tesla Motors with the intention of building cars.
Are you going to start from scratch, with zero knowledge of cars and engines and how they run?…
… or are you going to take all of the knowledge accumulated over the last century and a half of car making, and then BUILD UPON this knowledge to create your own cars?
See?
Even companies like Tesla don’t reinvent the wheel – they make it better AFTER they’ve learned everything they can about what’s working now.
When you’re just starting out, find a system you like that you know is working, and then copy it. Once you’ve got it working, then and only then do you start innovating.
I just read an article over at HubSpot that touts the ‘10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint’ as created by Guy Kawasaki. I want to state up front that I have nothing against Guy. I’ve read his books and he gives great advice on many topics. But I suspect that one day Guy needed something to write about and was fresh out of ideas. That’s when he decided to share his own 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint with readers, and now it’s gospel among speakers and video creators.
It’s also, in my opinion, nonsense.
The rule says that you must never use more than 10 slides in a presentation, you must never go over 20 minutes and you must never use fonts smaller than 30 point. Even if you don’t do PowerPoint presentations or make slideshow videos, you can tell at one glance this rule is wrong. The clue is a certain phrase that appears not just once, but three times. Go back now and see if you can spot it.
That’s right…
“You must never.”
You must never do this and you must never do that, and it’s all rubbish.
Very few rules apply all of the time. In fact, the only hard and fast rule I can think of right now is that if you want to keep living, you have to keep breathing. But I can even think of an exception to that rule, too.
And yet I see new marketers make this mistake time and time again. Their favorite expert-guru type says they MUST do this and this and this without deviation, and the new marketer will struggle to follow those rules until they collapse in frustration.
Never mind that the expert-guru works in internet marketing and the new marketer works in hobbies.
Never mind that the expert-guru has a following of 100,000 with huge name recognition while the new marketer has neither. Never mind that the expert-guru has a staff of 5 with 20 outsourcers at his beck and call while the new marketer is trying to do it all herself.
Almost no rule applies all of the time. While it makes perfect sense to follow the guidance of someone wiser and more seasoned than you, it makes equal sense to adapt their advice to your situation, to your niche and to your audience.
There will be times when you need more than 10 slides, when your talk might be a lot longer than 20 minutes (especially if you are teaching) and when your font might not be 30 point. And that, my friend, is okay.
One last thing… when you become a big shot in your niche, or if you already are a big shot, please do everyone a favor and teach others not to work in absolutes and to instead think for themselves.
And the next time you catch me saying “you must” do anything, be kind. I make this mistake myself from time to time, but I’m working on removing words like ‘must,’ ‘should’ and ‘never’ from my vocabulary.
There are lots of great ideas here so please pay close attention… Let’s say you write an email to promote a product. Your email is basically a review of the product, and with it you make lots of sales. Now you’re done, right? Not even close.
Take that very same email and repurpose it into a review. Post the review on your blog under “reviews” and optimize it for SEO. Don’t panic – you’re basically optimizing for just a couple of key phrases like “XYZ Product Review.” Done right, you’ll get steady free traffic to your reviews, and sales, too.
Capture all the email addresses of all these additional visitors when possible and of course capture your buyer’s emails addresses so you can sell them more stuff.
Now think about what you just did – you wrote one email, made some sales, put the email on your site, made more sales and got more people on your list. Not bad.
But we’re just getting started.
Let’s say you write a 35 page report on traffic strategies. You sell the report for $10, and you make lots of sales. It’s a good start. But you are leaving SO MUCH money on the table.
Here’s what you can do…
At the end of your report (which is a really great report, btw) offer the reader personal one-on-one coaching tailored to them, based on the report, and charge a whole lot more than $10. A LOT more.
And don’t panic. You already have the information you need – it’s in the report you wrote. All you’ll be doing is working with this client on-on-one to tailor a solution for their business. “Let’s do A, then B, then C.” You’re simply acting as a coach or consultant. They’re getting the result they want and you’re getting a nice 3 or 4 figure fee.
But we’re not done yet.
Take the content from your report and make a video course. Put the course on ClickBank and pull in more sales. Setup an affiliate program while you’re at it (super easy to do with ClickBank), and the sales will continue to flow without any additional effort on your part.
Now take the content from your report and create a webinar with it. At the end, offer your personal coaching service. Or an upsell. Or whatever you want that fits.
Are you getting the point?
These are just a few examples of how you can repurpose your best content to earn yourself 10 times more money. You don’t necessarily need more content. You just need to use the content you do create wisely, and repurpose whenever possible to reach more people and create more customers for your business.
Google says that a healthy, active online community is one of the signals they look for to determine your blog’s quality. Comments are considered part of your content, so the better they are, the better your blog does in search results.
The problem is, of course, that a lot of comments are either spam or they don’t add anything to the conversion. For example, “Great post!” and “Love it!” might feed your ego but that’s about it.
So how do you encourage people to leave thoughtful, well-written comments that add to the conversation?
By using a seed question.
Once you upload your post, be the first one to comment on your own post. For example, let’s say you wrote a blog post titled 7 Ways to Get Free Traffic.
Your comment might be, “Thanks for checking out my post. I thought I’d kick off discussion with a few questions about how you get free traffic. What’s your favorite technique? How much time and resources does it take? And how effective has it been so far? I would love to hear from you on this.”
When you do this, you’ll likely find that more of the comments you receive actually ADD to the conversation.
One more thing, and this is a little sneaky – up-vote your own comment to keep it at the top. Odds are others will begin up-voting it as well, but it doesn’t hurt to add your own up-votes. You want your comment to be the first one people read.
Try this technique out on the next blog post you write, and I bet you’ll significantly increase the quality and quantity of comments you receive.
Not only can this help you with the development of your own community and search engine rankings, you’ll also likely find the seeds of inspiration for future blog posts as you interact with your blog readers in this way.
Everyone is after more work-life balance. Some jobs are better than others at allowing at least some work-life integration possibilities, but some business owners are slow to catch on. If you have a job that would make it simple to work part time from home, then you’re in a good position to try to convince your boss to let you work part time from home by following these steps.
Figure Out the Logistics First
Before even approaching your boss about the idea of working from home, you’ll need to figure out whether it’s possible. What tools do you need at home that you have at the office to make it work? Are you willing to come out of pocket and set this up for yourself, or are you going to ask your boss to foot the bill?
Provide a Well Thought-Out Plan of Action
If you can demonstrate exactly how everything will work, including showing up at meetings on time, then you’re half way there. Create a report for your boss showing how you’ll do each area of your job while you’re at home so they can visualize the potential.
Provide Supportive Research
Include supportive research that shows people who work from home at least part of the time are more productive, instead of less productive. Be ready to prove this by increasing your productivity when you’re given the opportunity to change your work location.
Develop a System
Set systems in place well in advance so that you know they work. Test them out before approaching your boss so that you know they will work 100 percent. Ensure that you won’t have dead spots in your house when you answer your phone, or that sounds like the TV don’t interfere with calls.
Provide Assurances about Required Meetings
If meetings are planned in advance there should be no issues about you getting to meetings on time. But, if your place of business often has last-minute meetings, that could be a problem. You could set up technology to help with this, but it will require help from others. Alternatively, if you live close to the location of your job, you can state that you can be at any meeting within an hour if they’re important.
Call in Sick
This one’s a little sneaky, but can be very effective… Prime your boss before approaching them by calling in sick but working from home while you’re sick. Just state that you don’t want to make others sick, but you’ll get your normal work done from home. You can actually wait until you’re really sick to try this so that you won’t get into trouble for lying, although being productive when you’re truly sick may be a challenge.
Ask for a Trial Run
Once you present the idea to your boss, ask for a trial run. Say that you’ll work two days a week from home such as Thursday and Friday, which are usually low meeting days anyway. Then if you get the permission, do a great job with the opportunity you’re given.
Over Deliver
Be prepared to up your game if you do get the go ahead to work from home. Make sure you find ways to connect with your boss, and show them what you’re doing so that you won’t be seen as someone who’s not even needed. Yes, there’s a risk to not being in the office… It’s one step closer to being an actual business owner. Deliver more results once you’re home, and your boss will be pleased and probably give you even more freedom.
Working from home does come with unique rewards and challenges, so be prepared to work out some kinks and perfect your systems as you go. Many bosses are keen on having some of their employees work from home these days, so why not you?
Many people want to work from home for a variety of reasons. Maybe you just had a child and want more work-life balance, or perhaps you have an illness that makes it difficult for you to get out of the house. Or maybe you just like being home and want the freedom to work your own way.
Whatever the reasons you want to work at home, you’ll need to choose whether or not you want a job from home, or you want a business from home. Here are eight questions to help you decide.
1. Are You Self-Motivated?
If you want your own business so that you can set your own hours, you will need to be very self-motivated. You’ll need to take time out of your day for marketing, interviewing clients, closing the deal and then doing the work too. You’ll be 100 percent responsible for delivering the work, billing and collecting. You’ll even be responsible for deciding the methods you use to do the work. To do that you’ll need to be a very self-motivated individual.
2. What Skills Do You Have?
Take a piece of paper and write down a list of the skills you currently have, based on what you’ve already done in the past. Can any of these translate into a business? Label them appropriately. Do any of these translate into common work-from-home positions such as call center agent or transcriptionist? Some skills cross over into both, but which side of the list gets full faster?
3. What Sort of Lifestyle Do You Want?
With a work-at-home job you’ll be required to “show up” for work on time each day that you’re scheduled, and you may have little control over that schedule. What’s more, with work-at-home positions it is a lot harder than typical jobs to call in sick, whether it’s you or a child who is sick. Often the first 90 days you cannot miss your schedule at all if you want to keep the position. Are you ready for that? Or, would you prefer a more family-oriented type of schedule that can be adjusted more easily and is more deliverables-based than hourly-based?
4. Do You Already Have a Business Idea?
If you have already researched a business idea, and feel as if you want to do that instead of working for someone else, can you pull it off? What steps do you need to take to make it a reality? Are you the type of person to be able to organize and take the steps needed to get your business off the ground? Can you find and afford help if you’re not sure what to do to get the business going? Does the thought of all this stress you out?
5. How Do You Feel about Punching a Clock?
For some people the idea of clock punching is relaxing, for others it feels like a nightmare. Neither feeling is right or wrong as it takes all types of people to make this world work. If you know up front that you are fine with punching a clock and you’d rather someone else tell you when to be someplace and what to do, then a work-at-home job is best for you. If that feels like prison to you, then a business is probably better if you can do what it takes to get it going.
6. Do You Have Money to Start a Business?
Starting any type of business, even an online business, requires an investment not only of time, but also of money. Have you worked out a business plan and do you know how much money you need to get started? Do you have that money available? If not, do you have a way to get it? Perhaps working at a job first, while you save for and work on your business on the side, is the way to go if you don’t have the funds to start.
7. Do You Need Training and Education?
Both working at a job and owning a business sometimes require skills that you don’t have yet. But that’s okay. Decide if you want to invest in the training yourself to get your business off the ground, or if you would like to try to find a work-at-home job where they will train you from the ground up.
8. What Is Your Biggest Dream for Your Life?
When you think of the future, what do you see? Does it sound relaxing to get up in the morning, have some breakfast, and move to your home office where you sign in to work at your job, taking a break when needed by telling your manager that you have to use the restroom, or go eat lunch and so forth, then when you get off work you’re totally and fully off? Plus, each week you collect a guaranteed paycheck? Or, do you like the idea of being able to do what you want when you want (and likely working more hours than you ever thought you could) but without the guarantee of a specific amount of income each week, knowing that you’re forging your own future?
Whatever you decide, neither is right or wrong. They are both good choices for you. Whether you want a work-at-home job so you can sign off after the day and focus 100 percent on your family, or whether you want a business that will cross boundaries into family time and vice versa but that puts you 100 percent in charge – both are good choices and choices that you are fortunate to have in this age of high speed internet.
