Introduction
You think about it every day. In fact, it consumes you. You dream of the day when you can quit your regular job and start working for yourself.
The trouble is, you have responsibilities that you can’t ignore. You might have family to take care of, monthly bills that simply won’t wait, possibly children that rely on you and debt that will continue to pile up like a towering mountain above your head, waiting to swallow you whole.
Whatever has been holding you back from pursuing the opportunity to gain true financial independence through an online business of your own is certainly important and valid. Like many others, you simply can’t take such a huge gamble, and risk losing everything if it goes all wrong.
As someone who gave up the security of a regular income to chase after my dream of financial freedom through my own online business, I share your aspirations. I remember what it was like to crave the freedom to work for myself, and to pour all of my efforts and energy into something that was all mine, rather than giving the best of myself to an employer who rarely noticed.
And I too remember the challenges I faced when considering my departure from that steady paycheck that I so heavily relied on to support my family.
While I, like you, had faith that I could be successful with my own online business, it was years before I was ready to go “all in”. Faith and determination will be the fuel that guides you towards your dream, but reality and responsibilities will keep you grounded.
In fact, I didn’t budge from my job until I was absolutely certain that I would be able to continue taking care of those responsibilities because it was simply the ONLY way I could do it.
If you are genuinely interested in building successful of your own, and you desperately want to leave the daily commute behind you forever, I’m here to show you exactly how you can reach your goals.
There are no risks involved, and no gambles taken when you focus on building wealth one day at a time until you have created a solid, steady and reliable business that will quickly replace your current paycheck.
In fact, I’m confident that once you employ the strategies and ideas featured within this special report, your current weekly paycheck will quickly look like pocket change.
Let’s begin.
Changing Your Mindset
You are currently an “employee”, and when you make the switch to becoming your own boss, a lot of things will change outside of your daily routine.
For starters, your “mindset” needs to change dramatically. Instead of going through the daily motions as you currently do with the job you’re in, you’ll begin to think outside the box. Your creativity will be one of your most valuable assets because your online business will be guided by it, as will your path towards financial freedom.
Your mindset is also important in yet another way. One of the biggest mistakes that new entrepreneurs make is in sticking to the mindset of a 9-5. Right now, it’s likely that you do a set of tasks every single week at your job. Whether you’re involved in an office position, or you’re working in a labor-intensive position, you’ve been taught and trained to complete specific tasks in a specific way.
That will all change when you start working for yourself. Rather than focusing on one task at a time, you want to focus on building a business based around long-term success and automated, passive income.
In other words, you complete the task once – and it continues to pay off for years to come.
Let’s take a look at how you can start building recurring, passive income that will replace your current job.
Strategy #1: Affiliate Marketing
By far, affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways to make the transition into building self-wealth online, and for many reasons.
To begin, you won’t need a website of your own, or even a product. You simply choose existing products and services offered by online merchants and build marketing campaigns around them. You then receive a percentage of each sale (commission) each time you recruit a buyer or customer.
Affiliate marketing is not only one of the easiest businesses to get involved in; it’s also one of the most affordable, requiring very little start-up costs. In fact, many new affiliates have started to make money just by utilizing free online hosting accounts, or web space providers.
As you become more familiar with affiliate marketing, and you’ve seen some success with your campaigns, you will want to expand your business by registering keyword-driven domain names around the products and markets you promote. You’ll also want to consider building your own website so that you can better control the flow of traffic, and begin building your own database of customers, and subscribers.
One of the most important assets that you can build as an affiliate marketer is a list of your own. A mailing list enables you to connect with your target audience instantly, just with a couple clicks of your mouse. The more targeted your list is, the more responsive your subscribers will be to your offers.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can get started in affiliate marketing.
ClickBank Marketplace
While affiliates can promote a variety of both digital and physical products, the time and costs involved in building campaigns showcasing digital products makes it the popular choice for new affiliates.
Within the ClickBank Marketplace you will be able to quickly browse through new product launches, as well as evaluate current offers based on overall popularity, commissions being offered and the gravity of specific products.
Gravity is an indication of how successful a product is selling as it combines the number of sales from all affiliates promoting the product.
When evaluating products within the ClickBank marketplace, you should focus on products that have maintained a higher gravity score if you want to eliminate the risks of promoting a product that is difficult to sell. Note that gravity is a weighted sum and not an actual total
When evaluating potential products you first need to determine a niche market. A niche is a specific topic for a market, such as “Acne”, “Relationships” or “Weight Loss”.
A sub niche would be a segment or special category contained under the main niche.
For example, a niche would be “work at home” and a sub niche could be “Freelancing” or “Virtual Assistant Jobs”.
At this point you want to collect as much information as you can, so whenever you see a product that interests you, write down the URL, along with your affiliate link.
With ClickBank, affiliate links are referred to as “hop links”, and you can create your unique affiliate ID by signing up for a free account at www.ClickBank.com
Apart from the type of product you are going to promote, you also need to determine whether you are going to promote individual sale products or recurring offers.
With individual sales, you are paid a one time commission fee for each product that is sold as a result of your promotional efforts.
With recurring products that are traditionally set up on a membership structure, you are paid a recurring fee for each month that your referred subscribers remain a member.
You will be able to determine whether a product featured within the ClickBank marketplace is a single sale item or a recurring purchase by the “Future $” icon.
Strategy #2: Recurring Income Sites
Another powerful way to generate recurring income is through membership sites. With membership sites, you are able to build a recurring profit machine from monthly dues paid out by active members.
Membership sites don’t have to be difficult, nor do they have to take a lot of time.
You could create a member based website around the traditional platform, where you host a members center on your site and subscribers are able to log into a member account to access content every month or you could easily create a simple membership program around weekly or monthly emails set up through an autoresponder like http://www.aweber.com
The idea is to choose a specific theme and topic for your membership program so that you are able to target a very specific audience. Not only will this make it easier to maintain your site, but you’ll be able to develop marketing campaigns that speak directly to your customer base.
You want your membership program or offer to stand out from others in your market as well, which means that you need to add clear and distinct value, showcasing how your members benefit from staying with your program.
One of the easiest ways to demonstrate value is by offering proprietary content, that is exclusive to your website and not availabel anywhere else.
Even if you are unable to create this content or material yourself, you could easily outsource the work to qualified freelancers, by hiring writers and content developers from freelance marketplaces.
There are also many different types of material and content that you could offer your members as well.
Consider including video tutorials, guides, transcriptions, ebooks and reports. You could also interview experts and authority figures in your market who would be willing to share their experiences and tips in exchange for free publicity.
When it comes to creating a USP for your membership program, consider the format in which you offer content. If your competition is only offering content in ebook format, consider creating alternative material that will give your members options in how they learn (video tutorials, webinars, etc).
Always look for additional ways to add extra value to your membership program, and engage your members!
While the membership model is a powerful way to generate recurring, passive income, the more involved you are within your membership community, the easier it will be for you to grow and expand your program. Willingly accept feedback from members, and do your best to incorporate their ideas into your updates and releases.
You want your subscribers to be loyal and to remain a member for years to come. Demonstrate your commitment to building a membership COMMUNITY rather than just a website by listening to feedback, interacting with members and remaining active.