We all want residual income, right? I mean, we can trade time for money, but that only gets us so far.
If you are unfamiliar with the term, residual income is getting paid by doing the work once then profiting off it many times over.
Residual income does not have to be difficult. But it does take an investment of time upfront.
When I first started online, I tried many ways to get residual income. And made it more complicated than it should be.
I would try and create these huge, complex courses, buy rubbish PLR products and place affiliate links on my blog willy nilly.
Truth was, nobody was interested in this.
Truth was, I didn\’t feel right about it.
Huge Tip: You can\’t do something if it goes against your values…
This was also a lot of work upfront.
When frustration started boiling over, and I\’d almost given up hope, I actually did a 180 degree flip and started selling my time for money.
While selling services, two things became apparent.
- It is hard to leverage this activity because it involves your time
- If I became exhausted or needed a holiday, I had no income
Now I\’m not knocking selling services. I absolutely love what I do. But what I am saying is you need residual income for those dry times.
That\’s why I am going to share 7 ways that doesn\’t have to be hard. Ways to make residual income.
Residual income is getting paid by doing the work once then profiting off it many times over.
Create a tools I use page
This is something I\’ve been advised to do as a service based provider. And honestly I\’m yet to take this step.
You see, when somebody visits your site, they will often go to your resources page and see what you are using.
This is particularly true if it\’s your competitors. And the reality is, you can monetise on your competitors in this way.
What you need to do is use your affiliate links. But one big tip is to offer free resources as well so it doesn\’t look like an entire sales pitch.
Cancel redundant subscriptions
This doesn\’t really fall into the category of creating income. But it does count because you are saving money.
I learned this from my mentor, Angela Wills of Laptop Lifestyle. It was further reinforced by Nicole Dean (another coach).
Let me give you an example. Imagine you are paying for Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive.
These are all cloud storage facilities. Yes, I know there\’s some other features but stay with me on this one.
Let\’s say your purpose for having these was for extra storage.
Because they are all doing the same job, and you have more storage than you could poke in the eye with a long stick; I\’d advise you choose one and cancel the other two.
The same goes for training. Maybe you are paying two sources that both teach FB ads. Why not cancel one source and keep the best?
Create a course and put it on a third party platform
So maybe this method is not so simple to get started.
But hey, all methods take time upfront, right?
The trick here is to not worry about your website and technical infrastructure for your course.
Yes, it will need to be your own course; but you can put it on a third party platform like Udemy and get royalties for it.
I have created two courses for VA Classroom University in this manner.
But I also have a responsibility to answer questions. Although it\’s not overly time consuming.
My point is, you can go places if you have your own course.
Put entry level offers in your sidebar
Okay so sidebars are generally not a reliable way to showcase primary information. In fact, on mobile devices they tend to fall to the bottom.
But it doesn\’t hurt to place a relevant offer in your sidebar.
There are two points to this.
- It must be relevant to the blog post
- It should be a relatively low dollar offer and act as an impulses buy
This will also help build your list and relationship with the new customer.
Create an autoresponder series
Speaking of relationship and list building…
There is no better way to do this then by using an email series.
Not only can you build up your relationship with your new lead and get to know each other, you can also slip in offers and affiliates links.
In fact, this works well because it\’s on autopilot. You just write the sequence once, and it keeps on working for you for as long as you need.
Sell a newsletter subscription
Have you ever considered selling a premium version of your newsletter?
Well I have – at least considered it. But I\’m yet to do it.
Still from colleagues and mentors I think this works well.
You can share valuable, insider tips every week so people are expecting your email.
You can also slip in occasional upsell offers.
Put affiliate links in your downloads
By downloads, I am talking both giveaway reports and \”signup to receive\” reports.
I have done this with my website planner, by putting a resource list at the end, to help my followers know the tools I use.
One thing to love is that if your reports get shared, and go viral, you get the commission traffic.
Some Final Thoughts
Now I know what you are probably thinking.
I had a service based business. Isn\’t adding residual income just an extension? What if I\’m starting from scratch?
I will warn you that building a business does take time. Nothing happens overnight.
One thing I\’ve come to learn is that businesses are built strongly on relationships.
I\’m not just talking colleague relationships. I\’m talking about building relationships with your readers.
Let them in. Let them get to know you through your content.
It\’s highly unlikely they will trust your links and products if they don\’t know you yet.
A Special Invitation
If you\’ve made it this far, you might remember I mentioned one of my mentors, Angela Wills. Well she has a special group where you can learn a lot more about residual income, recurring income and other forms of income.
It\’s called the Laptop Lifestyle Club and is full of awesome people – including myself 😉
I love the level of interaction here because it\’s not just about learning, it\’s also about engaging with others.
You can check it out here if you think it\’s a good fit for you.