Earning Passive Income Online

Passive Income Online

It might just be the number one complaint of people working for others: trading you’re time for money.

Of course you may love your job or career. You enjoy solving problems and doing the work you were passionate at when you began. You genuinely like the work you do, but no matter how much you love your chosen field and those you work with, two things will continue to hold you back:

You—just like everyone on the planet—have limited hours available
If you aren’t working, you aren’t earning money

By definition, these two limitations put a cap on your earning potential. And while you may not want for anything—you may, in fact, be leading a wonderful, blessings-filled life—you still cannot make the impact you want to make, simply because you’re lacking in either time or money.

If you’re working all the time, then you have precious little time to…

Volunteer
Travel
Enjoy your kids and their growing up years
Pursue a hobby
Start a part-time business
Learn a new skill
Or anything else you’d like to spend your time on

And if you aren’t working, well, then you have less money for…

Family vacations
Charities
Church
Education (for you or the kids)
Exciting new hobbies
Or whatever else makes your heart sing!

It’s a true catch-22, isn’t it? You need to work more to earn the cash to build the life you desire, but the life you really want can’t be had if you’re working all the time.

The answer? Passive income.

Ask any successful entrepreneur, and they’ll tell you that the key to building a sustainable business that doesn’t burn you out lies in the ability to leverage your time by creating passive, recurring income.

Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. In fact, building up that stream of passive income will take a lot of work indeed. But once you create the systems, you can leverage them over and over and over again to create a steady cash flow that no longer depends on you and your time.

Just imagine the freedom that would bring! And it’s not that difficult to do, with just a little planning…

Passive Income Tip: Brainstorm a Digital Training Program or Small Course

This is going to be the cornerstone of your plan. Once you have a digital product to sell, all that’s required is to drive traffic to your offer. You can…

Mail your list
Use paid advertising
Recruit affiliates
List it on directory sites such as ClickBank or JVZoo
Blog about it
Ask other people to blog about it
Share it in forums and groups

Truthfully, there are dozens of ways to get eyes on your sales page, so even if you don’t have a list, you can still begin building your passive income plan with a training program or course.

All you have to do is create it.

Now before you move on, thinking you can never do this, let’s not overcomplicate it. Here’s a simple 3-step way to brainstorm a small course or training product:

What problem does your ideal client struggle with the most? Is she tech challenged and needs a step-by-step on how to create a landing page? Does she lack confidence, and suffer from mindset issues? Does she want/need to write a book but just can’t seem to get started?Whatever her trouble spot, a small training product or course will no-doubt help. Remember—you don’t have to solve all her problems, just this one, so keep it simple so you don’t get overwhelmed.
What format does your ideal client prefer for training? Your product can be video, audio, written, or any combination. It’s completely up to you.

What resources do you have that you can repurpose? You very likely have blog posts, short reports, Kindle books and other material you can quickly pull together to create a complete training. (And if you need some additional material, or even a starting point, be sure to check out the PLR that I use personally in my business and highly recommend at Coach Glue and DIY (Do It Yourself) PLR. Then get busy creating a training program or course you can sell online for years to come.

What other questions do you have for me on the topic of earning passive income online?

Body of Work – What Are You Creating?

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connie-tesla It wasn’t until I became an online entrepreneur in 2006 that I ever thought about creating a body of work. I’m defining that term to refer to “the collected output of a writer or artist, or at least a substantial part of it, over the course of their lifetime or a clearly defined period during their life.”

Once I published my first book during the summer of 2010 I became aware that all of my writing, including my blog posts, articles, short reports, eBooks, and then my completed manuscript for the book I published in paperback represented what it was that I was attempting to share with people on the topic of online marketing. Then I thought about my audio trainings, public speaking and presentations, and also my videos and saw that they were an important part of my body of work as well. In short, anything that you say or do related to your topic falls into this category, and I believe this makes you think about what you are creating and the legacy you will be leaving behind in a very unique way.

During 2016 I created online courses as a part of my “Really Simple” series, and this all began in January with my Internet Marketing Six Pack training course. For the first time since coming online more than a decade ago I cared about the impact I was having on people around the world in a way that I had never thought of before. This made me work even harder and more diligently to put together training programs that could help the people in my tribe to change their lives dramatically.

I’m not including social media as a part of the content we can create as a legacy for after we are gone. Why? Because the posts we make on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites is fleeting in the overall scheme of things. I would encourage you to spend time creating a body of work on sites that you own and control.

Do you think of what you are creating in your business as your own “body of work”? What other questions may I answer for you about this topic?

How to Write an eBook: Now Is The Time!

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How To Write An eBook

The question I am most often asked is on the topic of how to write an eBook. There is not a definitive answer to this, but I will tell you that it is extremely worthwhile to write an eBook as a part of your online business. Reasons for this include:

Becoming a published author on your specific topic
Being seen as an authority in your niche or industry
To have something to give away at no cost to attract new prospects
To sell for profit, on your own site of through Amazon’s Kindle program

When you go back less than a decade the idea of publishing your own book was not something most people thought of as a possibility. But the truth is that eBooks have been around for almost twenty years now. My friend Jim Edwards was instrumental in taking this concept mainstream when he began writing, publishing, and marketing his own eBooks back in 1997. Knowing how to write an eBook is life changing!

You may download a Special Report I put together with some of Jim’s guest posts for me on this topic. Please let me know if you are putting this all to work for you as an online entrepreneur.

And as far as publishing your own eBook, whether it be on your own website or for the Amazon Kindle program, it’s not a particularly complicated process. And when you look back after writing and publishing your first eBook you will see that the writing is actually the easy part.

The most important part of this process is building your platform and marketing your eBook before, during, and after it is written. I have done this successfully with more than a dozen books, and you can take a look at them here.

The truth is that it has never been easier to do this, and knowing how to write an eBook and build up a business around it is an excellent way to change your life and become an online entrepreneur. Even if I did not create any other information products, online training courses, live workshops and events, and my Online Marketing Incubator and Platinum Mastermind programs the income generated from my books would replace what I used to earn before coming online. I attribute this to what I have learned over the years and continue to learn from Jim Edwards 7 Day eBook program.

So before you think about having your book published by a traditional publisher or self-publishing it as an eBook, check out Jim’s completely updated training course. The main pdf is over five hundred pages of detailed, step-by-step training, and the course also includes additional webinar replays and more. This course will change your life and give you options as a published author and online entrepreneur.

Check Out Jim Edwards’ 7 Day Ebook Training Now

Content Marketing Tips for Your Business

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Effective Content Marketing Tips

In the spring of 2006 I launched what was to become my online business. I was completely new to entrepreneurship and finding my way on a daily basis. Determined to forge ahead, I spent time each day creating content around the topics I wanted to become known for. Even without any formal content marketing tips, this strategy was effective. Within months, Google and the other search engines of the day (remember Alta Vista and Lycos?) were picking up my articles and blog posts and sending me targeted traffic, all at no cost to me.

Fast forward to 2016 and content marketing continues to be one of the most effective strategies when it comes to getting all the clients and customers you want to your online or offline business. In fact, over the past several months I have attended two events on this topic, the Content Delivery Summit in New York City in May and the Content and Commerce Summit in Orlando during September. Finally I understand more fully how employing this strategy can make a huge difference in the bottom line of businesses large and small.

No longer are short articles (less than three hundred words in length) and blog posts enough to drive your business online. These days you want to create content that is relevant, substantial, and irresistible. And think multi-media (written, audio, and video) for even better results. I’ll share some examples of how I do this on a regular basis for my own business.

It all begins with your original idea. Once I have something in my head I think of this as the starting place for my next series of content pieces that will be shared far and wide with my target audience. I then write a blog post to flesh out my idea more fully and then publish it online. This means that my very best writing will first appear on my site, one that I own and control. This is an important part of the process.

Next, I’m ready to begin the process of marketing this content I have created. I stop by a site called “Just Retweet” and offer up a short blurb that will be tweeted out by others to their followers. Then I go over to LinkedIn to share an update with my connections there. While at LinkedIn, I go to their “Pulse” page to share my entire blog post, along with links and images.

Facebook is next on my list, and I will post this to my personal page and my group pages before going to “Notes” to once again share the entire blog post. Keep in mind that I haven’t even reached out to my own permission based database of prospects and clients at this stage of the content marketing process.

And content is not just in written form. I have a YouTube Channel for my business, and post videos with some regularity there. Keep them well under five minutes for best results. And audio works well when you want to share something people can listen to from almost anywhere. Here is an audio link I shared recently, where I was asked to give the Invocation at my Rotary Club: http://iTeleseminar.com/90223149. It comes in at two minutes and thirty-one seconds and as of this writing more than five thousand people have listened to what I said.

Are these content marketing tips starting to make sense for your business?

Content marketing allows you to share more about who you are, what you stand for, and how you can help others through your knowledge, experience, and expertise. I can almost guarantee that your competition is not doing any of this, or at least not in a way that will make a difference. What other questions do you have on this topic of creating content to market yourself and your business?

Check Out My Content Training Program at Really Simple Content Marketing

Marketing For Introverts in an Extrovert Friendly World

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Marketing for Introverts

When you think about marketing for introverts, what comes to mind? I have always considered myself to be an introvert, although I am perhaps actually an ambivert, which falls somewhere in between the extrovert and introvert personality. But here I’d like to open up the discussion of marketing for introverts, simply because so many of the people I work with also seem to be a part of this group.

Below I have shared a Ted (TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues) Talk from author Susan Cain on the topic of being an introvert in an extrovert friendly world:

Recently I read a book by Susan Cain entitled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. In it she shares her story of feeling undervalued and passed over in favor of people with more extroverted personalities since she was a small child. It turns out that one third to one half of the population is actually introverted, yet we tend to assign greater value to the people who make the most noise. You may be following someone who does not necessarily have the best, smartest, or most useful ideas, but who is the loudest and therefore got your attention.

So, how does this affect marketing for introverts? Actually it seems like an almost perfect fit, at least in my mind. I prefer working alone, abhor being forced to work with a group of people, and enjoy the solitude of spending much of my time behind my computer screen. That’s another thing that Susan Cain embraces; the concept that solitude matters. Anyway, having the ability to earn an excellent living without having to have people in your face all day long is a definite plus, at least in my way of thinking.

Something else I have learned about myself and others who identify as introverts is that we are not shy. This means that we can mix with and interact with people, especially at large marketing events, without an issue. I just know that, for me at least, I need time alone in my hotel room or away from the group at a nearby park to re-energize after being with lots of people for even a few hours.

So whether you are an introvert attempting to find your place in the world as an online entrepreneur, or someone struggling with marketing for introverts when you seek more interaction, think about how and why we think and act as we do and see what conclusions you come up with for your business. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic so we can have more of a discussion. Now not everything needs to be an open discussion, so comment or share only if you wish.

Podcast: List Building Tips Online

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List Building Tips Online

This month’s podcast is a discussion of list building tips online for internet entrepreneurs. Here are some of the points I explain in great detail during the training call:

The first question is…

Have You Chosen Your Primary Niche?

Before we can start building a highly responsive niche we must be clear about who we are and how we intend to serve those who come to us for information, advice, and recommendations. Answer these questions as carefully as you possibly can…

What are you interested in, have passion for, and experience with?
How will you serve those who come to you for information, recommendations, and guidance?
Are you willing to work diligently in this niche for at least six months?

List Building Tips Online

The above image is one you may remember from middle school mathematics. It is a three circle Venn diagram to help you choose the right niche for your online business. Once you have done this, you are ready to begin building your niche.

How Do You Begin Building A List?

Who are you?
Where will people find you online?
What are you offering in exchange for their name and email address?
How will you follow up with them?
When will you reach out to them in a unique way?

Think about each of these questions, listen to the podcast, and then comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and concepts in regards to how defining and refining your niche and building a responsive list will enable you to be a more successful entrepreneur.

These list building tips online are intended to focus and guide you through the process of building a success online business. If you’d like to download my latest Focus Guide on Repurposing Your Content, click on this link. Feel free to share it with anyone who may benefit from what I am sharing. Also, my Study Guides are available here for many of my recent podcasts.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this time. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

My most recent book is now available. It’s entitled Doing What It Takes: The Online Entrepreneur’s Playbook and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it by way of a review on Amazon after you read it and implement my suggestions.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

The Anonymous Vs. The Known

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Connie Ragen Green The anonymous web surfer travels through cyberspace on a whim, floating aimlessly and indiscriminately, or at least that is the perception.

The known user stands up and identifies himself, at least inasmuch as he are willing to share his
identity from behind the safely of the computer screen.

It’s the difference between visitors to Twitter and Facebook; the former allows anonymous eyeballs to stalk and absorb, whereas the latter requires that you are at least a “friend of a friend.”

Yes, you can protect your tweets and thereby hide your thoughts, ideas, and musings, but this may deny just the person who could most be of value to your life or business from finding you.

And yes, you can make your Facebook posts public, giving the anonymous more opportunity to peek behind your curtain of perceived privacy.

But what about the others sites where people can interact, such as forums and blogs?

Random, anonymous musings may have their place in the world, but we feel more validated when someone with a name, a gravatar, and a website of their own stops by and shares their opinion.

At some point you must decide whether you will leave your mark on the world anonymously, or come out from the shadows and reveal your true identity. This decision can be scary, risky, life-changing. It involves taking credit, or being blamed. It’s about taking a stand and voicing your opinion, or driving by quickly and yelling into the crowd. It’s about who you are and who you wish to be. Are you someone on the sidelines or someone who takes responsibility?

The Internet allows both, and it is up to you to decide which makes the most sense for your situation and goals. The sooner you decide, the sooner your life begins to make sense to the world.

Create an Irresistible Giveaway

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If you create an irresistible giveaway, will people visiting your blog, squeeze page, shy-yes page (this is a term I don’t hear much any more), or other website be more likely to join your list by opting in? In a word – yes. However, asking readers to allow you into their inbox requires an incentive worthy of their trust. Gone are the days when you could simply say, “Get our weekly newsletter,” and have a flood of subscribers. Today’s subscribers are much more discerning, and with overflowing inboxes (more on that later on) a problem for all, it’s more important than ever to create an offer that readers simply cannot refuse.

But don’t think you have to go all out and write a three hundred page eBook or provide a 6-module training course as your opt-in incentive. Quite the contrary, as today’s subscribers are in a hurry, and are often much more likely to need (and use) a simple checklist, worksheet, or resource guide. While that three hundred page eBook might sit unread and unused on her hard drive, a checklist your subscriber can turn to again and again will often be seen as much more valuable and will allow you to connect more quickly with them.

You probably already know exactly what your ideal client wants and needs—even if you don’t recognize it quite yet. Think about:

The most commonly asked questions in your help desk. If you’re continually fielding questions about the tools you use to run your business or which of your training programs are best for a beginner, then it’s easy to see that a resource guide would be well received.
Frequent thread topics in your Facebook groups or niche forums. Chances are you’ll see the same questions pop up again and again. For example, if your clients are virtual assistants, you know that just about every day someone asks, “Where can I find my first client?” A one-page, “How to land your first client” guide is the perfect incentive for this market.
Client surveys you’ve conducted. If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve most likely used this tool to find out more about your potential customers. Take the opportunity to read through the responses and see:
- What is the most pressing problem your market faces?
- What language do they use to describe the issues they face?
- Which resources would make it easy for them to move to the next level in business or in life?
Competitor’s offers. Take a look at what other coaches offer, but rather than aiming to duplicate their efforts, ask yourself where the gaps are in information, and how you can fill those holes.

You don’t have to create something from scratch either. You can design a new opt-in incentive quickly by repurposing other content. For example:

Repackage a free webinar & worksheet
Compile a series of blog posts into a PDF
Brand and package the checklists and worksheets you use in your own business
Offer a free chapter of your latest book

[Be sure to download my latest Focus Guide on Repurposing Your Content]

Exercise: Create Your Opt-In Incentive

Using the ideas here, decide what offer is likely to be most compelling (and useful) to your ideal client.

How to Register as an Amazon Seller

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How to Register as Amazon Seller

Once you’ve put together a plan, for what you’re going to sell, and where you’re going to source it from, getting started with Amazon FBA is a straightforward process. This is how to register as an Amazon seller:

The first step is to register as an Amazon Seller, and you can begin the process by going to amazon.com/fba and clicking the “Get started” button if you’ve previously sold anything on Amazon before through Seller Central (Seller Central has a number of programs in additional to Amazon FBA). Sign in to your Seller Central account and click the “Add FBA” button.
If you’ve never sold on Amazon.com before, then click the “Sign up here” link under the “Get started” button, and provide all the necessary information. You can find more information about Seller Central by visiting amazon.com.
In order to complete the setup process, you’ll need to provide your business name, address, and contact information. You’ll also need to provide your credit card number; telephone number; and your tax ID (which is either your Social Security Number, or your Employer ID if you do business through an LLC, Partnership or Corporation).

Create Your Product Listing

After logging in to your Seller account, mouse over the “inventory” link on the menu at the top of the page and click on “Add a Product.” You’ll then be taken to a page where you can enter the various details about your product, as well as upload photographs that show your item.

How to Register as an Amazon Seller

Consider the process by which many people shop on Amazon.com. They search by specific keywords and phrases, and the products that Amazon determines to be the most relevant to those searches will be displayed to the shopper.

Kind of sounds a lot like the Google search engine, doesn’t it? And the strategies for coming up with the best possible text for your product listing is similar, too.

How to Register as an Amazon Seller

Here are some tips for drafting your product listing:

Consider what words and phrases a potential purchaser is likely to use when searching for your product. Put those keywords at the beginning of your listing.
Use a keyword tool (such as Google’s Keyword Planner at https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) to help you identify various terms that are related to you product.
When you have a list of potential keywords, do searches for those terms on Google, eBay and even Amazon.com itself in order to verify the types of products that are displayed.
Identify the primary features and benefits of your product, and include that in the product description if possible.
If your product has multiple uses, include all of them in your product title.

Don’t just copy down whatever information about the product you received from the manufacturer. Treat your listing as seriously as you would the sales page on your own website because that’s essentially what it is.

Prepare Your Products for Shipping to Amazon’s Fulfillment Center

Depending on how your items arrived from your wholesaler, you may need to take the additional step of preparing those products for shipment to Amazon’s warehouse, so that they’re available for sale through your FBA account.

Labeling Your Products – Amazon’s fulfillment process is highly automated, so your product will need to be properly labeled. You may be able to use the existing UPC barcodes on your product (if your product is so labeled), or you might need to label them yourself with Amazon-specific identifying bar codes.

Once you’ve signed up for an FBA account, Amazon can walk you through the process of creating the necessary labels, although you will need to have your own printer and blank labels in order to do so. The detailed list of specific labeling requirements can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201100970.

Assign Your Inventory to FBA

After you’ve created your product listings in Amazon and prepared your products for shipment, you’ll need to assign them into your FBA inventory. In order to accomplish this you’ll need to do the following:

Log in to your Seller Central account.
Navigate to “Inventory” >> “Manage Inventory.”
Now select the products you would like to include as part of your FBA listings by checking the box next to those items in the leftmost column.
In the “Actions” pull-down menu, choose “Change to Fulfilled by Amazon.”
On the next page that appears, click the “Convert & Send Inventory” button.

Now you’re ready to physically-send your products into Amazon.com so that they can make them available for sale to potential customers.

Create Your Shipment to Send to the Fulfillment Center

In addition to the labeling requirements that we discussed above, you’ll also need to make sure that your items are packaged so that Amazon can quickly and efficiently pull them from inventory and ship them to your customers in single unit quantities. Your packaging must meet all applicable safety requirements that relate to both the products themselves as well as anyone who handles those products.

For example, if the product you want to sell is susceptible to dust or other damage either when it’s in Amazon’s fulfillment center, or as it’s being shipped to a customer, then Amazon has specific packaging requirements relating to those items.

So if you intend to package your manual coffee grinder together with a coffee mug, you must be sure that they’re securely packaged as a single item.

The complete list of requirements can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200243250. Be sure to visit that page if you are going to be selling any liquid, powdered, or granular products as well as jewelry items, and any item that’s particularly small.

What other questions may I answer for you on the topic of how to register as an Amazon seller?