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I’ve been in a reflective mood for the last few months. Back in the summer my husband nearly died, his appendix burst (I thought it was food poisoning) and the hospital treated him and saved his life, which was no easy job as his system was flooded with poison. It was a big shock to my system, he’s 39 and I’m not ready to be without him, although I don’t think anyone is ever prepared for when this happens. It made me think about my revenue streams and how much he has funded Birds on the Blog and other sites of mine until they stood up on their own two feet.
Then I thought about my father. He retired from work when he was 40. He worked incredibly hard and made many sacrifices to achieve this. And here I am approaching 40 and no where near as independent as I’d like to be and I’m not yet able to retire to Tenerife and work from the beach. Although it has to be said that if I can take 3 months off over the summer to be with my husband, I’m not doing too badly.
At all comes down to trading time for cash. Do you still trade time for cash? Yeah I’ve moved much of my coaching into products. I’ve done this because I believe the best type of business to is one with recurring revenue that can be built upon each month, after all life is too short for any other kind 
.
In some circles this is called residual income or passive income. I prefer to avoid both of those terms as they can be associated with some sleazeball marketers, whose sole objective is to make you part with cash you can ill afford so that they can make money while they sleep.
The important factor is that if you start today to build recurring revenue it can have a huge impact on your business success tomorrow.
You’re probably familiar with the flashy sales pages that show the work at home person enjoying a life full of big houses, fast cars, and exotic vacations around the world. While all that is nice, we all know that just having a reliable income in which to support your family is the real goal, that you have more hours to be with the people you love (instead of the job that was meant to free up your time so you could spend it with the people you love…)
The following are recurring income ideas that almost any business owner can add to their existing business model.
- eCourse Sales
- eBook Sales
- Online Tutorials
- Membership Sites
- Affiliate Marketing
If you notice, all of the above require that you create products in addition to whatever other work you are doing. So it’s not a get rich quick route to the beach.
No matter what your role – whether you perform technical support, write content, perform virtual assistant tasks, graphic design or any other skillset that you have (it doesn’t matter what), you can create a product and sell your knowledge and expertise.
You are an expert in what you do, there is no reason you can’t teach other people how to do what you do. You can create information products that can be turned into streams of recurring income.
It is also possible to outsource the creation of the eBooks, eCourses, Tutorials, and even the entire set up of membership sites and affiliate program if you are not sure whether you can do it or not. Of course this means having to pay someone to do what you can’t or teach yourself how to do it.
Recurring revenue streams such as these are not “one off” sales like trading hours for dollars is.
The work, money and time you invest today will pay off down the road. It’s an investment in your future and investment in your independence in case the worst case scenario happens.
In fact, creating recurring revenue streams is a sure way to create a snowball effect in your business.
Don’t be frightened that you’re an “idea” person instead of a writer, you can hire a writer. Don’t worry that you do administrative tasks but aren’t very technical, anything you need done can be outsourced if you don’t want to or can’t take the time to learn it yourself. The other day I met a woman who intends to outsource every single aspect of her membership site. The only part that will contain “her” is her image on the front of the product! And whilst it’s not what I could could do, I do have to admire her for attempting this.
It’s said one of the most effective ways to start is to create an email membership eCourse.
You can set up the entire membership without being done with the eCourse. Set it up to be as long as you want it to be, six months, eight months or a yearlong eCourse where you deliver new material to your members each month. All you need is an outline to keep you on track and members who are relying on you to get the information to them.
Once you have completed an entire year long membership eCourse on any topic you can compile that and rework it a little bit to become an eBook that you sell outright either through your own sales page or via Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
Once you’ve accomplished these two things, you can “lather, rinse and repeat” . When you have enough eCourses and eBooks you can then start a membership site to house all of it and attract an entirely new audience. As you can see the sky is truly the limit on creating recurring revenue for your business and this time next year, I won’t be so reflective, I’ll be sipping cocktails from the beach.
Sarah Arrow
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Delighted that Kevin is fit and well again. It’s great to have some ideas about revenue generation. Everyone can benefit.
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Lynn Tulip recently posted..National Minimum Wage
Twitter: LynnTulip
Thanks Lynn, hope you are felling better now as well.
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Sarah Arrow recently posted..Getting found by your ideal readers: Anchor Text and Bio Boxes
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I’m over fifty and still not retiring to the beach (although I do work lying down!). Mybusiness model isn’t about selling my time, tha kfully (it was for many years, and then you have to stop working for whatever reason, and the income dries up straight away). Products are definitely the way forward. Now do you have any tips on how to find the time to produce them??
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Jane Hatton recently posted..Yes, I Really Do Hate Yo-Yos!
Twitter: evenbreak
Time to produce them… well I outsource some parts of product creation and automate other parts. For example, I used to outcourse my ebook to kindle conversion. Then I discovered Product Creator Pro and for $49 a month it converts them effortlessly in minutes. This means I have more time to put in creating and editing stuff.
The sooner cloning is invented, the more productive I will be
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Sarah Arrow recently posted..WordPress Video Training
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Thanks – that’s useful.
Cloning sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure the world is ready for more than one of me …
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Jane Hatton recently posted..Yes, I Really Do Hate Yo-Yos!
Twitter: evenbreak
Well, 40 is long gone, and I enjoy my work enough not to be in a desperate hurry to retire. My goal is to create enough valuable products to provide a more comfortable life for my family.
I like the term “recurring revenue.” Much nicer than passive income.
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Mary C. Weaver, CSCS recently posted..Bleeding for a worthy cause
Twitter: themusclediva
Oh Sarah, I laughed out loud at the ‘sleaze ball marketers’ bit, so true!
Rather than passive income, I think of it as scaling your business model. If we sell time for money then that is only scalable by the number of people hours you have available but if you scale products, then the opportunity is limited only by your marketing efforts and the utility of the information.
This is something we should all think about more seriously.
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sally recently posted..Prospect of Abraxane in Pancreatic Cancer excites ESMO 2012
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With a mortgage to pay and at least 10 years left to work, I, too have been reflecting a lot lately. As much as I like my job, I know there comes the time when I don’t want to drive to lessons in the evenings anymore (already don’t like driving in the dark much) and I’m wondering how I can gradually change my work. So,I’m looking at teaching more online or at home, and I’m thinking about writing books which will hopefully give some recurring revenue.
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Angelika Davey recently posted..Die Wochentage – Days of the Week
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Online teaching sounds like a good way, or a video course?
Let us know how it goes for you.
Twitter: saraharrow
Wow, great ideas on tools the one create for a recurring revenue stream. At 42, I’m 90% of the way there and have to say I like the fact that I don’t tout a huge house or fancy car or exotic vacations. I’m just a simple guy that wants more time to do what I want with the people that I want.
I will take some of the ideas into consideration and add them to my income stream. Thanks again.
Michael recently posted..AMSOIL Adds 10w30 OE Diesel Oil
Hi Michael, thanks for stopping by. Fab to hear you are 90% there, that’s awesome.
It’s funny how the houses and the cars are nice, but don’t speak to all of us
Twitter: saraharrow
I’ve begun to work towards this model myself by eliminating services and focusing on products. Why? Because I like my time… and dollars for hours is a time consuming model. Great post Sarah!
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Yolanda recently posted..Why I Do It – Part One
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Glad you liked it
, I just recommended someone checks out meanie camp – are you still running it or offering it as a home study?
Twitter: saraharrow
I like to think of this as a both/and proposition. Obviously, the more I can scale myself out of the time for money equation, the better. Which makes me think I need to plan my time accordingly. But there’s something to be said for immediate cash flow as well. And so I work on short-term, medium-term, and long-term projects. My long-term projects are the ones I use to make the residual income: for life.
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Steve Borgman recently posted..It’s The Little Things That Help the Tortoise Beat the Hare
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