Passive Income Archives - Page 2 of 5

Understanding Passive Income – According to Two Virtual Entrepreneurs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeV4jp63IRo

Following on from last week’s video with Dan Andrews from TropicalMBA.com, where we discussed Virtual Entrepreneurship, this week we attack the time-honored subject of Passive Income.

What follows is another light-hearted collection of random ramblings on the subject, peppered with a few golden nuggets of information, and a massive amount of props to my buddy Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com (including a special appearance from Pat, too!).

I’ve discussed the subject of making money online a lot on this blog, particularly on the VBL Podcast with guests such as John Chow, Pat Flynn, Chris Garrett and Glen Allsopp to name just a few. Why? Because passive income is a massively popular subject, and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

We discuss many points in this video, and break down what it means to incorporate passive income into your life as a virtual entrepreneur in general. You’ll find that this conversation was a little more serious than the first one – however, we did still have a few more out-takes for you at the end, just like last time.

If you have any specific questions on the subject of passive income that you’d liked answered, just drop them below, and likewise – if there are things that are working for you online, when it comes to your income that you’d like to share, feel free below, too.

How to Create Physical Products Without Breaking Your Freedom!

This is a guest post by Greg Rollett.

We have grown accustomed to all things digital, just take notice at the “everything iPad” world we are marketed to everyday. Even Amazon has recently jumped into “cloud overdrive” with their new promotion to give away 20Gig of cloud storage if you buy a music album (great deal btw).

But for every bad Windows commercial that proclaims “to the cloud” there are millions of people all over the world who still love going into a store and trading their hard earned money to rip off the plastic packaging and hold their newfound love in their hands.

For the majority of Chris’s audience, you have been conditioned towards creating digital goods and services.

Membership sites
eBooks
Videos and video courses
Podcasts and audio series
Mobile Applications
Blogs
and so on

And while I wholeheartedly agree with this business model, a recent project has taken control of my product creation creativity and spawned…GASP…a physical product!

Many things come to mind when building and releasing a physical product. From

Product creation
Manufacturing
Duplication
Scaling
Shipping
Returns
Customer Service
And on and on we go

Over the next few paragraphs I am going to do my best to share some physical product creation tips to help ease your mind and get you thinking physical and the value that will bring to your marketplace.

Product Creation

This phase many of you are familiar with. Take your ideas, skills and talents and bundle them up into a consumable format. Nothing new here. Where you really need to start thinking and planning in the creation of a physical product is the time constraints.

Check with your manufacturer (more on this in a few) to see the maximum amounts of storage available on certain mediums. With our recent DVD we were limited to 2 hours of footage and a certain amount of storage for those 2Gigs.

Many CD’s if you are doing an audio program can hold around 72 minutes. This needs to be included in your planning stage as we had to cut out a few chapters and even an upsell video in order for our information to be put onto the product.

Manufacturing

There are multiple options to choose from when you are looking for a company to produce your physical products. We have looked into a multitude of options working with musicians, entrepreneurs and with our own products and here are some items and tips that might be quite valuable to you.

If you have the means, think outside of the CD or DVD. There are other media options. Custom MP3 players with your branding and logo are a big hit and you can often find 1 Gig iPod Nano look alikes with your branding and material pre-loaded for less than $5/ea. These products have a high perceived value and can be sold in your store for $20-100 or over greater depending on the material.

The Chinese still have great prices and great turnaround, but be prepared to buy in bulk. (This is not an option for our company as we want low to no inventory and I’ll share some more of how we do this below.) For some musicians we have been able to source CD cases that look like Nintendo Cartridges, giant Hulk hands with custom download links on them and even recording devices that act as magnets we have used for show promotion.

Always get samples. Yes, this delays the timing of your launch, but by scheduling demos and samples you ensure that your CUSTOMERS, the most important part of this equation, gets the highest quality product that you can offer.

All of these options are great, but my favorite model of them all is the…

Print And Ship Model

The print on demand industry has been around for some time now with t-shirt companies like Zazzle and others that will print your picture on a coffee mug to send to your mom on Mother’s Day. But only recently has the industry become reliable in the same fashion as a fulfillment center, and at a cost where us online entrepreneurs can still turn a nice profit.

If you are looking to produce CD’s or an audio series (like a “best of your Podcast” physical product) I would recommend looking into a California start-up called Audiolife. They are one of my favorite companies with great customer support, above high-quality printing and timely shipping of the products.

Even better for you is that they can act as your storefront via a widget or custom code, collect your money via PayPal, redirect their portion and then send you your profits. All of that happens while they print your product and ship it out. Meaning you never have to touch it, see it or package it. That is truly collecting money on autopilot if there is such a thing.

My other big source is what we are currently using for our new DVD, and that is Kunaki. This has been an Internet Marketing trade secret for some time now as they can print and ship a DVD for about $5. Yes, you read that right, printing and shipping for $5. And for you cool kids getting a few orders a day, you can just import your order list into Kunaki, pay for the DVD’s and they will print and ship them right to your customers.

Thus solving the issues of spending time with inventory and shipping and still covering your margins to run a highly successful virtual business.

Boo-yah!

Will You Go Physical?

There are hundreds and thousands of other ways to source and build physical products, but these are some of the best we have found and the ones that have been working for us. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are and if you have any tips or resources for people looking to create physical products and not create inventory or stress into the freedom of our business.

Share your thoughts below.

Greg Rollett comes to us from over at Radically Ambitious, an Internet Marketing and Lifestyle Creation Company. Want to learn more about physical products or just chat, find Greg on Twitter as well.

How to Get Your Virtual Entrepreneur Juices Flowing More Than Ever Before!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBFf-hhFDw

Today we have the beginning of a 4-part video series with fellow virtual entrepreneur and business owner, Dan Andrews. You might already be familiar with Dan, as he also contributes pretty regularly to this blog, too. As someone that produced over $800,000 in revenue – virtually – for his businesses last year, he has a few things to stand up and take notice of.

Dan is a full-blown virtual entrepreneur, lives in the Philippines for the majority of the year and we’ve hooked up on various occasions. What usually ensues is a fantastic entrepreneurial breeding ground of ideas, lessons, tips and tricks – and this video series is no different, I can tell you.

Be sure to watch right the way through to the end of the video for some out-takes, including our Soprano impressions – they are worth the price of admission alone!

In this first video we discuss being a virtual entrepreneur and business owner, subject points such as:

Building your online brand.
Launching a product / service to a small and large audience.
The differences between old school and ‘new school’ entrepreneurship.
Why you need to really care about your ‘business world’.
How your processes need to be put in place ASAP.
Why ‘lifestyle design’ has become so much more than just a ‘search term’.
Tons more stuff…!

Dan does something to me, personally. When I’m talking with Dan my own virtual entrepreneur juices get flowing very, very quickly. To be able to get on the same level with someone like that does great things for your thought process. We also seem to have a LOT of fun, too.

The second part of this series will go live next Monday, so be sure to subscribe NOW, via either RSS, or by downloading my free eBook, to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the goodies that are coming up!

Until then, if you have any comment, or questions in regards to virtual entrepreneurship, feel free to drop them to us below. And if you’re feeling ‘sweet’, then please Retweet, too! 🙂

To Whom and HOW You Should be Selling Your Online Products!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYwE5bugAFs

When it comes to embracing the Virtual Business Lifestyle, there are a number of core concepts involved. If you’ve not been visiting the blog for too long, they are listed at the top of the site – namely Entrepreneurship, Passive Income, Outsourcing and Super Mobility (click on one to see the archive for the category – after finishing today’s post, obviously!). One of the main focuses on creating a lifestyle that revolves around being a mobile entrepreneur is creating products or services that can ultimately become Passive Income streams. I say ‘ultimately’ because even ‘passive income’ products have to come from a lot of hard work and time spent on them to get them to ‘market’, or launch, as they are more commonly known as online.

It’s NOT as Easy as 1, 2, 3

Producing a product to sell online is not as simple as just coming up with an idea, getting a domain name registered and a landing page created! Like most things in life, you’ll get out of your product, what you put into it. As I’ve spent a bit of time going into finding a niche before (my quick-fix approach to it, anyway), today I wanted to take you through some ideas on two very important aspects of product, or ‘muse’ creation. Namely, who you should be selling ‘as’, and more importantly whom you should be selling ‘to’… as well as a few ideas on ‘how’ to sell to them.

I hope you enjoy today’s post, and I look forward to your comments, as always.

Creating a Kick-Ass Free eBook to Build Your Brand (Part 1 of 3)

On Monday last week I announced this series of three posts that begins today. I was blown away by all the awesome comments and emails I received. Seriously – you lot are a seriously smart, demanding bunch! Just joking… After digesting everything and going back to my original mindmap for this series, then adding in your suggestions to hopefully fulfill your ‘needs’, here we go…

So, today we start the series on how to create a kick-ass free eBook which you can use to help build your brand, as well as help promote and market your blog, product, service, with taking a look at Creating the Concept of your eBook, the time-honored question of ‘Quality, or Quantity’ and how important the Design and Layout of your eBook is.

Initial Housekeeping Notes

Although I have tried to make this series of posts as informative and as easy-to-follow as possible, you might still see the odd crack in the ‘process’ being presented here. This is because, quite frankly, I wanted this to be a simple to follow series, with practical advice and tips, and not go into too much detail on any one subject matter – saying that, there is still plenty of meat on the bones, and if you have any particular questions, feel free to let me know.

Kindly note, this series is about creating a FREE eBook. One that you will give away for absolutely no profit. If you want a more in-depth guide to creating an eBook that you can sell, I strongly suggest you check out Pat Flynn’s eBookstheSmartWay.com (free), and Dave and Naomi’s HowtoSellYoureBook.com (paid) – I’ve read and used BOTH in my eBook marketing, and they’re great.

Most Importantly: Create something that you feel is good enough to sell, but then give it away for free! This will ensure that the quality of your eBook is high, that its incredibly informative and will genuinely make a difference to the reader once they have finished reading it. I did this with ‘Saving the Day, the Virtual Way’, and have had so many awesome emails from people, that it was certainly worth all the effort.

Creating the Concept

First and foremost, don’t write about anything that you know nothing about. It’ll be so obvious that you’re bluffing and simply not worth your time! Secondly, here’s probably the biggest, most important tip you will get from this entire series – write your eBook for your audience, not for yourself. Look into solving problems for other people. If this comes about by taking care of a problem YOU have to start off with, thats fine. Solving problems for people is the oldest and most powerful ‘sales’ strategy out there.

You might have a very clear picture of what you want to write about. If so, and you know it’ll benefit your audience, then go for it! One thing that you should also consider is doing a survey with your current readership first. I did this a while ago when we re-designed the VBL Blog, and I can tell you, the feedback I got was priceless – worth more than any amount of sales, as it allowed me to tweak the design of the site to help people navigate it properly and enjoy their experience on the blog more. I also did something similar when trying to find my ‘core’ readership, and when when asking for feedback on an upcoming product I’m putting together.

Among the most successful digital products out there, almost all of them are ‘How To’ types of products. Your giveaway eBook should be no different. Not only are ‘How To’ guides really simple to put together, but they are easy to read and generally get downloaded more than the other types of freebie eBooks out there.

Every good story has a beginning, middle and an end. Your eBook should be no different. So, break your contents down into three main sections. It’s a good idea to sit down and plan this part of your eBook out very clearly. I’m a big fan of mindmaps. I use them, literally, every day. Now I use my iPad to do most of them, but, back in the beginning of 2010 when I produced ‘Saving the Day’, I mapped things out on a small whiteboard I have in my home office.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the original mindmap… You’ll see I already intended to add additional content to it, and make an audio version, even back in those earlier days. Although I did it nearer 3000 downloads, not the 1000 noted here!

Firstly, I presented the problem. I talked about how busy entrepreneurs are, and that if only they had solid, dependable help they could get so much more done on a daily basis. Then, I went into the solution side of things. Again, by way of example, in my free eBook I talk about virtual assistants, what they do, how they do it, etc. Then finally, I wrapped everything up with the ending – what the solution can mean to the person reading. In my case the solution is finding, hiring and working with a VA to enable the busy business owner to gain more time in his/her day-to-day life, create more business ideas, strategize for growth, spend more time with family and ultimately become more successful, all by utilizing a VA.

Quality, or Quantity?

This is a highly debated topic when it comes to giving away a freebie eBook. Fact is, if the eBook has lots of pages, then it looks as if people are getting a lot more for their ‘download’ buck. However, what if all the content on those pages is a load of old rubbish..!?!!

A while ago, when I was discussing how often I was going to be updating this blog, and the struggles I was having in keeping up with the schedule I had put in place, the most commented-on topic was over the fact that quality matters more than anything else. Visitors were very clear that they would rather come to the blog twice a week, or three times a week for QUALITY posts, than five times a week, for soft or ‘weak’ quality posts.

So, bottom line here – quality – every time. The fact is that I’ve downloaded some eBooks that are just a handful of pages long (personally, I wouldn’t call these ‘eBooks’, but rather ‘Special Reports’, or something similar), and they have been great. However, I’ve downloaded 100+ page eBooks for free and they’ve been mediocre at the best of times.

There are a few exceptions to this rule. Namely, Jonathan Mead and Colin Wright – their free eBooks are nothing short of spectacular, and both great in length and content. I’m sure there are more, but these gentlemen really stand out for me, personally. Note: You’ll see interviews with both these guys on the VBL Podcast soon. They are in being edited, as we speak!

Things Not to Forget

There’s a few things that you certainly do not want to forget to include in your eBook. Firstly, make sure you have some kind of disclaimer / copyright page set-up. In my eBook’s I dont go too heavy on this, but I do make sure to tell everyone that they should feel free to distribute the eBook further afield, however, not to remove or edit anything in anyway, shape or form – that just aint cool, baby!

You should also be sure to include some links to other valuable sources, either on your own blog, and other peoples, too. You can also link to relevant products and services that might help people further, too (we’ll go into this a little more on Wednesday) – just be sure not to link-stuff, too much!

And lastly, be sure to hype yourself a little, at least. A simply ‘About the Author’ page is certainly needed, with a nice image.

Design & Layout

Most people I have spoken to on this subject believe that you can have the most amazing design in the world, but if the content is crappy then you won’t get very far, in the overall scope of things. I agree. However, the importance of standing out, and making sure that the design of your eBook is nice, clean, professional and helps to build your brand is, as far as I’m concerned, just as important as the content.

Although I have a flare for creativeness (my father was an architect, my mother an interior designer), I do not know how to use Photoshop, and quite frankly, when I have such phenomenal support around me, there is no real reason for me to learn how to, either. I come up with the concept, sit with my designer and then he will put it all together. We’ll work as a team, finalize the layout template and then he’ll simply dump the rest of the content into the approved layout. Viola! Your eBook will be finished in no time.

Firstly, having a rockin’ cover will certainly help gain attention. Be sure to spend time on the title. Be original here, guys! Innovative, don’t follow… And the internal pages should be on a white background and a dark covered text, just in case the person that downloads your labor of love wants to print it out. I like to keep images to a minimum in my eBooks, this gets the reader to focus on my content, rather than pretty pictures and colors. See some examples from ‘Saving the Day’, below:

Front Cover, Internal Content Page and the ‘About the Author’ Page in “Saving the Day!”

You’ll see with this eBook, I came up with a superhero theme. Hence the title and the colors, and front cover Superman-style logo. I loved this when my designer finished it up – but, I will say, the ‘concept’ was ALL ME!!! 🙂

You’ll also see that we continued to brand the eBook with the logo internally, too (my designers idea, not mine!) and it worked out great! I highly recommend going with a landscape style layout, as its easier to read on a computer screen – the way eBooks should be read – on a monitor. When you’re done with the layout and the design aspects of the eBook get to focusing on the editing of your content.

Go back through what you’ve written. Focus on just the MEAT of the content itself. Any ‘prettying’ of sentences, etc., lose them. As I always say, sometimes less is more. Remember that. This will enable you to create content that is easy to read, keeps people turning (or clicking) the page and ultimately means that the reader experience is top quality all the way to the end of the eBook.

So, that just about wraps up this first installment of this weeks 3-part series. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and in case you have any additional questions on anything that you feel I might have left out on this part part.

If you’d like to see my entire eBook, including the additional content and the AudioBook version, you can download it here.

See you on Wednesday with Part 2 of the series where I go into how you can now use your eBook to start gaining more subscribers, building your email list, and the tools you can use to make this important activity easier and more successful than you can possibly imagine and… how you can STILL make money with your eBook, even though you’re giving it away for free!

If you liked this first installment – Please share on Twitter, or Facebook!

Ask the Readers: Do you Work 9-5, or are you Your Own Boss already?

Short, sweet and to the point today, guys…

I’m on my way to Singapore over the weekend for a little mini-vacation and a few days of decompression with my wife. We like to get away regularly. In the meantime, I wanted to ask one very simple question to get a clear understanding as to the type of people I now have visiting this site.

It’s going to take you exactly TWO CLICKS to give me all the info I need to continue on the right path, and make this site Number One in its niche, going forward into the rest of the year and beyond, so please click below…

The main reason behind this little poll is that I want to start making the content here on the VBL Blog a hell of a lot more focused. Niching it down, baby! I want to continue to help, inspire, educate and support everyones dreams and aspirations. But need to know WHO I am doing this for the most, to fine-tune things a little.

If you have more to say on this subject, along with any ideas – thats awesome!!! Comment section below – you know the deal…!

Replace Yourself Like a Ninja: How I’ve Disappeared from Another Business!

Replace yourself, Chris!!! What? Again?! Fair comment, but, over the last six weeks I have seen an incredible boost to the sales numbers over at Virtual Staff Finder. Since we launched the service back in September this year, we’ve done good, steady business – but, since the beginning of the year we’ve experienced roughly a 30% increase in sign-up’s.

This has done two things. One – made me happy, obviously, as we’ve been able to help tons of great entrepreneurs find solid virtual employees. And, two – made me VERY busy. Let me explain why…

Virtual Staff Finder helps business owners and entrepreneurs, both online and off, to find good quality, reliable virtual staff. Simple enough for us to do – we’re here in the Philippines, I own and operate an outsourcing company and have years of experience in the field, I have great support staff and a clear marketing vision locally – so we attract GREAT home-based VA’s that want to be involved in what we’re doing and get work with awesome overseas employers, that have ‘Replace yourself, Mike!’ written all over their thought process!

However, part of the process of the VSF service includes a 30min consultation with yours truly. Do you see where I’m going with this now..? You got it – the busier we get, the more people that sign-up to utilize the service, the more consultation calls I have to do.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I absolutely LOVE doing these calls. It allows me to connect with great entrepreneurs and likeminded people, and I’ve actually become good buddies with a few of the VSF clients. But, and for me as a Virtual CEO, its a BIG but… It’s taking massive chunks of my time away from me. My entrepreneurial clock was being slowed done because of the step – regardless of how much I was enjoying interacting with the clients.

So, last week the decision was made to fundamentally take me out of the process. In fact it was my VSF project manager that actually came right out and said, “Boss, you need to replace yourself to be able to focus on other things, too”. She’s awesome! Thinking about it, if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to be able to continue to grow my core business, the Live2Sell Group, as well as the Virtual Staff Finder service – plus, launch all the other projects I am working on for this year, such as the first ever VBL Product – more news on this next week!

The Problem

With this decision, however, came a problem. I had noticed that on pretty much all of these calls I was coaching and helping the clients through vital decision making steps in working with VA’s. How to train them. How to pay them. How MUCH to pay their VA. How to keep them motivated, and so on.

Surely the success of the people that signed-up for the service, in regards to working with the VA’s, must have something to do with all those tips, tools and tactics I was giving them on the call. But, if the call wasn’t part of the VSF equation any more, how would I be able to help the clients?

The Solution

After much deliberation, and several trips to Starbucks, myself and a select few staff at the Live2Sell Group decided that I was going to shoot a series of exclusive videos that would help coach the clients through the entire process, just as if they were on the phone with me. The content of the videos would be pretty much identical to the calls I had been making for the last almost-six-months, but, it was a one-time deal. Once they were shot, edited and uploaded, I would never have to do it again. “Talk about literally, replace yourself!”, I thought to myself… The tick-tock of my entrepreneurial clock was sounding again!

So, Monday last week, I worked on Powerpoint presentations – just simple white screen, black typeface, to be able to follow when I was filming, so that the information was concise and to the point and so I wouldn’t just waffle on… Then, the next day, we shot the videos in one sitting, back to back – surprisingly fast, with no do-overs, thanks to the Powerpoint slides. Then, on Wednesday, they were edited and finalized.

At the beginning of this week we made several very fine adjustments to the VSF Website, that changed certain wording in regards to the consultation call, and everything is now set. For me – this service now becomes a brand new 100% passive income product. As my good friend, Pat Flynn would say “Awesome..!” (in only the way that Pat could say it..!!). Well… Almost.

What Do You Mean ‘Almost’…?!!

As some of you may know, I also offer consultation services on this website – in case you’ve never checked out that section, you can do so for information on personal branding coaching, VA support services and general entrepreneurial brainstorming, amongst other things. So, I still DO a certain amount of consulting – why? Because I enjoy it, plain and simple.

So, what I decided to do, right at the last moment, was to include the ability for people to still have that VSF consultation call with me, however, for a slightly increased price point. Instead of the $350 usual fee, we’re pricing it up at $500.

Ultimately, I don’t expect a lot of people to sign-up using this option. At the end of the day they are using the service to find a qualified, experienced virtual assistant, not to talk to me. However, giving them the opportunity to do so, I believe shows that although I am not part of the ‘normal’ process any more, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my clients. And they ARE my clients. It’s my company, after all.

So, that is the tale of how I went about the mission to replace myself from a day-to-day business model, for the second time in 3 months! 🙂 – Getting good at it, aren’t I..?!!

Why I Wrote This Post

Simple. I wanted to illustrate that although sometimes you start a business in one way, it doesn’t mean that the business has to remain that way. Stagnant. Unmovable. Unchangeable. Especially when the success of that business stops you from doing other things that you want to!

This type of move is commonly called an ‘entrepreneurial pivot’. Much like the pivot in basketball, where you plant one of your feet in one particular position, and although you cant then move that foot (its superglued to the floor!), you can still rotate and reposition it to give you more options of a pass, or shot. The entrepreneurial pivot is a powerful weapon, and one that I have used countless times to great success. And, I’m also planning one for this blog to happen soon, too!

What Says The Crowd…?!

I’m curious to know what you guys think of this plan, and whether you think it will affect the service in general and – ultimately, its sales. Personally, I think I’ve covered pretty much all the bases in those videos and my support staff on the service are all AWESOME, and take great care of all our clients.

The concept to replace yourself as a business owner might not always be your first choice. However, like I said… Hearing from you guys (as you’re such a smart bunch!), would be great… So, please let me know what you think.

Finding Your Niche in 20mins or Less, with 3 Simple Steps!

Note: I strongly suggest you check out my Resources Page for information and convenient links to lots of resources that’ll help you build your online niche based business. Check it out!

This is a post a lot of people have asked me to write. So, here goes!

Finding a niche as an aspiring lifestyle designer, digital nomad, web entrepreneur, internet marketer – whatever you want to call yourself – is about as important as remembering to take your skiing equipment on a visit to Switzerland! If you don’t, you won’t get very far.

I’ve been in the ‘real world’ of marketing for 20-years. It’s only over the last 18-months that I have become a huge student of everything internet marketing related, as part of my quest to become a Virtual CEO – leaving me to not only live the life I want to, but continue to grow my brick ‘n mortar business, as well create and launch a huge amount of online business entities as well.

I know what my ‘overall’ niche is. It’s mobile entrepreneurship. However, that’s just the beginning. If I want to create and market successful online products and services, I need to focus on finding a niche, not just once, but over and over again, to be able to create countless business opportunities for myself online.

Lets face it, when you start something new for business (anything!) there is always a lot to take on board. And if you’re like me, you really look at every angle so that when you do launch something it has the absolute best opportunity to succeed. Finding your niche and getting to the point of finding niche market keywords isn’t any different. Trust me.

However, instead of getting bogged down with all the flashing lights of plugins and software you can use and techniques the ‘pros’ promote and make money from, I decide to keep it surprisingly simple. Easy. Quick.

Step #1 – Finding Niche Market Keywords to Work With

This is the really fun part when it comes to finding your niche! You get to play around here, and search for niche ideas, which is super-easy with Google’s External Keyword Tool. This is a free tool that allows you to find out both local and global search volumes for certain keywords, related keywords, as well as the competitiveness of those keywords, too.

For this example, I’ve chosen the keyword ‘how to kiteboard’.

It’s invaluable for the entrepreneur wanting to focus on finding a niche to exploit and make money from!

You’re basically going to want to find keywords that pull in an absolute minimum of 1,000 global searches a month (some people chose this number to be affiliated with local searches, however – its a global economy, right!?), but preferably, twice that amount. You’ll also want to be sure that they are not overly competitive, too.

Out chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’ has a global monthly search volume of 3,600. Perfect!

Step #2 – Checking Out the Competitiveness of Your Keywords

Once you’ve spent some time finding niche market keywords that you want to work with, and subsequently figured out what keyword you’ll focus on, you can then check out how competitive is really is!

Do this simply by going to Google.com and typing in your chosen niche keyword. You then get to see how many other pages get listed in the results for the keyword, along with any PPC competition, too!

You should also spend a bit of time checking out the video and image search results, too – not for any major reason, but its nice to see what other type of ‘competition’, other than the organic results and PPC customers, is out there when finding your niche in general.

Step #3 – Deciding on ‘No’, or ‘GO!’

Based on the results of the competitiveness test you’ll be able to figure out if you are going to move forward with your niche idea.

Here’s the deal – in our chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’, there were just over 96,000 websites that popped up in a simple Google search on the keyword. Plus – I hit the refresh button 10-times and the only two PPC ad’s for the same keyword were the only two ad’s that were shown on each attempt. Meaning, there is very little ‘paid for’ competition.

This leads me to believe that because the organic competition is low, and there is very little paid advertising on the keyword, in this case, it would be a ‘GO!’, rather than a ‘No’. If there had of been a boat load of PPC ad’s on the sidebar and at the top of the results page, I probably would not have gone forward with this as a potential niche.

Once you’ve decided its a ‘Go!’, select a domain name that fits your keyword perfectly if possible. Also – try and include a few different keywords all within the same keyword. For example, with our keyword ‘how to kiteboard’, we could select and register any of the following:

howtokiteboard.com (includes our primary keyword and ‘kiteboard’)
howtostartkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, plus the domain name itself is a keyword, ‘kiteboarding’ and ‘start kiteboarding’)
howtogetstartedinkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, and lots more!)

Your Domain, Hosting and Developing Your Niche Site

Registering your domain and hosting your site – Once you’re ready to go ahead and register your domain name, seriously consider doing so through BlueHost (be sure to watch my free step-by-step tutorial to setting up your Bluehost account in less than 10-minutes!), as you get your hosting taken care of at a great price and the domain name is on the house! I personally use these guys for pretty much ALL of my websites and blogs.

One of the really cool features from Bluehost is their one-click WordPress installation. You need know absolutely ZERO coding or programming, it does everything for you!!!

Designing and developing your blog / niche site – When it comes to themes and designing your blog/website, if you want to go big, and get real pro right out of the gate, I suggest you look into the Rainmaker Platform, which is what THIS website is built with. To keep things a little more simple, once you’ve got started with Bluehost, you can visit StudioPress to get your site looking pretty.

Passion Will KILL Competition – Always!

Here’s the deal… If your chosen niche keyword has a certain amount of competition, more than you would usually be happy with, but you are super passionate about the niche you’re thinking of getting involved in, go for it! In my mind passion will always overcome plain old competition. It’s the passion behind Zappos that’s made them the driving force behind shoe sales online – even though there are a ton of people selling shoes online.

So, I hope my simple 3-Step process to finding a niche has got you all excited and about ready to click over to the Google’s External Keyword Tool to start checking out your own ideas. Remember, finding your niche is just the beginning, however.

Once you’ve done it, and the domain is registered, and your theme is installed – then its time to start creating your content, building your links and kick-starting your email marketing list.

Good luck!

Setting Up a Consultancy So I Can Make Money While I Sleep

Everybody wants the 4-Hour Workweek dream of being able to make money whilst they sleep or travel around the world. Myself included, if the truth be told. But, lets face it – its pretty hard to do. The fact is, however, it used to be a hell of a lot harder than it is today, and I believe that as time continues to go by, it will actually become a lot easier than it is today, even. Here’s why…

I now make money while I sleep. There, I said it.

The new-age entrepreneur is a totally different breed of entrepreneur than we had 10, or 20 years ago. We are now a lot more tech savvy in general. We are also hungrier, I believe, than ever before to make money. And… We have this remarkable business partner just ready and waiting to get into bed with us and help us to start making money – perhaps not overnight, but nonetheless. That partner is called ‘The Internet’.

If you have an idea for a product or a service that you feel can genuinely help solve a problem for someone, get them to the next level in their career, or just make their life easier, then you can, utilizing the internet and all that goes with it (such as social media, etc.), start making money whilst you sleep.

How I am Now Making Money While I Sleep

A couple of months ago I set up a new consultancy service, Virtual Staff Finder (this is NOT going to turn into a plug for the service, I promise – you can read that here, if you like!). Since then, I have done very little SEO on the website, and absolutely no traditional marketing at all for the service. All I’ve done is focus on the community that I have been lucky enough to build online, and to utilize the power of incoming leads from the website of my outsourcing company, the Live2Sell Group.

I set up the Virtual Staff Finder service because every day we get a lot of inquiries from entrepreneurs all around the world wanting to hire virtual assistants, and other types of virtual staff (telemarketers, book-keepers, etc.) – but, want them to be based at home, for the cost saving benefits, obviously.

Although as a company, this is something that we didn’t used to do, the businessman inside of me finally came around to thinking that it was a real waste to a) not be able to help these entrepreneurs and b) make some money from doing so!

The Process of Building my Online Consultancy Business

I did my research and found out that there was nobody else out there, with the experience and reputation in the outsourcing industry that I have, that was doing anything similar. So, I got going with it.

Here’s what I did to get this ‘idea’ to market in less than 4 weeks:

Brainstormed and eventually registered virtualstafffinder.com domain name.
Plotted out how the process of the service would work, fine-tuning it to death to make it as simple as possible for both the entrepreneurs using the service, and us, too!
Sat with my web developer (who works for me full-time, in-house) to come up with a concept for the website, and a minimum of 3 different designs. I also decided that I didn’t want the site to be a blog style, but rather a static website which didn’t very little attention, to save my time.
Put together the written content, and shot the ‘welcome’ video clip.
Set-up several different avenues, locally, within the Philippines to be able to find the talent needed from the virtual staff side of things (which is actually still on-going all the time, although is now done by my VSF Project Manager).
Got going with an e-Junkie account, and linked it up via Paypal to be able to accept online payments.
Tweaked and tweaked the website, until we were happy with it (we will, however, be making some changes soon).
Went Live!

And that is it. Not a lot required, and to be very honest, if my web development guy wasn’t working on several projects at once, the chances are we could have got this entire thing up and running in perhaps half the time.

Since the launch we’ve had 25 people sign-up for the service (average of 3 per week) at a rate of $350 a pop. That’s $8,750 in around 8 weeks, or $4,375 a month – almost $220 per business day. And here’s clincher here, above and beyond everything else. I’ve made the majority of those sales while I was sleeping. Seriously.

Because I live here in the Philippines, when you guys are up and about in the US, I’m hitting the sack – usually by your lunch time. So, when I wake up in the morning (around midnight EST most days), I check my email and start the day with a smile.

Here’s a couple of instances where sales have come in at ‘odd’ times just recently… I’ve had 2 sales come through whilst at my Son’s playgroup (on separate occasions). I had 2 come in within the space of a 3 hour meeting with a client when I was in the US last month, one at BlogWorld and just yesterday I had 3 sales come through whilst working out and then having lunch with my wife.

Is This Truly Passive Income?

Simply answer, to a simple question – no. Not really. But again, I am now to the point where I know I can make money while I sleep. The ‘getting the order’ is passive. However, because its a consultancy service, once the order comes in, the work begins. First with a consultation call with the client, then with my project manager and her team sourcing, interviewing, testing the candidates, communicating with the client, etc. But, you don’t hear me complaining, do you..? That fact is that we service our clients well, and my company makes extra money. Money, that if I hadn’t of started the service, we wouldn’t be making.

Looking back into the archives of this blog a little, you’ll see I did a video post where I discuss 6 Different Passive Income Ideas, and lets face it, by definition, passive income should be earning whilst totally hands off, I appreciate that – and I am due to be launching my first ‘true’ passive income product soon. This is just a spin-off of the ‘passive’ idea of things.

Why I Wrote This Post

I wrote this post because I get so many emails every month from people that are interested in starting some kind of ‘make money’ venture online, but are either a) not sure how to get started, b) don’t have a solid idea, or c) can’t believe that its really possible and therefore never really go for it.

The whole thing here more than anything else is that I had an idea, I realized that there was a hole in the market and that the idea was going to be solving a problem for people (in this case, saving people valuable time more than everything else) and used the resources and people around me to make it happen – quickly. Can you do the same – YES!

FACT: Everyone has the chance to make money while they sleep, or get beaten up by toddlers at their Son’s playgroup (!). You just have to simply plan and execute. Stop procrastinating and get going with it. Start it up. Promote it. SELL it. And make money from it.

Had success with starting an online service or business? Need help, or got questions on how to do it..? If so, tell us all about it below. I’d love to hear what you all think on this topic. Cheers!

4 Proven Steps to Finding a Profitable Niche

Do you spend a lot of time looking for products to promote? If you’re like the vast majority of subscribers to my blog, the answers is a definite “Yes”.

In this post, I’m going to propose that you take a step back from product-picking, and instead focus on finding a niche audience to serve.

Why should you concentrate on a niche audience first, instead of products? Here are two solid reasons:

Products come and go, but niche audiences stick around forever. If you’ve ever been promoting a product profitably and then had it decline in popularity (or pulled off the market entirely), you know what I’m talking about.

When you choose a niche audience and take the time to understand their needs deeply, a whole new world of options open up to you. You switch from struggling to find ideas for products, to instantly knowing exactly the types of products you should be promoting – because they’re in tune with your niche audience’s needs.

I know this from experience. Three years ago I was a struggling affiliate marketer, bouncing from offer to offer (playing a game of what I call “affiliate pinball”). Today I make a full-time income from diverse passive income streams: sales of affiliate products, sales of my own products, and Adsense revenue (my Adsense revenue alone topped $2,000 last month). And it’s all because I focus on serving the needs of a niche audience.

…

READ POST