What if your income DIDN’T rely on unpredictable product launches? Like, what if, maybe you could, sort of, I don’t know… build a truly steady and predictable source of income?
As in, you could know exactly how much money was coming into your business next month.
That’s no pipedream my friends… it’s simply continuity income.
It’s like I talked about in this post (Are You Really An Information Marketer Or Just A Product Creator? A Quiz. Sort of.), the truly successful info marketers aren’t relying on product launches to get rich.
Nope.
For the millionaire marketers, product launches are just ways of getting leads who buy, training them to buy from them, and then driving those leads into continuity programs.
If you aren’t already doing this… you are missing out on huge sums of money.
Here are 10 ways that you can add continuity to your business…
And you could put a few of these into place this weekend.
1. Kindle (Self Published) Books
I love me some self-published goodness.
Every morning I wake up to see another $50 in royalties earned… just from this one book.
And I have dozens out there under various pen names (including fiction works).
Each month I get a few grand deposited right into my account. I don’t do anything to it. I don’t even run ads (not for my non-fiction anyways).
PLUS: My copywriting book delivers well-trained customers directly to my inbox.
Pro Tip: If you hate writing (like I do) then use Dragon Naturally Speaking to talk your book out.
Draft a brief outline (on a scratch pad), and pretend you are giving a webinar. Speak your content.
It took me 8 hours to write Copywriting For The Rest Of Us.
Not bad for bringing in over $30k of new business in the past 8 months plus a few grand in royalties.
2. Newsletter
There are two types of newsletters.
You teach your newsletter list about your expertise. Pretty straight forward. (Also: Ben Settle has one of the best newsletters that I know of. Sign up for it.)
I’m not even sure what you would call this. “PLR”?
Either way, this is a stupidly simple way to add continuity to your bottom line… and obviously it works. The best part about this style of newsletter is that you could (and probably should) outsource the entire thing.
3. Service
I am always surprised at how many Product Creators don’t include a back end service into their funnel.
Think about this…
Alex Becker (over at SourceWave) set a goal to build a $1,000,000 online business in just a year. He accomplished that goal.
How did he do it?
37% of his income comes from his SEO service.
Ladies and gents… if you aren’t running a back end service on your info marketing business you are missing out on an additional $370,000 a year in revenue.
And don’t think for one second that Alex does anything but manage that money. He outsources every last bit of that thing… and so should you.
4. Group Coaching
If you aren’t already a fan of the Get More Momentum team… then get your little booty over there.
This guy is changing the way group coaching is run. I’ve implemented his tactics, and they work.
Group coaching for continuity is EASY.
The clients practically create the program for you. All you have to do is make sure their questions are getting answered and that they are getting value for their money.
Don’t think you are “expert enough” to run a coaching program?
Then you misunderstand what coaching is about.
People hire coaches because they want that “hand holding”.
Can you hold someone’s hand? Be there to support them? Open up your business details? Offer advice?
Then you can run a group coaching program.
5. One On One Coaching – Varying Contract Lengths
One-on-one coaching is super popular. It’s a great way to monetize your backend but…
I see so many Product Creators missing out on revenue AND continuity opportunities because they refuse to offer multiple payment plans.
Think of the math this way:
You offer a coaching program for $4,997.
Cool.
People might buy it.
But if you offered:
Payment Plan #1 – $997/Month For 6 Months
Payment Plan #2 – $497/Month For A Year
You now turned that very same offer into a source of recurring, predictable income.
6. VIP Memberships
I am surprised that we don’t see more of this in the IM community.
If you launch a lot (which you shouldn’t… but…) consider offering a monthly membership where members can get full access to all products you release for a monthly fee.
In exchange for the monthly fee, they get access to your products at a discount.
As long as you beat the percentage lost in potential affiliate payouts, this methods makes you money twice.
7. Software As Service
Please launch software.
I love buying it. I love writing copy for it. I love selling it.
Even if you are just launching a smaller plugin, you can always snag continuity as a backend offer (Think: Optimizepress’s $17/month “Clubhouse” upgrade).
As a side note: If you ARE launching software and you AREN’T offering installation & set-up services… you are leaving cash on the table… and probably unnecessarily causing refunds.
8. Create A Marketplace
I spent $250 this last month on the Problogger Jobs Boards site.
Damn. These guys are making a killing.
And you could be too if you can create a marketplace where your customers can connect with the suppliers that they need.
Why isn’t there an SEO Fiverr like marketplace?
Sure, they already have SEO gigs on Fiverr… but they already have SEOs that perform $5 jobs on Elance too… so… there must be another reason why people buy from Fiverr instead of going to Elance (Hint: If you figure it out, you will get why having your own marketplace would make you a good amount of recurring income.)
9. Promote Recurring Affiliate Offers
How many times have you tried promoting a domain hosting service?
Those guys pay well… and monthly too.
What about promoting someone else’s recurring monthly affiliate payout blah, blah, blah?
One of the best moves that I ever made was to promote less to my list, and promote monthly recurring ops HARDER. I get less money upfront (sometimes) but the income just keeps growing and growing.
10. Physical Product Of The Month (DVD/CD/Physical Letter/Info Packet)
I know you love the Internet.
I know you probably spend your entire day on it… but most people don’t.
Yes, Kindle is hot, but STILL most people prefer to read paper books. (Have you ever actually tried to consume those PDFs you are selling? It sucks trying to read those things…)
Why not start a continuity program where you create and produce monthly physical products that you send to your list? (Think: Newsletter but with other fun stuff).
Even though I LOVE Ben Settle, I have nothing physical of his in my house.
I have TONS of Dan Kennedy books.
Every time I walk into my office, a book by Dan Kennedy is staring back at me. THAT my friends is powerful stuff.
Why not try it out for yourself?
Stop Killing Yourself And Start Building Yourself Instead
Any single one of these programs could work for your business.
And every single one of them would bring your monthly income.
And once they get set up, they require very little maintenance to operate.
Give it a shot.
Find out how empowering it can be to have recurring income in your business.