9 Ways You Can Make Serious Money (Online and Offline)
Introduction
It’s clear that as time goes by, it’s getting harder and harder to keep your head above water by working the 9-5, let alone making extra cash to spend on luxury items or holidays etc.
You’ve probably heard stories of “kids” making money in their underpants from home, while the rest of us are busting our balls in traditional jobs for a fraction of what some are making online. However, you have no doubt seen all the scams and get rich schemes too, all of which should be avoided!
So, can you REALLY make money online? The TRUTH is you really can, but often the riches are made by building up your revenue over a period of time. With that said, what a lot of these “kids” DON’T realise is there are ways you can leverage the hard work of OTHERS to jump start your success, rather than starting from scratch.
However, the mindset I really want to get in your head is you have to look at getting a small win first, making your first small commission online because everything will change from that point forward.
If you start by trying to get a homerun right out the gate, that will be the thing that will keep you from making the big bucks down the line. Otherwise, what will happen is you be a year down the line thinking to yourself “if I’d only just started making small commissions starting a year ago, I would be making good money by now”.
Another aspect worth mentioning is you want to look at ways you can generate income that can pays you RECURRING income, rather than going for bigger yet one off commissions. This is very important because instead of starting from scratch every month, you will have a set amount coming in without necessarily having to do any extra work. This is why companies that are subscription based survive recessions than those that take one off payments, because they already have that guaranteed amount coming in each month.
Let’s look now at the various ways you can make money online (and offline).
Affiliate Marketing
This is probably the easiest way to make money without A: having to speak to anybody and B: without really needing to do as much to initially set it up. It sounds too good to be true right?
Well, there are thousands of products and services for which you can receive a commission for by simply sending a special tracking link to that product, so if anybody who buys via that link, you will receive a commission.
For example, you can sign up as an affiliate with Amazon, and then send people an affiliate link to any product you chose, and if somebody makes a purchase via that link, you receive your commission. Also, that person will be “cookied” meaning if they buy ANYTHING else in the following 24 hours, you will receive a commission for those products too.
Now, if it’s that easy, why isn’t everybody doing it? Well, you’ll be amazed how many people simply don’t know you can do this. Ok, so why aren’t the majority of those who DO know this aren’t making a ton of money? Pay attention because here is the big secret:
The trick is you either want to promote high ticket products or services where you get a high commission for one sale, or you promote products or services that give you a smaller, but recurring payments. What most affiliate marketers tend to do is promote lower ticket items like eBooks, but don’t have a recurring payment program. This means you must constantly sell a high number of these on a daily basis to make a good income.
Bear in mind though that higher priced items can require a longer selling process, which is why I prefer the recurring payment model instead, as there is a lower barrier to sell that product, but you will then be paid every month for as long as they keep using the service.
Just look at your own spending habits, I bet you also have things you pay for on a monthly basis…internet access….Netflix…insurance….a car maybe?
By the way, the great thing about affiliate marketing is you are often NOT the one doing the “selling”, instead you are merely directing people to a sales page, which in turn does all the selling for you. Your job is to merely match make the person with the solution (provided by the product or service) and then you get the commission when they buy.
A great example of a product you can promote is Builderall. This product will allow individuals or companies to build websites, collect people’s emails (for marketing purposes), create sales funnels, host training videos and much more. Once you sign up for the service, as well as being able to use the service yourself, you can then promote it to others for which you will receive ongoing commissions. There are people making literally thousands every month from promoting this one product alone.
You can get a free 14-day trial so you can try buy.
Create your own digital product
For many people, this is the next step on from affiliate marketing. Instead of promoting other people’s products for a commission, you can create your own products and then you get to keep 100% (or most) of the revenue.
Whilst creating your own products may sound daunting at first, actually this could be something as simple as creating a one-page check list, turning it into a pdf and then charging for it. It could also be a mini course delivered by email or could be a set of videos or audios. I’ve even seen people create a product by recording an interview with somebody on a topic they’re an expert on, and then just selling the interview.
Nowadays, a product can be free to create, free to store and deliver, and make 100% profit.
Of course, the more difficult part is you have to sell it, but you could sell it via many of the free social media platforms, or even partner with somebody who already has an audience, and you then work a deal as to how much you give them as a one-off payment or percentage of the sales.
You can either use services such as THINKIFIC to host the products yourself, or you can upload them to sites such as Udemy and Skillshare.
Teaching / training
If you are looking for a way to supplement your current income, a good way of doing it could be to teach something you already know or have experience in.
For example, if you speak a foreign language, you can easily teach people how to do this via the multiple teaching websites. The only downside is initially you are still trading time for dollars, but it can lead greater things down the line. One option is if you become specialised in a particular subject area, you can charge a premium meaning you don’t have to run as many sessions, or you look to keep your prices the same but you run group sessions.
High Ticket Coaching
Initially this is similar to teaching but is focused more around getting people a specific result which will give them a big, measurable outcome. An example could be a business or marketing consultant that advises a company in ways they could increase their revenue or increase the number of customers they acquire.
So, rather than teaching (a language for example) where you are being paid by the hour, instead you are charging for the specific result of you working with them. It doesn’t have to be related to money by the way, it could be helping them with relationships, helping them improve their health or lose weight, how to be more spiritual or whatever.
It’s worth bearing in mind that this works best if you are helping them get a result which you have managed to attain for yourself. People will be much more open if they can see you have been in their shoes and got the result they desire for themselves.
Biz Consulting
Although I’ve mentioned helping businesses in the coaching section above, it’s such a large and profitable market, it’s worth having a section of its own.
Business owners are typically very good at what they do, but often don’t have the time to step back and look at the assets they already have, and fully utilise those rather than always trying to get new customers.
There are a few ways you can quickly and easily help a business increase their revenue without them needing to expel any extra energy or pay for advertising:
- Ensure they have a system in place to ask their past and present customers for referrals.
- Look at the business’ products and services to see if they can be offered to their existing customer base. It’s so much easier to sell something to somebody that has purchased from them before and doesn’t cost anything to do so!
- Look to see if some of their products or services could be sold as a bundle, or as an upsell to a product they are already in the process of buying. For example, if selling a necklace, you could offer to do a discount on a pair of earrings. Or you could sell the necklace, earrings and a ring as a bundle.
There are many other ways you can help a business increase their revenue but getting a quick win with one of the methods above is a sure way to secure them as a client.
Getting your first client is the hardest, but once you have made money for one business, they will happily refer you to others.
Joint Venture Broker
This is a very interesting business model which has the potential to make a large amount of money in a relatively short period of time. The basic yet powerful concept is you take two different businesses that are not in direct competition with each other, but both sell products or services that could be promoted to each other’s’ customers.
For example: Somebody who is a landscape gardener could promote a company that does bathroom or kitchen installations, and vice versa.
A website designer could promote a company that does social media marketing
A florist could JV with a wedding planner
A clothes shop could JV with a jewelers
…the possibilities are endless.
I know what you might be thinking; why don’t they just do this themselves:
- It simply hasn’t occurred to them to try this
- They see everyone else as competition
- They haven’t got the time or energy to go looking for JV partners
The best way to get started in this line of work is to start building up a network of business owners (either on LinkedIn or Facebook) and then look at how some of these could benefit each other. You would then work on an email that they could use to endorse each other to their customer lists. You would simply receive a percentage of the extra revenue you generate for them.
Providing services – Via Fiverr
We’ve talked about how you can get paid for teaching a skill you have, but instead of teaching, you can get paid by providing that skill as a service.
For example, do you have skills in graphic design, video editing, doing voice overs, social media marketing, language translation, web design etc., if so then you could list your services on sites such as Fiverr and get paid directly for your work.
Whilst initially Fiverr was called that because people used to charge only 5 dollars for their work, now people will charge much more for that, but you will want to charge a smaller amount at the beginning to build up a portfolio.
Again, like teaching people one to one, you are getting paid directly for the amount of work that you do and can take a while to get your first job, but once you’re established, this can be a very nice side-line.
Arbitrage services
This is a great strategy if you prefer bringing in the work rather than actually DOING the work, and that is to charge a client for a job, but you pay somebody else a smaller amount to carry out the job itself while pocketing the difference.
Example: You see a company asking a logo design for which they are prepared to pay $80 for. You then find somebody on Fiverr who has a good reputation and charges $10. You pocket $70 dollars for basically doing none of the work. To make sure you’re not out of pocket at the beginning, you can ask for a $10 deposit which you would then use to pay for the logo design to be created.
The beauty of this strategy is there is no limit to how many jobs you could take on, and you don’t need to have the skills or time to create any of the services, because others will be doing the work!
Influencer (YouTube / Instagram / TikTok
I’m going to group a few different strategies here under the umbrella of “influencer”. Essentially, if you are able to build up a good following on any of the major social media platforms, then there are various ways you can monetise that channel.
Firstly YouTube has what’s known as the partner program. This is where if you attain 1000 subscribers and a total of 4000 watch hours for within the past 12 months, you can get paid for adverts displayed on your videos. The problem is it can take a very long time to get to that stage, and until your videos get thousands of views, the amount you get paid is relatively low.
A better strategy with YouTube is to have a link in your video description to either an affiliate offer, a product, or some kind of email collecting form. This means you the amount you can get paid can be a lot more, and you don’t have to wait months before reaching the criteria needed to join the YouTube program.
Another way you can get paid through YouTube, TikTok and Instagram is to get paid by companies to advertise their products or services. Sometimes this is an on-going sponsorship, such as being contracted to mention and show their products in your videos (this is common in the makeup industry for example), or people paying you to promote their products as a one-off announcement. This can be incredibly lucrative, but again relies on you having a large following.
Conclusion / Recommended Model
The model that suits you best comes down to what kind of person you are. For example, if you have prior experience working with businesses in the past and have a decent sized network, then being a business consultant or JV Broker could be a good option.
However, if you are starting from scratch and don’t savor the idea of speaking to businesses to pitch your ideas, then I would recommend affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing has the potential to not only give you a great income but is probably the quickest and easiest to get started with.
This is probably one of the few businesses where you could sign up as an affiliate for a product and then send it to somebody to get a commission that same day!
Now, I’m not saying that will typically happen, but it’s true that many affiliate programs will accept you straight away. You then have your affiliate link which you can start sending out and make money.
Also, adopting this model will teach you a lot about selling and marketing which you can then use if you do decide to create your own products or help other businesses as a consultant in the future.
