10 Recurring Income

Introduction

Hope that you enjoyed the intro video, it is my first effort, so hope that it is not to boring, the idea being that you get sufficient interest to read the article.

It would surprise me if some of you are not now rubbing your hands together at the thought of finding out about recurring income, or put another way how to set up a system and then just watch the money come in, without you having a great deal to do, if anything at all.

Do you like the sound of that, thought that you might.

Hate to burst the bubble but you do have to put some effort in at the beginning, that is a nice way of saying some hard work and thought, but if you have the intention of money coming in each month, surely it has got to be worth it?

Let us be clear what recurring income is. It is sums of money paid to you on a regular basis, such as monthly. It could be from your affiliates, or a membership site, but it is regular. Do not confuse this with passive income, this is when you have a product and get sales, but not necessarily on a regular basis. Passive income is of course very nice, so do not give up on product creation.

How Much Would You Be Happy With?

This is a serious question and needs a lot of thought. Please do not answer as much as humanly possible, as you will need to have a plan to enable you to decide, not only how much, but how to get it. Did say in the introduction this does need work.

How much money do you actually have coming in at the moment? Add say another couple of deals, then add at least 25% to this figure. To this add your monthly business expenses, this is the figure that you should be aiming for at the very least.

YOU NEED TO THINK BIG

Would it not be nice to have a regular income coming in, without having to worry about expenses and other bills? Done right this could even provide you with a break now and then to somewhere warm! Just take your laptop and the money will take care of you.

However, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves, what if you have no money coming in to work out a sensible figure? In that case suggest that you might like to work out how to get a reccuring income and take from there. Unless you are already working on a business idea, in which case double the thought.

What To Do

At this stage you will be thinking I like this idea of money coming in on a regular basis, but what do I have to do to get the money into my bank account? A number of thoughts come to mind which you could run with such as:

• Membership sites
• Affiliate programmes
• Service Plans/Retainers
• An online course

These are just a few ideas, but I will expand on them briefly, just in case you are a newbie and some of these ideas are new to you. Brief is the operative word as I would take more than one article to explain these ideas fully.

Membership Sites

This is very good for keeping your income stream going, the only real drawback to my mind is that you have to constantly provide material to the site. OK it is possible to do weeks or months in advance and then load it into the autoresponder. The problem with this method is, if the client loses interest and cancels you lose money.

A better method is what is known as the fixed membership site, again sent by autoresponder, but over a fixed term, such as three, six or twelve months. It is up to you whether the material is available weekly or monthly. However long the term is, you know that as long as the subscriber continues to pay, then they will receive the next download. A good way to keep your recurring income going, as if they cancel, they get no more downloads.

Affiliate Programmes

These are a good avenue to explore to give you recurring income, as you do not have to create the product, just promote someone elses. Be careful that you do not just go for high ticket items with big commissions, far better to gain the trust of your list by offering good quality, at a reasonable price, which has been well researched.

It is not my intention to dwell on affiliate programmes, so much has been written already by a number of people.

Service Plans/Retainers

Several ideas come to mind here, you basically offer your services to perform a service, for which get paid. Sounds simple right? The service that we are talking about are items such as virtual assistant, web host, graphic designer to name but a few. You perform a regular service such as a number of graphic designs a month, for which you charge a monthly fee.

With this basic idea, have a brainstorm, get creative it is surprising what you can come up with. Why not design a coaching course, where the client pays in advance to reserve a certain spot each week for your time so you can coach him/her?

An Online Course

These are a great idea to allow you to share your knowledge and teach your subscribers what you know about your specialised subject. If you only have a brief knowledge of a subject, you can always research to broaden what you know.

The great thing about designing an online course is that your students study at their own pace. Once you have the course completed and up and running, then apart from answering any questions, that is you done. The money for each module just comes in, unless you charge for the entire course upfront.

You could go the extra mile with this and have workshops, webinars, Skype calls, or even one-to-one sessions. The scope of a course is really down to you, but the bigger and more expansive it is the more you can charge. You will be aware that a really good course is at the top end of any sales funnel, should you just charge a one off fee.

Personally think that charging per module is a much better idea as you will be able to take advantage of recurring income.

However, it makes sense, however you choose to charge your students, then when the course is finished you give them somewhere else to go. This could be a higher level course or entry to your membership site, whichever you choose, you must extend the funnel to increase your revenue.

One question that is no doubt in your mind will be uploading your course, this can be done in a number of ways. Load the modules into your Autoresponder, to drip feed the contact. Use a zip file so that they can download themselves, have a website with your courses in a library on it. The possibilities are endless, do have a think and research what you want to do, before going into the pay monthly platforms with some of the companies that will do this for you.

Here am I telling you to set up a course, and yet I do have some ideas on the hard drive to do my own course, however you might laugh at this, I spent a number of years, both designing and teaching, what you have no course I hear you cry – watch this space.

Now Plan What To Do

To use any of these ideas you must make a plan.

• These must include research into your chosen idea.
• How does this idea fit into your overall business plan.
• Just what are your goals?
• Are you able to create a product?
• Have you got the ability to put the client first by offering what they need.

Be careful with your planning, it is so easy to fall into the trap of creating something for creating’s sake, without thinking it through or considering your client

Your Existing Business

Here you must consider, not only what effect this brave new idea will have on your business, but how it will help in the overall scheme of things. Does it support what you offer, or plan to offer. A membership scheme can usually run alongside a number of your other offers, with a simple idea such as:

“So hope that you enjoyed the course, get more content that will amaze you with our membership plan”

Be careful that what you decide to offer, that it does not clash with your existing offers. The idea must always be to attract your customer deeper into the sales funnel for the high ticket offers. So make sure that your pricing structure reflects this, no products at the same price.

Before embarking on a plan to bring in a recurring income, do ensure that whatever you decide to do is properly budgeted to avoid spending too much on an idea that may not work. Remember the idea is to make more money not spend what you already have.

Conclusion

Do so hope that you have enjoyed this brief look at creating a recurring income, sufficient to persuade you to dip your toe in the water, and give it a try. Depending on your idea, you can often leave this alone to just bring in the cash. Some ideas will require a look at now and then.

As always we would like to here from you, we do appreciate the time that you take to make them.

The next article will be: “11 – Why you need to sleep”

Be Happy, Healthy and Wealthy.

Stuart

https://learningandwealth.com