Introduction

Passive income is very important in the sense that it allows people to achieve some sort of financial freedom while getting the chance to indulge in the things that they are passionate about. For example, with an alternative source of income, you can spend more time doing something you love like going to the beach to surf, going to the mountains to hike or spending quality time with your loved ones. It enables to you to earn money without having to work day in and day out for it. Of course, the importance of passive income largely depends on where you are coming from and what your goals are in pursuing it.

But the bottom line here is that passive income offers you an opportunity to earn good money with less work. It is hard work at first but you slowly unburden yourself from the work as your business and passive income stream grows. That’s the beauty of it. It gets easier and easier with the passage of time provided that you are doing things the right way and that you are scaling your business with the right strategies. The work you have done yesterday will continue to benefit you in the coming days, weeks, months, or even years. This is especially true if you are running a content-based business that’s hosted online.

To cut the story short, passive income is important to those who are looking for a good source of alternative income that requires minimal work. It’s important to those who want to supplement their income from their 9 to 5 jobs. It’s important to those who want more time to pursue their passions. It’s important to those who want to build businesses that have the potential of completely replacing their income from their ordinary jobs.

Finally, having a good passive income base will make you less dependent on your job. If for any reason you were to lose your job, you’ll still have peace of mind knowing you have other ways of making money – ways you can easily scale up to replace the income from your job. This means, you’ll not be at the mercy of the economy (i.e. economic downturn and subsequent job losses) or your boss. You’ll be in control of your financial life.

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Passive Income

Passive income is considered a more lax way of earning money, due to the fact that there is minimal activity involved, but you can reap a lot as time passes.

For many small-time businessmen or employed individuals wanting to start an online stint, having a passive income can be very advantageous, especially when you are juggling between multiple sources of income.

A passive income scheme is mainly gained from setting up an automated system. The work for setting up this system or online business involves a lot of investment, mostly time and labor, but also some money. It can be very tedious, but once everything is set up and running, you can sit back, relax and enjoy a growing bank account. In fact, you can do whatever you want while the credits come in. You can go out on a date or travel, and you are still getting paid, a kind of life you can only dream of when you are working under an active income scheme.

But what exactly are the kinds of businesses that provide a passive income?

Well, we will be saving that part for later. But one thing to note is that online advertising and passive income go together.

This is not to say that advertising dominates the rhetoric of passive income, but it holds a very special place.

The internet has become an important promotional tool. It has advantages that go well beyond the reach of traditional media. Unlike radio, television and print, the internet allows businessmen and freelancers more freedom to promote their products and services. Rates for ad space in the tri-media entails high costs for individual and organizations, especially the ones that are starting out small with a minimum amount of capital to invest.

Thus, they turn to creating blogs as promotional platforms. The reason for this is that online exposure allows access to internet users and communities regardless of location. Meaning, even an American citizen can be exposed to online advertisements of South African origin.

As we can all see, the internet smashes geographical boundaries by allowing you to promote products and services anywhere in the world.

Indeed, this also offers countless opportunities for many individuals aiming for a passive stream of income. Using their own social media account and personal blog, they can become promotional platforms.

But before we come to the juiciest part of determining which passive income source works best for you, we should first identify a few dangers that you may come across along the way.

Tips to Avoid Scams

Facing a very erratic economy, a lot of people consider the World Wide Web as a "go to" for an alternative source of income.

Many of them have the idea that an online job or business provides countless opportunities to make easy money.

Then again, with this sort of climate, there also exist countless opportunities to make "easier" money through scams.

Scams are of course activities that try to lure people with promises of vast fortune in exchange for "contributions." The victims are mostly those who are not aware that certain scams exist until they find out the hard way.

Now, what we mean to say is that scams are prevalent. And the people behind these know the business very well; perhaps so well that their rackets masquerade as legitimate businesses, resulting in many people getting victimized.

When you want to start making money online, you must have the proper knowledge to know a scam when you see one.

This chapter discusses how we can avoid scams and other fraudulent rackets. And what better way to start this off than by listing the most notorious.

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"Envelope Stuffing"

This scam originated in the 1920s, but has entered internet lingo as well.

This scam works with you processing e-mails for a certain website managed by a group or individual, who promises a steady flow of commissions along the way.

In some cases, the scammer requests you to send an upfront payment before you can begin your job. Chances are, you will wait forever for that hefty commission to come in. This scam will only leave you spending a good amount of your time and money.

"Typing Jobs"

Face it, you have come across jobs promising vast returns of investment just by typing copies and promotional ads for certain "companies”.

As prevalent as the modern "stuffed e-mail" scam, this scam has been widely known to victimize many an uninformed citizen. And just like the previous scam, this one also asks for an upfront payment for the purchase of instructional materials that teach ad placement.

The results will always be the same.

"Chain Mails"

This one is a classic.

As Bill Hazelton in an article for Spirecast.com wrote, the scam takes the form of the notorious pyramid scheme.

All of us have at some point received an e-mail that impresses you immediately with "BIG RETURNS" and "MAKE MONEY THE EASY WAY." But before you do this, you need to send some money to a certain person listed in the e-mail. So, typically, you would expect other people to send you money as well.

But in this, "RETURNS" and "MONEY" are nonexistent, even if you unknowingly "recruited" people in your mailing list by sending them this e-mail.

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Now that we have listed the most notorious scams to look out for, we now turn to the list on how best to avoid them.

Actually, we would like to be upfront by saying, "Don't be gullible!" You should always doubt the credibility of certain individuals or enterprises. For all we know, there are scammers out there who seem legitimate.

But it's always better to check than to get victimized.

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Background Check

If a certain business scheme you are eyeing seems suspicious, you must do a background check of the people and organization behind it.

Using a search engine, key in pertinent information featured on the said scheme and examine the search results carefully. If anything, there might be people who have become previous victims, so pay close attention to the details.

It can be tough, considering that e-mail addresses can be tough to trace, so be careful in trying to answer them.

If the scheme features a web address, visit it and find out everything you can about the business. If there's anything odd like the lack of a business address, then it would be best to avoid taking a risk.

Avoid Upfront Payments

When trying to search online for a good source of income, never indulge in schemes that ask for upfront payments before you can even do anything.

The fact is that most con artists profit this way, particularly by using the types of scams we listed.

They will typically ask for a certain amount of money as a primary investment or as a way to purchase the necessary materials as start-up equipment. In return, they are supposed to give back double (maybe triple) your initial investment. Many people who are themselves victims of this scam pointed out that the returns never happen.

In short, if someone asks you for money in exchange for bigger riches, look the other way.

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Never trust the statement "Get Rich Quick"

Many people who have been victimized say that they believed these scams because they believed the flashy advertisements that come with them.

The internet is fraught with all these ads that say "Get Rich Quick," or "Stay at Home, be a Millionaire," or even "Make a Profit while you Sleep!"

With so many people convinced about the money making potentials of the internet, these statements seem very enticing.

But the reality remains: There are no shortcuts, even in the worldwide web. A lot of people seem to have overlooked this fact. Just because the ad sounds convincing doesn't mean the people and the organization are associated with the word "legitimacy."

Try to be careful out there.

Never Provide Personal and Financial Information

This is a cardinal rule when you are looking for a business or job online.

Many scammers out there take the form of "surveyors" or "financial researchers," asking you to answer survey questions. On top of that, they will be asking for your personal information and financial details such as your bank account number in a widely practiced but dangerous technique called phishing.

Whatever you do, never supply anyone you don't know with your information. Criminals may use it for some purpose or another, and you might end up with an exhausted bank account or worse - spending time behind bars.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is not exactly a brand new concept. The business model has been around for decades even before the arrival of the internet. Some enterprising people would put up ads in local newspapers, in the radio, or on television informing consumers that they are selling this or that product. But they don’t actually own or have these products on hand. If a customer calls to buy a product, what these entrepreneurs do is get in touch with a supplier or a manufacturer, buy the product, and instruct the supplier to ship the product directly to the customer. The entrepreneurs make money on the difference between the product’s advertised price and the supplier’s price.

This is basically the precursor to today’s version of dropshipping. The internet has completely revolutionized the business model. It made it very easy to move products from anywhere in the world. All you need to do is set up a website, install a piece of dropshipping software, and you are good to go. You can literally do everything from the comfort of your home. You don’t hold any inventory. You don’t do the shipping. Your responsibilities only involve running the website and making deals with suppliers and manufacturers.

The online dropshipping model rode on the back of online retail sites. When the internet first came about, most people used it merely for research and entertainment. Then businesses and enterprising individuals saw the internet’s potential as a marketplace for products and services. Ecommerce quickly boomed and grew at a very fast pace. Businesses would build websites and sell their products and services there. For a while, ecommerce only had people and businesses selling their own products and services. But there soon came a shift when ecommerce concepts like affiliate marketing were introduced. People who don’t have their own products and services now have the chance to make money through ecommerce.

In a way, online dropshipping is an offshoot of affiliate marketing. You are basically promoting and selling someone else’s products. However, in the dropshipping model, you have the option of rebranding the products as if they are your own. You can make a deal with a supplier or manufacturer who produces the products then marks them with your customized labels. You purchase the products at cost basis (i.e. original cost) then resell them with a marked up price (i.e. original cost + your profit). In short, as a dropshipper, you are not a product developer or manufacturer. You are merely a marketer.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, online dropshipping has revolutionized online commerce. And it continues to evolve as we speak. In fact, dropshipping has become so big that it can be aptly considered as an industry on its own. Online dropshipping registers billions of sales a year. This will only grow in the coming years as more and more people get involved in the business. Almost every product today can be sold using the dropshipping model. You just have to find and approach the right suppliers and manufacturers.

It also does not matter where you are located. As long as you have a reliable internet connection, you can build and run an online dropshipping operation. You can be in Antarctica and still run a successful dropshipping business that ships products from China to the United States. Or you could be vacationing in Thailand and still run a business that dropships products from Brazil to Australia. My point here is that this business model offers time and location freedom. You can run your business from anywhere and at any time.

Another good reason why now is the time to be involved in dropshipping is the availability of tools and resources that make the process so much easier. In the early days, online entrepreneurs had to build everything from scratch. This meant that you had to be a programmer or you needed to hire a team of programmers to help you set up your website. Today, you can build a fully-functioning dropshipping website in minutes by just clicking on a few buttons and following step-by-step, beginner friendly instructions. There are all sorts of software that you can download and install on your dropshipping website. Some of these software programs automate your website so that you don’t have to do anything else. The website will run itself with you doing very minimal work. This is one of the reasons why this business model was awarded a simplicity and passivity score of 80% in the book Passive Income Ideas: 50 Ways To Make Money Online Analyzed.

Basically, here are the main steps involved in dropshipping:

• Step 1: You build a website that’s specifically designed for dropshipping.

• Step 2: You get into a deal with a supplier or manufacturer to produce the products you are going to sell.

• Step 3: Promote the products on your website.

• Step 4: If someone orders a product from your website, you order the product from your supplier or manufacturer.

• Step 5: Your supplier is automatically informed about the order.

• Step 6: Your supplier or manufacturer ships the product to the buyer.

• Step 7: Rinse and repeat.

The business model for online dropshipping is pretty straightforward. You build the website, make a deal with a supplier, promote the product, and instruct the supplier to ship the product directly to customers. It’s basically buying and reselling products but this time, you don’t hold any inventory. You simply do the marketing and selling. Your supplier handles product development, manufacturing, and shipping. It’s a business model that is perfect suited to today’s digitally connected world. The barriers to setting up a dropshipping business are very minimal. Remember that you are not going to hold inventory. This zero inventory benefit drives down your startup costs. In a nutshell, all you need to get started is a deal with a supplier or manufacturer, a functioning dropshipping website, and a reliable internet connection.

How to Start Your Own Dropshipping Business

Alright, now that you know what you are getting into, let’s now discuss how you can actually start your own dropshipping business from scratch. I’ll need you to pay close attention because we’ll be discussing the basic framework with regards to starting a dropshipping business. I suggest that you read every word in this chapter if you are a complete beginner. When you look into the dropshipping business model, it seems so simple. It’s almost too simple to a fault. But don’t let that trick you into thinking that the journey is going to be easy. Underestimating the journey ahead is one of the biggest mistakes that aspiring entrepreneurs often mistake.

Before You Even Begin

I need you to do me a favor. Before you start building your own dropshipping business, I need you to make a promise to yourself that you are in it for the long run. As I have said a few times already, dropshipping is not a get-rich-quick scheme. So I need you to get rid of this type of thinking. I want you to be in it because you want to build something that is going to be sustainable in months and years to come. I’m telling you this out of my personal experience. When I first started dropshipping, I was in a hurry to find success and I wanted to make as much money as I could then move on to something else.

Needless to say, I wasn’t successful in my first attempts at dropshipping. I made so many mistakes. Looking back, it’s so clear to me now how those mistakes caused me to fail numerous times. Hopefully, with this book, I’ll be able to teach people how to avoid those mistakes. I don’t want you making the same mistakes I made. I don’t want you to lose money the way I lost money because I was blinded by promises of instant profits. I just want you to start with a good business foundation.

The Mindset Required to Succeed

When it comes to mindset, you should be focused on achieving your goals no matter what. It doesn’t matter how big or small your goals are, you should laser-focus your efforts and attention on them. Everything you do should be about taking steps toward those goals. Before you do anything, you ask yourself the following question: will this take me a step closer towards achieving my goal? If the answer is yes, then keep doing it. If the answer is no, then you should stop whatever you’re doing and refocus. With regards to commitment, it’s helpful if you are as committed as you are focused. Commitment means putting all your effort into the business. You go the extra mile if you have to. Never ever procrastinate. Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.

Where Do You Start?

To begin your dropshipping business, you have to do your assignment and that is to educate yourself about the business and the industry. Learn everything you can about dropshipping. That includes reading this book from page one to the last. I want you to read other books on dropshipping if necessary. I am not that self-centered to think that I have the answer to every question you have. Please do your assignment. Read blogs on dropshipping. Read websites on dropshipping. Browse through forums that tackle dropshipping topics. Dropshipping is just like any business. You have better chances in succeeding if you are knowledgeable about the industry’s ins and outs.

After Educating Yourself, What’s Your Next Move?

Okay, so you’ve done your assignment. You’ve done your research on how dropshipping works and how the model operates. Your mind is full of ideas, data, statistics, and other necessary information. Now what? Well, it’s time to jump into the bandwagon and get started. It’s time to get your hands dirty. To make this chapter easy to read and digest, I’ve decided to write it in the form of a step-by-step guide. Simply follow the steps and you will always be on the right track. So here we go!

Step 1: Make Sure That You Have Everything You Need

So the obvious question is this: what are the things you need to start a dropshipping business? There is no definitive answer to this question because every dropshipping business is unique. This means that different dropshipping businesses have different needs and requirements. However, there are the main requirements that should be present in every dropshipping business. These are as follows:

• The product or products.

• Capital.

• Website.

• Supplier or manufacturer.

• An ordering and payment system specifically designed for the dropshipping model.

• A method of receiving money (i.e. PayPal, Payoneer, money transfer, credit cards, or direct bank transfer)

These are the most basic things you need to get started. Each of these are discussed in more depth in other chapters in this book so I’m not going to expand on them in this particular chapter.

Step 2: Decide on the Products That You Are Going to Sell

What’s great about the dropshipping business model is that you can sell almost every type of product. As long as it can be safely and legally shipped, it’s up for grabs. The two most important factors you need to consider when deciding which products to sell are demand and competition. There should be enough online demand for the product for your business to be profitable. And the competition shouldn’t be too tough in the sense that it won’t be very difficult for you to take a piece of the market. So the formula in deciding what products to sell is as follows:

High Demand + Low Competition = Profitable Product

Step 3: Decide on the Business Structure That You Want to Pursue

In order to maximize your revenue and protect yourself from lawsuit, it can be advantageous to run your business with a company. You have several options. You can either register your business as a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company (LLC), or a C corporation. These are the three most commonly used business structures. It’s important that you are completely aware of the differences between these business types - their pros and cons, so to speak. There are a lot of factors that you must take into account in deciding whether it would be better to register your new business as a sole proprietorship or as any of the other business types. Such factors include your business plan, business model, the possible tax advantages, the level of structure and formality, your business goals, your sources of investment, and where you want to conduct your business.

Step 4: Get Your Finances in Order

The amount of money you need to invest in the business depends on several factors. These factors include the size of your planned business, the overall price of the products you are selling, the location of your supplier or manufacturer, the software and programs you use on your dropshipping website, and projected overhead costs. Take all of these factors into account to ensure that you come up with a realistic estimate for your finances. You need to make sure that you have enough funds to get started. You also need to make projections of your costs and expenses in a time period of at least one year.

Ways to Finance Your Dropshipping Business

1. Self-Funding: You finance the business yourself. That is all business expenses will be covered by you alone.

2. Crowdfunding: This is a good option if you don’t have enough savings to cover the projected costs of starting and building your business. Crowdfunding sites you can consider include:

• Kickstarter

• Indiegogo

• Crowd Supply

• Crowdfunder

• Experiment

• Chuffed

• Patreon

• Fundable

• Wefunder

• SeedInvest

• Fundly

• LendingClub

• StartSomeGood

• Crowdcube

• Funding Circle

3. Small Business Loan: Applying for a loan with the Small Business Administration or SBA is a great choice if you have a good personal credit rating. Your credit rating is among the things that the SBA will take into consideration. It is also required that you present clear copies of your business plan and financial projections. If your application is compelling, the SBA might grant you with a low-interest loan. I highly recommend that you go over your presentation numerous times. You should also consult with a business advisor to ensure that your talking points and data for the presentation are accurate and correct.

4. Bootstrapping: This refers to the practice of funding your business operations from money you have at hand and from the profits you make from the business. Every dollar that your business earns is put back into the business. You don’t incur debts and you get to build your business at a balanced and controlled pace.

5. Local Investors: These are prominent people in your area who have a knack for investing in local businesses. They usually provide you with the funds you need in exchange for a share of the profits or some equity in the business.

It is also important that you learn how to separate your personal expenses from your business expenses. You do this by opening new accounts under the name of your business. Your business should always be a separate entity from your personal life. There should be a clear boundary between the two especially during the early stages of your business. There are a lot of reasons why your personal expenses should be completely separate from your business expenses. One, it’s easier to account for the expenses and costs that are related to your business. Two, it’s much easier to track where your funds are going. Three, it will be easier for the IRS to audit your documents. And last but not the least, it protects you from liability on business debts. If there is no clear distinction between your personal and business finances, then your creditors have a better position in going after your personal assets to offset the debts.

Step 5: Request for an EIN Number

The Internal Revenue Service or IRS requires all types of businesses with principal operations in the United States or U.S. Territories to apply for an EIN (Employer Identification Number). The EIN serves as a social security number for your dropshipping business. You are going to use this number when filing your taxes, opening a bank account, applying for wholesale dropshipping accounts, and pretty much anything that’s related to the operation of your business. You have to keep in mind that majority of reputable dropship suppliers will ask you for an EIN if you want to do business with them. If you don’t have an EIN number, it will be difficult for you to find good dropship suppliers.

To start requesting for an EIN number, you need to get a copy of the application form which is the IRS Form SS-4. You can download this form from the official website of the IRS. Just print out a copy of the application form then answer all the questions therein. If you need help in completing the application form, you should get in touch with a lawyer or a business adviser.

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Step 6: Get Your Sales Taxes in Order

Because of its business model, paying taxes for goods sold via dropshipping is more complicated than you might expect. The process is made complicated by issues of dropshipper location, customer location, product sourcing, and sales tax nexus. Nexus is a legal term which refers to the requirement for businesses conducting business in a state to collect and pay taxes on sales originating from the same state. For instance, if you sell goods in Houston, then you must file and pay state taxes in Texas. It’s not that difficult to see why dropshipping is a business model that carries a very high risk for sales tax errors.

The biggest question here is when is it required for you to collect sales taxes? Here’s a quick overview of the information you need to know about collecting and paying sales taxes in a dropshipping business:

• You have to collect sales from the customer if you have nexus in the state where the sale occurred. (Please refer to our definition for “nexus” above.) You need to collect sales tax unless the transaction is considered as tax-exempt.

• If you and your supplier don’t have nexus in the state where the transaction occurred, then you are not obligated to collect sales tax. It is the customer who is obligated to remit tax unless the sale is deemed to be exempt from tax.

• If you don’t have nexus in the state where the sale happened but your supplier does, then it’s possible that your supplier is the one responsible for collecting sales tax. However, this is not an absolute rule considering the fact that many states have different takes on the matter. For example, states like Hawaii, Florida, Connecticut, and California hold the supplier responsible for collecting sales tax in this scenario. But many other states don’t hold the same position. With that said, it’s important that you check the tax laws in your state. Not all states consider drop shipping as a nexus-creating activity.

I know, it can be very confusing. So I highly recommend that you consult with a tax expert and explain your business operations so that he can advise you on whether you are required to collect sales taxes or not. Get the advice of someone who knows the business and tax laws in your own state. In a nutshell, you are going to collect sales tax if:

• The state you operate from requires you to collect sales tax and

• The customer who bought the product is located in your state.

Step 7: Make Sure That Everything Is Ready to Go

You are now at the final stages of launching your dropshipping business. All you need to do now is review everything to make sure that they are in place and are ready to go. What some online entrepreneurs do is perform a beta test of their business. That is they launch a test version of their dropshipping website. This is a good way to determine if the features and functions of your website are functioning properly. Get a friend or someone you know to order from your website and see what happens.

You should create a checklist of your website’s features and functions so that you can check them one by one if they are working properly. Is the buy button clickable? Is the checkout section working smoothly? Are the payment options in place? Are the product photos displaying properly? These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself when reviewing your dropshipping website. You have to take note of the amount of time it takes for your supplier to ship the product to the customer. If you promised delivery within three days on your website but the product arrived after more than five days, then there’s a problem. You need to talk with your supplier and review your shipping details.

Before launching the business, verify and confirm with your suppliers if they have the inventories ready. It would be a shame if you launch your business but then it turns out that the supplier doesn’t have enough inventory or doesn’t have any inventory at all. The amount of inventory you order from your supplier should be based on your sales projections. In fact, you should order a little bit more than your sales projections to account for potential surges in sales. For example, let’s say that you project to sell 1000 products in your first week. To prepare for the possibility that you might get sales that are beyond this projection, you can instruct your supplier to have an inventory of 1200 to 1500 products.

Step 8: Create a Comprehensive Marketing Plan

This is the final step before you launch your dropshipping business. Marketing is everything when it comes to running an online business. You have to learn how to put your products in front of your target customers. In ecommerce, a high-quality product amounts to nothing if nobody knows about it. What you need to do is write a comprehensive marketing plan which details how you are going to promote your business and your products. It will serve as your guide once you launch your business. This is very important especially if your business is in a really competitive niche.

Writing a marketing plan is not that difficult. If you are clueless as to how you should start, you can try searching for marketing plan templates online. There are dozens of these templates out there that you can download. Some were even specifically written for dropshipping businesses. A marketing plan is basically a blueprint for you and your marketing team. With that said, make sure that everything inside the marketing plan is realistic and actionable. Don’t make lofty goals if it’s going to be nearly impossible to achieve them. A marketing plan can be a few pages short or dozens of pages long. It all depends on the size and nature of your business.

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Step 9: Launch the Business

This is it! This is the moment you have been waiting for. It’s time to launch your business and make it official. This is the easiest step in the process of starting a dropshipping business provided that you’ve completed all of the earlier steps. What’s great about launching an online business is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money or create fake fanfare to do it. In fact, it’s just like any of the days leading up to the launching. You just log into the proper accounts connected to your business and make the business live. You don’t have to worry about stuff like ribbon cuttings, inviting guest, etc.

You have to be prepared for the contingencies associated with an online business launch. This is why you need to be very vigilant during the first several days. Anything can go wrong with your website. It can crash due to an overwhelming amount of traffic. It can become inaccessible for hours at a time. Customers may find some of the features and functions not working properly. Customers may not be able to complete their orders. These are just a few of the potential problems that can occur in the early days of your operations. Don’t worry, problems like these are quite common for new online entrepreneurs. As I said earlier, you have to be prepared for them. Instruct your technical team and customer support to be extra alert.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is among the most popular ways to produce passive income online. And it doesn’t always require any financial expense, though it can be helpful to invest in building your website, in article marketing, and advertising. Selling services or products as an affiliate marketer involves promoting them and finding a flat rate commission or percentage of income from each sale created from your link. Essentially, the company offers you a personalized link that you tell your audience, whether it be on a blog, a contact list, a site, or a web store. When readers or viewers click through your hyperlink and make an obtain the ongoing company you’re working with, you get paid.

It’s generally best to let your visitors know that you’re an affiliate marketer and may profit from their purchase, so it’s important to build a relationship with your viewers where they trust your opinion when you vouch for a brand. If your target audience thinks you’re selling them products so you can profit just, they’ll be less likely to buy through your link. Aiming to help customers better their lives will constantly sell better than pushing something at them.

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You can incorporate internet affiliate marketing into your already-established online presence. Links can be shared in your site posts, on your website, or through your email list using different methods to attract clients toward the products you’re recommending. In the event that you don’t already have a blog page or website, it’s smart to begin one if you want to pursue affiliate marketing to obtain passive income. You can create a Shopify store also. Whatever avenue you choose to make use of in posting your links, you’ll have to build a status or brand in a particular niche in order to become a credible expert in your niche.

In order to select a niche, make a list of topics you’re already educated or passionate about and cross-reference that with a list of profitable niches. An excellent niche is one that has a popular for products and is not overly saturated with online marketers already. You need area to grow your business.

However, you do wish at least some competition in your niche and that means you know that it is already profitable more than enough to draw additional online business owners. You’ll also wish to look for a niche which has a large amount of product vendors so the selection of products you can share is larger, rather than all of the affiliates will be marketing the same items. Ensure there is a demand for the merchandise in your market by checking Best Sellers lists on Amazon and additional retailers more specific to your niche.

Before you select an affiliate network, you’ll have to have a real way to talk about your links with your audience. To build your website, you’ll require a domain. If you don’t curently have a name for your brand or store, choose your name predicated on what domain can be available, purchase your domain, buy and setup hosting then. Your domain is like your actual business, and the hosting is like the virtual real estate where your business lives.

Once you have your domain and hosting secured, install WordPress and choose a theme. There are plenty of free themes to select from and they’re all very customizable. You can create your own site without any coding knowledge, or you can outsource this step to a freelancer if you would like to end up being sure your site looks nice. It should be basic, clean looking, and easy to get around. You don’t want your readers to become bombarded with ads, crazy colors, or an overwhelmingly cluttered site.

Also be sure your website includes a professional logo together with your business’s or brand’s name onto it, and that it’s mobile friendly. This site will be used to share your affiliate links, but in order to build trust and credibility together with your audience, you’ll also have to offer something more.

Informative posts about studies and trends which come up in your niche can help drive traffic to your website and build your audience, but you don’t need to take up a blog necessarily. Your site can host guest bloggers or content material creators in your market so that your target audience has one central spot to find the various content they’re thinking about. Videos and blog posts are most likely to get organic traffic by showing up in searches.

The important thing to keep in mind is that your visitors have to trust and respect that the suggestions coming from your site will be the reliable suggestions of an authority in your niche. You may also create a product page on your own site where you feature your affiliate marketer products with links to buy them.

Blogging and creating your very own content is one of the best methods to build the reputation and credibility you should be a successful affiliate marketer. Producing high-quality content frequently allows your viewers and readers to be accustomed to your content, grow a relationship with your blog page, and continue coming back to see what you have to offer.

You should certainly share your affiliate links in these blogs in order to expose your audience to the products you’re representing, but make sure your posts aren't commercial and not all centered around promoting products. Some types of articles that can be a good asset to your site are how-to guides, “Top 10” style lists, and posts addressing common queries and concerns that people in your market have regarding certain aspects of your niche; or latest events and trends which have come up.

Your audience wants to read authentic content that they’ll want to talk about with their family and friends. If your specific niche market is beauty and health, you can cite latest studies that show the ultimate way to wash your face in the early morning, or you can share the best way to use a spray establishing on your own makeup. Presenting this kind of content allows your viewers to begin with viewing you as a specialist in your field, so when you begin mixing in product critiques or brand comparisons which contain your affiliate links they’ll become more likely to trust your recommendations and buy through your link.

Whenever a consumer receives free information that they find valuable, they will reciprocate the action simply by purchasing your products. This is called the theory of reciprocity, and it’s very important to many ways of creating passive income online.

Once a website is had by you or a blog to share your links on, you need to ensure that your site gets visitors. Because the internet is filled with websites, bloggers, shops, cat videos, and social press influencers, you can’t depend on organic traffic only to bring audiences to your content. You’ll have to increase engagement, ensure that your content shows up in queries, and build relationships together with your audience that maintain them coming back.

Collect email addresses from your own audience so you can compile an email set of people in your market. This email list is one of the greatest resources an on-line entrepreneur can have when making passive income. You can build yours by adding a sign-up package to your website’s homepage with a location to enter their email address and another to enter their name. Be sure to include a free call-to-actions like “sign-up for our free newsletter” or “get linked to us” to inspire people to partake in this feature.

Offering free information products in the form of PDF files or short eBooks is also a way to gather email addresses. Customers prefer to receive free products, so they’ll enter their email addresses to allow them to be sent the info. This helps you grow your email list, as well as raising the reader’s openness to buying your products due to the principle of reciprocity.

Statistically, the best location for the email sign-up box reaches the top right corner of your homepage. You may also add a section with this option at the bottom of each post. These boxes ought to be linked to your email services so the addresses get preserved to your list. Then you can certainly distribute regular emails to keep in touch. These email messages can either be an email newsletter, improvements containing links to brand-new blog posts, or short emails containing tidbits of details relevant to your niche.

The theory is to create a reference to your audience. You can include your affiliate marketer links in these emails also, or just include them in posts and link the articles within the email messages. Sending out your email messages could be automated using a contact service, and you can outsource the email article marketing to a freelancer.

Featuring guest bloggers on your own site and writing because a guest on other blogs within your niche may also greatly increase the traffic to your site by exposing you to some other person's established audience. Make sure to collaborate with bloggers who have similar content, but aren't your direct competition. Their audience includes people who you know are already in your marketplace because they’re following another blog page in your niche. Once you’ve set up an authority in your niche, you can begin sharing products as an affiliate.

An affiliate marketer network is a database of items that you can share as an online marketer. When choosing a network, you’ll want to focus on what merchants are using that network and what kind of support the network provides to its affiliates. Ideally, you will want network that can be reached by phone or video chat for those who have any issues rather than one which can only become reached via email. Speak to other affiliate marketers who've worked with your potential network and look at reviews on the web from past collaborators.

You’ll want to take into consideration the products that are available also. You wish to represent low-quality products or services don’t, and you don’t wish to be associated with false claims that may damage your credibility to your market. If the merchandise are worthwhile, check just how much commission you can make from them.

For physical products, just choose those that provide a commission of at least $40 per sale. As the manufacturing, production, and shipping and delivery of physical items costs more, the merchandise have smaller income, therefore the commission percentage you stand to create is lower.

Products with higher sale prices shall yield better commissions. These can be promoted on your site through product critiques, how-to posts, or comparisons. Share everything you like or don’t like about the merchandise (and if you don’t like it, get an affiliate link to an identical product and talk about it as an alternative), or share steps to make use of this product to boost their lives.

For comparison posts, your magic number is three. Discover three similar items and get an affiliate link for each. Compare the three products in your post, and offer links to each one which means that your customers feel like they possess a choice. Whichever product would offer the best profit should be featured at the top of your list. You can monitor which of the three products sells best, and feature that product prominently in something page of your site or in sidebars as a “featured favorite.”

Digital items like eBooks, membership sites, or software provide higher commission percentages. These cost considerably less to produce, so they provide a very much higher profit margin. Commissions can be anywhere from 10%to 50%.

ClickBank is one of the largest affiliate networks for these digital products, & most of the products it features offer from ranging from $30 and $70. Search for products with a high gravity rating as they are in high demand and many affiliates are already generating sales with them. Your competition shall be high, but you could make a profit still. The gravity ranking on some products can be misleading if the product is newly listed. If this is the case, consider the product page’s sales copy and evaluate it to competing products.

You want to select a digital product with a long sales copy that represents the merchandise well. Short sales copy doesn’t convert well for this type of copy.

For goods and solutions with very high retail prices, you can accept commission percentages only 40%. This also pertains to membership applications where you receives a commission a commission each and every time the customer pays their membership fees. However, for additional digital products, the most profitable options offer commissions of 50% or greater.

Cost-per-acquisition or cost-per-action applications pay a commission to the affiliate marketer for actions, not sales. These scheduled programs involve collecting zip codes, email addresses, or applications from your market. A commission of over $1 per action can make CPA applications worthwhile, but you’ll want to make sure this program isn’t restrictive about the way in which you promote the activities. Some of these programs is only going to enable you to promote them through mailing lists which can drastically reduce the price of engagement you’ll accomplish.

When you’re recommending items, stick to advertising a maximum of two or three 3 at a right time. In the event that you exceed this amount, it starts to appear more like you’re pushing items on your audience and much less like you’re trying to help them discover good products. People wish to trust your expert advice. To boost your credibility, it’s beneficial to own and utilize the item before you advise your audience to take action.

Once your business becomes more popular, merchants may give you the product for free before you stand for it- but you might be able to get a free duplicate or sample of a product even if you’re no established expert yet. You can merely inquire the merchant for a tester copy. The worst they are able to do is say “no.”

Sharing a research study of your own experience with the product or compiling your thoughts on it into an honest examine will build your trustworthiness as a specialist in your specialized niche and motivate your viewers to click on the link and buy the product themselves.

Once you’ve found success with these two or three 3 products, you can move to featuring other products. Trying to accomplish too much at once will leave you with multiple half-done marketing promotions, that will never be worth just as much as one well-done campaign.

Amazon provides an affiliate plan called amazon Associates also. This scheduled program is normally best for bloggers who specialize in retail products or shopping-based content. This is because their visitors are already open to the idea of purchasing products at the time they’re reading the blogger’s suggestions. The scheduled program works like other affiliate programs.

You are given an unique affiliate link which you can use to promote products, you advertise Amazon products on your own website, readers click through your link and purchase the product, and a commission is got by you.

Among the great perks of Amazon’s affiliate system is that if a person buys other items from Amazon after clicking through your link, then you get yourself a commission from the entire sale and not simply the product you linked. With Amazon’s vast selection of products, you also have a wider variance of products to recommend. You’ll want to stick within a niche, but you can suggest a variety of products that complement one another. These can be featured in a catalog style page on your own website, in product-review-based blog posts, or in sidebars of “recommended products” throughout your website. You can even run banner advertisements imbedded with your affiliate link.

Whatever kind of product you decide to marketplace, you should spread out your links across numerous avenues. To keep track of which marketing technique converts better to sales, you can use a specialized monitoring link for each method rather than which link generates the most product sales. The links will still be unique to you, but you may use a different one for your email list than you perform in your blog post to check which link your market uses more.

If you’re an Amazon affiliate you can acquire these links by likely to your account settings and clicking on “manage tracking i.d.s,” in that case adding a new i.d. for every site. You can even use different links when you promote on cultural media to see how well that assists your marketing.

Live demonstrations in Facebook are a very well-known way for affiliate marketers for connecting with their audience in real time and make an individual connection which leaves customers more inclined to purchase. The second best promotion technique after live streams is usually regular video. Sharing movies on Instagram or Fb can increase engagement more than regular photos or text message posts. Posting content material onto a YouTube accounts is a more long-term strategy to vdeo sales marketing, but it can work wonders for your affiliate marketing business by increasing your credibility in your field and growing your audience.

You can also utilize these social media platforms by working paid advertisements to drive traffic to your blog or website. That is a financial investment, but the visitors can grow your audience and boost your profits.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you increase traffic to your internet site without spending money on advertisements. This involves incorporating high-visitors keywords into your posts, in addition to following various other methods to increase the organic traffic your site gets from folks searching the web.

Google, for instance, will place your post higher in the serp's based on keyword utilization, the framework of your website, the relevance of your content, and the number of clicks on your own site. Keywords will be the terms internet users would type into a search bar to access your site. These should be utilized in titles, in addition to throughout your content recurrently, but you shouldn't be repetitive. This tells the internet search engine that your articles include info their users need to find.

The design of your website is considered also. A solid site structure without annoying pop-ups or a bombardment of ads shall rank higher in search results. Internet search engine algorithms also look for how often your website is back-linked by other sites. This is definitely why it could be very vital that you guest-post on other sites. When se's have their “web crawlers” looking through the internet to find the best pages, they observe how other sites send their audience toward your site often. The more frequently your website is linked, and the even more prominent the site who links to it, the more relevant you seem and the bigger up your site shall be ranked browsing results.

One mistake some affiliate marketers make isn't having their site linked the same way each and every time it’s back-linked. Most of the time, your site name could be written as “www.example.com” or “example. com” and an user find yourself at your site in any event. Unfortunately, for back-linking reasons, this causes an issue. When internet crawlers come across your site through a backlink, they don’t recognize these two names of domain as the same site.

If your site is listed using the “www” version five times, and the non-www version 6 times, the net crawlers will award those numbers separately to each domain rather than associating 11 backlinks to your one site. What this signifies for your SEO is certainly that you’re only gaining portion of the search optimization for those backlinks, which means you should ensure that you set up which way you wish your domain to end up being written and make an effort to ensure it remains consistent. You need to improve your ranking browsing results so increased traffic comes to your website and more customers buy through your affiliate links.

Search engine optimization could be complicated. It requires a whole lot of research, and there’s a learning curve certainly, but it’s integral to any approach to creating passive income online. If you don’t have time to learn SEO in order to increase organic visitors to your internet site, or simply don’t wish to, an SEO professional can be employed on freelance websites. You can also outsource article marketing for your website as well to improve the passivity of your affiliate marketing income.

Overall, affiliate advertising is an excellent way to gain passive income because you don’t have to invest financially in order to make a revenue. However, much like many methods of generating passive income, the additional money and time you’re willing to invest, the greater the revenue you stand to create.

Blogging

You will probably have heard of blogging and are almost certainly aware that at least half the population have had or still have a blog. Even if you know what a blog is you may not realize how this can be a lucrative passive income source; if handled correctly.

A blog is simply an online journal; most people use them to record notes about their everyday life with a particular relevance to some project they are attempting to achieve. A blog could even be created about your journey to create a passive income! You would simply record what attempts you have made on a daily or bi-weekly basis and post these findings onto your blog page. Ideally the blog should have a fun twist as this keeps people interested, although the ups and downs of any social project are always guaranteed to obtain interest from others.

Writing your thoughts regarding your achievements in a given period can be difficult, especially if you are not a natural writer! You may also struggle to see how this can create an income for you.

The passive Income

A passive income can be created from your blog once you have become established. The first step is to ensure your blog is relevant to your everyday life and something you are happy and comfortable to write about. This will make it easier to update your blog regularly.

The more relevant and accurate the information is in your blog the bigger your following will become. This is the labor intensive part. You must post new articles to your blog regularly to keep it fresh and retain the interest of the followers you have. This will ensure your followers stay and new ones are created. It can take time to generate a good size following; although the passive income generators can be put into place from the very beginning it is your followers which will make them worthwhile. It is possible to invite ‘guest bloggers’ to post things onto your site; providing they are respected within your chosen niche they will bring credibility to your site instantly.

The bigger your following the more likely it is that other businesses will want you to recommend their product to your followers. Every time you refer a person to their site; and potentially their product, you should get a small commission. Individually these amounts are small, but as your following builds these amounts will become bigger; potentially creating an impressive passive income.

Alongside recommending products to your followers you will be able to recommend reports you have written yourself; all at a small cost. Your initial building of followers will combine with the effort of writing several reports to generate an income which can build over time.

A passive income can also be created on your blog site by linking with other people and businesses which are offering similar products and services to your own. Ideally you should locate someone who has a product which will complement yours and then arrange to promote each other’s product. This will open your followers to them and theirs to you, potentially doubling your audience and potential customers. The process will also convince, without any further effort, many of their customers to purchase your product simply because it is affiliated with a site they already trust.

Trust is the best tool you have to sell your product or service, once you have built a following it will expand by itself as long as you have the trust of your followers.

Passive income can also be created through your blog by having adverts on your site, your followers can choose to click on these adverts and you can earn funds if they visit the site or buy the product advertised.

Once you have a good sized group of followers it is essential to maintain their trust; only link to products you know are good value for money, preferably something you have or would use yourself.

Building a Blog

Before you start blogging you need to have someone to blog to! Many people simply create a blog and wonder why they have no visitors, even though their content is actually the best on the web! The answer is to start building the followers first.

The best way of doing this is to research your intended marketplace and find out which sort of people would be interested in your blog and which forums and websites they visit the most. You can then apply to be a guest blogging on these sites; some sites will even pay you to do this. You will simply need to show them that you are an expert in your chosen field.

Blogging on other people’s sites will expose you to a wide audience and this will build your credibility. People will quickly recognize your name and then they will seek you out and look for your own website or blog. At this point it is essential to have a website or blog, but, you do not need to have any content! Simply make sure your site has a message to say it is under construction and will be live soon.

Once you can see there are plenty of people visiting your site it is time to create your own blog. Start with a good intro post and not too many adverts; you are still building trust. You need to avoid making your customers feel that you are after their money!

As already mentioned you can invite others to contribute to your blog and this can bring their followers to your site. It is also possible to simply pay someone else; such as a professional writer to create your blog for you. It may seem counter-productive to pay money to someone else when you are attempting to create your own passive income. However, if writing is not one of your strongest points that it is better to have someone else take care of this whilst you focus on building your profile and attracting your followers. In principle you are focusing on providing the highest value possible for the time you have available; it is worth paying someone else to write some or all of your blogs if this is the most efficient and cost effective way to build a successful site. It is important to remember that, should you choose to have someone else do the writing it must echo your voice and, ideally, bring new information to the market.

Your focus should now switch to half your available time being spent blogging on your own site. The other half of your time should be devoted to building more links with other people and businesses in your area of expertise. The better your reputation becomes the more visitors and followers you will gain.

Your blog should now include several adverts and you will be generating a passive income from the sales made. You can build on this income by creating your own products, ideally reports or e-books which can be downloaded by anyone; for a fixed fee. Adverts for your own products can go alongside your existing adverts or you may wish to fade out some of the less successful ones to ensure your webpage does not become overcrowded. Websites which look too cluttered will often drive potential customers away as it will appear you are after their money and not simply offering valuable guidance.

It is important whilst trying to generate money earners to remember you followers and ensure they have fresh material to read two or three times a week. It is also essential to build and maintain a social profile; it can be very easy to update your social profile with a few, well timed comments and links to both your site and others. This will drive additional traffic to your site.

To earn a passive income it is essential to have as large a number of followers as you can; you will usually get approximately ten percent of your followers to purchase something from or through you. The amount of followers you need depends upon the amount of money you would like to generate. One hundred followers will only equate to ten likely sales; but, if each of these sales brings in one hundred dollars per week then you have enough to earn a comfortable living. Obviously if your product will only provide you with an income of ten dollars per sale you will need one thousand followers to create the same income level.

Perhaps the most important advice when earning money from your blog is that you must look after your followers, without them you have no potential customers! The best way of ensuring your followers remain happy is to be honest and open with them. Talk to them all as though they are friends and provide genuine, honest advice. You should never recommend a product or link to another one unless you are happy that you would use the product yourself.

Blogging does require some work every week; your blog needs to be updated, links to other sites need to be confirmed and built on and social media sites need monitoring. The income may be passive but you will still need to invest some time; thankfully this can be done at your leisure!

Starting a Blog

It is actually very easy to start a blog; in effect it is a website which is regularly updated with interesting pieces of information. Even if you have no knowledge regarding creating a website you can start a blog! Simply search online for website providers; you will find a huge range of choices and the majority of these sites will have dedicated blog sections. However, even a regular website can be used to create a blog.

There are many firms which will allow you to develop a blog site for free; unfortunately, many of these sites will either not allow you to add affiliates and other advertising to earn money from your site. Few sites will, but if you ho with these your website name may be a little obscure.

It is far better to choose one which if offering a paid website service. You are not looking to start with an empire, although you may be hoping to build one. The average cost should be approximately $10 US per month plus a one-off $20 registration fee for the website name. These types of sites are yours to put whatever you want on; including paying adverts.

The website name you choose should reflect the name you have chosen for your blog. Both of these names must be relevant to the topic you intend to cover in your blog. When choosing a topic it is essential to choose something which you are passionate about; you will need to add information, articles and possibly pictures every day. This is far easier if you are dealing with a subject which you enjoy and are passionate about.

The initial stages of blog creation should be dedicated to creating meaningful articles which provide a lot of useful information and tips on your chosen subject. You should not simply reprocess information which is already available on the web; your blog must aim to add value to other people’s lives. Once you have several articles on your site and you are ready to post daily you should focus on attracting followers. It is best to avoid all money related activity at the start as you wish to build a reputation as a good source of information and for your followers to trust you. It is at this point you must reach out to other bloggers, websites with complementary products and social media sites. Money earning links and posts should be added once you have established a reasonable level of followers.

Although it is best to choose a topic which you are passionate about, you must ensure the topic has not already been overpopulated on the internet. The best topics are those which fit into a small niche; although the target audience may be smaller, there will be less competition and a greater level of loyalty from them. If your first choice of topic is already well covered on the web then a secondary topic could be beneficial as you will learn with your followers. This will provide many opportunities to engage with your followers; the more you connect with them the more likely it is that they will follow your affiliate links and provide you with a passive income.

Dividend Stocks

Dividend stocks are much smaller and easier to understand than their larger counterparts. This is something that even novice investors can do, and they have the possibility of building up a lot of money when it comes to the options that are included with investing. You can create a lot of passive income just from the dividends that are on the stocks that you have, and you will be able to enjoy the benefits.

While dividend investing may be the most expensive to start up, it is the passive income option that includes the least amount of work on your part. There is not a lot that you will have to do when you first start out, and there is certainly not a lot of work that you will have to do when you are continuing to make money from it.

How People Make Money with Dividend Investing

The idea behind dividend investing is that people can make money simply from the profits that come from the companies that they have invested in. This means that when you invest your money into a company, you will get a dividend of the profits that they have. Companies do this to not only give back to the people who have chosen to invest in them but also to make sure that they can save money on the taxes that they pay on the specific amount of money that they have paid. The more a company gives out in dividend payments, the less they have to worry about paying in taxes.

When you invest in dividends with a company, you will get a small percentage of the profits that they have. Despite the fact that it is small, you should still make some money. The amount that you invest will probably be far less than the amount that you can make off of it even though both of the amounts are relatively small.

The More Dividends, The Better

Most people who are able to truly profit from dividend investing do so because they have many different dividends investing streams that they have coming in. This means that they can make a lot of money from different sources.

For example, someone who invests in dividends may have invested in three different large companies. Even if they invested only a small amount, they can see big returns because there are three different streams of income that they have coming into them. It is a great way to make sure that you are making money and to get the most out of the money that you are making.

Finding a Company

There are many different companies that you can choose to invest in, and when you choose the right one, you will be able to make a lot of money from it. You will, in general, need to find a company that is offering dividend investing opportunities. This can be any company but should always be a company that is willing to let people invest in the different opportunities that they have. It can be difficult to figure out what you need to do or how much you need to invest so make sure that you find a company that is willing to help you with the options that you have.

When you are working to make sure that you are going to be able to invest, you should always find a company that is reputable and that makes a lot of money. If you don’t, you could risk losing out on money that you would have been able to make from investing it in some other type of opportunity. Dividend investing is all about how much you can make and what you are willing to do to make that money.

Preparing to Invest

When you are getting ready to invest the money that you are spending on dividend investments, you need to make sure that you are fully prepared for it. You need to make sure that you have built up the amount of money that is required to buy into several different investment opportunities. You also need to make sure that you are prepared to make those investments. When you are preparing to invest, you should have money that you will be able to spend on the investment and money that you will be able to keep back in case of any incidentals.

You should also keep the information on the company close by so that you will be able to reference it when you are trying to make the investment. It may be hard to figure out exactly what you need to do with the investment, but you will be able to truly start to benefit when you know what you are doing and how much you will need to spend.

Cash Payments

The most common way that you will get paid on the dividend investment is through a cash payment. This doesn't necessarily mean that you will get cash in the sense that you would traditionally think of, but it does mean that you would be able to be paid through a check or an automatic deposit into a bank account. It is a good idea to try and make sure that you are going to be able to get the money in this way.

A company that is going to pay you in cash is a sign of a good company. When a business is financially healthy, they will be able to pay all of their investors in cash and not have to worry about how they are going to pay them. This is because they will have the cash flow that is needed to be able to pay everyone in the right way instead of just trying to pay them in different ways to make things work for them. It is a good idea to try and make sure that you know what you are going to be paying and how you can be paid.

Property Payments

Some companies may choose to pay their investors in property. This is great for a company that has been doing it for many years but can be a sign of financial instability if they suddenly switch from paying in cash to paying in the property. They may be trying to get rid of the things that they have stored, or they may simply need to find a different way to pay you because there are cash flow problems.

If you notice a company that you have invested in making a sudden change like this, pull out. Your money is likely not safe with the company, and you may end up losing money if you continue to stay with that company. There are many reasons to make sure that you are not keeping in with a company that has all of these problems but the biggest reason lies in that the company may be getting ready to fold and you will lose your money that you have invested in the process.

REITS

A real estate investment trust is a popular option for people who are investing their money in dividends. This is a company that owns a piece of real estate. All of the people who have invested in it come together as the owners. They do not necessarily make all of the decisions about the property, but they will get a cut of the profits on the property. It is a great way to ensure that you are investing in the right thing and that you will be able to make the right monetary decisions when it comes to different investing options.

The real estate investments that do the best are often the ones that are in big cities and have a lot of tenants. They make a lot of money and will always be needed because there is often not enough space for tenants in the cities. If you find a REIT in a smaller town, you may want to consider what you will be able to make off of it before you choose to put your money into it. It may not be as profitable as other REIT, and you may end up losing some of your investment money.

A Profitable Company

The company that you choose, no matter what type of company it is, should always be profitable. You can figure this out by looking at the publicly released trends on the company and any information that is put out by the tax office. It is a good idea to try to find different things on the company and learn as much as you can about it before you invest in it so that you will be able to make the most amount of money possible.

If you are going to make sure that you are getting what you can out of the investment experience, you should always have an idea of how the company has performed in the past. This doesn’t mean that you need to just look at what the company puts out but also what has been released about it. You should always find a company that has not had losses in the past few years and a company that is going to be projected to keep profiting in the future. You need a company like this if you want to make real money from dividend investing.

No Major Problems

There could be major problems with a company that you may not even know about until you start taking a deeper look at the company. It is a good idea to try different things and find out as much as you possibly can before you make a choice to invest in the company. Look at the history and at any problems they may have had in the past so that you can learn what you need to about the company. It is also a good idea to try to make sure that you are going to be able to get what you can out of the company.

If the company has had any major problems in the past ten years, it can be a sign that things are going to go bad for the company in the coming years. This is not something that you will want to deal with while you are trying to make passive income so be sure that you are going to be able to have a company that is long lasting and that is not going to shut down at any point in the foreseeable future. You could have problems if the company is not able to bring money with you.

Yields on the Investment

The yields on the investment will be the amount of money that you make after you have made the decision to invest in the company. It is like your profit and will be the total amount that you made less the amount that you put into the business. It is a good idea always to keep track of the amount that you invested so that you will know how to figure out your yields.

If you can figure the way that the yields work, you can figure out the right way to make sure that you are going to be able to bring more attention to the money that you have made. You will also be able to make more money from the amount that you have invested in the different options that were included with your monetary assignments. Always do your best to make sure that you are yielding as much as possible and that you are going to be able to make the most amount of money from the options that you have. This is the only way that you can make true passive income from dividend investing.

Looking at Profits

The profit that you make from your dividend stocks will come directly from the profit that the company makes. This means that you need to make sure that you are going to choose a company that has a high amount of profits so that you do not have to worry about where your passive income is going to come from. The high profits should be long term and they should have a good trend to them that shows that the company will continue to make money no matter what happens with the economy.

A company that has been able to make money for a long time with no regards to the economy is one that is going to be worth the most for you. It will be easy for you to try and make sure that you are going to get the most out of it and that you will be able to truly enjoy the amount that you get. Passive income is all about having to do as little work as possible after you have put the initial work in and the right choice with dividend investing will allow you to get the most amount of passive income possible and the highest profits available so that you can truly enjoy your money.

Long Term

Dividend investing is great for the long term. Unlike the other types of investing for passive income, you will be able to truly enjoy the money that you make from your dividends for a long time. Most businesses that do well and have been doing well for years will continue to do well so that you can keep making money from them. There are many different ways that you can enjoy the benefits that come from long term dividend investing but make sure that you know how long this could be when you first get started.

If you are looking for a way to make a lot of money in a little time, dividend investing is not the best option for you. Even when it comes to other types of passive income, which can all take a long time, dividend investing is often the slowest with the returns. You should be aware of that before you start investing but also know that it will be able to benefit you in the long-term so that you can make the most amount of money possible and so that you can enjoy everything that comes along with the investment process.

Amount of Risk

There is not a huge amount of risk when you are investing in dividends. This is because the majority of the singular dividends are small investments. This means that you will not have to worry about how much you are going to spend because it does not take much to get started. Despite the fact that you do not need to take huge risks with dividend investing, you will still need to set aside some money for the investments that you are going to make.

Set aside money because it is hard to make a lot of money if you just invest in one dividend or you do not have a lot of money into it. It may be a good idea to only put a small amount into the investment when you are first getting started, but you will need to make sure that, if it works out for you, you are prepared to put even more money into it so that you can start to profit more. You can enjoy higher profits with the more amount of money that you buy into the investments with, and you won't have to worry about all of the problems that come with other dividend investing opportunities.

Your Passive Income

After you have made the right investment and have started to get a return on it, you will see that the passive income is worth it. No matter what type of investment you are doing or any other stream of work that you have done to make sure that you are getting passive income, you should be able to enjoy it. Enjoying it, though, doesn't mean that you spend all of the money as soon as you get it because that could be a problem.

Instead, you need to make sure that you have a plan for your money. It could be to save the money, spend the money on things that will make more sense or simply do more with the money. You won't have to worry about where your next meal will be coming from when you have passive income, but you should be prepared to manage the wealth that you do have so that you do not have the problem of too much money.

Investing

One thing that is always a good idea when you are investing and you have passive income is to invest the money that you have made. It will be like making double the amount of money, and you can benefit from all of the aspects that come along with investments. For example, if you find that you are making a lot of money with dividend investing, you may choose to use some of the passive income that you have in your bank to be able to invest it in other opportunities. You can even try to invest it in other passive income opportunities. The more streams of income that you have, the better you will be able to make more money.

Now that you have gotten over ten different ideas of how to make passive income, you should have no problem choosing the one that works the best for you. It is always a good idea to try different things and to make sure that you are making the right decision so use this book to pursue as many opportunities as possible. Passive income is all about making a lot of money, figuring out the right way to invest your money and being sure that all of your money is going to the right things. You can truly begin to make good investment choices when you learn the right way to make passive income.

Merch By Amazon

Another Amazon feature that will help you produce passive income is the Merch system. Merch by Amazon allows you to upload styles to be published on t-shirts and offered in the world’s largest online marketplace. Amazon provides a print-on-demand assistance and order fulfillment, so you don’t have to worry about creating the t-shirts, obtaining a person base, storing stock, shipping, returns, etc. They also handle all the customer service aspects. They don’t even ask you for anything to sell on their platform- they just charge costs and charges on your own actual sales.

If you’re no artist or designer even, you can make a profit from this ongoing service, but because of the service’s popularity, Amazon has made it a bit harder to become a Merch creator. Amazon offers quality requirements to meet up and a 100% fulfillment guarantee for his or her customers, so they would like to make certain the social people offering shirts on their site are worthwhile. There’s a waiting list to become among their designers, and you ought to request your invitation to use as soon as you read this and that means you don’t miss your opportunity to make passive income with this service.

To be remembered as a creator, you need to request an invitation in order to apply. You’ll receive your invitation when Amazon provides space for new content creators, but remember that this wait can be anywhere from a couple weeks to a year.

Once you obtain your invitation you’ll fill out your application. It starts with your business get in touch with information, your social security number, as well as your bank information and routing numbers. In case you are selling shirts as yourself, not as a company, just use your own name and address. In the request type, there is a box for “more information.” This package can be extremely helpful in increasing your chance of acceptance. Make hyperlinks to your style portfolio or the look portfolio of your contracted graphic designer, as well as any kind of other sites where you sell products.

If you’re not going to personally design your t-shirts, tell them that. Let them know you want to outsource high-quality designs, and link the website of whatever developer you have. Suggest to them that you are a reliable business. In the web site box, link your personal or company site, or your blog.

Once you’re accepted to sell your designs, you’ll have to come up with good content people would want to purchase. Keep an optical attention out in public areas for what t-shirt designs you see people wearing on the streets, what keywords frequently are being used, and what phrases or image styles are being sold on t-shirts to get. Be sure to match trends on social press also, particularly Twitter, so that you can be among the first to release trend-related or meme-related content when the opportunity arises. Creating trend-related t-shirts can be strike and miss because if the demand for products exists, many creators will be releasing competing items then. But if you will be ahead of the development by being one of the first release a your products, then you can profit greatly.

You can also do key word research by looking through Amazon’s Best Sellers and finding which niches appear profitable. This method follows the same manner you’d search profitable niches of eBooks, except it requires into consideration a wider spectrum of products. Using an incognito home window in your browser, head to Amazon’s website and search for the most rewarding keywords in your market. Focus on the autocomplete feature and observe what other keywords customers are employing. The reason for using an incognito window is because in any other case Amazon will monitor your searches and this will alter the autocomplete outcomes. This can help you pick a profitable niche.

A few of the niches and sub-niches that are generally going to sell good are niches that people are passionate about. Types of these will be CrossFit sports athletes, vegans, social justice actions, etc. These public people want to represent their beliefs and passions publicly, so a t-shirt that suits them would sell well. When you design your t-shirt, you’ll want to make sure your styles are unique and not simply copies of other styles.

Following recent events and social media styles are one method to gain inspiration for profitable merch, but there are always a couple of other ways to make a best-selling design. Evergreen designs are designs that continue steadily to sell again and again, year-round. These designs have become generic usually, but they’re reliable for the reason that people will want to buy them always.

Evergreen shirt designs cater to broad niches than more targeted audiences rather. Music, coffee, wine- think about how well-known these topics are on t-shirts in major suppliers. These are examples of evergreen topics you can bottom your designs off of. Holiday designs also sell well. Christmas-themed t-shirts will sell well in the fourth quarter of the year; red and pink romantic relationship themed t-shirts will sell well around Valentine’s day, and so on. People prefer to show their holiday celebration and spirit through their clothes.

These three ways are great for reliable profits, nevertheless, you may also make good product sales by creating designs that focus on a specific niche, particularly for underrepresented sub-niches. For example, you could create designs for those who love cats, but a more profitable option may be to design a shirt for owners of hairless cats. Creating a nice design that's very niche can increase your sales.

Generally, the best-selling designs are not overly busy with wild colors and complicated pictures. A simple, text-based style with one very popular keyword may likely sell. Other choices are clever jokes or “inside jokes” inside your niche, logos that are not trademarked, or well-known phrases. Shirts that are designed for fans in a particular sub-market shall also sell, but it is most beneficial to design them in a way that will also be aesthetically satisfying to people beyond that specific group of fans.

Distressed-looking designs sell well but it is important to be sure that the opacity of your image is not too light when getting uploaded or it may not print well. T shirts with high-contrast colours are popular. Colorful styles with lighter colors look extremely pleasing on dark t-shirts, and, on the contrary end of the spectrum, simple designs in dark colors appearance pleasing on lighter t-shirts. In general, in the event that you don’t want to make a text-based shirt, then you can certainly also sell well using pictures with active characters, simple designs, and silhouettes. The look area on Amazon’s t-shirt template is certainly a rectangular area, but it’s recommended in order to avoid creating designs that will print as a rectangular block.

Make sure that you don’t make use of any copyrighted components, trademarked images or phrases, or any styles that incorporate someone else’s intellectual property. You may use trademark checking websites to make sure your pictures and phrases are not trademarked. Be absolutely sure not to include these components because this will lead to Amazon removing your item and having marks against your account. If your accounts has multiple shirt styles removed from the Amazon marketplace, you will be banned.

Your account may also be suspended if you don’t follow Amazon’s content guidelines. Your shirt designs might not contain pornography, profanity, intolerant phrases, or references to traumatizing or violent events. Other reasons for suspension could be a shady activity like spending money on product reviews to increase your shirt’s Best Retailers rank, creating content material descriptions that don’t match your item, linking your personal blog, site, or shop, or offering quicker shipping.

Once you’ve come up with a couple of design concepts that you think will end up being marketable, you can create the look as a PNG image or hire a freelancer digital media professional do design it for you. Once it’s designed, you’ll upload it to Amazon. The image should be a PNG file with a 300 dpi (dots-per-inch) resolution and a maximum ration of 15 in . tall by 18 in . long. You’ll select a t-shirt template and position your design.

If your design will not take up the whole height of the rectangular area, it is recommended to position the picture higher within the rectangle rather than centered slightly. Once it looks good, choose three colors of shirts which will look good with your style. You can choose more or fewer shades, but three is definitely a strategic number to greatly help your customers with decision making.

Choose what sizes you would like to offer your clothing in, then create a title and explanation. Make sure to make use of multiple high-traffic keywords in your name and write a convincing explanation. Ensure that your description and title are highly relevant to the product’s content and so are free of spelling errors. It can be very easy to unintentionally misspell the word “t-shirt” and end up with profanity in your name and description that causes your style to be rejected and your accounts to be at risk, so you’ll desire to be extra careful to avoid that.

Once you’ve uploaded your design and created your item page, it’s time to launch and marketplace your shirt. You can advertise your t-shirt by buying and putting on your own design, posting pictures on public media, and posting your design with your friends and family. You can also talk about photos or a link to your style in groups or forums that are linked to your niche, whether these be on Facebook, Pinterest, or various other platforms.

Once you begin making sales, your account will end up being “tiered up. ” When you first become an Amazon Merch designer, you can only just upload no more than ten designs. This places you in tier 10. After you’ve made some sales and Amazon knows you’re producing styles that people need it, you’ll be upgraded to tier 25. This allows you to market 25 designs at a right time, and so on and so forth.

If you good designs in niches where there is demand upload, Merch by Amazon can be a great opportunity to produce passive income. Plus, you keep the rights to your design, so if you discover that your styles sell well and you’d prefer to create and print your own t-shirts with the same style to market on other platforms you then don’t have to worry.

Online Programs

Another smart way to create passive income is to share your knowledge and expertise with others via online programs. As with most internet sites, it’s helpful to have an established popularity or brand that holds you as an authority in your specific niche market. This can be made up of a blog or a website, and can almost always increase the amount of profit you may make online. Creating an online training course can add to your professional status by proving that you know what you’re talking about with regards to topics in your field.

Your established reputation might help sell your course, and your course might help solidify your reputation. It’s a win-win. Online programs are also one of the most profitable ways to make passive income online. Creating one requires an investment of at least a couple of months, but the return on investment is generally high, and a well-made training course can also lead to a far more loyal market and increased traffic to your site, blog, affiliate marketer links, or online store.

To build your training course, you need to choose a topic you are knowledgeable about first, passionate about, and have encounter in, whether life experience of formal teaching. You don’t need to be a scholar on the subject, nevertheless, you should share information that's valuable to people who are less acquainted with it and present an unique and helpful perspective.

If your knowledge isn't necessarily highly relevant to a profitable niche, make an effort to incorporate your experience and knowledge right into an unique perspective on a thing that is profitable. You want to select a topic that people are not only discussing but that they are asking questions about. To create money, you need to teach what folks want to learn. Every other on the web instructor is thinking the same thing, therefore they’ll likely be creating classes in similar niches. Your course will have to set itself apart by within the gaps in the info the competition is offering. It shall still need to be similar enough to guarantee the demand for it exists, but your course must provide value to the student that other courses usually do not. When you promote your training course, you shall include this distinction in the description so people understand why you’re the best option.

Once you’ve chosen your course topic, you’ll need to decide what materials to involve in your course content. This will include only the material that is important in acquiring the desired learning outcome and nothing at all else. Most importantly, make sure to include content that fills the areas where the competition falls short.

A program that is created for a targeted sub-niche gets the potential to be more profitable when compared to a generalized course. For instance, a course titled How exactly to Create a Spreadsheet may have significant competition, whereas a course titled How exactly to Create a Spreadsheet in Google Sheets addresses a subject that may have less competition and popular. Also, keep in mind, a long course will not translate to a valuable course necessarily, and your students might struggle to stick to a course full of unnecessary information.

For a profitable course, a 2-3 3 hour course comprising multiple 20 to 30 minute modules will be ideal, and it must be priced higher than the competition slightly. Of course, because you’re pricing it higher you need to ensure that it is packed with value. Prices your course lower than your competitors’ helps it be appear as though your course is much less valuable and could actually reduce your sales.

Once you’ve decided what details you wish to use in your course, framework the program modules to follow an all natural progression and achieve the required learning results. Similar designs and ideas could be collected into module groups. Then, the basic ideas within those modules ought to be organized in a way that flows logically. Simple, concrete truths should be explored before shifting to more abstract ideas, and the topic matter should segue perfectly from one topic into another.

In classes that are job-oriented, the information should follow the actions of the real job environment. In all full situations, each lesson should build upon the previous details to bring the college student closer to the required mastery of the topic. This information should be presented in various methods to accommodate all aspects of adult learning. Information can be represented in photos visually, videos, or illustrations, and also through reading articles, journaling, multiple-choice quizzes, self-evaluations, and other practical methods. Video may be the most commonly used and broadly respected way of relaying information, nevertheless, you can incorporate any methods that are well-appropriate to your unique topic.

Next, you’ll need to produce your content. Videos are the most popular and the very best teaching method presumably. These can be recorded in another of 3 ways: lecture style, with a green display screen, or with a screen recording.

Lecture style movies showcase the teacher explaining the concept to the camera, sometimes with a white board to pull or write things out. With a green display screen, the teacher continues to be in the frame explaining the concept, but pictures, slideshow slides, or animation could be added in the background through the editing stage to better illustrate the principles. Screen-castings show a recording of the teacher’s screen as they go through whatever techniques they’re explaining, plus a small video package in the corner that presents a webcam video of the teacher.

You can choose which design of video is best suited to your topic. After it’s recorded, you can edit your video yourself or you can outsource the video editing to a freelancer. Video editing software program costs a few hundred dollars, so either real way, you will need to invest some cash in this step. Any worksheets, checklists, or other paperwork you wish to include together with your course should be uploaded as PDF data files in order to be conveniently printed or downloaded.

There are a few ways to boost your profits by adding value to your course. Including downloadable assets like worksheets, checklists, templates, and video lessons gives your students more value for their money. Offering one-on-one coaching or group training creates an opportunity for your college students to acquire more knowledge from you in an individualized manner, while creating a possible income stream also. The income from coaching wouldn't normally be passive income, which means this is optional absolutely, but it does validate your expert position and promote your program.

You can host live calls or webinars together with your students also, or create an exclusive Facebook group where you help your students create a community of individuals interested in the same topic. Other ways give yourself an advantage over the competition include being available by phone or email to greatly help students with questions and supplying a certificate of completion upon finishing the course.

Your course could be designed and sold using a learning management program (LMS) like Teachable. This type of platform will help you through the process of building your training course from scratch. You can import your PDF documents, photos, and videos from your own Google Travel or Dropbox, and quickly arrange it into your course with templates. You can also create a new website for your course if you don’t curently have one and Teachable will take treatment of the hosting and give you a free of charge domain name.

Both your website and course will be mobile friendly. If you already have a website, you can hyperlink your course to your site and run it from generally there while still having your LMS take care of signups, payments, and tracking metrics like completion rates or student demographics.

You can sell your course within an online course marketplace like Udemy also. This is a less rewarding option generally, but it could be great if you’re trying out your first course, or as a real way to draw increased traffic to your LMS hosted course. Online course marketplaces provide a template and hosting providers to build your training course, or you are allowed by them to upload your own. Once it’s uploaded, they have the proper to price and market your course because they wish. This may mean your program gets given away for free or sold for an extremely low price. That is why it’s recommended to create a shorter, more condensed edition of your course to list in on the web marketplaces.

The mini-course ought to be packed with enough value to entice potential learners, but shouldn’t contain more info than you’d discharge on your own blog or website free of charge. By the end of your market mini-course, add in a reward module that encourages learners to take the “advanced” training course you have on your website. This will send out them to your full, LMS hosted course. You might still gain some income from the marketplace course, but it ought to be used generally

Once your program is ready to be sold, you’ll need to choose a cost. Prices too low for your course shall make it show up less valuable to potential students. Pricing as well high may necessitate you to reduce prices later on, which doesn’t look good either. If you want to produce a profit, you should not sell your training course for under $50. If you want to maximize your profits really, you should mark it over $200.

When you’re starting out with your first program, you can start with your pricing about the lower side and steadily increase it until your sales start showing some level of resistance. Keep in mind that you need to price your course based on the worthiness it holds, not on its duration. Those who are purchasing these high-quality courses could likely learn the majority of this information for free somewhere on the web, but they want to get it from a specialist without needing to search all over for this. Your course ought to be shown as the high quality value course, so that it should be priced higher than the competition slightly. This higher pricing will attract serious students who really desire to learn what you are teaching and you will be more likely to put into action the knowledge and skills they gain. They are the people you would like to market your course to.

In your sales copy, describe what credentials you have that makes you an professional, whether it be through life experience or formal training, and what learning outcomes your students can get. In detail, outline the problem they are facing to show you realize their pain and problems, then propose a graphic of the world where this problem is fully gone (the world after they’ve completed your course), to make a contrast between the full life they have and the life span they can achieve. Then explain how your training course will get them to this ideal place- how will they feel different at the end of the course, exactly what will they have learned to do, and how will they reap the benefits of this change in their life or career.

You can put a number on the information also. For instance, you can illustrate the money they conserve by learning from you rather than taking classes at a college, traveling to seminars, or employing personal coaches. Your college students want to observe how your program shall transform their lives. Presenting your course such as this and charging an effective amount of money will attract students who certainly are a right fit for this. This will leave you with fewer refund requests, higher satisfaction prices, and higher completion prices.

Another method of pricing your course is certainly to create three versions of it at different cost points and offer them in a sort of “basic,” “superior,” and “deluxe” fashion. The basic course will be the same condensed version you released in course marketplaces. It’s mainly the same info you’d release free of charge, with just a little added worth. This course is priced suprisingly low because it doesn’t present much worth.

The second pricing option for the course, our “premium” course, contains the course you need to sell. This is the full training course as you wish to present it to students, and it’s costed significantly higher than the basic course.

The 3rd pricing option provides the “deluxe” course, which is merely the center course with a tiny bit extra offered really. This option is priced greater than the middle course significantly, but it only offers a little bit more value. This added value is actually a collection of templates and worksheets or PDF of some extra information. The point of the high-priced option isn't to sell, it’s actually to operate a vehicle your client toward the “premium” package containing the actual training course. Psychologically, people like to make choices, so when they’re selecting one option out of three that are a valuable deal, they will have an easier time rationalizing the buy.

Happy customers will be more likely to share your course with their friends, which increases your course’s exposure. You may also increase your course’s exposure with paid advertisements, email blasts, and social mass media posts. In the event that you don’t have an email list extensive enough to promote your training course with email blasts sufficiently, you can go after a jv partnership with a more established person or firm in your target market. This partnership allows a person or business with a larger email list (and with it, the founded trust of their viewers) to promote your course with their email list in exchange for a share of the profits from any resulting product sales. Because this payment only takes place as a commission if sales are made, this is free advertising essentially. A respected authority within your niche has now lent you credibility to an market made up entirely of individuals within that specific niche market without any financial purchase from you.

However, if your program is costed to low, these partners might not want to vouch for you as the commissions won’t be worthwhile for them. A 40% commission on a $90 sale is usually a considerably lower incentive than a 40% commission on a $900 sale. That is yet another good reason why pricing your course well is important.

To find jv partners, first look within your network. Look for someone who has usage of an audience within your marketplace or who offers connections to somebody with an identical audience. This is actually the best avenue because people who know you, know very well what you present, and currently like and trust you are more likely to be willing to attest to you. People within your viewers, email list, and customer base may possess connections that could benefit you also.

If you can’t look for anyone connected to your network closely, search for prominent influencers or bloggers in your market. Bloggers are generally ready to promote affiliate items for a commission, so your course can be made up of those products. You can approach podcasts inside your niche also, authors of books your target customers are buying, and hosts of industry occasions or conferences.

You may also approach instructors of online courses within your niche, just not your direct competition. Offer them free usage of your training course and let them choose if they would like to promote it. Because they’ve received something for free, they might be much more likely to wish to accomplish a favor for you in return, and that’s quite definitely what you’re asking them to accomplish: a favor.

Promoting a stranger’s program or product to an viewers you’ve established a trusting relationship with is not an opportunity that everyone would leap at. Before you ask you to definitely become your joint venture partner, establish a relationship with them and increase value to them. Buy their items, leave a positive review of their reserve, refer someone to them, or sign up to their email list. By helping them and showing an appreciation for the worthiness they bring, you can develop an actual friendship to build a continuing business partnership on.

Building relationships with influencers in your niche grows your networking and can positively effect your business in the long run. Write them a customized email introducing yourself, complimenting them on specific areas of their work that you appreciate. After that tell them which you have a course you imagine would complement their products or services and their market may enjoy, so you’d prefer to discuss going after a joint-venture partnership and you’d like them to get in touch with you if they’re interested. If they're, schedule an in-person meeting or, at the minimum, a phone contact rather than continuing over email so you can have a more personal interaction.

If you decide to pursue a partnership, outline the agreement in detailed composing and clarify it with them before completing the conversation. Make a very clear and simple agreement on paper, then produce an affiliate link to allow them to share and proceed together with your joint venture partnership.

The initial creation of your web course may require a substantial time investment, and it can need a financial investment to outsource different elements of the procedure, but there is vast potential to profit off of such an electronic product. Once your program is available on the internet, you don’t need to do much else. The marketing could be outsourced even. Overall, this is an excellent method to create passive income.

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Amazon FBA

Amazon is widely considered to be the world’s largest eCommerce company, according to revenue. They have invested themselves into several aspects of eCommerce, with one of those aspects being Amazon FBA.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service that provides storage, packaging and shipping assistance to sellers. Unlike dropshipping, where you do not own any merchandise, Amazon FBA has you invest in merchandise that is then stored at one of their warehouses. The products are packed and shipped, all courtesy of Amazon.

This works to your benefit, as you have the credibility of Amazon being associated with your products, and customers will feel they are more likely to receive quality products through your business. On top of this, you will never have to handle any merchandise, which can take the burden off of handling and maneuvering large volumes of equipment. Using Amazon FBA also means that you will pay lower shipping fees, due to their relationships with certain shipping companies.

As I am sure you have already guessed, using Amazon’s services will cost you a bit of money. Amazon will take approximately 15% of your product price once it is sold, along with storage, shipping and handling fees that you will have to pay.

Now you may be thinking that dropshipping is already a better alternative, as you avoid having to pay several fees, however each comes with its own perks according to your business model.

With dropshipping, you are required to build up a client base in order to sell your product. However, Amazon allows you to bypass some of this, as you have access to their huge customer base, while increasing your profit margins due to a higher selling price, courtesy, again, of the Amazon brand.

Naturally, you will have doubts about involving any of the giant-size brands in your startup business, such as Amazon, there is much success to be made from this kind of business model. Amazon FBA’s profit margins and branching revenue streams make it possible to greatly increase the earning potential for your business.

Spencer Haws, owner of Niche Pursuits, used this to his advantage, selling his products on Amazon and raking in approximately $40,000 dollars in his first month. This just shows that there is tremendous potential for profits within the industry, just in merely finding the right niche. The possibilities that await are potentially endless!

Building Your Amazon FBA Business

So now that you’re interested in starting your own Amazon FBA business, where do you actually begin?

Open an account and consider your niche

Well, the first step is to open a ‘Seller Account’ with Amazon. You can either opt for a Professional or an Individual account. The Individual account does not require any monthly subscription, however you will have several limitations placed on your account. These could work for you, or against you, depending on the needs of your business.

Just as you would do in dropshipping, you will need to find a niche for your business. Remember to relate it to something that you’re interested in, such as a hobby or special interest. Don’t throw away extra ideas you may have, as you could potentially add them in the future, or use them as an alternative if your current niche is not turning out successfully. As always, expand your knowledge as much as possible, so that you can better determine the best possible outcomes for your business.

What products will you sell?

From there, you will need to determine what products you would like to sell. Consider using keyword tools to help you gather research into how often people search for certain products, and use this to determine what are the best products to sell.

Make sure to identify what fees are associated with each product. Weight, size and storage requirements will vary depending on your product, so look for products with lower fees to minimize your expenses.

Do your best to keep away from products that are used by popular brand names and are well-established in the markets. These are infinitely harder to compete with.

Product Sourcing

Once you’ve determined the core products that your niche will center around, you will need to find out where your products will be sourced from. You should be looking for supplies with high quality products available for you to sell.

If you intend to sell a product that is produced locally, you could head to your local manufacturer and I’m positive they will be welcoming to your efforts.Alternatively, you could still take the route of using an overseas supplier, which is also beneficial as it tends to bring potential for higher profit margins for your business.It would be to your own benefit to test the products that you are planning on selling, should you find yourself sourcing from an overseas supplier. Try to get your hands on some samples so that you can ensure you will be providing high quality items to your future clients.

Your next step will be to ship the goods to an Amazon Fulfillment Center. Amazon will provide you with specifications and instructions when going through this process. Be sure to keep shipping costs in mind, as these can derail your business if you fail to keep track of them.

Creating your brand

You now have products ready to be sold, however, you’re still going to need a brand. Your brand will tell your clients who you are. Make sure to research if your brand name has already been used or not, as well as whether there is an available domain. Your domain name is your website’s name, and this will be where clients are able to find you.

Even though you gain more brand will gain more credibility through Amazon, it is still important for you to place high value on its creation. This will define your business for as long as it exists, and so you need to make sure it starts off on the right foot. Remember the main facets of a brand are its name, tagline, logo and the brand story.This will also include your products and how you choose to display them.

Create your product pages, making sure your product details are accurate and detailed, while product photos are professional that emphasize and show off your products. Take a look around to see how other brands market their own products, using this to guide you in your own marketing.

Make sure the tone of your descriptions are friendly and enticing to potential buyers. ‘Sell’ the product, but don’t let them feel that you are selling it. Use the descriptions to make clients feel like this is something they must buy; that they can’t live without. Be expressive in your writing. Make sure any paragraphs you have are structured and organized so that they are attractive to the reader. Too much boxed all together will feel a little overwhelming.

The aim of the description is to sell the product, and to silence all doubts a client may have regarding their purchase.

Marketing

Your Amazon FBA business is all set up. Now we have to market it. As it is with dropshipping, advertising is the key component to get your business up and running and bring in sales.

Social media is still your best friend here. Look at enhancing your brand’s profile, allowing people to view, like, comment and share as you go along. This ensures that you begin to build a rapport with potential customers.

However, don’t rush yourself into exploring several channels for marketing at once, and try to invest time in all of them simultaneously. Instead, select a few channels or platforms to begin with, and once you feel you are gaining a return, you can move onto something else.

Here, there is a benefit to influencers, as you can use them to market your product for you. Offer them free products in return for reviewing and marketing your products, and you may see your sales gain a significant boost.

On top of this, consider adding platforms on your website and social media for clients to leave reviews of their purchases and service, as great reviews can give you a massive reputation boost for future customers. Drive your current and potential customers to sign up for email subscriptions. Use your website to find interesting, but not overwhelming ways of enticing your clients to sign up for a subscription.

A Few Extra Tips

Make it a consistent goal to improve your Best Sellers Rank (BSR). The term being fairly self-explanatory, having a business with consistent BSR growth will show clients that your business has tremendous potential to succeed, and that you are reliable in the quality that you offer.

Stay ahead of the trends, and provide more offers to your clients whenever possible. Continue to include products that will compliment the ones that you already have yet provide more variety in selection.

You could also continue to increase your revenues by becoming an affiliate with Amazon. However, we’ll discuss affiliate marketing in detail a little later.

With Amazon’s extensive brand and tools available to you, there is a world of endless possibilities that await you, should you choose Amazon FBA to further your venture.

Ebook

Many people dream about writing a book, and only a few actually do. The majority are us are not talented writers.

Well, listen to this. Anyone can write a book it. You can do it because you want your message to be heard, or you just want to sell some advice on a particular niche. If you have something of value, then you have many reasons to consider writing a book, particularly an eBook. The process of creating, editing, and publishing an eBook used to be a complicated, but today many publishers and Internet marketers are taking advantage of the Amazon Kindle platform. In fact, you’ve probably signed up to a newsletter just to receive a “FREE EBOOK!”.

EBooks are massively outselling physical books, so if you’re an aspiring writer or an Internet marketer, there are lots of opportunities for you to take advantage of to start making money. Also, self-published eBooks are fairly smaller, consisting of 7,000-20,000 words opposed to 70,000+ for a physical novel.

Step 1: Writing

Writing is often the hardest part, but it all starts with an idea. If you have a pretty good idea, and you market it creatively to your reader, you’re sure to sell. Remember that writing eBooks is no different from the process for other types of books. The difference is mostly the medium of publication. So, like other books, you must have a good writing plan.

Different eBooks call for different approaches, but it’s important to come up with different ideas and put them together into a vertical outline. Use these three drafts to help you. By the way, I used the same strategy for this eBook.

The Vomit Draft

In this draft, you will "vomit" all the ideas you have on your topic. I mean come up with things like the table of contents, outlines of chapters, and how you will present your idea, scenes, images, and stories. In this draft, you don’t need to make anything pretty.

A Better Review Draft

After you have unpacked and expanded all your thoughts, this is where you need to spend your time rearranging and organizing them. At this point, you can share the ideas with your friends and get a pretty picture of what you need to eliminate and what to add.

The Editorial Draft

Even if you consider yourself a good writer, you might get value from a professional hand. You can also ask a friend or someone who is familiar with your particular topic about things like the accuracy of your material, the story structure, or the elements of your writing style. New eyes can fix mistakes, plus if you outsource to an experienced editor, they might make small improvements that will result in smoother writing. Your readers will appreciate it. I highly recommend you outsource. Nicholas Hartunian reached out to me in Email about working for me, and he had quite a background in writing and editing, so he proof-read and copy-edited most of the technical stuff I wrote to be easier to read!

Step 2: Formatting

Now you’ve written your eBook. Congrats, my new author friend. Time to format your work.

Since we’re focusing on Amazon, let’s design for Kindle. If you have no clue how to do that, you can pay an expert to do it for you. It might be worth spending a couple of dollars to get it right. If you ask me for the easiest way to format an eBook for Kindle, I will point you to Scrivener (what I’m using right now!) or to a program called Calibre. If you decide to do it yourself, here are two things you probably want to know:

1. Don’t use the style and formatting settings

This is the place where majority of people mess up. You do not want to format your document by creating headings, bolding text, changing the font size, etc because this will ultimately get messed up on Kindle. In other words, the way your computer at home reads a digital file is not how the Amazon software does. For each and every Kindle eBook listed on Amazon, content is formatted in Amazon’s proprietary format. It’s called a “.mobi” file. For example, eReader Kindles will convert headings into regular fonts, so there is no need to change the font on your side. Just leave the defaults. Use the headings provided by Microsoft Word. However, for Kindle Fire or Tablet Kindle, you can use other fonts. Look into guides online if you want to try something specific.

2. Choose your line spacing carefully.

Line spacing is critical for Kindle, so use at least a spacing of around 120%. To set this up, just use normal settings on your Word Document, and go to “format,” then “paragraph,” and on the line spacing option, select “multiple.” Then type a value of “1.2.”

Now let’s talk about cover design.

People always say never judge a book by it’s cover, but when it comes to Kindle... people DO judge a book by its cover. Your book’s first impression can mean all the difference in your Kindle eBook’s success, so if you have no idea how to go about it, just skip this, and let an expert do it for you. Look into 99design, CrownSpring, and other sites that will help you create a killer cover. I personally recommend Fiverr. It’s a competitive market, and you’re almost guaranteed to get a great deal. Just use simple and striking images that tell your reader what your eBook is about. Again, I would highly advise using a professional when designing a cover.

Hey! We’re almost ready to publish. Have you double-checked everything? Do you have someone who can help you proofread every line? THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. Don’t be that guy who has a glaring typo in their eBook and gets 10 emails about it everyday. I have some older Youtube videos where this happens.

Step 3: Publish your book

Holy cow you did it. You wrote a book and formatted it. Now how do we sell? How do you make your book available on Amazon? This is actually the easiest part, but many people are intimidated by a few technical tasks involved. Don’t worry. I gotcha. First and foremost, convert your manuscript to Amazon’s format (Mobi). If your eBook is finished and properly formatted, you are ready to go, so here's what you need to do:

#1. Head on over to kdp.amazon.com, and sign in (You need a normal Amazon account first).

#2. Set up your Kindle Store account using your bank info as well as IRS reporting information. (Amazon is trusted!)

#3. Find the secret portal eBook prompt that typically appears in the right-hand side of the screen after you’re done with the above two steps. When you locate that, update and complete all the legal and tax mumbo jumbo that Amazon needs to pay you as soon as your book starts to sell.

#4. Click “bookshelf,” then click that link saying, “to publish the book, add a new title.” There is a form to fill out with everything your book needs to sell including the book title, the eBook description, and the keywords that browsers can use to locate your book.

#5. Upload your cover file in JPEG format. Amazon has dimension guidelines, 750 by 1200 pixels for Kindle Direct or 900 by 1100 for Grayscale Kindle books to be uploaded on Mobipocket). These image features mean that your cover page should be large enough and give you decent resolution.

#6. Now you need to choose between DRM or no DRM. These are just encryption terms. If you choose DRM, it means that users won’t be able to transfer your eBook between devices, although they will be able to access it through the Kindle apps for iOS and Android. If you pick the no DRM encryption, then your book will show "simultaneous device usage is unlimited" on your profile page.

You’re ready to upload your book file.

After you upload the file, you have a chance to review how the book will appear, and you can test your book with actual Amazon online viewers to make sure everything works. Click “save and continue” when you’re done.

At this point, it's important that you choose worldwide rights. After that, you’re going to get to determine your price, but whatever the price, publishing on Kindle Direct will give you two royalty options: 70% and a 35%. I would recommend that you choose a 70% royalty rate. To receive that, you need to price your eBook at the lowest rate: 2.99 to 9.99 US Dollars. In order to maximize your royalties, this list price must be at least 20% below the minimum for the physical book. If you’re selling a physical copy for $20 and the digital copy for $2.99, it looks like a fantastic deal! This is just a fact about human psychology related to the “anchoring bias” - not actually part of Amazon’s algorithms.

Let’s do this. Publish it! Within 48 hours, your eBook will be out in the wild.

Step 4: Marketing and selling your eBook.

So you’re a published author. Feels fancy, right? Unfortunately, sales don’t just start rolling in on their own. The next eBook puzzle is promoting and merchandising. Remember, there are thousands and thousands of new eBooks appearing everyday on Amazon. How will you stand out?

Amazon has its own promotional tools, but if you really want to succeed, you can’t rely on them entirely. Here are a few tips you might find helpful:

Do not market chaotically. You need to come up with a plan. For me, I wanted to make 3 videos on my channel promoting this eBook and give it away to other creators in my niche. Don’t start announcing the release as soon as you upload your book. Let the book get some review from customers you know might like it first. Promote it in your book club or join a forum in advance. Blast it out to your email list! Now when your book goes live, you will have a couple positive reviews.

As noted earlier, the title and cover are everything when it comes to an eBook. If people are not intrigued with by title or your cover isn’t professional, your content won't matter. No one will bother to look at your description or reviews.

If you include a preview of some of your chapters, people might also be more encouraged to buy the book. Give some free pages to your niche! To do this, you can include a “Look Inside” option on Amazon.

If you are completely confident with your book, why not consider offering a free download for a couple of days when you start. The reviews you get then will be a massive boost later on. Even if they are bad, they’ll bring attention to your book. I’ll explain this in a bit.

Now as a new publisher you are bound to make some mistakes, so if you think you did something wrong, you’ll have a chance to fix it for five days in three months depending on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) options you picked.

If your book has gotten some sales, and it's well published, join KDP Select or Kindle Unlimited.

This promotions tool will keep your book visible to shoppers. But don’t only use these tools. Have your own marketing platforms: a site, a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, and other media channels that you can use to talk about your book. Some of these platforms can build a buzz before you even publish the book and will continue to give you an advantage after you publish it.

One of the missed opportunities for many Kindle authors out there is forgetting to include your website URL on the front page of the eBook. That’s literally leaving money on the table. No one who likes your book will have a path to go see more of your products or web content.

Even after all this, your journey isn’t over. Keep promoting your book, and keep up with readers as you begin another project. If you can create a book every month, which is 500-1000 words a day, you’ll be on your way to making massive passive income soon! Some people even outsource their books for $200-$500 knowing that they will make their money back in a couple months. After that, it’ll all be passive income!

Online Courses

The constant surges in technology have not only given way to increases in advertising and marketing strategies. They have given way to the potential for learning as well. These days, you could probably learn just about anything you want online. From mathematics to programming to the complexities of a cell. All of it is at the touch of your fingertips.

Likely, in such a market, there is always the opportunity to be seized, and creating online courses is one way you could go about it. Creating your own online courses provides you with the chance to share your expertise with others in a constructive manner. As the industry grows, there are several companies capitalizing on the market, hosting entire websites devoted to a variety of topics for prospective learners to access.

It is estimated that around 33 percent of students have taken online courses, however this does not include those who have chosen to learn later in life. Online courses are not just about professional skills and student-based subjects. It can be about anything that you have a talent for or experience in doing. Online courses can be about anything from cooking to writing, to painting tutorials and maybe even lessons on how to be a decent clown performer. Anything really means anything.

The benefits to online learning can be immense, as a learner has the potential to receive a wide variety of teaching methods, such as video and audio content, in order to grasp the concepts of what they are learning. Whereas before, it’s well-known that anyone who did a bit of self-learning usually looked at the old-fashioned textbook. Online courses have reinvigorated learning to make it a much more fun and interesting experience.

Creating Your Own Online Courses

Creating your own course is actually somewhat similar to starting up a blog at the beginning. It’s funny how all these different options tend to intertwine. As you would pick a niche for your blog that you have an interest in, you would choose a course topic that you are most passionate about. Your training will come off as dull if you decide to engage with a topic you couldn’t care less about. However, you will also need to consider the demand for your course. You’ll feel rather frustrated if you’re creating all these online courses and there’s nobody willing to buy them.

Look for gaps in the competition that match your skill sets and experience, to ensure that you are entering a market that is demanding your knowledge. Try to find something that sets you apart from the other course creators in your field. What makes your courses more interesting and exciting than theirs?

Include course outcomes

A key aspect of course creation is to make sure all your courses have course outcomes. It wouldn’t be a good idea to hand a course to a learner, and they have no idea what it is they are supposed to be achieving. Students will most likely want to know how your course is going to help them, and if this isn’t provided, they may not want to enrol in your course.

The purpose of the learning outcome is to ensure that learners will have a clear understanding of what they will be able to accomplish once they have completed each section of the course, as well as by the end of the course. It should describe the skills they have learned and the knowledge they have gained from completing this course. This will also lead to fewer cases of unhappiness amongst students and fewer refunds to boot.

Plan your content

Once you have outlined what the course is going to achieve, you need to plan the content of your course. Given that this is a field of your talent and expertise, you may be inclined to push the envelope a little too far on what you include. Therefore, instead of considering what you need to include, consider what you need to leave out. This is where the learning outcomes will play a role for you. Anything that is not directly related to the learning outcomes should be removed altogether.

All this content will then need to be ordered into modules and organized. You will need to group all the similar content, tips and ideas together in each of their respective modules, so that the learning is flowing and progressive. Your course should follow a natural and logical progression in the learning phase.

Teaching methods

Now that all your material is grouped together and organized into a structured course, you need to determine your method of delivery. You will need to be considerate of who it is that you are targeting with your content. Are they adults or children? Both? Consider the various ways you can deliver your course, so that it remains interesting for all of the potential learners you may have. Your method of deliver can include video, audio, reading and exercises to best enhance the learning experience. Try to strike a balance between all of these methods, to keep your learners engaged throughout the course.

Now comes the interesting part! You need to get on camera! Okay, well maybe you don’t need to, but it is proven that the best way to deliver learning is through video. If you don’t feel like getting on camera, you could use screencasting instead. Screencasting is when you display a recording of your screen for video. This way, you can do a voiceover, along with an on-screen tutorial, while you don’t have anyone seeing your face.

If you don’t want to include a video tutorial at all then that is fine, but consider that you want to maximize your potential for profits as much as possible, and the most effective online learning method will help see to that.

Selling And Marketing Your Course

The course is now complete, and you are ready to have students take your skills and knowledge on board. In order to do that, you need to decide how you’re going to sell your online courses. Three of the more legitimate ways to sell your course is through learning management systems, online course marketplaces or through your very own website.

A learning management system (LMS) is basically like having your own little academy, and will function as your very own brand. On the other hand, an online course marketplace is a platform where anybody is allowed to sell online courses on the same site. These sites usually do not keep track or analyse the courses before sales, so a course can be anything from extremely high quality and informative, to extremely low quality and just plain dreadful. You website is, well; it’s your website. This decision is really up to you.

Another crucial decision that will be in your hands is the pricing of your courses. Look at your potential competitors to see what they are charging for a similar product. Now comes the controversial part. Consider pricing yours slightly higher than theirs. Why? Well a lower course price will make customers feel like it is of a lower quality, and that will work against you rather than with you.

Now you’re probably ready to sell your product, but you need customers. It’s back to the good old marketing strategies for you! Even if your course is completed, how are people going to find out much about it?

One thing to consider is to partner up with an influencer who creates content that is relevant to your own. Reach out to various influencers and find out who is willing to market your products.

Make sure that you are always one step ahead in your marketing strategies. This means planning out the strategies you will undertake as time progresses. As the course creator, and the most knowledgeable on the matter, you will know where it is you will find students for your course. With that in mind, I’m sure you’ve already pinpointed a few places where you could potential market your course. Social media, once again, will be your friend.

Make sure to persuade any students you do receive to sign up for email notifications, so that you can inform them when you do have another course being rolled out, especially when it all falls under one ongoing subject.

And there you have it. Online courses provide the perfect opportunity to share your wealth of skills with the world, developing and earning a profit while helping others to pick up new skills themselves. Pretty nifty, don’t you think?

Freelancing as a Virtual Assistant

Hundreds of thousands of professionals from around the world make decent incomes as freelance virtual assistants. You can do the same if you have the determination to be successful in it. The job description for a virtual assistant is as varied as the number of virtual assistants out there. Think of yourself as someone’s personal assistant or secretary but you perform your duties remotely and online. For example, a business owner can get you as a virtual assistant and your job is to read and reply to emails being sent to the business owner.

Or you can be a virtual assistant to a data analyst. Maybe you will be performing tasks like creating graphs or building presentations for sets of data. Or you can be a virtual assistant to a social media manager. Your tasks will include managing Facebook and Twitter pages for certain clients of the manager. The point here is that your tasks as a virtual assistant varies and depends on the specific industry that you’re in. You can find virtual assistant job opportunities in websites like Odesk, Freelancer, and Craigslit.

As a virtual assistant, 100% of the tasks you perform are done remotely. You can work for months or even years for a boss without ever learning about what he or she looks like. There are no specific standard that govern what a virtual assistant does or doesn’t do. As long as you are performing tasks remotely for a company or individual as an employee, then you can be considered as a virtual assistant. The term “virtual assistant” in itself defines what you do. You are an assistant but you work online.

Tips on How to Be Successful as a Virtual Assistant

• Assess your skills to make sure that you have what it takes to perform your tasks. Basically, if you have experience working as a secretary or assistant in an office setting, then that’s a good starting point.

• You must be savvy in using the internet and all the communication tools you need to work for a remote client. You have to be adept in using email, video conferencing sites, chat rooms, Skype, etc.

• You must have the necessary and appropriate equipment. First of all, you must have a fast and reliable internet connection. Other hardware you should have includes a printer, a scanner, a camera, or any other device that your boss requires from you.

• Develop a specialty. It’s very difficult to find a job as a virtual assistant if you promote yourself as a jack of all trades. You have to offer a special kind of skill to get the attention of potential employers. For example, you can focus on being a social media specialist, an SEO expert, a travel organizer, etc.

• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. In their desperation to get a gig, some virtual assistants exaggerate their capabilities. This is a huge mistake that can return and ruin your reputation for good.

• Do a lot of networking. Many companies and professionals hire virtual assistants using a referral system. This means they hire a person if he or she has been referred or recommended by someone they trust. Needless to say, if you have a lot of connections in the industry, you have a better chance of finding jobs.

• Attend trainings. There are a lot of virtual assistant trainings that are done online. Many of these are also free which means there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t join any of them from time to time. There are a lot of lessons that you can learn from these free trainings.

• Always be respectful. Whether you are still applying for a position or you have already taken it, always be respectful to your boss. Online jobs are mostly unregulated so there’s not much that you can do if an employee suddenly decides to terminate your position.

• Create a schedule. This is very important if you are working for more than one employer. You have to make sure that your schedules don’t overlap. Time management is a very important skill that every virtual assistant must have.

• Keep in touch with former employers. They might hire you again or they might refer you to others looking for someone like you. Again, networking is necessary in the industry. The more connections you have, the better it will be for you as a virtual assistant.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

• What kind of tasks do virtual assistants perform?

- It depends on who he/she works for. Sample tasks include handling email, answering remote phone calls, making appointments, doing paperwork, researching information, planning meetings and events, making travel arrangements, handling reservations, writing articles, proofreading content, etc.

• How much can I charge clients for my assistance work?

- It depends on the pay structure of the deal you entered into. You can be paid by the hour, per task, or per month. Typically, you can charge between $10 to $20 per hour. However, you can charge a lot more if your skills are highly specialized and there aren’t many virtual assistants with those skillsets in the market. This is another reason you might consider specializing instead of being a jack of all trade.

• Where can I find virtual assistance jobs?

- Start your search in job sites like Freelancer, Codeable, Upwork, Guru, and even Craigslist.

• What are the minimum qualities that a virtual assistant must have?

- Since most of your potential clients will be dealing with you in English, it’s important that you have good verbal English skills, written English skills, and organization skills. And of course, you should be familiar with online communication tools like email, Skype etc.

• What tools can I use to make my work as a virtual assistant easier?

- You must be equipped with tools Skype, Dropbox, Acrobat Connect, Facebook Messenger, Google Apps, LogMeIn, Team Viewer, and other necessary tools and apps.

• How do I get paid as a virtual assistant?

- There are a variety of ways on how you can get paid. So far, the most popular method is through an online payment provider like Skrill, PayPal and Payoneer. However, you can also be paid through bank transfer and cheques.

• Is it possible to work as a virtual assistant full-time?

- Yes, of course. There are businesses and entrepreneurs out there who are looking for full-time virtual assistants.

• How do I get started as a virtual assistant?

- The first step is to create your resume. Don’t forget to highlight the information that makes you a good candidate for a virtual assistant position. You then sign up with job sites and look for VA listings. Apply and if they ask for your resume, send it to them.

• How many clients can I have as a virtual assistant?

- Most virtual assistants maintain more than one clients. This is why it is very important that you learn how to organize your tasks and manage your time. You have to master the art of scheduling your job responsibilities. Having more than one client will also help you diversify your income stream instead of relying solely on one.

• How do I protect myself from clients who turn out to be scammers?

- Scams are quite common in the industry. The best way to protect yourself is to do your research and ensure that the person or company hiring you is legit. Another strategy is to ask for a retainer fee. That is you get paid a portion of your salary in advance. Sites like upwork.com also have a review system whereby the both the client and the virtual assistants review each other after a project is completed. Clients that are legitimate tend to have good ratings and a long profile history.

Myth Busters About Working as a Virtual Assistant

• That you only need a computer and an internet connection to become a virtual assistant. There’s so much more to it than that.

• Working as a virtual assistant is just for work-at-home moms. Not true. The responsibilities of a virtual assistant can be performed by anyone.

• Virtual assistants are employees. This is a misnomer because virtual assistants are independent contractors and self-employed individuals. They work “with” their bosses, not “for” their bosses.

• It’s easy money. Nothing can be further from the truth. The tasks of a virtual assistant can be difficult and time-consuming.

• Virtual assistants do not need training. False again. To be an effective virtual assistant, you need to be aware of the ins and outs of the business.

• That the market is too crowded because there are millions of virtual assistants out there. There’s no truth to the claim that the market is too crowded. In fact, a lot of companies sometimes find it hard to find an available virtual assistant.

• Virtual assistants all come from India and Pakistan. This is nothing but a stereotype. There are thousands of virtual assistants working from western countries like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

• That virtual assistants can steal business ideas and data. Yes, there’s a possibility but it’s rare. Besides, you should never let a virtual assistant have access to your most important and most sensitive data. When outsourcing tasks, only consider those that do not expose sensitive information e.g. bank details etc.

• That virtual assistants only work part-time. Although most virtual assistants work part-time, there’s a lot of them who work at it full-time.

• That virtual assistants need some sort of certification. Not true at all. In fact, 90% or more of virtual assistants out there don’t have any certification for the simple reason that it’s not required by most clients.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Conclusion

Table of Contents

Introduction

Conclusion

Don't miss out!