Are You Losing Money? The Opportunities & Income Right In Front Of You WPCP: 104

This post may contain affiliate links

This episode is proudly brought to you by my sponsor, Sitelock

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll stop learning things the hard way.

OR… maybe that’s simply part of my journey in this lifetime. This episode will probably be a mix of tangible with philosophical, so sit tight, it might be an interesting ride.

I’ve mentioned recently that I’m going through some major changes in my personal life and with my business. I’ve recently sold my house, which I’ve owned for 14+ years and was the house my husband and I bought together (he passed away in 2003). I was talking with my mentor/therapist about all these big changes and the attachments to the house and she asked me if it was because my husband and I bought this house together.

It wasn’t.

It was really more that this was MY house. When we bought this house life was full of promises. We had two small kids (they were 4 & 1 when we moved in), I had a new career I was excited about and everything felt like it was in front of us. Fast forward a year and half later and my life as I knew it was gone. Turned upside down in with one tragic accident (stay with me here, it will get better, I promise).

This house represented me. My ability to survive… and… here’s the kicker… getting to do things however I wanted to. It sounds so odd to say this, but I’ve often said that losing my husband was easier than a divorce. I’ve watched people I love go through a divorce and there can be soooo much pain, anger and resentment. And then you have to find a way to navigate a new path with the person you least want to engage with. I never had to share my kids or worry about how someone else was raising them.

Deciding to sell my house is sort of like closing a chapter in my life. We’ve created amazing memories here and it’s been an awesome place to raise my kids. But I’m ready…

Ready for what?

I’m not sure… I will of course be sharing the journey with you.

All of this personal sharing brings me to the opportunities and income that are right in front of us, we just don’t always see them.

I had something ‘hit’ me on the way home from my last trip up to my therapists and it was something that I think every single person listening can benefit from.

“Stop looking outside of yourself.”

How many times in your business have you made a decision but somewhere along the way (or deep down), you had a niggly feeling it wasn’t what you wanted to be doing? I’m not talking about doing things to pay your bills or take care of your family. I think we all get that when you start a business we all do ‘what we don’t want to do in order to do the things we DO want to do’ (say that 10 times fast!). But we’re subscribed to so many sites, marketers and people who are doing things bigger and better than we lose ourselves and keep searching for something else.

Then I had my HOLY MOLY moment.

Let me give you the scenario…

I check my email and get a notification from PayPal that Hatchbuck just sent me $70.42 (hatchbuck was my previous email provider prior to switching to Active Campaign. I LOVED hatchbuck… but switched to Active Campaign for a few reasons, which I should get into in another post or podcast). The same day I had shared on social media a new tool called ‘Connect Retarget’ by Wilco De Kreij. I have a few of his products (all lead gen / Facebook advertising related) and he’s a great guy. His products are great, he sticks around (not a JV Zoo product) and continues to develop amazing software. Anywho… I knew I was going to get it (and will probably promote it more in the future, I just wanted to be able to test it and use it first) and thought I’d share it socially one day during the launch. I’m sitting in bed that night writing an email and get a PayPal notification that I just made $98.50 for Connect Retarget. No emails, no ads… just one simple share.

So total for that day was $168.92.

If I did that every day that would be $5,067.60 a month.

And that was with barely ANY effort on my part.

What would that look like if I planned and structured my affiliate marketing efforts? Actually created campaigns, did more content (because the truth is the majority of my affiliate income comes from content I’ve created, not promotions).

Then it hit me like a TON of bricks.

I was looking outside of myself again.

I’m still going to pursue affiliate marketing and CPA marketing (that isn’t attached to this brand, my name or website), but what if I started with what I’ve already created? Where I have a built-in audience of people who know, like and trust me? (and maybe think I’m kinda funny too… go ahead, humor me).

FFS, right?

Here’s a few other sobering things that have come to me in the last couple of weeks (I swear I’m much smarter than these ‘a-ha’ moments would dictate).

First, why the bucket do I NOT have a hosting tutorial and WordPress installation on this site (promoting a hosting company of course).

I almost cried when I realized Pat Flynn & started our business the same year. And for no other reason than there are plenty of things I can do and create that will generate that ‘smart passive income’ (pun intended) that he brilliantly implemented from day 1. There’s another blogger I follow in the affiliate marketing space, Matthew Woodward (in the UK). He shares his income reports as well as a handful of other bloggers who are affiliate marketers. Well, being the rabbit hole obsessed marketer that I am I of course clicked through to many (if not all) of these sites to see what people were doing.

And there it was.

Again.

Someone else making about $40k a month with hosting referrals.

DAMMIT JIM! (Star Trek reference)

Time to step it up Doyal.

Income opportunities

So… after years of finally waking up to all this, realizing that I can’t be in services anymore (this doesn’t include coaching btw), it’s time to do some ‘revamping’ of my site.

I’m going to beef up the resources pages but my primary focus will be on creating great content showcasing valuable products and tools that I use.

I can’t promote something simply for the sake of promoting it, so I’ll definitely have to dedicate more time to content creation (which is fine… it’s really something I thoroughly enjoy doing) and create a solid promotional strategy. I can tell you right off the bat that the entire suite of Thrive plugins will be a huge focus for me, along with Beaver Builder and possibly another visual editor (although I haven’t found one that I like as much as these two).  I will without a doubt be including a hosting company (I may do some outreach to find the best solution) with my primary focus being recurring revenue.

I’m in the process of creating criteria for what I promote, but here’s a few items right off the bat:

• A good quality product (I know, duh)
• Recurring revenue (not everything has to be recurring revenue but the more the better)
• Good customer service / support
• A good track record (they’re not going anywhere… i.e., no JV Zoo products that won’t be supported a year later … that doesn’t mean I WON’T promote JVZoo, I will simply have to do my due diligence)
• A product I use and or have tested (this is already a standing rule)

Here’s another ‘missed’ opportunity on this site.

Paid content.

There are two types of ‘paid content’ I can do:

1. Pay with a share, like or tweet to get the rest of the content ( I wouldn’t do a paywall on this)
2. Do paid reviews (I get a TON of requests to promote, review or share products)

I haven’t quite decided if I would go this route because if I’m doing paid reviews it will take away from the time I can create content… and we all only have 24 hrs. in a day.

That being said…

I’ve got a little announcement to make.

I’m going to share this journey.

Publicly… with a friend and YOU.

You guys know my good friend, Jon Perez, right? (If you don’t, you will).

We’re going to do a new show where we track everything we’re doing, raw & real, right from the beginning to create affiliate income, recurring revenue and passive income. If you’re wondering what makes this different from some of the other affiliate marketing things I’ve discussed it’s simple. We’re targeting people who have a business they really love, but want to add revenue streams so they can focus more on the work they REALLY want to do… even if that’s service work or websites. 🙂

We’re going to start recording in less than a week and launch the new show asap… we have to determine our launch strategy. But we’ll keep you posted on that too.

Lastly… let me know if this is the stuff you guys want more of.

I’m going to keep talking and writing about WordPress (in my own Kim-like way), but more than ever my focus is on trusting myself, creating revenue that allows me the freedom to do what I want and helping other people through sharing that journey.

Links from this Episode

Sitelock

Connect Retarget

Active Campaign

Hatchbuck

Matthew Woodward

Other Episodes You Might Enjoy

100 Episodes! The Journey So Far, Massive Changes & Where I’m Headed

Striking a Nerve & The Future of WordPress As A Business