It can be scary going from a job where you know exactly how much you’ll get paid and when you’ll get paid to working your own business online.
In your business you might have a banner month and then two months of starving followed by a mediocre month followed by (hopefully) another banner month.
Thus, the question becomes, “How do you get stability in your business – and your income -as quickly as possible?”
Or… how do you KNOW for a FACT that next month you can make the mortgage and eat, too?
Simple – continuity programs. Call it what you want – memberships, recurring payments, monthlies, etc.
It all boils down to getting people signed up into a continuity program so you can continue to get paid month after month.
Now you have a choice here: You can either promote other people’s continuity programs, or create and promote your own.
If you’re acting as an affiliate, then you don’t have to worry about sales funnels, membership content, customer service and all of that. You just need to focus on making the sales.
Drive the traffic, offer your own bonuses and do what you’ve got to do to get people signed up.
The problem, of course, is that in exchange for less responsibility, you also have less control and more competition.
The membership site owner has control over content. If s/he takes a “churn and burn” mentality and doesn’t care about keeping members happy, then people won’t stay long. You’ll have to continually make new sales, which isn’t what you’re looking for.
You want stability. That’s why you only want to promote truly great memberships and continuity programs that deliver a ton of value.
As to competition, you are competing with every other affiliate who is promoting the same program.
If you have your own list, then this isn’t that big of a problem. After all, people on your list know and love you, right? And so they’ll follow your recommendation.
Unless they’re on someone else’s list (they are) who has already promoted the program. In which case, you’re not going to make many sales.
Promoting affiliate memberships is a give and take. Less responsibility, no control and lots of competition.
And this is why you might want to start your own membership. Look around and see what people in your niche desperately want and need, and then fill that want with your site.
Outsource the content creation if you can, so you can focus on the important part – filling it with people.
Once you’ve got your membership site up and running, it’s time to get busy promoting it. Use every technique you can think of and track everything.
Find out what your best sources of traffic are, and then put all of your effort into just those methods.
For example, maybe you buy traffic from Facebook, Adwords and solo ads. You also get free traffic from guest posting, forums and social media.
9 out of 10 new members are coming from Facebook, so what are you going to do?
Drop all of your other methods and focus exclusively on Facebook advertising.
Get your conversions up and your costs down and now you have a viable way of getting a continuous influx of new members into your site.
Want even more members? Show affiliates how well your offer is converting, and you can get them to promote your membership site, too.
There are plenty of affiliates out there who want that continuous, month to month income that a good membership site provides. All you have to do is show them that your funnel is converting and members are sticking.
Naturally, there are a lot more details than this to starting a membership site. But hopefully this gets you thinking in that direction.
Because if you want true financial freedom as quickly as possible and with as little stress as possible, then almost nothing can beat having your own successful membership site.
One more thing – the first site is the hardest. Once you have a membership site that’s clearing at least a couple of thousand dollars each month like clockwork, continue to build on that one while building your second membership site, and so forth.
Create a membership empire to secure your finances, and then you can experiment with anything you like.
Security first, right?
