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How to Build Up Recurring Income Streams through Affiliate Marketing.

My coaching clients know that I am wicked dedicated to helping them develop recurring income that they can count on from month to month so there is NO feast and famine (only feast!).

There are several ways they can accomplish this (which I'll get into a bit) but my #1 and #2 “let's do this” goals for them are to:

1. Earn enough to pay for their coaching. Because why not, right? I don't want them in a financial pinch while we're making progress.

2. Earn enough additional recurring income to pay for their business and base personal expenses each month. (Mortgage, car payment, utilities, etc.) I find it's much easier to be creative when I'm not worried about if I can pay my bills to survive. (You think?!)

After that, it's just fun to grow for the extra play money for travel, investing, etc. (I put several thousand each month into my SEP automatically – mostly from recurring income. I use this service to make it easy.)

So, HOW do you earn recurring income?

There are a bunch of ways but I'm going to focus on one today (one of my favorites). If you guys like this, I may get into a few more.

Promote Awesome (Recurring) Stuff as an Affiliate.

One of my favorite ways to grow recurring income streams is to find a awesome product or software that's a recurring program – and see if it has a great recurring affiliate program.

In fact, I'm still getting monthly payments from two launches that I promoted back in 2005. Yes, you read that right. 13 years later, and money is still coming in. (To be 100% honest, it's not as much as when I first promoted, but it is still coming in.)

No matter what niche you are in, there are membership site owners who need members.

If they're smart (and a lot of them aren't.. but I'll save that rant for another day), they'll offer a generous affiliate program that is recurring as long as the person who you referred remains a paying member.

They key notes to take from that part above is that:

  1. The product or software should be something REALLY good.
  2. It should be related to what your audience wants to hear about from you. (For instance, if I found a great program for a “Toupee of the Month” club, I would not promote it to my lists. You guys signed up to hear about leveraging your business and life – not for toupee resources.)
  3. The owners / people in charge should offer an affiliate program that pays you recurring for people who you send their way.
  4. The people who sign up through your link should be happy and want to stay!

Example 1: Software for Business

We all need and love software. Why do you think I keep telling you about my “Tools I Use to Run My Business” page? Because so many of the things I use and recommend are services that also happen to have recurring affiliate programs.

For instance, these all are recurring:

  • ConvertKit – I recently left the service I used since 2005 to manage all my newsletters, ecourses, and ezines. (If you get any emails from me, they now come through this safe list managing service.) They are marketing-friendly, easy to use, and I'm getting a lot of flexibility that I've always wanted.
  • Thrive Leads – I used to get really frustrated if I wanted to put an optin for in the middle of a blog post. Or I'd see all these other site with cool drop downs with freebies to get people to optin. Thrive Leads is how a lot of them are doing it. PLUS split testing is built in. (I use this WITH ConvertKit, rather than using the forms ConvertKit provides.) We just moved Beachpreneurs.com to Thrive Leads.
  • Leadpages – I love Leadpages. Honestly, though, for the cost and flexibility, look at Thrive instead. You get a lot more for less cost, with tons of added flexibility.

I recommend them because I use them myself.

Example 2: Cindy Bidar, Training Membership Site

My coaching client, Cindy Bidar, has been having GREAT success selling her marketing checklists and social media checklists.

People kinda love them. She had her highest month ever in August, but had a desire for a more steady income stream.

So, we brainstormed and decided to enhance her checklists concept into a monthly program.

She came up with something really special.

It comes with:

  • Training – a video training session covering a topic about marketing your business
  • Checklists – step-by-step checklists to make sure you don't miss a step or get overwhelmed.
  • Templates – emails, pages, scripts, that you might need to do the monthly task
  • A FB group where Cindy is personally actively answering questions.

You can check it out here.

You can BET I started promoting it the day it was ready.

Why? Because first of all, it's Cindy, so it'll be FREAKING awesome. I love her. I trust her. I value her knowledge. So, of course, I want to bring her in front of my audience.

Remember Rule #1? The product must be QUALITY before you promote it. 🙂

But also, because of what I just told you about. RECURRING INCOME for me!

Think about it. It's $27/month, so that's $13.50/month PER PERSON who signs up coming to me.

While $13.50/month may not sound like a lot, if I send her 100 members, that's $1350/month of PURE profit for me.

Again, that may not sound like a ton of money in the scope of things, but that's an extra $16,200 a year.

Just by telling my audience about something freaking awesome!

If you reach people who are interested in business, I highly suggest you sign up for Cindy's affiliate program and start promoting her checklists which lead to the recurring program. 🙂

You may be shaking your head wondering why I would be telling you to sign up for an affiliate program that I'm promoting? Why would I want more affiliates (competition) selling the same thing I am?

I'll tell you about that another day. It's another form of passive and recurring income that brings in moola every day for me. Go sign up and we can both promote and profit.

Example #3: Coach Glue – Done-for-You Content

Of course, I would be totally silly if I didn't tell you that my site, CoachGlue.com has several awesome recurring programs AND we have, if I can be totally honest, one of the best affiliate programs around.

If you have an established business with an audience, and a list, check it out here.

We have tons of free promo content that you can use to promote and you'll get updates from me about all new programs. We love paying our affiliates. 🙂

Having an income base that I can count on has saved my sanity in so many ways.

When I've been sick and can't work, I can stay in bed.

When I've struggled with depression, I could focus on self care.

While I've dealt with hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes, (yes, all three) – I can deal with the problem at hand.

And I KNOW that I have money coming in. Can I just check out, go to Italy for 5 years and never open my computer again? No. My income would drop.

But… it would take awhile. 🙂

Well, that's it from me for today. Please post questions, thoughts, or advice in the comments section. And if you love this post, share.

Stay tuned.

Hugs and high fives,

Nicole Dean

PS. You so rock!

I appreciate shares and I adore comments! Please share your thoughts.

  • Neisha
    Reply

    Hi Nicole, I found out about Cindy through your and Melissa’s online presence. I LOVE Coach Glue. I’m currently building my list, zeroing in on my niche, and in a mastermind coaching series now. This process is work, but also a very needed learning experience as I get everything together. I look forward to working with you ladies more in the future. All the best, Neisha

  • Owenayuk
    Reply

    Whao! I never knew all these existed not until now. Am I glad I stumbled on this post. Thanks so much for these explanations on how to boost my income via affiliate marketing. Very useful and helpful.

  • Mozie
    Reply

    Hi Nicole,

    I recently became a Coach Glue VIP and I am loving the content. I’m busy building a new membership site and plan to use the monthly content as on-going training. I have been looking for more ideas on how to make use of all the content. I am a bit shy for video so looking for solutions that do not require live videos or group coaching using webinars. I love the “tools I use” idea. Could be a page on my site as well as an autoresponder email for potential passive income. Thanks for the ideas!

    Mozie

    • Nicole
      Reply

      Hi Mozie! 🙂 You’re an affiliate at CoachGlue, too, right?

      Yes, I recommend every affiliate marketer has a “Tools I Use” page on their site, even if they are in the food niche, because their competition and people inspired to food blog are going to be looking. Why not make money from them?

      As for specifically how to use the CoachGlue content, be sure you’re moneying up every opportunity. Upsells, cross sells, backend offers. And if you aren’t comfortable being on video, then you can always interview experts and include that as a bonus to buying your related course. So many ideas!

      Plus there’s YouTube. There’s nothing wrong with you teaching via audio, but embedding a YouTube video that someone else recorded to demonstrate the details of how to do the step. Or record screenshare videos (if you just don’t want to be seen).

      Thanks for stopping by!
      N

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