Building A Residual Cash Flow With Online Sales.

Every day we are bombarded with get rich schemes and promises of making six figures of residual income effortlessly while sitting by the pool. We are told with slick graphics and sales pitches that this can all be done in a very short period of time online. Making six figures overnight does happen for some and some people do win millions in the lottery. The other 99.99% of us can spend our hard earned money chasing these elusive dreams, or we can actually invest time educating ourselves and building businesses that will get us there over time, not unrealistically overnight.

When building a residual income online, one should start by looking at what has worked offline for years for ideas. Insurance agents, accountants, salespeople and other business owners have started out with nothing, but over time have built books of business that continued to generate income year after year based largely on their initial efforts with a customer. If an insurance agent sells a homeowners' policy, that customer is usually going to renew each year and generate a residual commission for the agent. The agent continues to sell new policies and the old ones continue to generate income. Over time, the agent's income level continues to increase. Some customers will cancel, but the majority will renew year after year.

Now take the offline concept and extend it to the internet. There are many advantages gained by the internet that make the process easier. For one, an online business operates 24/7 if everything is automated. The internet also has no geographic limitations. A local business sells to a town and its surrounding communities. On a website, you can conceivably sell to the world. Setting up a website, depending on the complexity, can be done in a few hours to a few days. Establishing online advertising can be done in a minutes. All of these advantages represent leverage.

Taking the online leverage and applying it to traditional methods of building residual income requires setting up an online business that sells a renewable product or subscription. Ideally you want to sell a product that becomes a key component of a person's lifestyle or business. Take a look at your own home and business and think of products that you have used over a period of years without changing the source of those products. Products that come to mind are television services, internet services, magazines, mobile phones and insurance. There are many more, especially some niche products like weight loss programs or wine of the month clubs.

Taking some of these ideas, you can do a simple search for affiliate programs to find companies that are already selling these services and are willing to pay an ongoing percentage for renewals. This is challenging since a lot of companies only want to pay up front for a lead or an initial sale, but there are many companies that at a minimum, offer an option to collect a percentage of lifetime revenue. If you are looking to build residual income, these are the programs to find.

Once you have selected a program, you then need to sell the product to your email list, blog subscribers, or social network followers. If you lack such a group, you can get started with search engine advertising, but this type of marketing can be expensive to test and find the right keywords to target. Ultimately, you need highly targeted traffic which translates to people who are motivated to buy your product. So take the time to build a following and treat them well by offering free incentives from time to time, be authentic and genuine and ultimately sell them products that need and will want to renew for years to come. Over time, with regular sales, you will build a residual income that will support you for years to come.

Tim Knight is a work from home dad who specializes in internet marketing and investments. He runs a website at http://www.cashresidual.com where he provides assistance to those looking to establish an online business or presence.

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