I just got back from Vegas yesterday morning. Was there for our first ever Practical Profits Seminar. (yes, that means there will be more

The theme of the Seminar was “What’s working now.” Not theory. Not “this should work” or “I heard someone say this was a great technique.” No… we talked about the things that are working right now for us in our businesses.

Here’s a brief run down then I’m going to give you the Big Takeaway:

First up on Friday John and Matt Rhodes talked about using Wordpress to create automated residual profit systems. This is something even beginners can do.

Then Rachel Rofe talked about outsourcing and how to use outsourcing as leverage to free up your time and generate more profit. Even beginners can use outsourcing.

Next up Tim Castleman ended up turning his 90 minute presentation into 2 1/2 hours. He talked about the systems he used to bring in $59,513.19 in the past 68 days. All super simple stuff that anyone can do.

Then on Saturday Wil Mattos talked about Webinars and how to get people on your webinars using Twitter. And how to leverage the Webinar make even more money. This is something anyone can do.

Next up was me and i gave 3 or 4 super simple ways to create a responsive and targeted list fast and then showed how to leverage that list in several ways. Even a complete beginner could use at least one of the strategies I gave to build a list very quickly.

Finally Jason Fladlien talked about getting tons of viral traffic by using free reports that are branded with the affiliates link. He gave three starter ideas that anyone could use to write quick reports and also showed how to find the topics for reports that you could write about.

So what was the big takeaway here? That all of us talked about stuff even a complete beginner could do? Sort of but it’s more then that.

If you were there you would have heard each of us at various times tell you, that you just need to do something.

Anything.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

It doesn’t have to be Earth Shattering.

It doesn’t even have to be that great. But you have to do…
SOMETHING.

It STARTS with YOU.

(for you Travis)

Let me show you five little profit streams that earn me money every single month without me having to lift a finger.

I call these “set and forget” because once I put them into motion (some of them years ago) I’ve hardly had to touch them:

1) Kindle Publishing.   I first started publishing ebooks in the Kindle Store in January of 2008, not long after Amazon introduced the Kindle.  The first few ebooks I published were about Internet Marketing Topics.  I quickly learned that Kindle users weren’t interested in how to get a website ranked in Google or how to keyword optimize your Adword ads.  They were interested in “How to Make Irish Crochet Quilts” and “French for Beginners” and “101 Crockpot Recipes.”

So I shifted my focus and found PLR ebooks (and PLR articles that could be combined to create ebooks) about topics the typical Kindle user would buy.  Namely, topics on Cooking, Learning a Foreign Language, Health and Beauty, Crafts… pretty much the types of things you would see Oprah or Dr Oz talk about on their shows.

I haven’t listed a new ebook in the Kindle Store in months but I still make $250.00 – $450.00 every month from the ebooks I listed months or years ago.  And the great news is Amazon just doubled the royality for most ebooks so my profit will double as well.

dtp.amazon.com

2) Paid Membership Sites.  Yes, a paid Membership Site can be a “set and forget” profit stream.  If you set it up properly.  Here’s an example of one of mine:  http://www.businessideafactory.com

I started the Business Idea Factory in 2004 to provide business ideas to people who wanted to start a business. When I first started it, Business Idea Factory was FAR from being Set and Forget.  In fact, at one point early on I almost shut it down because it was so much work.  But, I set down with pen and paper and mapped out a strategy to make this a completely hands off business.  That strategy ultimately involved hiring people to do all the individual tasks that needed to be done to maintain the site.  Things like coming up with the topics for the business ideas, writing the articles, posting the articles.  For a while I had several people preforming these tasks but one person really rose above the others and she eventually took over doing everything.  (Thanks Sandra!)

Most people in Internet Marketing think everything has to be automated.  But there’s no reason a “set and forget” income stream can’t be achieved using human labor.  As long as I’m not doing the work… it’s automated!

Sidenote:  Besides the monthly subscription fees there is another way I earn money from this site.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think it is.

3) Free newsletter.  This is one I set up even before the Business Idea Factory… it’s so ugly I’m almost ashamed to show you but here goes… http://www.business-ideas.biz/subscribe/ezine That’s another product that is in the Business Idea niche.  I have it set up in an autoresponder so when you sign up you get a newsletter every week.  It’s all completely automated. All the newsletters are evergreen content so once I got everything loaded up I didn’t have to do anything else.  I advertise related affiliate products in the newsletters.  The 50 some articles that make up the content were also put into various article directories and these lead people back to the optin. I also published some ebook compilations with the optin plastered all over.  Today I don’t do anything to promote this.  The past work I’ve done drives in the leads and the newsletter sells the affiliate products.  I get a check or two every couple of weeks from Clickbank.

4) CPA Offers.  I know, I know… the hypocracy!  I just wrote a blog post the other day where I slammed CPA offers for being scams.

And I still stand by that belief.  But there are a few CPA offers that are legitimate.  One I’ve been promoting for years is American Consumer Opinion (ACOP).  ACOP pays you 50 cents for everyone you send to their site who registers as a survey participant.   ACOP is one of the few legitimate research companies that sends out real surveys and actually pay people who take the surveys — as opposed to just accumulating points that you can never cash out or doing a prize drawing that you never win.  I’ve done a few of their surveys and even participated in one of their focus groups.  That was just to test them out to see if they were legit.  Today the way I make money with ACOP is by referring other people to them.  That nets me a nice check in the mail every month.  You can sign up for the ACOP affiliate program here http://www.snip2.com/re/acopbl

5) eBay Partner Network.  Since I live in Tax Happy North Carolina I no longer have the option to participate in the Amazon Affiliate
Program. So, last year, when Amazon gave all us in NC the boot I switched my Amazon sites over to the eBay Partner Network.  I was sort of disappointed to see eBay had switched from a Rev Share Model to a Pay Per Click model.  But after a few months in the eBay Partner Network I have to say I really like it!  In fact I’m making more from eBay now then I did before they switched to the Pay Per Click model. Here’s a tip for people who are having problems getting accepted into the eBay Partner Network:  for the site that you use when you sign up use a site that offers products in a specific niche that have Affiliate Links to Amazon.  The reason:  eBay wants to be like Amazon. So if they think they can “steal” you away from Amazon they are more likely to accept you in their affiliate program.   You can sign up for the eBay Partner Network here…https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com/

Ok, there you go.  Five Set and Forget Profits Steams that are Making Me Money Right Now.

Now… go forth and make profit then leave me a comment below.

James

Every since the release of CPA arbitrage almost two year ago  many internet marketing gurus have been heralding CPA as the best thing since Adsense.

And yes, you can make money with CPA.

But is CPA all that it’s cracked up to be?

For those who don’t know CPA stands for Cost Per Action.  Typically a CPA offer pays an affiliate when some action is taken by a website visitor. An action such as filling out a form or registering for a free trial.  For this “action” the affiliate is paid a commission. Commissions can range from a few cents for a simple zip code or email submit to $80 or more for a long form house or car loan lead.

The problem with CPA offers is most of the highest converting offers are what I would call scams.

Take a look at this one:

http://www.cellphoneincentives.com/rd_p?p=200236

Seems great huh!  Fill out your email address and get a free Blackberry.  Who wouldn’t go for that?   Then you get to the next page and oh yeah, we need to know where to ship your Blackberry so you need to fill out your name, address and telephone number.

“Ship it to me baby! Can’t wait to get my free phone.”

Wait, what’s this?  I have to fill out a survey?  No problem.  Small price to pay for a new Blackberry.

Now what?  Another survey?  Only this time I have to send my answer to my cell phone O_o?

And reading the small print reveals this gem…

By entering your cell phone number, you acknowledge you are allowing us to give your information to one of our service providers chosen at our discretion. Specific Terms and Conditions for the mobile subscription will be posted on the confirmation page after you have submitted your cell phone number. Unless noted otherwise on the terms and services listed on the following page AT&T, T-Mobile, Alltel, Dobson, Cellular One, Virgin USA, and Cincinnati Bell are billed monthly at $9.99 per month.

Digging a little further I find this:

To obtain the gift for this promotion you must: 1) register with valid information including e-mail address, shipping address, and phone number; 2) complete the survey; 3) complete at least 2 Silver, 2 Gold and 5 Platinum Sponsor Offers (offer availability will vary); 4) be a US resident 18 or older; 5) not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Sponsor Offers within 6 days of the Sponsor Offer Initial Transaction Date.

Holy cow it’s going to cost me more to complete the offers then the Blackberry is worth!

That’s the first CPA scam.  They’re called incentive offers and they are all over the CPA networks.  They draw you in with the promise of a free gadget or gift card and then suck you in to a never ending spiral of offers.

The next one is the Free Trial Pay Only Shipping.  This is most prevalent in the health and beauty and business opportunity niches.  I’m sure you’ve seen these… Get a Bottle of Wonder Pill X and only pay shipping of $4.95.

Sounds reasonable, huh?  Well, here’s the thing… The REAL reason they change you shipping  is so they have your Credit Card number.  Because when you click submit you are agreeing to the tiny tiny print where they tell you that you have just signed up for a monthly plan for $39.00 or $69.00.

Fun, huh?

No not really.  And that’s how your customers will feel too if you promote this junk.

The third type of scam are the offers that just don’t live up to their claims.  An example of this is Cash For Gold.  They claim to pay top dollar for your gold.  They’ll even send you a “kit” free of charge which you can use to send in your gold jewelry.

Sounds great, huh?  Get rid of your unused jewelry and make some money.

Problem is, the offer they make for your gold is laughable.  Appx 10% of the real value. At current rates that would be appx $120.00 per ounce and that if it’s 24 ct gold.

You’d be better off selling your gold to a pawn shop.

There are other types of CPA offers.  And some are legit.  One that I have been affiliated with for years is American Consumer Opinion.  ACOP is a legitimate research company that pays people to take surveys.

I’ve done some of their surveys and I can vouch that they do pay.  And beyond that they also pay 50 cents for each referral you send them.

If you’d like to join ACOP, either as a participant or an affiliate, my affiliate link is  http://www.snip2.com/re/acopbl

James