I’ve got a friend who has used this business model for years as a ‘side’ business.

Funny thing is, his side business earns more than many full time businesses – about $10,000 per piece of software per year.

And yes, he doesn’t own any of this software himself, which means he never has to deal with programmers or customer complaints that the software isn’t doing whatever it should be doing.

Here’s how it works:

Find free software that people use – for example, cloud storage, help desk software, popular WordPress plugins, membership software and so forth. You might want to concentrate just on software that is used in the online marketing world, or you could branch out into other niches.

You’re looking for software that is somewhat popular, but ideally it’s not all that simple to use.

Anything come to mind? Forums are a good place to search. Look for a number of posts from people all looking for help with the same software, and you’ve found a winner.

Now then, you can either do the next step yourself, or outsource it to someone who knows a lot about the software. If you’re doing it yourself, you’ll need to get really good at using the software before you proceed.

You’re going to put together a tutorial that shows people how to use the software. Your tutorial is going to assume they know next to nothing about it, so that anyone and everyone can benefit from it.

Take them through all the steps of installing and using the software, along with all the features they might not even know about. The point is to make it super simple for almost anyone to use the software, once they have your tutorial.

Charge a modest amount for your tutorial – nothing over the top.

You might want to add a “done for you” option or upsell in which the software is installed and set up for the customer. You can do this work yourself, or outsource it to someone else.

And inside your tutorial, place links to the paid version of the software, along with anything else that will help the reader to make the best use of the software.

All of these income streams add up.

And buyers are easy to come by, because many times people are desperate for answers. They’ve already wasted time trying to get the software to work, and they’ve wasted more time on forums and help desks trying to get the help they need.

By the time they find your tutorial, they are more than happy to hand over several dollars to get the job done, or even more money to have the job done for them.

As you can see, we’re targeting people already familiar with the software who need help.

But that’s only half of your customer base.

The other half is people looking for a particular solution.

For example, they want to know how to set up a membership site without paying a monthly fee for software. You can recommend the solution they need, and the software only has a one-time payment.

Better still, you’ll show them exactly how to install and use it.

Of course, you won’t name the software on that sales page.

And yes, you will need two different sales pages. The first one targets the group who is having trouble with the software, and the second one targets the group looking for the solution the software provides.

Want to make even more money?

You can sell private label rights or resell rights to your tutorials.

And you can also get affiliates on board as well.

This can be a great product to sell via paid advertising – both in the ‘fix a problem’ format and the ‘here’s the solution you need’ format.

The work involved in doing this is small versus the money that can be made. It won’t make you rich, but if you put out just one of these a month, you might hit six figures.

And the shelf life of each tutorial will vary according to how popular the software is. You’ll be able to sell some for only a few months, while others might be good for a year or two before you need to update them.

It’s a perfect little side business that doesn’t require much startup cash – just the ability to find software that’s confusing people or solving a real problem, and creating the tutorials for your customers.

And don’t forget – you can also sell more solutions to your new customers after they purchase the tutorial. In fact, this alone can double your profits.

Get busy, and go make some more money by helping other people solve their problems!

I’ve seen this time and again.

Someone builds a nice little site, or product, or some sort of residual income stream.

Then they spend their time tweaking it and trying to increase the income from it. They’re good at SEO and so they tweak and tweak and tweak to make the most money possible from that asset. 

Good so far, right?

But there comes a point of diminishing returns. The site or product or whatever is making $1,000 a month. 

And after hours and days and weeks of tweaking, the site is now making $1,100.

But here come the monthly bills (mortgage, car, insurance, etc.) and the bills are far more than $1,100. So, what’s a marketer to do?

Sell the asset, of course. You might get $3,000 to $5,000 for this asset, depending on what it is and so forth.

Now they have the bills paid and maybe go on a bit of a spending spree, but no asset and no residual monthly income.

Of course now they have to do it all again – build an asset, tweak it and wind up having to sell it to pay bills.

Did you spot the mistake? It’s hard to miss.

If the marketer had spent just enough time testing and tweaking…

…And then moved on and REPLICATED the process…

S/he would then have TWO assets each creating $1,000 a month in residual income.

Then rinse and repeat. Building one asset a month, that’s $6,000 a month in residual income after six months, along with assets totaling maybe $18,000 or a lot more.

As you’ve already guessed, the point is that while you do want to test and tweak whatever it is that you’re doing online, you don’t want to make a career out of it. 

Optimize it the best you can as quickly as you can, and then replicate the process and build another one, and another one, and another one…

In the above example, our marketer could have started selling one asset (product, site, etc.) per month after six months or a year, to again greatly increase their monthly income. 

Selling these assets before their life cycle ends can be a great idea. After all, it’s hard to sell a product or site once it’s no longer making money.

Do what you need to do, but don’t make a career out of making a few extra dollars while leaving loads of money on the table.

When you first get started online, you might be worried. Frankly, you probably should be worried. Yes, you made sales this month. But will you make sales NEXT month? And how will you pay the bills if you don’t make sales?

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?

In Chip and Dan Heath’s book ‘Decisive,’ they lay out three ways to make truly excellent decisions that can have a very positive impact on your business and your life.

1: The Vanishing Options Test

In 1994, Quaker Oats made the decision to buy the drink company Snapple for a whopping 1.8 BILLION dollars – perhaps one of the worst business decisions of all time.

They didn’t consider any other options. Believe it or not, no one in the company even argued not to buy it or suggested an alternative.

If they had simply expanded their choices by asking, “What other options do we have?” they would have been far more likely to make a better decision.

Do you decide to do things without giving yourself multiple options first? Do you limit your choices before you even start?

For example, instead of asking, “Should I promote this product to my list?” Ask yourself what other products you might promote instead that would be a better fit for your list.

Instead of asking, “Should I buy this piece of software or hire this person for my business?” Ask yourself what your other options are to get the task done.

Here’s why it works: Anytime you give your brain a ‘this or that’ option, it’s hemmed in by just those two possibilities and won’t think any further.

Instead, ask yourself, “What options would I consider if my current options disappeared?”

By giving yourself multiple choices instead of just one or two, you greatly increase your odds of making a good decision and even the best decision for you and your business.

The key is to expand your choices before you narrow them down.

2: The ‘Tell My Friend’ Solution

In 1985, Andy Grove, President of Intel, faced a problem – should he end the company’s line of memory chips, or not?

Management was torn on the question and Andy didn’t know what to do.

So he asked himself, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he or she would do?”

Now the answer was obvious – get out of memories.

The right question made a tough problem easy.

This question helped him to overcome the biggest enemy to making the correct decision: Emotions.

You’re angry at your husband so you don’t talk to him. You’re excited about getting the exact make, model and color car you want, so you overpay. And so forth.

These decisions are clouded by emotion, and if it weren’t for that emotion, you would make different decisions.

Here’s why it works: Your emotions cloud your logic. So instead of asking what you should do, ask, “What would I tell my best friend to do?”

This helps you to look past your emotions and makes even the toughest decisions easy.

3: The ‘Test it Now’ Solution

In the late 1990’s, Bill Gross wanted to sell cars on the internet. He was sure the idea could work, but at the time it was risky.

Would people spend $20,000 on a car they’d never seen, much less test-driven?

Bill didn’t try to guess. Instead, he engineered a test run by hiring a CEO for 90 days to do one thing: SELL ONE CAR over the internet.

Usually we do the opposite. We go all in on a decision without having a clue if it’s the right one or not.

We spend all of our time and resources on this risk, when we could have gotten our answer with one small test.

For example, why hire someone as a full time employee when you can hire them for one project and see what they do?

Why spend six months creating a huge information product when you can create a small one in a day and see if there is a market for it?

Here’s why it works: We often get so fired up about a new idea, that we don’t even take time to find out if it will work or not. But by running a small test, we can see if we should proceed or go in a different direction.

Whenever possible, create a small test to find out if you’re on the right track.

“Why am I guessing when I can run a small test and know for certain?”

That’s it – three techniques that can save you a load of headaches and money in your online business and in life.

So many products are simply a rehash of other products, and the same goes for books.

Someone wants to write a book on persuasion, so they buy five books on persuasion, read them and then take all the best ideas from the books and write a new course or book or whatever.

But what if you want truly unique, stand-alone info that no one else has?

Then you’ve got to go to the sources.

Let’s say your niche is cat care, and you’re in a forum where people are discussing how they helped their cat get over a certain illness. In that forum you meet Jessie, who found a way to cure her cat in half the normal time at one-tenth the normal expense.

You contact Jessie and ask for an interview, which you then turn into a product. No one else has this information because it’s something Jessie came up with in her veterinary practice, or wherever.

You now have a product no one else has. Split the profits with Jessie, and do it again and again with people who know stuff that no one else knows.

For example, you can dig through various niches and find people doing new, unique, unusual things, or people who have just achieved some sort of milestone, or anything special that solves a problem or gives a benefit that people want.

Do an interview over email, Skype or any method you choose. Let your subject know you’re thinking of using this in a product, and that you’ll share the profits. Almost no one will turn you down on this, especially if you’re working outside of the make money niche.

And now you have an endless source of truly new, helpful info that you can turn into posts, products and books.

This is a great way to make a big name yourself in any niche. Pretty soon people will be approaching you, asking if they can share their discoveries in exchange for a slice of the profits.

Simply write up the info they give you, pad it out as needed, write some sales copy and get busy selling it.

This is a perfect business model for almost any niche outside of IM where money is being spent.

And it works especially well if you’re solving people’s urgent problems – like getting kitty over her illness twice as fast at one-tenth the expense.

There are only so many hours in your day, which is to say, you can only do so much.

In the beginning of your business, you’re probably doing everything yourself.

But as things start working and making money, you’ve got to scale it up if you want to keep growing the business.

If you don’t scale, then you can’t grow beyond the point of what you can do alone.

That’s why you want to begin outsourcing as much as you can. And the easiest way to do it is to record yourself performing each step of your business, so you can hand the recordings over to an outsourcer to do these things for you.

Either write it up, take screenshots or use video recording.

And no, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re simply going to hand it to an outsourcer and let them take over the task for you.

Remember, your goal is to work ON your business, not IN your business.

Otherwise you will have trouble hitting six figures and you will never come close to that magical seven figure income.

The ‘secret’ isn’t all that secret, and yet most marketers get this wrong.

You simply have to give a much higher value than the price that subscribers pay, and two things will happen:

They will join in droves, and they will STAY and continue to pay.

It doesn’t matter if you’re charging $10 a month or $1,000 a month. Just make sure that your members are getting far more than the price they are paying.

For example, let’s say you want to build a membership on how to start an online business.

If you give your subscribers an eight week guarantee (think ClickBank) and a promise that they can start earning by the fourth week, you’re in business.

If you further promise full email support, you’ll do even better. Yes, you’ll outsource the support, and it will be well worth the cost. Many members will join just to get that live support.

Subscribers get new content each week, they have 8 weeks to get a refund, they’ll be making money in just 4 weeks, AND they have live support – do you think that might be a winner?

Absolutely. And you can use a similar model no matter what niche you’re in.

Let’s say you teach golfing. You promise that in 4 weeks they will shave 4 strokes off of their game. They have an 8 week guarantee. And sure, maybe you even throw in live support of some kind, too. Again, you’ve got a winner.

Always give far more in value than you’re charging for your membership sites, and you can’t go wrong.

Did you enjoy the Olympics? Every four years we get to see the best of the best and their gold medals, but sometimes the best inspiration comes from those who don’t win – or even someone who came in dead last.

In 1988, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards became the first competitor since 1928 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping.

How did Eddie do? He came in #58 out of 58.

But it didn’t matter. His fans loved him for other reasons. He had no trainer, no money, no practice facilities – and some called him the great British loser.

He had a cheerful air of bumbling incompetence, epitomized by the big pink goggles he wore.

Says Eddie, “I got my letter saying, ‘Congratulations, you can represent Great Britain in the Olympic games’ when I was in a mental hospital in Finland. I wasn’t a patient. I was there because it was the cheapest place for me to stay.”

On getting ready to do his jump, Eddie says, “There were about 85 or 90 thousand people in the ski jump area, and I thought this is going to be really good, I’m really going to go for this. The Germans and the Swiss and the Italians were going down jumping, but the crowd were ignoring them and chanting, ‘Eddie! Eddie!’”

“And I got out and sat on the bar and they started cheering and cheering and it was great!”

“When you sit at the top of the ski jump, you look down, and you’re probably about 500 or 600 feet up from where you’re actually going to finish. You can see a million and one different reasons why you shouldn’t really go down. So you do have to be not a little crazy, but probably a lot.”

“You’re traveling at 65 or 75 miles per hour. Within about a second you’ll be 250 feet up from where you’re going to be landing. And you just try to relax and let your skis carry you to the bottom of the hill.”

“It’s the most exciting, exhilarating feeling in the world.”

Eddie’s British record jump of 71 meters landed him in 58^th place – out of 58 competitors, 19 meters behind the jumper who placed 57^th.

And if you ask anyone in Great Britain, “Who won the Olympic ski jump in 1988?” Almost no one could tell you.

But if you ask, “Who is Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards?” They’ll tell you all about the crazy ski jump guy who they still remember and love to this day.

Eddie stood on the top of the precipice and said, “Geronimo!”

The British people were so proud of him for just trying, that winning didn’t matter a bit.

He dared to go where most of us won’t. Yes, he came in dead last, but he will be forever and fondly remembered by his country for doing what no one else had done in 60 years.

So what daring thing are you afraid to do? Whether it’s something online or in real life, take Eddie’s example and just go for it.

You might just become a legend.

You’re just starting out and your list only has 500 or 1,000 people.

While it’s true you would gladly trade your small list for one that’s 100 times bigger, it’s also true that if you treat your little list right, you can still make really good money.

How does that work?

By getting personal.

First, answer emails that you get from your list. When someone reads your latest email and takes the time to write to you – answer them. You’ve only got 1,000 people on your list, so odds are only 5 to 10 will ever write to you at a time. Yes, you can do this. Keep it personal.

Second, let your list members know that they are part of a very small, intimate, private community by telling them. Otherwise they’ll assume you’ve got a gazillion people on your list and don’t give a flying flip about any of them.

Third, email them daily. Yes, DAILY. Keep in constant contact with them. Update them on the latest news and give a tidbit here and there about yourself.

Fourth, care about their success. If you really, truly care, then it will show in your emails to them. Communicate how important they are and that you want to help them succeed in a big way.

Fifth, hold open Q and A sessions over webinars, Skype or your favorite platform. Don’t charge anything, and let your subscribers know it is only for your list. You’re creating the feeling that they belong to a small, exclusive, private group.

Sixth, send out emails that start with something personal, such as, “Hi (name) – I wanted to contact you personally because I think you might be a good fit for my coaching program.”

Seventh, ask for their help or opinion on something and then answer every response.

Doing these little things will keep your list engaged and interacting with you.

And when you send out an offer for just 10 people to get personalized coaching at $500 a month, what do you think will happen?

Odds are you’ll fill those slots in less than a day with no additional effort at all. You might even have a waiting list of people who didn’t make the first ten slots.

What happens when someone emails their list of 100,000 with the exact same offer? Surprisingly, there’s a good chance they’ll have trouble selling those ten slots, even though their list is 100 times bigger.

You can make great money with a small list when you take the time to get personal with your subscribers.

How can you create a product in less than a week that has a high perceived value and is almost guaranteed to bring its own traffic and sales? One word: Interviews.

Here’s how to do it…

First, choose a niche if you don’t already have one. Preferably you want to find a niche with experts who have their own email lists.

Second, choose a hook. If your niche is vegetable gardening, your hook might be, “How to grow an entire year’s worth of veggies for less than $50.” If your niche is classic cars, your hook might be, “How to buy classic cars for half their real value.” If your niche is Internet Marketing, your hook might be, “How to drive tons of traffic to your website without spending a dime.”

Third, once you have your hook you’ll want to find your experts. Book authors are great for this, as are bloggers and any fairly well-known experts in your niche. Don’t be afraid to approach well known people because you’re going to offer them something they want – exposure. Everyone has something they want to plug, whether it’s their latest book, their website, their new product or whatever – and you’re going to use this to your advantage.

Fourth, contact your experts. You can do this through phone or email, whichever you’re more comfortable with. Ask them if you can interview them, and be sure to mention that you want to plug their latest product or book for several minutes at the end of the interview. Everyone loves a chance to not only expand their audience, but to also make some sales of their latest product.

Fifth, if their product has an affiliate program you’ll want to sign up as an affiliate, do a redirect and give that link at the end of the interview to promote the product. This way both you and your interview subject will make money.

Sixth, conduct the interview. Sign up for a trial at Instant Teleseminar. You’ll get your own conference number and access code. Set the interview up to be recorded, and once the interview is over you can download the mp3 recording. Simple!

Keep the interview fun and relaxed, and ask questions along the lines of your hook. You might want to let your interview subject know ahead of time what you will be asking so they can be properly prepared. They might also have suggestions for you on what they would like you to ask them.

Seventh, ask your interview subjects to promote your new interview product for you. Because they are one of the featured speakers they will likely not only promote it, but promote it heavily. In addition to sales for you and commissions for them; it also means subscriber sign ups for you and back end sales as well (remember, you’re promoting a product at the end of each interview and receiving affiliate commissions on those as well.)

And there you have it – an easy, fast way to create your own product with a high perceived value. If you do a dozen or so interviews, you can easily charge $47 to $97 for the package. And since you’ve chosen experts who have their own mailing lists, you’ll also have a way to promote your product for immediate sales while simultaneously growing your list!