What are businesses that run themselves? How do they work? How can you use them to make money? Well, in this article I am going to go into depth about a clever business model which can be automated. This model is letting people generate more purpose and fulfilment in their lives. It can do this because the automation involved can allow anyone to build a sustainable income from the internet and gain more financial control of their future. It can also allow a life of much more freedom and flexibility than most jobs and careers allow.
The businesses that run themselves are on the internet. Automated systems and strategies let online businesses automate much of their workings and run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But how can you benefit from this and what exactly is involved?
Businesses That Run Themselves
Now before we start down the road of explaining businesses that run themselves, I should add a small disclaimer. Not everyone manages to achieve the freedom and success of many who achieve it. With any business there is risk involved and a lot of hard work too. However, an internet based business is geared in such a way that your work can keep working for you, even when you stop working. This is why an internet business is probably one of the best businesses that run themselves.
Front End And Back End
There’s a front end and a back end of any business. The front end acquires customers and sends them into the actual workings of the business. The back-end is the production, sales, customer service and end product, whatever it may be. An internet business model known as affiliate marketing lets you focus on just the front end of a business. The rest is done by someone else.
Your job as an affiliate marketer is to send customers into the business via the internet. You send customers to a business via website traffic, online adverts and whatever means you choose. Your links are tracked with your own unique affiliate identity. When a sale comes from your specific affiliate link, you are credited with the sale. Some products on the internet can pay out 40% commissions too. So you can earn a big chunk of the profit, just by sending website traffic to another website.
How Do You Do This?
So how do you get started building businesses that run themselves? Simply by joining any affiliate program and learning how to generate website traffic to that program. This can be done in a number of different ways:
- Paid advertising – Adwords, Facebook, Bing, etc.
- Content generation – articles, blogs, YouTube videos etc.
There is a bit to learn before you can successfully set up automated business systems. You need to choose the right business model first, before you spend a lot of time and money. Some affiliates set up websites and generate free website traffic. They they send that traffic to various offers and services around the internet. Because the internet runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, their websites are always working. If your website can generate free traffic and send visitors to other people’s products and services, you have a business that runs itself.
However, before you can get to this point, there is a lot of work to be done. Most websites don’t start off with any traffic. Only after a lot of building can they start generating free traffic.
A faster method of building businesses that run themselves is with paid advertising. The internet gives anyone instant reach of a global population. This means that if you have a good product range and good targeted advertising, it’s just a matter of generating the numbers to make the sales. This is done by list building.
Businesses That Run Themselves – List Building
List building is the number one method of generating income from the internet. By sending targeted visitors to what is known as a landing page or ‘squeeze page’, you can offer a ‘freebie’ giveaway in exchange for your visitor’s email.
Once you have done this you can build a relationship, offer value and promote affiliate products through an automated email delivery service known as an autoresponder. By automating your advertising and email follow up series, you can build a list into the thousands and tens of thousands. Each subscriber receives a series of emails which offer value and recommend various products and services which may be of use.
If a subscriber purchases a product, they then are transferred into the ‘back-end’ of the business. This is also completely automated. You, as an affiliate marketer only need to focus on the ‘front-end’ of the business system. The sales, marketing and tracking are the main things you need to focus on.
Businesses That Don’t Run Themselves
Most businesses don’t run themselves. Even if you’re self employed, you are probably tied into your business is some way. Most self employed business owners effectively have a job that they ‘own’. If they stop working, their business stops working. Businesses that run themselves are different. Businesses that run themselves use systems and automation to allow the business to keep working whether or not you keep working on your business.
Of course there is work to be done initially. However, once the bulk of the work has been done, the rest is just ‘tweeking’ and adjusting the systems. They can then run automatically without much need to interfere. See autopilot money making system.
The main ingredients which allow this are:
- The use of high value digital products which can be bought and accessed over the internet from anywhere globally.
- The use of email auto-responders which allow you to build huge lists of emails and automate sales.
- Paid advertising methods which can be automated and scaled up.
- Content generation which can continue to bring in subscribers to your email list.
- Product suites and membership websites – allow for multiple points of sale.
Product Suites And Membership Websites
There is a huge variety of digital and physical products which can be bought over the internet. You’ve probably bought a few things yourself. If you re-visit the website where you bought your goods or services, you might find they have an affiliate program.
This means you can promote their products for a ‘cut’ of the profit. Digital products however, do offer larger commissions that physical products. This is partly because there are less costs attached to them. Postage and manufacture costs for example are much lower for digital products.
Digital products therefore offer a massive advantage. Not only do they pay out larger commissions but they also offer the ability to sell to anyone globally. So long as someone has the ability to connect to the internet, they are able to access digital products.
Product suites and membership websites offer some of the best value for customers. Not only this but they also offer a means to earn better commissions than physical products for affiliates. Memberships have a rolling cost attached and this is a good thing if you’re promoting them. You can earn regular commissions for the sale of a single item. As your sales increase your monthly income increases too.
Product Suites
Product suites also have a range of products from which to offer value and multiple streams of income. Instead of simply promoting single point of sale products, top affiliate marketers use product suites which pay them again and again for the initial referral.
This is a major key if you’re looking for businesses that run themselves. Send customers to product suites. Then you can continue to earn for the lifetime of that customer. Automate sales through your advertising and auto-responder. Scale up when you can see a good return on investment and leave you adverts running.
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