Good business leaders and coaches are able to look at a company objectively, ask the pertinent questions, and guide the owner or their team through the process of creating a plan for future growth. Consider a business coach your objective third party, the one who can sort through the processes that work and those that don’t work and help mold the company into a profitable entity.
For business owner with an online presence (and ALL businesses should be online!) there are tons of passive ways to build income streams into your website and products that will bring in extra money while you focus on serving your current team members and customers. Passive income is good and will help your bottom line while you actively market your existing business. You and I both know you have invested good money into your business and your into your website; why not make it work harder for you?
1. Affiliate Marketing this is one of the easiest ways to make commission by recommending products or services to your audience. So many Companies have affiliate programs like Amazon, Etsy Paparazzi Jewelry or even high end brands like Apple and Nike. This process is as easy as telling your friend or neighbor about the amazing pair of shoes you just got or the unique find on Etsy. Simply sign up for the product’s affiliate program and place a unique link within a product review or a shopping guide on your blog with all the things about it you recommend. Every time someone clicks on your link, they are brought to the product’s site and if and when they make a purchase, you get a commission. Affiliate links can also be added to eBooks and other digital products you sell. However, make sure to review the Terms of Service for all the social media platforms before posting an affiliate link, most are very flexible and easy to understand and use.
2. Creating upsells in your sales funnel is an awesome yet overlooked place where you can bring in extra money. If you are creating a recipe that calls for certain bakeware or measuring cups, you can easily place links to sell those items.
If you have a basic sales funnel in place, where you make an offer to your broad audience and then have more focused items like jewelry cleaner and jewelry repair kits or even expensive offers for them to choose from over time. These additional offers bring your customers down the funnel toward your most expensive offer. Now, for each main offer in your sales funnel, think of an upsell your customer would find valuable. If your a Coach or Leader, this could be free admittance into your private Facebook group or maybe it’s a report, checklist, form, or an eBook for a nominal fee that is a no-brainer add-on to their order. For your more expensive offers, add a more expensive upsell, like a trial period in your membership site. The key is to choose relevant upsells that will benefit your customer and that makes sense to couple with the initial product purchase. In other words, don’t create an upsell that doesn’t make sense. Don't try to upsell them on a $500 Mixer if the recipe doesn't even call for a mixer, if you get my drift.
3. Back-end efficiency and Time Mangement are important to any business, whether it’s strictly online selling or you have an actual physical location Time is the most valuable asset you have. A business coach can objectively assess whether you’re working most efficiently and can offer solutions to make customer service, billing, and customer fulfillment (just to name a few areas) quicker and easier. Or your selling Skincare products online and want a way to post sale and new products more effectively. Very often business owners are too close to the situation to see how everything flows (or doesn’t flow) together, similar to why having someone else proofread your sales copy is ideal because they are more likely to pick up typos, strictly because they didn’t write the copy. But you also need to know when it is time to bring in more help with things like Social media management, shipping and even organization and team building.
Try Places like Upwork for virtual assistants and social media managers. This will help you free up your time to work on things that are more important for you to handle directly.
If you need more help deciphering which passive income streams you’re wasting, Want to learn about starting your own business or just need business coaching in general
call me to schedule a discovery meeting.
Haley Fox