10 techniques to create independence in your online business

If you’re working too hard, you can use one or more of these techniques to get more done in less time and give yourself more freedom!

1. Automating emails and funnels

When people sign up for your freebie, they should get a series of automated emails, appropriately called autoresponders. You set these up in advance in your email service provider’s software and these emails should tell people who you are and what you do, help them get value from the freebie, and make a first offer to buy something. That offer should also be on the thank you page after people complete the opt-in form and in the freebie itself. That’s the process of automating your first sales. The funnel is freebie > offer. That offer is often a low-priced one, to get people “in the door.”

Similarly, when people buy something of yours, there should be a next step.

If the next step is on the checkout page, it’s called a “bump.” There’s usually a checkbox or slider to choose the bump. For example, if you buy my Fastest Freebies Ever bundle, you’ll see an offer on the checkout page for my How to Write and Sell an E-book. It’s a low-priced product and a logical next step because people can use it to create a longer freebie or their first product. (An e-book makes a great first product. My first products were e-books.)

If the next step is AFTER people buy, it’s called an upsell but the concept is similar. You see a new sales page for the upsell.

In this case the funnel is product > upsell.

A funnel is just a series of offers. Even two offers is a funnel. Everyone should have a funnel because it automates your sales. Do don’t have to spend your energy for each and every sale. That gives you more free time, which is independence!

2. Scheduling emails, blog posts & social media posts

I email every day but I don’t always write an email every day. That’s because I can write an email the day before and schedule it for the next day. I can even go abroad for 3 weeks, write them all in advance, and schedule them. I’ve done that twice in the last 1-1/2 years.

If you’re creating a sales campaign, you should definitely write all of the emails in advance and then schedule them. That way you’ll be sure that the emails will go out at the right time over a series of days. The same is true of follow-up emails after a webinar, for example. They are broadcast emails but should be scheduled so you’re sure they go out without fail.

Blog posts are great for scheduling. If you have a block of time available, write 5 blog posts and schedule them for a week apart (or whatever).

Finally, social media posts should be scheduled, too. There are numerous tools for doing so. The number of posts that are required to get visibility and make an impact make it extremely difficult for you to keep up if you’re writing them several times throughout the day or even once a day. Don’t write when you “feel” like it. Set up a schedule.

All of this scheduling gives you freedom to work when you want and not be tied to your computer when you don’t want to be.

That is independence!

3. Creating recurring income

When you have a program that people pay for on a recurring basis, usually monthly (but occasionally annually), you don’t have to work each month to get the income. You sell once and then the income comes in for as long as the members stay in the program.

Of course, you will continue to market the program along the way to get new people into it, but you don’t need to work for the existing people. That frees up a lot of your time!

Recurring income is income that comes in automatically, usually every month, because participants have agreed to pay you that way. You don’t have to work each month to get the income. You sell once and then the income comes in for as long as the members stay in the program.

Of course, you will continue to market the program along the way to get new people into it, but you don’t need to work for the existing people. That frees up a lot of your time!

These programs generally have a theme or topic or goal that is important to the members.

1. A mastermind: A group of people who meet regularly and help each other. There is generally a leader (you) but the members provide accountability, promotion, and technical advice to each other. Check out my Change the World Marketing Mastermind here.
2. Group coaching: A coach meets with clients together. It can be “round robin” or focus on one person, but everyone gets the benefit of hearing the coach’s advice and instructions. Sometimes this is ongoing. Other times, it lasts for a specific length of time, such as 6 months or a year. My group coaching program, Reach the Stars Club Basic is here.
3. A membership site: This provides content, usually every month, related to the theme. A friend/colleague of mind, Jeannette Koczela, has a membership site for life coaches. Her Gold Membership provides monthly content to help them market their coaching business. You can read about it here.

Recurring income increases your independence!

4. Creating evergreen products and ongoing courses/programs

Evergreen products are products that people can buy at any time. They are generally self-study courses. I have a lot of them!

You can find them here​.

​Some of them were done as live courses and then I turned the recordings into evergreen products. Others were created from the start as evergreen products. E-books make great evergreen products.

Ongoing courses and programs are always open and people can sign up at any time. They join people already in the course or program. This is called “rolling enrollment” and contrasts with “cohort-based” programs, which have a specific start and end date.

The difference between ongoing courses and evergreen products is that you can be live with people in an ongoing course. For example, you can provide pre-recorded video training and then meet weekly on Zoom with the students to answer their questions.

The point of both types of products is that once you set them up, you can sell them at any time without further work. Also, affiliates can sell them at any time, whenever they are looking for something to promote.

That gives you more independence!

5. Repurposing existing products

Repurposing saves you time because you aren’t creating content from scratch. You can repurpose existing products in two main ways (and there might be something I’ve forgotten!):

1) Format: 

• You can turn text to video and vice versa. For example, you can read out a blog post while recording yourself on Zoom to create a short video. And you can transcribe a video to turn it into a blog post, article, a freebie — almost anything. Zoom does a fairly good job of transcribing. YouTube will also create a transcription of videos that you post there.
• You can turn a presentation to e-book or vice versa. One of my first e-books was originally a presentation, about 10 years ago. My assistant took the slides, listened to the video, and poured it all into a Word e-book template that I created.

2) Structure or use: There are many ways to change the structure or use of an existing product.

• You can bundle it permanently or create a flash or seasonal sale. Some shopping carts let you automate this.
• You can use as a bump, upsell, or downsell, creating an automated funnel.
• You can turn it into a course by taking videos or e-book chapters or blog posts and putting them in an online platform. Or you can make them available monthly in a membership program
• If you give a live course, you can turn the recordings into a self-study course. Many of my self-study courses were done this way.
• You can turn content, such as an e-book, into a blog post or break it up into social media posts. You can use those posts to promote your e-book.
• Consider reselling your content to a specific market or niche – e.g. sell calming music to hospitals to calm patients (I have a client who does this, focusing on VA Hospitals) or sell a coaching program to corporations.
• You can arrange to incorporate your program as a paid upsell in someone else’s program, using an affiliate link so that they get a commission when someone buys.

​Do you have any other ideas? Add a comment below!

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably have old products, programs, or courses lying around — ones that you haven’t promoted in a long time. Maybe sales slowed or maybe you went on to something else.

You also might have old blog posts that can be refreshed, republished, and repromoted. Did you know that you can change the date of an old blog post to the current date and it will pop to the top? If you want, add a sentence about how you’ve updated the post.

There’s an overlap between relaunching something old and repurposing existing products. For example, you could take a recording of a talk you gave way back when and turn it into a freebie or a product.

​You might be surprised what you have on your computer and online! Besides products you created, you might have old PLR (Private Label Rights), draft blog posts that you never finished, and so on. 

Relaunching (or finishing) something old means not starting from scratch and so that gives you more free time!

6. Relaunching something old

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably have old products, programs, or courses lying around — ones that you haven’t promoted in a long time. Maybe sales slowed or maybe you went on to something else.

You also might have old blog posts that can be refreshed, republished, and repromoted. Did you know that you can change the date of an old blog post to the current date and it will pop to the top? If you want, add a sentence about how you’ve updated the post.

There’s an overlap between relaunching something old and repurposing existing products. For example, you could take a recording of a talk you gave way back when and turn it into a freebie or a product.

​You might be surprised what you have on your computer and online! Besides products you created, you might have old PLR (Private Label Rights), draft blog posts that you never finished, and so on. 

Relaunching (or finishing) something old means not starting from scratch and so that gives you more free time!

7. Doing a big launch 1-2 times a year

This isn’t for everyone, but you’ve probably seen online entrepreneurs do a big launch, usually 1-2 times a year. They gather a bunch of affiliates to promote it so they get a lot of traffic to it.

A big launch usually has at least 2 pieces, an e-book or other PDF, and a live event, often a webinar/masterclass. Sometimes there are more pieces, like a workshop, challenge, etc.

The products these people are selling range from $997 to many thousands of dollars. Following the launch is a course that could be from 4-12 weeks long. Once they know that they can get sales in this way, they can give themselves most of the year off. 

During the off season, they reciprocate by promoting the launches of their affiliates, but that part is easy. They might also upsell course participants into high-end coaching or a mastermind, but again, that is just a few hours a week.

In this way, they give themselves a lot of independence!

8. Using ChatGPT, PLR, and templates

You don’t have to create your content from scratch!

PLR (Private Label Rights) is content written by someone else and when you buy it, you get the right to call it your own. You can edit it, rename it, dice and splice it — pretty much anything you want — although you should read the license, which spells out your rights. You should always edit PLR to be in your voice and to include your stories, experience, and opinions.

PLR is usually inexpensive (but there’s quite a variety of prices) and is a great way to get started with a small product. Many people sit and stare at a blank page but have no problem editing existing content. Is that you?

It’s not hard to find PLR in your niche — some focus on personal development, others focus on business growth. I even know someone who focuses on dog health, so if you need content in that area, let me know! Just do a search for PLR and your niche or topic. 

Here are some PLR creators whom I know and trust and who create PLR in a variety of niches are:

• Susanne Myers & Tracy Roberts of PiggyMakesBank.com
• Melody Spier of PLR of the Month Club
• Sharyn Sheldon of Content Sparks

ChatGPT is an AI tool and you’ve probably heard of it. You can ask it to create content on any topic. It’s free although you can pay for a more advanced version if you want. If you want to create a lot of content (there’s a size limit), ask in pieces, such as a chapter at a time. After asking it to create your content, look it over and modify your request (it’s called a prompt) to make it more like what you want. Besides asking it to change what’s included, you can ask it to change the tone. For example, you can ask it to be more educational or professional-sounding. It’s incredibly quick. 

ChatGPT is also great to brainstorm titles and tables of contents.

Templates help you complete content more quickly. For example, in my Fastest Freebies Ever Bundle, I include three 1-page templates, for a tip/cheat sheet, for a worksheet, and for a checklist. I use this with my clients to create a freebie in a few minutes. You can use tip/cheat sheets, worksheets, and checklists not only for freebies but for low-priced products and they are very popular because they help people accomplish something quickly.

These three options help you get more done in less time, giving you more independence!

9. Delegating and/or outsourcing

You don’t have to do all of the work yourself! 

In his famous book, The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss created a firestorm. People wanted to know how it was possible to make lots of money working only 4 hours a week. The answer was that he set up a system in which he outsourced and delegated the work to others.

You can do this, too, even if you don’t have a lot of money. Of course, you have to have some money. I have 3 part-time assistants, two here in the United States, and one in the Philippines. One of the assistants here is fairly new but the others have been with me for well over 10 years. We all work together and help each other. They are all amazing!

Two places to get short-term help are Fiverr and Upwork. Some people who market their services in both places are better than others, so do your research. They both have tools that rate workers. A client of mine just got someone on Upwork to update her phone app and was very pleased. Another client of mine found a great designer on Fiverr and gets great results. On the other hand, a third client wasn’t satisfied with the results she got from a different designer on Fiverr.

My blog post, “How to get help when you’re overloaded” has specific ideas about how to find a person to outsource some of your work to.
When someone else does work that you don’t have time for, don’t like to do, or aren’t good at, you get more independence!

10. Accepting ads or promoting with an affiliate link

You can create passive income by placing ads on your website or in your emails. This works best when your website has significant traffic or your email list is larger, because then ads are more valuable to the ad buyer.

For example, on EllenFinkelstein.com, I have a company that pays me $90/month for a square ad on the side of my blog. They’ve been paying this for years now. This is truly passive income. You can compare it to owning some real estate and renting it out. Your website or email is like valuable real estate for people who want to find buyers or subscribers. (I also have an ad for my own services.)

You do have to be careful not to plaster either your website or emails with ads, because that makes them look a little tacky.

You can also promote products with an affiliate link. For example, in the sidebar of my ChangetheWorldMarketing.com blog, I have an ad for my webhost that uses my affiliate link. It’s been there for years (and to be honest, hasn’t been that successful), so it’s completely passive. You might have noticed that I periodically give links for my webhost, shopping cart, and email service in my emails.  I know these services well, since I use them. The process of promoting them is systematized, so that it’s almost no work. I like doing this because it’s a service to you, as my subscriber, yet it can bring me income. That’s a win-win situation. 

What’s next?

I recommend that you go through the 10 techniques and pick a few that you think you could do fairly easily. Then go through that shorter list one by one and implement them.

Also, please leave a comment with your questions or additional suggestions!

Here’s a summary of the resources I have to help you:

Fastest Freebies Ever Bundle

PLR:

• Susanne Myers & Tracy Roberts of PiggyMakesBank.com
• Melody Spier of PLR of the Month Club
• Sharyn Sheldon of Content Sparks

My evergreen products (as an example for you to create yours)

Examples of recurring income programs:

• Change the World Marketing Mastermind
• Reach the Stars Club Basic (ongoing group coaching)
• Jeannette Koczela’s membership site for life coaches