Why Working Hard Is Not Enough by Yanik Silver

Copyright 2006 SurefireMarketing.com As I was sitting here writing out this newsletter we had a chimney repairman and a landscaper come out to the house. Out of my window I could see both of them doing their jobs. Let me tell you these guys work *hard*. Both of them get up very early in the morning and put in a full day's work. The chimney repairman is dangerously perched at least 50 feet above the ground for most of the day. And our neighborhood landscaper is breaking his back carrying heavy bags of mulch all day. The point is these guys put in an honest day's labor for honest day's wage every day. They aren't sleeping on the job or goofing off. They're working their butts off - but that's not enough! Do you know the big secret neither one of these fellows (or most other people) ever figure out? It's so simple once you understand and it can have a profound effect on your wealth. Here it is... Your income cannot be limited by the amount of hours you can put in. Each one of us are given 24 hours and it doesn't matter if you are a chimney repairman, landscaper, CEO, homeless bum, or Internet entrepreneur. We all have the same 24 hours to work with. Most people simply work - get paid, work - get paid, work - get paid. You put in 8 hours on the job - you get paid for 8 hours. You put in 40 hours a week - you get 40 hours in salary. That's the way we've been taught to do it - and the sad truth is you'll never get ahead doing what everyone else does (that's a lesson in itself). You need to think about how you can turn more and more of your activities into ongoing revenue seeds. First you build one ongoing income stream and then another, and another and another. Let me give you a real example from my business to illustrate this. I created Instant Sales Letters (www.instantsalesletters.com) in February 2000. Every single day we get orders for this product and at $40 - $55/pop it adds up. Last year this one site brought in Six Figures for me. I created the product once and now get paid over and over again (Though I have added to the letters and revised them several times.) Now think about that. Work I did once keeps paying me every single day no matter what I do. That's a good deal. Once that first stream is rolling - you can expand into another stream. For me, it came from people asking me how I grew Instant Sales Letters and made it so successful online so fast. That's when I started teaching Internet marketing based on what I did not just reading about it or talking about it. So my second stream was a product called "Instant Internet Profits" (www.instantinternetprofits.com). This was a complete guide I created that documented everything I did. That sold well and kept selling. And just a few months ago I totally revised it based on everything new I've learned in the last few years. After "IIP", I went to work on creating additional products. Of course, some sell better than others but together they are responsible for bringing in millions and millions each year. My thinking is squarely on how can I get the most leverage and ongoing income from any activity. For instance, if I do a teleconference series (like www.webcopysecrets.com) then I will sell the LIVE calls for "x" amount and then have the calls recorded to turn it into a product I can keep selling for "y" amount. Then going even further, I could take excerpts from that product and use them as articles or free ebooks to be passed along to get additional business. Do you see how it works? Try to get paid over and over again for activities done once. Make that your mantra. One more example. Instant Sales Letters is one of our hot products so now I've started selling it on CDrom at Amazon. Just last month it brought in an extra $386. Nothing too crazy - but for doing the work once of putting it up there - it's not bad. To take this further I have also licensed one section out of the Instant Sales Letters to a company selling CDroms with consumer mailing addresses and they pay me $1,000/month for this. Now here's the warning. With all this said, don't get fooled by the idea nearly everyone gets. It goes something like this - "Well, if I can create 10 different products each making $1,000/month - I'll make $10,000 every month." Yes, that's a great thought but what happens is you get sidetracked and lose focus working on more than one project at once. Believe me, I fall for this trap also. Your best bet is to focus on product #1 first and *only* after you have that securely in place move along to product #2. Trust me, I realize there are so many opportunities available online that you want to grab each one - but the only thing you'll do is run around like a headless chicken. You can see from my examples my multiple revenue streams consists of information products. I love info products because of all the incredible advantages. But this advice will work just as well for any kind of passive revenue stream. I hope you spend some time to think about this.