Mery Christmas to All/Making Plans for 2009!

Good morning and Merry Christmas to all. I hope your
holiday has given you a chance to reflect and give thanks
for whatever you have, wherever you are. I know for many
people, including some of my close friends, this has been a
very tough year. Several people I know have lost their jobs,
gone bankrupt, or like me, lost most of their retirement. In
those respects, it has not been a good year for many, and so
it is easy to get lost in our own concerns and worries and
feel sorry for ourselves and become anxious over our futures.

We have to remember to keep things in perspective and to
always look towards the light and the love that is in our
lives, and not get lost in the darkness that always seems
to be hovering around us. Rather than look back with anger,
we should look forward with love and hope for a brighter
future and put our trust in Someone else. We can't control
out futures; we can only follow the path laid out before
us.

And so my holiday wish for all of my friends, relatives,
and especially for you, Steven, is that you find
peace and contentment and happiness in the year ahead, and
that you have a chance to realize your dreams.

We've had some friends staying with us over the holidays --
musicians -- and we've been speaking about the different ways
you can promote yourself online. We also spoken about the
need to generate passive income to keep their bills paid and
maintain some cash flow between gigs and independently
released albums.

As I review my own end of year revenue summary, I see I
generated between $40-50K in passive income this year
outside of my consulting income and my wife's part-time
income as a dental hygienist. Now while this additional
passive income is nothing to brag about, it does help pay
the bills. If you are not currently generating passive
income online, now is a good time to put together a plan
for doing so in 2009.

Times are getting tougher, and we all need a buffer, unless
you are independently wealthy, or have no fear of income or
retirement loss. So what can you do to make money
passively?

You can choose one of two paths: sell knowledge based upon
your subject matter expertise (as a result of education or
experience) or sell someone else's knowledge and
experience. Of the two paths, you can make more money
selling your own product, and there is more room for
creativity and differentiation.

It's not particularly difficult to create your own
knowledge-based product. Start with something you are
passionate about and then create a one-hour audio recording
of yourself rambling about the subject for an hour. Then
transcribe the audio into a typed manuscript. Now you can
also record a video if you like and have your product
available in multiple formats, or bundle them all together
since people tend to enjoy reading and listening to
knowledge products.

Creating a web site to sell your product isn't tough
either. It doesn't have to be fancy schmancy though it does
need a compelling sales letter. You should capture visitor
information (name and email address) and get them into an
autoresponder with an email series. This enables you to
convert non-buyers and to cross-sell and up-sell.

A quick sidebar on the cross-sell and up-sell. There is so
much business left on the table these days by people who
fail to cross-sell or up-sell. Don't let this happen to
you. It is always easier to sell to somebody who has either
bought from you in the past or given you permission to email
them.

You can promote your product through related blogs and
forums at little to no cost. Offer excerpts and articles to
bloggers; they are frequently hungry for good content.

You can establish an affiliate program through Clickbank
for next to nothing, and begin to tap into the 100,000
affiliates around the world, getting their help to promote
your product in exchange for a referral fee.

You don't need to spend a bundle on advertising. Of course,
it helps to find some joint venture partners with good
mailing lists and lots of traffic, but it has to be the
right JV partner. I receive a lot of emails from people
asking me to help them sell everything from cook books to
exercise books. I'm the wrong guy for those types of offers
because my lists and sites are not targeted to those
audiences. Find the right JV who shares your audience and
you can make a bundle.

Now you do need to be realistic. Whether your investment is
in time or money or both, you need to make an initial
investment. The key thing is to think this out carefully
before you begin. What is the total investment required and
how many copies of your product need to be sold for $X to
break even? You must know these numbers. Then you can make
a go/no go decision on the project.

Too many people set off on this path without a clear
understanding of costs and break-even point. Then they
complain that you can't make money or be successful. They
complain because they lost money.

If you have a product that can not sell for over $10 then I
would recommend you give it away for free in exchange for
capturing names and email addresses. Use your product as a
means to build a list for future marketing efforts. Many
have done this very successfully and fairly quickly. This can
generate far more money for you further on the down the
road through aggressive email marketing.

Or you can give your product away but have a one time offer
tied to it. In this case, downloaders see an unbelievable
offer before they are given a chance to download the free
product. This can also be very effective.

Using this combination of tactics you can begin to tap into
the passive revenue stream that has been previously evading
you. Again, be sure you fully understand the investment
required and the break-even point before you start.

The other path is to resell or promote other people's
products. If you are looking for products to resell, I
suggest you start here:

http://www.resellerproducts.com

http://www.verycooltools.com

I think it helps when you can provide quality reviews of
these types of products and then link your affiliate links
in the review. This is how CoolToolAwards.com was founded
and grown in popularity over the past decade. If you want
to learn more about how to create your own review site
check out my ebook:

http://www.RocketScienceRevealed.com

Be selective about the products you resell or promote.
There is a lot of noise out there and lots of people are
competing for the same audience. It helps if you can
publish your own newsletter as I do, and try to have a
voice of your own instead of coming across as another
Internet marketing guru clone. Don't go down that path
unless you have something unique to say and an extensive
career in marketing to back up your recommendations.
Credibility and experience are requirements.

Of course, there are others ways to generate passive
revenue such as by simply including Google AdSense
advertising on your web site. If you don't mind encouraging
people to abandon your own web site content in favor of
clicking on ads, then you can easily generate some cash
this way. Even though this level of revenue has decreased
for me over the past year, AdSense still generates over
$1000.00 a year for me without me lifting a finger. So why
wouldn't you at least consider it?

I hope these tips and suggestions motivate you to develop a
plan of your own for 2009, and that you begin to generate
some passive income of your own. If you need help, please
feel free to call upon me, whether for assistance with
copywriting, web design or general marketing strategy.

Until next year I wish you all that life has to offer,

Steven Schneiderman