With the advances in technology there has never been a better time to start a business on the internet that provides you with a  “shop” that never has to close. It will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to anyone that chooses to visit from around the world.

More and more people are recognizing the potential and jumping on the bandwagon without a clear idea of what tool they want to use to actual drive them towards their chosen path.

Not only is the potential for customers huge, but the number of areas you can focus on online is also huge, and this article only provides a small “flavour” of some of the things you can do.

If you don’t choose an area it is very easy to become unfocused and to begin trying different methods with different experts. Before you know it 18-24 months have passed, you have spent a lot of money and you have still not experienced making any money.

Before choosing how you will make money I recommend you read my article ” A strong beginning builds the foundation for a great ending” which will will help you decide WHY you want to make money and then move on to ” Take A Look At Yourself And Your Success” to help you create a vision of success that will help keep you motivated.

First plan, then create your vision, then look at the vehicle that will drive your vision and your plan. Too many people come online and do it the other way around and this article is written from a place of hindsight after making that mistake myself! So you have your plan and your vision let’s look at some of the different ways you can make money online.

Blogging – This has to be my favourite because it is low cost and easy to start. You can set up a blog right now for nothing at somewhere like Blogger or Wordpress. Alternatively, and a much better option, you can host your own blog by buying a domain name and uploading Wordpress. Blogging is not a quick solution to money making and you need to be committed to your subject and building an audience, but if you focus on blogging alone for 12-18 months you will be surprised at the number of people you can have reading your blog. The key is to remember to have a place where they can sign up for your updates so that you build a list while you blog. Also consider varying text blog posts with audio and video (podcast) too.

Affiliate Marketing - This involves you selling the products of a supplier. Its one of the more popular things to do when you start out online because you don’t need your own product, and many affiliates don’t own their own website. When you sell goods on behalf of a supplier they give you a commission based fee. It makes for a great start because they take care of all the customer service and delivery of the product.  The downside of affiliate marketing is the fact that you never earn as much as someone who actually owns the product.

Niche Marketing – Niche marketing is basically marketing your website to a particular group of people in one area. Let’s say you decide to write an information product on how to build a pond; this is called a niche market. You are not talking about knitting, or how to improve your golf swing so you will not want to market to those people. Focusing on one niche and selling to people within that niche is a great way to earn an online income.

Membership Sites – Imagine taking everything you know on how to build a pond, filming yourself as you build and then creating it into videos. Interviewing pond and fish experts and turning them into audios. Then putting all that information into a membership area where people pay to gain access. 500 members paying a monthly fee of $10 to get access to this membership site is a nice chunk of change! Your site could charge a one-off fee, a yearly fee or a monthly fee (or all 3!)

Finally…. Turnkey Businesses - A turnkey business (also called plug-in) is a business that provides everything for you. You will usually be given a product, a website and/or some training/tools in how to market. Some turnkey businesses offer incentives to be paid if you recruit others to take up the opportunity. This is a great way to get started because you have everything you need. It is definitely important to look for a company that provides you with help and support.

There are many home based business opportunities and I encourage you to research and find out which one works best for you before getting yourself involved in one. I also encourage you to focus on one (or two at the most) and enjoy earning a living from them before moving on to running another business.

Consider mixing them up so that your blog has audio and video plus you add premium content so you are running a membership site. Still only one area but you have added three different components to it. This variety will help you and your potential customers to stay motivated!

Take A Look At Yourself And Your Success

by Diane Corriette
When putting a plan together to work on line, deciding what motivates you and creating a compelling vision that moves you towards it, it can be a useful exercise to dedicate some time defining what success will look like for you. If you haven’t looked at a plan for yourself you might find my article ” A strong beginning builds the foundation for a great ending” useful.

For a few years now success for me has always been about following my heart, making a difference and living with passion. As long as I am doing one or all three of these things I am successful.

What will success look like for you?

If you have been fortunate enough to discover what you are passionate about, your purpose in life, then you are truly blessed. Look at how you can use this to generate passive income. Getting paid doing something we love really puts the fun in work!

Brainstorm ideas! Just write them all down. Start by saying

I am successful when……..

Then make a list and see what shows up, examples are:

I am successful when I am making people laugh
I am successful when I am making $10,000 a week
I am successful when I am doing something that inspires me

You get the picture! Just write them all out and then go onto the next stage.

Once you have completed that exercise take a look at your list and rate them on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being not important and 10 being extremely important) rate your list and then select the top 7-10 (you can select as many as you like but I am using 7 as my example in this article)

Here’s an example again
I am successful when I am making people laugh (4 out of 10)
I am successful when I am making $10,000 a week (2 out of 10)
I am successful when I am doing something that inspires me (8 out of 10)

If you are unsure about which is the more important one, answer this question

If I can have x but I can’t have y does that matter?

So as an example, if I can have peace but I can’t have money does that matter?

Remember, this is a way of defining your success, so if doing something that inspires is more important then rate it higher than money; if not rate money higher. Go through each one until you have them in a 1-7 order.

Now create one or two sentences of what success means for you using your 7 key words in whatever order you like. So as an example if my key success words were:

1. peace
2. money
3. freedom
4. inspiration
5. making a difference
6. leaving a legacy
7. time for me

My sentence may say something along the lines of:

“Success for me is about having the inspiration, peace, freedom and flexibility to earn money while making a difference and leaving a legacy. My online business will provide me with time for me and my family.”

Having a vision for yourself and your business is so very important because it is this vision that will keep you motivated when you want to give up. People without a real vision become unfocused and begin to try one idea after another. This is actually a very common mistake that people starting in internet marketing make.

Once you have your vision the other thing you need is your business vehicle, the online business that will help you to achieve your vision. I discuss that in another article called “Driving the right vehicle to success” and it’s worth reading if you are still trying to figure out what business you want to use to run your business online.

So take action and create your definition of success because once you know what it is as long as your online business provides you the opportunity to achieve it then you are successful. Even if you do not end up earning a six figure sum or becoming a “guru”, you are still successful in your own eyes. And they are the only eyes that really matter!

Resource Box

Diane Corriette runs the Women Internet Marketers Social network http://www.womeninternetmarketers.net and is the author of the ebook “What I Would Do Differently” that teaches people how to learn from her mistakes http://www.myinternetmarketingmistakes.com

Planning for your future is actually one of the most important things you should do before you begin developing your idea for earning passive income online. If you don’t like sitting down and creating business plans at the very least you should have a plan for the next 12-24 months and have a clear vision of how you will achieve that plan.

Deciding on what success looks like for you and how your plan will help you feel successful everyday will help to keep you motivated and I have an article called “Take A Look At Yourself And Your Success” that you can read about determining your version of success, but for now let’s get started by thinking about your future vision.

Ask yourself these questions:

What does the end look like for you?

How amazing will your business and life be 5 years from now or perhaps 10?

If you can’t think that far into the future start with 2 years and then work your way back until today. What will have to happen today, right now, so that you can begin your on-line business? Hopefully the first thing you put was, write a plan!

Take the afternoon off (yes; I am recommending you step away from the computer) and spend time deciding on what you want for yourself and more importantly why. Let’s look at that briefly, why are you doing this? If your answer is to make money then you may want to revisit that. Consider taking on a business because you want to help people meet a need, or you are passionate about a topic that you know will help people live life better/easier. Also consider whether it is the money that you want or what the money will provide.

Your motivation behind wanting to work online and earn money online will be a huge factor to your success, which is why planning is so vitally important. Would you step into a different country and not plan where you are staying? Or what you will see? Of course some of you will say “yeah I would!” But for those of us who are not as free spirited, I recommend you plan what you want for yourself and your life so that you say motivated to achieve it.

Once you decide why you are doing it you now need to consider the effect it will have on the rest of your life and those around you. It is important to consider not only what you want, but the effect it will have on your friends and more importantly your family and loved ones. Will it mean time away from them as you develop your new business? Is your partner ready to stand by you when the money isn’t flowing as well as when it is? Will it mean having to work extra hours after working full time in a job for 30 or 40 hours a week?

You need to know what resistance or challenges you may encounter because the impact on you is highly diminished if you know there is a possibility of this issue occurring. See it as risk analysis. All organisations, especially large ones, will plan out what “may happen” when they launch a new product or take on a new venture.
Playing devil’s advocate is an important part of this process. It is not about being negative or thinking “this just won’t work”. It is about remaining proactive by asking “what choices will I need to make if this does not work?” “Who can I turn to in times of need?”

After completing your plan sit down and write out a few contingencies, a few just in case scenarios. Be prepared! Stephen Covey says “begin with the end in mind.”

Once you have an idea of what you want and why, and you have written it all down, create a picture in your minds eye of what your business will look like.

Hear the sounds. Will you be opening a bottle of bubbly because you’ve had your most successful week yet? Or the scream of your loved ones as you tell them you are going on holiday for the first time in years?

What feelings will you feel? Will you feel the satisfaction of giving to your community or to charity because you have the money to do that? Will you feel the determination to do what needs to be done to achieve?
What tastes will you experience? The taste of sea air as you arrive at your holiday destination? The taste of your favorite food from your favorite restaurant, which you are sharing with 15 of your friends! What smells will you smell? The smell of floor polish as you step into your new dream home for the first time that has just been cleaned ready for your arrival.

Make it real, experience everything. Feel the excitement deep within you, and then call on this whenever you need to keep going. Spend time creating a plan for yourself that moves you into action every time you think about it. Create pictures in your mind about the things you will have and do.
I recommend you also spend some time thinking about the kind of person you will become too. Who will you be as a result of this extra income? Will you be generous, compassionate, loving? Well guess what, you don’t need passive income to be those things, you can do them right now!

Who you are “being” in life will determine whether your business is a true success. Will you be loyal, courageous and self-expressed in your desire to reach your goals or will you be pig-headed, difficult, manipulative and controlling? Guess which one will get you further and be more fun!

Resource Box (you have my permission to use this article on your site as long as this line and the following resource box remains intact)
Diane Corriette shares her expertise in internet marketing and personal development to help people avoid the same mistakes that she made. Read her report “What I Would Do Differently In My (Internet Marketing) Life If I Could Do It All Again” at http://www.myinternetmarketingmistakes.com