Diversifying your income is important, especially when you’re running your own business. This helps ensure you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket and gives you variety. If one income stream dries up, you still have to defer to others.
If you offer a service-based business, one way to diversify your income is to incorporate residual income streams into it. My favorite way to recommend building residual income is through affiliate commissions.
By building packages around the products for which you are an affiliate, you help create an additional source of income for yourself. Instead of just getting paid to do the job you were hired to do, you also get paid by the company for giving them business.
This model is also known as passive income. It’s not really passive because it requires some work, but generally speaking, most of the work you do to earn this money is done up front, after some maintenance.
One of the best ways to build your residual affiliate income Create packages based on specific products that will pay you some commission if purchased. That’s what we’re going to dig into today — how to turn affiliate opportunities into a win-win-win situation — for you, your clients, and your affiliate companies!
What to consider when choosing an affiliate program to join
The type of service you provide certainly affects which affiliate programs you should use Just because you can sign up as an affiliate with hundreds of different companies doesn’t mean you are should. Here are three key factors to consider when making a decision:
- Do you know how to use this product?
- Are you comfortable promoting this product?
- Will this product successfully solve your client’s needs?
If you can’t answer yes to these questions, it’s probably not a good fit. If you want and want to use your links in blog posts or on social media, you can still become an affiliate for them But, for the products you use as staples in your service packages, you should be able to answer yes to all three of these questions.
The third is particularly important. If you get a reputation for promoting services that don’t actually help your clients, your business won’t grow as much. It’s easy to get distracted by the potential money you could make, but ultimately your focus as a business owner should be solving your clients’ problems. If you keep your eye on it, your chances of success are high.
Sample affiliate program to use
Here’s a quick list of several affiliate products to consider, especially if you offer digitally based services like virtual assistance or digital marketing. This is not an exhaustive list, but just twenty you can decide to include in your service packages.
As you can see, there are affiliate programs available for a wide variety of service providers. You need to select the ones you want to work with, learn in depth, and use them to build your initial packages.
How to create great packages that include affiliate products
When you’re ready to create a package to increase your residual income, it’s time to brainstorm. First, write down the services you provide (or want to provide). Then, write down the tools you use to successfully complete each task. Examples may include schedules, email service providers or plugins.
Spend some time researching these tools and highlight the ones that have an affiliate program Make sure to read each of the terms so you understand how it works. You don’t want any nasty surprises when you’re trying to increase your residual income.
Now, choose a service to start with. Your first goal is to create a “basic” package for this service. This will help your client set up (or migrate) the tool you are working with, and then you can also offer a monthly maintenance package if you wish.
It is important to note that you are legally required to disclose your affiliate relationship to all affiliates. Make sure every page of your website has a standard disclosure that includes affiliate links, and you have a full disclosure page somewhere your potential clients can learn more. You don’t want to go through all the work of developing your packages only to find out that your packages are not compliant
How it looks in the “real world”.
If you’re wondering what these packages look like in real life, here are three examples of services offered, along with packages with affiliate links.
Pinterest management
Pinterest is a great source of traffic for many bloggers, but not everyone has the time (or skills) to create beautiful pins and post them. Mandy Holmes and her team are over She can coterie Pinterest offers management services among other offerings When you check out their packages on this site, you’ll notice that there are links to Tailwind This popular Pinterest VA course teaches you how to use Tailwind.
ledger
Keeping accurate records of expenses and income is important for any business owner. However, accounting is not a skill that everyone has (or enjoys) Bookkeepers can integrate affiliate links into their packages, or work with a company like Xero, which has a partner program. The details of these partner programs are said to vary, often with a service provider receiving credit when a client signs up for an account and grants access to the service provider. GreenCloud Bookkeeping The feature button on their service page displays their partner program. You can learn more about becoming a bookkeeper here.
Email Marketing Services
Growing an email list can help business owners build a relationship and trust with their readers. Setting up the technical elements of email marketing, along with creating content for consistent communications are both services that people can offer. With your packages for these services, you can include affiliate links to email service providers you enjoy working with.
By Jenny Lyon The Services page provides an example of this. He offers customized packages for various email service providers and, when applicable, includes an affiliate link. Since many email service providers offer recurring commissions, this can be a great way to increase your income each month.
Other ways to incorporate residual income into a service-based business
Planning your package around affiliate opportunities isn’t the only way to add residual income to your service-based business. Here are four more ideas for creating an affiliate income stream:
- Create tutorials that people can watch or read that include step-by-step instructions and your affiliate links.
- Make Facebook Live videos a tool you enjoy using Leave your link in the comments.
- Write an ebook guide for beginners who need a little extra help but can’t afford it right away You can sell the book for additional income and include affiliate links.
- Place affiliate banners on your site for the products you offer
I just want to add that there are additional benefits to structuring your business this way. By building packages around specific products, you begin to be known as an expert for that product. Instead of learning about all the options out there, you can just focus on the best ones This can help grow your client base and help you become the “go-to person” for certain platforms or services. When clients and colleagues start sending referrals your way, you’ve created another source of income!
There are so many options out there, I hope I’ve inspired you to add residual income to your service based business. What package ideas do you have in mind?
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