These last few years have been years of change… don’t you think?

Perhaps you have experienced a lot of change in your personal life like me… since my car accident back in 2008 our life seems to have changed dramatically – so many doctor appointments… so much therapy… surgeries… And, then the family life has changed. Our oldest entered the world of middle school last year… I won’t even go there with how that has changed our family dynamic 😉 But, we also went through the process of dealing with a law suite from the car accident… dealing with negotiating a settlement… buying our first home… a knee surgery and LASIK for my husband… and that is just in the last 6-8 months!

Life is always changing. This world is always changing. Sometimes we have more to give in certain areas… and sometimes not so much.

Perhaps the bulk of the change you have experienced has been with your business. With all of the changes that have happened with eBay over the last few years – I bet you have had to change your strategy. If not, maybe you are finding that you are working MORE for LESS.

Come to think of it… in this economy – it is likely that even if you have changed your business strategies you are working MORE for LESS.

What a bummer, eh?

The thing is… if you are as busy as I am, you probably don’t have the TIME to work MORE. Maybe if someone was to offer a million dollars you could make time 😉 but, the reality is, if you are working another job… or if you are a mom with kids at home… whatever your story – it is likely that you simply cannot work more for less.

So what do you do?

Here is my secret.

I’ll be completely honest with you. With everything I have had going on in my personal life this last year especially, I have found it incredibly difficult to find time to pour into my business. In a perfect world, I would be able to walk along side you in your efforts to grow your own business… encouraging you… cheering you on… offering marketing strategies to help you grow! I would be able to balance that along with raising my three children, managing my household, focusing on caring for my personal relationships… yeah, that would be a perfect world.

But, that isn’t the world we live in.

So, I haven’t been online as much as I would have liked to. I haven’t been as engaged as I have wanted to be… and even know I need to be.

HOWEVER, my business has continued to thrive.

What would happen to your business if life got in the way and you weren’t able to do all that you wanted to with it to keep it going? How long would it survive? 1 week? 1 month? 6 months? A year?

I want to share my secret with you. It isn’t really a secret, because I’ve shared it before…

My secret is…

automated revenue streams

When life isn’t quite as crazy, I have taken the time to put in place automated revenue streams that continue to perform for me – even when I can’t.

That might sound great… but, what does that look like? And – how does it apply to you? That’s what you need to figure out. I’m here to help… but, you are the one who knows your business best.

Here is what automated revenue streams look like for me…

1. Ads: Many of my sites and blogs have multiple revenue streams from ads (Google adsense or Facebook ads have been my focus). Regularly I get to enjoy money being deposited into my account from my ads performing for me without me doing a thing!
2. Ecourses: I have written various ecourses to help online business owners grow their business. These courses have been written and put into an autoresponder – so I don’t have to really do a thing other than answer a question here and there from my students. But, for the most part, this is the kind of thing I set up once and then reap the benefits of my hard work for months and months to come.
3. Membership sites: I have a couple of membership sites that I have outsourced the work on. I generate more revenue from members than what it costs for me to pay to outsource so it generates a positive cash flow. Another automated revenue stream.

Here is what automated revenue streams I’ll be working on this year…

1. Continued use of ads: There is a direct correlation between my ad revenue and new published content on my websites that have the ads. Don’t get me wrong – my ads continue to perform well enough for me for months without me having to add new content; however, if I want them to grow – I need to grow the sites I have the ads on. For me, most of my ads that perform best for me are through Google Adsense on my blogs… so, this means adding blog posts.
2. Ecourses: I will continue to grow my Start Here Program and make any updates needed to the courses that are complete. I’m working on a course for how to use pinterest with your online business as well as a course on publishing to Kindle. Is there a course you are interested in? Shoot me off an email or comment to this post – I’d love to get feedback on this!
3. Ebooks: I plan to publish my content to Kindle this year. I’m a little behind the game here – but, I know Kindle is a great market to get into so I’m moving in that direction. Another opportuinty to do the work once and reap the benefits of that hard work over and over again.

There are more I could list here… we all know that there is always room to grow – but, we also know that we can’t do it all. So, this is my focus for the rest of 2012.

What about you?

Are you using automated revenue streams in your business? What do they look like?

One thing that each of these strategies have in common is that they all have to do with INFORMATION. If you have information that is of interest to your market – then you can (and should be) creating automated revenue streams!

If you don’t have information… it is time to brainstorm and come up with a list of topics that your market would be interested in. And that is for the next post. 😉

Your assignment for today is to list out automated revenue streams you have in place and also list out what streams you plan to work on or build this year.

See you in a day or two with some ideas for finding information your market might be interested in so you can move forward in building these automated revenue streams for your business!

Jenni