What is 'residual' income? It is income where you make a sale one time
and it generates income on a regular basis going forward. Residual income can even be earned on
multiple levels. For example if you refer someone to an affiliate program, you
make a commission for a percentage of the initial sale. In the future when your
customer pays their membership fees for the program each month, you earn a
percentage of that as a commission. With 'multi-level-marketing' you may also
receive a percentage of the commissions when your customer makes sales of their
own.
So the idea is that you have income that continues to generate as a result of
that initial sale for as long as your customer remains active in the
program. This would also be true if you
were directly selling a service, for as long as your customer continues to use
the service.
Usually if you are selling products directly, these are considered
'one-time-only' commissions, as you earn money only one time when the purchase
is made. Nothing wrong with this but it
does take much more work to build and sustain your momentum to keep those
one-time sales coming in on a regular basis.
It is a good idea to have a combination of sales types and the money all adds
up to represent a substantial income. However it does seem like a brighter idea
to have residual income - just
in the way it is more efficient to plant 'perennials' that bloom every season
after they are planted once, than it is to have 'annuals' that you must replant
every year.
It's fun that the plant analogy really does work so well when discussing residual
income too - because for example when you have a perennial plant it will not
only bloom each year in the same place, but the wind will carry the seeds and
the plant may pop up in many different places.
With residual income it is the same in that you have contacted the initial
customer who then contacts others, who contact others and before you know it
you have built an 'organization' just from that one initial action that you
took by 'planting the seed'.
Internet marketing and
in fact marketing in any industry is about generating lots of volume with your
efforts. This is because the majority of
people will not be interested and will not respond. It is a bit like the proverbial 'needle in a
haystack' in that you must weed through all the people who won't be interested
to find the few that will.
Actually there are many that will respond over time - but just as a percentage
of the human population on earth, only a few (million) are interested in starting a home business or
working from home. Remember as well that it is believed that people
do not usually respond to an ad the first time they see it. It is approximately the 5th or 6th time. This
is another reason to always keep the volume of your advertising turned up to
the max. This week someone may not be interested - but things are always
changing and maybe next week they will change their mind and respond to your
ad!