The dream of owning an “autopilot business” is no longer an impossibility. The internet now offers anyone the ability to run an online enterprise without even needing any of their own products. 20 years ago this was much harder to do than it is today. Today, with a business model known as affiliate marketing, anyone can use their computer to sell other people’s products on the internet for a share of the profit.
But how easy is this to do successfully? What’s the best way to do it? And can anyone do it, even without the technical skills required?
Autopilot Business – Who Can Do This?
Anyone can learn the skills required to build an online business which can largely run by itself (access video series on this site). Like any business however, many fail on the journey. In fact over 90% of online businesses fail. That’s a huge amount. So what factors affect this failure rate, and how can you determine whether you’ll be in the 10% of people who don’t quit!
There’s a few reasons why there’s a huge drop out rate with affiliate marketing. Selling products over the internet is a skill, and it takes time to acquire it! Many who attempt online businesses either get lost in the many activities which don’t produce results, get overwhelmed or expect too much for too little effort.
A bricks and mortar business requires a large financial outlay. You need premises and staff and equipment. This excludes a large amount of people from even attempting their own business. An online business is easily accessible. You only need a laptop and internet connection. You don’t need your own products either. This can give many people false hope and expectations of what an online business can deliver. Many start expecting it to be easy, and find out that it’s far from it! These are just some of the reasons people claim affiliate marketing does not work.
What’s Involved In An “Autopilot” Business?
An online business has a huge advantage over many other business models which require staff, business premises and regular working hours. The internet is always on! Internet businesses can serve people on a global scale and operate around the clock. Websites can deliver products and information to many people simultaneously. Plus, you don’t need to be physically present to deal with purchases and deliveries of products. Online business systems and strategies can allow you to scale up a business very quickly, once you get everything working automatically.
Initially, starting an online business can be daunting. Much of what you’ll do is based on trust. Trust is a valuable commodity in the online world. If you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t attempt it. By setting up automated systems such as websites, landing pages and email marketing campaigns, you can build a fully automated “sales funnel” from which to sell a range of digital products. See autopilot money making software.
Once set up, you can shift your focus to marketing. Using automated online marketing platforms, you can then test and measure your advertising, learning from the results and data which you’ll use as a feedback mechanism. Startup business models will test and measure their advertising until a time where it becomes clear what they need to do to scale up their business. Once this time arrives, they can increase their budget knowing that they will receive a good return on investment.
Best Autopilot Business Models
Without a good business model, it can be very hard to achieve a good return on investment. With low cost products, you’ll need to focus on marketing efforts which are cheap or free. It will take a lot longer to gain traction with an online business using these strategies. The best and fastest way to build an autopilot business is by using paid marketing strategies or direct response marketing. See the ultimate guide to online marketing.
In order to do so, you’ll need to be able to recoup your marketing costs and make a profit with the sale of your products. So ideally, you should have a number of ways to earn from the products you sell.
Multiple Earning Strategies
A high ticket affiliate program gives you large value products which you can earn from. Selling a high ticket product can give you a commission of over $8000 for a single sale. This goes a long way to establishing yourself a consistent marketing budget for your online business. At the very least you should choose recurring commission affiliate programs which allow you to build a solid monthly income from your online business. Ideally choose a business strategy which offers multiple earning strategies such as:
- High ticket digital products – Pay large commissions and are easily scalable
- Recurring commissions – offered by digital products and software products
- A number of products within a range – “Up-sells” give you more opportunity to sell later to existing customers through a
- Built in sales team
- Multi-tier products – Multi-tier products offer the ability to earn from sales made by your referrals (or team)
Automated Business Systems
An online automated business system starts with a sales funnel with a range of digital products within it. (access one by signing up for the free videos series on this site). Once set up, you can send targeted visitors into it through a range of online marketing strategies. Having recurring commissions for membership sales gives you a recurring income. As long as you can tailor your marketing efforts appropriately, you can build a number of members who pay you ongoing commissions and make a profit.
All of this takes time and effort to set up and make profitable. But once you’ve done so, you can benefit from the hard work you’ve done previously by continuing to earn ongoing commissions and making sales through an automated business strategy. You can also scale up your business simply by increasing your advertising budget – once you’ve ‘tweeked’ your marketing to produce a profit.
