Autopilot Internet Income

I always liked the idea of an autopilot internet income – an internet business that runs on autopilot; making me money while I was asleep! It took me a long time to make it anywhere near a reality though. I got stuck for a while doing an eBay system and then found affiliate marketing. I struggled for several years before finding some good mentors who taught me the easiest online money making system for a beginner.

There were times I gave up on thinking of the internet as a serious way to earn money. Most of my friends and family doubted the idea but I kept going through all the struggles. Eventually, there was light at the end of the tunnel, and I’d make a sale online. $100 online was worth more like $1000 working a job to me. It signalled something far better because although I worked for it, I saw the bigger picture. I knew it meant freedom: both time and financial freedom to make a living online.

Autopilot Internet Income: Strategies

autopilot internet income

I tried many strategies to make money from my computer. I was scattered in my attention for many years and this didn’t help. The fastest people to turn their online actions into cash were very focused. I wasn’t. I dawdled. Starting out I used eBay and bought and sold. But I knew this wasn’t a strategy which could be completely automated. So I looked for something else. The search led me to affiliate marketing and I made my very first sale selling a software product from a review I had written. I was like magic!

It was a short lived success though and I soon lost interest and was on to the next strategy. Blogging was something I did for some time, even without any monetary results for many months. One strategy involved a huge amount of keyword research and using advertising to monetise. That didn’t work well for me but I spent a long time chasing my tail to figure that out!

The fastest strategy I found were paid marketing and combining that with selling other people’s products through an email list. But I got a Google ban on my Adwords account and this sent me to another strategy yet again! I basically didn’t know what I was doing until I found an affiliate marketing mentor.

Affiliate Marketing

autopilot internet income

Affiliate marketing does work. It just doesn’t work for many people because they don’t know what they’re doing wrong. There’s many reasons why affiliate marketing does not work for many. Here’s a few of the main reasons why it didn’t work for me at the start:

  • I was too dizzy! I jumped from one strategy to the next without any direction (shiny object syndrome)
  • Too many strategies: I didn’t stick at any one strategy for long enough and give it enough time (impatient)
  • My own limitations and self created difficulties.
  • My belief hit rock bottom many times over – without belief in what you’re doing it’s an endless up-hill struggle.
  • Small difficulties became major roadblocks in my mind
  • Self doubt and fear
  • Going it alone

Much of affiliate marketing is about becoming the person you need to be to succeed online and build an autopilot internet income. I didn’t realise my own limitations were keeping me where I was. This is mindset stuff not technical stuff. When friends and family doubt your journey too, it’s difficult to build a belief in something you have no clue about! The answer is to get help and not go it alone!

Building A Sales Funnel

Building a sales funnel and paying to send people to it is the fastest online income strategy I’ve found. But there’s more to it than that of course. In order to afford to spend money on marketing, you need some good products. Plus you need the confidence in your strategy to spend money in the first place. There’s many things which can go wrong using the sales funnel strategy:

  • Using cheap products and paying for marketing – you’ll lose money every time
  • Targeting the wrong audience and paying for them to land on your sales funnel landing page.
  • Not testing your marketing before increasing your budget
  • Your customer journey loses them somewhere in the process – make sure you align your messaging so your customer journey is congruent.
  • Plus many more..

Ideally use a ready made sales funnel with a range of digital products in it. Why digital? Digital products are good because they offer the best commission rates and can be sold anywhere globally with no postage costs. So they make the best products to build an autopilot internet income with. In addition to finding and selling digital affiliate products you should also choose high ticket products and recurring commission affiliate products for your sales funnel. The more ways you have to earn from your products the better it is for you.

Autopilot Internet Income – Takes Time

Building an autopilot internet income takes investment, time and effort. You can do it on the cheap but this will generally take a lot longer to accomplish. (See how free websites make money). If you are serious about building a sustainable business from the internet sign up on this site to the free video series to learn more.

You’ll also be able to access my ebooks and an online business system.

I hope this article has been helpful. Please leave a comment if you have anything to add.

Internet Business That Runs On Autopilot

I always wanted an internet business that runs on autopilot. Back in the early naughties, I imagined a system which churned money out while I was enjoying my life elsewhere! The idea became apparent after I purchased an ebook on eBay which taught a business system to sell on the auction site. See How To Start A Profitable eBay Business for the strategy.

internet business that runs on autopilot

The ebook purchase was what struck me – not really the system it taught. And although I made money from the strategy it taught me, the ebook seemed more “magical” to me. I had bought a digital downloadable product with my purchase. It was something which was sold directly over the internet without needing postage or handling. The complete sale was also automated and I immediately saw a huge potential in this model.

Internet Business That Runs On Autopilot – What Next?

I was using this eBay business strategy and buying and selling things for some time. But the business I was doing was time heavy and I had to personally answer questions about products I was selling and physically post goods out. This took up a considerable amount of time.

internet business that runs on autopilot

My days were split between searching for goods on eBay to purchase, answering questions from customers and trips to the post office to weigh and post items out. The business wasn’t making nearly enough money for all this time I was spending online. There had to be a better way!

I wanted an internet business that runs on autopilot; which could be scaled up, and largely ran by itself; and I was convinced it was possible. I just didn’t know how back then.

Internet Business That Runs On Autopilot – My Story

I realised that even though I was working for myself, and was using the internet, all I really had was a job that I owned. I was convinced that there must be a better and more lucrative way to use the internet for profit. So I abandoned the eBay strategy and looked elsewhere. At first I tried to create my own ebooks to sell. I wrote one on becoming a stuntman; something I had learned about some years before.

I didn’t sell any copies of the book but it did land me in some hot water in the stunt business. But that’s another story! However, I did learn how to set up a website and automate the payment process; which was part of the process. I wrote another one about becoming a TV extra too, but struggled to make sales.

The weak link in the online sales process was in marketing. I had learned some technical skills on the way, but my ability to put the product in front of the right audience was weak! So I put myself on several online marketing courses over the following few years. You can read about some of them in my article digital profit course review.

Marketing – The Key To An Autopilot Business System

Yes marketing. Marketing is key but not the only thing to consider for an autopilot business system. Without marketing, all the fancy “bells and whistles” of an online business simply won’t work. It took me some time to figure this out. When I first started out, I thought just putting up a website was enough. I though people would just somehow be able to see my website – perhaps because I thought I was so important! How little did I know!

If you imagine a shop opening up in a quiet neighbourhood, down a back alley, in a place no-one goes to, you have a small idea of what a website really is. A website is simply invisible in most instances. Without marketing, or building it on a good foundation, you’ll get no visitors, none.

But there’s more to a good business online too. You also need to provide some kind of value. Without an exchange of value, no-one wants your products. This is where affiliate marketing comes in. With affiliate marketing, you can market other people’s products. Other people’s products, I realised, offered far more value than my little ebook I created.

A Business Model That Works!

After a lot of failures online I eventually found an business model that worked! I had tried many things with some success but most met with failure! See my article 23 affiliate mistakes newbie affiliates should avoid. With the right business model, and attitude, you can build an internet business that runs on autopilot! How does this work? Here’s a quick overview:

  • Use paid marketing – yes this article is an example of ‘free’ marketing or content marketing so I’m kind of contradicting myself here. But I also use paid marketing too. (I just like writing). Paid marketing is good because it’s fast and most importantly it’s scalable. Don’t ever forget you’ve got a global audience with an online business.
  • To use paid marketing, you’ll need some awesome products which offer huge value (sign up to the free video series on this website to learn more). Small products pay small commissions. Large value digital products pay the most commissions.
  • Use a program which offers recurring commissions. Recurring commission affiliate programs offer the opportunity to earn an ongoing commissions from each member sale you make.
  • Leverage other people’s experience. Yes get help. Affiliate marketing can be tough but it’s far harder if you attempt it on your own. Sign up on this site for the free videos for access to an online community which offers help to its members.

An Online Business That Runs Itself?

internet business that runs itself

But what’s the catch? Sure, an online business can run itself. But there’s heaps to do first. You need to set up a ready made sales funnel which offers a range of digital products. Then, you’ll need to learn marketing. That’s it! If you are successful, you can scale up your marketing and reach more and more people. Re-invest your profit back into scaling up your business. Operate it from anywhere in the world and keep learning and growing it.

With online marketing strategies and digital products, the whole thing can run 24 hours a day on complete autopilot. You’ll still need to test and measure your system though. But this is far less time consuming that working in a job trading your time for your money forever more! Far better to learn how to stop trading time for money and automate an online business instead!

Who Can Do This?

Most affiliates quit in the first few years of starting an online business. So I’d say you need to take this as a serious business from the outset. Don’t let reports of people making millions overnight with an online business fool you. Yes millionaires do exist in the online world, but by and large they’ve spent years testing and measuring their businesses before scaling up. Their “overnight success” took them years of hard work.


Anyone can start an online business though, whatever their background. The SFM digital success mentoring program offers a complete business system, strategy and online training and mentoring community to thousands of people all over the world. (You can sign up on this site for access).