Making money online through Niche Marketing

How to Make $10K+ Per Month Online… Without Losing Money on Ad Spend

There’s a ton of advice out there about making money online. And, the promise of getting rich from blogging, affiliate marketing, eCommerce, or coaching is enticing.

You’ve put in the effort to earn your first dollar from digital marketing and you know that you can earn a six-figure income if you make the right moves. But, what should you do after you’ve earned that first buck to make a consistent $10,000+ per month?

If you’ve made some money online, and you’re looking for a way to start earning upwards of $10K+ per month (residually), this guide is for you! 

Here’s what’s in-store: 

What Do I Know About Making Money Online?

When I was in my early 20s, I was still living at home with my parents and wanted to learn how to make some serious money and buy a home. So, I sought out all the different ways to make money and become “financially independent” and I came across real estate as a way to build cash-flow residually and build my net worth.

As a self-starter, I taught myself about the real estate market. In my quest for investment knowledge, I ended up subscribing to a handful of email lists to learn about the latest and greatest systems, and techniques  (you’ve done this too right?). This would eventually introduce me to internet marketing.

I am so happy this was the path I took because not only do I now own many rental properties but after much sweat, tears and frustration, I am finally making a consistent healthy income from internet marketing (well over $10k/mo).

And speaking from experience, internet marketing is a lot more fun and stress free than being a real estate investor.

At first, I was learning some of the old school techniques from guys like Russell Brunson and Armand Morin and Ryan Deiss.  And, in 2006, I decided to implement some of the systems I had learned from a handful of experts. The one system that really stuck out to me was Ryan’s Million Dollar Napkin.


Ryan Deiss – Million Dollar Napkin

I knew this model could work well and create a snowball effect because of how scalable it would be but I only had the idea. I didn’t have the fundamentals of how to put it all together despite buying numerous courses on this (we will come back to this a little later)…

My first online commission was earned from Google Ads via affiliate marketing. I paid for ads on Google that sent leads to a squeeze page using one of the funnel platforms (from over a decade ago). I was promoting some gas rebates MLM (don’t ask) and was hooked on the idea of turning a dollar from ads into two or three dollars from revenue.

The first commission I saw was probably only a few dollars, which didn’t even cover the amount I’d spent on the ads. Still, it proved to me that internet marketing wasn’t just a fantasy. Someone actually saw my offer and bought something! It made it real for me.

But, I’d have to learn how to perfect my processes. And, at this point, I believed that you had to be an advertising expert to generate any real money from digital ads. I thought that for me to figure out how to make a profit on cold advertising, I needed to consume everything I could on being an “ads expert” (boy, was I wrong!).

Fast forward many moons later and I’ve figured something out. A process that works. The “missing link” if you will.

I’ve also created an ad-friendly offer, an offer that does well to cold traffic but also can handle scaling. I run ads to my offer and it doesn’t stress me out because fulfillment is no longer overwhelming. With this new offer, I don’t run one-on-one coaching sessions anymore because fulfillment for a one-on-one service can’t be scaled (there is only one of me).

I’ve changed my offer from something that could only help a few people to something that could help many people. To be more specific I changed it to video training modules, group coaching, and other digital assets as part of the fulfillment.

With this new offer and the consistent Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) it brings, I’ve stopped worrying about finances, debt and I have more time to spend with my family. I can finally take my kids to the bouncy houses on weekends without worrying so much about client calls and late night texts running my life. And, I want to share my system so that you can duplicate it for yourself. 

The Greatest Challenge You’ll Face Against Earning Six-Figures per Year Online

I stumbled through the world of making money online and it took nearly 10 years before my online earnings were consistent and significant. During this time, I invested in real estate as my primary source of revenue, leaving internet marketing on the backburner as a side project or a system to master later (but I always knew it was my true calling).

All that time, I was wasting cash on ad spend and this prevented me from making any real money online and building a second source of monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

To this day, according to research from Forrester, losing money ad spend is still the greatest challenge online marketers face, followed closely by inaccurate targeting and lost customers. 

The Greatest Challenges Online Marketers Face

When I realized how simple it is to overcome this problem, I was amazed. As it turns out, my beliefs about advertising were all wrong (plus, I was using an outdated funnel with systems from the days of dial-up, so that didn’t help). After letting go of a couple of false beliefs, I was able to turn things around exponentially and fast. 

Today, I’m able to generate five-figures of recurring revenue each month and on track to 3X this number within the next 12 months. Now, I want to share how you can duplicate these results. 

What are the Secrets to Turning $1 Earned Into Earning $10,000 Every Month?

Here, I’m going to reveal the secrets that will turn your side hustle into a lucrative source of income. So, let’s explore how you need to change your mindset and I’ll share actionable advice that will skyrocket your MRR. 

2 Common Myths That Sabotage Your Digital Marketing Success

If you follow suit with false paradigms, you will never achieve the results you want. So, before you do anything else, make sure you don’t believe these myths that will only stand in your way. 

Myths That Sabotage Success

The first myth that will sabotage your ability to earn consistent and lucrative MRR with online marketing is that you must be an advertising expert to turn ad spend into positive cash flow. Yes, you need to understand the basics of PPC. And, with knowledge in this area, you will have a slight edge over competitors. 

But, there’s one invaluable ingredient in a successful digital marketing recipe that has nothing to do with advertising expertise. And, once you learn and implement it, the difference you see in your revenue will blow your mind.

Now, the second myth that you need to leave behind is that the harder you work, the more likely you are to achieve the results you want. Yes, if you work 72 hours per week at a specific hourly rate, you can earn more than you would if you were working 40 hours. So, logically, this makes sense to most people.

But, hours and hours of hard work each week is not the most reliable path to wealth. Plus, if you walk this trail, you’ll miss the point of being wealthy in the first place — you give up quality time spent with your family, travel, and basically kiss your personal life goodbye. So, if you still believe that the more you work, the more you’ll make, let go of this rubbish right now. 

Read on to learn how you can replace these false ideas with a new mindset that will set you on a path to earn a significant MRR for years to come.

Learn the Truth and Replace Your False Beliefs – Beyond a “Wealth Mindset”

You’ve learned the greatest challenge digital marketers face and two of the false beliefs that hold people back. Right about now, you’re probably expecting a motivational “wealth mindset” rant about how you need to believe that you are worthy. And, while that is true, you wouldn’t be here if that’s what you needed to hear (plus, you can find inspirational quotes anywhere). 

Beliefs That Fuel Success

Here, I want you to fully-absorb a couple of truths to replace your pre-existing false beliefs with: 

  1. Being an “offer achiever” trumps advertising knowledge
  2. Wealthy people actually work less to earn more money

Advertising knowledge, while helpful, is nothing compared to creating an offer that is so irresistible that people feel silly not to take advantage of it. So, that’s what you need to create. 

And, wealthy people don’t work more to achieve success. Instead, they learn how to do less to achieve more. For example, I used to spend all-hours trying to solve any problem that came up in my digital marketing business. Now, I ask somebody who knows what they’re doing to help me (hire the best people on web platforms, facebook groups and through referrals). And, I now work less and earn more than ever before.

Now, learn the foundational skills you need to become an offer achiever, work less, and earn a significant MRR. 

Why a Self-Liquidating Offer is Crucial in Digital Marketing

A self-liquidating offer (SLO) is essentially an offer you’ve created that pays for itself. When you implement a self-liquidating offer, you break even. In digital marketing, it is essential to learn mastery over this because once you understand how to break even, it is easy to learn how to scale. Remember that napkin from before? This is what Ryan was trying to teach me.

I sell coaching, information products like ebooks and video training modules to generate income. My sales are almost completely fueled using SLOs from cold Facebook ads. 

How a Self-Liquidating Offer Works

Leads are funneled from Facebook through an ad to an offer for a free report. Then, immediately, my funnel upsells a $47 information product (the free report is sent via email but the viewer sees a special offer that can immediately help them even further).

After that, I immediately try to upsell again to $197 training (Using 1 Click Upsell Feature where the client does not have to re-enter their credit card information). And, if the new customer declines, I have a training version with fewer features that I attempt to down-sell for just $97. 

What really made this magical is that once I mastered self-liquidating offers, making sure that my ads paid for themselves from immediate sales (I broke even), all of my leads (subscribers) essentially became free. But if I had only sold a $47 product, the average cart value would have been lower (meaning I could not spend as much on acquiring that customer), but thanks to the upsells enormous cart value is added. 

Making multiple offers made it possible to spend more to acquire a customer. Plus, both buyers and non-buyers pour into the funnel daily. Non buyers are nurtured through an email series and brought back to the $47 offer. Buyers are nurtured as well and offered a much higher ticket offer (HTO). The high ticket offer is group coaching and this is where the profit and serious income comes into play.

So, if your ad spend is $75 daily, you need to make sure that you earn $75 per day from at least one lead that you funnel to your offer. This is a self-liquidating offer, and it sets the stage for what comes next.

When you scale-out and increase your average daily profit from new, incoming leads to $85, you see an immediate daily profit of $10. In a month, that adds up to around $300. And, when you increase ad spend to $150 daily, your immediate profit for the month doubles to $600. Immediate profit on $300 daily ad spend would be around $1,200 monthly, and so on.  

Now, it doesn’t end there because, when subscribers move through an automated email sequence and as you build rapport with them, (as mentioned previously) you can get some of them to convert on a higher-ticket backend offer.

So, in addition to the immediate value of a customer, sales happen later through our nurturing sequence. You can then make more offers to anyone on the list. This, again, enables you to pay more per customer acquisition, cover the cost of ads, and see real profits start to roll in. 

What is an Offer Achiever and How Can You Become One? 

An offer achiever is someone who creates a product or service that is so compelling and helpful that someone would be foolish to ignore it. And, an offer achiever will generate more success in digital marketing than all the PPC training in the world.

So, what goes into becoming an offer achiever? Offer hacking is a system I learned from Russell Brunson’s One Funnel Away Challenge. Fortunately, it’s not as complicated as you might think. You simply find out what is currently being offered in your market, buy all of your competitor’s products or services and study them. 

  • What are the costs? 
  • What are the benefits? 
  • What are the best features? 
  • Are there any problems with the existing offers? 

Then, you create something that provides significantly more value. 

The odds that you can create something that hasn’t already been thought of are slim. While not impossible to disrupt your industry with a brand new product, it’s not likely. But, using this system, you can instead compile the best parts of the best offers with outstanding results. 

When I was in high school, I had a friend who went around town and asked how much people were paying to have their lawns mowed. If they said they were paying $30, he offered the service for $25 and got the job. He won an entrepreneurial award for this and made quite a bit of money. At that point, this was impressive. But, this is not offer hacking.

If my friend were to have implemented offer hacking, he would have looked at what all the other landscapers were offering in the area as part of their $25 package and made an offer that would seem silly for the clients to turn down.

Look at these two offers for example:

  • Offer A (Regular Boring Offer)
    • Cut Lawn (Value: $25) Price: $25/cut
  • Offer B (Awesome “Offer Stack”)
    • Cut Lawn (Value: $25)
    • Weed Whack (Value: $20)
    • Blow off the grass (Value: $5)
    • Close your gates so your dog doesn’t run away (Value: Priceless)
    • One free spring cleaning (Value: $150)
    • One free fertilization (Value: $150)
    • Total Value: $350 Price: $35/cut

If he stacked offers and provided $350 worth of yard maintenance and charged $35 per cut, he would blow the competitors out of the water. He could have first seen where his neighbors were having challenges with their current landscaper and make an offer that blows his competitors away (the art of offer hacking). It’s not about the price at this point but about the value.

With this example, he would have created an offer with more services like weed whacking, yard debris clean up, fertilization, or other comparable services that provided tremendous value to the customer. Then, he would have been able to give the most value and as a result charge more. In fact, he could have charged even more than $35 a cut and been the highest price in town. But with his customers seeing the value in his offer, they are not as focused on the price.

Even with the spring cleaning and the fertilization costing him a little more per season he is still way ahead for the year with his revenue and profit compared to Offer A.

Here is another quick example. A Ferrari 488 GTB (my dream car) retails for about $330,000. That’s expensive right? But what if it came with a free house? Lifetime house cleaning service? Free gas? Suddenly, your eyes are off the price and you are considering the value.

In the physical product world, it is costly to provide value when offer stacking. We’ve only been discussing tangible items in order to offer stack. A house and free gas and spring cleaning all cost money and are tangible.

But let’s think about the digital world. In the digital world, what does it cost to share a video course and e-book outlining the 5 secrets to getting a perfect credit score? Definitely less than $0.10. But what is the perceived value of such a thing? I mean your credit score directly impacts you financially and influences the interest rate on credit cards, utilities and your mortgage! A video course and e-book like this could easily sell for $47, especially with a good offer stack behind it. But it only costs a few cents to fulfill! So by offer stacking with digital products, you can provide tremendous value to your audience without it costing you much at all! Get it?

Offer hacking works in nearly any product or service niche. One of the key highlights of an offer achiever is that there is no need to worry about competitive pricing because your product or service is so much more valuable than anything else on the market. You don’t have to be the cheapest — you get to be the best. 

For example, Apple did this with the iPhone — cell phones had already been invented and the company simply improved them and fixed issues people were having in the market place (like having to carry one device for music plus one device for phone calls).

In digital marketing, you won’t have to manually clean up anyone’s yard. Instead, you can create a course or informational product one time and profit from it repeatedly. Or, you can go out and ask someone in an adjacent niche for an insider interview that you offer only to your paid members. You might even be able to partner with another brand to offer a free trial of their product or service. This is all part of creating an irresistible offer.

What if You Aren’t Aware of the Problems Your Target Audience Faces? 

Knowing the problems your dream customers face is a key element in becoming an offer achiever. I’ve found that he who can best describe the problem you are having is also assumed to have the solution. Once people hear you spell-out their challenges, they connect with you. Then, they want to know you, like you, trust you, and buy from you. And if you can describe their pain, they assume you can also provide the solution.

And, the best way I’ve found to define a problem is through an ask campaign, a way to find out what your customers want before you create it. Essentially, you simply ask your tribe, “What are your greatest challenges/most pressing questions/top problems with [insert topic here]?” And, you can launch an ask campaign at any stage of the funnel. 

For example, if you’re just getting started creating a new offer to an audience, you might ask on social media or in forums. Then, if you’re trying to upsell non-buyers on your list, ask them via email or on your Facebook page. And, finally, when you want to upsell buyers to a higher-ticket backend offer, ask those on your email list tagged as buyers.

If you want to know the answer, you have to ask the question.

Note: An ask campaign is not the same as a poll, and here’s why — a poll can limit answers to a handful of preset values. When your audience is forced to select A, B, C, or D, you miss out on the opportunity to blow your competitors out of the water. It may turn out that answer E, something you never thought of before, ends up being the top challenge people face. In that case, you would want to create an offer that solves problem E better than anyone else has.  

Where Are Your Dream Customers Hanging Out?

I know you’ve heard this before, but it is imperative. So I want to remind you: get in front of your dream customers! 

I run a coaching business and when I wanted to get more eyeballs on my offer, I had to discover where my dream clients hang out. When you find out where your target audience is, you need to be there so you can interact with them. 

Some of my ideal clients hang out on Facebook. Other dream clients conduct online searches to find answers to their questions. And, the final segment is on YouTube searching for “how to” do this and “how to” do that. 

When I found where my people were and knew I had a working funnel, I increased my presence dramatically. And increased my Facebook ad spend from $25 per day to $75 (3x). I was able to use a combination of Facebook ads and Facebook groups to move traffic to my offer. I posted more videos on YouTube. I put additional effort into SEO for my blog. And, these actions have boosted my business tremendously. 

Tip: If you find yourself in an online group or forum that’s relevant to your offer, join, interact, and provide value by sharing your expertise, but never spam. 

Recommended Reading: This is How to Make Money on Facebook (A+ Tested Strategies)

Are You Getting Optimized Value From Your Digital Marketing Tools?

Remember when I told you that I was using outdated systems? Well, don’t make the same mistake I did. If you use tools that don’t fully optimize your processes, you end up with unnecessary holes in your operations. 

And, when there are holes in your operations, you spend way too much time trying to plug them. The alternative is to enable fully-automated, streamlined processes that decrease your workload and help you achieve results faster. 

Imagine that you want to build a bookshelf with your grandfather and he shows up at your house with a screwdriver in his hand. Well, you already have an electric drill. So, you tell him, “Hey, look, here is a way to get this done more quickly and easily.” Yes, an electric drill costs more, but it provides more value and is worthwhile. 

The same applies to the online tools and systems that you use. 

Previously, I was managing my website in WordPress with Optimize Press for my squeeze pages and One Shopping Cart for my shopping cart / merchant processor. It was difficult to communicate and nearly impossible to implement one-click upsells. 

Now, I use four key tools that I couldn’t work without and one that deserves an honorable mention: 

  1. ClickFunnels – This platform handles the sales funnels, merchant setup, membership fulfilment and is designed to create streamlined lead funnels. It generates about 90% of my business. The rest comes in via Kartra. It is a all in one platform.
  2. Stripe – ClickFunnels work together seamlessly. So, together, they create a really nice system that makes it easy to implement one-click upsells.
  3. ActiveCampaign – This is my favorite autoresponder. I’ve compared it to Drip, and find that it works well for me. Still, I recommend that you try a few to see which works best for you.
  4. Kartra – This merchant platform is really nice and presently generates about 10% of my business. It is also an all on one platform.

And, the honorable mention goes to Zapier. If not for the Zap, Connect ActiveCampaign to Google Sheets,  I wouldn’t be able to achieve the results that I have. I send out ask campaigns to people who join my Facebook group asking, “What is your biggest problem with X?” When they respond, the answers go into a Google Sheet. Then, the data is automatically sent to ActiveCampaign.

We have about 10 to 20 people per day request to join our Facebook group and thanks to this setup, we know their #1 problem and we gather their name and email into our nurture campaign. So how about that? We’re building a list, providing value, and doing an ask campaign all at once.

Zapier ActiveCampaign to Google Sheets

So, with the help of this Zap, when I talk to someone on my list, I know exactly what to say to them and how to help them. 

When I first implemented the tools here, I wasn’t dialed-in all the way. But, what was great is that these modern platforms make things like split testing easy. And, when you optimize one feature at a time, you can find out what works and what doesn’t work about your funnel. If you’re running ads, you must run a/b split tests to optimize. 

In digital marketing, an opt-in conversion rate above 30% is pretty good (and this varies by industry). Using the split testing that the above tools offer, I was able to get my conversion rate to 52%. I tested headlines, hooks, and CTAs (calls to action) to discover what works for my audience. 

As my system became more effective, it was rewarding. Each time a sale came through, I started to get push notifications on my phone, “You’ve received $47.” Then, 30 seconds later, “You’ve received $197.” My mouth watered like Pavlov’s dog and I wanted to keep working at it. 

You have to do all this work with the belief things are going to work out. But, until it happens, you don’t really know how exciting it’s going to be. Once these sales started to come in, something “clicked” and with that excitement I doubled down on what was working. 

Why I Use More Than One Merchant Platform

As you can see in the above list, I use both ClickFunnels and Kartra, which basically serve the same purpose. And, people ask me why all the time. I have more than one house (I still like to invest in real estate), more than one car (I actually still have the first car I ever bought when I turned 18), and more than one income stream. While this might seem excessive to some, it just makes sense to me. 

There’s a method to my madness. In general, I don’t like to have all of my eggs in one basket. If one of these systems were to crash temporarily or go out of business completely, I don’t want to have to hustle to move my databases to a new platform or lose all of my income in the interim. 

If your river runs dry, you need to find another water source. And, if it takes long to get to your destination, you might completely dehydrate yourself. 

I run my business through more than one  merchant platform. I’m not necessarily recommending that you do this because I believe it’s a personal preference. But, I do want you to think about it. I heard of too many people complaining that their merchant account got frozen (due to sudden growth or too many chargebacks, etc) and i wanted to have more than one seasoned merchant account in the unlikely event this ever happens.

Should You Hire Staff or Stick With the Solopreneur Workstyle?

Some people prefer to work alone. They like to learn every system and solve every problem that they encounter. And, while this will create intelligence and aptitude, it won’t necessarily create wealth. 

I have a staff. About once a year, I spend money (maybe around $500) on help from developers hired through Codeable. I regularly work with a virtual assistant (overseas), an SEO, and a writer who are contractors and freelancers who work on a 1099 or through Upwork

Outsource Work to Freelancers

There will be a learning curve when you grow from a solopreneur to an employer. For example, at one point, I hired three writers who I thought were the very best writers on the Upwork platform. One was sort of flaky. Another ditched out and became unresponsive. But, the third is still working with me and delivers great results. 

Take my advice: don’t stay up until 3:00 am trying to solve problems and fix systems that don’t work, which is what I used to do. Instead, get on Upwork, pay $50, and get someone to help you. Your time is too valuable!

The Magic of Charging More for Your Offer

Some people have guilt about charging more for their products and services — I know I did. But, when I decided to bump up my prices for training and coaching, I found a surprising truth: when you charge more for your offer you can provide a better service to your clients, which brings them a better result from hiring you.

After my prices increased and I was able to find a working formula, I put a lot more chips on the table. I hired a better writer, account managers, and higher-quality help. This led to enhanced support, production, and service. Everyone is happier when you provide superior value. 

Are You Ready to Take the Next Step? 

If you’re ready to take the next step, here’s your homework: 

  1. Let go of your sabotaging beliefs and understand that you can work less to earn more by becoming an offer-achiever. 
  2. Go buy your competitors’ products and study them. 
  3. Create a product or service that blows everyone else out of the water. 
  4. Learn to implement a self-liquidating offer. 
  5. Scale your efforts. 

And, if you want a bit more support, sign up for our free training about how to earn passive income online.