When you first realize the possibilities about working from home, it’s normal to get super excited and believe everyone else will be too. But oftentimes the family isn’t as happy as you are, nor as trusting. They think it’s just a pipe dream, or worse, a scam. They haven’t done the research you have so they do not realize the true possibilities and potential surrounding the idea of working from home.

Provide Your Research to Them

Many times your family just cares about you so much that they simply want to protect you. But, if you show them the research that you’ve done, they may quickly realize that you’ve done your homework, and that you’re not going to get scammed.

Give Examples of Others Doing It Successfully

More than likely, at this point you have a circle of influence that includes work-at-home success stories. Let your partner and family in on the fact by talking about how so-and-so is making x amount of money and all while working from home. Explain what they do, and put the bug in their ear of the possibilities and potential.

Write Out a Business Plan

Banks want business plans to ensure that you’ve looked at all aspects of the business you plan to run. They want to see the numbers, and how you plan to make more money in the short term and the long term. Your family will feel better seeing these numbers, too. Even if you don’t plan to get a loan for your business, showing them everything down on paper will impress them.

Transition Slowly Timing Is Everything

Don’t expect everyone to be on board from day one. The idea takes time to sink in for some people. Mostly out of concern for you, but sometimes also from fear. Spouses fear what they don’t understand and not everyone is entrepreneurial or likes taking what they see as risks. Even though telecommuting has been around for a while, it’s still rare enough that people are shocked to find out that their home shopping orders are being taken by someone in their home office.

Work after Hours to Show Them the Money

If you’re not getting any place with discussion, start working after hours until you can show them the money. Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character in the movie, Jerry Maguire, had it right. People think differently about many things when they see the cash. If you have a spouse or family like that, you can work around their schedules doing something to earn money and then show them by paying for something fun, like a family vacation.

Explain to the Children about “Work” Time

You’re going to have to talk to the children a lot about work time. You might even need to have this talk with your spouse too. It’s a myth that you can work in chaos and constant interruption. You need a place you can work, and that people realize to leave you alone when you’re doing it. You can use a sign on the door, timers, and other incentives to get everyone on board to understand your needs. As for family members that live outside your home, just don’t answer the phone or door when you’re working. Everyone will get accustomed to it eventually.

Turn Your Family into Partners

As your family gets accustomed to the idea of you working from home, reward them by making them part of your business. You can hire family members and spouses on a contract or hourly basis and pay them. Then deduct these expenses from your business taxes. Once your kids or spouse is making some extra money from your business, they’ll be truly invested in your success.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

The most important aspect of talking to your family about working from home is to keep the lines of communication open at all times. You want to be honest with what is working and what is not working, and you’ll be surprised at how much your family is on your side with the goal of you working from home.

Family can sometimes be a hard sell, but it’s not because they don’t love you. It’s because they do love you and want you to be successful. Sometimes it’s just because they’re not aware of what working at home means. This is especially true of older individuals who may not understand technology.

We live in a brave new world that offers unprecedented opportunities to work at home and be the captain of your own financial ship. Getting your family on board and believing in what you are doing will be one of the important pillars of your long-term success.

If you’ve decided that you want to work from home with your own business, you may need to have a form of steady income while you finish creating products and developing your business infrastructure. The good news is there are a number of ways in which you can bring in some extra income while you get your business off the ground.

• Provide a Service – If you plan to make your own products and sell them, you likely have skills that other people will want to use. Try finding out if anyone needs the types of service you could offer. Perhaps you’re good at graphic design, database management, transcription, or something else entirely. Put it out there and people may buy your time. A couple places you could start listing your services for hire are popular freelance sites such as Fiverr and Upwork.
• Get a Part-Time Job – If you can’t wait for services to take off, you can get a part-time job. Sign up to be a substitute teacher or a temp at an agency, or head over to your nearest fast food place and you’re likely to be hired on the spot.
• Get a Work-at-Home Job – There are many legitimate work-from-home jobs that you can get pretty quickly if you have experience, education and skills. Look for call center work, and you could be bringing in extra money within the month.
• Sell Items on eBay – Have too much stuff in your house? Try selling some of it on eBay. You can also buy from stores on sale, and then sell for a higher price on eBay. Believe it or not, everyone isn’t able to get to the same sales you can.
• Sell Items on Amazon – This is the same idea as eBay, but you may not be aware that you can sell your old books and pretty much any items that Amazon sells, right from your home office. You can even ship some qualifying items to their fulfillment service and then sit back and collect checks as Amazon does the heavy lifting for you. Look up “Fulfillment by Amazon” to learn more.
• Have a Yard Sale – One of the fastest and most reliable methods of bringing in some cash is the old-fashioned yard or garage sale. Or go virtual and use services like Craigslist or VarageSale to sell your unwanted household items to local buyers.
• Sell Your Body – Seriously, you can sell your blood, plasma, breast milk, sperm, and hair to appropriate locations. Sometimes it’s not very quick, such as with sperm and breast milk which require a lot of tests, but with blood and plasma you can walk right in, answer a few questions, give and get paid on the spot. With hair, you may have to locate a hair broker, or try selling it on eBay.
• Babysit or Dog Sit – One of the fastest ways to make a buck is to babysit or dog sit, but make sure you do it in their house or you’ll have to worry about licensure. Tell everyone you know that you would like to babysit or provide animal care (or both). Truly caring caregivers are in high demand and if you choose this path, you’ll find many opportunities to earn extra income this way.
• Return Stuff You Don’t Use – Have you made recent purchases and the tags are still on them? Do you have the receipts? Typically you can take those items back for a full refund. If you’re not using them right now, why not take them back. Most of us have far more stuff than we need anyway. Even online purchases from Amazon are easy to return for a full or partial refund.
• Rent Out a Room – Do you have an extra room or two in your home that you could rent out? If you do, extra money is just a few clicks away. Use services like Airbnb (The Unique Alternative to Hotels) to list your property and start attracting renters today. Or go old school and list your room in the classified section of the newspaper. Either way, if you’ve got some extra space, you can turn it into cash!
• Join a Medical Experiment – Human trials and studies are often conducted right in your area at your local hospital. You can usually find out which studies are being done with a quick search on the net. You’ll be paid for your time, and get free healthcare for the associated issue.
• Join an Affiliate Program – Affiliate programs give you the opportunity to join free or for a small fee and sell other company’s products for a commission. Some affiliate programs pay 40% or higher in commissions simply for sharing their products with others, and many people have been able to turn online affiliate marketing into their full-time income. In fact, take a look around my website today and you’ll find some of the top affiliate programs that I’m using to make money from right now.

Never lose hope or let a lack of money in the present moment keep you from moving forward in your life or business. There are always ways to get cash when you need it while you get your business off the ground. It simply requires you to stay positive and look for opportunities. Then be decisive and take steady action toward your goals.

Everyone is after more work-life balance. Some jobs are better than others at allowing at least some work-life integration possibilities, but some business owners are slow to catch on. If you have a job that would make it simple to work part time from home, then you’re in a good position to try to convince your boss to let you work part time from home by following these steps.

Figure Out the Logistics First

Before even approaching your boss about the idea of working from home, you’ll need to figure out whether it’s possible. What tools do you need at home that you have at the office to make it work? Are you willing to come out of pocket and set this up for yourself, or are you going to ask your boss to foot the bill?

Provide a Well Thought-Out Plan of Action

If you can demonstrate exactly how everything will work, including showing up at meetings on time, then you’re half way there. Create a report for your boss showing how you’ll do each area of your job while you’re at home so they can visualize the potential.

Provide Supportive Research

Include supportive research that shows people who work from home at least part of the time are more productive, instead of less productive. Be ready to prove this by increasing your productivity when you’re given the opportunity to change your work location.

Develop a System

Set systems in place well in advance so that you know they work. Test them out before approaching your boss so that you know they will work 100 percent. Ensure that you won’t have dead spots in your house when you answer your phone, or that sounds like the TV don’t interfere with calls.

Provide Assurances about Required Meetings

If meetings are planned in advance there should be no issues about you getting to meetings on time. But, if your place of business often has last-minute meetings, that could be a problem. You could set up technology to help with this, but it will require help from others. Alternatively, if you live close to the location of your job, you can state that you can be at any meeting within an hour if they’re important.

Call in Sick

This one’s a little sneaky, but can be very effective… Prime your boss before approaching them by calling in sick but working from home while you’re sick. Just state that you don’t want to make others sick, but you’ll get your normal work done from home. You can actually wait until you’re really sick to try this so that you won’t get into trouble for lying, although being productive when you’re truly sick may be a challenge.

Ask for a Trial Run

Once you present the idea to your boss, ask for a trial run. Say that you’ll work two days a week from home such as Thursday and Friday, which are usually low meeting days anyway. Then if you get the permission, do a great job with the opportunity you’re given.

Over Deliver

Be prepared to up your game if you do get the go ahead to work from home. Make sure you find ways to connect with your boss, and show them what you’re doing so that you won’t be seen as someone who’s not even needed. Yes, there’s a risk to not being in the office… It’s one step closer to being an actual business owner. Deliver more results once you’re home, and your boss will be pleased and probably give you even more freedom.

Working from home does come with unique rewards and challenges, so be prepared to work out some kinks and perfect your systems as you go. Many bosses are keen on having some of their employees work from home these days, so why not you?

Many people want to work from home for a variety of reasons. Maybe you just had a child and want more work-life balance, or perhaps you have an illness that makes it difficult for you to get out of the house. Or maybe you just like being home and want the freedom to work your own way.

Whatever the reasons you want to work at home, you’ll need to choose whether or not you want a job from home, or you want a business from home. Here are eight questions to help you decide.

1. Are You Self-Motivated?

If you want your own business so that you can set your own hours, you will need to be very self-motivated. You’ll need to take time out of your day for marketing, interviewing clients, closing the deal and then doing the work too. You’ll be 100 percent responsible for delivering the work, billing and collecting. You’ll even be responsible for deciding the methods you use to do the work. To do that you’ll need to be a very self-motivated individual.

2. What Skills Do You Have?

Take a piece of paper and write down a list of the skills you currently have, based on what you’ve already done in the past. Can any of these translate into a business? Label them appropriately. Do any of these translate into common work-from-home positions such as call center agent or transcriptionist? Some skills cross over into both, but which side of the list gets full faster?

3. What Sort of Lifestyle Do You Want?

With a work-at-home job you’ll be required to “show up” for work on time each day that you’re scheduled, and you may have little control over that schedule. What’s more, with work-at-home positions it is a lot harder than typical jobs to call in sick, whether it’s you or a child who is sick. Often the first 90 days you cannot miss your schedule at all if you want to keep the position. Are you ready for that? Or, would you prefer a more family-oriented type of schedule that can be adjusted more easily and is more deliverables-based than hourly-based?

4. Do You Already Have a Business Idea?

If you have already researched a business idea, and feel as if you want to do that instead of working for someone else, can you pull it off? What steps do you need to take to make it a reality? Are you the type of person to be able to organize and take the steps needed to get your business off the ground? Can you find and afford help if you’re not sure what to do to get the business going? Does the thought of all this stress you out?

5. How Do You Feel about Punching a Clock?

For some people the idea of clock punching is relaxing, for others it feels like a nightmare. Neither feeling is right or wrong as it takes all types of people to make this world work. If you know up front that you are fine with punching a clock and you’d rather someone else tell you when to be someplace and what to do, then a work-at-home job is best for you. If that feels like prison to you, then a business is probably better if you can do what it takes to get it going.

6. Do You Have Money to Start a Business?

Starting any type of business, even an online business, requires an investment not only of time, but also of money. Have you worked out a business plan and do you know how much money you need to get started? Do you have that money available? If not, do you have a way to get it? Perhaps working at a job first, while you save for and work on your business on the side, is the way to go if you don’t have the funds to start.

7. Do You Need Training and Education?

Both working at a job and owning a business sometimes require skills that you don’t have yet. But that’s okay. Decide if you want to invest in the training yourself to get your business off the ground, or if you would like to try to find a work-at-home job where they will train you from the ground up.

8. What Is Your Biggest Dream for Your Life?

When you think of the future, what do you see? Does it sound relaxing to get up in the morning, have some breakfast, and move to your home office where you sign in to work at your job, taking a break when needed by telling your manager that you have to use the restroom, or go eat lunch and so forth, then when you get off work you’re totally and fully off? Plus, each week you collect a guaranteed paycheck? Or, do you like the idea of being able to do what you want when you want (and likely working more hours than you ever thought you could) but without the guarantee of a specific amount of income each week, knowing that you’re forging your own future?

Whatever you decide, neither is right or wrong. They are both good choices for you. Whether you want a work-at-home job so you can sign off after the day and focus 100 percent on your family, or whether you want a business that will cross boundaries into family time and vice versa but that puts you 100 percent in charge – both are good choices and choices that you are fortunate to have in this age of high speed internet.

Working at home sounds like a dream come true to most people. No tromping out in the cold weather, no need for business clothes, and perhaps a way to truly have integration of family life and work without being fired. But, what sorts of positions can you find that you can do at home?

Inbound Call Center Agent

An inbound call center agent takes calls using their home phone and computer system from the comfort of their home office (or kitchen table), taking orders for products and services. For example, you may work on a project for well-known home shopping networks or food chain establishments. You’ll be trained, and have practice calls before you get started. You will make between $8 and $20 dollars per hour from home doing this. Some positions are independent contracting and some are full-fledged employees.

Outbound Call Center Agent

An outbound call center agent makes outbound calls to a list of leads given to them by the company they work with. They will try to sell something to the person they are calling such as magazine subscriptions, vacations, or even provide political information during election season.

It will depend on which company you choose to work with on what type of calling you will do. You’ll be trained, provided a script, and learn to be a professional at this type of calling. Typically, with these positions you’re required to hit a certain level of sales to keep your position. The highest earners make about $60,000 per year.

Fundraiser

Every year you likely get fundraising calls. Well, many non-profit organizations hire people who work from home to do the fundraising. The pay is usually hourly, from $8 to $20 per hour depending on the organization you’re working for. If you have less experience than others, you can expect to earn less money since pay is usually based around time on the phone and funds collected (your results). Phone work can be challenging, but with more experience and skill development you can always earn more money.

Adjunct Professor

Believe it or not, colleges and universities contract with adjunct professors to teach and or grade their online courses. If you can get your foot in the door there are a lot of opportunities with online teaching at the college level. You will typically need at least a master’s degree in the area you want to teach, and a doctorate definitely will expand your opportunities.

Answering Service

This is a lot like some of the call positions mentioned above in terms of pay, but instead of dealing with sales you’ll be answering for businesses and taking messages and/or transferring calls as needed. You could be answering for various doctor’s offices, apartment complexes and other businesses during their lunchtime and off time. You can easily do this work from your computer set up at home.

Customer Service Rep

A customer service rep can work in a variety of ways such as via phone, text, email, chat windows and so forth. You would be trained thoroughly on the products and services and likely need to pass a test for each business that you’ll be serving to handle customer problems and issues remotely. Most companies pay ranges from $8 an hour to $20 per hour.

Online K-12 Instructor
You may not realize it but there are now fully online schools, and also some land-based schools that offer some of their less popular courses online. If you have a teaching certificate in the areas needed and experience in teaching, you should have no problem finding an online teaching position. The pay depends on the school. Some schools make you a full employee, and others work you as if you’re an adjunct contractor.

Travel Agent

Yes, travel agents still exist and companies are hiring travel agents (sometimes called travel consultants) to answer phones and help customers plan their trips. Usually you get paid a combination of base pay, and/or a percentage of sales with these types of jobs. So, you might have to make a lot of sales to make enough money as usually you won’t make more than 10 percent or so per sale. But, many travel agents love what they do and often get travel perks and discounts too.

Transcription Service

Many types of businesses use transcription services. There are many work-at-home opportunities for transcriptionists. Most of the time the transcribing is medical based but there are also opportunities for other types of transcribing. A good transcriber can make about $45,000 a year working from home. In some cases, you’ll be an independent contractor, and other times you will be an employee, depending on your choice of company.

Appointment Setter

Many businesses such as the insurance industry need appointment setters. As an appointment setter you will be calling leads who have expressed interest in meeting with someone to discuss the product or service being provided. You’ll simply call the prospect and make the appointments for the business owner and add it to their calendar. You may also call back to confirm the appointments 24 hours in advance. Pay can be hourly, or on an appointment-by-appointment basis.

There are many work-at-home positions that you can find today due to the advent of high speed internet and the relatively inexpensive cost of making long distance calls today. It’s important to check out any company before committing or offering your information to them before you get started, to avoid being scammed. Typically, other than buying and providing your own technology, you should not have to give the company any money to get started. What are you waiting for? Start your search for real home employment today!

If you’ve ever dreamed about quitting your day job and becoming a professional blogger, I encourage you to entertain the possibilities…

Many of us toy with the idea of starting a blog and quitting our jobs but very few have the nerve and commitment level necessary to set out and actually make it happen. This is a big shame however, as there’s nothing to lose in starting a blog online, and many exciting rewards when you are successful. In this article, we’ll look at how you can overcome the fear and the apprehension holding you back, and dive in to become a successful blogger.

Fear Setting

If you’re afraid of giving up your job to become a blogger, then it’s time to do some fear setting. This is a technique recommended by Tim Ferriss and it’s highly effective when it comes to combating irrational fears.

To begin, you’re going to ask yourself what it is you’re afraid of and then make a list. Is it the thought of not being able to find work if you aren’t successful? Is it the thought that your family might think you’re irresponsible and leave you?

Once you’ve made the list, you’re next going to go down the column and assess every item in terms of how realistic it is. At the same time, you’re going to write down how you’d deal with that problem if it came to pass. Would your partner really leave you because you decided to chase your dreams? Wouldn’t it in fact be easy to walk into another job with your credentials?

Moonlighting

More importantly though, recognize that running a successful blog doesn’t have to mean giving up your day job. Put more time into a blog and it will grow faster, but you can do perfectly well with an hour or two each night and little time at the weekends. Give up some of your evening TV and invest that time developing your blog. Before long, you’ll have a profitable online business that will give you more leverage and freedom in your life.

If you’re really passionate about your blog, you’ll find it doesn’t feel like work… In fact, it can be quite fun and a great release for your suppressed creativity. I recommend starting your blog while you still have a job until it’s bringing in enough income to give you the security you need. This way there’s no risk and you’ll have a much better idea of whether you can be successful before you make any giant leaps.

Since starting a blog online can be done for free or very low cost, the only investment you’ll be making is your time. Plus, you’ll be learning a lot and developing new marketable skills along the way, which may become useful in your current job or help you land an even better one some day in the future.

Action Required

Nothing changes until you take action. Reading an article about blogging isn’t enough. In fact, the more information you read without taking action, the stronger the “analysis paralysis” muscle inside your brain grows. If this article has inspired you even a little, take a look at the details on the Plug-In Profit Site service here on my website which I highly recommend because it’s a proven service that will help you get your own money-making blog and website setup for free in the next 24 hours! Now you have no excuses left… 😉

Start your blog today!

One of the biggest secrets to success when it comes to blogging is knowing how to write content that people will want to read.

Note that this isn’t really about the way you write. Or at least that’s only part of the puzzle.

Instead, writing content that people will go out of their way to read is all about choosing exciting topics, giving them great titles and knowing what it is that makes people click.

Clickbait

A good place to look for answers is “clickbait”. Clickbait is any content that is designed to get clicks, even if it isn’t entirely honest in how it goes about it. Normally clickbait titles are purposefully provocative or misleading and this gets people to click on them.

For instance, you’ll see things like:

“10 Tips to Transform Your Body – Number 4 Changed My Life!”

“You’ll Never Believe What Happens to Woman in This Shocking Video!”

“This Marketer Boosted a Facebook Post: What Happens Next is Awful”

For most people the curiosity/promise of the title will elicit a click even if the content doesn’t live up to that promise.

Clickbait does work and can generate a lot of visits to your website. The problem is that it’s also misleading and as such, it can damage your branding.

The trick is to take what works about clickbait and to use it in a more honest manner.

The Right Type of Title

So let’s ask ourselves: what is it about clickbait that makes it so successful?

The answer is that it looks different, it looks interesting and it promises something unique/that you haven’t seen before. It would be fine, if the actual content weren’t lacking or deceptive.

Clickbait is even more successful thanks to the sheer drought of interesting content on the web. How many fitness sites have you been to where all the articles are on “10 ways to get abs” or “how to eat clean to lose weight”. This content is so repetitive, and most people have seen similar renditions of it already.

The key then is to create content that offers something genuinely interesting, that people haven’t seen a thousand times before and that sounds interesting.

For a fitness site, that could look like this:

“How my fitness addiction nearly ruined my relationship”

“Cardio acceleration: a new type of cardio fitness that burns 300%+ more fat”

“Why bodybuilders are stronger than powerlifters”

These titles are engaging and unique but what’s more is that they’re also meaty and give you the opportunity to offer some really great content that truly helps other people. That’s how you get clicks and build fans!

Do you need more targeted traffic fast, but haven’t got a big ad budget to leverage?

I’ve got you covered. 🙂

The method I’m talking about here is guest posts.

Simply put, a guest post is where you arrange to have a unique blog post you create posted on a (preferably) high traffic, authoritative blog in your market.

The blog owner is looking for great content for their readers, and you are in turn looking to get visitors to your site/offer, which is exactly what happens when your great content spurs them to want more, and click the link in your post. It’s a win-win for everyone!

How many visitors can you expect to gain from this method? That’s really a function of how good your guest post is, and how many daily readers the blog you post on has. Focus on creating quality content and strong relationships with authority sites, and this could become the number one source of visitors to your website, and it’s free!

Guest posts can also be a great way to build your email list. An effective strategy is to create a great blog post, and then with your link offer your post readers more (perhaps a free report related to what you wrote about) in order to get them to subscribe to your email list. You’ve now given them two high-quality pieces, and now you’ve also earned the right to email them. More importantly, you’ve built the “know, like and trust” factor through your content that will make these subscribers more responsive to your offers.

So how do you find great places to write guest posts? Simply do a Google blog search using a search string like this:

“guest post” + affiliate marketing

… or whatever your market happens to be. You’ll find a lot of opportunities, and once you’ve sorted through them, you’ll certainly have some great websites to approach.

There you have it… A proven way to get interested visitors to your website, without breaking the bank! I hope this helps you get more traffic for less cost and grow your business faster in the weeks and months ahead.

I’d love to know what you think about this technique, and how it works out for you when you put it into action.

To make more sales, you can send more people to your offers, you can send better qualified people to your offers, or you can convert more of the people you send. Today let’s talk about how to convert more of your traffic into sales by using little copywriting tips and tricks that massively improve your copy’s ability to make those sales for you.

1: Do more research. If you know how to hit your prospect’s hot buttons, your conversion rates will improve. And to know what you’re talking about, you’ve got to do your research.

What other products are on the market? How is yours better? What do your prospects want most? How can you tailor your benefits to what they want? What did the reviewers say?

Sometimes you’ll even discover the perfect headline buried deep inside your research, such as the comment someone made when they tried the product and got spectacular results.

2: Talk to your market. Who is it that you’re targeting with your product? These are the people to talk to. If you don’t fully understand the relationship between your product, your customers and how it improves their lives, then find out. Ask for their experiences and listen carefully for emotions and key phrases that convey both how they felt about the problem and how the product has changed things for them.

Are you just launching and don’t yet have customers? You can still ask about their problem and what it will be like for them when they have the solution. Even going to Amazon and reading the reviews that people leave for products similar to yours can be super helpful. Look for the experiences others can relate to, the ones where someone is talking about how tough it was to have the problem, and how frustrating it is that the product didn’t solve the problem or how their life has changed since it did solve it.

3: Test headlines. Always have several headlines to test, because the one you are certain will be the winner is probably going to be the loser. It’s just a fact that even the most seasoned copywriters often can’t predict which headline will hit it out of the ballpark.

Try not to get attached to a headline prior to testing, either. Give each one a fair test and let the numbers speak for themselves. I’ve seen marketers fall in love with a headline and lose a great deal of sales because they took too long to test others.

4: Use mini-headlines. Those little headlines that break up copy also work like Australian Cattle dogs to herd sheep. When your reader starts to stray, your mini-headline will bring them back into the fold because it’s going to create intrigue, give benefits or simply raise so much curiosity that they MUST read what comes next.

Imagine someone is skimming your sales copy and all they are reading are the mini-headlines. Do they tell a story on their own? Do they create curiosity while also conveying benefits? Would you be drawn into the copy and perhaps even want to buy the product just from reading the mini-headlines? If not, you might want to work on those.

5: Use lots of bullet points. I’ve seen a lot of marketers who seem to think you’re supposed to have one section of bullet points and that’s it. But I’ve also noticed that some of the highest converting sales letters have 2, 3, 4 and even 5 separate sections of bullet points.

Bullets make reading easy. In fact, some of your prospects will read the headline, the bullet points and then maybe the guarantee before making up their minds if they want to go further. To create a bullet point, first write a mini headline and then add a sentence that supports the headline and adds a benefit.

For example:

The #1 Stealth Method of Persuasion (This is the exact covert method the US government used to turn die-hard Russian spies into secret double agents – use this method to get what you want every time.)

6: Add sidebars and boxes. Break up your copy with sidebars and boxes that highlight benefits, showcase testimonials and quote experts. This breaks up your copy, makes the entire letter look interesting and keeps the reader reading.

7: Use an experienced graphic artist. Ideally your designer has experience formatting sales copy within your niche. Take a look at the work they’ve done and see if their style will work for what you have in mind. Jot down ideas and suggestions of your own and then listen to your designer’s ideas, too.

Remember that good copy with great design can sometimes out-convert great copy with lousy design. The look of your page can be just as important as what your page says. If you don’t believe it, think of the last time you arrived at a sales page and clicked away because of what you saw and not what you read. First impressions are made so fast that the reader has often formed an opinion before they’ve even read your headline.

You know those headlines that scream out you can earn XXX amount of dollars by simply “pushing a few buttons” or “sending a few emails” or some such? Well, this case study is actually about someone doing almost no work and yet banking close to $5,000 a month.

In fact, she might be up to that amount now. The $4,400 was how much she earned when we spoke, and she mentioned that her income is increasing every single month. Yet she does almost no work whatsoever.

And by the way, OPA stands for Other People’s Artwork.

Here’s how it works:

I’ll call her Sally because, well, when I talk to her she giggles a lot and sounds kind of silly. Sort of like a high school girl, and yet she’s in her mid-twenties.

Sally has several different identities on Etsy and Ebay. Each identity sells a certain type of artwork. One sells paintings of animals, one sells landscapes, one sells abstract art, one sells hearts (I’m not kidding!) and so forth.

She has a real life assistant (we’ll call him Gorgeous George because as Sally tells it, in addition to working for her George also does some modeling and fitness instruction.) George makes all the listings for the artwork, gets the prints made from the originals, fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests.

What does Sally do? She outsources work to several artists who do all of her paintings for her. Just like hiring a ghostwriter to write a book which you then sell, Sally is hiring “ghost painters”. She has them sign a non-disclosure agreement that gives her all rights to the paintings. And she never tells her artists what she does with the paintings, either.

If I were doing this business model, I might consider giving the artists a percentage of sales, but Sally likes to simply pay one fee up front to keep things simple.

Sally chooses the styles for the paintings by finding examples and showing them to her artists. She then asks them to replicate the style and not the actual painting. She sells the original paintings for a good price ($300 to $1,000) and sells limited edition prints for a lower price.

Her listings never claim that she or her persona is the artist. She’ll use generic language such as, “This painting was created May of 2021 using pastels on canvas.” She has her artists use several mediums, including acrylic, watercolor, pastels, ink, charcoal and so forth.

She also has a virtual assistant who has one job: Promoting the artwork through various social media channels. This is why her business is growing so fast, because word is getting out via social media. And she’s very good at picking her subjects, too, some of which are extremely timely and most of which prove popular.

As you can see she has expenses: Her real life assistant George, her virtual assistant, the artists and selling fees. But even after all this, she pulled in $4,400 in profit the month she revealed her system to me, and like it said, it’s increasing every month.

The real key here is to choose subjects that will sell. That’s why she likes animals, hearts and landscapes because they always do well. And her paintings aren’t super elaborate, either. An experienced painter can likely create one in a short afternoon.

One of her best-selling stores sells paintings that are somewhat cartoonish, including caricatures of real people as well as animals doing silly things. As mentioned earlier, one sells hearts. I suspect this artist probably does 4 or 5 paintings in a day because they are that simple. But they sell like hotcakes because people love hearts and bright colors.

This business is easy to replicate and if you use assistants, it takes very little time at all.