Photo credit: Tambako

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!  Whoa, wait..what???  Who's there?

Oh right, I am writing a blog post.  What was it about???  Sleeping, snoring, money...oh yah, making money while you sleep.

Disclaimer: No I am not a billionaire...yet :-), but I live a rich life because of what I am going to share with you today.

Flashback

It is 2001 and my brother Adrian and I are working in the basement of my house on our first customer project.  Yes, we both left our jobs for a $10,000 contract.  Ignorance is bliss!!!

Bro is coding away, I am banging on doors, calling prospects, writing proposals, going to networking events.  

Saying "YES" to every possible job request.

This was the life.  WE WERE ENTREPRENEURS!!!!  Life is good.

Wait a minute???

Fast forward 4 years.  We have hired more people, we are growing, winning awards.  Here we come GOOGLE!!!!

While everything felt great, we were still doing to much one-off selling.

What is one-off selling?  When a customer pays you once, that revenue stream runs dry.

What do you do?  You run out and find another customer.

Forget about making money while you sleep...FORGET ABOUT SLEEPING!!!

It was time to change, especially in tough times like now, people freeze new spending, less new customers means less new revenue. And in extreme cases, you may see no new customers at all.

DANG!!!  Now what???  Are you seeing this now, during this so-called down economy???

Light Bulb Goes On 

We need to stop working so hard and start working SMARTER!  What did we do???  We took what we were doing one-offs of and turned it into a PRODUCT.  

Ding, ding, ding...recurring revenue model.  Big Santo, the Master of Your Domain was born on this day.  

Now the STRESS that comes with finding new customers has disappeared.  Well almost.  :-)

Now with our recurring revenue model, we still earn regular monthly income from our existing customers.

CASHFLOW!!!  The math is real simple.

1000 paying customers at $10/month ='s $10,000 a month.  

Now, that is not going to let you party on an island for months, but what it does is it allows you to know what you have for cash every month.

Everything else on top of that is GRAVY!!! 

How can you do this?  Well since you asked, here is how I think you can do this

4 Ways To Make Money While You Sleep 

1.  Content 

Creating valuable content is one way to obtain recurring revenue. How? You can publish online courses, newsletters, interviews, industry trends, CD’s and other informational products in your niche market. 

2.  Community 

Creating a community site is another recurring revenue stream that you can consider. In this option you can offer membership forum, interviews with experts, teleseminars and a member directory. This will not only provide growing monthly revenue, but this will also raise your profile in the industry significantly.  Check out how this chef created community around his content.

3.  Web Based Software

With web based software, you can truly provide an automated income stream. This is because most people are looking for tools on the web that will make their lives a lot easier and not break the bank.  Salesforce was one of the first to introduce this model.

4.  Affiliates 

Referring people can also increase your monltyly revenue stream. If you use products that you think are great and make your life easier and they have an affiliate offer, then why not share that with people you know.  For example, if you want to use video for your business, I highly recommend this course.  I took it and it is awesome!

The Bottom Line

Now that you’ve read this post, I want you to remember two things:

When you’re looking to make money while you sleep, make sure you take a deep look at what you are already doing. Take the time to analyze and see if you can productize your current offering.

And finally, continue to always add value and look at other ways to create other recurring revenue streams.

Trust me, it works.

What do you think?  Do you have a "make money while you sleep business model"?