Are You Earning Your Dream Salary?

Every so often I open the calculator app on my iPhone and crunch some basic numbers. I do it because it get’s me excited about where I’m going and how I’ll get there.

Here’s the Basic Math that Gets Me So Excited

• 333 x 23 = 7,659 and then…
• 7,659 x 12 = 91,908

These Aren’t Just Random Numbers

• 333 = the number of target subscribers for my next premium product
• $23 = the cost of the product each month
• 7,659 = $7,659/month revenue generated from this product
• 12 = the months in a year
• 91,908 = $91,908 – my annual revenue stream for this product

I don’t know about you, but the possibility of that makes me super-excited and extremely motivated to work toward making it a reality!

The Product Doesn’t Exist Yet

Yet I already know how much I’m going to earn from it. I never create a product unless I already know the market and revenue potential. This isn’t to say I don’t make mistakes. I’ve certainly made my share. But the key is this: I’m doing it. I’m not sitting on the sidelines thinking about it.

Even if it flops, I”ll have done something to move closer to my dream salary.

How I’ll Get There

• First, I’m going to choose an outcome that’s not only very powerful but achievable. Then I’ll create the product plan that will enable my readers to achieve it in a reasonable amount of time.
• Next, I’ll choose a product name that drives interest and promises an obvious reward. Then I’ll craft a series of blog posts to increase curiosity and drive interest.
• I’ll create a crazy-valuable bonus to accompany the product that will be too valuable to pass on.
• Then I’ll write the information page for the blog, create the list in MailChimp and I’ll be set.

How Can You Earn Your Dream Salary?

The above steps are just the high points. It actually takes a lot more work and there are some additional steps I didn’t mention. But you can get all the information in an email course I teach.

It’s called Get Paid To Write and it teaches you how I create premium content letters for my readers and shows you how you can get started earning monthly revenue from your own premium content in 30 days. You can find out about it here.

Do The Math for Yourself

Get out your calculator and start plugging in some numbers. If you want to get excited about what’s possible creating and selling premium content, this exercise will get you you there!

This is the 10th essay in the series called 'Glimpses.'

Safe employment no longer exists

Sure, employment still exists, but gone are the days when companies didn’t put Wall St. first. Gone are the days when an employer had your best interest at heart; and gone are the days when you felt a sense of loyalty to your employer because it’s blatantly obvious that their view of you isn’t reciprocated.

At-Will employment rules the business world. As employees we are sold a bill of goods that are essentially false. We’re told we need to pay more for less return and shut up about it; we’re taught to feel guilty when we’re not working and that we should be grateful that we are allotted 3 bloody weeks of vacation per year and work in indentured servitude for the remaining 49.

Am I bitter? No. I’m just realistic.

Few understand my need for self-employment

Few in my family have ever been self-employed. As far as I know, there is only my step-grandfather -who I was never really close to- he owned his own company and did quite well, and my paternal grandfather -whom I never knew-, a brilliant but poor musician.

Lumber mills, share-cropping, and traveling minstrel shows dot my family’s history when it comes to entrepreneurial pursuits.

• My father was a company man for 40 years
• My mother worked in the home raising me and my two siblings
• And I grew up believing that traditional employment was the only acceptable option

I grew up in a middle-class family in the suburbs of whatever state we happened to be living in. My dad worked in aerospace and we moved around a lot following the contracts that kept him employed with the same company for 40 years. I didn’t mind the moving. It was always a grand adventure for me. But what it reinforced was the false belief that being an employee, a little cog in a giant machine, was the safest option in life.

“Play it safe, go to college, and find a good job.“

A right-brained person in a left-brained society

But that never resonated with me. And for years I tried to fit in anyway. But I always wanted to do my own thing.

I wanted to be an actor, but was convinced I should play it safe and have a skill to fall back on. I ended up with none. Then I wanted to be a musician, but that didn’t go anywhere despite my songwriting ability. I went to college and got a BS in biology and left college with only one skill: test taking. I then went to medical school and worked harder than I ever have before. In the end, it wasn’t the field for me either.

I have always felt out of place in the traditional working world. I was the square peg in a round hole. I was a right-brained artist living in a left-brained society that prized logic, engineers and managers.

Employment has taught me one thing; it’s a sure way to lose yourself.

Instead, it’s about calling and mission

Some are called to serve a particular population in very specific way. My older son wants to be a pastor. He feels called to serve his fellow man in this very specific manner. My daughter feels her calling is to be the best mother she can be and create a home environment where here two children will thrive and learn to love.

My youngest son is as right-brained as I am and at only fifteen, can’t see himself fitting into the mold that society is steering him toward. I can’t blame him for feeling that way. It’s how he’s wired.

It’s how I’m wired as well

It’s why I write books. It’s why I teach courses and write premium letters. And this year I will be stepping out like never before.I will step away from my employer -at the right time- and begin living for me not for an unfeeling employer. I will play my own game and not that dictated to me by an impersonal employer or familiar tradition.

We can only truly be happy if we embrace who we are and work with what we’ve got.

Not everyone wants to quit their job

Not everyone wants to quit their job, start an online business, and travel the world while living out of a backpack.

Some people, maybe you’re one, really like what they do at their day job. It’s enjoyable, they like their coworkers, and they don’t like the idea of leaving their benefit package for the unknown landscape of self-employment. You simply want to provide more for your family than your job allows. 

This economy isn’t helping

Both digital entrepreneurs and working professionals are trapped by a stagnant economy. Both need to make more money. Most are in the ’99%’ category we hear so much about these days.

But most of the programs and opportunities we read in the blogosphere aren’t for working folks. 

Until now, working professionals have been left out

I’ve been working on a program especially for both working professionals who don’t want to leave their job and those who do.

I’m talking about a simple straightforward way to earn extra money using the expertise you already possess. There would be no blog ads or affiliate programs required to learn to install and track.

Writers needed

If you’re reading this, chances are good that you’re a writer of some kind. You probably also have some expertise that others would like to have. And chances are excellent that if you packaged your expertise with your talent for writing, you could earn a significant amount of income each month without much technical know how.

$1,000 per Month in 90 Days.  Sounds like a bold claim, right? But think about it, what if:

• You could add an extra $1,000 to your monthly income?
• You could slowly grow that to over $4,000 per month with staying up all night or divorcing yourself from your family to do it?
• You could be in a position in 6 months to either quit your job or stay on and just enjoy the extra income?

What if you could achieve this without a complex niche website, high pressure sales, or a blog? It’s possible (although having a blog makes it easier).

It all comes down to 40 subscribers

I’m not ready to announce this program just yet, but I can tell you this:

If you can get 40 people to say yes to your offer, you can collect $1,000 each month for as long as you provide them value.

If you’re interested in hearing more, stay tuned to this blog. I’ll be announcing details in the next 8 days. Don’t want to miss the announcement? Click here subscribe and I’ll send you the announcement in your email inbox when it appears on the blog.

Question: What could these 3 terms have to do with one another?

Your Answer: I don’t know…uh, are you about to…

• Buy a Corvette?
• Start flirting with a blond twenty-something?
• Start wearing capes and rings and talk with a lip curl like Elvis?

My Answers: No, no, and only on Halloween.

So what gives? It’s the only way I could think of to tell you about another post I wrote over on Deeper Living.

It’s called How Warriorship Leads to a More Meaningful Life. It doesn’t quite fit here on BarryMorris.net but I though I’d mention it jut in case you’re interested.

So click on over if:

• You’re feeling like buying a Corvette
• You’ve already started flirting with blond any-somethings
• Your most frequent way to express gratitude is, “Thank you, thank you very much, Mama.”

Please click here to read the post!

“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they aren’t capable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre.”  –Timothy Ferriss

Benjamin Spall, in his post Do Not Overestimate the Competition and Underestimate Yourself, reminded me of this quote in The 4-Hour Workweek.  And it got me thinking.

The absurdity of mediocrity

I’m convinced many of us, myself included, default to mediocre. I’d even go out on a limb and say that 90% of our activity is aimed at just being acceptable.

I find this unbelievably sad.

And I know it’s true. It’s true because we’re humans living in an age where every minute we are presented an image, an essay, a book, poster, website, or newsletter … to which we compare ourselves or our own creation. And 90% of the time -my non-scientific estimate- we come up short in such a comparison.

Our conscience will automatically respond that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to anyone, but that’s idiotic in my opinion. It’s because we are human beings with a highly evolved brain that we can make a comparison at all.

Telling us not to compare ourselves to another is like trying to reverse evolution.

The ease of mediocrity

So, why are we defaulting to mediocrity? Because it’s easy. Because it requires less work, less brain power, less creativity. A lot of what passes for just showing up falls into this category of creation in my opinion.

• Crafting a blog post that’s mediocre isn’t that hard
• Writing a mediocre eBook is very manageable
• Creating a video that sucks, a piece of cake

The cure for mediocrity

Being remarkable is the cure for mediocrity. Yeah sure, let’s just all be remarkable why don’t we! I agree that it’s easier to say than do, but it’s possible.

I think being remarkable is linked to living mindfully; making moment by moment decisions; choosing to be, to create, to offer something remarkable instead of something that’s merely acceptable.

Curing mediocrity begins with its rejection. And it’s a huge undertaking. But unless we make this choice to reject the mediocre and strive to always go beyond acceptability, we’ll always be trapped within it.

The personal application

As I review what I’m doing here on BarryMorris.net, I’m not seeing a lot that’s remarkable. And that makes me very uncomfortable. In fact, prior to publishing this post, I deleted 15 posts that, in my opinion, were only acceptable.

I’m convinced unless I focus on being remarkable, writing remarkable posts, offering remarkable experiences, then what I am left with is a mediocre blog that’s acceptable. I don’t know about you, but that makes me sick.

When I show up, I want it to mean something

There are those who write and publish each day. I tried that for 30 days overlapping November and December. It was a good exercise but it left me with a lot of mediocre posts. I think Corbett Barr is right when he says we need to write epic shit. Not many can write epic posts each day. Even Seth Godin’s writing has peaks and valleys.

I think it’s important to strive for epic. Even if you fall short, it’s a worthy target.

Choosing to be epic, to be remarkable, to not show up unless you have something meaningful to contribute is the cure for mediocrity. Do you agree? Is showing up enough? Please leave a comment if you have an opinion.

What’s wrong with working your ass off?

If there’s one approach to business that I don’t have any patience for, it’s the promise of a rapid route to profits and passive income.

Sure, there are smarter, more direct ways to accomplish what you want. There are smart ways to work and there are the opposite. But the truth is, everything in life worth attaining takes a hell of a long time.

Everything I’ve ever achieved in life has taken a very long time.

• Building a successful business
• Earning my doctorate
• Raising my children
• Cooking .. or, in my case, what passes for cooking

Looking at this brief list, one thing is certain.

There are no shortcuts to any sustainable outcomes.

We live in a world crammed full of shortcuts

I continually see blog posts and articles by those who use terms like niche market websites, passive income, and turnkey profits as if they were inevitable realities for simply adopting a principle or joining a list.

Please. There is no such thing as passive income apart from having a sustainable sum of money in the bank that throws off enough interest to serve as cash flow. And you can bet your sweet bippy that someone, somewhere worked their tail off to earn it.

I live in the real world. I’m a single parent raising a teenager. My son, the youngest of four incredible children, is finally learning that a shortcut is nothing more that cheating himself out of a sustainable outcome. Whether it’s cramming for an exam or rather hurriedly and superficially cleaning his room, he’s learning that if he wants a sustainable result, he needs to work harder than he ever anticipated.

Digital shortcuts don’t help. The digital shortcuts that allow us to instantly retrieve our bank balance or investment portfolios only reinforce the idea that we can attain a sustainable outcome with little effort. They insidiously inform our subconscious that if we just find the right shortcut, easy street isn’t too far away.

There are no shortcuts to sustainable outcomes

If you, or I, truly desire a better life, more money, less fat, more muscle, a thriving business…whatever the hell it is that we want, then we need work our asses off.

Achieving sustainable outcomes only happens when you work for it.

Working for it is honorable. And it’s the only way to achieve what you want and be able to look at yourself in the mirror.

What’s the fastest way to get started selling premium content?

• Step 1: Write your content.
• Step 2: Sell your content.
• Step 3: Deliver your content.

That’s all there is to hosting a premium content business on your blog or website.

But what about the nuts and bolts of accepting credit cards, Paypal and delivering the product to those who buy?

That can be accomplished in about 30 minutes using any of the following.

Tiny Letter

TinyLetter.com is actually owned and operated by the same folks behind MailChimp so you know it works well, is backed up by a professional support staff, and doesn’t cost anything to start using. Think of TL as a way to quickly generate a paid content newsletter. It allows you to sign up for free, generate a TL sales page, and gives you a link to send to your friends or post on your blog. Yo’u'll need a Paypal account to integrate into TL’s payment interface, but that’s pretty easy to do. If you’re just starting out and want to experiment with a paid content newsletter that’s text-only, TL is a great way to go. Here’s a quick link to their FAQs.

Some notable TinyLetter users include: Ash Ambirge, for her 97 in ’11 newsletter.

Letterly

Letter.ly is very similar to TinyLetter in that it’s a simple, straightforward tool for sending out paid text-only newsletters without graphic headers or pictures. Letter.ly integrates payments via Amazon Payments (AP). AP is like Paypal but based inside the giant online powerhouse Amazon.com. They gained some notoriety during the Libyan civil war when their Libyan-based servers went dark for about a week. They’ve since taken care of the issues making them more secure and Letter.ly enjoys a large user base in the US.

Notable among them is Thom Chambers of Mountain and Pacific who writes his How To Make a Living with Words using Letter.ly.

MailChimp

MailChimp (MC) is what I use to send my free newsletter (Renewable Revenue) as well as my premium letter, Digital Dharma. I also use it to send lessons fro my eCourse, Creating Renewable Revenue. MC’s user interface is easy to learn and it’s also free up to 2,000 subscribers. MC has a powerful graphics capability, auto-responder functions, and a large collection of newsletter templates.  If you run a blog or a website and you’re going to also write and sell premium content, it makes sense to use MC. Integrating them all under one service streamlines the whole process of gathering permission-based subscriptions, integrating payments via Amazon Payments (just like Letter.ly) and delivering the final product.

In addition to moi, hundreds of established bloggers use MC including Ev Bogue, Gwen Bell, and Tammy Strobel.

Need More Detail?

Click here to read about my Get Paid To Write eCourse. It’s the fastest way to monetize your blog.

Time to get busy

Now that you have three options for getting started, what’s stopping you?

This will help you as you build your premium content business.

I added the full version of my second book, ONLINE ROCKSTAR: The Guidebook for Building an Online Business that Rocks to the $115 Plan as free gifts for subscribers.

This book is a good one -if I can say that without sounding like self-congratulatory big-headed author- and it will definitely answer a lot of questions you might have about starting an online business. The last chapter specifically addresses how to set up your premium content products.

Online Rockstar

I wrote the book last year and hosted it on another blog. It sold a few copies and that was due to some mistake I made in bringing it to the web. But the way I see it, keeping it hidden isn’t helping anyone when it’s full of some very solid content.

Here’s a peak inside the TOC:

Go ahead, grab a copy!

The price for getting this for yourself is simply to subscribe to my Renewable Revenue Letter.

Click here to subscribe now and snag your copy!

How This Relates to the Creating Renewable Revenue Course

Now, some night think this is a free version of the CRR eCourse that I also offer. But they’d be wrong.

While ONLINE ROCKSTAR covers some of the same information in a general, superficial manner, it doesn’t involved the detailed instructions that CRR teaches.

Would it help to have this if you want to take the CRR course? ABSOLUTELY!

And this is a lesson I’m covering in detail in Lesson 2 of CRR. Blogs and websites that offer premium content will attract more readers than those that don’t. To learn why, get on the waiting list for the next time I offer Creating Renewable Revenue by clicking here.

In the meantime, grab your copy of ONLINE ROCKSTAR now.

This is the 9th essay in the series called 'Glimpses.'

When I put together ‘The $115 Plan,’ I had some motivation.

Not only was I sick of hearing the same old tired line from my employer about how no one could get a raise (for three years? really?) only to find out the CEO got a $160K raise, but there is another very powerful motivating factor.

The Nutcase in the Attic

Or to be more accurate, my crazed upstairs neighbor. The Beach Bungalow, as I’ve referred to the home where my son and I dwell, is in fact a downstairs unit in a fourplex. We are located 2 blocks from Rio Del Mar State Beach on the Central Coast of California.

Justin and I were the first tenants in the building three years ago. Since then, two of the four units have remain filled with the nicest people; Jack is a single guy and he lives directly across from us while Steve and Michelle and their daughter live upstairs above Jack.

Jack, Steve, and Michelle are good neighbors. My upstairs neighbors, not so much.

I won’t bore you with all the things this guys does, but let’s just say I’ve threatened to phone the police the next time he verbally assaults my son because of his guitar playing and am tempted to throw dog-crap at him for reporting Buddy as an unlicensed, excessively noisy dog in need of neutering.

Buddy, a black and white Labrador/Pointer mix, is three, neutered, licensed, microchipped, and docile except when the nutcase walks around and then he raises the hair on the back of his neck and growls.

Our Canine-American Doing What He Loves

Justin doesn’t refer to Buddy as a D-O-G, but a canine-American. He says it’s more politically correct.

How the Nutcase Motivates Me to Succeed

After a few months of trading notes in mailboxes about:

1. Why his pacing from 10p – 1a above my bedroom bugged me so much
2. His dog’s fascination with peeing from the balcony over my patio
3. His aformentioned verbal assaults on Justin
4. His proclivity for yelling at passersby for simply not asking his permission to have a conversation or do their job (he once yelled at a construction crew for having a loud jackhammer)

That was 18 months ago and our lives have become a constant adjustment to the needs of our neighbor and very little coming our way. So I asked the property manager to get involved.The only things that’s changed is the nutcase has ratcheted up his antics and frequency of complaints about issues that disturb his lifestyle of not working, pacing at night, and criticizing others.

But said nutcase motivates me to succeed in 2012. Moving is never easy, but I feel it’s time to move on from this place and seek another in the area. I’m not a property owner even though I could be. Imagine what my life would be like this fourplex were a condo with permanent neighbors? Not my style, thanks.

And so I’m motivated to move from here to another beach home. Or maybe to San Francisco..I left my heart in that city over 20 years ago and each time I go back I feel the pangs of regret. Who knows, we may end up there. I’ve chosen not to have permanent roots in any one dwelling and that decision suits me.

Thriving is More Than Just Earning a Lot of Money

Imagine the life I’ve described, earning a lot of money, AND being permanently located below my beloved nutcase. I can’t imagine not having the choice to move at will. For me, thriving is about much more than earning a pile of money.

Thriving is about my health (mental and physical), my lifestyle, where I live, with whom I spend time, and how much I enjoy my environment.

And so I will succeed in 2012. I will earn a lot of money. And I will move to another beach house or town where my lifestyle, and that of my son, isn’t threatened by the whims of an unemployed, disgruntled nutcase who will never understand what it means to thrive.

I Choose to Thrive

The nutcase upstairs doesn’t get that, but I do. Life is too damned short to waste on such crazy people and on less than optimal circumstances. It’s a fleeting flash in the pan and I want not to be distracted by those who have agendas of destruction.

There is a Premium Content Product for Every Type of Blog.

Some bloggers or website owners (uh… I guess there are still traditional websites out there, right?) might be thinking they don’t have anything that could potentially qualify as a premium content product and therefore are unable to create a renewable revenue stream.

It doesn’t matter what kind of blog you write or what kind of digital business you run, premium content products are possible. You just have to look deeper at what you offer your readers.

Remember:

Your free blog posts, essays, or letters are the surface; your premium content products are the depth.

For every type of blog that exists, there is at least one corresponding type of premium content possible. 

Let’s look at a few examples:

chrisg.com – Chris Garrett is a problogger of the first order. Chris is the co-author with Darren Rowse of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. Chris’ blog posts are the surface while his premium content product is Authority Blogger, an online eCourse Chris offers at various times during the year.

IlluminatedMind.net – Jonathan Mead is a motivator of people like you and me. I love the tag-line on his site: Live and work on your own terms. *Don’t read if you want ordinary. LOVE that! Jonathan writes heartfelt posts on his blog as well as free resource guides and these provide his readers an invitation to go deeper. His current premium content products are ebooks and an exciting re-release of a training course  called Trailblazer. You can watch his video on this here.

RowdyKittens.com – Tammy Strobel is a writer, minimalist, and Tiny House Dweller in the Portland, Oregon area. She writes free articles for RKs and also writes ebooks and a subscription letter called Blissful Reflections. Tammy is also proof that the surface material is free but the depth is found in her premium content products.

TheMiddleFinger.org – is Ash Ambirge’s raucous version of making a living doing what you love in online business. Ash is the real deal and not only did she crush it this past year with premium content (over $100k), she’s only going to grow that in 2012. Her free content are the in-your-face blog posts she publishes at least once a week. Her premium content model is her eBook, GUTS as well as her training eCourse -Clients and Cash, and paid letter, $97 in ’11.

You see, there is at least one premium content model for every type of blog. And there probably several that you could also put together for your blog.

Where To Start

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What do I know a lot about?
2. What do I know a significant amount about that I’d be willing to keep learning about?
3. Who could benefit from this information?
4. How best could I package my knowledge into a premium content product?

These questions will get you started.

Keep reading my free content for more! And consider reading Digital Dharma to get the inside scoop.