When James Ritty, an Ohio saloon owner, created the first cash register in 1879, his motives were pretty simple. He wanted to stop his employees from stealing his takings. His machine, based on a device that counted the number of revolutions a ship's propeller made, kept track of his business's sales. Later versions included a drawer for the money. Putting a bell on that drawer meant that he also knew when his employees were handling the cash.
Registers have changed a bit since then. They're now digital, programmable, and can even track the purchasing patterns of individual customers, enabling the seller to make personalized special offers. They're more likely to take credit cards than cash, and now that Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter, has invented Square, a small credit card reader that plugs into the earphone socket of an iPhone, they can even fit in your pocket.
But they no longer go KaChing.
That's a shame, because to entrepreneurs, it's a wonderful sound. Each ring is an endorsement, a reminder that all of their hard work has been done for a reason. They've had the idea; they've implemented the idea; and now they're getting their reward.
This book hasn't made a KaChing sound, either. But it has given you the means to make deals and take cash.
For anyone with a head for business and a mind to be his own boss, the Internet represents an open country of unlimited opportunity. Mining that opportunity will take effort. Once your passive revenue systems are in place you'll be able to relax—a little—but it will take time and solid work to put those structures in place.
The good news is that the structures now come almost prefabricated. If once building an Internet site meant poring over code and tracking down bugs in the HTML, today's Web publishers can buy templates off the shelf. It's as though the Wild West were still out there, but instead of heading out into the wilderness with a tin plate and a lot of dreams, you get to choose your patch ... then build your own town by dropping in the proven businesses you want to run.
Of course, you still have to bring people into the town. You have to offer services and products that people want to buy. You need to create a brand so that visitors know what they're getting when they pass through, then persuade them stick around because they like it. That's work, but it's work that's available to anyone willing to do it.
The Internet provides all the opportunity that anyone could wish for and makes it available at a price that's incredibly low. When you can create an ad-supported web site, in minutes, for free, you won't be able to find an opportunity with lower entry requirements—or higher potential.
In this book, I've described the most important models that I've used to build my seven-figure Internet business.
I started by pointing out the size of the Internet's opportunity. That you no longer need to be a geek, a programmer, or even possess any technical knowledge at all to become an Internet publisher means that the Internet's opportunities are now available to anyone. That's an incredible thing.
I then talked about what you will need to be a success online: You'll need to be you. I explained how everyone has unique knowledge, and why that unique knowledge (whether it comes from the workplace or from the things you love to do in your spare time) has value. The Internet lets you cash in on that value.
Usually that's done by creating content, and in Chapter 3, I discussed seven types of content that you can create and almost a dozen different ways of monetizing that content through advertising.
Web content is free; information products cost money, often lots of money. The source of the information is the same. You're still telling people what you know about your job or your hobby, but you're doing it in more detail than a web site allows ... and charging a price much closer to the true value of that knowledge. Nor is it particularly difficult to create, sell, and deliver those products. You can even buy a shopping cart off the shelf these days.
When you sell your information products, you'll be relying on affiliates, independent resellers who earn a commission for every sale. That's an opportunity that you can take up as well. Much though depends on the connection that you manage to build with your audience. Whenever you're selling online, you have to guide your market through a four-step sales process that takes leads from knowing you and liking you to trusting you and paying you. That's particularly true of affiliate products, which work best when the links are delivered in the text as part of a personal recommendation.
Affiliate sales have to be made again and again. Subscription fees to membership sites are renewed automatically, provided you can deliver services and products of high enough quality to attract subscribers and keep them on board. In Chapter 6, I revealed the ingredients of a successful membership site and explained how you can build one.
Finally, when your brand is strong enough and your community's trust in you is deep enough, you can even offer personal coaching, a wonderfully rewarding way to sell your knowledge and help people achieve their dreams.
Over the years, as Internet marketing has grown and matured, it's developed ready-made systems that anyone can use and profit from. It's not a cash register; it's a cash machine, one that's free for anyone to own and master.
It might not make the kind of KaChing sound you could once hear in stores across the country, but it is a business, and you can operate it.
As a thank-you to readers of this book, I am making a one-of-a-kind KaChing Button available to you for free! Just like the button pictured on the cover, this green button with the dollar sign makes the KaChing sound when pushed. I ask only that you include a nominal fee to cover the shipping and handling of your button.
To get your own KaChing Button now, visit www.KaChingButton.com/get/.
May you create an online business that pays and pays, with more than enough KaChing to go around.