If you want to earn enough money to quit your job, you need to first work out your expenditure. Unless you have $100K+ in savings, you are going to need to cover your costs through income.
So breaking it down, what do you spend every month, this is what you are likely to have in terms of fixed costs:
- Mortgage
- Car Loan
- Car Insurance
- Cable TV
- Health Plan
- Mobile Phone Plan
- Food
- Gas/Petrol
- Utilities – Gas, Electric, Water
- Clothes, Eating Out, Gym Membership other entertainment.
In California, that sometimes adds up to over $4,000 per month. In the U.K. £2,500 is more likely. I suggest you take a look at your own expenses so you can have something to work from.
Remember that this doesn’t account for income taxes. Depending on where you are in the World, this averages out around 30% of your gross income.
So in order to get to $4,000 per month income after tax, you have to be earning around $6,000 per month before tax or $72,000 per year.
This number may sound like a lot, but let’s look at what you need to do to get to this number and why it may not be as difficult as it first appears.
“1,000 True Fans”
The “1,000 true fans” example, originally presented by Kevin Kelly, is well known, but what are the numbers behind it and how do they apply to different types of business. Also, how can this be used to show us how to get to that magic number.
So so let’s round things up. Instead of $72,000 let’s work out how to get to $100,000 per year. This allows some contingency and some spare money to enjoy. It also gives you enough money to cover some business expenses like advertising and software subscriptions.
Selling Online Courses
A business selling online courses is the easy one. If you have a course that costs $100, you just need to sell and deliver it to 1,000 students every year to earn $100,000 per year in revenue. If your course is $200 you only need to sell it to 500 students per year. This doesn’t sound too bad at all. Most, if not all of your sales will come from your subscriber list.
This could apply to a course in pretty much any area. You just need to select something that there is a demand for. Something people will pay $100 or $200 for.
You may need to give away a few things to build your email list and also to give your audience enough confidence to buy a course from you, but at least you have that target number. You will also need to keep adding new subscribers every year or bring out a new “follow-on” course that you could sell to your students.
Membership Sites
A membership site is a great way to earn a recurring income, while also serving your audience. Typically, if you have a lot of content that falls into a particular category, you can deliver it to your audience through a membership site. Good membership sites also include some personal time with the organizer. A sort of online group coaching. This allows you, the host, to field questions from members and also encourage more of a team feeling.
So let’s look at some numbers again. If you have a membership site at $30 per month, you need 280 members to earn $100,000 per year. Let’s take that up to 350 to allow for cancellations. If you add in a premium option, which involves some bonus items at say $70 per month, then that number of members required can fall to around 250 people.
Affiliate Marketing
If you are looking to build your income through affiliate marketing, the math works slightly differently.
If you were to refer your audience to 5 different software subscriptions that each pays you $20 per year in affiliate commission, you would need to refer 1,000 people who subscribe to all 5 products.
$100 per year per subscriber x 1,000 subscribers = $100,000 per year.
What is more likely is that they will each sign up for 2-3 product subscriptions each so you need more subscribers.
However, many of the most popular affiliate programs pay higher than this. Let’s look at some real examples:
Leadpages
Leadpages pays a 30% recurring commission. Their most popular “Pro” package is $49 per month for an annual agreement. So your monthly commission is $49 x 0.3 = $14.7 per month or $176.40 per subscriber per year.
Total Annual Income for 100 subscribers = $17,640
Find out more about Leadpages (affiliate link)
Kartra
Kartra pays 40% recurring affiliate commission and their Starter product is $99 per month. So your monthly commission is $99 x 0.4 = $39.60 per month or $475.20 per year.
Total annual income for 100 subscribers = $47,520 per year.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit pays a 30% recurring commission. Their 1k-3k subscribers’ package is $49 per month for an annual agreement. So your monthly commission is $49 x 0.3 = $14.7 per month or $176.40 per subscriber per year.
Total Annual Income for 100 subscribers = $17,640
Find out more about ConvertKit (affiliate link)
So if you were just able to get just 100 subscribers for each of these products you would be earning $82,800 per year.
That is just 100 subscribers. Remember earlier we were talking about 500 or 1000!
The beauty of this type of affiliate income is that it will continue each year. You will get a few people unsubscribe, but you will balance this will new subscribers if you keep promoting these products.
I am sure you have your own examples that fit your business model. If you would like to share them, please add them to the comments box below. If you would like to learn more about this topic, please subscribe to my email list using the link below.
Whether you are focusing on selling online courses, affiliate marketing or a blend of the two, this is an exercise worth going through so you have something to aim for.
When you are building an online business it often seems like there is some much to do. Writing endless blog articles, learning new marketing tools, posting on multiple social media platforms, building and managing an email list.
I have certainly become overwhelmed on a number of occasions. I am sure that you have all felt the same at some point. Having goals based on attainable numbers keeps me motivated. I hope you found this article useful and helps you stay motivated. Remember:
Quitting the day job you hate to do what you love, may be easier than you think