Balancing business and family
A few months ago, a friend of mine called me in tears. She had been at the same job for over 15 years — loyal, dependable, the kind of employee every company says they want. Then, one Friday afternoon, she was called into a quick meeting.
“We’re restructuring,” they said.
Her position was gone. Just like that — no warning, no backup plan. The steady paycheck she had relied on for years vanished overnight.
She’s not alone.
Today, companies are downsizing, automating, and outsourcing faster than ever before. What once felt like a “safe job” simply isn’t guaranteed anymore. Layoffs are happening across nearly every industry. People everywhere are realizing they can’t rely on one paycheck or one employer to secure their financial future.
This is why more and more people are turning to online businesses — not just as a backup plan, but as a way to create freedom, flexibility, and control over their income.
The Rise of the Online Business
Thanks to the internet, starting a business no longer requires renting a storefront, hiring employees, or taking out a huge business loan.
Today, you can build a profitable business from your laptop, even if you’re starting with limited funds and zero experience.
Here are a few of the most popular ways people are creating income online:
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to start making money online. You recommend products or services you love, and when someone buys through your unique link, you earn a commission.
This model is simple because you don’t need to create your own product, handle shipping, or manage customer service — you just focus on sharing helpful recommendations.
Examples:
- Recommending your favorite software tools for small business owners
- Sharing book lists or fitness programs you personally use
- Promoting online courses that helped you learn a skill
2. Freelancing
If you have a skill — writing, design, social media management, video editing, or even administrative support — you can sell your services as a freelancer.
Websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com make it easy to connect with clients worldwide.
Freelancing gives you a quick way to start earning money online, and you can raise your rates as your skills and reputation grow.
3. Selling Digital Products
Creating and selling digital products is one of the most scalable online business models.
You can package what you know into:
- Ebooks
- Online courses
- Templates
- Membership sites
Once you’ve created the product, you can sell it over and over again with very little extra work.
4. E-Commerce & Print-on-Demand
If you love physical products, you can start an e-commerce business without ever touching inventory.
Print-on-demand services let you design T-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise. When someone orders, the company prints and ships it for you.
You can also sell physical products through platforms like Etsy, Amazon, or Shopify.
The Biggest Myth About Online Business
One of the biggest misconceptions about online business is that it’s a quick way to get rich.
Let’s clear that up right now:
- You will not get rich overnight.
- You will have to work hard — especially in the beginning.
- You will have moments of frustration where you feel like giving up.
But here’s the good news: the work you put into your online business is building something that belongs to you.
Instead of spending your life building someone else’s dream, you’ll be creating something that can support your family, grow over time, and even run while you sleep.
The Challenges You Might Face
Working for yourself sounds amazing — and it is — but there are challenges you should be prepared for:
- Isolation: Working from home can get lonely if you don’t have a community.
- Discipline: No boss is telling you when to clock in. You have to hold yourself accountable.
- Learning curve: There will be new skills to learn, from marketing to managing your time.
The good news? You don’t have to do it alone. There are Facebook groups, masterminds, and communities full of entrepreneurs who are walking the same path as you. These groups can provide motivation, accountability, and a sense of belonging.
Why It’s Worth It
Yes, starting an online business will challenge you. Yes, there will be moments where it feels easier to just go back to a job.
But when those first sales come in, you’ll feel a rush of pride and empowerment. You’ll know you created that income yourself — not because a boss decided you “earned it,” but because you built something that works.
Over time, you’ll gain skills that will never leave you:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Creativity
- Problem solving
These skills make you valuable in any economy.
And ultimately, you’ll have the ability to design a business that works around your life — instead of designing your life around your job.
Practical First Steps
If you’re ready to get started, here’s what I recommend:
- Pick Your Business Model: Choose one of the models we talked about — affiliate marketing, freelancing, digital products, or e-commerce.
- Learn the Basics: Take a free course or watch tutorials to understand how it works. (There are thousands of YouTube videos and affordable online trainings available.)
- Take Action Quickly: Don’t spend months overthinking it. Build a simple website, create your first offer, or share your first affiliate link.
- Commit to Consistency: Treat it like a real business, even if it’s just a side hustle right now.
Your Next Step: Learn Affiliate Marketing for Free
If you want the fastest, easiest way to start an online business, I recommend starting with affiliate marketing — because it doesn’t require a big investment, you don’t have to create a product, and you can start earning commissions quickly.
👉 Click here to get instant access to my Free Affiliate Marketing Course and learn step-by-step how to get started.
This is the exact training I wish I had when I first started. It will show you:
✅ How affiliate marketing works (and why it’s so beginner-friendly)
✅ The tools and platforms you need (most of them free)
✅ How to find your first products to promote
✅ How to start driving traffic and making your first commission
Your job might feel uncertain right now, but your future doesn’t have to be. Take control today.
🔗 Get Access to the Free Course Now
Would you like me to also create two blog images (one header image and one mid-article image) with no text on them that match this topic — so the post looks visually engaging when published?
Balancing business and family, Network Marketing
Your productivity in your business is a keys to your success. The one thing that we all have in common is the number of hours that we have in a day. It doesn’t matter if you are a multi-millionaire or a “struggling” home based business owner, we all have only 24 hours each day. What makes the difference is how you choose to use your time. Do you spend it and at the end of the day wonder where your time went, or do you invest your time wisely so as to get the most out of your day and your life?
As business owners, we don’t get paid for time, we get paid to produce a result – we are paid for our productivity. As such, we need to make the most of every minute of every day. Below are 12 tips to help you get the most out of your day.
- Plan Your Day in Advance. Before going to bed each night, you need to set a little time to plan the next day.
- Prioritize your tasks ahead of time. By scheduling your tasks in order of importance, you can devote more attention to your most pressing tasks. You can prioritize your day so that you do not spend five hours answering email, while the rest of your duties slide.
- Set goals for your day. As you plan your day, set the goals that you want to accomplish. Although you may not get through your entire to-do list, try to set and meet reasonable goals each day.
- Get Your Mind Right. Before starting your work day. Spend time visualizing your day. See yourself completing the day’s tasks and visualize the future results of the work that you are doing now. Step into that vision. Set aside at least 10 minutes each day to engage in visualization exercises.
- Set a schedule and stick to it. For every task that you have set for the day, set aside a specific amount of time and stick to your schedule. You will be surprised by what you can get done in an hour if you focus on the task at hand. If you haven’t completed the task within the allotted time, then schedule time for the next day to complete that task. Unless it is a critical, money making activity, do not spend more time on that activity than you have scheduled.
- Use a stop watch or timer. In order to stay on schedule, buy or download a stop watch app, and use it to stay on schedule.
- Turn off distractions. If the television or radio or Facebook lures you away from your duties, turn it off or log off. You must do everything that you can to stay on task and avoid all distractions
- Avoid Multi-Tasking. Many people think that the multi-tasking somehow increases their productivity, but it has been shown that it takes about 20 minutes for your mind to acclimate to a task. Multi-tasking actually kills your productivity.
- Take A Break. For every hour of work, take a 10 minute break. Step away from your computer. Go outside. Use this time to clear your mind and to prepare for the next task.
- Spend Less than 30 Minutes a day on email. Many people spend a lot of time constantly checking their emails. You should schedule 1 or 2 times a
- day to check emails and only take about 2 minutes to respond to any emails that require your attention.
- Complete Money Making Activities First. There are only 2 types of money making activities (MMA) – Active Prospecting and Passive Marketing. You should spend about 90% of your time in MMA. And you should give those MMA’s the highest priority when you schedule your day in advance.
- Make Time For Exercise. By exercising regularly, you will increase the energy that you have available by exercising regularly
Bonus Tip: Make Time For Family and Relationships. Though you may be driven by achieving success in your business, you must maintain a proper life-balance. Your business is just one aspect of your life and, if you are like me, your business is a vehicle that you use to provide for your family. So make sure that you take the time to keep your personal relationships with family, friends and esp. your spouse, healthy.
Affiliate Marketing, Balancing business and family
Did you know that there are 6 pillars that are essential to the success of your online business?
These 6 pillars are listed below.
Pillar 1 – Vision & Personal Development
Many people that I speak to who are just beginning their journey into the world of online marketing have absolutely no vision as to what they really want out of this. And as a result, many of them are spinning their wheels, spending a lot of time and money but not making any progress in any direction. Because they have no direction. As you set out on your journey as an online marketer, you should sit down, and define what your vision for your business and your life is. And then you must write it down. Make your vision clear that you see the tiniest details of the life that you are building for yourself and your loved ones.
After clearly defining your vision for your online marketing business and writing it down, you need to define your BIG why! Your “BIG Why” will drive you forward through the times when you want to give up. Your WHY and coupled with your vision will allow you to wake up with excitement and determination for the future that you are creating.
In defining your Vision and Your Big Why, you need to ask yourself the following questions.
- If you had all of the money in the world, what would you do?
- What limiting beliefs do you feel could be holding you back from achieving your vision?
- Who Must You become in order to achieve your vision?
After you’ve defined your Vision and your Big Why, you have determined what steps you will need to take to become the person that you will need to be to actually bring your vision to fruition. The one thing that I’ve learned as I’ve moved forward in my business, is that personal development and mindset are 99% of the battle. In your journey to achieving your vision, you will become a new person… You will develop new habits, skillsets and even new ways of thinking. Get Excited!
Pillar 2 – Creating Your Brand
Developing your brand for your online marketing business is the 2nd pillar that you have to work on. Many people in the business, spend a good deal of time marketing their company’s or products brand when instead they should be focusing on building their own brand. To develop your own brand, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you stand for and who do you serve?
- What are the biggest problems, challenges, and concerns of your target market?
- What do they really want?
- What do you like to talk about?
- What’s life all about for you?
- What is your passion? Breakthroughs, stories, epiphanies that you can share?
- What are your values?
- What is important to you?
Once You’ve answered these questions, use the answers to define your brand, target your audience and set out to provide value, value and more value to your audience based on the brand that you have established.
Pillar 3 – Your Monetization Strategy
As you set out to determine your monetization strategy, you need to answer the following questions…
- How is your business going to make money?
- What are you selling
- What are the income-producing activities in your business?
- What could you sell to your audience today/
- What low-cost, low-barrier products/services ($1-$27) irresistible offers do you have that will allow you to get buyers?
- Know your metrics, and determine your financial priorities…
- What are your lead flows
- Your conversion rates
- Ad spends
- Costs per lead
- Lifetime customer value
- What are you selling for the next 30 days? What are your goals and projected outcomes?
You must determine and track these metrics so that you know what activities will produce income for your online marketing business and so that you can track your costs and incomes to determine which activities/products are profitable, and which are not.
Pillar 4 – Content
If you want success in your online marketing business, you have to create value in the marketplace. As a marketer, you do this by creating valuable content that your target market wants to consume.
Content is the currency of the internet.
You need to develop the following types of content –
Pillar Content
Pillar Content?is a substantive and informative piece of content on a specific topic or theme that can be broken into many pieces and media types: Examples of content pillars include eBooks, reports, and guides.
Basically, it’s a large piece of content that you can turn into many smaller pieces of content to fuel all those channels you’re currently struggling to fill. By focusing your attention on creating a single content pillar, it’s easy to break that finished piece into blog posts, infographics, videos, emails, social media updates, and more, to attract different kinds of buyers through different channels.
Promotional Content
Promotional content is smaller pieces of content which serve to drive traffic to you Pillar content pieces. For instance, an example of promotional content might be a 2-3 minute Facebook Live that introduces your audience to an aspect of your Pillar content, then show them how to get access to your pillar content.
Lead Magnets Content
Generally speaking, lead magnets are free ebooks, free video tutorials, that you will give to your audience in exchange for their email address.
When it comes to generating this content you should spend 20% of your time on content creation and 80% on promotion, and every piece of content that you create should have a strong call to action.
Every piece of content that you create should have a purpose. ?For instance, the sole purpose of creating a lead magnet would be to generate a lead, whereas the purpose of a low-cost derivative of your Pillar content could be used to identify your buyers. You need to define specific measurable outcomes for your content and track your results weekly.
Pillar 5 – Follow-up & Engagement
As you build your audience for your online marketing business, you have to commit to consistently follow up and engage with them. You must…
- Determine how you will engage with them on a consistent/daily basis?
- You must email your list regularly
- Spend time daily on the various platforms providing value, tip, Intel, and solutions.
- You must engage with your audience. Like and comment on their posts, and comment on their responses.
- Define how you will continuously gain their trust, build rapport and nurture and grow long-term relationships with them.
- Create simple promotional content daily to engage your audience.
- Pick up the phone – be human and connect with people.
- Schedule webinars, Facebook Lives and Live Q&A Sessions.
- Create a community and culture to make your audience feel as though they are a part of something.
Pilar 6 – Traffic, List Building & Audience Building
Now, most people think that traffic is the most important piece of this puzzle, but they are mistaken. Driving traffic is the easiest Pillar to build. There are multiple sources of traffic out there, and many ways to drive that traffic to your content and offers. Given this, you will have to make the following determinations…
- How are you going to drive targeted traffic to your blog, websites, offers and lead magnets?
- Will you use free or paid traffic?
- Will you drive traffic from social media such as Facebook or Twitter?
- Will you buy engagement ads ( like campaigns ) for your Facebook fan page, to grow your FB Audience?
- Where does your target audience hang out and have conversations?
As you answer these question, you will need to define a structured daily plan of action to grow your audience and syndicate the content that you create.
So there you have it, the Six Pillars of All Successful Online Marketing businesses. If you are not currently building these, you should start working on them today!
