Our Work at Home Life with Jason and Jami: Online Business | Blogging | Working from Home

In today's episode, Jami tackles how to be a ROCKSTAR affiliate! She covers her favorite tips and tricks to make money as an affiliate, and she goes into several specific programs she recommends.

Join us today as we talk all about Goal Setting. We go into why we do it, how it can help you to grow your business, and some tools we use and recommend to make it easier and more consistent. And we even give some book recommendations on the topic, because of course we do.

Listen in as we break down our work/life routines, both before and after going full time with our business.

Listen in as Jason gives you recommendations on some of his favorite business books, and talks about how reading to develop your business skills is a great idea!

Let's talk all about podcasting, and how starting a podcast can be a great asset to your business!

Hello everyone! We are back! In this episode we discuss how our business went in 2018, why we had a long hiatus from this podcast, and we go into some exciting 2019 plans!

Welcome to our new show! We laid the ground work in the first 10 episodes, but 2018 is the year of OWAHL and we are going to spend a lot of time this year on what has been our secret to success: sales funnel. So we are going to take you deep inside our biggest product to date, the product that allowed Jason to quit his job, our annual conferences!

We've been doing a series lately on the podcast about social media. And the next question we often get is, "how do you launch/grow a blog??" So that's what we are talking about today! Our Launch Strategy Behind Our New Blog Our main business is Young Wife's Guide. I (Jami) started this blog in 2012 and the landscape of blogging has changed so much since then! So are you wondering how to launch a new blog/business in 2017 and beyond? Here's how we took on the challenge of launching this new blog in the middle of 2017 and how you can do it too! Inside our private Facebook group, many of you have been asking how we are going about our launch strategy. So here's what we are doing: Start with Brainstorming: Jason and I did a lot of brainstorming about this new blog, the goal of it, the purpose behind it, and our mission for it. Before we had a name or a website or a strategy, we spent a ton of time really thinking through what our missions was going to be, how much time we would spend on it each week, what my roles on the blog would be, what Jason's roles would be, etc. You don't want to spend a year in this phase and your goal and mission probably will change over time. But try to think through the purpose behind your new business so you can better know where you are going with it. Picking a Name: Now, I first want to say that people get way too hung up on picking a name. Yes, it's important. But it's not the most important thing. Don't spend forever on this step and never actually write or launch your blog. You want to be intentional, but in the end, you just need to get going! When picking a name, the #1 thing you need to look for is if the URL is available. Just go to a domain register (such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, etc) and search for your domain name. You can quickly see if it's available or not. (And even if it's available, some premium domains can cost into the thousands.) RECOMMENDED: You can use any domain registrar that you want. But after trying several (and having most of our domains with Godaddy, we have landed on Namecheap being our favorite! They are easy to work with AND are often the cheapest for the domains). You can search for a domain name here. Anytime Jason and I are brainstorming a name, we have Namecheap open next to us and we check each name before we get too attached. Because chances are, it's already taken! And a .com website is a must for us. We won't consider anything else. But you could do a .org website as well. Wordpress.org: Every one of our websites is on wordpress.org. This is a big discussion for a different day but if you want to grow a blog or business, then wordpress.org is where you want to be. ONE EXCEPTION: Our one exception is in fact, this website. For a variety of reasons, we decided to host our store AND our blog through one platform: New Kajabi. I plan on covering these reasons in a future video/blog post so stay tuned. But for now, just know that we've been using Kajabi for well over a year now and are IN LOVE WITH it and highly recommend it to everyone. So Kajabi could be a great option for you as well. (Email us with any questions about Kajabi! I would be happy to discuss your individual situation.) If you are hosting with Wordpress, one important thing you need to note is there is a very big difference between wordrepss.org and wordpress.com. You want to use wordpress.org. Here's a good article that shares the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. What it Costs to Launch a New Blog: Buy Your Domain: Once you've picked your name, you need to purchase your domain name. This will normally run you around $9-12 for a year. So not a huge investment. (With Namecheap, you can often get it even cheaper than that.) Sign up for web hosting: This is the important step if you are using wordpress.org and also the part that most people get hung up on. It's really not as hard, expensive, or confusing as it sounds...I promise! Most web hosting will run...

Last week we discussed how to develop a social media strategy. I did an overview of how I handle social media on my main blog, Young Wife's Guide. Today I'm back to discuss how you can use Pinterest specifically for massive growth! Pinterest is an amazing way to build up your community and reach a massive audience. And Pinterest doesn't have to take very much time at all. How to get traffic from Pinterest We get traffic from Pinterest in two ways: 1) Through my own personal Pinterest account for my blog. This is where I pin my own content and other people's content. I typically follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of what I pin is other people's content, 20% is my own. Althought sometimes this shift on Pinterest is more like 50/50. 2) Through other people pinning my blog posts. This is the beauty of Pinterest! As long as you've got good pictures (see below) and have some strategy when it comes to Pinterest, other people will start pinning YOUR content and you will get traffic from Pinterest without ever being active on Pinterest. Although being active yourself certainly helps. (HINT: Here's the Wordpress plugin I use to install a Pin it Button ON MY BLOG, very important!!) Making Your Posts Pinterest Friendly The best thing you can do to increase traffic from Pinterest is to make your blog posts more Pinterest friendly. When someone lands on your blog and finds your blog post interesting, make it easy for them to "pin" it to Pinterest. The biggest thing you want to do is create long graphics to have in each blog post. Each blog post doesn't have to have a picture with words on it, but I always do. Here's a good example of a blog post with a tall vertical image at the top with words on it. How to put words on your images: Please note: When I recorded this podcast episode, PicMonkey was a FREE option. However they have no moved to a subscription only service so you need to pay to use it. I think it can still be worth it, but it will cost you $3.99-7.99 a month now. Canva is the free option I now recommend. PicMonkey is a free, really easy to use tool that allows you to put words on your pictures. Canva is another excellent free website that gives you even more options (but can be a little more complicated to use). I personally use Photoshop and have for years but this definitely has a learning curve to it. If you are not a techy person, the first two options will work beautifully for you. With Adobe Creative cloud, you can get access to the full newest version of Photoshop for just $9.99 a month (which is now almost comparable to PicMonkey)! Where to Find Images to Use on Pinterest: You need to be very careful about where you find images to use on your blog. It is illegal to just go to google and pull any photo you find (EVEN if you link back to the original source). It has to be a royalty-free photo, which means the original photographer or artist has given permission for it to be used on your blog. There are some places to find free photos, but I caution you to be very careful about these free stock photo places because many of them have fine print that means you can't crop, add text, change, use for commercial use, etc. So just be careful with any stock photos you find (free OR paid for). I personally have used 123rf.com for years. Their photos are usually $1-3 a piece and have been very affordable for me. But ask around because there are some other good sources out there. However I haven't purchased a photo on there for a long time now because... Taking Your Own Photos I do still use some stock photos, but I'm moving more and more to using my own photos. I was hesitant to do this for a long time because I am NOT a photographer and felt like I just didn't have the time. But now I'm realizing that that authenticity IS worth the time. But now when I plan out a blog post, I set aside 5-10 minutes of time to snap some photos of my own. They may not be professional quality, they may not always be the best lighting...

Some of the most common questions I get are about social media. Which social media you should be using, how this fits into the larger picture in your business, etc. Social media is constantly changing and so is my strategy. But in today's episode I am going to briefly share my own personal social media strategy for our full time business over at Young Wife's Guide. My Social Media Strategy Facebook Facebook has over 1.8 billion monthly active users. If you are looking for an audience to reach, they are on Facebook! Yes, Facebook organic reach has been down but if you are strategic with it, you can still reach your ideal customer or reader through Facebook. Difference between your Facebook profile and a Facebook page This is one question I've received several times. Your Facebook profile is your personal Facebook account that you set up. My personal profile is just for my friends and family that I know in person. I don't add anyone else to this account. This way, I still have privacy online. I can share posts about my kids, local places we are going, etc. It's where I personally keep up with my friends and family. It's personal, it's for me! I rarely, if ever, post my blogging stuff to this profile. (Not that it's wrong to do so, but I don't want to spam my friends and family. That's not the purpose of that Facebook profile.) But my Facebook page is where I do all my business stuff. This is at: Facebook.com/YoungWifesGuide. This is where I post all my blogging stuff and where my "fans" can follow me. You want to set up a Facebook page. Our Facebook strategy: My strategy on Facebook is to build community and generate new leads. I want my Facebook page to be a bright spot on Facebook for my readers and I want to provide quality content and things I'm sharing. So I follow the 80/20 rule (for the most part). 80% of the things I post on my Facebook page are other people's content. Blog posts and articles that I find interesting and that I know will be helpful to my readers that someone else wrote. These are NOT links back to my own blog. 20% of what I post are blog links back to my blog or a product I'm selling. We tend to follow a schedule of posting 6-10 times a day. Typically about every 2-4 hours throughout the day. I know this might sound like a lot, so if that takes way too much time right now, then just start out with posting 2-3 times a day. The key is, Facebook rewards consistency. So post consistently. Don't post 10 times today and then not again for a week. Post just once a day if that's all you have the capacity for, but try and keep it consistent. Another helpful tip: We schedule all of our Facebook posts inside of Facebook. We do not use a third party scheduler (like Meet Edgar, Buffer, or Hoostuite). Facebook wants you to stay inside Facebook so they reward you with more views if you schedule directly inside Facebook (and hey, it's FREE)! Pinterest Pinterest has 110 million monthly active users and is growing daily. As a woman (and especially as someone who blogs about homemaking related topics), Pinterest is the place to be! Side note: Yes, Pinterest organic traffic has heavily reduced the last two years or so and I no longer believe it to be the best or more reliable source of traffic. It is consistently our #1 source of traffic and has been for years. Pinterest is not a platform however where I am trying to build up it's own community. It's more of an extension of how I can serve my community. I think of my Pinterest account as a place where I can curate and collect all the very best Gospel-centered homemaking tips, tricks, articles, tutorials, recipes and more for my readers. Again, I follow the 80/20 rule. I certainly pin a ton of my own blog posts but I also try and pin other people's content about 80% of the time. Our Pinterest Strategy: We use the TailWind App to schedule a ton of our pins. We've been using it for about a two years now and LOVE it. It allows you to schedule pins, see...

Question: "My husband and I would love to entertain the idea of entrepreneurship. While his job is sufficient in providing for us financially, it leaves much to be desired in regard to family life. However, we feel completely stuck at the moment. In addition to a dependable salary, his job also provides excellent insurance coverage for all five of us (dental, medical, and vision). He has a 401k and retirement account that has been funded since he began with the company over ten years ago. There is a lot to fund financially, and these are all just the basics! How is this done while pursuing entrepreneurship? Are people (entrepreneurs) able to get on top of all these in ways we've yet to discover beyond dependency on a corporate job? Or, are people just going without the future being funded? Furthermore, how do you fully learn about the local, state and federal regulations and requirements? Registrations and taxes are required of a business. These are the kind of entrepreneurship questions that are generally not addressed. Having started and managed several successful businesses yourself, what has been your experience in these areas? Have you found any resources that have been particularly helpful? Again, please don't feel obligated to answering anything that may be too personal since these questions do pertain to finances. I appreciate your time in reading and responding to this message." Getting Started All this little stuff IS the overwhelming stuff. It's what holds you back. It feels huge and impossible and so scary. And a lot of it we are still figuring out along the way! If your husband (or you) works a corporate job with a good income, it can be really really difficult to leave. We gave us all of those things when we took the plunge to be self-employed. Years ago, the security of a corporate job made us feel safe. We needed that. Now we've embraced the freedom in being self-employed AND we've started to view our life as a lot more secure, since our business is up to US, and not a huge company or bosses that could change our fate with a pink slip. It's a slow process. We built things up on the side first. Jason didn't quit his job on day 1 and then day 2 we tried to figure out an income stream. We tested things out, we built up side income, we knew that with more time and attention dedicated to the business, we could make more money. So yes, there is a LOT to consider and a lot of different pots that money needs to be funneled into, but those things are simply coming from a different income source. At your job, medical, dental, retirement, etc all comes out of your paycheck. It's just all done for you, BEFORE you see the money and somehow that feels a lot less painful. So these are all things to keep in mind when considering the jump! But it is doable. Millions of people are self-employed and figure it all out :) Taxes & Regulations Personally, I think this was the biggest headache trying to figure out. We had to figure out taxes, what kind of company we needed, did we need a business license, what forms need to be filed, etc. LegalZoom.com was a huge help to us in the beginning! Because every state (and country) is so different on taxes, regulations, and companies, it's impossible for me to give any advice on how to get started with this. They have sections that explain all the different companies you can form from an LLC, to a partnership, to a sole proprietorship and more. We landed on needing to form an LLC and then we were able to file the paperwork with LegalZoom! They help you to file the correct file for your state and everything! Our next negotiable suggestion: Hire a CPA in your state. We have an amazing CPA who specializes in small business and we don't know WHERE we would be without him. When we get a tax form, or want to try something new, we run it all past him and he tells us what to do. For what we do, we need someone who is very familiar with online business and our forms of revenue. Our...

On the podcast this month we've been talking all about product launches. We covered the big picture overview of how to launch a product, how to work with affiliates to help sell your product, and creating a free offer for your product launch. If you haven't worked your way through those episodes yet, then back up and go through those. They will give you a very solid grounding before heading into this episode. Today we are going to be covering Launch week! You've done all the prep work to launch your new product, now it's time to actually launch it! Here's everything to need to craft a successful launch week. Launch Your Product A typical launch period for us is 5-7 days. Anything shorter than that and it's hard to build momentum. Anything longer than that and it's hard to keep up that momentum. If you listened to episode #4 and are creating a free opt in offer for your product, then a good option is to be in "sales" mode for one month. Spend 2-4 weeks spreading the word about your free opt in to boost engagement and get new readers, and then actually launch your product in 5-7 days. A typical sales week: We've played with this schedule and tweaked it a lot over the years. It will probably keep changing as we learn and grow, but here's what we typically do in a launch week. Day #1: Cart Open On day #1, the first thing you want to do is check all sales pages and links, a couple of times. The worst thing to happen would be people showing up to your page, unable to check out! So check, check, and double check that it's all working properly. Then once you know it's all working, you can send out your initial CART OPEN email! This can be short and sweet and simply let people know that your new product is for sale. I'm a fan of doing a short and sweet email for this (although you can do a longer sales email with all the info) because I think people are initially interested and will pop over to see what it is. At this point, I would also publish a full blog post with all the details to share on Pinterest, Facebook, social media, those who follow you via RSS feed, etc. I would also consider doing a Facebook/Instagram live video. The first day is so full of excitement that now is a good time to jump on and share that your new product is live and available! Through your week: using evergreen content to sell I know that not everyone on my list or in my audience will be interested in buying this thing. So while I do want to push the sale hard, I also want to acknowledge and not burn out that audience that has no intention of buying this product. Evergreen content is simply blog posts, podcasts, and other content that is related to your product but that will still live on once this promotion is over. For example, if you are sharing a brand new cooking course, then doing some evergreen content revolving around your favorite cooking accessories, or simple meal planning tips can become great content to spread around that also includes a pitch for your product. Bonus: It gives you a really good non-salsey excuse to reach out to your audience, share on social media, and send follow up emails! You are simply providing more good, related content! Throw a Facebook Party I do about 2-3 Facebook parties a year. They do a couple of things: 1) it raises awareness for my product launch 2) it helps boost my Facebook feed all week and 3) my audience LOVES it and is an amazing way to build up my community. I get requests all year asking when my next FB party will be! Here's how to throw a Facebook party: 1) Set up a FB even on your page Set this up and start inviting people to the party 1-2 weeks in advance. Ask them to RSVP on that event page so they get notified when the party starts. Share about the party on other social media, your blog, and via email. 2) A typical party My typical party is usually 2 hours long. I do mine in the evenings because most moms can participate better when kids are in bed. I tend to post every 5-15...

On the podcast this month we've been talking all about product launches. We covered the big picture overview of how to launch a product and how to work with affiliates to help sell your product. Today is my favorite episode yet. We are going to be talking about how to create a free opt-in offer that leads to the sale of your product. So let's jump in! What is a free opt-in offer? This comes under many names - a freebie, freemium, lead magnet, opt-in offer, etc. But they are all essentially the same thing. It's an awesome piece of content that you giveaway for free. Your readers sign up for it with their email address. It's an amazing way to grow your audience but it also provides incredible value for your readers. My readers are always thanking me for the awesome free content I give away! Benefits of creating an opt-in offer Grows your email list This one is obvious. This is usually the #1 reason why people giveaway an opt-in in offer. They want to build up and grow their email list. This is great, but if you combine it with an email sequence and a product in mind, it can really push the needle! Nurtures cold subscribers before selling to them A free opt-in gets people onto your email list. And it also nurtures them from cold subscribers into raving fans. Throughout your free opt-in offer and a subsequent email sequence, these new readers really get to know you and build that trust. Great to share on guest posts A free opt-in offer gives you something extremely valuable to share on other people's blogs as guest posts. You COULD be a guest poster on someone's blog and share your product. But you probably won't get very many sales. Those readers don't know you from Adam, they don't trust you, they don't yet love you. But GIVE them something awesome for FREE and they get to know you. Affiliates can share very easily This is usually my #1 reason for creating a free opt-in. My own readers know me pretty well by now and know if they want a product I come out with. But my affiliates audiences don't know me. Creating an awesome free offer that is easy for your affiliates to share, helps you gain a new audience to sell to AND your affiliates can sell more easily. Easy to push really hard and then do the actual selling over email It's so easy to push a free offer insanely!! You can share it on your blog, Facebook live, all over Instagram, in your emails, guest posts, etc. No one gets tired of hearing about a great free product! So you can push this really hard without feeling like you are selling! And then you can nurture them through an email sequence where you sell hard. Examples of our freebies: Finding Joy in Your Home Free eCourse This is by far our most popular free offer. It's a mini-eCourse called Finding Joy in Your Home. This has become my main free offer for my blog and eventually leads to a sell of our academy, My Homemaking Mentor. This works well because MHM is our most expensive item. So giving them a full course as a FREEBIE works well. Plus, the academy is video based. So giving them a free PDF wouldn't be nearly as effective as a free video series so they can get used to me on video and how I teach. 14 Days of Praying for Your Husband & Marriage This is a freebie that we launched at the beginning of this year. It's a card set that is designed to be used over 14 days. It has a scripture and a prayer topic on each card. These were super popular! They lead to a marriage bundle of resources and are the perfect lead in to more printable products! 5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day The meat of this freebie was an in depth PDF that I put together that was essentially a mini training manual. I wanted to include a video component however, so I took that training and turned it into a video. So the reader has the choice of reading it or listening to it. It also includes a few bonus printables. This was our free opt-in for the 2016 homemaking conference. Here are some other freebie ideas The free...

One of the best and most exciting ways to make an income online is by launching your own products. Earlier this week Jason and I shared a big picture overview of how to launch a digital product. Today we are going to share how to take that product launch to the next level by working with affiliates! A big focus of ours in our won business in 2017-2018 is expanding our affiliate base. We have around 100 active affiliates right now but only a small portion of these make any significant sales. A good rule of thumb when thinking about brining on affiliates, is to launch your product first without affiliates. Do a launch, get comfortable with it, make sure the product works, and then bring affiliates into the mix. How it works with affiliates: People who are interested in sharing your product can sign up for your affiliate program. Once approved they will get their own affiliate links to share your products. If someone purchases through those links, that affiliate gets a percentage of the sale. Typical commissions on digital products are 30-50%. How to run an affiliate program: Running an affiliate program takes a little bit of technology. I know it can be scary, but there are several different options that can make it easier. The most common option are Wordpress plugins. Here are a few that we've used. iDevAffiliate This is my #1 recommendation if you are using wordpress. It's not actually a plugin, it's an addition you add to your site. It's a little wonky to get set up but once it's set up, it gives you SO many tools. This is an affiliate program you can grow with. We started off using iDevaffiliate for our digital products and used it for a long time before we had to switch where we host our digital products. Now we use iDev for our product store. It's not the cheapest option out there because it does offer so many features. But it is very affordable compared to make other big programs. I think it's a great happy medium. Find out more about iDevaffiliate here What it costs: Cloud option: Standardone time fee. Make sure to come follow us on Instagram: Our Work at Home Life! Woocommerce Integration If you already use Woocommerce then there are a couple of plugins that are already integrated with woocommerce. It's not necessary to use one of these plugins if you use woocommerce. After all, we run Woocommerce in our product store and yet we use iDevaffiliate as our affiliate center. I have not used either of these and do not know how easy/hard they are to get up and running. I do like the idea though that they integrate with woocommerce. The two options they offer are Affiliate WP ($99 a year) or Affiliates Pro ($59 a year). LeadDyno The other robust affiliate program that I have been very impressed with in the past is LeadDyno. We used it for a short time last year when we were trying to figure out some fancy things. Ultimately, we ended up moving our affiliate program to Clickfunnels but for different reasons. Overall I was very impressed with LeadDyno. It was easy to use and offered a TON of advanced features that you can easily grow with. I will need to wrangle Jason into doing a comparison video one day of LeadDyno verses iDev! Find out more about LeadDyno here. What it costs: $49 a month What We Use: We moved our entire digital product database to New Kajabi in 2016 and we haven't looked back! Kajabi comes with an internal affiliate program which works great for simple products and simple funnels. However we desperately needed some more advanced features to sell our online training academy and annual online conferences. So I did HOURS of research and found another website that would integrate sales into Kajabi: Clickfunnels. Clickfunnels is expensive but it runs our entire affiliate program and all our sales pages and funnels. It's a HUGE and amazing program and we totally love it. If you want to try it out, you can get a 14 day free trial. What it costs: $97 a month$297 a month How we support...

How to Launch a Product - A big picture overview - OWAHL #2 Last week on the podcast, Jason and I shared how we make a full time income online. In that episode we broke down our different sources of income but throughout the years our #1 source of income has remained to be our very own products. Today we are going to share how you can launch your very own product and the steps you need to take. In our Homemaking Ministries store, we currently have around 20 products for sale and that number is constantly growing. In the past two years, we have fallen into a good rhythm of doing about two big launches per year (our conference and our academy) with lots of little mini launches throughout the year. How we got started launching our own products My very first product I ever launched was my eBook, Apartment Gardening in 2012 for $5.95 and I was so crazy excited to make $6 here and there. I think in our first year of launching that, we made several hundred dollars and it was amazing. That was actually our first taste of making a little income online and realizing it was possible we could make a part-time income doing this! (We didn't even dream at the time that this would turn into our full time income for our family.) Since 2012, we have launched over 20 products. Some have been huge successes and others have been total flops (we will have to share our biggest flops sometime)! Our Secret Sauce when it comes to launching If we had any "secrets" to share about launching - it would be in scheduling. Over the years we have refined our launch schedule again and again, each time honing it more and more. Now, we plan at least 6 months in advance of any of our big launches. 6 months might sound crazy, but it gives us plenty of time to fit everything in to make a successful launch! (Note: The 6 month plan is for our large products. If you want to launch a little product or get it out there for sale, you don't have to do a big launch like this.) Download our FREE Product Launch Checklist! I know this is a TON of information! So I distilled it all down into a handy printable product launch checklist for you. All you have to do is fill it out for you next product launch and you are well on your way to a successful launch. To download the FREE checklist, simply sign up here and download right away! The Schedule: 6-12 months before: Plan out the initial details including: Date(s) of launch, name of product, URL if needed, etc. 2 - 4 months before: Plan out the big picture for the launch: What the product is, what it will contain, how you will deliver it, etc. Plan out the free opt-in: Start planning now what your free opt-in for your launch will be. Is there an eBook, course, video, email sequence, etc that you can set up to share for free to get people interested in your product coming up? (We will cover launch opt-ins coming up in episode #4 of the podcast.) Plan out your schedule: At this point, at least start planning out your schedule for the launch. Think through things like: What day will it launch? What day does the sale end? Will you do any live workshops or Facebook parties? When will you start offering the free opt-in, etc. Now is also the time to invite affiliates to your launch if you will be doing that. Let them know what your product is, how much their commission will be, when they can promote it, etc. Coming up in episode 3, we will be covering how to work with affiliates on a product launch. Jami Here: This is unrelated, but if you are looking for a good planner, I did a review of all my favorite planners: You can check it out here. 6 - 8 weeks before: Set sales goal: Set some realistic, but high goals for your launch. And then create mini goals within that. So for example, if you want to make $5000 from a launch, how many overall sales is that? What does that break down to each day? How many do you need to sell each day, and so forth. If you are working with a designer, now is the time to get started...

Welcome to our brand new podcast: Our Work at Home Life with Jason & Jami. Each week we are going to bring you these mini-training sessions with practical hands on resources for growing your own blog or online business! This podcast has been a LONG time coming, and Jason and I are both so excited to kick it off. Today we are going to be sharing a little bit about our story, how we came to work from home full time, and how we make our money. If you are curious about how it's possible to work from home full time running an online business (and how you can do it too!), then this episode is for you. Then make sure to head back for our next episode. We are going to be jumping straight into our training sessions when we chat about how to launch your very own digital product. Our Story I started my very first blog back in 2009. I fell in love with blogging and then in 2012 I started our main blog, Young Wife's Guide. I had no idea at that time that it would become our family's full time income in just three short years. The very first thing we made some money on was an eBook on gardening that I sold for $5.95. I was making like $20 here or there and it was SO exciting!! Later that year, I was approached by a friend to put my book in this brand new eBook bundle she was putting together. That year my gardening book was in the first ever Healthy Living Bundle and I made a few hundred dollars! I think this was a turning point for us. We realized that I could actually make a little income from this. So my goal was to be able to build this up a little bit to have a small side income for when we had kids and I stayed home. Slowly we started working on this blog and building up a bit of side income. And then in December of 2015, Jason quit his full time job in sales to be able to come home and run our businesses from home. We've now been running our online businesses full time for over 18 months and I don't think we could ever go back! This business and running it from home has become such a blessing to our family. How we make money One of the biggest things that people ask us is how we make an income from home. They hear that we run a blog full time and people assume we must run ads on our blog. But in reality - we actually don't run ANY outside ads on our blog. So how do we make money? Here's the breakdown (these numbers are approximate): 20% of our income comes from affiliate sales & sponsored posts80% of our income comes from selling our own products: digital items, courses, conferences, our academy, etc. Breakdown of 20% These are the percentages for 2016. These seem to be holding true for 2017 but there are still a lot of months in the year left, so that could change. Affiliate Sales Being an affiliate for companies is a wonderful way to start making a little bit of income. It's easy in some ways because you don't have to have your own products or anything. Basically you sign up for an affiliate program with some business or product you already love. They give you a special affiliate link which you then share on your blog, social media, etc. Then whenever anyone purchases something through that link, you get a percentage of that sale. So for Young Wife's Guide (a homemaking blog), that means that I've been an affiliate for natural cleaners, a meal planning website, amazon book recommendations, and more. Sponsored Posts I also work with companies on a VERY limited basis to do sponsored posts. What this means is that a company will pay me up front to promote their business or product to my audience. I do these on a very limited basis and ONLY ever do it for companies that I 100% believe in and would recommend their products anyway. One thing for 2017 we are exploring more is podcast sponsorship for my homemaking podcast: The Homemaking Foundations Podcast. Breakdown of 80% We've done a few things in our business life that has made all the difference!! The first thing was starting our online conference 4 years...