My Income Streams (How My Online Business Makes Money)

This article was last updated in December of 2019. I will continue to update this information as my streams of income change over time.

Having multiple streams of income, to me, is the key to running a successful online business.

I don’t have to tell you this because I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times already..

“Never put all your eggs in one basket.”

And as a full-time entrepreneur, I rely solely on the income I make online, so this is especially true for me. That is exactly why, over the years, I have worked on building multiple streams of income within my business.

So if one happens to go away, I will still be able to survive knowing that I have money coming in from other sources. People ask me all the time, “Brant, you dabble in a lot on the internet, but how do you actually make money?”

And that is the goal of this article.

I am going to share with you the income streams that show up in my bank account each and every month, which, by the way, allows me to work for myself full-time from home. Let’s get started.

YouTube Ads

No, I’m not a YouTuber, but yes, I do run a semi-popular YouTube channel within the niche of my main website/business. I usually publish 1-2 videos per week and run ads on the videos, which is starting to bring in consistent revenue.

At the time of this writing, the channel is still fairly new but I’m already approaching 10,000 subscribers. My income from YouTube has continued to grow month over month.

(Keep in mind, you have to get at least 1000 subscribers before YouTube will allow you to run ads on your videos.)

With all of that said, my goal of the channel isn’t to make money off ad revenue. My goal is to generate leads from the videos back to my website and ultimately convert the traffic into signing up for my email list.

For an internet marketer as myself, the money to be made from YouTube is on the backend. The ad revenue is just an added bonus.

Google Adsense

For the people who don’t have a clue about making money on the internet, this is usually the first thing they think of. And admittingly, it’s how I thought I was going to rake in all the dough when I was first starting out.

Basically, Google Adsense lets you place ads on your website and you get paid once someone clicks on one of the ads.

You’ve definitely seen them everywhere if you’ve spent any amount of time browsing the internet.

Here’s an example of what they look like:

I don’t really run many of these ads on any of my websites anymore. The reason is because it only pays a few cents each time someone clicks on one of your ads. And ads just interfere with your content and take away from the user experience in my opinion.

That’s why you won’t see any ads on this website.

But still, as I said, I do still run Google Adsense some. It’s an easy way to make a couple hundred extra bucks each month.

Credit Card Rewards

This technically isn’t an ‘income stream’ per se, but all the free points and miles that I generate using credit cards definitely adds up in a big way throughout the year.

My wife and I travel quite a bit, and for the most parts, all of our trips are either free or greatly discounted thanks to credit cards rewards.

Here’s a brief explanation of how it works:

I pay for basically everything with a credit card. This includes food, gas, bills, business expenses — you name it. In exchange for doing so, the credit card companies give you points or miles on each transaction that can be redeemed for travel purchases.

Not to mention, there are ways to earn an unlimited amount of points without without spending any of your own money. This is a technique called Manufactured Spending. I won’t get into these methods now, but if you’re interested, send me a DM on Instagram.

Once you’ve accumulated enough points, you can redeem them for free plane tickets and hotel stays anywhere in the world. It’s a beautiful process.

But here’s the kicker: You MUST be responsible and you MUST pay off your credit card balance in full at the end of each month.

Otherwise, you are going to pay an arm and a leg in interest and you’ll end up losing money overall. This is what the credit card companies want. They want for you to make the minimum payments each month while collecting interest payments as you pay off the debt.

I repeat, never do this!

Always pay off your balance in full each month. That way, you can reap the free credit card rewards and enjoy free vacations for life courtesy of the biggest banks in the world.

If you’re interested in learning more about travel hacking, free vacations, and manufactured spending, I share all of my secrets to the member of my inner circle. If you’re interested, send me a DM on Instagram.

Dividend Investing

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Dividend investing is a form of investing where you buy shares of companies that disperse some of their profits back to shareholders (in the form of dividends).

It’s another way to earn passive income each month (or quarter), depending on when that particular company disperses their dividend payments.

I do all of my long-term stock market investing through Vanguard. They make it super simple.

But for my quote-unquote “play money”, I use an app called Robinhood. It’s pretty dope in regards to trading individual stocks and cryptocurrencies (which is not something I do a lot of, just occasionally).

Self-Publishing: Kindle

This one is pretty self-explanatory. You write books (or hire a ghostwriter) and publish them for sale on the Amazon Kindle Platform.

It may sound hard but it’s not. In fact, one of my books hit #1 on the Amazon Best Sellers list. And I’m not a great writer by any means. So if I can create books that sale, I’m pretty sure you can as well.

And once the books are published, you really don’t have to do anything else. This truly is a pretty simple way to earn passive income each month. Obviously the more books you publish, the more money you will make.

I’ve been publishing about 10 new books each year and I’m happy with this pace. As I continue to publish new books, this income stream should continue to grow for years to come.

I learned all about Kindle Publishing from an online course I went through called K Money Mastery. It’s beginner-friendly and I highly recommend it for anyone looking to get started publishing books on Amazon.

It’s one of the easiest methods to get started making money online. I believe you can do a trial for like $7, so definitely check that out if you’re interested.

Self-Publishing: Paperbacks

This is method is the same concept as publishing on the Amazon Kindle Platform. You can take the same books that you already published and sell them as paperbacks as well.

This is possible thanks to an Amazon company called CreateSpace. They take your book manuscript and cover image, and whenever someone buys your book, they’ll print the book and ship it straight to the customer.

You don’t have to lift a finger once the books are published. All you have to do is check for the direct deposit that comes directly to your bank account each month.

Self-Publishing: Audiobooks

Again, this one is the same concept as the previous two. You take the same books you already have published on Kindle and CreateSpace and publish an audio version as well.

This is possible thanks to another Amazon company called Audible.

Audible lets you hire a professional voiceover artist that will record your book into an audio file. Then you can publish the audiobook for sale on Amazon.com. Again, once it’s up there, this is yet another form of passive income.

Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates is one of the most popular types of affiliate marketing.

Here’s the gist of it:

You create helpful articles that link to various Amazon products on your website. If visitors click on your affiliate link and make a purchase, Amazon will credit you and pay you a commission which is a small percentage of the sale.

Here’s another example:

On this website, if you visit my Reading List page, you will see that I’ve listed out each and every book that I’ve read over the years. Each book listed has my affiliate link that redirects you to that specific book on Amazon.com.

So if you were to click one of the links and make a purchase, I get paid a commission for sending you to Amazon. The commissions are usually pretty low — roughly 4-5% on each sale.

But if your site is getting a lot of traffic, it starts to add up pretty quickly.

Another great thing about Amazon Associates is that they give you credit for any purchase that is made within 24 for hours of clicking your link.

So back to my previous example.

If someone clicks a link on my Reading List page and visits Amazon.com. But instead of buying the book, they get distracted and end up purchasing, let’s say, a lawnmower. As long as it’s within 24 hours, I still get credit for that sale. How neat is that?

This is my second largest income stream at the time of this writing.

eBay: Reselling

I got started making money online by selling on eBay. I started off just by selling my own items. Old clothes and other stuff I had laying around the house.

But once I discovered how lucrative it could be, I started trying to sell as much as I could. I started going to local thrift stores to find items for pennies on the dollar that I could resell for huge profits.

We’re talking old vintage jackets that I paid $3 for and could resell for $50+. Once I had several items listed in my eBay store, I actually started making pretty decent money each month.

The problem is — it’s hard to scale.

You can only go to the thrift store so often. And it gets old restocking your inventory after a while. Not to mention taking photos and listing the items for sale.

There are plenty of people who do this full-time, but it’s definitely a grind. This is why I’ve stopped selling on eBay as much as I used to.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love going to thrift stores every now and then to see what treasures I can find. But now I’m focusing my time on higher-value activities that I can truly scale and earn passive income over time.

Shopify: Dropshipping

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that lets you build an run an online store. It makes managing sales and inventory extremely easy. Dropshipping is the act of selling products without physically owning any inventory.

I mostly dropship t-shirts and apparel via print-on-demand. But another method that I’ve experimented with is through Aliexpress.com. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically the Chinese version of Amazon.

So yes, the items you will be dropshipping are coming straight from China.

Once a customer purchases something from your store, the supplier (from China) will ship the item straight to the buyer’s house. Again, you never see or touch any of the inventory.

There are teenagers and kids way younger than me making bank doing this. You’ve probably seen them flexing their Lamborghinis on YouTube and Instagram.

I don’t spend a lot of my time Shopify, but I do have a store that runs automatically behind the scenes. Again, this is yet another for of passive income that I’ve built over time.

Shopify: Print-on-Demand

I could have probably just grouped this income stream together with Shopify dropshipping. But to me, they are two completely different business models.

Here’s how this one works:

I will come up with a design for a T-Shirt, hoodie, coffee mug — literally anything. Either I will create the design myself, or if it’s more complex, I’ll hire a designer to make it for me. Then I can upload the designs onto apparel and offer it for sale in my Shopify store.

Here’s the beauty of it:

When someone makes a purchase, a printing company will automatically print the shirt and ship it directly to the customer. Again, you never have to see, touch, or feel any of the inventory. All you do is make a profit on each sale. I partner with a company called Printful to print and ship all my orders.

I much prefer this method over dropshipping from Aliexpress. Mainly because the T-shirts are made here in the United States so the shipping times are much faster. This, of course, means that my customers are much happier.

Online Cash Back

This isn’t technically an income stream but I do receive PayPal deposits every month from Rakuten.

All you have to do is install their plugin in your browser. Then when you shop online, you click the button and automatically receive free cash back for literally doing nothing.

It works with almost every website and you can earn up to 10% cash back. Like I said, it free money. If you’re not using it, well, you’re dumb. Just kidding, but seriously — you’re leaving free money on the table.

If you sign up today using my affiliate link, they’ll send you a free $10 gift card.

Digital Product Sales: Online Courses

I saved the best two for last because selling digital products is how I earn the majority of my income. All the income streams on this list are nice, but the most powerful way to make money online is by creating and selling your own products.

I created helpful video courses that I sell on my main website to students. It’s great because they get value from the content that I teach, and I get value from them in the form of money.

There are quite a few courses that I’ve yet to record and create. My monthly revenue is directly correlated with the courses I sell. So the more courses I create, the more money I will make. I just need to get the work done.

Digital Product Sales: eBooks

And last but most certainly not least — eBooks. This is currently my biggest income stream at the time of this writing. That’s right, selling information products in the form of PDFs.

It’s a beautiful thing because you can create an eBook once and then sell it over and over again without doing any additional work.

I use Gumroad to sell digital products. When someone makes a purchase, Gumroad will automatically send give the customer access to the eBook or course.

As I said, I love the method of making money online because once the eBook is created, you can sell it over and over again.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. That wraps up my current list of income streams that I earn through my online businesses. Nothing super-fancy. But I’m fortunate that the amount I earn from each income stream combined has continued to grow year over year.

I anticipate that this list will change over time, so I’ll keep it updated as I add and subtract new income streams.

I’m grateful that you read all the way to the end. What income streams are you working on today? Shoot me a DM on Instagram and let me know.