Friday’s are my day off from the church so I thought I’d give you a money making tip today as I’m relaxing and enjoying time just thinking.  It will take you a couple of minutes to read but I guarantee it could change your financial future, so it’s well worth the investment of time.  In addition towards the end of the post I’ll tell you about a FREE way to make extra income right now.  Now I know you’re tempted to skip ahead but this will all make more sense if you take the 2-3 minutes to read up to it.

As you might know before I went into full-time ministry I owned  two businesses.  Both did well, but one did much better than the other financially.  Why?

• Is it because one had better ownership than the other?  No…again I owned both.
• Was it because I worked harder at one than the other?  No…I devoted about equal time.
• Was it because one had a much better product or service to offer than the other?  That’s debatable because they were so vastly different, but if you know me and my commitment to excellence and only offering the best, then no again.

So what was the difference?  That’s easy…one I got paid primarily through linear income, the other primarily through residual income.  What’s that mean you ask…well keep reading to find out.

Linear income is how most people make money.  You trade a block of time or a product or service for a block of money.  You put in 40 hours at the office, they in turn give you a paycheck.  You sell your product, you get a commission.  Pretty simple.  Problem is there is a cap on your income.  If you want more money you have a few options:

• Get a new higher paying job.  Hey good luck with that in this economy.
• Get a raise at your current job.  More likely to happen than the previous one but probably isn’t the kind of windfall you’re looking for.
• Work more hours or sell more widgets  The problem here is, even this has a cap to it…there are only so many hours in a day to work or be out selling your goods or services.  Even if your worked 24 hours per day, 365 days per year that is still a cap on your income and besides who wants to work all the time.

Linear income is what my first business was all about.  The more I was able to sell my service to people, the more I made.  What I finally learned though through much study and research is that smart people while they may have some sort of linear income (I do, the church pays me a block of money for my block of time), primarily rely on residual income. My second business had a mix of linear and residual income and it allowed me to make 4X’s per year what my other business did even though I was working the same amount of time.  What that allowed me to do was become generous in helping others and ultimately it afforded me more time to studying God’s Word which is what eventually had a major impact on me being called into full-time vocational ministry.  While I no longer own either of my previous two businesses, because of the time they would take away from serving the church full-time, Lisa and I still do rely on residual income for our giving and retirement goals.

So what is residual income? It simply means you do the work once and you get paid for it over and over again in the future.  I’ll give you an example from one of my favorite comedians of all-time…Jerry Seinfeld.  By the time the last episode of his show aired in 1998, Jerry was making a whopping 1 Million Dollars per episode.  24 episodes that year (time/service) multiplied by 1 million dollars (money) = 24 million dollars in linear income.  Not a bad gig if you can get it!

Here’s the cool part, he is still getting paid for that work.  How?  Residual income.  You see the show is in syndication which means every time there is a re-run on he gets paid a small amount.  I don’t know the exact amount but let’s say it’s $100 per episode, per station.  Now that number pales in comparison to the 1 million per episode that he was previously making right?  Nope…that’s wrong.  I just checked my TV Guide listing for here in Harrisburg and this week alone in our market I can watch 40 different episodes on local channels.   There are 210 major metropolitan areas in the US and let’s say they too are like Harrisburg and offer 40 Seinfeld episodes per week in their market.  40 episodes multiplied by $100 per episode multiplied by 210 markets= $840,000 per week. Now multiply that by 52 weeks and I estimate Seinfeld is making over 40 million dollars per year for work he stopped doing 13 years ago.  Pretty cool huh?  That’s the power of residual income…do the work once but keep getting paid for it!

Now I know some of you are saying, I’m not an actor or singer getting royalties, I can’t make residual income.  You’re right you may not make that kind of money but you can still make residual income.  In fact most of you are right now…yep I’m talking to you.  Do you have any money in a savings account?  If so then you are making some residual income.  Now granted it’s not much but the principle still applies, you made money once for time, services or goods…you put that money into the bank…and now it’s still making you money in a little bit of interest.  The question is are there better ways for average people like you and I to tap into this principle?  Again the answer is yes.

Many of you have heard of GroupOn.  It’s really taken off the past year or so.  It allows people to buy great items at a discount.  The reason this works is because of the power of Facebook and Twitter.  Businesses want to give a discount because they know what they lose in profit margin they will make up in volume.  For example, would you rather sell 10 of your items where you make $10 in profit or 50 of them at $8 in profit?  The latter right!  Again it’s because of social media like Facebook and Twitter that the word gets out faster than through normal means of advertising.  One person heard about GroupOn, they told a friend (usually on Facebook), who told a friend, who told a friend, etc.  Each of these people registered for GroupOn’s deal of the day and now are saving all kinds of money on products they wanted.  Does that make sense?  You’ll listen to and believe a friend’s recommendation  for a product or service much more than you will a paid advertisement.  So Group On has been great if you want to save some money yourself…but it doesn’t have a residual income aspect to it.

That’s where Moolala comes in.  It’s the same as GroupOn but you actually get paid for every time your friends buy something, or their friends, or their friend’s friends, or their friend’s friend’s friends.  Here’s the best part…IT’S ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!! Unlike a lot of programs/home-based businesses out there that you might have heard of where you have enrollment fees and products to buy, you have nothing to lose by registering on the Moolala site.  Here’s how it works:

Moolala everyday sends out a deal of the day coupon just like GroupOn does.  If you buy it, not only do you get the great discount on a product you wanted, but you’ll also receive a 2% cash bonus on the purchase price.  So for example, let’s say you see an item you really want that normally sells for $35 but Moolala is offering it for $20.  Not only do you get the item at a discounted price, but you’ll also get a 2% bonus on that $20.  Now you’re going,  “Big deal Gilbert, they’re going to give me $0.40. What in the world can I do with that?”  Well remember how Seinfeld’s $100 didn’t sound like a lot but it compounded to be worth millions?  Not saying you’ll make millions here but the same principle is about to apply.  You see again anyone that has registered for Moolala under you that makes a purchase you’ll get paid 2% as you will for the people that register under them, and under them and under them.  A total of 10% commissions get paid out on every sale.  You get 2% of that for every purchase you make or anyone within 4 levels deep of you!

Now how are you going to recruit people?  Simple…put the link for people to register under you on your Facebook and Twitter status up-dates, then encourage them to do the same.   Again it’s FREE and you have nothing to lose by trying!

Now let me give you an example of how this could work to put extra money in your pocket this year:

• Do you think if you posted about Moolala on Facebook and Twitter that at least 10 of your friends would register?  I think they would, after all it’s FREE…I had 10 within the first two weeks and I only posted twice.
• Do you think you could encourage each them to get 10 of their friends to register as well?  If you did it why can’t they?
• Now encourage them to help those people to do the same and the same one level deeper.
• Again this is the power of Facebook and Twitter…think about all the stupid stuff that gets passed along virally on status up-dates and how quickly that spreads…this is your chance to make some money on what people are already doing naturally.
• In the above example that would give you at total of 11,111 people you’d be eligible to make money off of from their purchases.
• Now let’s assume that each person only averaged one $20 purchase per year. (I just bought something for $10 the other day…it was a book/CD set I really wanted and Moolala had it cheaper than the normal $30 if I ordered it directly from the publisher)
• That would be an extra $4400 in your pocket.
• What would you do with an extra 4 grand per year?
• Again that example is assuming you stopped at recruiting 10 people as does every one below you four levels deep.
• It also assumes that people only buy $20 per year on average.  The other day a vacation trip to the Rocky Mountains was listed for $599.  It would only take one person buying that to increase your averages.

So back to our discussion on residual income.  You do the work once…recruit people to sign-up, but yet you’ll continue to get paid on their purchases for as long as Moolala is around.  With my busy schedule at the church I don’t have time for more traditional businesses but this was a no brainer for me when I first heard about it…and especially since it’s just starting and you and I can be at the front end before it really takes off like GroupOn has.  Remember the sooner you sign-up the more likely it is that your friends and their friends haven’t and thus are eligible to register under you.

Let me end by saying, money is not the be all end all of life.  There are much more important and eternal things to be concerned about.  As my friend Scott says, “True wealth is all the things that money can’t buy and death can’t take away”.  However money is a tool that God can use to help you make a difference in this world.  So with that in mind, I want to make as much as I can so that I can invest in the lives of others.  I truly believe Moolala is going to take off just like GroupOn did and will allow Lisa and I to continue serving others better.  So whether you’re looking to pay the bills, get out of debt or give more away, why not give Moolala a try?