How to build this without a team

Check off each one as you build your own income buckets.

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I’m not getting any money from a 401k — at least not one from a job where you’re putting in money and someone’s matching it. I did set one up for my business recently, but most people aren’t going to have enough in their 401k to actually live off of. And most people won’t be able to retire from a career with enough to live on forever, unless it’s a certain level of career. I see a lot of teachers, firemen, and policemen who put in their time and get to retire, but that’s not most of us — and definitely not those of us who’ve had any kind of entrepreneurship our whole life. Unless you reach the level where you’ve got millions in a bank account somewhere, you probably don’t have enough.

So here’s what I’m doing instead. I have a digital marketing business, and I often sit and ask myself what kind of advice or help I can give the people who follow me on YouTube and my blogs. Part of it is just hope that there’s something more, because there always is. I find people get stuck in limiting beliefs that say this isn’t something I could do, or she can only do this because of XYZ.

Let me just tell you — I grew up poor. Multiple fathers, our school clothes were layaway at Kmart, Gen X latchkey kid who came home and fed myself because there was never enough food. A lot of us can relate to that. So I had to create anything that was going to make extra money. Some people get stuck saying, “I didn’t have, so I won’t” — and that’s a mindset I’ve seen more people adopt than the opposite, which is what I did: if I want to have nice things, if I want security, if I want to feed my cats well, if I want to travel, these are the things I need to do.

So today I’m going to break down what those things are, what I do, and how you might pick up one or two of them. You’re probably not going to do all of them, but you have options. If you haven’t met me, I’m Lori Ballen, and this year I’m on track to make $450,000 to $500,000 as a full-time content creator. I don’t have clients outside my coaching program, but please don’t disqualify me because I make money as a coach — there are so many opportunities here outside of coaching.

I have three main buckets, and inside those buckets there are multiple line items for how I create income. Coaching and courses is one of those buckets — it’s not even the highest earning one, but it’s up there, six figures on its own.

The second bucket, also six figures on its own, is affiliate marketing. That could be reviewing products you already buy on Amazon and earning commissions, on Amazon itself, YouTube Shopping, or Instagram with a direct DM — I show people a microphone and link to it, or say DM me and I’ll send you the details. You can do this on Pinterest too. I’ve had a couple of six-figure years with TikTok Shop. I’m not going after it as aggressively right now because I don’t love some of the political stuff around how you have to make money there, but because I can do a lot of different things, I pick and choose where my energy goes. I also love software. What happens is I teach people a specific strategy — a legit framework I apply every day in my real business, building websites, Pinterest, or reviews — and then they want to know about the software I’m using. So I tell them, link to it, and earn a commission off the subscription. It doesn’t cost them extra, and I always disclose it, but it’s a nice stacking recurring income, and that alone is six figures for me.

The third bucket is my publishing income, which is just now reaching that level, and it’s actually my fastest growing of the three, because publishing is basically writing — creating websites, Substack, ebooks, frameworks, and digital products, things I’m actually doing that I can offer to other people, and they buy them.

Breaking that down: Substack is a newsletter platform where you write articles. It could be about politics, budgeting, saving money, extreme couponing, or mom stuff. Most of you following me are a bit older, so you’ve got teenagers or you’re in the empty nest phase — my kids are grown now, graduated college, one of them’s married. So you might be teaching smart investing, smart retirement, or writing about what it’s like to be a midlife woman, a man in his retirement years, a grandma — maybe fiction, maybe your favorite hobby like gardening or cooking. Beauty and fashion does really well too. You’re not limited — go to Substack and there’s an explore bar with categories, there’s something for everybody. Don’t think “Lori teaches money so that’s why she makes money,” because I see a lot of people who don’t teach money who make a lot of money.

You write on Substack and create little notes that are kind of like social posts every day — different from Facebook, more like a tweet or a LinkedIn post, little takeaways, little ahas, little excerpts of advice. People actually pay to subscribe to your newsletter to get it every week. It could be five bucks as the lowest, and $20 a month is about the highest I normally see — somewhere in that range. I’ve tested $8, $10, $12, $15, and $20. My first paid subscriber was in January of this year, if you’re watching this in 2026, and I became a bestseller in four months. You need hundreds of subscribers to get into the bestseller range, then there’s a thousand-plus level and a ten-thousand-plus level. There are people making six figures with their Substack, and it’s a really cool thing. That little new thing I started this year is worth thousands of dollars — it ranges, sometimes a big burst, then it lags a little, so let’s say $1,500 to $2,000.

Then there’s a spin-off of that — I sell ebooks, so I’ve got spin-off ebooks coming from Substack. I have Substack people becoming coaching clients, I have Substack people following my YouTube channel and adding revenue there too — all these little stacking layers. Some people are only on Substack and don’t do anything else, and I think they’re leaving money on the table, because if you’re already writing there, there might be other places to write too, or your readers might be interested in your digital products — spreadsheets, workflows, PDFs. Why wouldn’t you entertain that a little? Substack also has podcasting and video now — they’re not sponsoring this, I’m just telling you about it.

I also write on my own website, loriballen.com, which leans heavy toward specific strategies — Pinterest, Etsy, Shopify, making money — where Substack for me is a lot more “here’s what I did and here’s what happened.” It’s got a lot more storytelling, real numbers, real strategy, what I learned. Loriballen.com is much more structured — it’s not like whatever I put on Substack I also put there. I drive traffic to loriballen.com with Google, AI search, and Pinterest and YouTube heavily, and I make money there with ad revenue. I have another blog about homemade soaps and crafting, things that appeal to Pinterest users, and when they click a pin and land on my website, I have ads there put on by Google — a Google AdSense account. You set up a little piece of code on your WordPress website, it’s so easy, and Google runs experiments to figure out the best place for your ads, and you collect the money once a month. That’s a couple thousand for me, but I know people making six figures doing that.

When we talk about money, there’s no guarantee of how much or how fast. I sometimes get emails from people in a panic — how can I make money in six weeks, this emergency just happened — and that’s not what I teach. Have I done things fast? Absolutely. Have I done things that took forever and I still do them because I enjoy them? Absolutely. So remember, there are levels of scale — your niche matters, the platform matters, how much time and effort and energy you put in, how much you learn and work the algorithm.

One of my skill sets is that I’m a pattern spotter. I think it’s because I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember — I remember doing logic puzzles as a kid, that was one of my favorite things. I know how to see something and eliminate things, and I can spot patterns. When something changes, even the tiniest pivot, I can spot it. That’s a skill set that lends well to digital marketing, because I can get on a new platform and quickly see what works. I do spend time studying the platform, going, that’s working, that’s not working. I keep telling people what’s working and they still do things differently — I’m not sure why they don’t follow the pattern.

There’s a rhythm, there’s an algorithm. Substack, for example, is not “here’s how I feel today” — it’s not a place to rant about whatever, unless your whole Substack is about that. You can’t post about lunch one day and your date the next and work on Wednesday — that’s Facebook, not Substack. Even on TikTok, the people who do really well are in a lane — always dancing, always singing, always ranting, always talking about dating, always talking about parenting. There’s a reason we follow that person. Go look at any influencer you can think of and ask what you’re following them for — it’s almost never “I like that person,” it’s “I like the way they do makeup,” “I like that they talk about getting older,” “I like the way they sing and dance.”

There’s a guy on TikTok right now, Scottish I think, with a little baby on the front of his bike. The kid says things like “daddy fish, daddy river,” and now everybody’s hearts are broken because he asked for his own bike, and everyone’s saying don’t give the baby his own bike. Why do we follow that guy? Because we love his baby and the dynamic between the father and son — it makes us feel something. Can he suddenly start talking about his lunch and we’ll follow him? Absolutely not. We’re not following him because we like him specifically, we’re following the dynamic. He can keep growing the channel with that dynamic, but he can’t just suddenly become something else. So think about whatever lane you’re going to pick.

Take PDFs and ebooks as an example — I have Substack and these spin-off ebooks. What do people follow me for on Substack? Mine is a little different because I launched it talking about getting older and being a 50-year-old who makes money online and has gone through all these transitions and started over. People like that because they think, oh, she failed too, but now she does this; she got divorced too, but now she does this; she was broke too, and now she does this. When people follow me they’ll say they follow me for the make-money strategies, but if you ask what they like about me specifically, they’ll say it’s because they see themselves in me, that I’m authentic, that I’m real, that I tell it like it is — or they’ll talk about the transformation story.

So whenever I’m creating, I have to tie in those transformation stories — they’re part of the brand. I’m a personal brand that teaches people how to make money online, and my main audience is over 50, people who want to make more money after retiring, after getting divorced, after starting a business — they’re stuck somewhere trying to move from here to here, more beginner level. So I can’t just go write an ebook about adopting stray cats, because even though that’s something I’ve done before, my audience wouldn’t buy that ebook — very few would follow it. I’d have to start a whole new channel or run ads, which I don’t do — my reach is all organic. But creating an ebook about how to become a full-time creator after 50 is perfect, that’s my next book, I haven’t done it yet. Creating an ebook about how to make money on YouTube, or how to make money selling ebooks — all of those are perfect for me. But a PDF about lifestyle, or anything not connected to making money, doesn’t fit. You have to be strategic about these spin-offs, because you have to look at who your audience actually is.

I know my audience is the over-40 creator, heavy emphasis on over 50 now because I’m over 50 and that’s how it works. I know what stage of life they’re in, mostly what financial situation my ideal audience is in — they have enough resources to invest in their business, maybe still going on credit cards, but they have resources. It’s typically not somebody completely bottomed out needing a Hail Mary rescue, because it takes time to build these things.

You can start Substack for free — in fact, it was one of the best platforms for me. No investment, everything I make there is profit except what Substack takes as their piece, and that only comes after you sell something. No software required, it’s a really good place to start. Same with YouTube — some people buy software for thumbnails, which you don’t have to do anymore with tools like ChatGPT. Some people buy analyzing or optimization software, but you don’t have to. Some people buy a fancy camera — I use my phone. The most expensive investment I’ve made is my microphone, and it just clips on, though there are cheap lapel mics too.

So all three buckets — affiliate marketing, coaching, and publishing — I could live off any one of them. If I said I’m done with that now, or a platform changed and something stopped working, I could live off one or two of the others, and that’s my favorite thing about doing what I do. Guaranteed retirement? No. Any retirement income coming in? No. But I have multiple levers I can pull. I can work from home, I can be in my pajamas, I can get older and achier — not that anyone wants that, but it seems to be what happens — and I don’t have to punch a clock, carry weighted trays, or meet with clients all day.

This is the life I’ve chosen, and now I’m at the point where I’ve got investments from my legit company that I can start investing more. But at 55, is what I’m putting into retirement now going to be enough to live off of? No, it’s too late for that, really. But can I make a lot of money doing what I do? Yes, absolutely — and that’s the beauty of this. You could pick up one of these income streams, or you could pick up several.