What is Passive Income

So You Think You Want To Start Your Own Biz

If you’ve been toying around with the idea of starting an online biz but you keep putting it off for many reasons like; you have no time, talent or interest in making, sourcing or sell a physical product, or you’re simply too shy to deal with customers – then keep reading.

If you’ve got a passion for something in life (think, that specific thing that lights you up!) and you want to share it with an audience through a blog but you’ve never really pursued it – keep reading.

If you’ve ever wondered about creating an online biz using the skills and experiences you’ve acquired throughout your life or through a past career but you have no idea where to start – keep reading.

What Is Passive Income?

A passive income-generating online business might be something you need to consider learning a bit more about. A passive income product is one where you can monetise from your passion, your skills and these interests and actually make money while you sleep or while you’re at your ‘regular job' AND it completely fulfils your need for a creative outlet. Yep! You got it. This is exactly what passive income is. Another way of understanding it is that regular income stops when you stop, but passive income doesn’t.

Sometimes the term passive income is also referred to as residual income. Traditional forms of passive income include things like real estate and stocks, but the internet has opened up a completely new realm when it comes to passive income businesses.

What’s Involved?

In general, people start their passive income generating biz by first creating an online platform but this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Your platform could be in the form of a blog or Facebook group or podcast, about a passion project or a long standing hobby within a particular niche. It could be a side project that pulls in all those skills you’ve acquired in your regular 9-5 job. Once you’ve captured your very niched audience you can then begin to fulfil their needs by creating products.

The key thing to understand about a passive income biz is that it WILL require A LOT of time in those early days, especially if you’re doing it off a platform that you’ve created. Growing your platform takes time, growing your email list takes time, creating your products takes time BUT the more time you invest, the better your outcomes. Therefore, if you are going to pursue this type of business, you need to make sure that it is in an area that you LOVE. Your WHY needs to be solid and you need to be clear that your products will help fulfil a need for others. It could be anything!

Examples Please!

So here are some examples just from the top of my head.

A hobby photographer could develop a course on photography. The home cook or baker could write an ebook with their family’s favourite recipes, the Mum with a passion for early childhood activities could create her own online product to inspire and equip other parents with purposeful games to play with their child. The ex-beauty therapist could publish a course for DIY makeup. The aspiring actress could make a course for high school students helping to coach them through their practical exams. The super fit mama with a large social media following could sell a mama’s guide to fitness post baby… the ideas are endless. What skills and interests do you have, that you could share through the creation of a passive income product?

The Pros

The internet is an incredible vehicle for delivering information to a global audience, with the added bonus being its operating hours of 24/7! The great thing about a passive income product is that you can do it from anywhere in the world and it doesn’t involve you being physically present to make the transaction. You don’t have to be an extrovert with highly developed customer service experience and you will literally wake up to transactions that were made overnight while you slept. Cool huh? Many online entrepreneurs have more than one passive income product, and many again, have even more than one passive income generating business. Think – multiple income streams from multiple online businesses.

The Cons

So what’s hard about it? You will have to consider the amount of time it will take to set up the following: building your platform (if you choose to do this, WILL take more hours than you can fathom), you’ll need a website, you’ll need to dedicate time to marketing your product through social media or advertising, running your social media accounts, managing conversions, email etc.

What you also need to know is that the majority of your time will be spent during the beginning phases (product creation) this is where your largest investment of time will be but once you’ve done it, it’s DONE! I’m sure you’d update your product from time to time, to keep it current or to add more to it (as you feel necessary, as time changes and as you learn more yourself) but essentially passive income is producing an online product, one time, that keeps on selling.

Stay Tuned

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for our latest podcast episode, launching this Monday, where I interview an Aussie Mum living in the USA, who has her own online biz that monetizes her passion and interest in photography. The beauty about her online business is that even though she had it all set up here in Australia, when the time came for her and hubby to move with the family, her business could easily travel with her. It also meant that she had flexible work hours to keep growing her business even throughout her pregnancy and during her maternity leave – all extra bonuses of having a passive income generating biz!

Is A Passive Income Biz For You?

Do you think your blog or biz could generate a passive income through a particular product that serves a need? Maybe you are an e-commerce store with a physical product. Is there any type of product you could create that would fulfil a need for your target audience that will generate you a passive income? Again, something that won’t stop generating an income just because you stop.

Want to know more?

Check out this cool explanation by Pat Flynn, a genius when it comes to passive income, so good in fact, that his online biz is called Smart Passive Income! You might even want to check out his podcasts which are INCREDIBLE!

Check out this video on Passive Income by Pat Flynn.

Hope this helps a little in explaining the big topic of passive income.

xx

Tracu\y