[GRAB THE PDF]
It sure sounds good to wake up with money in your bank account
One of the things I remember dreaming about and worrying about from a really early stage in my business is how I was going to get income or revenue in. That wasn’t so hard. So if you are a service provider or you make physical products, maybe this is something that you can relate to because obviously building a business is hard and a lot of us have a story that it needs to be hard to count and that’s a whole different, that’s a whole different topic we can dive into later. But one of the answers to this issue as an entrepreneur when you were out there hustling to try and get clients or to try and get sales is to have revenue streams or sources of income in your business, which feel easy and or can be sold or bought while you sleep. Most of us call these passive income products and most of us have them on our mind because it sure sounds good to wake up with money in your bank account that you don’t have to go out and deliver anything for, right? So if you are interested in bringing passive or leveraged income into your business and you’re not really sure where to start, you’re definitely going to want to pay attention because we are going to dive into it today and I’m going to give you some really helpful tips on how to actually make that transition from whatever you’re doing now to having some passive or leveraged income in your business. Let’s make some magic.
I know it’s on your mind. It certainly was on mine for years and years and years before I brought it to life. And that is this idea of passive income. So first of all, let’s just get it out of the way.
Passive income isn’t that passive.
You don’t just decide one day you’re going to make money while you sleep and then it just happens, but a lot of the work that happens with passive income isn’t in the delivery of your service or product. It’s in the selling, so we’re going to talk about that in a minute. However, if passive income is something you’re interested in and you’re not really sure where to start, let’s have a look at the process of actually getting from where you are now:
- It might be showing up for an hour and getting paid for that hour
- It might be physically shipping something out
- It might be having to show up live for a group class
towards products that you can sell that feel easier, products that you can sell that you can actually make money while you sleep.
The first step is to build an audience.
The first step is to have someone to sell to, and I know that seems a little bit backwards, but as I said, the hardest part of creating passive income isn’t the thing. It’s the selling. So especially for those of you who are a little nervous about marketing or selling, this is critical that you do this step first.
Now that audience can be in an email list or it can be somewhere like a Facebook group, but you want to start by gathering together people who are the type of people who might want this passive income product thing that you’re going to build and create a community. You want to engage with them, you want to hang out with them, you want to get to know them because what’s going to happen with that group more important than even being able to sell to them is they are going to tell you what they want. They are going to help you pick what that first passive income products should be, which will save you so much time and so much heartache and so much money. So first you’re going to build an audience and like I said, great places to do that are on
But you’re going to start to gather people together. That is the first step.
Now I know you’re wondering what to do next and what you’re actually going to build and sell because it’s impossible to not worry about what the hell has thing is going to be that’s going to make you your millions. So let’s look at a couple of different types of passive income products that might be a good fit for you. Make sure you check out the show notes from this episode because there is a really super awesome PDF there that will help you make some decisions about which one of these might be the right fit for you. But let’s have a look.
Passive Income Ideas
Typically as passive income products, there are a few really common types that most people are looking at when they are looking to sell something particularly online.
- Physical and digital products / courses
- Online events
- Membership sites
So probably one of the most popular things that you’ve seen people sell online is a physical or digital product. Now, again, not completely passive because there is some delivery involved in the physical products, unless you’re using something like Amazon or a fulfilment house. This is the easiest starting point for a lot of people when they look at building something passive.
So examples of this would be potentially writing a book, publishing it on Amazon and having Amazon fulfil that book. That is a physical product that is fulfilled by someone else. Or using a site like Society Six, where you can bring a design or a photograph to a physical product like a print or an iPhone case and they will physically fulfil that product for you, which is what makes it more passive because you’re not packing and shipping it. Even some of those marketplaces, you’re not even putting it on your own website, they can do that for you.
Then we look at digital products like for example, an Ebook, so something that someone is buying and it’s getting automatically delivered online and it’s a really, really useful for them and you don’t have to touch it. It’s something that’s been set up in advance and you just get notified when you get paid. So the second type that we’re looking at is an online course. So somewhat similar to a digital product and online course usually has multiple pieces or parts that go along with it. Sometimes there is a live component to that course. So sometimes you still have to show up and do live calls for example, but sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it’s all packaged up and it’s much more like a digital product. People buy it, they get access to some sort of hub or platform where the course material lives and they take them through. They take themselves through some sort of learning or how to that you have packaged and put together for them.
The next type that we’re looking at is an online event. So these are often called summits, and you have a lot of experts coming together with really valuable, essentially online course material to surround a particular topic or strategy. And you can put this together by having relationships with these experts and getting them to provide content to you. And then you can sell all of this great bundle of stuff at a really, really great price. And it’s a fantastic way to get a ton of people in with a ton of different interesting experts in topics, but not necessarily having to create or build all of that content yourself.
And then the last one, which is one of my favorites, is a membership site.
So this is where people will be giving you their credit card and signing up for regular membership, whether that’s monthly or quarterly or annually to be a part of some sort of community. So that might be something where you’re shipping them a physical product like a subscription box or it might something be something completely digital where they’re part of a community or some sort of educational program, where you are delivering content or how-to’s or conversations to them on a fairly regular basis that they learn and get value from.
So these are some great options to look at if you’re looking to make that first leap from having a service business into having some passive income products.
Remember, you’re not going to start with making the decision about what you’re going to sell. You’re going to start by building an audience, but then when you’ve got some people in there and they’re starting to tell you the things that they’re worried about or thinking about things that they need, things that they wish were available, then you can put your brain to work to figure out what sort of way you might want to deliver to that, to them that is good for your freedom and fulfilment.
How to make the decision about which one is right for you. I look at what I call the 5 Freedom Factors.
- Is it easy to outsource?
- Is it scalable?
- Is there a high potential for profit margin?
- Is there a premium price tag?
- Is it recurring?
Grab this PDF outlining all of these factors and helping you determine which passive income products have which of these factors in what amounts so that you can kind of see across the board, which makes sense for you.
For example, if you’re more concerned with it being easy versus scalable that’s in the PDF.
If you’re more concerned with having something that can be sold at a premium price point because you’d rather sell less, you can see that as well. So make sure that you go to the show notes and grab this PDF, because it’s a really helpful tool for some of this decision making. But tests touching back on the freedom factors, the only one on the list you’ll see that has all five freedom factors is a membership site. So next week we are going to dive into that and why it’s one of my favorite business models because it literally ticks all the boxes in terms of helping you build freedom and fulfilment as an entrepreneur.
And then I’d love it if you go over and join our free Facebook group where we have conversations like this, and this is a place where we can help you brainstorm and maybe help you workshop some of your ideas equally. You can find us on Instagram @jnicholesmith, and we can help you actually go through the process of making some of these decisions and bringing some of this stuff to life, because I know it’s hard. You’re going to have a lot of resistance to it. It’s something new, and anytime something’s new, it’s a little bit scary. So we are here to help and I hope to see you there.
