I’m so excited to bring to you yet another episode about Passive Income. Today, we’re going to talk about whether or not Passive Income is just a pipe dream.
You might be wondering if it’s really possible to make income passively, or if it’s still going to take you just as much time or more than your active income takes you.
You might also want to know whether or not to believe all of those articles you find on Pinterest telling you that you can make passive income without lifting a finger ever again… the one’s that are like “make 6 figures without doing anything ever again.”
We’re going to chat about those things on today’s episode.
Listen to the episode below:EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
It’s super important to preface everything by saying that passive income still takes work.
There are ways to make super passive income, but the majority of passive income requires at least a little bit of work upfront.
So, I wanted to talk about a few of these misconceptions and make sure that you know what you might be getting yourself info if you decide to go this route with your business.
Let’s start off by talking about a few of the ways that I make passive income in my business at this point in time.
There are four or five main ways that I make this income and those are:
- Classes on Skillshare
- My own courses or programs that I sell on my own website
- Ebooks
- My shop on Creative Market where I sell some of my stock photos from my travels
- And affiliate income (affiliate income is typically by sharing products or software that I love, but I’ve also made it through sharing the products of friends that I’ve gone through their programs and had stellar results).
- Also, about a year ago, I had a membership. I learned that I didn’t really love the type of membership model that I had created, so I’m currently working on making a membership that requires less of my energy…because I’m an introvert, y’all.)
So these are a few of the ways that I have created passive income in my business.
With each of them, the one that has taken the least amount of time is my shop on Creative Market. Now, I do need to say that I don’t make much money from my shop. I’ve had my shop for years and years, and have only made several hundred dollars overall with my shop. The first couple of years, I made more money because there weren’t as many photographers selling their photos on the site.
But I love the fact that I can sell my travel photos that would otherwise just take up space on an external hard drive. It’s a great way for me to buy things that I need for my business from Creative Market without having to use the money from my bank account. So even though it isn’t a lot, there’s still a benefit for me there.
Another passive income stream that hasn’t taken a lot of my time is affiliate marketing. I have made a lot more from affiliate marketing than from my Creative Market shop. I like to drop the affiliate links in blog posts, as well as inside of my courses (I always make sure to include a disclaimer that they are in fact affiliate links), and I’ve also done campaigns through email marketing to sell affiliate products, which is where I’ve seen the most money from affiliates all at once. But overall, this doesn’t take too much time for me to do.
Typically, you have to set up your affiliate account with whatever product or software that you want to be an affiliate for and then share the links. The thing that I’ve found, though, is that you need to do a few things to actually generate sales from those links, so that is where the work comes in. I’ve had the most success with sharing links inside of my courses, as I’m usually talking about the software that I use, then I include the link and those people who are interested can go check it out and sign up. So, this might require a little bit of explanation on your part as to why the product or software is useful for your readers or students. But basically that is what you have to do to make those affiliate sales.
You can use affiliate links, even if you are a product-based business. If you’d like me to share a bit more about affiliates in the future, be sure to DM me on Instagram and let me know, so that way I can create that episode for you!
The next one that doesn’t take a lot of my time is when I create ebooks. I find this process most of the time is rather quick. I can make an ebook in a weekend, but that’s in large part because I’ve done it so many times. It also really depends on the topic itself, some topics I find are harder to create than others. I use templates that I’ve made in Canva to speed up the workflow. This really helps to make life so much easier, because the design is pretty much finished and all I need to do is plop in the information, swap out a few photos, and then maybe change a few colors if I want to.
But overall, I can make an ebook in a weekend. For you, it might take a little more time, especially with the first one. Again, the time investment for me feels a little bit smaller than the other passive income streams, but I don’t like to make ebooks as much as I like to make courses and classes for Skillshare.
Now, courses, classes, programs, memberships are the biggest time investment. I find that my students can get stuck with creating courses when they’re doing it alone because they have a fear of the tech or don’t really know how to put the class together. But I’ve worked through this process with several 1:1 clients and with the students of my Digital Product Breakthrough program. Which, by the way, is opening up again really soon! If you want to join the waitlist, you can join by going to: amandacreekcreative.com/dpb-waitlist. This course is all about creating passive income from digital products and courses.
So, now, like I said, courses and programs can take a bit more time to actually develop. I don’t develop them before I sell them, though. I actually create the course live with my students through a Beta Round. Then I resell the course, and that’s where it becomes much more passive. My Skillshare classes are different, though, as I have to create the class upfront. But they usually take anywhere between 1 day and 1 week to make. So, it takes longer than the other things I just mentioned, but I find that I make the most money from this type of passive income.
So, as you can see, passive income does take time upfront. You have to actually develop the product itself and you also need to probably do a little bit of research, as well as market your products. So, it’s not that you don’t do anything at all. That’s a misconception that some people on the internet might like you to believe.
But, as I said in the last episode, you can create something once and then sell it over and over again. And after you create it, it might take little to upkeep. So then you’ll have more time to devote to other things that you’d like to do.
And, as you could probably see, some passive income streams don’t make as much money at first as others. It depends on a lot of factors, but let’s just say that it depends on how much time you pour into the passive income stream when it comes to your marketing efforts.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather pour my marketing efforts into something that I enjoy creating. So, that’s why I spend most of my time developing and making courses. Plus, courses have been such a great way for me to help you all. I love seeing how much progress my students make.
I will also say that with all of my passive income streams together, it makes up about 50% of my current monthly revenue. Personally, I’m working to increase that to be where passive income makes up at least 80-90% of my income. But it is possible to make money through passive income. It still takes time to build and patience to see it through.
Instagram: @amanda_creek
