Passive income is a type of unearned income that is acquired automatically with minimal labour to earn or maintain.
This means I can add as many income streams to my business as I wish and not have to worry about the extra workload or having to take on more staff.
Passive income can be created in all sorts of ways such as:
- Investing in stocks and shares
- Payment for intellectual property
- Buying and selling crypto currency
- Property investment
- Dividend bonds
But I’m not clever enough to do those things so I needed something a little simpler to earn money from and these are the things I’ve found work well without having to have a degree in finance or business.
- Selling other people’s products and services for a commission
- Becoming an Amazon associate
- Drop-shipping
- Creating and selling my own online courses
- Becoming a re-seller on Amazon
Let’s look at each of those a little more closely so that you get a better understanding of them.
Passive Income Idea 1: Selling other people’s products and services for a commission
I’ve worked with some amazing coaches over the years and their courses and programmes have helped me achieve everything I’ve achieved so far in my business. I now recommend those courses and programmes to other people and if they buy I get paid a commission from the coach.
This is the way I started as an online marketer and it’s probably the easiest and quickest way to get a second income stream set up as it doesn’t require you to buy anything or create anything of your own to sell.
The customer service, delivery, quality assurance and everything else is someone else’s problem, all you need to do is refer people to that course or programme and then sit back and wait for the commission to come rolling in.
For someone who is new to online marketing or you need to earn some money fast this is what I would recommend you do to get started.
Passive Income Idea 2: Become an Amazon Associate
Amazon offers an associate programme which, once accepted for enables you to get an affiliate link and then sell ANYTHING that Amazon has to offer.
This is much the same as passive income idea 1 in that you get paid a commission for recommending products sold on Amazon to your friends, family, peers or anyone else. If they use your affiliate link to visit Amazon and then go on to buy that product you will get paid a commission from Amazon as a thank you.
Commissions vary greatly on Amazon so choose your product carefully, however, I once promoted swimming goggles and someone ended up buying an exercise bike so I got £100 commission for doing NOTHING as once someone is on Amazon via your link you will get a commission on anything they buy rather than just the product your were recommending.
I would recommend this option ONLY if you know a bit about online marketing as to make any real money from this you will need to promote your link in a professional way so that enough people see it and use it. As a second income stream it works really well though.
Passive Income Idea 3: Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is where you find a product that can be shipped by the manufacturer so you don’t ever have to see it or store it or handle it in any way.
For example: let’s say you wanted to sell patch work quilts. You would find a manufacturer who could make the quilts and would be happy to ship them out to your customers You would then agree a price for those quilts including the delivery costs so that you know what each unit would cost you to buy.
You then set up a website or go on Etsy and advertise your quilts and the cost price + whatever you want to make as a profit. When someone buys the quilt the order gets sent straight to the manufacturer who then makes the quilt and sends it out to your customer. You pay the manufacturer the agreed amount to make the quilt and whatever is left over is yours.
Drop shipping can be a very cost effective way of setting up an e-commerce business as you don’t have to worry about manufacturing, warehousing, delivery or logistics.
Again, I would only recommend this as a starting point if you are already familiar with selling online as there are a lot of moving parts involved in getting this set up and running smoothly.
Passive Income Idea 4: Creating and Selling Your Own Online Courses
Do you know how to do something? If so you can create an online course. I’ve seen them on literally everything you can think of – how to complete the rubiks cube to how to become a zen master.
If you can show someone how to do something in a few simple steps you can create an online course and sell it. This is how I’ve created most of my income streams, by creating various online courses that show people how to accomplish something they have been struggling with.
Creating your own courses isn’t difficult and you can even get them hosted on professional platforms for free so that they look and feel like a “proper” course.
If you are a coach, tutor, hobbyist, author, teacher or mentor this is what I would recommend as a way of creating passive income as you will probably already have the content available to get up and running very quickly.
Passive Income Idea 5: Becoming a re-seller on Amazon.
Becoming a re-seller just means you buy something in from someone and then re-sell it as your own.
When I first started out learning about online marketing I was told by my coach to choose a product to sell. A I was a swimmer the first thing that popped into my head were swimming goggles.
I bought the swimming goggles from China and then re-packaged them and sold them as my own brand on Amazon.
Although not completely passive income as I still had to handle the product, re-label it and then send it into the Amazon warehouse it only took about an hour a week, so I am going to include that in my passive income list.
If you take this route you need to make sure that the person you are buying the product from is happy for you to re-label it as your own otherwise you can get into trouble with copyright infringement.
This is a great way to learn about selling online as you don’t have to worry about getting the item made yourself you just buy it in at one price and sell it at another (minus the Amazon seller fees).
Watch My Free Passive Income Training Webinar
If I’ve piqued your interest that’s great because my coach once told me that not having multiple income streams in a business was a sure fire road to disaster – and he would have been right too as I found out a few years later.
One of my largest clients pulled the plug after having their funding cut and I lost all my income from them in just one week!
That would have been a disaster if I hadn’t taken on board what my coach had told me and created other income streams to fall back on.
As it turned out I was fine and managed to keep going until I could replace that income.
Then came Covid.
I was running face to face workshops to teach clients how to market their businesses online when one night the prime minister said we all had to stay at home – my workshops were no longer allowed.
Again, this would have been the end of my business if I’d not had all my other income streams to fall back on. I’m so glad now that I spent the time to create those online courses because they have literally kept my business going.
I now teach others how to create multiple income streams so that if the worst happens and they lose their job, their clients, their office or their health, they are still able to make money.
I this appeals to you I’d love for you to watch my FREE training webinar.
I’m going to tell you how I set up those income streams and how you can do it too.
I’m nothing special, I have no special skills and I knew NOTHING about business before I decided to learn online marketing – so if I can do it, you can do it.
In the training I’m going to be sharing my 6 simple steps for creating a passive income in just 2 weeks!
I WON’T spend the first 10 minutes waffling on about how great I am (because I’m not), I WON’T be spending the last half an hour doing some heavy sales pitch at the end and I WON’T disappoint you by not sharing with you exactly what those 6 steps are (I’ve promised so I will deliver).
I’ll also be offering you a priceless free gift to help you get your passive income idea set up and working for you as quickly as possible – so don’t miss out, watch this amazing free training right now!