Passive income does not have to be dependant on your time. It doesn’t have to be dependant on your involvement. It doesn’t even have to be dependant on your skill or expertise. These are the biggest misconceptions in business today!

To me, passive income is a business that, once setup, you will continue to earn money from after you have stepped away from it. It does not require any significant time investment.

Obviously there is always some work to be done here and there to keep a business bringing in the clients. However, if you can keep this work ...]]> A lot of my clients get very excited by the idea of generating a passive income or revenue stream. However, the number of them that are happy to simply add extra work to their lives to create that income stream is far too large.

Passive income does not have to be dependant on your time. It doesn’t have to be dependant on your involvement. It doesn’t even have to be dependant on your skill or expertise. These are the biggest misconceptions in business today!

Image by Dhilung Kirat

To me, passive income is a business that, once setup, you will continue to earn money from after you have stepped away from it. It does not require any significant time investment.

Obviously there is always some work to be done here and there to keep a business bringing in the clients. However, if you can keep this work to a minimum (by setting it up right to begin with), you have an essentially completely passive income that will bring you money while you sleep.

To give you an example, I have a client that sells Instructional Videos. Now they call it a passive income because people go to their website, purchase the DVDs, then all my client has to do is receive the order, package the DVDs, then post the DVDs off to the customer. Sound good? Sound passive?

It is… but it isn’t.

Their DVD sales are still completely dependant on them handling and shipping the order. If they were on a holiday in Jamaica, would they be able to ship their DVDs to customers? Definitely not. The great thing about this example is that there is only 1 tiny step to making this 100% passive income – automating the DVD fulfillment.

If my client can get someone else to do the shipping of the DVDs (or even make the DVDs downloadable and eliminate the shipping completely), then we are talking about something that is a completely passive income. Bear in mind, my client doesn’t do any advertising for their DVDs, all they do is their regular job and people come to their website from experiencing their work. They have created a completely separate income stream that continues without their involvement.

Let’s look at another example. This time let’s look at something where you don’t need any skill at all to create a passive income.

Affiliate sales, or, people paying you for selling their products for them. Traditionally this is simply being a sales person. However in the online environment, anybody can do this and create an enormous income stream, without ever using your own product!

Ok, so you found a product that you want to sell (through services like ClickBank or Amazon), you get your own unique URL (or link) to that product that you need to get people to start clicking. If you create a small blog on the topic of that product, or you write a review on the product, or you have an interview with the author of the product, or you make a small landing page for the product, or (we could go on forever here) and you get people going to that link from your site/video, then every time someone purchases that course you are making money! And all you have to do is set something up well enough so that you have very little involvement in driving people to the site.

There are hundreds of different strategies for getting people to go to your website, then hundreds of different strategies for getting people to act a certain way once they are on our website so I won’t be talking about that here, but realise that with a good strategy, finding customers is as simple as following steps.

Now I know that recently, particularly being right at the start of the app boom, people are looking at apps and hoping to use these to generate enormous passive income streams. I want to remind you that an app is simply another avenue for passive income. If you can earn $1,000 per month selling apps, go for it! But you need the strategies to make that happen. Having a product (like an app) does not guarantee customers, it just guarantees that you have a product. You need to spend more time learning how to engage, drive and convert customers than you do creating the product – because really, this is where the money is. I’ve had people selling pine cones (yes, pine cones) and pulling over $2,000 per month, after all expenses and with next to zero time involvement. The product is often secondary to the way it is sold. Remember the Betamax vs. VHS battle!

Also remember that there is a lot of sense in following the vending machine format. By that I mean, if you have 1 vending machine that brings you in $50 per week, that’s great, nothing too exciting, but what if you have 1,000 vending machines? Same for passive income streams. If you have one business bringing in $500 per month, fantastic! Now imagine having 10 of those. Or 100 of those. The more streams that you have, the better! Streams can dry up, but if you have 100 different streams that doesn’t matter at all!

So hopefully by now you have an understanding of what Passive Income is. So get out there and start creating it!

If we had a world where everyone could spend their time following their dreams, rather than chasing their salary, surely that would be a better world to live in!

Now, most people that have any desire to create a passive income stream already have some knowledge on the subject. They know different ways and different strategies that can set them on the path to a passive income stream. However, there is one barrier to almost everyone.

What on earth could I sell?

What is there that I am an expert enough in to package up and sell?

Most come up with the same answer. Nothing.

Well, you are wrong. Regardless of industry, regardless of expertise, there is ...]]> Most people (particularly current business owners) would love to have a stream of income coming in where they don’t need to put in any time at all to keep that stream coming in. An income that if you were to go away on holiday for 3 months, you would still have money coming in despite your involvement.

Image by Steve-h

Now, most people that have any desire to create a passive income stream already have some knowledge on the subject. They know different ways and different strategies that can set them on the path to a passive income stream. However, there is one barrier to almost everyone.

What on earth could I sell?

What is there that I am an expert enough in to package up and sell?

Most come up with the same answer. Nothing.

Well, you are wrong. Regardless of industry, regardless of expertise, there is always something that you could create that you could use to create a passive income. The trouble is, most people can’t see the opportunities in front of them.

Rather than talking about how to come up with these different ways, today I’ll be talking about one of my friends and how they could be building a passive income from what they are already doing.

The Music Teacher

My friend is a music teacher, he travels the world teaching people how to play classical guitar. And he is great at it. However his entire income comes from either performing, or from 1-1 or 1-many teaching. With a very fast brainstorm (under 5 minutes), here are the different avenues I came up with that he could start utilising:

• Instructional Videos (either delivered online or by DVD – if fulfilment can be automated)
• eBooks on how to play the classical guitar
• eBooks / videos on how to write your own music
• eBooks / videos on how to teach classical guitar
• eBooks / videos on specific techniques of classical guitar
• Online courses taking students from one level to a higher level (either video or text)
• Subscription to weekly tips on playing better classical guitar
• Launching his own guitar accessory line (again as long as the fulfilment process is automated)

Image by stephcarter

So in under 5 minutes I have come up with 8 different products for 1 single profession. And I only broke out of informational products once.

What could you do with your industry? There are an infinite number of ways that you be making more money with less work…

Start brainstorming today and start living life on your terms, not your employers!

The one thing that was holding her back from her dreams was time. With so many fantastic ideas on how to build her business bouncing around in her head, she just needed either more time to do them, or a better way. That’s why she was there, to find that better way.

After the hours of presentations, I asked her what she thought of the day. She replied that she got so many ideas on how ...]]> A number of years ago I was attending a Summit on Internet Marketing Strategies from some of the best Internet Marketers in the world. As I walked in I met this really amazing woman (let’s call her Judith) who was there to learn how to create a passive, online business that could free up her time and give her the life that she was dreaming of.

Image by Casey Muir-Taylor

The one thing that was holding her back from her dreams was time. With so many fantastic ideas on how to build her business bouncing around in her head, she just needed either more time to do them, or a better way. That’s why she was there, to find that better way.

After the hours of presentations, I asked her what she thought of the day. She replied that she got so many ideas on how to build her business, she just wished there was someone that knew the strategies that could help her personally. I started to get that feeling some of you may know… that feeling that Judith is a perfect client for my work.

So, after she finished speaking she asked me a simple question.

“What do you do?”

This was my moment! This is where I tell her exactly how I can help her grow her business. Where I tell her about how I work with people exactly like her that something more from their life, and want to use an online business to achieve it.

So, what did I say?

“I’m a designer.” That’s it. That’s all.

Do you think Judith was interested? Of course not. Sure, she had an interest in what I did, particularly because I showed so much joy for what I do. But do you think she wanted to hire me? Definitely not.

Now, she didn’t want to hire me not because of my work, she had never seen or experienced anything I had done. No, she didn’t hire me because I couldn’t create a story about my business (or product) that was enticing for even my perfect client. So what did I do? I got home and spent the night creating a story that if I were ever put in that position again, I could deliver a compelling answer that told people exactly what I do, what I want to do and, if applicable, how I could help them.

Now, I have been in that situation many times since that day, we all have. That moment where you get to sell yourself and your business to someone else. I am prepared for it, are you?

The Short Story (Otherwise known as the Elevator Speech)

Image by Casey Muir-Taylor

Who are you?
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?

Easy enough? Let’s have a look at an example. Let’s say John is a photographer, he knows that just being a photographer is like being one fish in the ocean of creatives, so he needs to be a bit more specific. So, when asked what he does he can simple say this:

I’m John Smith and I am a professional children’s photographer for parents that want to get their children into an acting or theatre career.

Is there any doubt as to what John Smith does? If you were a parent would you have any other thought in your mind except that John Smith is an expert at what he does? Specificity creates the impression of expertise.

Now ask yourself this question: Are you selling your business story, or just telling people what you do?

Create your story and start creating your success. It’s there for us, we just need the words to be able to grab it!

You may think that you don’t have the expertise to do it. You may think that you don’t have the tools to do it. Let me tell you, you are wrong.

The thing that people will pay for more than almost anything else is their passion. I will fly across the world for a single day to attend a dance event, then turn right around and come home. Is that stupid? Yes. Do I do it all the time? Yes.

All it takes is for you to create the market place, and people that are as passionate ...]]> We all have a hobby. Mine is dancing. One of my friends paints little Dungeons & Dragons models. Another flies model aeroplanes. Yet another works on his vintage car. We are all completely unique in our passions. Why not turn that passion into an online business?

You may think that you don’t have the expertise to do it. You may think that you don’t have the tools to do it. Let me tell you, you are wrong.

The thing that people will pay for more than almost anything else is their passion. I will fly across the world for a single day to attend a dance event, then turn right around and come home. Is that stupid? Yes. Do I do it all the time? Yes.

All it takes is for you to create the market place, and people that are as passionate about your hobby as you are will come. And they will buy.

If you have ever had the thought of creating your own business from your hobby, here it is in 3 simple steps.

Step One – Finding Your Market

So, you’re a passionate Giraffe Painter. Fantastic! Surely there must be others like you! Well, let’s find out. If you are the only person in the world that loves the look of a giraffe on canvas, when it comes to building an online business about it, you may be in some trouble. But most of the time, you’re not.

Giraffe Painting by Contemporary Earth Art on Etsy

First thing you want to do is get as specific as possible about your hobby. So you love giraffes, let’s jump onto Google’s Keyword Tooland see what comes up when we do a Keyword Analysis. Amazingly, we get these results:

Giraffe Painting – 2,900 monthly global searches – Low Competition
How to Paint a Giraffe – 1,600 monthly global searches – Low Competition

So, obviously there are a lot of people that love giraffes on canvas! What do you do now? You create a product to sell to these people!

Let’s back up just one little step. Do you notice how specific Giraffe Painting is? We are not trying to sell “Painting”, we are trying to sell “Giraffe Painting”. If we were to try and take on the painting market, we would be quickly overwhelmed with competition. But, because we were so specific, we can find something that has little competition, and everyone that is searching for “Giraffe Painting”, they are definitely there looking for how to paint portraits. You have an instant, highly targeted market. And that is crucial!

Step Two – Creating Your Product

Image by Chris Willis

Let’s look at the options when it comes to Giraffe Painting in terms of what we can sell. Obviously we can paint up a giraffe and sell that painting. However, is that leveraging our time so that we are free from work?No!

What that is doing is creating more work for us! With every sale we make, we need to paint another Giraffe! You may want to do that, and that is fine, but there can be another way. If you love painting giraffes that much, you can skip ahead to step 3.

The 2nd option that pops into my head would be to sell Giraffe Painting Kits. Or perhaps paints in the colours of giraffes. Or painting stencils. You include the paint, the canvas and all the materials needed to create the perfect painting of a giraffe. This is great! Now, bear in mind that you are going to have to handle manufacturing, packaging, shipping, returns, just to name a few of the aspects of this business you will need to be aware of and handle to make this business a success.

Is there a simpler way?

Image by Zhao !

Yes, how about an informational product? An ebook titled “How to Draw a Giraffe”. It is digital and instant delivery, plus you can set up the website so that you never need to have a single step in the process except for answering customer queries! People will pay for information. You know from the keywords search that 1,600 people every month are searching for “How to Draw a Giraffe”, so do you think you could sell a few of those on an eBook that is all about that? Of course you could!

So you have three different products (or ways of creating products) that you can apply to any hobby. You can be paid to do your hobby (painting giraffes), you can sell different aspects of the hobby (like unpainted D&D models, or Monopoly money for people that have lost theirs), or the third way is to create an informational product based on your hobby.

Are there more than different ways to monetize your hobby? Of course! Get creative and come up with your own unique way!

Now, to actually sell those products.

Step Three – Selling Online

This is a simple step. Get a website and sell your product. There are a million ways of getting a website up, including hiring a professional such as myself, or you can find free website creators online just by Googling them.

Why would you hire someone, rather than do it yourself? Well, the first thing of course is time. The whole point of creating an online business is to free up your own time, and if you have never built a website before expect it to take a while (particularly if you don’t know what you are doing).

The second and most important reason is that a professional knows how to make your product sell. I’m not talking about just any web designer here, I’m talking about someone like us at Scott Creative who knows Internet Business and can actually create a website that will get bigger results for you than your own website could.

Now if you are doing it yourself, here’s one formula to keep in mind:

1 Website = 1 Product

Don’t try to get every product you can think of onto your website. Keep it simple. “HowToPaintGiraffes.com” sells an eBook on How to Paint Giraffes. Nothing else. Make it easy for people to find. Give them as much content as you can for free, then sell them the product. Don’t make the mistake of trying to sell someone on a product without any knowledge of what it is and what they can expect.

So there you have it. If you can make money selling eBooks on how to paint giraffes (quick tip: the Keyword results are real, so if you are an artist, maybe this could be your 1st eBook), you can make money selling anything.

Get out there, get your online business started and get the freedom you want from your life!

With over 350 million websites on the internet to view, how can we expect people to find our little website, ahead of so many others? With thousands of articles out there about building more traffic, why is it that so many people still don’t have the traffic that they want? Simply put, they are using the wrong strategies.

In any web project or online business, there are an infinite numbers of ways to build awareness and traffic, and each different business will have a completely unique way that it should be going about it – remember that what works for a garbage company, may not work for an information product. ...]]> Most of the businesses that I work with start their websites under the following assumption: if I build a website, people will visit it. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

Image by Steven Depolo

With over 350 million websites on the internet to view, how can we expect people to find our little website, ahead of so many others? With thousands of articles out there about building more traffic, why is it that so many people still don’t have the traffic that they want? Simply put, they are using the wrong strategies.

In any web project or online business, there are an infinite numbers of ways to build awareness and traffic, and each different business will have a completely unique way that it should be going about it – remember that what works for a garbage company, may not work for an information product. So, without any further ado, let’s get into the nuts and bolts of it.

The Key to Instant Search Engine Traffic

There are a million and a half different ways to rank highly on a Search Engine, in fact every Internet Marketer has their own way of doing it (and all can be highly effective) and there is an entire industry dedicated to the mastery of it (SEO).

Let’s instead talk about the aspect of SEO (or rank building) that is the least discussed, but in my opinion, the most important. Competition.

Have you ever wondered why you can start a website called “Bazzle”, and instantly it ranks as number one on every Search Engine for the term “Bazzle”? Simple. Because there is no (or very little) competition for it.

But then if you want to create a website that is called “Search Engine Optimization”, you have 1 chance in hell of getting that thing one Google’s Page 1. Why? Because there are so many websites targeting that term! Sure you can spend thousands of dollars, and hundreds of hours trying (and probably failing) to get your website to the top of that list, but surely there must be an easier way.

There is.

Simply put: Target a term on your website with low (or even better, zero) competition. Yes, it may take a little bit of time in research and experimenting to find a term that works for you, but the reward is instant search engine traffic.

I know, this sounds so simple, you will probably ignore this completely. But let’s look at the facts. You can spend 100 hours trying to place highly on a competitive term, only to lose your position because someone else has an entire team dedicated to getting them highly ranked, or you can spend 1 hour figuring out a term with low competition.

How do you find a term with no competiton?

The easiest way is of course to simply search for a term and look at the results. If you are getting a lot of results that don’t have that specific term highlighted in bold, or even sites that don’t even include that term, you know there is low competition on that term.

Google's Keyword Tool

Getting a little fancier, you can use Google’s Keyword tool. Simply type in a search term and watch as a whole bunch of terms come up, not only with a competition ranking, but with the number of searches that term gets each month.

When you trying to find that keyword, you may need to get a little creative. You may even need to get very niche-specific. But remember this, people searching for “Sports Nutrition for elderly Golfers” are much more valuable to your Sports Nutrition business than people searching for “Nutrition”. You may only get 100 searches per month on that term, but if 90 of those people are extremely interested in your business, that is much more valuable than 100,000 searches where 20 are interested in your business.

I usually look for a term that if I simply name the website that term, I can rank almost straight away. Maybe a heading that includes the term, or some small content targeting, but if I want instant traffic, I don’t look for a term that will require much more than that.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but when you build a website and spend a long time getting it ranking on Google and having a huge amount of traffic, there is nothing more disheartening than seeing that 99% of your visitors leave straight away, because really, they are not interested in you or your offerings.

Now, that is not the whole story. If ranking on Google had only to do with finding a term with little to no competition, then targeting that on your website, it would be far too easy to write an article on. There is a science to rank building that includes backlinks, meta descriptions, content modification and so much more.

But why not make your job 100 times easier and find a keyword that you can get instant traffic on?