Want to make 2023 the year you introduce passive income streams to your online business?
Here are some of my favorite ways for online business owners like you to earn passive income in the coming year.
This post is perfect for you if you are a Coach or Online Service Provider such as a Social Media Manager, Graphic Designer or Web Developer and you feel like your income is “capped” right now.
So what is passive income?
Passive income is defined as “unearned income”.
In the online space, it’s essentially an asset/resource that you’ve created once and people can go and buy whenever, generating income for you when you’re not actively working.
For example, if you want to earn passive income as a Graphic Designer, you can create Canva templates for online business owners who can’t afford to pay for the services you currently do.
Not only does it help you increase your overall hourly rate, there are other benefits as well.
What are the benefits of passive income?
As a coach or online service provider (OBM, VA, Social Media Manager, Web Designer, Graphic Designer, etc.), you’ll find that in the early stages of your business you’ll be trading a lot of time for money .
As you scale, I recommend that you actually spend about half of your work week on 1:1 client work to leave room for your own growth and passive product development.
Adding a passive income stream to your online business is a way to still earn the income you want without putting in a lot of time. Plus, passive products are more cost-effective for your customers because they don’t actively require your time.
Is it hard to earn passive income?
If you are looking for easy passive income ideas to help you scale your online business, I would like to preface this article with the fact that it requires some level of upfront work and is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
However, one of the advantages of passive income is that once you have everything set up initially, you don’t have to do any extra work.
For example, my online course, Freedom Course Creator, was several months in the making because I wanted to make sure you had absolutely everything you needed to succeed in creating and selling an online course.
But now, I can just sell this course without any extra work. It allows me to serve potentially thousands of clients at once, while 1:1 coaching is limited because my time is limited.
Your passive resources don’t have to be as huge as the FCC, this is your online business and you can serve people however you want. I also sell another passive offer, the Biz Clarity Mini Course which costs just £7.99 and is perfect for aspiring business owners who don’t really know where to start and need something affordable but valuable to point them in the right direction.
Passive Income Ideas for Online Business Owners
So what are some passive income ideas you can get started with right away?
Standards
Templates are the ideal passive income for web developers, graphic designers, copywriters and even social media managers.
As a web developer you could sell pre-made website templates that allow people to create beautiful DIY websites, as a graphic designer you could sell Canva templates or even more premium illustrator or design templates for other designers to make their workflow smoother.
Online Courses
The e-learning market right now is HUGE and still growing. It’s expected to reach $1 trillion by 2028, so NOW is the perfect time to start building an online course. As a business/course building coach I have helped my students make tens of thousands of pounds through their online courses and it has completely changed their lives.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to creating an online course, I have lots of free resources available on the blog to get you started, as well as my free masterclass and checklist.
Or if you want precise, step-by-step support, Freedom Course Creator is perfect.
Affiliate Marketing
Almost every product/service you see online right now has an affiliate program associated with it. Amazon Associates If you sell products or are a service provider, most scheduling tools have an affiliate program. Like Canva, Dubsado, and even business bank accounts.
Although there are people out there who make affiliate marketing a full-time income stream, it is very saturated because people make it out to be something you can make money from fast.
I like to think of affiliates as a small supplement to my business income. Plus, if I share some of the tools I know and use every day, if I make enough money from affiliates to pay for that service, then it’s a win-win.
Online Masterclasses/eBooks
A great passive income idea for beginners is to sell masterclasses and/or e-books.
Plus, the great thing is, if you’ve ever launched or done a special guest post for someone in your industry, you might already have the stuff ready to start selling that digital product right now.
A really fun way to get started with passive income is to watch previously recorded masterclasses and sell them on your website at a low ticket price. You could even use it as a funnel piece to drive people to one of your higher ticket offers using an email nurture sequence.
And, moving forward, if you do special guest sessions or masterclasses, be sure to record and sell them afterwards.
This is valuable information that your audience will pay for.
It will also help you when starting a live stream, because if the course is only free the first time you post it there, you might get more signups.
I hope this gives you an idea of how you can get started with passive income this year. Let me know if you enjoyed this week’s post and feel free to leave your passive income ideas in the comments below! I’d love to hear what you’re up to in the coming months.
Claudia xx
