Many people begin their journey towards financial freedom with the goal of making as much money as possible. Great, we can agree on that! But what is missing in this mindset is that it has been done before- many times!
Making lots of money under the assumption that you will keep doing so makes you more likely to lose focus on how to make more sustainable wealth.
There are always other things that could be done to increase your income, whether it’s through investing or starting another business.
So, let us look at some ways to make passive (or less active) income here on www.passiveincome.co.za.
We will go into detail about these types of incomes and why they work, but firstly, what is passive income?
What is passive income?
Passive income comes from an activity that does not require too much effort once performed. The earnings come back time after time without requiring too much input from you. This is what gives you the opportunity to earn extra money even when you are busy with other responsibilities.
The term was coined in a book by Robert Kiyosaki called Rich Dad Poor Dad. He defined it as “making money while sleeping”.
In his definition, he described how professional day traders earn large sums of money during the night by performing the trading activities automatically.
A few years ago, people would have said that creating a business site is something very expensive. With technology being advanced at a lightning speed, this isn’t the case anymore! You can easily pick up domain name and hosting packages from almost any web host these days for less than $10 per month.
By doing this, you will be starting your own online business with a paid-for platform. This gives you more opportunity to grow and develop your site later. It also helps keep things civil as not everyone has access to or can afford a good quality computer.
Many people make money through creating and selling products or services via the internet. These are called eCommerce sites. There are many ways to do this so don’t feel like you’re limited to only those types of businesses!
There are plenty of ways to earn passive income other than just designing and selling products. In fact, there are thousands of different ways to make money online.
If you have an online business or are creative, you can create and sell products using websites, blogs, social media, and so on. All of these mediums require that you have a web presence, which includes having a domain name, hosting a site, and establishing yourself as an artist on various social networking sites.
Some of the most successful people in the world use free content to grow their audience before investing in more expensive advertising. By creating quality content that people will read, you attract new readers who may want what you have to offer.
Your potential customers find your content through search engines like Google and YouTube. By optimizing your site for search engines, you increase your exposure and thus, your viewership!
Getting more eyeballs onto your product is the key to making passive income. And with the right amount of traffic, you could see continuous revenue streams.
Now that we have covered how to start a business, what is preventing you from starting your own business? Probably nothing more than not having enough money to invest in your dream!
Most people get overwhelmed when they think of giving up control of their lives by quitting their current job and investing in a business idea.
But there are ways to make passive income without too much investment. These strategies require no capital, only time and effort. They include things like blogging, freelancing, selling online courses, and more.
By adding these into your daily life, your savings can begin to grow quickly. Plus, you will feel happier because you are providing for yourself, and learning new skills.
There are even services that allow you to give up part of your day to earn revenue for them. For example, if you have an internet connection and a laptop, you can create a YouTube channel and start making dollars via Video Ads.
If you are trying to make passive income through YouTube or any other form of online content, then your audience will begin to grow thin if you do not update your channel consistently. You should be setting aside at least an hour every week to update your channel by doing one of the following.
Producing new videos
Updating your profile pictures and cover images
Responding to comments and messages
Moderating conversations
Running a giveaway or contest
If you have a way that you like to organize and manage your time, then you can segment this into different chunks of time to make sure each task gets done.
General rule is to spend 30 minutes on each task per day so one week equals seven hours total. The rest of your time can be spent on promoting your channel and getting more views.
Now that we have covered some easy ways to make passive income as an individual, let’s talk about how to start building your online business brand.
Your business brand is everything about who you are as a person and what you stand for. It includes things like your first name, gender, age, hobbies, etc. Your branding also shapes people’s perception of you and whether they trust you or not.
With this in mind, it makes sense to choose your personal values and strengths and use them to promote yourself and your products and services. You can even go one step further and develop your own unique message – something special that sets you apart from other brands.
This will help people connect with you and believe in you more, which is important when trying to build trust and influence.
It will also help you convey who you are and what you stand for beyond just marketing messages.
Running your own business means being aware of who you are as a person and staying authentic, but at the same time, promoting yourself consistently and clearly.
A lot of people get stuck because they think that creating and promoting something will automatically result in money coming their way. It takes effort!
You have to create or promote whatever you are offering to gain profit from it. This is what most people don’t understand about marketing and business.
It takes time to see results. You need to keep investing energy into your product or service to reap the benefits of your efforts.
There are no magic shortcuts here – you have to work hard to achieve success.
A lot of people get this wrong. They think that all they need to do to make ‘money’ is open their own business or take over what someone else owns. This isn’t true!
Opening your own business requires a substantial amount of capital which you will probably not have at first. It also assumes that you are good enough to run such a business – something that cannot be said about everyone.
The second mistake people make is thinking that by owning a few businesses they will soon be rich. While having multiple sources of income is great, investing in stocks or properties or both will only bring you limited wealth.
A simple way to understand this is to look at the very wealthy people we know today. Most were given a chance to succeed through hard work, talent or luck alone.
Now that we have covered the basics of how to earn passive income, your next step will be figuring out what kind of advertising or online content you want to create and how to promote it. This is also referred to as having a marketing strategy.
You can choose from many different areas such as blogging, social media marketing, creative writing, digital photography, website design, market research and more!
Each one has their own set of rules and regulations for success so it’s best to do some research and figure out which one fits you the best before investing in equipment or courses.
We would like to add that while creating these products is indeed a way to make money, being able to advertise them successfully is an additional skill that takes time to develop.