7 Passive Income Ideas to Automate Your Cash Flow

by Brian Schwarze | Sep 4, 2017 | Entrepreneurship, Money Hacks

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Passive income is one of the most sought-after luxuries for entrepreneurs looking to free up their time and sever ties with daily work-related responsibilities. While no one doubts that passive income is awesome, it’s often very difficult to achieve. On your journey to acquire a passive income, you’ll invest a significant amount of time with little to no return for extended periods. Some go months or even years without seeing a dollar produced passively, resulting in extreme frustration and even some of the most practiced entrepreneurs giving up.

What is Passive Income?

Before sharing some of the best passive income ideas to automate your cash flow, it’s important to understand just what passive income means.

When an income stream is passive, it means it requires little to no maintenance to keep the money flowing in. It’s important to remember however that this doesn’t mean you can ignore it completely. In fact, you want to be sure that you monitor all your passive income streams closely so that if something changes, you can correct it.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get started…

Here Are 7 Passive Income Ideas to Automate Your Cash Flow

1. Start A Blog

One of the most important methods of generating a passive income stream is to start a blog. If done properly, you can make a great deal of money. I won’t go too far into starting a blog as this recent article I wrote will go more in-depth for you.

Just keep in mind, like most all passive income sources, blogging will take a lot of time and work to start gaining a following. But once you have a solid platform built, you will find yourself with an incredible source of passive income.

2. Become an Affiliate Marketer

If you ask any successful entrepreneur with passive income, they’ll likely tell you that affiliate marketing is one of their biggest sources. Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to earn a passive income, although it’s not as easy as some might think. While you may be able to earn a couple of sales by posting links across the internet, you won’t typically see a passive income start to grow with affiliate marketing until done properly.

So how does one succeed with affiliate marketing? The best way to succeed is by providing massive amounts of value to your target audience BEFORE asking for that sale (aka: referring them to a solution that is relatable to their needs that you’ll earn a commission on if they buy). Typically having a large following or platform helps when it comes to affiliate marketing, but it can be done without one if just starting out.

Without a large following or platform, you can attempt to run paid advertisements on Google or Facebook to your affiliate offer. I want to caution you on this though as if you don’t know what you are doing, this method could end up being very costly (I know from experience).

If wanting to learn how to properly run paid ads, I recommend checking out this free webinar: Funnels and Ads for Entrepreneurs by Dan Henry. The hour-long webinar taught me a lot about running paid ads properly on Facebook and if you decide to invest in the course, you won’t be disappointed. You’ll learn 10x the number of things he teaches on the webinar and the mastermind group you also have access to is invaluable.

Don’t have time for a webinar but still want to learn how to advertise on Facebook?
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3. Sell Digital Products on Etsy (or other sources)

Etsy is an online marketplace filled with opportunity to sell all types of goods. Most people think of Etsy as a place to get physical, handcrafted products but did you know you can also sell digital products? By selling digital products, there is very little maintenance once your store is up and running.

Of course, you’ll want to ensure that you have the proper traffic being driven to your site, but other than that and producing valuable high-quality products, you’ll have a source of passive income!

But Etsy isn’t the only way to sell digital products. A more common practice is to set-up an online sales funnel for your product with built in up-sells. (See below)

4. Create a Sales Funnel

If you’re not familiar with the concept of a sales funnel, think of it as an automated way to turn visitors into buyers. A sales funnel can be used for virtually anything, but the most common practice for those looking to create a passive income is to sell digital products, services or courses.

Creating a sales funnel can be time consuming and will take upfront investments, but once you build a funnel that converts, the only thing you need to worry about is driving the proper traffic to it and you’ll be able to sit back and watch the money flow in.

There’s a lot to building a sales funnel so I don’t want to list everything here. If you want to dig deeper into sales funnels, reach out directly to me and I’ll give you a hand!

5. Real Estate Income

This idea for generating a passive income cash flow will typically require a larger upfront investment as opposed to the time investment most of the other ideas demand. For a passive income in real estate, you would typically want to invest in a rental property.

If you have the capabilities, purchasing a piece of property and renting or leasing it out to tenants is a great source of monthly income. It will require the occasional upkeep, but for the most part it’s hands off. Rental properties have long been the source of passive income for ages and that remains true today.

6. Write an eBook

Another great passive income idea to automate your cash flow is to write and publish your own ebook. Whether you want to write fiction or non-fiction, it’s now easier than ever to publish your own ebook, all you need is a topic!

Once you find the topic you want to write about, you can utilize the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Platform to publish said book. The beauty of publishing your own ebook is that because it’s digital, you can sell unlimited copies of it forever – resulting in a true source of passive income!

7. Make YouTube Videos

YouTube videos are a fantastic way to earn a large stream of passive income. Some may wonder how YouTube can be a source of passive income, but think of it this way. You can make a video ONCE and for the lifetime of that video, you can earn money from it. Most people believe that the only way to earn money with YouTube is from monetizing videos using their integrated ads platform (think 30 second ads before video begins of quick ads halfway through the video). The problem with this is that it requires thousands upon thousands of views to start earning any decent income from the ads platform.

The best way to earn income with YouTube is through affiliate marketing by linking to a solution in your video’s description and then providing a “call-to-action” in your videos.

“YouTubing” isn’t the easiest thing to do and will take a great deal of your time, but it’s worth it if done well. You can make videos for nearly any niche and on any topic. The most important thing to remember is that you want to make your videos relatable and valuable to your audience.

If you’re wanting to learn the secrets to how I make a passive income through YouTube, check out the only course you’ll ever need: The Video Ranking Club (Free Webinar). You’ll learn how to “rank” your videos using ninja-like strategies so that your videos appear in the top search spots on Google and YouTube instantly for the keywords you choose. On top of that you’ll learn how to scale the entire process so that you can outsource it to a team and go “hands-off” turning the endeavor into a very profitable source of passive income. What would you do if you could make a video once and have it pull in sales for you day in and day out?

Check out the free webinar now and get access to the free cheat sheet, mini-prep course and exclusive Facebook group. No time for the webinar right now? Don’t worry. Grab your copy of the free cheat sheet here.