The Smart Passive Income Blog » Lifestyle Design

How to Earn More Money Working 9 to 5 Versus Working For Yourself Online

Pat — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:41:20 +0000

Here’s a quick two and a half minute YouTube video which explains why it’s so much easier to earn more money working for yourself online, versus working for someone else.

Think about it.

Cheers!

(How to Earn More Money Working 9 to 5 Versus Working For Yourself Online on YouTube)

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The Most Important Conversation I’ve Had About My Business Ever

Pat — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:05:47 +0000

In my last post, I had mentioned that I wanted to tell you what my favorite infomercial was and dissect it so we can all learn about why it’s successful. Well, I decided to change things up a bit because a few nights ago, my wife and I had what was probably one of the most important conversations ever, and it’s directly related to what I do online. This message that I want to share with you, which came as a result of our discussion, is more important than any infomercial tactic, blogging tip or online business strategy that I could possibly offer.

(And in case you are wondering, the infomercial was P90X.)

The Issue

The subject of our discussion was my work schedule. The problem was: I didn’t have one.

As someone who has been somewhat successful online thus far earning a passive income, I do have the ability to work less hours, and if I really wanted to, not work at all. However, having this freedom to work whenever I want has put negative thoughts in my head about adhering to an actual schedule.

Why would I want to “force” myself to a schedule and work during specific hours of the day, when I have the freedom to work whenever I want?

I now know the answer.

The Problems

There were a few problems with the lifestyle I was living prior to this life-changing conversation:

1. It was hard to decipher when I was working, and when I was not.

Because I wasn’t on a schedule, it was often hard for my wife to know exactly when I was busy, and when I was not. Sometimes I’d be in my office doing work related things, and sometimes I’d be in my office doing non-work related things. If she wanted to talk about something, or needed some help with the baby, sometimes I’d be in the middle of something important, and sometimes I wouldn’t. It was tough for both of us.

2. Work was never “done” for the day.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, working from home is tough. It takes a lot of discipline to really clear your head of work-related items when you’re not working, because those work-related items can so easily be done at any time of the day.

Although my current income streams only require just a few hours of work per week, I spend a lot of my extra/free time working on new projects to diversify and expand my passive income portfolio. Because of this, I feel like I could always do more work. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

I compare it to a piece of artwork, or a painting – how do you ever know when it’s finished? It just seems like there’s always more you can do to make it better.

Not having a schedule made it really hard for me to stop.

3. Randomness.

Not adhering to a schedule = total randomness.

This is a tough one, because a lot of us want to break free from that 9 to 5 schedule where it seems like everyday is exactly the same (I was there not too long ago). But at the same time, it’s that schedule that keeps a lot of our lives sane and less chaotic.

With a different schedule every day of the month, you can imagine how hard it was for my family and friends to understand when I was available, or when it was okay to plan certain things that may involve me one way or another. Now, especially with a baby in the house, sticking to a schedule is more important than ever.

The Solution

My wife and I (civilly) came up with a solution for this dilemma. It’s basically a two part solution:

Create a schedule
Separate work stuff from non-work stuff

Creating a Schedule

It was obvious that I needed to create a schedule, again not only for my wife’s sake, but for my own as well. Both she and I would then have a clear understanding of when I am working and unavailable (except for Emergencies, obviously), and not working.

Before creating a schedule, I gave myself some guidelines:

I didn’t want a straight 9 to 5 schedule.
I wanted a long lunch.
I wanted to allocate time on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday night to write blog posts for SPI, since I know that’s when I write my best material.
I want the schedule to be flexible, meaning I could trade time here and there throughout the week.

The nice thing is that if I don’t have anything to work on, I could really easily just scrap those hours for the day and not worry about it. However, if I do have work to do, we all know exactly when that work is supposed to happen.

Separating Work Stuff from Non-Work Stuff

How many times during the day are you actually working when you’re supposed to? Probably not as much as you should.

I wasn’t.

In fact, after literally keeping track of everything I did during a normal day, I noticed some rather disturbing issues, especially when it came to checking my emails, checking website stats, opening my Facebook account (personal, not the fan page), and reading the news.

Basically, I did a lot of non-work related things when I was supposed to be working. On the flip side, I was working (or thinking about work), when I probably shouldn’t have been.

So, how did we solve this problem?

It may sound a little odd to you, but I purchased a new MacBook Pro laptop computer.

Here’s why (and no, it wasn’t because I wanted a new laptop. That wasn’t even on my mind until this came up):

The computer in my office (an iMac) is where I did everything, including all of those personal things. It was hard for me personally to keep those things totally separate. By buying a laptop that is specifically just for personal, non-work related items, I can more easily focus on work when I’m supposed to work, and not be tempted to work when I’m doing personal stuff.

Furthermore, because the laptop is portable, I can literally separate work from non-work stuff by keeping the office and the computer in it off limits during non-work hours.

I deleted all of my personal email accounts from my mail client on my work computer. I imported all of my personal bookmarks and files into the laptop, and deleted them from the iMac. All of my instant messaging and chat software (excluding Skype, which I use for business only), has been transferred as well.

In the past couple days, living with this new setup, I’ve begun to notice major changes in my life, both in how much work I’m actually able to get done, as well as how I feel when work is “done” for the day. I’m more able to enjoy time I spend not working, and life just seems that much better now.

My Final Thoughts

I’m really glad my wife and I had this discussion, and I think it’s one that everyone should have because it’s really easy for work-related things to get out of hand, making us forget sometimes why we’re really working in the first place.

And even if you’re single, it’s important to understand these principles too. Especially when it comes to knowing when work is done, so you can really enjoy your time to play.

If you do any kind of work from home, do you work on a schedule? How do you make sure you keep business and non-business related things separate?

Thanks you so much for your support, and I hope you found this post valuable as a blogger, entrepreneur, employee, husband, wife, or person.

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The Path to an Audi R8 (Or Anything Else You Want)

Pat — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:51:24 +0000

Most of you know that family is my number one priority, especially with the recent birth of my son who is now 25 days old. Most, if not all of the decisions I make from now on are done so with him in mind.

However, I’m still a dude, and dudes love their toys. My dream toy is an Audi R8, a car that I first saw in a commercial during the 2008 Super Bowl. I don’t remember the score of the game, or even where it was played, but I do remember that car. I’ve wanted it ever since.

To quote Left Lane News, the Audi R8 has “…a 420 horsepower high-revving V8 engine and all-wheel-drive. It uses the mid-engine Lamborghini Gallardo platform positioning it squarely against the BMW M6, Porsche 911, and Aston Martin Vantage.”

The base price for this bad boy is $114,200 USD.

How to Get an Audi R8

Using the methodologies of Tim Ferriss, let’s take it step by step:

Step 1: First, let’s figure out the monthly payment:

Assuming $4000 down, the 5-year plan (60 month loan) would cost me a total of $2,341 a month. As Tim would say, we have a TMI (target monthly income) of $2,341 for this particular want.

Step 2: Break down the monthly expense into a target daily income (TDI).

Now that we can see the TDI, the R8 seems much more attainable. It would only cost me an extra $78.03 a day to own my dream car. Putting a dollar value on your dreams helps you to realize that the big things you dream of are in fact not as far away as you think.

Step 3: Increase your income accordingly.

Obviously, this is easier said than than done, but now that we know how much more we need, we can then determine the types of things we have to do (and don’t have to do.)

In other words, $78.03 a day is not $500 a day. Trying to increase my daily income by $500 a day would take drastic measures. But, if I had to make $500 a day in order to get something I wanted, then it would be those drastic measures I would be interested in taking.

$78.03 a day is only four $19.99 products, two $39.99 products, or one $79.99 product. Or, what about a coaching course that costs $1200? Take on two clients a month, and you’ve got yourself an R8. See how it’s starting to come to life?

To add on to the idea of increasing your income, here’s a direct quote from Tim Ferriss’ blog regarding “lifestyle costing” and the Target Monthly Income:

“Even if the total is intimidating, don’t fret. It is possible—case studies in the book prove it—to get to more than $10,000 per month in extra income within three months. This is usually 3 or 4 times more than is needed. Getting to an extra $2,000 or $3,000 is seldom a problem.”

And Tim is right. You can increase your income. I’ve done it myself too, from scratch – and I’m no better, or no more special than you are.

Should You Get an Audi R8?

The answer to that question is up to you.

For me, I definitely have enough room in my income for an extra $78.03 a day. However, as much as I want to get my dream car now, I would much rather spend that money on a house, my kids’ education, and family trips. All of those things are included in an overall “dream sheet” where I break down the costs of each of those things, which I’d love to share with you later.

Priorities are still important to understand. (But don’t get me wrong, I still want the R8!)

Additionally, I think I would much rather “save” $78.03 a day for 5 years and invest that money so I could pay for the car in full. Or, work on new income streams that could help me earn an extra $78.03 a day, so I don’t feel like I’m taking a loss.

In Conclusion

This post isn’t really about an Audi R8. It’s about realizing what you want, and figuring out how to get there.

The true thinking behind this methodology is that what we do should be determined first by what we want in life, not the other way around. What you want in life is what everything else should be based off of.

Have you sat down and determined exactly what kinds of things you want in life?

Or, have you fallen into the trap of just working for work’s sake?

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6,795,850,072 Reasons Why You Can Make A Successful Living Online

Pat — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:23:10 +0000

How much money would you need in a year to live a comfortable lifestyle, one where you know your bills will be paid, you’ll have a roof over your head and there will be food on your plate, plus a little extra for fun? $50,000? $75,000? Let’s just say you need $100,000 a year, just to be generous. To put it into perspective, the mean household income in the U.S. (the last time the survey was taken in 2005) was $60,528 USD.

If you sell something online for $30.00, how many units would you need to sell in order to support a $100k lifestyle?

The answer: 3,333 units

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the world as of November 9th, 2009 is 6,795,850,072 people. If you don’t think you can sell something to 3,333 of those people, you’re crazy. Seriously.

That’s a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the world’s population. Yes, I understand that the population count is skewed as far as who can vs. who cannot purchase things online (i.e. children, certain countries, internet access, etc.) but take those people out of the equation, and the bottom line is that you still have to sell to only 3,333 people to make $100k. When you really think about it, that’s not very many people.

…and that’s selling units at $30 a pop. What if you were selling something for $60? Then you’d only need to reach half, or 1,667 people. At $100 per unit, 1000 people, and so on and so forth.

The above example is how many people make a living online. The following is how “Ninjas” do it.

Ninja Status

A Ninja will sell something for $30. Just for fun, let’s say its a book entitled: “How to Be a Ninja in 30 Days”. He only sells 1000 copies in one year. (1000 x $30 = $30,000)

Of those 1000 customers, a quarter pay extra to get an upgraded course, entitled: “Super Secret Ninja Techniques”, which was not included in the original book. This costs an additional $60. (250 x $60 = $15,000)

Of those 250 customers, 10 pay for a two-day Ninja training course that is held live at the author’s dojo. This costs each person an additional $1000. (10 x $1000 = $10,000)

Of those 10 customers, 2 pay an extra $10,000 for a 6-week Ninja apprenticeship. (2 x $10,000 = $20,000).

The Ninja has made a total of $75,000. And how many people did he sell to? Only 1000.

Oh, and he only worked 6 weeks + 2 days out of the year, and it’s probably work he loves to do.

Ninja Lessons

Here’s what we can learn from our Ninja dude:

If people buy from you once, they are more than likely to buy from you again. This is so true, and I’ve experienced it myself. Provide excellent content once to prove yourself, and many people will be all over any additional or new stuff you have to offer.
Dollars earned per customer is important. There are two basic ways to increase the amount of money you make. First, you can focus on getting more customers. Secondly, you can focus on how much you can earn from each customer, not just from raising the prices of what you have to offer, but offering premium and upgraded stuff as well. Do both, and your income will skyrocket.
You don’t need a lot of customers to become successful. This was the whole point of this blog post. You don’t need to reach that many people in order to earn enough to make a living online.

Two Approaches

Here are two things that you can take away from this information:

First, you can enter a widely popular market, one that is fairly saturated with many companies, businesses, websites and/or blogs, and still do quite well. If you can take a relatively unique angle with your business that will appeal to a number of people within that market (again, it doesn’t have to be very many), you can do quite well for yourself.

You’ve heard of “market share” right? Same idea.

Secondly (and this is the approach that I took with my LEED exam training business), you can enter a niche or market that is really narrow, one that is super specialized that doesn’t really have much existing competition. You become the authority in that niche, the “go-to” person or website people find whenever they need information about that subject. Leverage your authority, and again you won’t need very many people to purchase from you to succeed.

This is why doing business online is so cool. You have the opportunity to sell something to anyone in the world with internet access. There has been no other time in the history of the world where this was possible for people like us.

This Isn’t Crap

I’ve gotten a lot of buzz from my last blog post, my Annual Passive Income Report. I’ve had a lot of amazing, really awesome comments from many of you, and I thank you for those, from the bottom of my heart. Some people, however, are still doubtful that what I’ve done was even possible.

I feel really bad for those people because they are not giving themselves a chance to see what’s possible for them! I hope this post gives at least one of those skeptics a dose of reality. Times are changing, people are buying information online. Reach a few of those people, and you will see what can really happen.

Oh, and the estimated population of the world by 2040 will be 9 billion. Will you take advantage of that?

Here’s to your success!

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6,795,850,072 Reasons Why You Can Make A Successful Living Online
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The Top 5 Reasons NOT to Quit Your Job and Work from Home

Pat — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:08:37 +0000

It’s been almost exactly one year since I was laid off and started doing business for myself on the internet. Within the past year, I’ve learned so much about running an online business, internet marketing and how to be profitable online. Not only that, I’ve learned a lot about myself and life in general too. Although I love what I do and feel very fortunate to be where I’m at today, living this kind of lifestyle does have it’s hardships.

Now, you may be wondering why the hell I’m writing an article about reasons NOT to quit your job and work from home, which contradicts the very existence of this blog and exactly what I do. The point here is just to help you realize exactly the kinds of things I have noticed after transitioning from corporate world to working from home for myself. Many people view the kind of lifestyle I’m living as “the dream”, but as with anything, there are hurdles and obstacles to overcome, which I’m about to share with you. I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t do anything – that’s up to you. These are my opinions based on my own experiences, and you can formulate your own conclusions about them.

5. YOU Make ALL the Decisions

“Do this,” and “Have this finished by…” were some of the most common day to day phrases I’d hear while working 9 to 5. Maybe if they’d ask nicer…but that’s not the point. When I finally was able to work for myself, I had the freedom to make my own decisions, and mold my businesses exactly how I wanted.

The thing is, there are some days when I get stuck, or wish I had someone who knew more about a particular subject to point me in the right direction. Especially when it comes to legal or tax type decisions for my business, there’s a little more weight involved in my decisions as a business owner, so more research needs to be done in order to make the right decisions, which can be a little stressful at times. Working in a large company, there are people specialized to make these kinds of important decisions, but when you own your own at home business, it’s all you.

4. Your Schedule isn’t Set in Stone

Hmm, isn’t that a good thing? You can wake up anytime, leave the house anytime and still get business done when you need to? Yeah, true – but there’s something to be said for the 9 to 5 and how you know (usually) that after 5pm, you’re done for the day as far as work is concerned.

For me, I’m constantly thinking about my business and how it could improve. I’m constantly checking emails, working on new projects, blog posts, and product creation. I may not have to wake up by a certain time, but I find myself working at odd hours of the day, sometimes just because I have free time.

Instead of 9 to 5, it’s 10-11:30, then 2-3:30, then 6-7:30, then 9-12am (it varies each day, but I think you get the point). The discipline it takes to create a set schedule so you don’t overwork yourself (since your office is right there at home with you), is hard to master. This is something I personally need to work on. I don’t want to be that dad who is always in his home office when the kids and mommy are watching cartoons or playing together in the living room. No way.

3. It’s Harder to Get into “Work Mode”

Again, it takes a lot of discipline to work from home and there are many things that are working against you from being productive.

For example, when the computer reads 2:30pm, I know that Family Feud is on. At 2:30 every day, I stop whatever I’m doing and listen to what 100 people think are top ingredients for salads are. It’s definitely a guilty pleasure. My point is that working from home is TOUGH, especially if your house isn’t really set up for a home office. A bedroom or a den would be nice, but for me – I have a little niche in the corner of the kitchen, which is adjacent to the living room – where our TV and dog are usually.

When I was working 9 to 5, I woke up early, took a shower, and put on some nice clothes which automatically put me into “work mode”. I drove to “work”, which is where I would “do work”. Duh.

At home, I get up, head straight for the computer and check my email – all in my PJs. If I slack off, no one is there to tell me to wake up and get back to work either.

2. No Fellow Employees

When I was working 9 to 5, some of the people I was working with became some of my really close friends. We all had common goals working for the same company and we developed relationships based on our experiences and any commonalities we had. The bond we had was fun, and it made us work even harder.

While working from home, it’s just me. I do have my wife and puppy here with me so I’m not entirely alone, but there’s something nice about “cooler talk” and working together as a team. Pushing each other, taking breaks with each other, and even learning from each other is something I definitely miss. Although I do have VAs and people I work with from all around the world, it’s just not the same. I think this is the thing I miss most about the 9 to 5.

1. The Benefits

While working from home, you obviously lose the benefits from working for a larger company. Medical, dental and a 401(k) with employer match are probably the top three that we’re all concerned about, but there are other things like paid vacations, company outings, free lunches, possibly paying for continued education, etc. – all of which you’ll have to get or do on your own when you’re self-employed.

I am taking care of these types of things on myself (which I’ll get into in later posts), but there’s MUCH more work involved and it can be a little more costly too. When working 9 to 5, all I had to do was opt-in to the health care program or check a box for my 401(k), and it was pretty much all taken care of for me by the HR department.

To Conclude

As you can see, setting up your own business isn’t just creating your own products or services to sell…there’s A LOT more to it that involves your business and your daily life too.

My point here isn’t to scare you from taking the leap and starting your on entrepreneurial ventures – no way. Taking bold actions and starting my own company was the best decision I’ve ever made. I just wanted to make you aware of some of the things you might face if you choose to do start your own business, and hopefully give you an early enough warning so you can decide exactly how you’ll address each of these things in your own quest.

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The Top 5 Reasons NOT to Quit Your Job and Work from Home
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What’s Stopping You From Using a Virtual Assistant?

Pat — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:01:50 +0000

In Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Work Week (aka, my 2nd Bible), he dedicates an entire section to VAs and the benefits of hiring virtual assistants to do almost any task for you. At first, I was reluctant to agree with the idea of outsourcing because I was always the one who wanted to do all of the work myself. But, after reading more about VAs and how they could help me, I soon realized the huge advantage I would have by making a VA a part of “my team”.

Now, understand that there are a lot of people out there who use VAs for almost everything they do. If there was a way a VA could cut up their steaks and feed it to them, they’d probably have them do that too. Tim gives an example of a man who asked his VA to “make up with his wife” after they had gotten into a little quarrel. The VA sent his wife an apology letter and some nice flowers. I think if I did that, my wife would be pissed…anyways, I digress.

I’m not so much about outsourcing my personal life, but I did learn that my life was better after outsourcing the things I wasn’t that good at (and even things I was good at) and the things I didn’t enjoy doing.

It been almost a year since I first cracked open Tim’s book, and I’ve since hired a VA on 10 separate occasions, for 10 different projects. I have yet to hire one to do personal things like plan a trip to Asia or find a venue for a birthday party that has a nice room large enough for 25 and serves chicken tikki masala, but here are a few examples and how VAs helped save me some time and ultimately make me happier:

Web Design:

The Smart Passive Income Blog was custom designed by a VA. It’s also being redesigned and upgraded as we speak by the same person. The only work I did was point my VA to websites that I liked and which parts of those websites I wanted on mine. After a couple of
- Hours spent, including posting the job on elance.com and communication with the VA: about 2 hours total
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: 20-25 days (researching and implementation)
- Results: a custom designed wordpress blog theme (you’re looking at it!)
- Cost: $250.00

Search Engine Optimization:

When intheleed.com started, I was getting some traffic, but I wanted to take it to a whole new level. I hired a VA who specialized in SEO, and they did a lot of work for me in such little time.
- Hours spent, including writing 2 press releases and blog descriptions for the VA: about 3 hours total
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: over 2 months
- Results: the VA and his team posted my press releases to almost a thousand article websites (which created backlinks to my blog), and my blog description to 200 different search engine listings. Within a month, my organic traffic increased by 50%, and I ranked in the top 5 in Google for all but 1 of the 5 keywords I asked for. I was able to reach more visitors, and after my eBook came out, more customers too.
- Cost: $400.00

Web Research:

A lot of times a new business idea pops into my head. In order for me to determine if it’s a good one, or one that is marketable, I need some initial web research done. Instead of spending time to do it all myself, I leave it up to a VA. All I have to do is give the VA exact instructions and a blank excel template with the information I want – and 8 hours later I have tons of data to look at.
- Hours spent, including writing a procedure list and communication with my VA: about 30 minutes for each topic I need research for.
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: 8+ hours per topic
- Results: One day I’ll ask my VA for some data, and the next day it’s in my inbox. How awesome is that?! The data is as good as your procedure lists allow it to be, so it’s really important to tell the VA exactly how much detail you’re looking for.
- Cost: $1.67/hour. Yes, I said $1.67 an hour. (thanks to odesk.com)

Other Projects:

Here are some other project I’ve also hired online help for:

iPhone applications: Quoc, my business partner at LOLer Apps, actually just wrote an awesome post about why we outsourced our ideas. It’s actually his first blog post ever, so if you have any nice comments, I’m sure he’d really appreciate it!
Voice Talents: I hired a voice talent for my audio book to go along with my intheleed.com eBook.
A Flash movie: As I’m writing this blog post, I’m actually on Skype at the same time talking to a VA about creating a flash movie for me as a presentation tool for a contest I’m entering. Once it’s finished, I’ll give you all the details. I’m really excited about it!

Conclusion:

Outsourcing work was such a weird idea to me at first, but it has opened up many opportunities and has given me more time to work on things that I really want to do. Personally, it’s also really fulfilling to play a project manager role while working on these VA projects.

If you’re interested in hiring a VA someday, I wrote a helpful post on LOLer Apps that has gotten some nice buzz on the net about how to maximize the potential of your project while working with a VA. Check it out, because it’s applicable to all outsourcing projects, not just iPhone apps.

Have you ever outsourced anything? How was the experience? If you haven’t yet, what are your reservations? Any questions?

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The “How to Tell if Your Ideas are Good for Online Passive Income” Checklist

Pat — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:11:05 +0000

Ok, so you have some ideas – but are they online passive income worthy?

The goal here is to create something that you put a lot of work into so that you can eventually put it on auto-pilot and have it earning income for you, all while you either sit on white sandy beaches or work on even more projects. In order to tell if you have an idea that is perfect for this kind of lifestyle, here are a 5 things you can ask yourself about each one. Enter the checklist:

1. Is it Something People are Looking for or Need?

Obviously, this question doesn’t have to do with just “passive income ideas”, but if you can determine that an idea isn’t something that people are looking for or will use, then you can save yourself a lot of time (and money) and move on to your next idea.

In an earlier post on SPI titled “How to Waste Three Years and Thousands of Dollars“, I wrote about a guy who spent years of his life (and much of his savings) working on an idea that was just not needed by anyone. Needless to say, he failed.

Of course, until you build your webpage and sell your product, you’re really never going to know for sure how well your idea will pan out, but there are a few ways you can see if you’re giving yourself the best chance to succeed:

Ask around! Casually talk to people, preferably friends and family, who may be your target audience and see if your idea is something they would use, or wish they had already.
Do some keyword research! Use tools such as the Free Keyword Suggestion Tool, the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool, or the Keyword Question Tool to see if you’re idea is in demand. This is a great exercise to get yourself used to choosing keywords for your website. Play around with related keywords, and don’t get discouraged if the keyword for your idea isn’t so popular. It may just need to be adjusted. (i.e. Yoga = too general, but what about Yoga Classes, Yoga for Kids, or Yoga Exercise Equipment).
Are there similar websites already out there? Like I said in my last post, finding out that there are similar ideas to yours already in motion is a GOOD thing! That means there are people out there spending money on it, and you’re just going to join in on the fun (and do it better than your competitors). Type related keywords in Google Search and see what you come up with.
Hold a Poll or Questionairre! You can simply ask an audience simple questions, which don’t necessarily give away your idea, and gauge how well your idea will do based on their answers. If you have a blog or website already, then this can be very simple (especially if your blog audience is your target audience), but if not, there are ways and methods to get answers. QuestionPro and FreeOnlineSurveys are decent tools for this. Just create a questionnaire and send it to a target audience, like in a forum or in a Facebook group.

It’s tough because we can easily become buried in our own ideas and believe they’re the best in the world. We often forget that it’s not you and I thinking our own ideas are great that will make us money, but it’s really other people who think our ideas are great that will end up paying for our income.

2. Do You Have to Ship Anything Yourself?

If you’re planning on living a passive income lifestyle online, then you’re not going to want to ship anything yourself. Many eBayers can attest to this. It’s cool to sell stuff online, but packaging items, finding time to go to the post office, long lines and shipping costs really does suck the life out of you. If you have an idea that doesn’t require you to do all of that – you’re on the right track to a passive income.

Some general examples of ideas that would fit this description are:

E-Books
Hardcover books that are shipped for you (i.e. LuLu.com)
Drop-shipping Items or Parts
Membership Websites
Training Courses
Online Videos
Access to Special Information
Mp3s and Audio Files
Coded

…just to name a few. All of these can be shipped or handled online without having to package or ship anything yourself at the post office. This keeps your overhead costs down, and just makes your life sooooo much easier.

If your idea requires you to ship anything, you’re setting yourself up to be a really busy person. Just think – the more you succeed, the busier you’ll be….that’s not what we want to happen.

3. Is Your Idea Scalable?

In other words, if your idea was online and on sale, do you have to do any more work if you to get more orders? In order to live a passive income lifestyle, you should be able to do basically the same amount of work if 2 people or two-thousand people ordered from you.

The real test is, if you can fulfill one-million orders in one day, you’re good to go. If you’re designing websites for people, or knitting sweaters, you probably would not be able to fulfill one-million orders – and therefore your idea is not scalable and passive.

Again, you don’t want to work harder as you become more successful. I know, it’s a weird idea, but you should have already done all of the hard work in the beginning.

4. Do You Have to Handle Payments and Transactions Yourself?

If you say yes, then you probably skipped over question #3.

The beauty of doing business online is that there are plenty of tools and services out there that allow us to not be present when automatic payments and transactions take place. If you have to manually send an invoice or bill people, then you’re not going to be passive at all.

5. Is it Something You’re Passionate About?

Yes, you can have a successful idea that you’re not passionate about. Maybe you did your research and tested the market – that’s great.

But, if you’re passionate about your idea and you really believe that it will work, then your chances of succeeding increase drastically. You’ll put in the extra effort and extra time to make it all work for you if you have the passion behind it. Plus, you’re more likely to create a better product, which will in turn make your customers more happy.

So if you have an idea, ask yourself this: are you passionate about it?

Conclusion

So, if you have a list of ideas, go through each one with the following questions:

Is it something people are looking for or need?
Do you have to ship anything yourself?
Is your idea scalable?
Do you have to handle payments and transactions yourself?
Is it something you’re passionate about?

If your idea(s) can pass this simple test, you’re setting yourself up for a great online passive income lifestyle.

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The “How to Tell if Your Ideas are Good for Online Passive Income” Checklist
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If You’re Searching for Ideas, This is What You Need to Know

Pat — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:32:32 +0000

We’re all in the same boat. We’re all business-minded people who think of ideas and dream that one will be the next million-dollar idea. That’s good…motivation is good key. Like I say, dream big – or don’t dream at all.

If you’re just starting your online venture and you’re in the idea generation phase, here’s what you can do to help yourself find that next big idea:

Building Your Idea List

You may have passed this phase already, but if not, this is definitely for you.

Recording Your Ideas

I’d recommend getting a small notepad to put in your pocket, or something equivalent that you can use to immediately record an idea (on your iphone, perhaps) once it pops into your head. Don’t rely on your memory alone – because you will forget. You don’t want to forget that million-dollar idea! (Although you might not know it’s the million-dollar idea at first).

Record ALL of Your Ideas

The more ideas you come up with, the better the chances are that one of them is a great idea! That’s just a fact. Anything that pops into your head, just go ahead and write it down. Don’t be shy – no one else is going to see your list, and even if you think an idea is terrible at first, who knows – it might be what you choose to spend most of your time and effort on later after some research. It was an idea that you had, so it must mean something.

Don’t Try to Figure Everything Out at First

When you’re first writing down your ideas, write down as much as you can about it, but don’t feel bad if you can’t figure everything out at first – because that’s impossible. There will most likely be things you don’t know how to do, or can’t quite figure out yet – and that’s ok. Don’t let it become a brick wall and ruin your idea.

When I was working on my eBook, I didn’t let the fact that I didn’t know how I was going to charge for my eBook online stop me for pursuing my idea further.

Don’t Let This Happen to You

What’s the first thing we usually do after we come up with an idea? We go directly to Google Search and see if anything like it has been done before. I bet that 99% of us go into that search hoping NOT to find a website or business that is exactly the same. 99% of the time, we do find something similar and then lose the energy behind our idea because someone already “took it”. This, unfortunately, is the death of many good ideas. This is the wrong way to think.

If you perform a search and find similar websites to the one you were thinking of doing – that’s a GOOD thing. Why? Because that means there’s a market out there for it and people are spending money. In one of my first blog posts on SPI titled “5 Reasons Your Next Big Idea Might Fail”, I explain a lot more about this, and other common thoughts that often kill ideas.

In my next post, I’ll go over some details about how you can look at your list and determine which ideas you have are possible gold mines, and which ones are just empty bat caves.

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If You’re Searching for Ideas, This is What You Need to Know
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A Passive Income Mistake: Knowing and Doing Everything

Pat — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:14:52 +0000

When I’m working on a project, I’ve always felt the need to be totally involved in each stage. By doing so, I am able to make sure things are done correctly. If things go wrong, I’ll find a solution. I’m in total control.

This even goes back to my middle school days. I was once assigned an English project with two of my classmates. The task was to present a poem, in any media format, and share it with the class. We decided to do a video presentation, and I was in charge of the video taping for our group. Well, I did more than just video tape.

I composed and scored the music for the video, I was the narrator, the editor, and the presenter too. I took on almost all of the tasks myself because I wanted to make sure they were all done correctly. Was I being a jerk? No. My classmates were more than happy to let me do all of the work. Was I working really hard? Yes, obviously. Was I being resourceful? Absolutely not. I had two classmates willing to put in work, I just did not give them the chance. Our project received an A+, but looking back, I was not being smart.

Knowing and Doing Everything Online

When I started my blog at http://www.intheleed.com, I did everything except invent the internet. I bought books and read all about what blogs were and how it could be used as a CMS (content management system). I read about hosts and blogging platforms, like WordPress, the blogging platform that I use. I found and redesigned the theme myself, made my own logos, and even did all of the SEO (search engine optimization), after buying some books on that too. This is all in addition to writing all of the content as well.

I did enjoy working on all of the parts of the blog, and I learned quite a bit – but I was being stupid. Let me explain. As you may or may not know, I love numbers, so let’s crunch some numbers to show you how long it took me to learn about and do a certain task on my blog at intheleed.com:

Read about blogs, find a host, and setup WordPress: 25 hours
Find a theme and redesign it (with reading): 10 hours
Create logos and graphics: 5 hours
SEO work (with reading): 15 hours
Promotion and marketing: 5 hours

Total: 60 hours

This would be the estimated time it would have taken me to setup the blog to the point at which I didn’t have to do any more of the work listed above. It does not include anything related to the actual content. With all this said, I spent 60 extra hours just setting up my blog, in addition to working a 9 to 5 job and spending time with my girlfriend, now fiancee.

Analyzing the Numbers

Time is money.

If I used my hourly wage from my 9 to 5 job, $30/hour, that’s $1,800 of money I didn’t get for the hours of work I did. Of course, the result of my hours of work was not money, but was instead a blog. I would say that the blog took about 6 months before it finally “paid for itself” concerning how many hours I put into it to set it up.

How I could have Leveraged My Time and Made More Money

If I wasn’t so “me,” I would have known that I could have saved myself time and money by having someone else do all the work for me. It’s the best thing you could ever do to help yourself, trust me. For example, let’s look at the numbers once more.

If I hired someone and paid them $500…wait! That’s kind of steep for only setting up a blog. So, to prove my point, I’ll pay them more. I’ll pay $1000. You might think I’ve saved myself $800, but no – I’ve saved myself even more.

See, it would only take an expert just a couple of days to accomplish all of the things that I did (if you look at my blog at intheleed.com, it’s not all that fancy, really). The blog would be complete and ready for my content, and I could have saved 60 hours, plus the amount of days that those 60 hours were spread over, which was over 1 month.

With those 60 hours, I could have used my time for something else. I could have had my eBook finished and on sale 1 month earlier. My eBook is generating over $7000 a month, so – in essence I lost this amount by doing all the work myself. If I had known this, I would have gladly spent $1000 to have someone set up the blog for me.

But What About Making Sure Everything is the Way You Want It?

That does not have to change, and it shouldn’t. You’re still in total control, you’re just smart about it. When you hire someone, it’s their job and responsibility to do whatever it is you want (I’m talking about internet stuff, you dirty minds). If a part of the design isn’t how you want it, all you have to do is ask them to change it, instead of spending time figuring out how to do it yourself. There’s no need for us to worry about “how to make our blog titles a little more red and more centered.”

Remember, your time is money.

And so, the Point is this…

You SHOULD NOT do everything yourself. I’ve since learned this and you’re actually looking at the product of my first time hiring someone to do work for me. The Smart Passive Income Blog is running a theme that was custom designed for me, and I love it. And, it was finished in less than one week.

Hiring someone to do work for me was a great experience, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to trying to setup another blog on my own. In my next post, I’ll talk about how I found the designer, Michael, and the things you can do to make sure that when you hire someone everything goes smoothly.

Ask The Readers

Have you ever hired anyone online to work for you? If not, why not? If yes, what was the experience like? Do you think it was all worth it?

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A Passive Income Mistake: Knowing and Doing Everything
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Why Making Money Online Is Ridiculous…To Our Parents

Pat — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:54:09 +0000

Every morning I wake up, check my email, brush my teeth, and go downstairs to have a nice breakfast with my parents. And every single morning my retired dad asks me the same question: “So how much money did you make while you were asleep last night?”

I usually answer with a number between $75 and $150, which means I usually sell between 4 to 8 books while I’m asleep. He always responds with the same phrase:

“That’s Ridiculous.”

Now, I’m not quite sure what he means by that. He usually shakes his head a little, but he adds a little smile. I can interpret this in a few ways. One, maybe he’s using the word “ridulous” in the sense that it’s FREAKING AWESOME, like when I sit on the beach and watch a surfer catch a massive wave and I say “that’s ridiculous.” Or instead, he could be saying to himself “How could it be that easy?” I was curious, so I asked him.

This morning I woke up, checked my email, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs to have a Denver omelet. Yum! My dad asks me the same question, and I actually sold 7 this morning, so I told him. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, and then I asked him “why?”

This was his response:

“Well, you got laid off, didn’t even look for another job, you go to bed late, wake up late, and now you’re making more money than you did when you had your job. I just can’t believe it, and I don’t know how you do it, but I’m really proud of you.”

That was nice to hear, and it let me know exactly what he was thinking.

The Generation Barrier and Work Ideology

My dad is retired, and he’s a little before the baby boomer generation, but their ideology of work is generally all the same: you work for X hours, you get paid X dollars. It’s that simple. You work hard, you climb the ladder, and you get paid. My dad worked for the same company for 45 years. 45 YEARS! Now that’s ridiculous, and not in the wake up with money in your pocket kind of way.

I respect my dad, and he’s worked really hard to keep the family afloat. I know exactly where my dedication and hard work came from, and it was from him. But I cannot imagine working in a single company for that long. Now, I can’t even imagine working for anybody but myself.

Passive Income is no longer just an interest rate in a bank account, it’s being able to monetize websites, write ebooks, become an affiliate, advertising – all on autopilot once it’s done. It’s a totally different era now.

We’re now in the Information Age. There wasn’t a computer in each and every home back when people my dad’s age were working, but now there are 2 comptuers and a laptop in each household. The world is changing so fast, and that’s why I think my dad responds each morning the way he does.

What This Means to Us

My point of this post is this: you shouldn’t have to think that working 9 to 5 each and every day is the only way to live – because it’s not. I’m not trying to put down those of you who have 9 to 5 jobs. I mean, I had one just a while ago and I was basically making two incomes simultaneously for a brief period of time. I would have loved to keep it, but I got laid off, and luckily my other form of income is what kept me from breaking down.

But what I’m trying to say is that you should begin to explore the kinds of opportunities we have in the world today. I may be preaching to the choir here, but there are tons of things you can do to earn money online, you just have to almost “snap out of it,” get out of the rat race and create the lifestyle you want to live.

Now that I’m living a passive income lifestyle (although I’m still working on new projects), I’m able to set my own hours, make my own decisions, be stress free, plan other things, and if I ever just wanted to make even more money, all I would have to do is create another product online. It’s ridiculous.

Ask the Reader

If you’ve ever made money online, have you spoken to anyone who may have doubted what you do online and how you make money? I was talking to one of my online friends who makes great money online (over a million a year actually), and whenever he brings it up with his parents, they think he’s running a porn site. Hah.

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Why Making Money Online Is Ridiculous…To Our Parents
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