Is a passive income achievable?

by 73 replies
84
Hi all.

I've been wondering about this lately. I know it's nothing that happens overnight and without a lot of work, but is it possible? I'm not talking about the set it and forget it, autopilot type of thing that we so commonly see in hype messages.

Mostly what I'm thinking of is a point where a decent level of income could be maintained with a smaller time investment each week.

Have any of you achieved such an income?

Thanks for the advice.


PS I do realize that this qualifies as a double post. Since no one moved the post I accidentally made in the "Offline Marketing" forum, I made this here so the other one can be deleted.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #achievable #income #passive
  • Of course it's acheivable, but with hard work.

    No one here is going to hand you a magic bullet unless your prepared to pay silly money, and it won't even be a magic bullet! Take the time to learn, but more importantly take action. If you don't take any action your accounts will be stuck at $0 for a loooooooong time.

    I'm not quite at the passive income yet, but hope I'm not too far away

    Jonathan
  • define passive income. for me it;s not the same as someone else. Someone might think $50 is passive income, someone else might think its $1000. My goal is to make like 2-3k a month extra, that with my day job, im golden.
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    • Banned
      That really has nothing to do with it.. because the question asks whether passive income is possible or not so the answer is either yes or no regardless of the amount you consider to be passive.

      I think a better question to ask..is how do you define a passive income?

      To me a passive income would be one in which I have a guaranteed cash coming in month after month with little to no work involved.

      Thats where the question gets confusing.

      You see of course one would have to work very hard to get to that level. And impose some smart marketing tactics, as well as implementing sound business systems and model strategies.

      once you're at that level to a certain extent yes you'd have a passive income. but is there work involved...YES.

      Nobody can just come online and have unlimited income coming in month after month without doing any work at all. even if its just small work it's still work.

      BUT... passive income could also mean that it's money that continually comes in each month requiring less work on your behalf to bring in the same amount of profits the next month.

      its passive in come as opposed to ..hmmm lets say aggressive income. (of course i made that up)

      aggressive income would be where you have to bust your but every month doing all of the grunt work in order to make the same income you made last month.

      with passive i would say you are doing less work than last month but still bringing in the same amount of more in income.

      So that changes my initial answer.

      Is a passive income achievable...YES
      But there is still work involved so never get complacent.
      never procrastinate.
      and always work harder and smarter!
      Rich Jackson
      • [2] replies
  • You have to work hard to achieve in every endeavor you do. There's no such things as earning in just a smaller time. It's not magic!
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    • Yes, it is certainly achievable. However, if you think about one big number, it can seem like an unobtainable goal.

      A secret to making it more doable in your mind is to break up all of your expenses so you have a bunch of small numbers to work with.

      For example, let's say your cable bill is $150/month. Start by making it your goal to make enough, basically on autopilot, to cover that one bill.

      Next, you take your electric bill of $75/month, and do the same thing.

      I forget whose idea this was but I read it a couple of years ago and thought it was a good way to approach online financial goals.

      Goal setting is all about taking your big goal and breaking it into smaller goals that you can achieve easily. One bite at a time, and finally, you reach the mountain top, or eat an elephant.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • 100% passive is a lot of initial work. I think a good in between is semi-passive income. Something that requires a little maintenance here and there but for the most part is little work for the return on investment.
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    • Yup, it's called an email list.

    • I agree. One of my incomes is a service I can outsource entirely. I always thought of this as"passive", even thought I do need to spend a little time sending emails to clients, answering questions, etc.

      Long live semi-passive income!
      _________
      Jeremy
    • I guess it depends a lot on your income source & biz model.

      If you are providing a service, then it's going to be quite hard to lower your time investment. If fact, for most service oriented businesses, it's going to be the opposite. More projects/time => More Revenue. But even with this you can reach a point, where you outsource or train a team to handle the day to day operations.

      If you're selling a fixed product, like an ebook, physical product or anything that can stand the test of time, then you can definitely work towards lowering your time investment. You might have to spend at least the first 6 months on perfecting your systems/delivery operations, marketing campaigns, affiliate recruitment and building a good customer support team or partner.

      Then once you have a model that works, you can then apply it to a different product until you are satisfied. But like Steven said, 100% is passive is quite unlikely. 70 to 80% is more realistic imo.
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  • I don't know that 100% passive is really obtainable. Even if you outsource everything, you still have to manage the those doing the work. Someone mentioned an email list...you'd still have to send emails, follow up, and answer any questions that you received from sending the broadcast. However, semi-passive can definitely be achieved if you take the right steps.
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    • Passive income is definetly achievable although it depends what niche you've decided to promote. In the internet marketing niche it's becoming harder to sell without using video sales letters and this can be a barrier of entry to most people.
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  • Building passive income streams requires a strong foundation, unless you're getting dividends from stocks or interest from a P2P lending platform like Lending Club.

    I constantly document new methods of creating passive income streams on my blog and have a Page of ideas, some I use myself and some not, that I also keep updated there.
  • Of course it's achievable - how passive depends on how much you want to delegate (dare I say outsource). That has to do with your comfort level. I was first introduced to the idea of passive income in Rich Dad Poor Dad, and what you learn there is passive is directly connected to how much you are willing to let others do. It applies here also. If you do it all, it's not passive. If you outsource it all and just check in, that can be pretty passive.

  • its more than achievable...its happening to people in this industry
    everyday. you have to put in the hard work up front and you could
    that business to the point where you don't have to work as hard.

    there's teenagers, high school drop outs creating
    passive income from there business but you have to put up the hard work up front and when you get that momentum and reach that financial goal you
    can let the business run on semi-autopilot.
  • It is possible with hard work of course. But I guess that is one of the reasons why we do it. Hard work so we can harvest the fruit of our labor.

    I do not think you can create a 100% passive income, you will always need some sort of monitoring and adaption to the market, because the market is changing all the time and if we decide just to sit down and become lazy, we could lose it all.

    M
  • yes it can definitely be done. Although it depends on who, some might make only pocket change while others can make enough to quit their day jobs. It all depends on who hard you work.

    I've seen guys doing it part time and ending up making more then their 51K/year job so just keep that in mind.
  • I think passive income is possible to a certain extent, but it is never going to be completely hands free, there will always be stuff you need to do to keep it going.
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    • Again, maybe I'm getting lost in semantics....but, I'd personally think that the word "passive", itself, would assume 100% passivity. When someone says "it can be 90% passive", I just don't see that as being entirely "passive"....

      Another thing to consider...and another posted alluded to this...is it even WISE to make a revenue stream entirely passive? What if, with the injection of just a little more effort, you could grow your business exponentially? It sounds great in theory....even Tim Ferriss had said that his "4-hour Workweek" was a item of marketing genius....he had said that he would have called it the "1-hour Workweek", but that just didn't 'sound' right. It's a nice idea in theory, but ultimately, it's meant moreso for the marketing benefits derived from it.
  • Yes passive income is possible. Once you set up the system on autopilot, you don't have to do much. Examples:

    1. Post gigs on fiverr which requires little follow up, e.g send them a ready-made report.

    2. Publish your ebook and use Google Adwords or Facebook ads to promote your website. Buyers automatically access the download page upon online payment.

    3. Provide web hosting services. Website owners will pay you the annual web hosting fees every year.

    4. Rent out your spare room. Tenants will pay you rental fees month after month.

    The ultimate freedom is when you don't have to work, take a vacation and the money still flow in. You must believe it is possible and start to build the passive income machine.

    I believe in it and I am building it. I have 10 streams of income and 2 of them are passive. The rest are active services.
  • yes - passive income is possible.

    Think the McDonalds model....they are NOT a company that sells hamburgers...they used the hamburgers to buy the assets that allowed them a passive income.

    Always, always think big picture.

    Hope that helps,
    Dawn Damico
    YourResearchDiva.com
  • Passive income is definitely achievable. The key is automation and consistency. When you treat it like a business, it should grow.
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    • Exactly , Automation gives you leverage . Makes doing the work easy and allow you do more

      Consistency is the only way you are going to see enduring results . Most people are looking for fast way , a loophole they can exploit but they don't last . You don't want your income to grab wings and fly away .

      Very good points . Automation (applying leverage) and consistency (big diffrence where you are going to make some money or not . Took me 30 days of consistency before i saw some $$$ . Most people will give up if they haven't seen anything with hours )
  • Absolutely possible, great way of doing it is to reccomend recurring billing products that are good.

    In order to that I would highly reccomend you learn list building so you can promote to the list
  • Passive income is achievable. Still I earn few bucks per month through my 5 years old article. Actually, It's an accidental success. There are some positive way to compose passive income streams.
  • An acquaintance of ours earns a monthly passive income of $1k+/month from different autoresponders he sold. Its not much but still an income. He worked hard for more than 2 years just to get that much.

    Jing Quimpo
    “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
  • I think it is possible to get very close to completely passive income. One of the ways I've personally found is through Adsense, you create a page of content one time and it will bring you in passive income permanently. The only work is keeping your content on the first page of google, which can be outsourced very easily.
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    • I agree with this.

      I have some adsense channels that are 'almost' passive. Because so many niches are just so highly competitive, it does take at least some time and effort to ensure that articles/content aren't being dethroned by others. I like the first page.
  • I believe that passive income works and works well if you know what you are doing. Of course, you would require some form of investment of time, money and effort to make it happen. As mentioned by some warriors in these posts, you would require some hard work initially. But you would eventually attain the success after a while.

    The REAL success is have more profits with little amount of time and money spent. I think you would understand what I am trying to say.

    As for me, I have set-up a few autopilot incomes in few niches. At first, I was having information overload. But after a while, I stopped for a while and start to focus in one niche and somehow learn a lot from there and after that. I expand to few niches then. What I am trying to share here with you is that you need to concentrate on which model you prefer and then start working. As long as you concentrate and prevent information overload, I believe it will be a good start for you. It works for me and I hope that it works for you too.

    Hope it helps...

    Raymond
  • I don't think there's such a thing as truly passive income. I've had sources of income online that were passive for a while, but as the internet changed, I had to work on that stream of income again, or create a new one to replace it. So, nothing is forever! What approaches passive income are sources of income that are highly leveraged (that don't take much of your time to create a ton of income). There are also sources of income where you're not a slave to a schedule (as you are in a JOB). That's about as close to truly passive as you can practically get. My $.02.

    Lee
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    • You can achieve passive income, but it definitely takes work. I think the key is to have multiple income streams from different areas.

      For example, I have both products, affiliate sites as well as services.

      The affiliate sites are passive now due to where they rank and the email list I've built with them. The search engines continue to feed leads into it, the email responder handles the rest. But, one day the search engines may decide they don't like my site anymore and then it won't be as passive anymore.

      I think you get more "passive" when you have your own products and services.

      Your various products feed your funnel which then is taken over by more products, autoresponders and broadcasts. Get affiliates to feed your funnel, make deals with other marketers for download page add swaps, give away a few products you actually sell to others to use as bonuses and any other way you can find to passively feed for your and it truly is passive.

      Once you don't have to drive the traffic yourself, and it's something you OWN, it's truly passive.

      Another way to get truly passive income is to get into affiliate networks that give lifetime cookies. This is passive because all you have to do is drive people into someone elses funnel and if they have lifetime cookies, those people are cookied to you for any other product in that persons network. So if they buy a product next week and then one five years from now, you still get the commission.

      And before anyone says anything, yes it's in my signature, but that's not why I said that. I learned that from someone else who I drove traffic into THEIR funnel and watched how it brought me commissions from other products those leads that I sent to them months down the road.

      It takes a good amount of work upfront, but when you combine all of those things, you can truly have a real passive income.
  • It takes work, but my site earns me money whether I choose to work on it or not so, of course it's possible. I earn a decent passive income and concentrate all my efforts on growth.

    By the way, the options above are not the only ones for growing income. Viral Marketing is the main method I use.

    Will
  • If you work hard and build on different multiple income streams as an affiliate or vendor then it is possible. But the thing is it may last up to 6 to 12 months as customers may cancel, so it's important to use the profits to keep re-investing into the business.
  • It's certainly achievable. It's just normally not "passive" in the beginning. You put in massive effort upfront then later it can become passive.
  • I think the only set it and forget it is the Ron Popill 'As Seen On TV" Rotisserie.......comes with 2 different accessories and a coupon for a turkey.......lol

    I was taught that LUCK is Labor Under Correct Knowledge. So labor/work is the answer. Work hard, get paid paid, spend money.
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  • There are plenty of business owners, offline and online, that have 100% passive income and have others watch and manage their businesses and their investments. So it's definitely possible.

    With internet marketing, the same principles apply. You can have a total hands free operation as long as you set up the proper systems, have policies and procedures in place, and have trusted managers to watch and manage your staff. Even supervision can be outsourced.

    RoD
  • Lets not forget about book royalties :-)

    I'm loving this passive income. I take the money and buy income properties managed by a property management company and make even more passive income.
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    • Yes, this.

      Last week, George R. R. Martin sold (or so I heard and it's plausible) 43,000 copies of the first four books in his A Song Of Ice And Fire/Game Of Thrones series last week. The most recent of those books was published five years ago.

      That is passive income.

      Stephen King sells copies every day of books he published thirty years ago.

      Now, obviously, these are extreme examples. But if you produce a product that people want and put it in a place where they can get it, you can have truly passive income.

      Easier to achieve is semi passive income, which is what many marketers get, where you're still managing the marketing or working with outsourcers.
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    • Thanks Ron,

      It seems link you have the midas touch with everything that you do. Thanks for always giving back, and giving great advice.

      Cheers!
  • Hi amarketing,

    There are 2 tried and tested ways that i know of that can create passive income. i define passive as less than 4hours of work a week.

    You could have a business where all work is outsourced, learn from tim ferris 4 hour work week if that helps.

    Or you could build a business where your salesman depend on your strategy and pay you a commission. I have done this before and it is extremely profitable. The moment they leave your system their sales drop tremendously, and they will come back. All the money is yours to keep.
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    • Nothing comes easy. you may eventually progress to that point but starting....laws of inertia in everything. You must invest a something to start with. That's your seed. tiling the ground plant the seed and taking care of it until it buds and produces fruits. Now you can enjoy the harvest without worrying about the process.
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  • Thanks for all of your replies, everyone.

    Maybe passive wasn't the right word. What I'm wondering about is what many replies have metioned, and that is, a decent (yeah, I know that really subjective) level of income that eventually requires less work. Fewer hours spent working and more spent enjoying life with family.

    Success with IM obviously comes with a lot of effort, but could it be maintained with less effort?

    From many of the replies here, it sounds very possible.
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    • Yes. Making money via SEO/websites is much like climbing a mountain but once you reach the top the view is nice. It is essentially just maintaining from there, which you could outsource if you wanted to and would only need to spend a couple hours a week looking over reports and work completed.

      As for other methods like PPC or PPV, I can't speak on since I no experience with.
  • Is there anyone here who works a 4-hour workweek?
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    • i have tried it and honestly it makes me miserable

      have you ever seen Bee Movie where towards the end of the movie all the bees stop making honey and end up getting depressed?

      yeah, its like that. if I'm not constantly creating or improving or looking to the future I fall into a slump, but thats just me.

      P.S. I really doubt the writer of 4 hour work week really works just 4 hours a week. that guy is a hustler, he gets it done.
  • It is definitely possible! You have to believe in it though and treat your business as if you invested a million dollars! The most important thing is to learn from those who have done it already, then implement the steps. After awhile, outsourcing will come into play and you can just manage your business. "Work in, Work on, Replace"
  • It's definitely possible...

    Most if not all of my IM income is actually passive... The secret: PPC!
  • I made a website about Hawaii in 1997. It started to make money in 2003 (when I got on board with adsense). In 2003, I had a baby, and did absolutely zero with my website for 5 years. Nothing. No work. I answered my emails, and that was about it. It still made me $30,000 a year, every year, year after year, month after month. totally passive. (Now that I am working it again it's making more)

    p.s. this was a 100% organic search site. I had no list. I added no new content or links or anything. I just made it. put adsense on it, and let it sit.
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    • That is awesome. That is where I want to get to.

      To add to the comments I made earlier, I would like to point out that even though Lisa did not add anything to her site, she still managed it. Lisa answered emails and such. Furthermore, when she started to put more time into it, it started making more $$$.

      Lisa, you accomplished the goals I have for my site. Congrats! I hope to accomplish what you have accomplished soon.
    • Wow that is very nice. $80 a day in Adsense from a Hawaii travel site, you must have had some great content/rankings.
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  • There is such a thing as passive income online. Just not passive income online forever.
    Of course there will be the odd exception like the post above.
    At one time adwords gave passive income. You started a campaign, if it was profitable, you just kept running it. It didn't last forever, but while it was viable, it was true passive income. Even it there was an ad spend component to it. It didn't require any time.
    I know a guy who wrote a ton of articles in the space of a year in one niche. He hasn't done anything with it for several years and it still makes a full time income today.
    Well it stop eventually if he keeps neglecting it? Highly likely. But it could be years away.
    Some people only have to do a small amount of work each day to maintain their business each day once its set up properly. That is more common than a completely passive income.
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  • Sure passive income is acheivable, but ofcourse it takes time, there are some niches that you won't see a penny for months, but to keep on plugging away knowing what you are doing will lead to something is the key, unfortunately not many people have the patience to see things through to completion, too many people abandon the ship when no money is coming in fast enough, and they are bills to pay
  • Yes it is achievable. But it needs work hard and focus. No such thing as quick success.
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    hurry up
  • Auto-Pilot just means search traffic.

    Because once your sites get high in Google that traffic comes in without you doing anything.

    So it's not hype. It's just more difficult to find profitable niches that arent saturated today.

    I plan to build a network of 100 sites, each generating a few sales per month and because they'll ONLY get traffic from SEO they will be set it and forget it.

    It takes patience, some money for the hosting and domains and a goal. I'm already almost there, just gotta bang on that patience drum.

    Good luck.
  • Passive income is tough unless you create your own content and market it for sale or function as an affiliate. Consider creating content by outsourcing and then editing/proofreading it. You can get much more done this way rather than trying to do it all yourself.
  • There is no denying to the fact that you need to put a lot of effort for making passive income but still, Yes, it is achievable and a lots of people are doing it
  • Hi dear,

    it is possible to make a steady passive income. I can vouche for it ever since I was sent my very first affiliate paycheck few months ago.

    unfortunately, the IM world is just like the real world as far as my IM experiences can tell. Meaning that the more effort you put into a project the more it pays off in terms of money.

    Fortunately, you can outsource almost any type work in order to make more space into your time schedule. That`s how serious players make big passive bucks monthly. They outsource the tedious manual work and concentrate on important stuff.

    To your success
    Dennis

  • Honestly, I don't know My friend says that Google quotes it at 3000 pages, but a lot of that is junk from old forums and from back in the day when Amazon let you put up a storefront on your site.

    My guess is there are about 300 good quality pages written by me and a couple hundred more decent forum pages.

    I started this site in 1997 and just wrote cuz I loved to write. I never kept track of anything. I knew nothing. Basically the site is an organizational mess, and someday I may fix that.

    But honestly I may not. I am on to bigger things.

    oh, and p.s. It wasn't just adsense that brought me all my income. I also have used various affilate programs over the years - all travel related.
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  • 84

    Is a passive income achievable?

    Hi all. I've been wondering about this lately. I know it's nothing that happens overnight and without a lot of work, but is it possible? I'm not talking about the set it and forget it, autopilot type of thing that we so commonly see in hype messages.