Is IM truly passive income?

I agree. This ain't for you. And it ain't 40 hrs per week.

It's mostly not passive. It could end up passive after a few years of hard work if you outsourced or automated it but that would take time that you don't seem to have.

I'm earning in one day of IM a week what I earn in my other 4 days a week in a decent job. It does work, it's fickle, it's difficult to let go of that security. I'm about to make the leap. I always know that I can go out and get a job if I fail. I've never had a problem doing that. I think it's a mindset change and a bit of a leap of faith. But the "faith" here is in your own abilities and determination.

I'm currently riding the rungs of two ladders. You don't have to give everything else up to do this. It's very achievable part time until you gather the knowledge, momentum and income to take it on fully.

If you build an email list, then it becomes somewhat passive because you can make money sending offers to your list and your list gets bigger over time. But no, nothing in life is passive, everything decays if you stop maintaining it.

Who ever said it was passive? You can certainly set up some passive income streams but marketing stuff online is a business like any other.

If you look up the day in the life of a VC even they work 12 hour days and even more if working on closing a deal. I don't know who sold the autopilot dream, but, they lied big time!

Stick to the mantra, "the harder you work the easier it gets" because you can never go wrong working hard, (but, things can go terribly wrong from getting fat and lazy in business). Turning it on and off might not work after you get decades of easy living, so, stay sharp please.

That is all.

Not passive. But your websites work for you 24/7. Even when you sleep. Thus, not necessarily active income either. IM is dynamic income, neither positive nor active, but better.

I think it depends. If you set up an ad campaign once, and it nets you some big profits in sales, is that passive?

What about setting up a website, then leaving it to make sales. The setup is significant, but it fits, doesn't it?

No, it's not like buying a house, then renting it, but even that isn't passive.
Stock market isn't passive either, as you'd be an idiot to buy something then leave it and never check on it.

I think that really depends on the timeframe you consider passive to apply to.

There's no reason why you would have to spend 40 hours a week to get some success, none at all. In fact, once you get it, you'd be able to do significantly less than that, and still make a decent living.

Definiton of passive:

It depends how you have things set up. A lot of people use outsourcers so they take do not have to complete certain tasks. But you still need to be involved in your business at some level even if it's just telling outsourcers what to do.

Earl you are exactly right... I've made my living online for almost two decades... But I probably spend more time working that I would if I had a 40 hour a week job. I'm a introvert so it suits me but I put my time in just as you do with your job. If working from home is appealing to you then IM is something you should explore, but thinking that IM is a way to work 'less' is simply not the case for the vast majority of folks.

No, it's not. In fact, it's very active income. You must have been fooled by those "Make money with Google" ads. If you want passive income, try investing in index funds.

Yes I've always found success with passive models, although I did not think of it this way when I set them up.
There are many things you can do.
Some things I implemented around 10 years ago are still pulling in passive income each month without fail.
Once you get one thing working - for example YouTube Adsense videos, then you can
move onto something else in the knowledge that the income stream you have set up will
always work for you day or night.

Passive effort equals passive results.

Hi,

passive income is indeed a myth. "You build a list and then it's passive" - What about finding products to promote, writing reviews, making your products etc. etc.Even organic traffic keeps changing daily.

This is why find one thing that works and stick to it - bank enough - invest in real estate and gold and live a happy life.

No, it's not passive. You have to work your butt off to get a site to the point where it even begins to make more of a passive income, but in reality, as soon as you stop working on it, the results begin to dry up.

It sounds like you're way to busy to even consider an online career.

The harder you work the more you make... eventually you'll learn to outsource a lot of your work.

If you're after building passive income you're much better investing in corporate bonds and dividend stocks. Also checkout P2P lending sites. If you financed someone's small project, and collected a royalty on whatever they sold, then that I guess would be passive income.

However, be careful there's a lot of scammers out there.

IM is not set and forget. you must tweak, change and study all the time.

Certain things can be done and you can then set and forget but the majority of people making proper money are constantly working on their websites, constantly working to grow their lists and constantly trying out new strategies.

Passive income sounds great but I don't think that it will lead to riches.

Yeah being an internet marketer is kind of like being a doctor, you need to study all the time, adapt to any changes, you discover new thing everyday, and most of all you need to like it, you need to help, give value to people. Thats when you will make the most money and reputation for yourself.

Just because you are busy, that doesnt mean anything. Dedication is all you need.

Whoever told you that IM is passive income is trying to convince himself that it is!

IM is business (freelance-ish) and it demands time. It does not happen overnight that's one...

The way to leverage yourself is to design a fool-proof system, once you get liquid you can hire outsource to do the heavy loads so you can simply step back and orchestrate everything in harmony.

To put in my two cents. My wife is a stay at home mom and we have a new little girl. I use to run a construction business working about 9 hours a day along with marketing online for about an additional 3 hours a day. It sucks, but is well worth it.
When running my busy construction business, I did four things that replaced my income in 3 months.
1.) I sold a specific CPA product that I had a lot of interest in, which was a debt consolidation offer.
2.) I wrote one blog a day on that offer to educate my readers instead of boring them with my sales pitch.
3.) Participated in financial forums to help people with finances that brought my about 30 visitors a day.
4.) I also used Craiglist to post the CPA service with three ads posted every day.

This sounds like work, but in 3 months, you will get that income you are seeking.

Much Luck to You

It most certainly is not!

It takes very hard work and dedication, but if you can hold on to that epic work ethic for some years, you might make money while you are asleep. But this doesn't mean you don't have to work in the daytime..Ofcourse you can also outsource work too, so if you're doing really well, then you might eventually work less and earn way more than the regular 9-5 people.

I think IM is never passive income..
It is those marketing gimmicks that
send the wrong ideas to the newbies.

To think over again, we need these
gimmicks that help to sustain the
incomes of these successful marketers.

Sad to say this, but all of us need to
Grow up from this enflated Internet dreams

It can be more passive when your business
is on a working profitable system.
One way is to engage VA to handle
Parts of your works.

You will still be required to work on
business.. Not so much in the business.

Remember Tim Ferris's 4hrs work week..
Even he need to work for 4hrs..

You can only afford to think so far
after you have made 10k per month
And lots more as savings/reserves..

For now, do work your butt out to get
the sales in!!

Good luck!

YES, it can be...

I am currently wrapping up developement on a web service that will be paying lifetime commissions to affiliates.

Fully passive - Once you sign up a new client, you get commissions on all of their sales, forever.

Easy signups - It is FREE for clients to sign up and they make money when they sell too.

Value added integration - The service can be utilized by any and all websites, regarless of their current monetization method. It always increases positive user experience with a focus on keeping users on your site rather then directing them away like ads would do (while still bringing a source of revenue).

I wish I could say more but I'll be waiting till the system has passed beta testing.

The coolest part is IMers who aren't affiliates will still profit from the service by utilizing it on their sites.

You will be able to monetize any website, by itself or in conjunction with any other monetization method:

• Blogs
• Corporate sites
• E-commerce
• Forums
• Review sites
• Basically, any site that drives like minded visitors.

Stay tuned in the next 30 days for the official launch!

Well, i'd rather work 40+ hours a week from home and make loads more money than 40+ hours on 9-5 job that i hate.

And to set up a business you do need to put in a lot of hours. Once outsourcing is an option, you can outsource everything and start your "4 hour workweek"

Like any business, the initial part is crucial where we lay the foundations to build the model. As we progress and start making more money, we can automate and outsource most of the process to free up our time yet increasing our income. Thus creating a passive income.

Working on a job on the other hand, is working for others and the amount of time spend working equals to the amount your income is which is not scaleable.

Do you agree?

Great question Earl and some honest answers.

The question I would ask is you need to be clear in your own mind what is passive?

From my point of view I would agree that IM is like any other traditional business and to maintain a constant stream of income would require input from either yourself or someone that you are employed.

An analogy from a previous post which I believe is an honest definition: "was that if you were investing in stocks and shares, would you maintain an interest in their performance?" It would indeed be a foolish investor if they were to never check the stock price. Surely the same could be applied for an Internet marketer keeping a close eye on their own business.

Perhaps this is the true definition of a passive income or maybe as close to as is feasible and I would reiterate another post whereby it was stated "I would much rather spend 40 hours doing this rather than the traditional grind 9-5 together with the associated commute."So like everything in life you have a choice, simple but true and if you choose not to try well that is something for you to live with, and if you do take the leap and fail well at least you tried.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do and hopefully you will succeed with your endeavours.

Passive income online is like recording a CD and seeing the profits roll in for years and years ahead. Passive for me is earning residual money and then earning more from the efforts of other people. That is the way I see it from my own eyes.

It does take time to make things work online and if you are not willing to do what ever it takes for how long it takes then this is not for you.

For someone who is new, they have to put in the work when they get started. They have to persist and never stop until they earn what they desire. Once you have a system in place, things pretty much work for you on auto-pilot.

I have sites that I haven't done any work on since 2009 that are still making money, so yes, IM can be a passive income - to a degree... I mean, most types of passive income require some work anyway. Try buying some apartments and renting them out, for example - you'll probably discover that living off your assets isn't quite the "permanent vacation" you expected it to be. Overall, however, I wouldn't say my income is a very "passive" one, and with recent Google changes etc it actually requires me being more and more active. So... instead of looking for a passive income, create a business that allows you to spend your work hours doing stuff you love doing. Lots of people do just that so why not you?

Internet marketing is not passive but the great thing is how you can leverage work you do.

For example if you create a high converting squeeze page and funnel, you are done. All you need to do is send traffic and reap the profits.

If you have a newsletter it may take you a day to write - but once it is written this one newsletter can generate you traffic for years to come.

So no Internet marketing is not passive - but you can make a lot more money doing the same amount of work you would be doing in the real world.

Well... invest in alot of advertising, make sure you profit or at least break even. Do backend marketing. And let the system work itself while you're at work or chilling at the house. You'll get more traffic this way than doing free marketing for a few hours per day.

If you want passive income - get a job.

Unlike online business where you work 7 days a week, often 14+ hours a day, in a job you only work 8 and get to go to bed before 3am.

Jokes aside...

Online business is about momentum, over time you build momentum, and with that, comes earnings. Think of it like a big ocean liner. It takes a lot of effort to gather up speed to get going, but once its at speed, it just coasts along.

Online business is much the same.

It takes a shite load of effort at the beginning, but once you're coasting, you can back off the throttle a bit.

But not much.

If passive means working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, then DEFINITELY

It can be alot more work than a normal 9-5 job at the start, but once you get the hang of it, you can easily reduce your work week to a few hours at a time.

Like everyone said, you must always constantly keep learning and adapting to the changes in the environment.

My IM "work" week is actually less than 10 hours total (answering emails and setting up services), but I'm also working in other niches, so I'm still doing a 40+ hour work week, but actually doing stuff I love.

It's not exactly passive, but it beats sitting in traffic for 2 hours, a cubicle for 8 hours, and spending another 2 hours in traffic.

I have sites that I haven't done any work for a few years, but they keep bring a few hundreds per month, but overal, i am working around 30 hours a week.
I tried to make it as passive as possible with outsourcing, but it's doesn't work well enough for me.
If you can find good outsources, and project managers than you can have a " work 4 hours a week" , but, in reality, its not that easy to find them.

The phrase: You get out of life what you put in rings true.

If you have no experience and expect to do no work / make lots of money, your going to fail.

You could do some work and then just let it sit there?

The only passive income I have is a good few videos I have ranking on Youtube that point directly to affiliate offers. They've been up for a long time and continue to rank without me doing anything to them, I'll see sales week in week out. You have to take a little time to make the videos and rank them in the first place though obviously but it's not that time consuming.

Define "passive" lol..

You are right to some extend though, those who earn a lot of passive/residual each month have put a lot of effort in before hand though. Like I when I first started out I made a product review site, which to this date still earn a bit of money, and I don't even look at it :-)

So basically I guess people have different opinions on how to define "passive income". I like to use the term residual income, becuase I actually put in work each month.

There nothing exist called passive income...
your have to work actively for kickstart... and after that you can recruit worker for that but it won't be totally passive at all.
and 40+ hrs are not too much

Theory Expert

Passive means the life of the product is going to last and you do not have to actively promote a thing

I'm glad you agree.

Im is not easy or you can set on auto pilot for a steady income. you have to work hard and monitor regularly.

IM is definitely not for everybody and its definitely not passive as per experience. I'd say work hard, spend time to study and once you've hit the mark then every effort and money spent are definitely worth it. The returns are truly impressive that's if you work hard and spend time to it. So I guess you have to focus on what you really want and take the risk if you think its your thing then go for IM if you can't take the risk then definitely IM isn't for you..

It is passive income if you can 100% automate your sales funnel and online business.

I still highly recommend all Internet Marketers to build a Real Internet Business. This includes identifying a good niche to venture into and then build a huge list on that niche. Next, build a solid relationship with your leads and then create good online products that provide good value. This is when you can sell to your list repeatedly and earn a consistent online income. This model in my opinion and experience is the REAL Internet Business. I hope all Internet marketers will understand this and walk the right path to Internet success.

I actually don't agree on it. In my initial years I worked hard without worrying about the results. I set goals and then worked hard to achieve them. Make long term goals and find a business model that is going to be their for a long time.

The small income streams that I setup 2 years ago are still making me money with very little work. I make money from them and outsource 10% to maintain them. That's all it takes.

Currently I started working on other models and diversify my approach.

Don't just sit, think and pre assume things. If you want to get successful take that first step.

There is a very famous saying "Success happens when opportunity meets preparation"

Hope that helps

Well if you're making money while not working then it's passive income.

Passive income is the goal, not the means of production.

With social media allowing sites to become Google-proof, outsourcers readily available from a range of sites, and a breadth of payment methods, any type of IM business can be outsourced to the point of passivity.

The real trick is in creating something valuable enough...

All I see right now is "leverage". I could care less if it's called passive or not, especially right now (in the initial stages). We can do/earn a helluva lot more with the internet, networks, technology and affiliates compared to a normal job.

Damn, even earning your first dollar online shoots you WAY ahead of the gen pop. You can then start figuring things out to scale that up.

Of course you can have a passive income. No doubt about it.

I have 3 income streams right now that are about 90% passive. Although they are not my main income streams, they still = roughly half of all the money I make.

Then there is my main income stream, which is about half way passive.

Can you set up nothing but passive streams of income? Definitely!

Do I think that you're in a situation to do this? Unfortunately, no.

A major part of the reason why I was able to set up these funnels, was time. I mean having every minute of every day to do exactly what I needed.

If I did not have the time, I think I would have certaintly gave up.

Because I had all the time in the world, I was able to focus like a laser on what I was doing. If there were interuptions in my life like "go to work, focus on this, focus on that... come home, focus on something completely different, find the motivation/energy to actually do it etc etc", I probably couldn't do it.

Having the physical energy is one thing. But mental energy is completely different. You can feel like you have the energy, but stress is absolutely HORRIBLE for productivity. Stress creates major inefficiencies. Stress is distracting. It ruins your focus. It ruins your confidence etc etc.

Like I said I had very little stress, and it was a major benefit. I don't want to say it would be impossible for you to succeed, but I think it will be pretty close to impossible. The human brain is only meant to be effective/efficient for a short period of time each day. So if you're spending most of your time working, I just don't see it happening. You'll have no rest/recovery periods, you'll become stressed out, and it you'll find too many reasons to give up.

-Red

It's just another myth, trash. In internet marketing you probably have to be more active than anywhere else. Maybe it happens to the skilled writer, who publishes a book and then makes thousands, and keeps cashing in while leaving for Bahamas. And even for a good writer, takes months and loads of hard work to write a book. A good one, at least.

I don't know a lot about IM, and am a beginner, but am getting the idea.

Its deffinetly not passive in the beginning unless you have capital to start outsourcing then you can manage the business instead of working it.

I have a stream of passive income -- it's rather small, but considering it was "set and forget," I'm very pleased with it and proud of it too.

I have two small books on Kindle. I've never done any real promotion. I don't even have but one or two reviews. And yet this past month they generated me just under $100. NOT exactly an "income," but considering how little I put into it, I'm very pleased. I should do two things: (1) some actual promotion including get some reviews and (2) write some more.

I should point out -- while they're fairly thin books, they're meaty and quite useful. They're not just fluff. They're not thrown-together PLR (which Amazon doesn't really accept anyway). They're not the kind of "write it in 2 hours or less" trash I see promoted here in WSOs. From my POV, if your only interest in Kindle is money, then create a Clickbank product instead.

There is a lot of work involved on every aspect of your online business.

Even what is a passive income online needs organization and promotion, if not all the time, at least once in a while.