Friday, March 9, 2012

Three Reasons Why I Love Generating Passive Income


I've had several businesses over the years. In Hawaii I had a wholesale fine jewelry business selling to an upscale department store. Sales were pretty good. I don't want to date myself, but this was in the eighties and Hawaii had quite a bit of tourist traffic.  I designed my inventory and had it manufactured in Hong Kong and Thailand and sold it in Hawaii. When I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona I opened two upscale retail stores selling artistic jewelry and objects d'art. I went on buying trips to Asia and Mexico and bought some of my inventory at wholesale trade shows in the U.S.

Both of these businesses required inventory, packaging, shipping, importing, pricing, office space, overhead, insurance, etc. You get the idea. A great deal of work went into making these businesses profitable and successful.

Now that I have my coaching business, I still do a great deal of work IN my business. However I have come to enjoy the ability to generate passive revenue from information products I have designed myself. How did I do that? I just looked at problems my clients were experiencing over and over again, created a solution and made it available for others to purchase on the internet without having to hire me.

I recently met one of my goals – attaining a nice big chunk of passive revenue. This led me to think about why I love passive income. So here are three reasons why I love generating passive income:

Once you've done the work, you get paid over and over again.
I don't mean to say that it's easy to create a product and sell it on the internet. First you have to create the product and bonuses. Then you have to have it designed (otherwise you'll look like an amateur). Then you have to load it to a webpage, get a shopping cart, and create the webpage copy. Then the hard part comes. You have to market the product.

Duh. You get income for doing nothing.
It's really nice to get a "Merchant E-Mail Receipt" in your inbox every time you make a sale.  I have set up my Outlook to send these receipts straight to my folder with a label of the same name. When there's a new receipt, the folder becomes bolded alerting me to check out what I've sold. That's a good feeling!

Passive income is "gravy" and allows you to enjoy the extras in life.
I'm not Tony Robbins (but I'd love to meet him), so I still have a regular job coaching independent financial advisors Monday through Thursday. Assuming you are still working in your main job, passive income makes life easier and can finance a month at the beach (which I'm doing this August), an international trip, or a renovation project.  

Those are my reasons for loving passive income. Getting paid over and over again for work I've done years ago really appeals to me. Getting income for doing nothing is wonderful. Enjoying the finer things in life is cool.

So my question for you is: what do you need to do with your business and your life to create your own passive revenue stream of income?

Suzanne Muusers
Business Coach to "Out of the Box" Advisors