The Often-Repeated Passive Income Requirement that I’m Skipping
I HAVE A BETTER WAY
If you’re on Medium, I’m going to assume that you know what passive income is. I’m also going to assume you know this about passive income.
Passive income isn’t really passive. At some point, there was an input of work, time, and energy. You did something, and later you reaped the rewards again and again.
Others have used the term automated income and delayed passive income.
Those work well too.
MY PASSIVE INCOME JOURNEY
My passive income journey was probably like the journeys of many other people.
I had to figure how people were making passive income. I had to learn skills. I had to research what was selling. I had to find platforms to sell on. I learned how to use Canva, WordPress, LearnPress, Grammarly, Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, YouTube, TikTok, Anchor and more.
I don’t know many attorneys my age who can say that they have skills and experience with even half of these.
Some of it, I was bad at for a long time before I got better. For others, I quickly learned how they worked, and I got good fast.
My husband is older than I am. So, he wasn’t a lot of help.
My daughter turned 21 in November, and there were times when she helped out.
I muddled my way through, picking up skill after skill to build multiple passive income revenue streams. They include the following: online courses, digital downloads, and Google Adsense revenue. I’ve had little success with affiliate revenue, podcasting, and writing. My bigggest no-no is that I haven’t built my email list.
I keep saying that I’m working on it.
My online courses are sold on three platforms, soon to include my own platform. One of those platforms brings in most of the money. Two others that I sold courses on decided to shut down this year. So, that could have been five platforms I was selling on. Oh…well.
I sell digital downloads on Etsy and on my website. I’m meeting my “little” goal for Etsy, but not yet for my website.
I have two YouTube channels. One is monetized, and one isn’t. And even though I have over 600 videos on my monetized channel, growth has been slow. So, I’ve focused on the second channel. It has better growth potential.
For those who don’t know, it takes a lot to make YouTube videos. You don’t start making money from day one. There’s a threshold of 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers.
I do all of this while continuing to work as an attorney. Writing letters for clients. Taking client calls. Reviewing contracts.
So, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just pick one stream and work on that one instead of working on multiple streams at the same time.
GOING DEEP VERSUS GOING WIDE
This is the rule that I’ve heard on numerous ocassions.
Build one revenue stream to where you want it, and then focus on the second one. Once you have the second, then start the third. This is the journey.
I don’t agree with this approach for several reasons.
First, it is putting all of your eggs in one basket. What would happen if I only focused on having a YouTube channel and then YouTube shut down. Assume that I had spent years making videos, perfecting titles, thumbnails, and playlists. What if I also had a website that embedded all of those videos. If I spent all my time using YouTube as my only platform of choice, I was taking a chance.
Second, you’re missing an opportunity to re-purpose content that you’ve already made.
Better to take those same videos and find a way to put them on my website. Make sure that I’m using affiliate income and ad sales on that website. Make sure that I’m using an email list for that website. I could even take shorter clips and post them on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And finally, I could make a podcast with the audio version.
Third, passive income diversification forces me get better about making good content because I know it needs to be succinct. It has to add value.
For instance, I’ve become more selective in the courses that I produce. I conduct more research now. I look for marketplace trends. Since I usually have a transcript for my courses, I can use those transcripts to create e-books and sell those as digital downloads on Etsy and my website.
And finally, and this is more important for me as a business lawyer, it provides me with a greater understanding of the legal obstacles that content creators, influencers, and e-commerce sites face. So, I’m growing my expertise in my legal practice area.
Many clients find me because I’m on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Additionally, they believe that I understand their issues because “I’ve been there.”
So, no, I’m not going to focus on building one stream. I’m going to focus on the few that I’ve selected. I’m going to grow those few, and then go from there.
In the end, you have to pick the strategy that works best for you. That’s what I did. That may be what you need to do also.
