Is it your life’s ambition to earn money while you sleep? Do you often find yourself pondering over how to make easy money online? In fact, do you strongly feel that in order to make money you shouldn’t have to work too hard?
If this describes you, please know that you are not insane; you have come to the right place. It is entirely possible to earn money while sleeping. Follow me as I share my top five ways to go about it.
If you’ve arrived at this page, you’re most likely looking for quick and easy ways to make money online and you may have heard that doing online surveys is the quickest and most convenient way to earn money on the internet.
Although there is some truth to this, and I have a couple of survey companies that I use myself to earn a couple of dollars per month, that is not what we are going to discuss today.
Online surveys can indeed earn you a few hundred dollars each month but they are probably not the ideal approach to making money because they are directly linked to your time.
The amount of time you’d have to spend in front of your computer screen answering those questions to make an amount as little as $100 may not sound very appealing.
Today, we’ll discuss a technique of earning money that isn’t directly tied to your time, leaving you with plenty of free time to do other things with your life. This method is called Passive income.
WHAT IS PASSIVE INCOME? (and what it is not)
Passive income is earned from an established income source that the owner does not have to actively manage.
Passive income does not imply that you generate money by doing nothing because let’s face it, that is rather unheard of (unless you are into some serious manifestation practices). Neither is it a get-rich-quick scheme.
When it comes to passive income, you do the majority of work upfront by establishing the product or business and then get money later as you make sales.
A good example of passive income is writing a book. You simply have to write it once, and then you can consistently make money for years to come by selling the same book. You don’t write the book every day, do you?
This blog post is another excellent example. By the time you read this, I’ve already completed the writing labor, and as more people read it, I get compensated by Google (but that’s a story for another post). Read more about how I make money through blogging here.
Active income is the polar opposite of passive income. An example would be your 9-5 job where you have to exchange your time for money every day.
HOW EASY IS IT TO ESTABLISH A PASSIVE INCOME STREAM?
Now, I know that many of you might be thinking, “Write an entire book? I need the money today!” Some of you may feel like you don’t have the time to build an entire product as you are in dire need of an emergency source of income.
Reasons for these anxious feelings may vary from person to person, but the most typical reason is that you are likely underpaid in your day job and are so worn out from the hard-work-for-peanuts that you don’t think you have the strength it takes to start something else on the side (especially something that might potentially consume all your free time – after all, you need that to rest before you go back to work tomorrow, right?).
Perhaps you are not employed at all and need to find a source of income as soon as possible in order to pay off those looming bills at the end of the month.
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but as the old adage goes, “nothing worth having comes easy.”
To develop a lucrative income stream, you will have to make certain sacrifices in terms of time and resources.
Fortunately, the degrees of difficulty in starting passive income streams vary widely, and in this post, I’ve compiled a list of the easiest passive income streams to get started with little or no money.
Those in desperate need of fast cash can, however, begin completing surveys right here. Those who wish to do the work once and then get paid while living their best life should continue reading.
1. Create an Online Course
The easiest way to create passive income is to use skills or knowledge that you already have and flip that into money. Creating an online course is the quickest and most profitable way to do this.
An online course is essentially course material that has been converted into video format. There are many visual learners out there, and this style of instruction is in high demand.
You can get started right away if you already have average to expert knowledge on a particular subject.
Unlike traditional classroom teaching, where you must stand in front of a class every day and deliver your expertise, online courses allow you to compile all of the information you have about a subject into one video and make it accessible to millions of students across the world through online course platforms like Teachable.
You could teach absolutely anything on these platforms, including a programming language, a foreign language, a musical instrument, sewing, cooking, web design, graphic design, and drawing.
If you have any knowledge at all that you feel is worth sharing, then you must give this a try.
The advantage of developing an online course is that you don’t need to have any certifications or work full-time to begin sharing your knowledge. Potential students will preview your course and decide whether or not to purchase it based on the quality and value that they perceive in the preview.
This passive income stream is so simple to set up that you can start recording course material with your phone right now, publish it to an online course platform, and start earning money in no time.
In order to excel at this hustle, all you have to do is ensure that your videos are of high quality and that your course offers real value. The only reason people will pay for your course is if it’s really good.
2. Drop Servicing with Fiverr
Drop servicing is simple and straightforward. It refers to the practice of selling a service to a customer for a set fee (for example, $100). Then, without the client’s knowledge, hiring someone else to provide the service at a cheaper price (for example, $50) and then pocketing the difference.
You may outsource any job, but digital services such as logo design and web design are the easiest to sell because everything is done and delivered through the internet.
The best place to outsource these services is Fiverr. You can purchase any service for as low as $5.
The steps to getting your drop servicing business off the ground are as follows:
- Create a website that provides digital services. You can host a website for $2.95 per month with Bluehost then hire a web designer on Fiverr to quickly set up a one-page website for you if you are not a skilled web designer. Investing in a website will make you look professional and give you a competitive advantage but if you don’t have the funds for a website yet, you can always use word of mouth or create a Facebook and/or Instagram page.
- Market and publicize your website to attract customers. You can do this by using social media platforms like Facebook. I like to join Facebook groups for business owners and offer my help whenever a member asks for it. For example, when someone is looking to hire a logo designer.
- Send the project specifics to a service provider who will do the work. Fiverr is a great place to get digital services, as I have mentioned. You can charge a client $100 for a logo and then buy it for $5 on Fiverr, literally.
- Deliver the job to the client once it’s finished.
3. Affiliate Marketing
My third and favorite passive income idea on the list is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is an advertising approach in which a company pays other people (for example, influencers) a percentage of sales to promote and sell its products and services.
When you promote a company’s products or services, you are known as an affiliate of that company.
Amazon Associates is a fantastic example of an affiliate marketing program. Through this program, affiliates get paid a commission for promoting products on Amazon.
To me, affiliate marketing is the best type of passive income. Like you, I used to look for quick ways to make money on the internet, and it wasn’t until I was utterly exhausted from doing online surveys and other minor jobs that didn’t produce the results I wanted that I discovered affiliate marketing. It was my saving grace.
Affiliate marketers make an average of $20 000 per year worldwide, so this is something that you may want to consider delving into.
Affiliate Marketing typically works by requesting a personalized link from the company that you wish to advertise for and embedding that link on your website or social media accounts like Youtube.
Whenever someone purchases the product or service through your link, you get paid an agreed percentage of that sale. Some links that you see on this blog are good examples of affiliate links.
You may now be wondering if you need to be an influencer with a large following or start a blog to begin working as an affiliate marketer.
Well, not necessarily, but it helps tremendously. Joining this affiliate marketing platform helped to show me the ropes and got me started with my affiliate marketing business in no time at all.
Related Post: How to make money with blogging: Top 5 Ways
4. Start an Online Tshirt Business.
Now, at first glance, this business idea may sound like it’s going to demand a lot. You may already be thinking, “Where do I get the material, the tailors, the printing company, the capital!”
Worry not, what we are going to discuss is not your traditional physical store T-shirt business. We will talk about a print-on-demand type of business.
Print on demand is a business procedure in which products aren’t printed until the company receives an order, allowing for single or small-quantity printing.
There are a few companies in the market offering this service, but the one I recommend for complete beginners is TeeSpring.
Teespring is a company that allows people to create and sell custom products. Products sold include T-shirts, mugs, and beenies, but T-shirts are the best-selling.
Sellers are expected to design the products, but Teespring sets up the online store for you in a few easy steps.
The company is also in charge of purchasing/manufacturing the products, as well as printing and shipping them to the customer. Your sole responsibility is to design a logo that will be printed on the T-shirts.
This may sound like a job for professional designers, but it isn’t. In fact, with the right tools, the typical individual can create a decent design.
Designs do not have to be complicated logos. They can be as simple as a text logo or a simple slogan like the one below.
Most Teespring designers use a free app called Canva to create these designs. Canva has a simple, intuitive interface that allows even the least creative individual to create a professional-looking design in no time.
If you, for some reason, feel that designing with Canva constitutes unwanted work (we are, after all, seeking to work as little as possible to make money), there are other quick ways to go about getting designs, like outsourcing them from a Freelance website like Fiverr for as little as $5.
DISADVANTAGE OF USING TEESPRING
There is one little drawback to using Teespring to run your t-shirt company. Teespring, in my opinion, is the quickest way to have your T-shirt shop up and operating, with minimal effort and no money. However, the platform is not very flexible; for example, it does not give you access to your customer details.
Having access to your clients at all times is one of the most important aspects of running a business. What will you do if your Teespring business takes off, but then the company itself closes down due to an unforeseeable circumstance?
Well, maybe not something as drastic. Maybe you eventually do so well and gain more knowledge in the T-shirt industry that you want to scale up and gain more control over your designs and business by moving to another online platform that allows this.
Would it be fair for you to start marketing your business from scratch when you can just notify your existing customers of your new store?
An email list comes in handy in this situation. A prudent online business owner should have a list of all their clients and be ready to notify their clients of any changes in the business, like moving to a new online platform.
Since Teespring does not have this functionality on their platform, it is advisable, once you have raised enough capital on Teespring, to transfer your online store to a platform like Shopify that offers access to more business functionality.
Shopify is a paid e-commerce platform that will give you a lot of flexibility in setting up your online store. You will, however, need to use another print-on-demand company like Printful, which will allow you to integrate with Shopify and start a dropshipping business.
Learn more about how to start a dropshipping business with Shopify here.
5. Start a Youtube Channel
Last on our list is starting a Youtube Channel. Just like creating an online course, starting a Youtube channel is pretty easy because all you need to get started is to record videos and upload them on your Youtube channel.
Creating a Youtube channel is as easy as going to youtube.com and clicking the “create a channel” button.
Unlike creating an online course, being a Youtuber doesn’t require you to have any skills (well, unless you want to create a learning channel). With Youtube, you can post about the simplest and most random things like DIY videos or personal life experiences.
People love to hear a good story, and the majority go to Youtube for entertainment purposes. If you have a great personality or have had interesting or peculiar events happen in your life, you can get a large following on Youtube by sharing your personal life.
Once you get a certain number of views on your channel, you can apply to Google Adsense, which allows you to earn money by placing ads on your videos.
CONCLUSION
This article delves into the 5 easiest ways to create passive income. You may have noticed that it would be faster and cheaper to create a passive income stream if you already possess some type of skill (digital skills being the handiest for the mentioned passive income strategies).
However, it shouldn’t be a train smash if you don’t possess any skills because the article also shows you ways through which you can outsource the necessary skills.
It also would not be a bad idea to invest in oneself by learning some new skills. The internet is a great place to get valuable skills for a fraction of the cost, and platforms like Skillshare have helped millions of individuals to get much-needed skills like Graphic and Web design.
Skillshare offers an affordable subscription for lifetime access to all its courses. It is basically the Netflix of education.
If you really want to get a valuable skill but don’t have any money, you can still sign up for Skillshare’s free one-month trial. This is more than enough time to get equipped with one good skill.
