I want to talk about ”passive income” with you.

First, it’s a lie, it’s not passive!

Second I think the term is wrong! The term “Smart Income” would be better!

Earning Money Is Not Passive

All over the internet people are talking about passive income — like it’s some kind of magic trick. But passive income is not passive. It’s not like I snap with my fingers and grow rich.

There is action involved.

Before you can earn any money, you have to do something. Maybe you work for an employer and trade time for money, or you’re running a business and earn money with it.

But there is never gonna be a way of earning money and do nothing!

There are ways to earn money with minimal action. I like to call it smart income instead of passive.

We Are Not Used To Earning Money Smart

Trading money for time is not smart, but it’s very simple. It doesn’t involve a lot of planning if you trade time for money.

There are a lot of people who do that because at school nobody taught them how to earn money smart.

When I was at school and they would have money like that, I don’t know if I would choose it.

But if I got the option right now, I definitely would do it.

Earn Money The Smart Way

So how can you earn money smarter than trading time for money?

I want to show you a few examples which could inspire you to do so. But there are a few fundamentals to use.

Sell something digitally

First and foremost, create something digital. If you need to send people something they can touch, you have to do manual work over and over again.

If you need to send something digital, you can automate it. So less manual work is involved.

Automated the payment and delivery

If you can automate the payment and delivery process, it would be great.

The less manual work, the smarter your way of money.

There Is Always Work Upfront

There is always some work upfront or during the process. That’s why it’s not passive. Whatever you create to sell, you have to put in some time and work to set it up.

Before you put in the work

A lot of people have good ideas for products to sell, but how do you know if people want to spend their money on it.

You don’t want to end up with a cool product to sell, but nobody wants to spend its money on it.

Create a landing page via Mailchimp, make noise about it on social media and other places, and try to collect email addresses.

If people are filling in their email, you know that there is a market for it.

It’s no guarantee though, but you have checked it with your audience at least.

Ideas For Earning Money Smart

I want to help you with some ideas you can pick to earn your money in a smart way. Not everyone likes every option, but a good chance there is something you like.

1. Write An Ebook

Let’s say you have great skills for writing or have expertise in a topic in which some people are interested in.

A perfect way is to create an ebook or self-publish a book. There are tons of options to do it.

You can use Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Gumroad, and Inkshares to make the publishing a lot easier.

You can start writing your ebook in Word, or any other text editor you like. Create a PDF or an epub file from it and sell it.

You can sell it on your own website via an automated process or use the services of Amazon.

2. Create A Video Course

Just like with an ebook, you can also create a video course where you teach people the skills you have.

You can start with only your smartphone for recording yourself. Maybe you record your computer screen and use a webcam.

Write the structure of what you want to teach and start recording.

With minimal effort, you could be up and running. You can host it on Youtube and share a private link via email.

You could also use services like Udemy, Teachable, Udacity, and Skillshare. If you are in the programming industry you can try Egghead.io or Pluralsight.

They will handle all the logistics in terms of payment and rights for you.

3. Create content

Creating content, on a blog, or creating videos on Youtube or creating a podcast will let you earn money as well.

No matter what type of content creator you are, you can always monetize it.

Blogging

For example, if you love blogging you can have sponsors or advertisers for which you write special blogposts or create and add. Sponsors or advertisers work as well for videos and podcasts.

If you write on Medium you can earn money by joining their partner program. You earn by people — who are paid members — reading your posts, clapping, and interacting with it.

For bloggers, there are a few options to run adds.

• Google Adsense
• Affilate markteting via Amazon

Youtube video’s

For Youtube, there is the program by Youtube itself. But you can also make deals with companies yourself, so you don’t depend on Youtube.

Podcasting

For Podcasters, I saw a great option by Anchor (owned by Spotify). You can host, record, edit, and distribute your podcast to all kinds of channels. They even offer voice advertisements to include in your podcast for American users.

In this video Shopify explains how podcasters can make money.

4. Others

But there are loads more to talk about, but if I’m gonna do that this will be unnecessarily long. So here is a list of things you can check out yourself.

1. Dropshipping
2. Affiliate marketing via Amazon
3. Print-on-demand printing your own t-shirts, mugs, hoodies and more via Printfull

Conclusion

As I said 100% “Passive Income”, without doing anything for it, doesn’t exist. Even a guru “Pat Flynn” on in this place told it in his last video.

I think “Smart Income” is a far better term for it! So I hope this story will inspire you to create a new income stream for yourself. Hopefully, you will earn good money because of it.

Let me know in the comments what you are gonna pick for your “Smart Income” stream. Inspiration for the list of options is more than welcome!