Passive Income Isn’t Passive, It’s a Myth (Focus On This Instead)

March 1 2024

Read Time: 4 mins

Friend, my Instagram feed is rammed with dozens of faceless IG accounts (have you seen them?).

Each shouting to the world how they’re making $2k, $5k and upwards of $ 10k per day selling digital products without showing their faces.

And here’s the kicker – they aren’t even creating the products they’re selling!

It’s hard not to look at their offers and think ‘oohhhh maybe I should do that ..’

All that money for little effort – tempting yes?

In today’s issue, I’m going to cut through the BS and give you the real deal on what it takes to build an online business with expert products.

So that you can avoid getting suckered into the tempting ‘get rich quick’ schemes that are out there.

Let’s get at it.

💣 Truth Bomb: Online Passive Income Isn’t Passive 😬

Oof.

Here’s what I want you to know about building a business around digital products:

👉 Not all digital products are equal

👉 Passive Income Isn’t Passive

👉 It takes a long time to become profitable

❌ Not all Digital Products are Equal

As you know there are many different types of products you can create. At one end of the spectrum, you have products like templates, E-Books, guides and lead magnets. At the other end of the spectrum, you have memberships and courses.

I label the smaller products as “Micro-Problem Solvers”. And the larger products (memberships and courses) as “Macro-Problem Solvers”.

There’s a time and a place for each of these types of products.

That depends on your business model, and what type of problems you are solving for your customers.

This is why as a skilled health, fitness and wellness professional you need to strategically pick your products and stack them in a logical order.

What I see happening on all these Passive Income/ Digital Product accounts is that they aren’t interested in the long-term transformation of their buyers.

I say buyers purposefully because they aren’t in the business of creating deep relationships or creating long-term clients.

They sell quick, one-off products en masse.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this approach. If this is your goal, then have at it.

But, if you’re interested in helping people long-term, then choose products that create a deep transformation.

Here’s another way to think about this.

You can either sell one-off training sessions or one-off nutrition consultations (the equal of a Micro-Problem Solver) or you can sell 6-month packages (the equal of a Macro-Problem Solver).

Using this example our Passive Income/ Digital Product friends are making money selling lots of one-offs.

😕

“Wait, in a previous Gold Mind Issue You Said To Focus On Selling Micro-Problem Solvers First – I’m Confused”

🤷‍♀️

Yes, grasshopper, you’re right.

Context is important.

I recommended starting with the easiest thing to make, which is often a Micro-Problem Solver.

Here’s the caveat: that product becomes a stepping stone to the next bigger product.

image of different boxes stacked from small to big. each box represents a product idea or value suite of offers.

Your aim when building your online business is to think about your logical product stack. Create products that progressively move people from one step to the next.

When you plan with this in mind, you keep your product suite and overall business streamlined and simple.

💪 Passive Income Isn’t Passive

Let’s cut through the BS. Passive income requires work.

Building an online business requires lots of effort. A lot of it is done for ‘free’.

Just because someone creates a digital product it doesn’t mean it’s going to generate 7-figures (despite what those online influencers say).

The truth is, if you’re transitioning to the online space in the hope of making millions to sip margaritas by the pool all day, in a year, without lifting a finger, think again.

You have to be willing to put a lot of energy into the front end to reap the rewards down the track.

A better way to reframe this concept is to use the terminology Leveraged Income.

Every single product you create will need some form of active work from you.

However, you can leverage your time and income with your systems, the types of products you choose to create and how you decide to service them.

And that’s where the gold is.

💸 It takes a long time to become profitable

It takes on average 2-3 years to be profitable (of course some outliers do it faster, but this figure is realistic).

The majority of your efforts in this time are spent building up trust equity.

A fat loss client can’t expect to lose 15 kg in 2 months (unless they’re adopting extreme measures). It takes time for their metabolism to change and for their body to reflect this. Sure, they can have quick wins along the way, but for the fat loss to be sustainable, they have to take a considered route.

A lot of work goes into establishing daily habits that are conducive to fat loss.

The client has to chip away at it day by day by day.

One step at a time.

The same goes for your online business.

When I first launched my 7-week Fit Lean and Fierce program, I made $18k in revenue off that little $97 PDF product.

But, revenue doesn’t equal profit.

Revenue feeds the ego, profit feeds the family.

It took me a long time to learn this lesson.

While that was an impressive first product launch, by the time I removed the tax and expenses the take-home profit was less.

That profit had to sustain my business whilst I created another product to sell.

And so on, and on.

There’s been numerous occasions where I’ve sold products that made nada money.

It took a few years of managing the budget tightly (and on many occasions eating tuna and rice for lunch every day), to get to a place where I was comfortable.

My recommendation? Give yourself the gift of time.

Align your expectations so that you can enjoy the process of building an online business without the need to be profitable immediately.

Trust me when I say, it’ll make for a more fun, and less stressful adventure.

✌️✌️

The Wrap

The 3 key takeaways from today’s issue are: