Let’s face it: when you’re a beginner freelancer you really only have one concern — and that’s paying your bills.
Your focus isn’t on building email lists or complex sales funnels. It’s on drumming up enough client work, so you don’t have to trudge miserably back to your soul-sucking nine-to-five.
In the beginning, the goal is simply to keep your business alive and your electricity on. But once you gain back your financial security and are no longer worrying about where next months rent is coming from, you begin to think about what comes next.
Once you advance out of “survival mode” (which is an epic accomplishment and a huge relief) — what’s the next step?
What’s the next step when you want the next level?
If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to be a freelancer forever. Your dream business doesn’t include trading your time for dollars and allowing client work to control your schedule or restrict your earning potential.
For you, freelancing is not the end goal — passive income is. Whether it’s productizing your service or diving into affiliate marketing, you want to create a source of income that can make you money while you sleep. Something that requires less hands-on involvement, speaks to your interests and skills, and most importantly, allows you flexibility and freedom to work on the projects you love.
As a freelancer who is looking for the next level, my goal this year is to create a passive income.
And as luck would have it, I’ve got one of the best mentors around town in Brian Clark. Having a direct line to his business brain has made getting started with my big goal for this year, significantly easier.
And in today’s post, I’m sharing the process I’ve been following (with Brian’s guidance) that has helped get my passive income project off the ground and in full swing.
Three strategic tips for getting started
If I’ve learnt anything from Brian over the years, it’s that a profitable passive income source requires an engaged and interested audience. To build that audience online you need two things: an email list and a website to help you grow it.
Building these two critical components is where your project begins. But first, here are three essential things to consider before you start.
1. Avoid wasting resources by following a proven recipe
Building your website so that it’s optimized for passive income requires diving into new technology and software solutions.
And whether you’re building a new website from scratch or simply reworking what you have, it’s crucial you have a plan to follow.
Tech challenges can be ridiculously frustrating and a huge time-suck if you don’t have the right guidance. So this is your time to Steal Like an Artist. By leveraging someone else’s skills and knowledge, you can avoid a ton of common mistakes and knowledge gaps.
Here’s a podcast where Brian talks about the simple strategy he used to build his website and email list for both Unemployable and Further.
2. Be crystal clear about where you will focus your time, energy and attention
One of the fastest ways to get overwhelmed with any project, especially one that comes with technical challenges, is failing to map out clear steps to achieve what you want.
In other words, if you fail to break your project down into small, doable tasks, you’ll never get it done.
To stay focused (and avoid procrastination) you need a clear direction for how to get started, what each step involves, and what your project will look like when it’s done. Explore strategies like using a personal kanban board to visualize your tasks and manage them more clearly with better direction.
My best advice is to manage your website project just as you would a client — make it crystal clear where your time and energy will be spent. And again, follow a proven recipe to simplify, save you time and maintain focus.
3. Avoid agonising over which tools or software to buy (but still do your research)
If the goal is to build a website to grow your email list, then you need the technology and tools to make it happen.
But given the significant amount of products on the market, the choices can become quickly overwhelming.
My advice is to use a recommendation from someone you trust. That way you avoid wasting time and energy making the decision and can use their experience to guide you.
Remember: The majority of tools and software have free trial periods and product and price scales you can move up and down through should your business needs change. And a good rule of thumb is to stick with products that have excellent customer support.
Five must-have website tools to invest in first
To build a passive income you need a website that works for you, not against you.
The tools and systems you choose are incredibly important and need to be able to keep up with your growth. But as we discussed above — getting caught up in these decisions doesn’t do you any favors.
To help you avoid decision fatigue and getting hung up on details that don’t matter here are the first five things you should focus on to build your website and email list.
I’ve also included my recommendations for tools and products to use, which come primarily from Brian, virtual mentors, and my own website building experience (please note that some are affiliate links).
Tool #1: A powerful hosting platform that comes with excellent security and support
Website maintenance tasks are a drag.
But you can make things easier with a robust platform and managed hosting.
WordPress is my platform of choice. It’s amazingly flexible. It’s powerful. And, (if you use the right hosting) it’s super-secure.
If you want a website you can maintain yourself, and that can grow with you — Studiopress Sites is my host of choice. It’s WordPress on steroids.
While managed hosting costs more than the standard — the security, support, time, and technology benefits speak for themselves.
You can check out their managed hosting here: Studiopress Sites
Tool #2: A suite of professional themes and design templates
Rather than worrying about choosing one theme for your website, find a product that offers you the options you crave.
It makes it easier to choose a design, and if you change your mind (or your branding), it’s simple to change how your site looks.
Again, I recommend Studiopress Sites — as it comes with their full suite of stunning, professional and completely mobile optimised themes.
You can check out Studiopress’ full suite of themes here: Studiopress Themes
Tool #3: Site enhancing plugins that can do the heavy lifting for you
Plugins are designed to take your website functionality to the next level.
For my passive income project I know I want my site to be able to build my email list. And I also want it to be easy to create professional looking content (so my site doesn’t look like a beginner hacked it together).
Here are the two core plugins I’ve started with:
- BeaverBuilder to EASILY create mobile optimised and fully customisable content pages. I know very little code, so this is the best option for me.
- OptinMonster to create simple opt-in forms and landing pages that convert visitors to subscribers. Again, with zero coding required.
Side note: Another benefit of choosing StudioPress to host your site is that it’s built on the Genesis framework — which comes with its own set of helpful (and free) plugins.
Tool #4: Smart email marketing software to keep in touch with your subscribers
If you want to create a passive income, then you need an audience (stat!).
And the best way to build one is with smart, intuitive email software.
Brian recommended Drip to me (it’s also what we use here at Unemployable), and it’s been incredibly simple to set up. I’ve linked it to my OptinMonster account and after some playing around (and sure, maybe a few tech tantrums) I’ve got it all working smoothly.
You can check it out here: Drip Email Marketing Software
BONUS TOOL: I also like to make sure I have a professional email using my site domain. This helps with fast verification for other setup tasks and can instantly make your project feel more official.
I use G-Suite for everything. It’s quick-and-easy to setup, links to all my online documents and they have excellent support. It’s also only $5 a month.
Check it out here: G Suite
Tool #5: A course or a workshop to take your project to the next level
There’s likely something you’re not good at or need to learn before your passive income dreams come true.
Which is why this step is about investing in your knowledge and skillset.
We all need guidance to figure out how to get from point A to point B. And the fastest way to do that is to find a course that can help you with your biggest challenge right now.
Here are two of my favorite courses that have helped me tremendously:
- Creative Class – Even if you’re already a great Freelancer, Creative Class can help you optimise your business so that you have more time to work on the passive income side.
- Guest Blogging – If you’re interested in getting published on popular blogs and leverage your writing to grow your audience faster, this is the best course I can recommend (after all, it got me writing for Brian!)
Remember: When it comes to learning, you need to focus only on what you need to know now — not what you might need to know in next three months. Practice “just in time learning (rather than “just in case) to ensure you focus your time, energy and attention on what counts.
Now it’s your turn…
As a solopreneur, creating a passive income relies heavily on leveraging smart tools, proven strategies and intelligent systems to get you moving in the right direction.
And, as we’ve discussed, getting started with your passive income project requires three things:
- building a solid technical foundation that can grow with you;
- using freelancing project management to manage your resources and attention; and,
- leveraging great teachers to help you implement faster and maintain momentum.
If you’ve found an idea and have a solid understanding of your market, then you’re ready to build your audience. And to do that you need your website setup and ready to help you grow.
Use the prompts from this post to help you get started with upgrading your site (or start from scratch). And check out the course suggestions to gain some necessary strategic guidance along with a simple plan to follow.
I’d love to hear more about your side-project or passive income dream, so feel free to share it with me over on Twitter.
