This is the first part of a three-part blog series. You can find the second part here and you can find the third and final post here.

For many of us, the allure of passive income sounds like a dream. I mean, you hear it everywhere… how to make money while you sleep, how to work less and make more money, how to have a 4-hour work week and much more. 

It sounds almost elusive. But is it really just an out-of-reach dream? 

I happily bought into all the claims that I could easily make tons of money online while I slept.

One of the main reasons I started my business was because I wanted the freedom to be able to stay at home with my three small kids while earning an income to support them. 

I’m sure many of you want to achieve that same dream. 

In the beginning, I was so excited. I thought I had it all figured out… I would create a blog, stick some affiliate links and ads on it, promote it on Pinterest and watch as my bank account grew.

As you can imagine, things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. I think I made .42 cents in the first 6 months of publishing my first blog post in 2013. So not cool and a total bummer. 

It took me a long time to figure out that I actually needed to create something to sell to my audience if I wanted to make a real living blogging.

What I needed and wanted to create was a passive stream of income.

In this blog series, I’m going to break down what passive income is, what it isn’t, and how you can start creating your own passive income stream to help you make money all while you sleep.

So what is passive income?

There is this romanticized idea around passive income. Some people think that having a passive income stream equals NO MORE WORK. You can just set it, forget it, and go live on a beach somewhere, sipping margaritas all while making millions of dollars.

This is NOT how passive income works. If only it were that easy…

You still need to be there to promote and market your business, but having a system that takes people from subscribers to buyers (running in the background) gives you another stream of income and the time freedom you desire.

The freedom to…

Take the day off and relax. Go to your kid’s school concert in the middle of the day. Go on a two-week vacation. Binge-watch Netflix and chill. Or be able to go out to lunch with a friend. All while making sales!

Passive income means that you have an automated system that does your selling for you. This simply means you’re not trading your precious time for money.

I mean there’s nothing more exciting than getting a notification that I just made a sale while I’m sitting at my son’s soccer game or sleeping.

I  want everyone to experience that feeling.

So what do you need in order to start collecting money while you sleep, eat, make dinner, play with your kids, or even take a vacation?

You need a sales funnel… what the heck is a sales funnel, you ask?

Basically, a sales funnel is the entire process of taking someone from a site visitor to a paying customer.

This is a completely automated system meaning that once you set it up it runs automatically and can add a nice passive income stream to your business. But you have to set it up right, have the right marketing in place to bring traffic to your funnel, and include some key ingredients to make it all work.

Here’s what you need:

• A lead magnet (also known as a freebie or opt-in) to collect email addresses
• An automated email sequence through ConvertKit
• Something to sell like an ebook or course, services, or even affiliate products

It actually does take some initial effort to set this all up but once it’s set up, it’s done and it runs on autopilot.

Here’s how a sales funnel could work for you

Say that you have a $20 ebook you published a while ago. You set up the sales page and promoted it here and there. And you basically only make a few sales here and there.

News flash: You can’t just build it and hope they will come. How do you get the right people to find your amazing ebook and then purchase it? 

 

This is where the magic of Pinterest comes in.

Everyone’s always talking about how to get more traffic to your blog with Pinterest. But you don’t really need more people coming to your blog, reading your posts, and leaving. Because when they leave most of them will never come back…

What you need is a system.

A system that turns all of that targeted Pinterest traffic into email subscribers that leads them into your funnel.

Go read my post How to Harness the List Building Power of Pinterest to find out exactly how you can grow your list and feed your funnel with Pinterest.

 

But how does this Pinterest system work?

You’ll want to set up a simple Pinterest funnel that looks something like this…

Traffic from Pinterest goes to your freebie/optin > you collect their email address > they get sent through a series of emails > they buy your product.

A funnel is designed to educate your subscribers (ie. potential customers) on why they need your ebook or course.  

This is done through a series of emails that takes them on a journey and eventually gets them to buy whatever it is you’re selling.

Looks simple enough, right?

Well, there are a lot of moving parts to go into a successful sales funnel. This is what usually stops people from ever creating one.

They think it’s too complicated and they have no idea where to even begin.

A sales funnel doesn’t have to be complicated. I think the biggest thing holding most people back is just getting it up and running. 

In the next blog post, we’ll take a look at why you don’t need a big list to start making money online.