Before getting into the ‘how’, let’s start with the ‘what’. What is passive income? Does everyone have the same understanding of what passive income means? Is it residual income? Is it income you make while sleeping? Is it extra income you make from secondary business? What does it really mean to earn passive income?

According to Investopedia.com, passive income is “earnings an individual derives from a rental property, limited partnership or other enterprise in which he or she is not materially involved.” Centonomy.com digs deeper; passive income is achieved by some level of financial freedom. To get to that level, one would have to build up assets that are generating an income equal to or greater than one’s lifestyle. This should be outside the source of your primary income – perhaps you are a consultant who decides to publish and sell a book about their journey. The income generated from the sales is considered your passive income. In this article, Financial Coach Todd Tresidder defines it as the money you earn from a project or investment after you’ve made an initial contribution of time or money. The consultant’s book would earn him/her passive income from a secondary source after some initial contribution.

My favorite definition, however, comes from Pat Flynn. Flynn is the creator of the Green Exam Academy, a blog which he started when he was studying and preparing to sit for exams in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. He figured that since the exam was difficult to pass, he would create a blog about the preparation in order to have a firmer grasp on the subject matter. It worked. He passed and was immediately promoted. However, what he got out of it was much more than he had anticipated. He realized he was attracting more than 1000 unique visitors to his site a day, and he made more in one month than he had ever made before as an architect.

Flynn describes passive income as “building online businesses that take advantage of systems of automation that allow transactions, cash flow and growth without requiring a real-time presence. We don’t have to trade our time for money one to one. Instead, we invest our time upfront, creating valuable products and experiences for people, and we reap the benefits of that time invested later.” – Forbes

With that valuable information in mind, how can one earn a passive income without hiring additional employees?

How to earn passive income without hiring more employees

All the proposed methods can be achieved online. One only has to place their efforts in the right areas. Let’s take a look.

1. Create an eBook

Coaches and Consultants readily have the knowledge required to create an eBook. Clients seek you out due to your expertise in your niche. This knowledge can be written down and monetized in the form of an eBook.

Self-publishing eBooks on Amazon is easier than ever. Not only that, it has numerous benefits; such as exposing your book to a wider audience – a global audience. Amazon refers your book to readers you might otherwise not have reached once you hit target sales. For more information on how to sell your book on Amazon, read this article. It will give you a step-by-step guide; from writing the eBook to formatting it for Kindle, to selling it on Amazon.

You can also write an eBook and host it on your website. Site visitors can pay to download. This, however, limits your potential audience. Unlike your site, Amazon also offers reviews which are important for social proof.

2. Create an online course

Creating online courses can be a great way to earn passive income (eventually). Similar to the eBooks, the knowledge is already there – it is just a matter of monetizing. If the content you want to sell is evergreen, even better. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant and does not go out-of-date. This means years after the course is put up, new customers will always have the need to access it.

There are several platforms in which you can create online courses. An excellent one is Thinkific. You can create, market and sell your courses. They also allow users to start for free. Thinkific offers great support, and they have webinars and pricing guides which help users who are starting out.

Another platform is Udemy. Udemy is an online learning platform which also allows users to create courses. If you want to become an instructor, all you need to do is to create the course, design it using their tools and put it up. The course is hosted on Udemy.com and is available to millions of students.

3. Start a blog

This is a given. If you are a consultant and do not have a blog, I’d suggest that you start one today. Blogging is not so much a matter of writing prowess, as much as it is the sharing of valuable content. I personally believe that in this day and age, every business should have an active blog on their website. No matter what industry or niche, there is always value you can give to customers who are seeking out companies such as yours.

“If Content is King, Consistency is Queen”

Blogging requires consistent effort, no doubt. You may be asking whether any of these are really what would traditionally be considered passive income. They are not. They do require effort but if you put out valuable, evergreen content, the return on investment will be massive.

Read this article about Marcus Sheridan, and how blogging about pools saved his company from the recession of 2008. Currently, the River Pools site is the most visited pool website in the world. For the blogging tactics that made it a success, see this.

That’s it? Not really

Flynn acknowledges that there is no such thing as ‘100% passive income’. He states that even if you have rental property, you still have to manage it. If you are providing valuable information to the public, you have to keep thinking of new ways to add even more value. You cannot exhaust this, and it will determine whether your passive income will grow – and whether it will continue to do so over time.

“When you stop, it doesn’t stop”

According to that philosophy, then the above methods will do your work for you. Put in the effort now and reap the benefits over time. Coaches and Consultants are in the best position to earn passive income because they are already experts in their fields. Stefan James, an Internet Entrepreneur and Coach used to host free seminars and workshops. He used this as a platform for providing massive value to the attendees (for free), then he would up-sell them on his actual product. Over time, he did not need to go out looking for clients – they came to him.

There is no time like the present. Take your consulting and coaching practice to the next level today.

Interested in developing your personal brand and are not sure where to start? Read this post about why African CEOs need to develop their personal brand – it has some great insights for coaches and consultants too!