Why in the world do we need passive income?
As an artist – graphic designer by trade – I’m always trying to figure out how to not only continue to design but also create designs I want to make, not just what my clients want. But, creating project after project without any real payout except for my own happiness sometimes feels a little empty. I also am trying to help provide for my family so creating products to sell has been a great way of doing both.
Creative freedom doesn’t have to = starving artist.
For those of you creatives that are looking for something new, especially in light of the current state of things – being housebound due to COVID – coming up with ways to make money from home, with little start-up costs + a relatively easy startup path has been a true test of creating a business. Some of you are trying to pivot your business to provide new revenue streams, some are wanting to add income to your family by providing a new income source, and some are wanting to completely change careers since they just don’t want to go back to working a desk job when the world gets back to normal.
So….What exactly is passive income?
Passive income by definition is income that requires little to no effort to earn and maintain. Create once, sell many times. Traditionally this has referred to rental income or stocks, but in the case of being an artist, that means once a design is created and up for sale, you can continue to make sales. So, basically, you can work when you want to create your designs, but then continue to sell while you are doing whatever else you want to do.
For me, that means spending time with the family or taking care of other parts of my business. But for you, that might mean you can travel more, get more rest, spend time with your little ones, or even work with clients for your own company or someone else’s. Being a creative and creating passive income doesn’t have to mean that you want to rely on passive income. For many years I had side businesses thats sole focus was to pay for the “extras”. Sports fees, vacations ect. I only had part-time hours to give (I wanted to be with the kids full time when they were little) – so I wasn’t expecting a huge income from the passive products.
We live in an amazing time. Years ago when I started as a graphic designer, there weren’t that many easy avenues to create passive income. Or, it was really expensive. If I wanted to create t-shirt designs I had to invest in product, go to trade shows to find companies that wanted to carry my designs and then also invest in expensive marketing to have it really take off.
Now, there are so many market places to sell your designs, Etsy and Creative Market are a few. And, there are so many ways that you can sell with little to no money invested. You can create digital products, courses, print-on-demand products such as t-shirts, home goods, and you can also create products that you deliver digitally like logos, branding designs, interior design e-design etc.
Why I love passive income
It’s such a great way to either build a business or add another arm to your business. For years, I had a business that I would kick into high gear over the holidays – (I designed and sold custom Christmas cards). This paid for all our Christmas gifts and activities. As a single mom, that was a HUGE financial relief for me since my normal salaried job paid for our every day living.
Now, being self-employed, building up the passive side to my business helps me move from working by the hour. Instead of taking any client, I can focus on taking on only clients that I love and projects that I love. It also helps with the economy isn’t stable and you need to have to sell purely digitally or over email!
Building 7 revenues into your business is recommended and followed by highly successful business people. So, that is what I’m striving to do. Not only one-on-one client work, but digital products, affiliate sales, sponsored content, information products, membership programs, and physical products. Yes, some of these are more focused time-intensive streams, but that is why I needed to introduce the more passive streams in. The idea is, if one area goes down, you can focus on an area to increase. Right now, my client’s work is way down which is giving me a lot more time to focus on the digital, passive areas.
I also love the fact that I can create to my heart’s desire without worrying about wasting money. I can design something, put it online if it takes off I know that the design is something my audience wanted. But, if not, no worries, I just phase it out and move on. As a creative, there is so much freedom in that. Ideas are constantly in my head so having a place to test them out and see if the world loves them is a dream.
Creating when you want not only makes space in your life for the things that really matter – your family, your freedom, your health. It also brings so much freedom as a creative. I know when I worked a 9-5 that inspiration rarely spiked when I was sitting at work. Usually, I was hit with an idea or inspiration on the weekend, falling off to sleep, cooking dinner. Usually in the quiet times during the week when my mind could actually think. BUT, working when I wasn’t supposed to be working usually brought on a lot of guilt (“I should be thinking of the kids”, “I’m not getting paid for these hours” ect.). Now, when inspiration sparks, there’s no guilt.
Building a business – new or established – is hard. Really hard. It’s also really rewarding. For the most part, being able to design products to steer my business the direction I want to go has been so freeing. And, living in this current day and age is extremely amazing. Yes, we are going through a tough time at the moment. But going through tough times also pushes us to be better, work smarter not harder and come up with solutions that we might not have explored before.
Now that we’ve talked about passive income is, and talked about all the benefits, I want to talk to you about how you, yes you, can create passive income by turning your creative skills into digital products. Even if you don’t classify yourself as a creative or think you aren’t creative! Stay tuned!
