BuBul Business Bites 12

All small business owners work hard - but some work smarter than others. They are the ones that have stopped trading their time for money and developed passive income streams so they have more time for themselves.

But how do you do that? We asked Joelle Byrne , the BuBul passive income expert, for her thoughts:

The key is to change the way you look at where your income is generated and how you do business. This process doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. It’s just about?applying your creative imagination from a new angle. How does that sound?

When you stop believing that you need to exchange time for money, at least some of the time, you can begin to generate revenue from streams that manage themselves. This is called passive income, and it’s one of the best ways to get more cash into your existing business.

There are so many options for passive, scalable or semi-passive income streams that are relevant to your business. You are simply expanding on, or changing, the delivery of your specialist skill or knowledge.

Create something once and let it produce revenue for you while you sleep. On autopilot! Or deliver your knowledge in a different way, reducing the hours spent labouring and amalgamating the audience.

Here are some options you could consider:

• eBooks
• Membership Programmes
• Subscription models
• Software or apps
• Digital libraries
• Content downloads
• Templates
• Affiliate Marketing
• Online Courses
• Consultation/group delivery of services

The full list is pretty long; this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg!

How to Get Started

Think of these – What:

• Might bring more revenue into your business?
• Skills do you share that others’ might like to learn?
• Complementary products could you promote alongside your existing offer?
• Workshops could you offer that bring more than one paying client under your roof at a time?
• What is the natural next step your customers want to take after buying from you?

The possibilities are endless, and this is just the introduction!

There’s a myth that passive income takes no work, but that isn’t true; it’s just the work is condensed into a smaller period of time or is reduced massively in comparison to the financial returns. Passive income can be the creation or purchase of an asset that can be sold multiple times or produces a return on an initial investment.

So, for example, a digital product like a?course?or?eBook?that can be created once and sold multiple times without any further effort on your part would be the creation of an asset.

There are multiple ways of implementing passive income streams into your life or business. However, what needs to be clear is that passive income is something that is possible, but it’s something that takes work in the first instance, after which point you can reap the rewards time and time again.

I want to share a little secret with you:

Right now there are people who watch you. They follow your business but can’t buy from you for one of (usually) 3 reasons. These clients are currently left out in the cold, with nothing to do but watch from the side-lines. They’re watching, waiting, but not buying. I call these your periphery clients; you know, hanging around on the periphery of your business.

Learning to identify and serve these clients is the best possible way to introduce new and lucrative income streams into your business without changing your business model and repelling your actual ideal client.

Periphery Customers

There are three types of periphery customers, two of which you don’t want to cater to. These two are:

• Freebie seekers – although these customers can?sometimes?be converted into buyers, they’re unlikely to in the main.
• Raving fans but not ideal clients – your mom, your nan and your next-door neighbour. These guys love what you’re doing but they’re never going to be serious clients or buyers who you can impact on a bigger level.

However, there is one type of periphery customer who you must discover and nurture, as these are the key to your passive and semi-passive product lifestyle.

These customers are ‘like’ your ideal client in many ways BUT they are incapacitated or restricted from buying from you for one of three reasons:

• Financially – These lovely people want to buy from you, so bad, but they can’t afford your products or services for one reason or another.
• Logistically – These awesome folks also desperately want to buy from you but can’t for logistical reasons. Maybe they’re on the other side of the world and postage is too expensive, or the time difference causes an issue. Perhaps you have a bricks and mortar building where you carry out your services in Hull, which means someone in London falls into this category. These people can’t get to you, for one reason or another or they see logistics as a barrier, even if you don’t.
• Finally you have your DIYers – They love what you do but they really do want to do it themselves.

How To Engage and Convert Periphery Customers

So here’s your opportunity to find these people, find a way that your business can serve them and create something they can buy.

You must not change your business model to do this. This isn’t about moving your store to a different location, changing your postage processes or reducing your prices. Definitely not! You also want to avoid niching up, as opposed to niching down to your ideal client. Niching up means to expand your niche to include these periphery people but in doing so you could actually alienate your existing, paying, ideal clients and decimate your business.

You do however want to consider what your periphery clients are asking for. What do they say they want? What questions are they asking you? Figure out what they need.

You should absolutely consider how you can serve them and make more sales, WITHOUT reducing your prices, compromising your time or compromising your business values and integrity. This usually means with a passive or semi passive, scalable product that you can create once and sell on autopilot, time and time again.

This means that not only will you benefit from the sales from your ideal client, you’ll also be serving and profiting from the ‘not-so-ideal’ periphery clients who need your help!

To successfully implement a new income stream into your business, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• What will help your existing and periphery customers the most?
• What have your clients/customers already asked for?
• Which passive/scalable ideas are aligned with what you already do?
• What will feel like a natural next step for your potential customers?
• What content or ideas do you already have?
• What transformation will you product offer?
• What problem will you solve?
• How will you solve it (what will the customer get?)
• How will you package it up?
• Can it be automated as much as possible?

Remember though, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should…

Make sure your plans are aligned with your business goals, vision and values, or you could break your business altogether and if you’re not sure, ask someone outside of the business for an objective point of view.

Thanks Joelle (and thank you if you've read this far!) - please contact Joelle if you need any help building those passive income streams!

BuBul is the world's first software that can work out and deliver the non-financial advice a small business needs from a panel of 75 independent subject matter experts. It’s just ￡20 a month for a small business and you can book a demo here. ?We also offer accountant and bookkeepers their own versions of BuBul so they can give a wider range of advice to their clients - find out more and book a demo and free trial here.