S2 E8 - The REAL Reason Passive Income Isn't Working For You

What is up? Good morning. And a few minutes in between calls this morning, so I wanted to come on and talk to you about something that I've been getting a lot of questions about, understandably because of how I have my business set up, you know, and a lot of the things that I talk about consistently. Passive income is generally the underlying tone behind why I've set my business up the way that I have, but.

Welcome to the Rich Life Reframe podcast. We've been given an amazing opportunity in entrepreneurship that's never been available in any other time period. We live in a reality where the number of lives we impact can be directly reflected by the dollars in our bank accounts. This podcast is all about living a truly rich life that goes beyond the amount of income that we make. It means living the good life and existing in a state of freedom, security and well being. In this PODC class will be going through quick reframes that can help you get your mind right so you can truly live the life that you've always dreamed of. That being said, let's hop into this episode.

But the problem is that passive income itself has gotten, you know, a bit of a shady reputation because of how people are pitching it in the marketplace, right? Like you can just make money, not have to work. You can go retire on an island and just have a business that runs itself. But the reality is it does take work, it does take testing, it does take setting up systems and automations and running ads and paying for traffic. And there's a lot that actually goes into it where it's not just a one time setup and then you can walk away forever. The work shifts after the Passive Income product is created. Then it comes into working customer service, managing your traffic sources, maybe paying attention to your ads, testing different topics. You know, there's the work doesn't end just because you've created this product that can sell outside of the time that you have available. So that's really the biggest difference between how some people talk about it and how I talk about it. There needs to be this shift in how you accept payments, in how you sell, in what you're selling, that your time is not reliant for the delivery. So you're not, you know, selling a certain set number of hours. You're not selling a package that you then have to complete and, you know, deliver. You're not selling zoom calls where they get access to you, or you're not selling boxer access where they can send messages to you. This is the ability to make money outside of sitting at your computer, being on your phone, any sort of thing where sales are just coming in because of the selling system. Sales system, sales funnels, whatever you want to call them that you have in place inside of your business. So the problem, before we get into talking about the strategy, the ads, the tech, any of it, the problem why a lot of people never shift into this business model is often completely a mindset issue. You know, I always love digging deep into mindset. This one, this topic is no different. And it's allowing yourself to step into the expert role of being able to sell things, being able to teach what, you know, sell templates that you have, you know, create that space for people to be able to invest in your business without feeling like you don't know enough. You know, that imposter syndrome that pops up for a lot of us, you know, the worthiness of just the beliefs that we have around money, like, I have to work hard for my money. I have to, you know, like a day, a day of hard work or whatever, like, it's. It shouldn't feel easy. That's how many of us grew up with money stories being imprinted in us is that, like, oh, it's all in a. In a day, hard work. We. We have a hard time letting things feel easy, feel enjoyable. You know, like just letting that ease and flow come inside of our businesses and our offers, that just allowing ourselves to feel worthy enough to charge for something, ask for the sale, you know, it. It shifts. It's a big shift in how a lot of people do their business, women especially, because selling can feel like a really masculine energy. A lot of women, you know, we want to be nurturers. We want to provide value, we want to take care of people because that's, you know, that's just what is in our makeup. But to be able to shift into selling all of the time without, you know, really even feeling like I need to be in front of people and asking them to give me money, like, face to face. That's what has allowed my business to grow so rapidly in the last two years. And ultimately, how my business generated $2.2 million in 2020 was because I had these systems in place where it didn't matter that it was a pandemic. And now I'm suddenly a homeschooling mom and I, you know, am staying at home and I'm taking care of my house and I'm tired and I'm anxious because I don't know what the outcome of the world is going to be. And I You know, like, thinking about work is beyond my scope of, of what I have bandwidth for sometimes, or at least, you know, since March of last year, it's been a lot more of a struggle to get in the zone and get in the flow and think about work. But I had these systems set up in my business so they were able to continue delivering. It was essentially my lifeline for my business to be able to keep supporting my team. I had 17 people on payroll at one point where I had a lot of people that were relying on me to help them keep paying their bills. And it was a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, and, you know, right around when the pandemic was starting and I was afraid people were going to cancel payment plans, and I was. I fortunately had, you know, a pretty sizable saving business savings account that let me, you know, run the business and be the human that I wanted to be in supporting people through getting through this pandemic. But it was all of these different levels of revenue and all these different, you know, like, streams of money coming into my business that let me keep supporting my team. You know, still writing myself a paycheck, still taking care of some of the projects that I had planned for 2020 because of these systems. So when I talk about passive income, what I mean from that is selling programs that are not directly related to the time that it takes you to deliver them. So for me, it's been a lot of different tiny offers. So when I say tiny offer, I mean like a 27 to $37 product that is advertised to cold traffic. Then an order bump is offered from that tiny offer, and then an upsell is offered, you know, after the completion of the initial purchase. So it brings people through a really natural feeling buying experience. It helps just give them the highest level of service that I have available because I keep telling them, you know, this is probably, this is another product that would really benefit you, or this is something else that, you know, might help you. So it really comes from that place of service versus just sales, sales, sales. But it has shifted my brand perception because I am always in people's news feeds, whether they want to follow me or not. I have ads running, so unless they hide those ads, they're going to see my face in their new feed. So it shifts the perception where it makes people think about my brand differently. So think about any business that you're seeing consistently over and over again. I know even with E commerce brands or things that I'm seeing in my newsfeed, there comes a point where I'm like, okay, fine, I'll, I'll buy the shoes that you keep showing me or, you know, I'll buy the sweater that keeps showing up in my newsfeed because it catches my attention every time and I get excited about it every time that it's shifted my whole perception of my desire for what they're selling, because I keep seeing that in my newsfeed. And had I just relied on organic traffic or whatever, I would not have had that same effect. So that's one of the biggest things that passive income has done for my business. You know, having that limitless visibility when I'm not in the mood to show up whatsoever because all of this other stuff is going on in my life and in my, you know, in my business and my family and the world. Like, sometimes we want to hide under a rock or take a nap in the afternoon. And having some of these systems and having small products that allow people to be introduced to your business and have your ad spend liquidated right away, that can make a huge difference in the amount of, you know, just the perception of your brand. And instead of doing all of this organic content and trying to scream louder than the masses, you're just coming into the side door. And people, you know, you get people's attention because you're, you're stopping their scroll in the newsfeed with your. I cannot talk. Stopping the scroll in their newsfeed because of how, how well your ads are written or how much value your product will provide for them. That it's been a complete game changer for my business. And that's why a lot of people think of that overnight success thing of like, who's this Ali girl? She came out of nowhere. But in reality, I was doing this behind the scenes for other people for six or seven years, and suddenly I turned on my own ads and it was a game changer. So for anyone that is thinking about removing their time from their business, a tiny offer is by far the best place to start, in my opinion. And a lot of people, you know, in this industry, when people want to talk about their own thing, they like, throw rocks at a different strategy. So my, my strategy has been the target of a lot of other people saying, like, oh, you don't want to attract low ticket buyers. You're going to just have like, you're going to build your list full of crummy leads or whatever. But in reality, because of the way that I teach these tiny offers or the way that I've structured my tiny offer, it attracts People that have the mindset of wanting to continue saving time. So when you, when you lead with having products that shorten the learning curve or give them a template or, you know, take the easy button for products. When you lead with a product like that, you're attracting, you're bringing people into your business, bringing leads into your business that are the same type of people that want to continue saving time. You know, they're very efficient, efficient minded people where they'll invest in your higher ticket stuff because they're like, okay, cool. She saved me so much time and brought me so much value with this product. I really want to check out what else she has available. And that's why not only has this brought in passive income and, you know, grown my list from like 400 people to 55,000 people in 18 months, it's done a lot for my business. So having this source of passive income that also checks off all these other boxes for consistency, visibility built my confidence a lot. So then I was able to go on and was like, okay, cool, I got a funnel to work for myself. What else can I create? So I created this tiny offer first that laid this huge foundation for confidence for my business and allowed me to step into the next level of what I wanted to sell my business for. You know, an evergreen webinar selling a higher ticket program. I would have never jumped into doing that. I never would have had the clarity, I never would have had the, the idea in the, the confidence and the resources to be able to launch something like that if I didn't have this foundational tiny offer funnel in place first. So it's made a, you know, it's been a complete game changer for my, for my life and for business. And that's why I'm a little biased. But I think everyone should have some level of tiny offer, some level of passive income in their business. I don't care if it's just a $27 product. It doesn't have to be an evergreen Funnel for a $9.97 product, whatever. Something that allows you, that limitless visibility allows you to stay in people's news feeds, to let them remember your name, to start opening up space for you to be able to actually connect with people. So when I'm responding to everyone that messages me, any story that I put up on Instagram and people send me a message, I'm personally responding to them because that's the next level of connection for me. I've got my visibility with my ads, my products, I'm building those Connections on a surface level. But then for me to take it a level deeper and actually get to know people and get to connect with people, I have the bandwidth to do that because I know my foundation is very strong. I know that I can build a house on top of that foundation and it's going to be secure. So I haven't, I haven't worried about my business. Well, I mean, that's a lie. I've probably worried about my business through the pandemic because of the, like, anxiety spiral that I've been on. But for the most part, I've been able to look at my income projections every single month and know that I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be able to pay my team, I'm going to be able to pay myself, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be able to support my students and I would not. Two years ago, it would have been a completely different story for my business where I was relying on referrals, I was relying on, you know, the random person maybe seeing a post for me in a Facebook group and then reaching out. There was no consistency, there was no predictability. And this, this is what. Having a tiny offer suite and having ads running, having paid media running at all times for your business just takes off a level of stress that I want everyone to feel in their businesses. I want everyone to have leads coming in every single day and having payments being deposited every single day so that you know, you're always going to be in a safe place with your business. So that's one reason why I wanted to talk about this today. I have tinyofferlab.com available right now. If you go check that out, you can watch. It's about an hour long training about how I was able to set this up in my business, the five shifts that I made in order to make this happen for my business. So you can go ahead and watch that free masterclass now. And if you have any questions, of course, feel free to comment on this video or reach out to me. Like I said, I answer every single dm. So if you have questions, reach out. I'd love to chat with you. I'd love to see, you know, what's holding you back from creating your own tiny offer. What's stopping you? I went on this ride with the Peloton app two days ago and the biggest theme of the ride was just reflecting on that, like, what's stopping you? And I, of course, was inspired in my workout, but also across the board in all other areas of life. What's stopping you from running the business that you actually want to be running? What's stopping you from launching the big things that you want to launch? From writing the book, from, you know, hosting the virtual events. Virtual now, what's stopping you? So just really reflecting on that in your business as well as you're. You're heading through your Tuesday today. That's all I've got. So love all of you. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day and I will talk to you later.