The Truth About Passive Income for Therapists: What It Takes to Really Succeed [Ep 41]
16 Apr 2025 · 11 min
Podcast episode by Carly Hill (Thriving Therapreneur) explaining realistic strategies for therapists to build passive (leveraged) income through digital products, high- vs low-ticket offers, affiliate and brand deals, and operational setup. Emphasizes upfront work needed (funnels, marketing, legal), warns against get-rich-quick schemes (PLR/master resell loops), and provides stepwise guidance for creating, pricing, branding, and distributing low-ticket digital products.
Chapters
Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic Podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you.
Let's get started.
Hello therapreneurs.
Welcome back to another episode of the Thriving Therapreneur Podcast. Today we're going to talk about passive income and how you can make more passive income. How you can leverage your time while making money. How you can make money while you're with your kids, while you're on vacation, while you're literally out to dinner, you're getting your nails done and you can get notifications that are coming in cha ching, cha ching. That you are making money. How do we set all of this up? What's a scam? What's not? I'm going to give you all of the details because there is a lot of noise in the online space, specifically Instagram and TikTok right now around passive income. Done for you. Passive income. Buy this 97 course and then resell it and then make a gazillion zillion bajillion dollars in two days. Bullshit. Okay? So I am going to exclude explain to you how you can make proper passive income and what this actually looks like on the back end and the operational side of things. I'm going to give you the real scoop because I have done all of this myself. I have looked deeply into all of the get rich quick schemes because I am just curious and I study all of this. So here is your one trusted place where I'm going to pull back the curtains and tell you how you can make real passive income and the work that it's going to take. Because nothing is truly passive. Passive means you make money without too much effort. However, I always believe that there is a lot of effort upfront no matter what you're doing. If you have rental properties like how much did it take you to finally get to that point? How much time did you spend working, learning, fixing things, managing, et cetera, before you could just get rent money? Every single month. And even when you're getting rent money every single month, there's probably some things that you're still doing and managing. So I make quote unquote, passive income and I get stripe notifications. That's one of my credit card processors all day, every day while I'm at the gym or I'm at dinner. But it is because I have worked my ass off to set up my funnels that convert. I run paid advertising, I talk about my offers every single day. I post every single day, I market every single day. I have systems in place that do this for me, but I had to set that up on the front end to then make it quote, unquote, passive income. So I would not call this little to no effort. I really like to refer to it more as leveraged income. This feels more realistic to me. But for the sake of the buzzword and getting my point across and getting you to even click on this podcast episode, I'm using the word passive. But just keep this as a disclaimer in the back of your mind, because I'm never the mentor that pretends like any of this is a walk in the park. We have to put together all of the pieces to make a sustainable and scalable business. It is not a poof, magic wand, six figure coaching business overnight success. That's not realistic. Okay. And whatever you put into it is whatever you get out. But what is realistic is to have these systems eventually set up for you to where you can make money. Absolutely. While you're on vacation, you're at the gym, you're hanging with the kids, et cetera, et cetera. So let's go over some definitions, if you will. I'm going to do some teaching here. Maybe you see online a lot done for you. D, F Y and master resell rights. M rr what is all of that? So done for you is exactly what it sounds like. And it's where you can buy a course that is already done for you. Right. Like it's already put together and then it has master resell rights so you can resell it. So the most common one you've probably seen like on Instagram and TikTok and is this $97 digital marketing course and everybody's promoting this done for you. Digital marketing course that you can also resell. So basically you would buy it for $97 and then you would be able to resell it to other people for $97. Nobody who is really buying this digital marketing course is actually using digital marketing properly and learning digital marketing to Sell a course on something that they're passionate about, a transformation that they're going to help a client make, whether that be in the mental health world, the relationship world, the physical health world. No, they're just legit, like copying and pasting. Maybe they're changing the colors of the branding of this course and then they're reselling it. It's just this constant like circle of nonsense pyramid scheme that makes no sense. I don't know how anybody is in integrity selling this, where they're just buying this 97 course to resell it to people who are going to buy it, to resell it to people who are going to buy it and resell it because it has master resell rights. There's a website called PLR where you can go and you can purchase done for you content and majority of the content on there has master resell rights. So you can resell it. But this is very, very different than buying a course that teaches you how to resell it to people who are only going to resell it. So on plr. Com you could type in anxiety top 10 anxiety tips, for example, or you're a menopause coach, or you're a weight loss coach, like type in those keywords and then there's going to be done for you content that you can purchase that then you can edit if you want, you can add in your personality, you can make it your own. Maybe it's bomb already and you like it the way it is. And it has master resell rights. So you can go ahead and you can resell it. And this takes the legwork out of creating. They're fairly cheap too. Depending on what you're buying, whether you're buying a freebie, a lead magnet, a mini course, they have all sorts of different stuff. So this is what done for you is this is what I teach inside my passive income course. I give you free credits to plr.com where you can go ahead and try out and buy some content that has master resell rights that you can resell. But I am not teaching and preaching about buying a course to resell it, to buy it, to resell it, to buy it, to resell it. I hope this is making sense because I just can never get behind that. That is one of the get rich quick schemes. It's actually dying down. It was more of a trend last year, it blew up last year, but people are starting to see straight through it and it is dying down quite a bit and it will probably be extinct pretty soon because everybody can Just see straight through the bs. Some other trends for passive income is affiliate marketing. So Amazon or low ticket items. This is small revenue. I would say this is not reliable unless you have a massive following or your stuff goes viral all the time. I kind of view it as like quote unquote, why not money? It's kind of fun money. It can definitely work. But you almost need to become like an Amazon influencer to make it worth it, in my opinion, which again is going to take a lot of time on the front end. So yes, you can do affiliate marketing, yes, you can have storefronts, but I wouldn't bank on that replacing any sort of stuff, stable income for you. Again, I view it as like this. Why not extra money, pop of cash money. Then there's high ticket affiliate marketing. So this is where you get a higher commission, which is better. But the majority of programs that give you this high commission are again the ones that you buy and then sell to someone else who will then buy it and then sell it to someone else. So I actually had a girlfriend reach out to me and she was like, oh, Carly, you know, um, I'm getting into marketing. I'm taking this program. Have you heard of it? And I googled it and I was like, oh yeah, heard of it. Um, just watch. Like what they're probably gonna do next is they're gonna say that you can just, instead of creating your own signature program and selling that, you can just start by selling theirs and then you can get a commission off of it. So you're just gonna do high ticket affiliate marketing for them. And she was like, yep, that's exactly what they're doing right now. And that's okay if you're in integrity doing so, but it may be better to go find a high ticket program that already exists that you would love to promote. Like, you know, this particular friend, she really wants to be in like the stay at home mom niche, like the holistic mom niche. I was like, wouldn't it feel better for you to go find a coach and a program that's more aligned with helping moms transform their lives and market that program and get a commission off of that versus selling this digital product digital marketing course? And she was like, yeah, you're right. So there's things to think about here with high ticket affiliate marketing, but you're definitely going to make more money selling high ticket versus these little smaller products on your Amazon storefront. Hey there. Did you know we give away one of our incredible digital products every single week?
All you have to do is leave.
A review for the show, then submit proof using the link in the show notes and you'll be entered to win. Prizes include amazing resources like our passive income course, the license protection bundle, top business trainings, my best selling book, and so much more. It's super simple and your review helps us reach more listeners just like you. So take a moment to share your thoughts, enter to win and maybe you'll be our next winner. Another trend is brand deals. So brands that you like and that you use personally, they will pay you per Instagram reel or per post. It's user generated content to promote their services or products. So you need to have a press kit, you need to nail down your pitches. There's a lot of admin work actually that goes into negotiating these brand deals and going back and forth and actually pitching yourself. You need to know who to actually even pitch to. So I can recommend a great course if you're interested in getting brand deals. But typically you need a bit of a following first before brands are actually going to pay you to create a reel or send something out to your email list. Because you need to build up your numbers first. But then you can even like when you're traveling, like you can get discounts on hotels if you post their restaurant or you post what their room looks like. And you can kind of become a micro influencer in this way, if you will. So now let's go on to what I teach more specifically. And this is creating digital products within your niche. So ebooks, mini courses, guides, this is how I make my passive income all day, every day. It's by digital products. But it's digital products within my niche that I am helping people get a transformation with. Okay, so number one, you need to know what your niche is, who is your population and what are the problems that you're solving for them. And then think about what type of offers you can create. Maybe go on plr.com and get some ideas of some done for you, products that already exist. And let me first rewind, backtrack, go back to high ticket versus low ticket. Because all these eBooks, mini courses, guides, etc. These are all low ticket items. So let's talk about difference between low ticket and high ticket. In my opinion, starting with low ticket is actually not the best thing to do. To me it is a scale strategy. It's quote unquote later money as I like to call it. So let's say for example, you have a $99 mini course, you are dealing with more of an admin and setup management. It's actually just as much admin and setup management as selling a $2,000 course as it is selling a $99 mini course. Also, low ticket buyers have a low ticket mindset. They don't see themselves as top performers. They often question their decisions. This limits their ability to act. So they're maybe not as serious and maybe they won't continue to buy from you. Maybe they won't ascend into your higher ticket offers. Maybe you don't have anything for them to ascend into because you don't even have any higher ticket offers. Which is another reason why working backwards and creating your high ticket offers first is better. Then you can create your low ticket items. They're like little tasters, they're like little teasers for people. They can buy into those. They can build trust and hopefully ascend into your higher ticket offers. Because those who pay pay attention, meaning a lower ticket offer. Maybe a whole lot of people may not even go through the content, let alone get results from your content. So then of course, maybe not ascend. The big thing to consider is how big of an audience you need to actually make this worth your time and make a decent chunk of change. So this is like the elephant in the room, right? You need a big audience to begin with to really nail in your lead generation strategy from the beginning. Otherwise, how are you planning to sign dozens of new clients every single month? We can do some math here. Let's do some math so we can lay out what this actually looks like for you. Let's compare a $2,000 offer to a $200 offer. So you need five clients to get to $10,000 with a $2,000 offer. Do you know how many clients you need for a $200 offer to get to $10,000? It's 50. So do you want to enroll 50 clients into your ebook or do you want to enroll five clients who are serious about their transformation into your signature offer? Your signature high ticket no brainer offer, bomb.com offer that they easily said yes to because it was the A to Z and you followed my value stack. I have a value stack model that teaches you how to have a no brainer offer where essentially your clients would be stupid to say no. And that sounds mean, but that's the reality of how bomb.com your offer can be. So do you Want to enroll 50 clients or 5 clients? What would be easier for you? So believe it or not, it's just as easy to sell a $2,000 offer as it is to sell a $200 offer. The $200 offer is actually harder to sell because you get those skeptical buyers and they're asking you all these annoying, tedious questions about this $200 offer. But your high ticket clients, they're amazing. They want transformation. Low ticket clients, they want information. High ticket clients want transformation. Low ticket clients want information. Let that sink in for a second. And I see this difference every single day. My high ticket clients are the easiest to work with. They're eager, they want results. They're in it. They're powerhouses. They're go getters, they're ambitious. They don't complain, they don't ask for refunds. They don't ask questions that they couldn't just Google or get from my course. Like, they understand the assignment. They take ownership of their results. They make it work. They get results. The low ticket offer buyers, it's a different story. So now that you understand the difference between high ticket and low ticket, and where I recommend you start, which is with high ticket, and then working your way backwards, I still want to teach you how you can create these lower ticket items. Because maybe you're sitting here and you're like, well, Carly, I have no desire to create a high ticket signature program. I just have my private practice and I really just want some extra income and I'm fine with however many people buy my 97 product. I would just like to sell it if and when I can and maybe it can pay for my groceries. Okay, cool. So let me walk you through the steps. And this is exactly what I teach inside my passive income course, by the way. I break this down. There's a whole entire course and ebook that teaches you step by step how to set up these digital products, how to price them, how to do the marketing, how to do the branding. I give you all of those discount coupon codes so you can go ahead and get some resources on PLR.com, the whole nine yards. But on a high level, I'm just going to walk you through it right now because the first thing you have to do is decide your target audience. So who's your specific audience with your burning problem? Think health, relationships or wealth? Those are the three top buckets that this is what keeps us up at night. This is how we're wired. You're gonna fall into one of these buckets, then you're gonna figure out what your product is gonna be. Are you gonna do an ebook? Are you gonna do a mini course? What is your product? Okay. And then price your product so you could do something like $47, $97, $197. You'll notice I'm ending everything with a 7. This is a little secret in the marketing world, you can Google it, but there's all these studies. If you end the price with a 7, you're going to get a higher conversion rate. So 47.97, 197. Start there. Okay. These are lower ticket items. You can play around with these prices. You can always, you know, say it's 97, but hey, we're doing an early bird special and if you sign up in the next week, you're going to get it for 47 before the price goes up. Okay? Naming your product. This is actually really, really important because you need to have a very clear, concise name. Nothing cutesy and clever. You need to focus on clarity. So for example, it could be the intuitive eating method for weight loss without giving up your favorite foods. There's really nothing cute and clever about this name, but it's very clear and concise and I know exactly who it's for and the problem that it's solving. Then you'll have to create your brand aesthetic. So you'll have, you know, your Instagram feed that resonates with your style. You'll have fonts and colors and layouts. Go lurk other people for inspiration and see what type of brand style you vibe with. Maybe you actually already have a brand established, which is even better. Then you're going to go purchase your done for you product if you don't want to create it yourself. One that has master resell rights that you can just tweak. So this can save you time. You can put it in Canva and you can customize it, or you can pay a virtual assistant who's maybe $10 an hour and they can customize it for you so you don't have to spend hours in Canva. A lot of my clients use my virtual assistant for stuff like this. And then you have to have a platform to get this product to your people. So Stan Store is really popular. It's very user friendly, it's affordable, it simplifies the sales process. So I teach you how to set that up inside the passive income course. And then there's the legal aspect as well, because you have to have terms and conditions. Stan Stor will actually easily help you set up your terms and conditions. And you can just replace the blank lines with your name and your business info. If you do have a private practice, you do need to make sure that you're Adding in your private practice paperwork that you're releasing the power differential so that they don't have to purchase that product to get results. So if you have a private practice and you sell digital products or physical products like some people sell, like essential oils and stuff, you need to have something in your paperwork that just says your clients don't have to purchase this stuff to get results. That's what I mean by releasing the power differential and that's it. So it comes down to marketing social media, setting up your funnels so you can drive traffic to your stuff, getting your product optimized, deciding the price of your product, promoting your product. So that comes down to marketing. You can do that launch discount, so your early bird discount. This is going to create urgency for your clients. You definitely want to be sure to collect testimonials when clients get wins from your product so that you can continue to promote it. This is part of the marketing that I teach. You can do collaborations, you can set up affiliates with some of your indirect competitors and how you're going to enroll people is really through conversations. Eventually you can set up paid advertising so you can just run traffic to your funnel pages and it can just sell on autopilot. So there's quite a few floating pieces that you need to set up on the front end to have your back end be a well oiled machine to then be making passive income. So again, it's leveraged income, it's leveraged work, but it's very doable for you. So I hope this episode gave you some clarity on what passive income really is, how you can create digital products, the difference between high ticket and low ticket and maybe when is going to be best for you to do high ticket and low ticket in your business. Some of these get rich quick schemes that are out there on the Internet, some other trends on passive income that are out there on the Internet. I wish you the best of luck in making all of the money in the world. I am here to support you to have that cash flow in. I have all the systems in place to help you do this where you can literally just copy and paste my strategy that I use in my own business. I have high ticket programs, I have low ticket digital products, I have funnels, I know the tech systems, I have the connections to team members that can help you set this up. So please don't be a stranger. I am here to support you on this journey. If you need help, please reach out to my team and we can explore what this looks like further. My love is with you. And cheers to making some passive income. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Thank you so much for listening to the thriving therapyneura podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around.
Sam.
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