BusinessBackpacker.com

Can you tell us a bit about SmartPassiveIncome.com?

SmartPassiveIncome.com (or SPI for short), is a blog I started when I began to see my existing online businesses take off. On it, I discuss various online business and blogging strategies that I use and how they have either helped or didn’t help my businesses. I’m totally “tell it like is it” and transparent with everything I do, so as not to misguide anyone who may be searching for answers about how to do business online.

What’s unique about what I do online and what I teach is that they primarily revolve around generating a passive income, which means they are businesses that are almost entirely run on auto-pilot. This kind of business model frees up valuable time in my life that I can spend doing the things I love, like hanging out with my family. I’m not trading my time for money, rather I’m investing my time now so I can see continually returns in the future.

You have an impressive online presence and visibility, I feel like I see you everywhere.  Can you give the readers some tips on how you do this?

Sure! In fact, I just wrote a post about how I’ve expanded my brand, which gives people the illusion that I am indeed “everywhere”.

To sum it up, I’ve made sure that I just didn’t stick to writing on my blog, but ventured out onto other media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook (to name a few), and I’ll also be hosting an upcoming podcast as well. This allows me to reach people who I may not have reached otherwise, while expanding my brand and image to those who already know about me.

In addition, the number one tip I can give you is to always provide fantastic content, no matter what media platform(s) you’re using. If you take a little bit of extra time to over-deliver, you’ll get noticed by people and things will start to happen from there. We can do all we want to promote our own sites, products and brand online, but what really makes a huge difference is promotion from other people (like raving fans), who have more influence upon people who you may have never reached before. It all starts with helping others, and it usually pays you back in one way or another.

I appreciate that! I’ve actually heard that from a lot of people before, and I think it’s because I don’t use my newsletter as a way to earn more money. Again, you should always strive to provide excellent, over-the-top content, and that’s exactly what I give my subscribers. No hype, no sales pitches, no aggressive marketing tactics – just written content that I would want my friends to read. When I do recommend a product, it’s because it will help my subscribers (really!), not because it will help me earn an extra dollar or two.

I try to write my newsletter emails like I would write to my best friends trying to become successful online as well. I wouldn’t dare to be a weasel and try to make a buck off of them.

A friend and I started an iPhone app business a little over a year ago, mainly as an experiment to see if it was possible to generate passive income from building apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. We heard of some amazing success stories at the time (people making $20k a DAY with some applications), so we just had to give it a shot.

I don’t understand programming language, and although my business partner does, we decided to outsource our applications because we knew we’d be able to get more done in a shorter period of time. Plus, the quality of applications would be much better than if we gave it a shot ourselves. So, we took some crazy ideas we had, found some developers, and have since built 18 applications that are now live in the app store.

No, we’re not making $20k a day, but we are generating a nice, virtually passive income from Apple because of the applications that we developed. In May of 2010, we hit record earnings for a single month, nearly breaking $10k in profits. We have more apps in the works as we speak, and we’ll see where it takes us.

If you’re interested in iPhone apps, I definitely recommend reading one of my more popular blog posts: 5 Things You Should Know About Creating Your Own iPhone Apps

It’s important to realize that at any given moment, one income stream can suddenly disappear.

I realized this when I was laid off in 2008 from a 9 to 5 job that I really loved – in a career that I thought I was going to be a part of forever.

The same thing can happen online, which is why we should strive to diversify. I have about 15 to 18 different income streams that all work together to provide an income for myself and my family. If one or two of those go away, I’ll be fine and be able to keep my head above the water. If I only vested my time, effort and money into one particular income stream, then if for some reason it disappeared, I’d be screwed.

For example, let’s say all I did was iPhone apps. We’re generating a steady income now, but what if Apple decides to come out with a new product and apps become obsolete? Or, maybe Apple get’s bought out by another company and changes their whole business model? (Which is highly unlikely, but I think you get the idea).

This is why I like building passive income streams, because I can work on a project until it’s automated, and then move on to the next project – thus diversifying my passive income portfolio. It’s hard to diversify a 9 to 5 job, because there are only so many hours in the day.

The trick is, at least for me, is to make sure I do one thing at a time.

Luckily, the passive income business model allows me to work on multiple projects at the same time – so for example while I’m waiting for iPhone apps to be completed by our outsourced development team, I can add content to an eBook I’m writing or create videos for YouTube. Also, many things that I earn an income from are on auto-pilot, which means they don’t require very much time from me, if any at all. Again, this is thanks to the passive income business model.

Final thoughts, inspiring words?

Sure – I have a few things that I always tell people who are interested in doing business online, or taking their existing businesses to the next level.

First, is that you should not be afraid of failure. Failure is good!, because it means you’re at least trying something out, and if it doesn’t work, you have that much more knowledge about what you should do next. I’ve learned from each and every one of my (many) failures. Looking back, I’m glad I failed because they’ve helped me get to this point in life.

Secondly, is that you should never try to be perfect. So many people spend hours, days, or even years trying to make their online businesses perfect. The problem is, they spend so much time trying to make things perfect that they miss out on everything that could have happened if they had just put something out there earlier! No one cares if you’re perfect – nobody is. Get something out there now, and worry about perfection later. Like I always say, “Everyday you don’t have something for sale online is a day of potential profits lost.”

Lastly, I’d just like to say that I am nobody special. I’m not an expert, and I never had any special training. So honestly, anyone can become successful online too, as long as they have the passion and drive to succeed.