One of the reasons why I love the concept of passive income is having control of my time. When you trade dollars for time, someone else has control of your time, and that to me is just not ideal. As a super busy mom, I need to be able to have complete control over my schedule and manage things in a way that’s conducive for me. So that’s why I continuously tout the wonders of passive income.

But what I have seen online over the years concerning passive income is that there are a lot of “Get Rich Quick!” and “Make Money While You Sleep!” kind of nonsense rubbish that’s sweeping different work at home circles. There is NO SUCH THING as getting rich quick, or else someone would already be there AND I doubt if they’d share their tricks with us. Don’t believe the hype. Creating passive income is undoubtedly a lucrative business idea, but it does take work. A lot of work. An insane amount of work. But it’s far easier to promote hype and sell some new marketers that proverbial pie-in-the-sky rather than be honest.

I won’t do that to you. I’m going to be blunt and tell you, you’re going to have to work your tushy off to set up your business idea before you can start to reap the rewards from it. That’s just the truth. No matter what your passive income idea is, be prepared to put in work. A lot of work. But fret not. I do have good news.

When you settle on which idea you want to pursue to create a passive income stream, the next thing you must do is adopt a system or method for making that happen. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. That’s not necessary. Just find reputable, honest and experienced marketers who are doing what you want to do and follow their business setup patterns to the letter. If they’re accessible, ask questions. Subscribe to their blog posts. Follow them on social media. Do everything you can (short of stalking, cause that’s just creepy) to find out how they’re successful with their passive income business and do what they’re doing. The top reason why so many new (and experienced) internet marketers fail at passive income creation is because they go into thinking that things are going to be easy or not too hard to learn, so they bow out at the first sign of resistance. The reason why you want to find a working method is so that you can by-pass some of the learning curve you’ll meet and just get right to the nuts and bolts of getting your business set up and running. I’m going to short-list for you some of the things that I’ve encountered with setting up and running passive income business ideas:

1. Money, Money, Money

You will need to spend money. To make it you’ve got to spend it. No such thing as “free” when you’re an online entrepreneur. So even if you buy a $5 ebook, prepare to spend a few dollars. Or a lot of dollars.

2. Business Education

And speaking of purchasing ebooks, make it a priority to invest in your internet business education. The ‘net is constantly changing and there are always new things that you’ll need to learn. Don’t get distracted with the idea that you’re just going to set up a cash machine using an ebook you bought as a guide and think that’s all there is to it. No, you’re going to need a website, a domain name, hosting services, autoresponder services, web design services, content, etc. While some of these things can be outsourced for a decent fee, there is always learning involved for YOU as the business owner.

3. Adjust Your Schedule and Your Life

Everything that you’ll do with your business will depend solely on you. That’s one of the pros and cons about online marketing. With that said, understand that at 5:00 p.m., your day won’t necessarily be “over,” especially if you’re doing this on the side. Prepare to live, eat, breath your new business at all odd hours. If you don’t build it, they won’t come.

4. Manage Your Time

Again, since we’re talking about business building, you’ll need to adopt and practice essential time-management skills and productivity skills as well. This is critical for you if you have a family and other responsibilities, so be sure that you take care of your physical body through proper rest and exercise. And if you find that you need to wake up at 4:00 a.m. and work on your business a little bit, then do that and manage yourself as you need to so that you can achieve that success.

5. Avoid Information Overload

Don’t be like some people and buy up every ebook, course, tutorial you see or download every video that promises to “cut your time in half” and have “millions in your bank account in 90 days.” It’s a very real wake-up call when you find unopened material on your hard drive that you purchased 3, 5, or maybe even 7 years ago that you forgot you had, all in a quest to race to the top of the money-making pile as fast as you can. Now I can’t say that I know of anyone who has done that, but I’m just saying, don’t.

6. Check Them Out

And finally, vet everything and everybody you come across when you’re business building. There are a lot of sleazy people online who are more than happy to part you with your money in exchange for a great idea. Don’t do it. Research before you buy. Ask questions before you click the PayPal button. Have you read the person’s testimonials or checked to see if there were any negative reviews out on the web? How long have they been online and doing marketing? Do you trust their words, in your gut? Be careful of really well-written sales pages that make those promises that sound too good to be true, because it usually is. It’s up to you to protect yourself, your business AND your money.