Show Notes

Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

When it comes to passive income, one of the first questions private practitioners ask, is which passive income stream is the best or will make the most money?

And although making passive income is one of the main reasons, you’re considering doing it, it’s important to know the passive income isn’t a one size fits all approach. In other words, just because a colleague, a friend, or an inspirational guru has implemented a specific passive income stream and found success, that it is best for you and your practice.

Honestly, there’s no such thing as the perfect passive income stream, because each person is different. You will have your own purpose for doing what you do, you’ll be intrinsically motivated by different activities and tasks. You have a specific personality that’ll influence how you show up in the world. And above all of that, your clients have varying paths towards finding resources and services that help them manage or overcome their current problem or situation.

In today’s episode of the designer practice podcast, I’ll discuss the three Ps that will help you choose your first or next passive income stream.

Purpose

The first is purpose.

The number one motivator is whether your passive income stream is a part of your overall purpose. As a therapist, you’ve decided to join the career for specific reasons, which is usually because you feel it’s your purpose. Similarly, your passive income streams should fall within the same umbrella.

If you feel what you’re doing has a greater meaning or purpose, whether it’s you’re serving more people, educating specific people on a topic, or that you want to connect people with resources that can help them move towards their goals quicker, which is one of my biggest reasons, you’re going to feel that your passive income stream is worth it, even during the hard times.

Although money and even getting back time may be big motivators and a huge reason on why you’re considering starting passive income streams. They are extrinsic motivators and they won’t be your guiding North Star in the long term, especially if whatever passive income stream you choose sets doesn’t feel meaningful to you.

Let me give you a personal example. For me, I have three reasons for why I incorporate passive income streams inside of my business.

One is to make money passively that helps me spend more time with my family, so that I don’t have to work inside of my business all of the time. So essentially the first two is I want to make money and I want to spend time with family.

The third. I feel that my overall purpose in life is to provide information and resources to therapists and business owners so that they can design the practice that they love. I love connecting people to ungated content that I believe everyone should have access to. I also love being considered the discount lady who gives discounts on gated content or paid services so that if they decide to sign up for something, they get it at a discounted rate. Essentially, my purpose, or my North Star, is to ensure that information out there is getting to the right people and that people get discounts when they do pay for services.

Although the other two reasons are very important to me, and are huge external motivators for why I incorporate passive income streams into my business. They aren’t going to motivate me to continue any specific passive income stream, because the passive income stream itself should fall within my overall purpose.

That’s why I focus heavily on the Designer Practice Podcast, and the soon to be Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch I focus on blogging, affiliate marketing where I give discounts for products that I think could be useful for therapists. It all falls within my overall purpose and it’s meaningful to me

So, the first step is to determine if which passive income stream you want to create that falls within your overall purpose and or feels meaningful to you beyond the money you’ll make or the time you’ll get back.

Personality

The next P in passive income identification is personality.

Adding passive income into your private practice is an asset to your business, but you also want to choose a passive income stream that motivates you to continue to build and maintain long-term.

The best predictor for passive income success is whether or not you enjoy the action or the task of building the passive income stream, and whether you’re intrinsically motivated to continue it, even during the difficult times.

When you enjoy doing what you do, building and contributing to your passive income stream doesn’t feel like work, and actually it’s pretty enjoyable. And when you are intrinsically motivated by the task, external factors such as making money do not overshadow your contributions.

Again, I’m going to use myself as an example. Despite the fact that I have a podcast, I’m actually an introvert. I enjoy being by myself, getting immersed in the process of creation, and I like learning and providing step by step processes to others. I also love to write.

So, knowing all of this, it’s not surprising that I love writing blogs, creating podcast content, and affiliate marketing. I can do it all on my own time, with the exception of course, having guests on my podcast. And in all three passive income streams, I can write. I write blogs, I write scripts, and I write advertisement copy for social media and my website. It absolutely lights me up when I’m doing all of this.

Now let me share with you the things that don’t light me up, and in fact, drain me when I do it. As I’m an introvert, I really do not enjoy going live, specifically in group settings. So a live webinar or a live group is not going to be something that I enjoy. I’ve done it in my business and I’m sure I’ll do it again in my business. But it’s not something I could sustain long term because I’m just not extroverted in that way.

For me, podcasting is a little different because I’m recording, editing, scheduling it out on my own time. In the end, you listen to the final product that I feel I want to put out. I feel like I have control over the process. And eventually, when I do put it out in the world, I’ve already built up that confidence to put it out there.

So, it’s important to truly understand what you like and what you don’t like. What motivates you and what drains you, as well as understand and utilize your own personality into whichever passive income stream or streams you eventually add into your practice.

Now I think there’s a place to try different things to really learn about what you like and dislike. So just because it’s something that you might be fearful of, I encourage you to at least try different things. But if you continue to try something and it doesn’t work, like me, I tried going live in the early days and it just didn’t fit me or my personality. You can change directions. You do not have to stick with one particular direction.

Path

The final P is understanding your ideal client’s path to finding help for their specific problem or issue.  

It might be a surprise to you to know that therapy is one of the last steps in most clients’ path for help. What I mean by that is, for many clients, they try to find help in other ways before asking for formal help through a therapist or a coach.

So, with that, you have so many options to reach them even before they’re ready to seek therapy. And even reach people who may never want or need therapy. Again, let’s use my ideal client, which is therapists, as an example.

I’ve noticed time and time again that as a business coach, I’m usually one of the last resorts for many of my clients, meaning they’ve tried all of the free and low-cost do-it-yourself options out there before they take the step to receive individualized help with starting and growing their practice, even though, as we know, reaching out for help can actually move you towards your goals quicker, but in reality, most people, at least my ideal clients in this case, try to do it on their own, at first.

So, when it comes to my ideal clients who, again, are therapists, they often start out searching for free content like blogs or articles. They might dabble into podcasts, like you’re listening to this podcast. Sometimes they get the resources that they need through the free content and never want business coaching.

However, others move through the journey of purchasing maybe low cost or do it yourself online courses, digital templates, memberships, that make things easier that they can do it on their own. For some, this is enough information and again, they don’t want or need business coaching at this point because they’ve gotten to the goals that they were hoping to get to.

Finally, there are other therapists who want and need business coaching so that they can expedite their progress and receive individualized help. That’s when they come and see me. So, as you can see, there is a huge journey or a path that people take before they ever reach out to me for business coaching.

So, when it comes to creating passive income, it makes sense that I’ll create services, products, or resources that are along my ideal client’s path for help, because that aligns with my purpose, which is what we discussed in the first P, as well as it helps me reach more of my ideal client, even if they never want a business coach. Because at the end of the day, only a quarter, if not less, will actually ever reach out, even though I know that it could really be beneficial.

Your clients are exactly the same. Even though as a therapist, you know that you might be able to help your clients manage and overcome whatever problem. Realistically, you are not their first stop on the path for help, for most people.

So better understanding your ideal client and their path to seeking therapy can help you determine which passive income stream would be most fruitful in your practice. Of course, aligning it with your purpose and also aligning it with your personality.

Recap

So, let’s recap.

When it comes to choosing which passive income stream best fits you and your practice, it’s important to consider the three P’s.

Your purpose for doing what you do.

Your personality, including the type of work that intrinsically motivates you.

And the path that your ideal client takes when searching for help with their current situation or problem. Those stops along that journey might just be where you should be investing your time with a passive income stream.

Passive Income Personality Quiz

To bring this conversation a little further, I have a passive income stream personality quiz that you can take, which helps you discover your unique passive income personality type. And the results provide you a passive income stream, which might be best for your personality.

If you’re interested in taking my free quiz, head to kayladas.com/passive-income-quiz.

Or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

The Designer Practice Podcast and Evaspare Inc. has an affiliate and/or sponsorship relationship for advertisements in our podcast episodes. We receive commission or monetary compensation, at no extra cost to you, when you use our promotional codes and/or check out advertisement links.