I am a member of
IVAA, the International Virtual Assistant Association. I don't actually consider myself a virtual assistant anymore, since I'm not the best at making travel plans, answering phones, and keeping a calendar for someone else. I'm more of a virtual professional in that I fix things for people, like their websites or documents that don't work correctly. If interested, my web page for work is
ShinyNewts.
IVAA puts out a monthly newsletter called the IVAA Cast. I wrote a test article for the editor and submitted it. She seemed to like it, and this is the first month I submitted a real article. This month's theme is "generating passive income." Here's my first article.
A classic way to generate passive income is to sell a product. Do you have a product and don’t even know it? As you read these examples, think about your own life. Have you done anything similar or equitable?
So, what’s your product? Let’s find out.
Have you made something that you give to clients, friends, and family over and over?
This might be anything from a computer procedure to a recipe. My sister glues fake flowers on hair clips in artistic ways and gave away a ton of them. She makes them as a hobby, but she now sells them at SnazzyClips.com.
Has something in your house broken and you fixed it with a unique design?
My brother-in-law has a dishwasher that breaks a lot. The wheels on the top rack break, frequently, and instead of fixing those tiny wheels, the fix is to replace an entire rack in the washer. My brother-in-law got tired of this waste and made replacement hubs so people can fix the wheels, permanently, instead of buying new racks. He sells these at MaytagWheelHubs.com.
Have you ever invented a little, tiny thing?
I don’t know Jeanette and Bob Williams, but I love their product. Bob, a retired college professor, got tired of dog-earing pages and highlighting passages in books. He didn’t want to ruin his books. Bob and Jeanette invented book darts. These treasures are tiny pieces of metal folded over to make tight clips. One end of the dart is pointed, and can be used to mark lines in a book or a page. Bob and Jeanette initially made these in their basement and sold them at BookDarts.com.
Have you written a book, part of a book, or pieces of a book?
I love to research topics. I get all excited about something and read every book I can find on it, watch every movie or documentary, and visit in person the object of my attention if possible. To organize my thoughts, I write. That writing usually turns out to be a full-fledge unit study or book. These can be sold.
Have you made anything that you use regularly to make your job easier?
Do you have a tool that you created and you use that most people in your field don’t have? This might be a checklist, a notebook, a chart, a procedure, an Office template, an audio, or a picture. Have you made a special Access database that you could convert into a template and sell?
Pretty it up
Have you found your product? If so, it’s just a matter of “packaging” the product to make it sellable.
What do you need to do to package your product? The packaging depends on what your product is.
Is your product writing?
Before I can sell my “books” or unit studies, I have to pretty them up. I make a cover page, format the document consistently, have someone proofread it, make sure all the images are legal by buying them or drawing my own, and make a new pdf. IVAA has some excellent proofreaders and cover page designers if you need help with that.
Is your product computer “soft” ware
If it’s a template or a piece of software, you’ll need a website page, a photo, a description, and some testimonials. Don’t let the testimonials stop you; they’re easy to get. Someone probably told you they liked your product and that’s why you’re selling it. Who was that person? Hit them up for a testimonial.
Can you hold your product in your hands?
If your product is physical, you need to polish its appearance and find a nice way to package and mail it. My snazzy clip sister had embroidered labels made to cover the glue that fastens the flower to the hair clip. A quick search on Google and help you find any boxes or packaging you might need.
You have a product, you’ve packaged it, and now you need to sell it
How are you going to sell your product?
If your product is a book, decide whether or not you want it to be strictly an e-book, or if you want it printed. If you want it printed, you can set this up with lulu.com for no out-of-pocket money, and they’ll sell it on their site for you too. Additionally, you can get an ISBN number from them and sell it on Amazon.
Well, for all types of products, books and non-books alike, you can sell them on your website. If you already have a shopping cart, you can incorporate it into that. If not, you can set it up to sell it on PayPal easily.
The basic procedure for selling a product on PayPal is to:
Register for a PayPal account, attach a bank account to it, and confirm the bank account
Create a web page that features your product on your website
Create a thank-you web page that gives instructions for obtaining the product
Login to PayPal and go to the Merchant Services tab
Click on the link for “Buy Now Button.” Fill out the form and hit the “Create Button Now” button.
Copy the HTML code that PayPal generates into your website.
Once you have identified your product, packaged it, and done the set up for the product to be sold, you’re well on your way to generating passive income. Let me know how it goes.
