FOUR STEPS TO CREATING

YOUR FIRST (OR NEXT)

PASSIVE INCOME STREAM
It’s time to scale your freelance business

THE FREELANCE TO
FREEDOM PROJECT
So, you’ve been thinking about creating something to help you make more money
with less one-on-one time? Well first off, congrats!

Service-based freelancing is the easiest way to start and grow your business, but at
some point, you realize there are only so many hours in the day, and only so high your
prices can go.

It’s time to create some “passive” income!

This is part resource/part workbook to help you create a plan and put it into action so
you can feel the magic of receiving a PayPal notification while you sleep :)

This guide may seem short and simple, and there’s a reason for that.

You can sit around all day thinking about how to scale your freelance business, or you
can take a few concrete steps to actually make it happen.

No need to overcomplicate things, it’s time to put in the work!

Ready?

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

CONSISTENT EMAIL
STEP 1: FIND OUT WHAT MARKETING
YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS

The key to a successful passive income product is solving a real problem for your
client. Sure, you may think you know what they struggle with but you’ll never
know for certain unless you ask.

You can’t make assumptions here. You can’t base your ideas on what other
people in your industry are doing — because everyone’s audience is different.

So how do you find out what your clients need?

Create a survey

Make a quick and easy form, listing multiple-choice questions, and send it to
your email list, publish it on your blog or post it on social media. Give something
away to entice people to help you out. For example, this could be a service, your
favorite book, a mini-ebook you created, printables or a gift card.

Run a contest

Run a contest where people have to answer questions in your blog comments,
on Instagram or through Rafflecopter. Similar to giving something away for a
survey, this will entice people to share with you and also spread the word.

Tell your audience you’re creating something super helpful for them and you
need their help to refine it. Ask them to answer a specific question in the
comments or by replying to an email.

Talk to them!

Get on the phone with your ideal clients. You could offer free 15-minute calls to
your current audience and tell them you’ll help with one specific thing in return
for answering a few questions from you. Advertise your free calls on social media,
your blog and in your newsletter.

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

CONSISTENT EMAIL
STEP 1: FIND OUT WHAT MARKETING
YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS

Or you can simply reach out to people you know (who fit your ideal client type) or
people in your audience and ask them if they wouldn’t mind hopping on Skype
for 15 minutes.

Pay attention online

When you’re hanging on Twitter or in Facebook groups, take notes on the kinds
of questions people are asking and where they are looking for help. The more
data you have to work with, the better. Compile everything into one spreadsheet
and start your topic brainstorm from there!

Now answer these questions:

What keeps your audience up at night?

What are your audiences’ biggest pain points?

What’s missing for them; what do they need to solve their problems?

Of their biggest pain points, which one do you have the most experience or
knowledge about?

Which solution of yours excites you the most when you think about creating a
product around it?

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

STEP 2: SET UP AN OPT-IN PAGE TO GATHER
CONSISTENT
INTEREST EMAIL MARKETING

OK, now you have an idea (or at least a rough one), it’s time to start gathering
interest.

Yes, before your product idea is even finalized or the content started! This way
you can tell if people are interested enough in the idea to sign up to find out
more.

The other big benefit of an opt-in page: accountability. When you start gathering
interest, you’ll be more likely to start talking about your product idea, to drive
people to the opt-in page. The more you talk about it, the more interest you
might gather and the more you will feel accountable to make it happen. See the
loop that starts when you’re onto something good?

If no one opts in, and you don’t get any good feedback from talking about it on
your blog or social media, you can then adjust your idea without having lost all
that time creating a product no one wants!

Tech tips for your opt-in page

• Create a separate page on your site or use a program like LeadPages

so you can promote the specific opt in URL on social media and in your
newsletter.
• Eliminate distractions on the page (no header, sidebar, etc.) so the only
thing people can do is opt in (or not).
• Entice people to sign up by giving away a short cheat sheet or freebie PDF
that relates significantly to your potential product.
• Create a separate list in your email provider (Mailchimp, etc.) so it’s clear
how many people are interested and you’re able to send them specific
emails before, during and after your launch.

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

STEP 2: SET UP AN OPT-IN PAGE TO GATHER
CONSISTENT
INTEREST EMAIL MARKETING

How to promote your opt-in page

• Write several blog posts on related topics and at the end of each post
mention what you’re working on and link to the opt-in page.
• Send an email to your list telling them what you’re working on and link to
your opt-in page.
• Post on your various social media channels.

Now answer these 3 key questions to help you optimize

interest:

What are the 3 main problems this product will help solve? (You’ll want to mention
these on your opt-in page!)

Which questions do people ask on this topic? (Use these as blog post ideas to
lead to your opt in.)

What other problems are related to this topic? (Use these as blog post ideas to
lead in to your opt in.)

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

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STEP 3: DECIDE ONEMAIL MARKETING
A FORMAT

There are several options for product delivery, each with varying degrees of
technical difficulty. You’ll want to consider how your clients like to learn, what you
like and are capable of creating, the price you would like to sell at and how much
time or investment you want to put into the whole process.

Format options

Email course (easy) — comprises lessons delivered via email autoresponder.

You need: email marketing software.
Examples: Mailchimp or AWeber.

Ebook (medium) — comprises a PDF for reading online (or to be printed),

delivered automatically after purchase.

You need: design/layout services as well as ebook delivery and payment
processors.
Delivery and payment processor examples: Gumroad, Zapier, PayPal.

Online members’ course (hard) — comprises multi-media (slides, videos, text

and/or worksheets) accessible on a password-protected website.

You need: Protected course website design and development, tools to
create and record audio or video, etc.
Software and platform delivery examples: Wishlist Member plugin or
Zippy Courses software (to password protect your course website pages),
Screenflow and PowerPoint (to create and record slides) etc.

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

CONSISTENT
STEP 3: DECIDE ONEMAIL MARKETING
A FORMAT

Now answer these 4 key questions to help you decide:

What kind of content does your audience prefer? (Don’t know? Ask them!)

How quickly do you want to launch this product? (The quicker you want to
launch, the less time-intensive the delivery method should be.)

How much do you want to charge for this product? (This should just be a gut
reaction answer. You haven’t created the content or done any research on
pricing yet, but you need to decide whether it will be your premium offering, a
starter offering or something in between. That will influence how much time you
put into its delivery.)

How much do you want to invest in design/tech/software to deliver this product?

(The more components needed such as design, development, software, the
higher the expense. It’s important to consider your budget.)

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

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STEP 4: OUTLINE YOUR MARKETING
CONTENT

Get organized before you start fully fleshing out your content. Trust me. The
easiest way to prevent overwhelm is to start with the big picture then work down
to the nitty-gritty detail.

Begin with modules — the big overarching steps to get your buyer from where
they are now, to where they want to be. Then move on to the lessons within
those modules; then you can finally flesh out the content of those lessons.

This ensures you are keeping the content concise and on topic so your students/
readers/members are able to actually take action and get the desired results.

Now answer these 2 key questions to help you get clear:

What are the 4-8 overarching topics you will cover (modules/chapters)? List them.

What are the 3-6 lessons within those modules? List them.

Now, brain dump the main points you want to cover in each of these lessons.

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

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Good work! The hard MARKETING
part is done!

You now have an idea, you know whether or not people are actually interested in
your idea, you know how you will deliver it, and you know what it’ll cover!

It may not seem like it, but the hardest part is complete.

Most people stay stuck in an indecision zone here and never move past the idea
stage. Once you get through these steps, it’s only a matter of taking action and
pulling everything together. Honestly, you can even hire someone to do the rest
for you!

Next steps

• Flesh out your content and put it together in the format you’ve decided on.
• Write a sales page
• Choose a launch date
• Start creating buzz by talking about it regularly on social media, your blog
and in your newsletter.
• Launch and watch the sales roll in while you pop a bottle of champagne. Or
let them accumulate while you sleep. :)

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

CONSISTENT
Take Action! EMAIL MARKETING

You are never going to make your passive income dreams a reality if you don’t
take action. I know how scary it can be to put something new out into the world.

I’ve been there.

I delayed creating my first course for months — even after clear signs people
needed it. I was worried no one would buy it even though I’d put in so much
work; I was worried the people who did buy it would be so disappointed they’d
never buy anything from me again!

As concerned as I was, I even blogged about the behind-the-scenes action as I

created the course: you can read the series here.

More than 200 students later, after pushing past my fears and taking the time
(even at 3am) to just do the work, releasing my first course is the best decision
I’ve ever made.

Need some accountability? Tweet me!

Hey @leahkalamakis! I’m working

on creating some passive income,
hold me accountable?

THE FREELANCE TO FREEDOM PROJECT

 Enjoy this guide?
Please share it with anyone you know who is ready to start and grow
their freelance business by clicking the icons below!

Hi, I’m Leah.

Founder of The Freelance To Freedom
Project. I want to help you find more
freedom in life by showing you how to scale
your freelancing beyond what you think is
possible. I’ve done it, and I know you can too.

Copyright © 2015 Leah Kalamakis, LLC | www.freelancetofreedomproject.com