Do you have any passiv income from youre business

[John Childs]

Hi Simon.

If I understand your definition correctly, the majority of our work is passive.

For instance, twenty years ago I spent some considerable time winning a new client. Since then, their vans just keep rolling in here without any further sales or marketing effort on my behalf. Most of our customers are like that.

Only recently have we started to deviate from that business model.

[Andrew Boyle]

I have trouble with time …. And sometimes the figures won’t add up compared to normal work …:) cheers

[Martin Pearson]

Not really sure what sort of thing you are after here Simon, sorry maybe it’s just me but from your description practically all the work I do could be classed as passive. It’s mainly repeat work that I do just now so most of the work I do is for Companies or people who I have been dealing with for quite some time. They contact me and ask if I can do some work for them. Any new customers that I get are also referrals from my existing customers so no sales or marketing required there either.

I used to do a bit of work for a couple of large sign companies who were based somewhere in England and had national contracts. For smaller jobs it was cheaper for them to send me the signs and have me go out and fit them rather than send a full fitting team up to Scotland.

[Duncan Wilkie]

Passive income can be a lot of things as I understand it. Generally speaking it is derived from previous efforts where hard costs were incurred and those costs were paid off, but income from those efforts continues.
Our business does not have a lot of these income streams, however I do enjoy passive income from the sale of my font. All the costs went into it 3 years ago when it was produced. Now, I receive a royalty payment every 15th of the month from the type foundry based on sales of the font. That is passive income and it’s wonderful. I really must finish of those other fonts I have in the works. 🙂

[Simon Polakof]

Sorry for not making myself clear.
We work pretty much with repeated business as some of you mention. We’re a company hands us their vehicles every time they have a new one. As well as work a lot on mouth to mouth sales, we’re one happy customer tells his/her friend about us and they come to us as well.
But I’m more interested in hearing about other sources of passive income. Duncan yours is one of them! I have recently started to play with the idea of starting a web based shop where the customer do their buying completely on line. I don’t need to talk to them or meet them, they just send us jobs. For example a though I have is to start a shop for selling stickers over the net. This would require me to put down some work and time in the beginning and then just wait to the setbacks to kick in. Other examples of such a we based shops are sites we’re one buy canvas prints and banner prints. Of course we would have to work for the money but, no in the same way as we normally do. Hope you guys get what I’m trying to say?

Cheers for all the help and input by the way!

[Earl Smith]

I am not a sign man but I know a man who is.
I am a one man business doing Garment printing , embroidery and Sublimation. I have a small shop on a busy street. Like all the others on here I get most of my work as return business or word of mouth.
To bring in extra work (money) I pass on inquiries for Signs, Vehicle wraps paper printing ( menus , business cards etc.) to other "specialists" . They in turn bring their Garment work to me. For this I get a percentage and I pay them the same percentage when they bring me work.
I also have two "reps". Self employed people who run their own businesses. One is an insurance man and the other sells and maintains printers and photocopiers to the local offices and factories. They also receive a commission.
Earl.