When you’re a service provider, in many ways (unless you have a huge team) you are working trading hours for dollars. With only so many hours in the days, your income will eventually top off. But, if you work in your spare time to create passive income, you can create a situation where you can overcome the hours for dollars trap.

First of all, let’s understand what passive income is. It’s not really as easy as the word “passive” makes it sound. You do have to do some form of work first to collect the income down the road. But, you do the work today and then collect on it tomorrow – many times months and even years down the road.

The best way to approach creating passive income as a service provider is to consider who your audience is right now, then find products and solutions that can help them. For example, if you are a virtual assistant for life coaches, they’re going to need systems such as payment processing systems, course delivery systems, sales pages and more. You can become an affiliate for all of these systems that you then recommend and help set up for your customers.

As a service provider, there are many things you know about your clients which can help you determine what they need. You probably know your clients more than other people who create affiliate products and systems to use, so you may be able to find and create even better offerings than others due to your insight.

Here are some more ideas for creating passive income.

* Write an eBook – You likely can teach other service providers or your client audience how to do something, and writing an eBook is an excellent way to go about it. You can write the book and get it up on Kindle within a few weeks.

* Develop a Membership Course – You can turn your book into an eCourse easily with the right set-up. You can put your course on a website, or you can use one of the cloud-based providers such as Udemy.com.

* Create a Blog – A blog is a good way, though a long term way, to earn some passive income by recommending tools, products and services to your audience. You technically can easily create two different blogs. One directed to other service providers, and one directed to your ideal client for whom you now work as a service provider.

* Build an Online Directory – A directory is a great way to collect some money to allow people to list their business on the site. You can make it pretty hands off with the technology available from directory software like eDirectory.

Link to eDirectory – http://www.edirectory.com/about-edirectory/spotlight.php

* Promote Products as an Affiliate – Your audience likely needs various products that you can recommend to them as an expert service provider. When they use the link you provide to them, you’ll earn a little bit of commission.

* Outsource More – As a service provider you can become the public name of a larger entity when you outsource. If you can find people to outsource to who will do the work less expensively but as well as you, you can make money without having to do the work. Your job becomes marketing the services.

* Promote an App – You may be able to come up with an idea for an app for your audience. Even if you have zero coding experience, you can hire a coder to make the app for you, then promote it to your audience as well as your customers.

* Create a YouTube Channel – Popular YouTube channels can earn a full-time income and you can get in on the action. You can either make videos yourself, or you can hire someone to make videos for you depending on which way you plan to go.

Developing passive income sources as a service provider is a delicate balance. Always be honest with your clients when you recommend a product to them that it’s something you will earn commission on. Nothing is wrong with that at all, but you have to be up front with them about it.