Making money in your sleep is one of these points in business where you feel like you've made it. 

But until you've reached that point, it can be easy to wonder if it's really even possible. 

People shout about it online all over social media and they make it sound so simple and effortless…

…but you're struggling to make it happen for yourself. 

I'm here to bust the myth that making sales in your sleep is fully passive, but it is possible and I'm going to give you the 5 things you need in place so you can start to make money in your sleep. 

Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check out the video version of this post here.

A funnel that takes people from where they’re at to ready-to-buy.

Thing number one that you need is some kind of funnel. And no, this doesn’t have to be fancy! 

You need a way to take people through the customer journey, from the point where they don't know you to the point where they're ready to buy. 

There are multiple ways to set up a funnel, whether you choose one specific social media channel, relationship marketing, a strategic content strategy, an email list or a mix of all of these things. 

Whatever you use, you need each piece to perform one or more of these functions. 

1. Attract. Top of funnel. In simple terms, this means attracting new people into your world. 

If you think of the top of your funnel like a fishing net, and your customers are the fish, you need to throw your net over a wide area to catch as many fish as possible. 

Some of them are going to wriggle away and escape before your net comes down around them. 

But some of them will get caught up in your world. 

1. You then need a way to nurture those people and build know like and trust with you. 

All of your top-of-funnel work, whether it's content, speaking, networking etc, should invite people to continue following you where you share your nurturing content. 

Things that work really well here are emails, podcasts and social media. As long as you're building a deeper connection with them, this can be as simple as you like. 

1. Sell. Bottom of funnel content.

And finally, as people reach the bottom of your funnel, you need a way to sell your offers, whether it's sales content, sales email sequences, or something else, you need to make them aware of how you can help them and how they can take that next step to buy from you. 

I would always recommend using email for your middle and bottom of funnel, but you can incorporate other ways to communicate with your audience here too. 

A hot offer that solves an urgent problem for your audience

The next thing you need is a hot offer that your audience needs. You won't make sales in your sleep if you don't sell something your audience needs. Your offer needs to be a heck yes to your people. 

And either solving a problem they have that they need to solve urgently, or getting them to an outcome they're dreaming about and they need support with. 

The best way to know whether you need is to ask them. If you want to make sales on autopilot, I recommend starting with an existing offer that sold well, either in the past or something you know deeply inside and out. 

This will help you create messaging that will help you sell on autopilot as well. If you have conversations with your audience about your offer and why it hasn't sold in the past, you have so much intel that you can use to make it a no-brainer for them. 

Look at whether you need to tweak the support style and bonuses or remove anything that's not adding to the experience of people inside.

Every piece of your offer, from the price to the bonuses to the support, to how any content is delivered, needs to be intentional and designed to get your clients to a specific outcome. 

Anything that doesn't get them to that outcome can be scrapped. 

This is optional. But if you want to make sales in your state, you ideally want what you're selling to be scalable. So it doesn't matter if 5 or 50 people join, you're still able to deliver on it. 

Be honest with yourself. If 50 people were to join your offer, would you have time to help every one of those people in reaching the outcome that they're looking for? 

If the answer is no, you either need to limit the number of people who can buy it. Or you need to tweak your offer so you can get people to the outcome without you needing to work 24/7.

Automated sales process

The 3rd thing you need to make sales in your sleep is an automated sales process. That might seem obvious, but making sales in your sleep doesn't work if you have to send manual invoices for everyone who wants to buy from you. Some offers are naturally better set up for this. 

If for 1:1 work, you need to have a sales call and send a proposal as part of your process, it's obviously not going to ever reach the point where you make sales in your sleep from that offer. 

You need a sales process where people can get all the information they need to make a buying decision and pay you instantly when they decide they want in.

That means you need a page with all the information (And I'm going to dive into that more later). Plus automated ways to drive traffic to the information page or sales page and a checkout tool to collect payments. 

I use ThriveCart*(affiliate link) and I absolutely love it because you only have to pay for it once and there’s no monthly subscription. 

I've made my money back and then served since I bought this last year and I use it to host my courses automatically deliver products and capture people's email info to add them to my email list, which is housed in ConvertKit. 

Other options are available but ThriveCart is so cost effective if you're just starting out with passive products. 

Automated delivery system

The next thing you need is an automated delivery system. That means that you need a way to deliver a product or program or whatever your audience has just purchased from you without you having to do it yourself. 

For a course, this means they receive login details on autopilot. 

The more instant you can make this the better because that equals happy clients. 

Some checkout software will have the option to do this integrated (like ThriveCart), but if your software doesn't have this option, you'd most likely need to set up some automation using your email service provider. 

The goal here is that as soon as they pay you, they get an email with all the information they need, including any next steps and the product itself. 

You want to minimize any questions your audience may have after making a purchase, so they don't start regretting it. Buyer's remorse is real, and you want to avoid it like the plague. 

A high-converting sales page

The final thing you need to make sales in your sleep is a killer sales page. This is a page with all the details of your offer. But it is so much more than that. 

Your sales page should give your customers all the information they need to make a buying decision and hit on a number of psychological triggers as well. 

The purpose of a sales page is to sell for you. And it should be so good that you can eliminate sales calls. 

Any questions your audience might have need to be answered on the page. So they can make a choice, yes or no, about whether this offer is for them.

Writing a sales page that converts like crazy is 50% science and 50% art.

You need to use data and research that you've gathered from your ideal clients to craft a compelling sales message. 

Things like their deepest desires and their greatest fears, along with other solutions they might have tried before that haven't worked for them. 

All of this will help you paint a really deep, compelling picture of where they're at, where they need to go and why you're the right person to help them. 

If you want all the tea on how to write a sales page that converts your readers into buyers without being sleazy as hell, stay tuned for next week's blog, which breaks down the key elements every effective sales page should have. 

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