When you don’t love the work you do. It becomes boring and difficult for you to keep working and working every day. Guess what, there’s actually a way to love what you do and it starts when you turn your hobby into a career or a business.
he pandemic has shifted the global economy in many ways, so you might have nixed your dream of turning a hobby into a career. But according to The Wall Street Journal, Americans are starting their own businesses at record speed: Applications for employer identification numbers have skyrocketed past 3.2 million so far this year.
In this blog, we’d take you through 13 ways that you can turn your hobby into a business.
A writer at Entrepreneur.com said ” We all want to wake up excited on Monday, enjoy the work we do and come home invigorated to do it all again tomorrow. The obvious answer is to turn your hobby — the passion you already have — into a career or a business, into your main source of income. If you did that, then work and play would become one and the same. You’d enjoy your Monday-Friday just as much as the weekend and your entire life would revolve around doing the things that you naturally love doing.
1. Start Small-Little Beginnings and Keep it Simple
There are plenty of reasons to begin earning money with your hobby before you try to make it into a career, but let’s start with the most obvious: money. In order to get started, you’ll need at least a few months of expenses saved up, independent of the startup costs associated with your business, to make sure that you’ll have something to live on while you’re getting things rolling.
Beginning your business while you’re still working at your old job will also give you a better idea of whether there’s an actual need for your product or service, and how much work goes into producing it, which will give you the information you need to work out the particulars of your finances down the road. (More on this in section No. 5.)
Although working two jobs can be exhausting and a juggling act, it’s a good way to make sure that you’ll still love your new career when you’re doing your hobby for money, not love alone.
In case you’re afraid that simplifying your services will limit your options for growth, Jane can reassure you that it won’t. “There is plenty of opportunity out there, and if you remain focused on your main goal, you will get there faster and ultimately have more success in the end.”
2. Make Connections– Pursue every lead you have.
Social media has made it easier than ever to make connections with like-minded people, which is an incredible boon to a small businessperson. LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc., can help you virtually meet other people in your industry.
Just remember to proceed with caution: some people will be less than willing to offer business advice to a potential competitor. The best approach is to forge connections before you start asking specific questions. Now is not the time for a blanker form letter, asking strangers if you can pick their brain. The goal is to become part of a community, not mine the competition for ideas and run.
There’s no such thing as a bad lead, especially when you’re just getting started. Beggars can’t be choosers, and the best way — the only way — to turn your passion into your job is to follow up with every lead that comes your way.
This Blog might be useful 9 Essential Reasons Why Networking Should be Mastered by Everybody
3. Make a Plan
A business plan is the least glamorous part of starting a new venture, but it can be essential, especially if you’re thinking about looking for funding from outside sources. Even if you plan to run your business on your own savings, a business plan can help organize your thinking about your new adventure and expose any unforeseen problems.
4. Plan Your Finances
In his famous play Pygmalion,” George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.” Notice the phrase “make a living.” Businesses fail without money, and startup costs can be significant. Before you quit your day job to pursue your hobby, verify that market demand exists for the products or services you hope to offer.
As part of your business plan, calculate your monthly expenses, projected income, and total startup costs, including any new equipment you might need, and costs like membership fees for professional associations, online marketplaces, or accountants or tax preparers.
You’ll also need to plan on paying quarterly estimated taxes, including self-employment tax.
Read this for more : 13 Tips On How to Manage Your Small Business
Eventually, you’ll have to decide whether to remain a sole proprietor or to choose some other form of business organization, including limited liability company, S-corporation, and so on.
5. Get the Word Out
The internet makes it easier than ever to let people know that you’re hanging out your shingle. In the olden days, you might have had to allocate a significant part of your budget to advertising and lead generation, but now you can get started simply by posting on your favorite networks and letting people know you’re open for business.
Just remember that if you’re still working at your day job, you might need to be discrete.
Make sure your company doesn’t have a policy against freelancing or working part-time, and that your business doesn’t rely on any trade secrets you’ve picked up from your job. If all those conditions are satisfied, think of a one-line description for what your business does, and share it with the world.
6. Reassess Your Goals
Even with careful planning, you won’t know what it will be like to run your own business until you do it for a while. So, it makes sense to reassess your goals at intervals to make sure that you’re on track.
Most likely, you’ll discover that your goals will change over time. You might find out that you love one aspect of your work more than others, for example, and decide to place more focus on that area. Or, you might learn that the market for your product is weaker than you expected, and change direction slightly to capture more business.
The best thing about working for yourself is that your job will evolve. Understand that, and you’ll be prepared to change tracks when necessary and succeed.
7. Keep Innovating
Jeff Bezos, a strong advocate for following and monetizing your passions, believes that your passions, if harnessed, can drive innovation in the workplace. He explains: “Invention comes in many forms and at many scales. The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity — to pursue their dreams.”
Every aspect of creating a career involves inventiveness and imagination. Whether it’s how you create the product or how you encourage the market, you’ll need to learn to innovate. No matter how successful you get, you can never stop brainstorming.
8. Listen to All Feedback, Even Criticism
Friends, family, trusted peers, and role models play a vital role in helping you to successfully professionalize your hobby. Listen to their feedback and consider their remarks, because it’s possible that your enthusiasm and passion are keeping you from seeing something that might be a hazardous obstacle.
Sue Langley, who created and currently runs the website Flea Market Gardening, cultivated this strategy and benefits from it daily. She put together a mastermind brainstorming group with some of the most active and creative gardeners and contributors on the Flea Market Gardening Facebook page. “We bounce around new ideas and give each other valuable feedback,” she shares.
9. Stay True to Your Brand
It’s easy to feel competitive with other business out there and to compare your success to theirs, but staying true to your vision and your brand is the surest way to succeed in your work.
For Thistle wood Farms blogger Karianne Wood, there’s nothing more important than determining your voice and sticking with it. No matter the greatness of the opportunity presented to her, Wood doesn’t compromise her brand. That keeps her profession from becoming something she has to do, rather than something she loves to do. “Be authentic,” she says, and keep in mind that your new business “is a reflection of you and your unique perspective.”
If you can stay true to your brand, you’ll enjoy what you do and others will appreciate you (and of course, pay you) for doing it.
10. Start advertising and marketing. Promotion pays dividends.
Even if you don’t have a large advertising budget, you can do a lot with the technology you already have. “Technology has made it easier than ever to create, scale, and market a company to millions of people,” says Daniel Herz, chief revenue officer of Mission Control, a recreational esports platform. “For example, over the past few years, we’ve seen massive scale and growth in the emerging field of esports. Technology has allowed individuals to turn their passion for gaming into their full-time job.”
To start generating business, create a compelling website with essential information. Most people search the internet prior to making purchases, so they may end up on your website while deciding what to buy. Following search engine optimization best practices can improve your website’s visibility and pull in more traffic. Plan to perform keyword research and incorporate the results into your website’s content.
You should also develop your social media accounts and send out newsletters to facilitate customer engagement. Once you’ve established these foundational touchpoints, begin promoting with precision. Sponsored social media posts target your ideal customers and cost only between $40 and $70 per month. You can also gain a lot of traction through email marketing systems, which cost $20 to $50 per month.
11.Find additional team members
You’ll need help as your business scales, so start scouting potential team members early. Use social media, recruiters, and hiring events to find potential candidates. You can also look for possible vendors or interns that can supplement the “gaps” in your business until you can hire full-time employees.
Your first employee hire is a huge decision, but it’s a crucial investment for your company. The team at the startup talent firm ReWork recommends bringing on more employees as soon as you can afford them. “In many cases, founders who are reluctant to hire even when it’s clear they’re overworked end up kicking themselves later when they realize how much they weren’t getting done while they delayed,” says Nathaniel Koloc, cofounder and CEO of ReWork.
As you search for your next team member, don’t forget to design an official onboarding process that outlines your company culture and expectations. In the early stages, it’s tempting to let employees learn as they go, but this leaves significant gaps in understanding. You’ll all need to work together toward a common goal in order for your business to succeed.
Turning your hobby into a career might seem daunting, but you can create a successful long-term business with the right strategy. A little risk can lead to significant rewards. Just be sure to think carefully about your end goal and follow these three steps as you prep your hobby-based business.
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12. Put your own projects first.
When a hobby is just a hobby, it’s all fun and games. You do it because you love doing it, not because you have to do it. But when that hobby becomes a job, you have to work on it regardless of how you feel. The good news is, you can maintain your inner passion for your monetized hobby with just a little bit of intentionality.
Mike Blankenship, freelance writer and owner of Get Your Gusto Back — a blog that aims to help people reclaim their childlike joy — has a passion for writing and for self-development. And he told me that making sure his own projects come before client work helps him maintain his passion for his hobby-based career.
“To make sure that I keep engaging with my passions, I start every day by working on my own projects, whatever that is at the time,” he elaborates. “I don’t work on client projects until the afternoon each day so that I make sure I’m prioritizing my own projects and passions before anything else. Ironically, when I do this, I also usually do a better job for my clients because I’ve started the day with something that excites me.”
Sounds like a dream come true.
13. Do Market Research
Through your newfound online communities and real-life connections, get a rough idea of how much other businesses charge for the product or services you offer. Sometimes, this is as easy as looking at online marketplaces and seeing what people charge.
Get a sense of what the landscape is like, and how your business will fit into it. What do your competitors offer? What needs does your business fulfil that theirs doesn’t? How do you differentiate yourself from your competition? When you are able to answer these questions, you would know what would make you better.
Lets make that Hobby a business. It si time to enjoy what to do !
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