How to Profit From Your Passion

Do you have a hobby that you love?   I mean really love?   Have you ever thought to yourself, “If only I could make money from doing this”. Well, there may be a way you can make money from your hobby.   With research, planning, and work, it is possible to profit from just about any talent, hobby or passion.

Turning talents into profits is just like starting your own business.  Whether you are an artist, musician, or writer, you will need to develop, market, and sell what you have to offer.   Essentially, you will be your own manufacturing, marketing, and sales department.  

This post is about taking something that you love to do; and making it profitable so that you can do it more often.  If you do the work that you love, you never have to work a day in your life.

Passion VS Profits

We all have something that we are passionate about.  Some of us are passionate about music and art.  Others have a desire to help people or to help make the world a better place to live.  Great!  Having passion helps makes life exciting.

But passion doesn’t pay the bills. You may be a great writer but when the power company sends you a bill, they want money.  You can’t slip a 5000 word article in an envelope and mail it to them.  We’ll, you could, but you will probably be writing by candlelight for a while.  

Instead, you would have to turn that article into currency.  That is true for any type of talent or skill.  The difference between a business and a hobby is the amount of money that is generated.

It can be hard sometimes to focus on the profit if you are starting a business.  Especially if you are doing something you love.  Doing what you love everyday can be so enjoyable that we forgive ourselves for not making a profit.  But that attitude is not sustainable and will eventually drive us out of business if we let it.

At the same time, it is important to stay passionate about what you love.  Turning your attention fully to making a profit can be a disaster.  Thinking only about the money made can drive you to compromise quality and loyalty to your customers.  It may also cause you to lose the love that you had when you started.

The key is to find a balance between passion and profit.  If you are completely engrossed in your passion then it may be a good idea to get a partner who can handle the accounting.  That way, you can focus on creating the product while your accountant handles the finance.

Business Urban Legends

If you network with new entrepreneurs, you will eventually run into some business myths.   I call them business urban legends.  I have to admit that when I first began to monetize my passion, I believed some of these myths were true.  I even repeated them because I heard someone else say them.

Now that I have more experience, I realize that many of the people who spread these myths may have just been making excuses for their unsuccessful ventures.   Myths about business spread faster than the flu.  It is important to know what to believe and what not to believe.  Here are a few of the more common business myths that you will come across.

If you do what you love, the money will come-I think I’ve heard this one more than any other myth.  It’s a nice thought but it’s just not true.  There are many very talented writers and singers, who struggle to make a living while they are doing what they love.  It is great to do what you want to make a living from it, at some point you will have to create a way to make it profitable.

My talent/product/service is so good that it will sell itself-No matter what your talent is, you will need to market it in order for it to be successful.  You could be a great singer but you will never land that multimillion dollar record deal if you only sing in the shower and in your car.  You would need to do something so that people can hear you sing.  You may need to perform at an open mic or get your demo into the hands of as many people as possible.

If you build it they will come-Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to open a store, build a website, or design a product and then just sit back and watch the money roll in.  In the real world, it takes much more than that.  

Failure is bad-Failure is an obstacle much like any other obstacle you will face.  Instead of thinking of failure as the end of the road, consider it an opportunity to find another route to your destination.

All I need is a good idea-Ideas are good but not enough.  It takes work, strategy and funding to get any good idea off the ground.  That is why most venture capitalist will not fund an idea.  They usually require a track record, detailed business plan, and exceptional growth potential before they invest.

Someone else has already done it so I can’t do it-One example where this is not true is with the Apple iPod.  MP3 technology was patented in 1989.  Many years before the iPod came around but not too many people took notice.  Apple took an existing technology, gave it a clever name, made it easy to use by creating iTunes, and made it cool to own.  Presto, billions of dollars in sales.  It’s not about being first but finding a way to appeal to the market and creating a better product.