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Making money with your hobby is more realistic than you may realize. Many
entrepreneurs started their businesses as a source of relaxation and
pleasure, before turning it into a source of income and career satisfaction.
They have seen that the public can enjoy their handiwork, while allowing
them to take charge of their own life.
To get started in converting your hobby into a business, you need to
prepare yourself for your new endeavor. Whether you are running a hobby web
site or creating handiwork, successfully shift from a hobbyist to a business
owner using the following seven-item checklist:
Adopt a business approach.
From personal satisfaction and the pure joy of
creating your embroideries, your orientation now shifts to making a profit.
You must begin to look at every aspect of the process of creating your
products with an eye for earning money. This entails selling your products
at a profit and minimizing your costs.
The quality of the products must be improved in order to attract
customers and be made comparable (or better yet, superior) to your
competitor. Your products should now be viewed as inventory that you need to
sell. Purchasing supplies and materials must be made with the thought of
getting the best deals for your money. You can cut down your costs by
planning carefully and buying in bulk.
Be ready to take on business oriented tasks. As a hobbyist, you were
simply concerned with producing and creating the product. As a
businessperson, however, you will now be involved in various tasks needed to
start, run and manage your new business.
You must create sales records, track your supplies and inventory, and
keep books for your business. You will need to identify your target market,
know your customers, and develop a marketing plan to push your products. You
will need to patent and copyright your products, and develop licensing. You
will be involved in preparing contracts with customers, and making calls to
delinquent payers. If you have employees, you will need to select them,
prepare the payroll, and provide them with benefits that the government
mandates. All these and more await you as a business owner.
Shift the focus from "me" to "my customers." With
your hobby, you only have yourself to satisfy. Hence, you paint portraits or
update your web site only when you are in the mood for it. You can even skip
working on your hobby for months and months, and nobody would question you.
Plus, you dictate what you want to produce. After all, you are accountable
only to yourself.
But with a business, you now have the obligation to satisfy your
customers. The whole orientation of doing your hobby changes. To generate
sales, you must now find out what the customer wants. It is now the market
that will dictate the kinds of products that you will produce. The customers
may not like the design of your baskets, so you must explore other designs.
Web visitors may not subscribe to your "for members only" offering
because your copy is not compelling enough. Taking a hobby to a business
means listening to your customers.
Prepare your workspace. Whether you are into gift basket designing or
calligraphy, you need to organize your workspace to accommodate your natural
workflow. Think of yourself as a production line: all your tools, materials,
and equipment must be set-up for easy access. This will speed up production
time, allow you to monitor the quantity of your raw materials, and tell you
when to head back to your local supply store.
If you are maintaining a site for hockey or roller coaster enthusiasts,
be sure to keep all your resources such as trade magazines organized and
within reach. Having everything in their proper place will save you a lot of
time and cut down any disruption in your momentum.
Plan your production. Whereas as a hobby you were producing one finished
product a week, you may need to complete five in a day now that you are
operating as a business. You must develop a system that would allow you to
complete orders on time and at the highest possible quality.
Some hobbyists-turned-businesspeople suggest doing similar tasks at the
same time. Forget about doing one item at a time, particularly if your
product requires a lot of preparation or assembly. By pouring wax in the
mold one day and painting the candles the next day, for example, you can
save a lot of time and makes the process more systematic.
Manage your time. If you turn a hobby into a business, you lose the
luxury of working only when you feel like it. Forget about creating your
pottery once or twice a week. Now, you have orders to fill and customers to
serve.
If you sold advertising for your newsletter in support of your web site,
you better schedule your day to allow you to develop the newsletter. You
need to give enough time to prepare your products and scheduling the tasks
and activities that you need to do.
Have fun. The most important thing is to continue to have fun. After all,
you are now sharing your passion with more people. There is nothing more
satisfying than seeing your creation being enjoyed by other people. Plus,
you are embarking on a whole new adventure, and starting a business should
be viewed as an exciting new phase of your life. Remember that success only
will come if you manage your business well, minimize your risks, and
continue to love what you are doing.
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