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I get asked a particular question a lot whenever I speak at women groups, training, or workshops – How do I turn my Passion into a Profitable Business Idea?
I have grown to love this question so much, majorly because of my personal experience with this question – I used to be an IT consultant, a well-paid job, very convenient for my family life too; but I wasn’t fulfilled in that role.
I did not start experiencing work fulfilment until I started working in the area of my passion. Below, I will share some answers to this question – How do I turn my Passion into a Profitable Business Idea?:
1) Determine in your heart that you really want a business
The fact that you enjoy doing something does mean that you are ready to take it to the next level as a business – it might just be a hobby 🙂
You might enjoy playing football but are you ready to do that professionally? It involves leaving your family behind, going for training and traveling all over the world. The fact that you enjoy it is not enough proof to start it as a business.
Business is not only about doing what you love doing, there will be other areas as well such as research, marketing, learning new skills, administrative tasks and even accounting! Are you ready for all that? I’m not trying to deter you from starting your own business; I know it can be very beneficial to make money from what you enjoy doing.
A popular basketballer once said ‘I get paid to do what I love doing every day’; that can also be you. I love imparting people with knowledge, inspiring and motivating them to take the next step towards success, I really enjoy that and I hope that is what I am doing for you presently.:-)
If you could get paid per hour to do what you love doing; what would you do? I will do what I am doing right now. So determine in your heart that you REALLY want to do this as business and not as a hobby. If Facebook and google could have made such a huge impact in the world; you can also do same, nothing stops you from doing that.
2) What are you passionate about?
Let me help you discover your passion here – If you could get paid per hour to do what you love doing; what would you do? The answer to this question determines what you are passionate about. Now let me ask you; what is it that you enjoy doing that even if you weren’t paid to do it; you would still do it? What magazines do you like reading? What shows do you like watching? What books do you like reading? What do people compliment you on? What is it you do effortlessly? Think deeply about these things; they will show you what you enjoy doing.
3) How can you now turn this Passion into a Product or Service that People want?
Now that you have discovered your passion and you’re convinced you are ready to start a business, let me share some tips on making profit from them with you – If you love baking, how about teaching others how to bake cakes? You can teach others how to start the business and be successful at it if you have built a successful business with it. If you love making jewelry, you can start by making and selling jewellery; then teach others how to make jewellery for themselves or for business; you would have to teach them how to be successful in that line of business too – how to hire the right employees, how they do their accounting, where to source raw materials, etc
These are examples of what you can do to make money from your passion.
If you’re still struggling with finding your area of passion or coming up with your products or services, some popular areas include: weightless, fitness, fashion, beauty, start-up, online marketing, event management, catering and so on.
4) Who will buy these products from you?
Let’s talk about your target audience.
If you design children wears, the children can’t buy from you. The target audience for you are the parents, because these are the people who have the buying power to pay for the clothes.
Your target audience may be individuals, small businesses, large corporates, charity organisations or even governmental offices.
5) Whatever you do, make sure that your target audience exists and are easily identifiable
Do some research on your target audience, interview a sample of them, check Amazon, Ebay, etc for example: What books are they reading? What magazines do they read? What programmes do they watch? Where do they spend their time online and offline?
Look at your competitors, what are they doing? If you have none, find out why?
This blog post is an excerpt from “Women Do Business” book. GET YOUR COPY HERE – http://bit.ly/WomenDoBusiness
You can also WATCH ON YOTUBE – http://bit.ly/ExcelWomanShow-Episode1