How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Business

In today’s post, I want to share some simple steps and tips about how to turn your hobby into a business. My tips will also help you turn your passion, ideas or interests into a profitable business.

What is a Hobby?

Let me begin this article by telling you what a hobby is.

A hobby is a regular activity done for enjoyment, typically during one’s leisure time, not professionally and not for pay. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements.

Source: Wikipedia

In my own words, a hobby is something you enjoy doing in your free time. Examples might include fishing, reading or cooking.

Why Turn a Hobby Into a Business?

The next question you might be asking yourself is WHY should I turn my hobby into a business?

Well, to be honest with you, life is short. Why not make a living doing something you love? I think that makes much more sense than driving to a job every day that you hate, even if it pays well.

I was once told this: “if you love what you do you will never work a day in your life!” The older I get the more I realize how true that statement is.

Many years ago, I turned my hobby of writing into a profitable online business: my blog. Now, it pays my bills and provides me a nice lifestyle. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living.

How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Business

I believe that just about anyone could turn their hobby into a viable business, even multiple businesses. All it takes is a good idea, some creativity, and the courage to get started.

What I want to do in the paragraphs below is give you a hypothetical example of how this would work. For the sake of simplicity let’s suppose your hobby is “rebuilding old Ford Mustangs.” You love these old cars and you enjoy fixing them up and reselling them for a profit.

You’d really like to create a business of your own that would allow you to do what you love. With that in mind, here are 7 different potential business ideas you could do to make that happen.

# 1: Write an eBook or Kindle Book

Assuming you like to write, you could take your experience and wisdom working with old Ford Mustangs and write an eBook or Kindle book teaching others how to do the same thing. You could list these books for sale on Amazon. Within each book you could promote different affiliate products.

# 2: Open a Garage Specializing in Old Mustangs

By all means you could start your own local garage where you rebuild old Ford Mustangs for private clients. You could become the premier Ford Mustang garage in your town, state, or even in the country. This would take some significant upfront capital, but could also be very lucrative.

# 3: Sell Old Parts

You could create a website online or sell old Ford Mustang parts on eBay and make a very nice income. You could even create a catalog and utilize direct mail. You could buy old junkers, strip them down, and sell the parts individually. The salvage business can be very profitable.

# 4: Seminars & Events

You could offer seminars teaching others to learn how to rebuild old Ford Mustangs for profit or pleasure. You could travel around the country to different venues, charging attendees anywhere from $297 to $997 or more to attend your event.

# 5: Start Your Own Ford Mustang Blog

You could start your own blog or website for other Ford Mustang enthusiasts. You could share your knowledge and then sell affiliate products, your own products, coaching, and advertising on your website.

If you’re passionate about your hobby, you will always have something to talk on it. Whether it is poetry or science, fashion or tourism, keep writing about it and try to gain a certain influence in that particular niche. It will open the doors to such opportunities like speaking at an event or guest posting on different websites and you might also get paid for that.

Source: allevents.in

# 6: Create a YouTube Channel

You could create your own YouTube channel about old Ford Mustangs. You could create new videos each day and share your wisdom. You could monetize your YouTube channel with Google Adsense, and you could sell your products and services via your channel, as well. This is my favorite idea on this list.

# 7: Be an Expert for Hire

You could become a coach or consultant for other people or businesses looking to learn more about your area of expertise and charge them an hourly or monthly fee to do so. You could also incorporate public speaking into this approach.

These are just the first 7 things that came to my mind in less than a minute. I’m sure if I spent a few hours brainstorming potential business ideas, I could come up with at least 50 different businesses to turn your hobby into a business.

 The Process

What I want to share below is the process to turn your hobby into a business. These are the sequential steps you will want to complete.

# 1: Brainstorm Ideas 

The first thing you should do is make a list of things you are knowledgeable and passionate about. Try to brainstorm at least ten to fifteen different things. What are your favorite hobbies? What are you naturally good at? What is your work experience? These three questions should give you a good starting point.

The first step is to make a list of your favorite hobbies and passions. Keep it short and only include the top contenders. Prioritize them in the order of your proficiency. Take this list and translate each hobby or talent into a viable product or service.

Source: StartupNation

# 2: Pick Your Idea

The next thing you want to do is whittle down your list to the thing you are most passionate about. Rank your ideas from one to whatever. Start out your research with the idea you are most passionate about. Spend some serious thought on this.

# 3: Brainstorm Different Business Models to Pursue

Your next step is to brainstorm different business models you could pursue. I listed seven above, but there are many more than that to choose from. Do some internet searching and come up with minimum 10 different business models that might work for you.

# 4: Pick Your Top Three Choices

Your next step is to pick the top three business models that interest you the most. Rank them one, two and three.

# 5: Research Your Competition with Each Idea

At this point you have your idea and three potential business models. What you want to do now is evaluate your competition. Look online to see how many other folks are doing the same thing. Just because no one else is doing it doesn’t mean it is a good idea. And just because others are doing it doesn’t mean it is a bad idea. You just want to have an idea about what is currently available in the marketplace, and see what type of demand there is for it.

# 6: Pick Your Business Model

Your next step is to select the business model that excites you the most and offers the greatest potential. Since you’ve researched three different business models you should have a pretty good idea about what option would work the best for you.

# 7: Develop a Unique Selling Proposition

Your next step is to develop your own Unique Selling Proposition. This is known as a USP. It’s a short statement, preferably one sentence, that describes what you do and why people should do business with you. An example USP (for this website) is “I educate, help and inspire other network marketers so they can be successful in their current company.” Once again, that is just an example.

# 8: Develop Your Business Plan

Your next step is to create your own business plan. It doesn’t need to be complex. Keep it to one or two pages max. Write down your mission statement, vision, unique selling proposition, five year goals, one year goals, action plan and marketing plan.

While you may be good at your hobby, before you jump in and start charging for the products or services, you need to research and develop your business strategy for greater success.

You can start your business strategy by outlining the key priorities of your business into the future. The strategy must provide the details of your business, including the services you offer, what you want to achieve, what does your business stand for, how you’ll differ from the competition, financial projections, marketing strategies, what specific objectives do you want to achieve – both short and long term.

Source: Forbes

# 9: Launch Your Business

Your final step is to launch your business. I suggest you keep your day job at first while you learn the ropes and get started. Do your business part-time for the first year or two while you get established. Let your day job pay your bills and maintain your standard of living while you get your business off the ground.

# 10: Learn and Make Adjustments

For the first couple of years, while you are getting experience and learning the ropes, your objective is to learn from your mistakes and make any adjustments as needed. You might find out your business idea was bad. On the other hand, your business might be booming and offer you the opportunity to go full time. By the end of year two (max) you should have a good idea if you want to continue with your business, or not.

Success isn’t achieved in a straight line; it’s never as simple as it seems. There will be twists, turns, ups and downs—prepare yourself for the unexpected by knowing that you’ll need to improvise along way to overcome those hairy obstacles that get in your way.

Source: Bplans

The Final Question

There is one final question you should ask yourself before you try to turn your hobby into a business. That question is “should I do it?”.

You see, not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. Many people are much better off being an employee and keeping their hobby a hobby. Even though the rewards of owning your own business can be extraordinary, entrepreneurship comes with a high level of risk.

Ultimately, you need to have a “tough love” conversation with you and your spouse to determine if owning your own business is what is best for you and your family. Only you can decide! There is no right or wrong answer.

Final Thoughts

There you have it folks. The beauty of following this approach to turn your hobby into a business is that you can potentially create a business around something you love. And if you do it right, you won’t put yourself in a bad financial situation either. You’ll keep your day job and maintain your standard of living while you work your business part-time.

Turning your passion or hobby into a business isn’t all that hard to do. It does take some planning, some money and some hard work. By following the advice mentioned above in this post, you now know what you need to do. The only real question is “will you do it?”

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think about this concept. I look forward to hearing from you. Have a great day!

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Sincerely,

Chuck Holmes
Network Marketing Professional (21+ years)
Top Recruiter & Top Rep
mrchuckholmes@gmail.com