Making money from hobbies has 2 connotations. 1: People love to do it and they think because they are good at a hobby, that they will be good at selling it. And 2. People hate it, because they believe that it will ruin your hobby and your appreciation for it.
We all have hobbies. It’s something to replenish our life from our jobs, our time and our feelings. Who hasn’t said; that because you’re so good at something, you should start a business doing it full time? Pretty much everybody! But the difference is that it’s not so much the hobby that you love and can do, but the business process that’s so important.
We’ve discussed many different acronyms regarding how to make your business work, and the process, etc. But the difference between really making a business work is purely and simply the organization. If you have organization, you can typically make things work for you, no matter what. This includes the organization of actually making those products to selling them, business documents, marketing and more etc.
It IS true that once you start a business, you’ll be focusing more on the whole process rather than the creativity that comes with the product. But the difference is that, once again having organization can and will allow you to sell and also create and focus on both steps in the process.
Being small has it’s benefits, and the ability to create and change your creations is important. You can create things that create meaningful change in the small scale, which isn’t to say that you’re looking for mega-riches, but rather an income stream that provides comfort, without tying up hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in stock, storage and more. This small scale growth and movement is flexibility, and keeping it simple and small while providing way for that growth allows you to not become overwhelmed by the problems that can arise, and meet them head on without sacrificing everything in the process.
And to ensure this all becomes successful, it comes back around to the organization. This means thinking of the process of the product-not just the creation, research, making, design, and everything to do with it, but the time spent, factoring your ability, as well as your ability to keep and create stock.
Sometimes we get stuck in the details, and business requires a lot of paperwork and requirements, but it’s also important to do this math before you even start. How much time, money, and effort does it require to create your product, and what is that worth to you? And then, how much would it require if you had to create 1 a day, 5 a day, or even 20 a day? Can you compete with bigger stores, or get it into specific places? Do you have upgrades, or versions that can be improved? These questions alone force you to begin to compartmentalize your product. IF you use pieces of things-do you have suppliers that are reliable or can get them to you on time? If you had 20 people fighting for your product, would you create 20 versions in a week, put these customers on hold, or only sell one at a time, individually?
Those questions help with the forecasting of products as well. Creating a boutique product at a higher margin allows you to create a product on your terms and time, and get paid decently for it, but may sell less due to the price. If you’re ok with that (and many small businesses should be), then enjoy the advantages you can. If you try to lower prices or go to different suppliers, you’re racing to the bottom, and you’d have to sell twice as many for half the price to make the difference. Fine if you can support it, but if you can’t then it’s not going to be worth it. Use this planning stage before you even take a step in the business direction and it will allow you to truly determine if it’s worth it to keep gluing seashells together for your own personal satisfaction, or if you can really make a living doing it. And then continue to make sure that you can move forwards towards investing that money in your small business where it truly makes a difference and has a plan to keep moving forward.
