3 tips to help turn your hobby into a business
You dream of not having to rush out the door every morning, being able to set your own schedule, and mostly doing work you enjoy. If you are someone with creative passions and skills, and your dream is to one day be able to live off your creative work, this post is for you.
Plenty of people will tell you (and sell you) all the things you absolutely have to invest in to make it online. I know, because I’ve bought all the bloody things, but I’m here to tell you, you don’t actually need to know everything about marketing, branding, web design, SEO, bookkeeping, and social media to transition from having a creative hobby to start selling your work online.
The world of online business and online marketing is overwhelming at best, and downright shady at worst. It’s a fairly new industry and it’s evolving quicker than you can say Facebook/Instagram algorithm.
So, where do you start if you want to transition from a creative with a hobby to a smart and gentle small business owner?
1: Start with business clarity
Start with business clarity, and with clarity, I mean, find out what you want your business to be about, at this moment.
What do you want to sell?
What is the work that lights you up and that you can work on for hours and hours for the next year or two?
What is it you truly want to help people feel/solve/do/get/overcome and who are these people? How can you help them?
Can you answer these questions in a few words or sentences, you’re on to a smashing start. They are important answers to know, and I recommend you take the time you need to find answers to them.
Clarity is one of those pesky things that come and go. Especially if you’re a multi-passionate creative with lots of new ideas coming and going. And that’s ok.
You have to start somewhere if you want to turn your creative hobby into a business. Answering those 3 questions is a great way to start. You’re in for a big beautiful roller coaster journey of ups and downs, so keeping it simple is the way to begin and the way forward.
Working on the stories in your head
You and I both have old stories and beliefs we’ve picked up over the years, often since childhood, about how life is, and our role in it.
This quote from Dr. Bob Maurer explains it this way:
“We’re never responding to the situation. We’re responding to the conversation in our heads”
He uses this as one example:
You’re on the train home from work after a long, hard day and there are no seats so you stand. At one stop a mom with 2 kids get on. These kids are so noisy, screaming and shouting and they annoy the heck out of you.
You’re most likely to think badly about these kids and the mother who doesn’t control them and makes them be quiet.
But now imagine the same scenario, but this time knowing they’ve just been to visit their dad in the hospital, who is terminally ill with cancer. And they are heartbroken.
How would you react now? You would have more compassion and patience, right?
We respond to the conversation in our heads. Not the situation.
How this relates to your mindset is similar.
If your default thinking is you’re not able to sell your work, it’s going to come across as though you don’t believe in your products and your customers won’t believe in them either.
Paying attention to your subconscious beliefs and default thinking is so, so powerful and informative.
2: Pick an online home
Next, you want to have a website. I recommend Squarespace if you sell services, coaching, e-courses, ebooks, consultancy, and that kind of business.
If you sell arts and crafts and other physical products, Shopify is the way to go.
Yes, I know WordPress is the most popular platform, recommended by many, and also the cheapest, but it is also the most difficult to learn and you’ll be spending (read: wasting) a lot of time finding themes, customizing, updating, and looking for plugins.
Your time is best spent on creating products and selling them. Not fiddling with backend stuff.
3: Communicate what you sell.
I hear you say, “I hate marketing, I’m not good at selling, I’m creative”.
Yes! I hear you. This is me as well. I resisted communicating I had something to sell for years. Mainly because in the first 5 years I really didn’t have anything to sell. I was blogging and working. And buying courses on how to build an online business!
The other reason I resisted doing ANY marketing is that I wasn’t clear on the questions in step 1.
Knowing how you can help someone makes it a hundred times easier to share what you know with confidence.
TOP TIP: Pick 1 sharing platform and get good at that.
YouTube if you like videos.
Instagram is for personal branding and doing videos.
Podcast if you like talking and interviewing others.
Organic Pinterest + Tailwind is for you who like to create visuals and are more of an introverted type. Pinterest is a search engine, and shoppable platform, NOT a social platform.
Pinterest promoted pins if you want quicker results.
LinkedIn if you like to connect with business people.
There’s a platform for everyone. And I recommend you focus on just 1, max 2.
The quickest way to burn out is to be all things to all people on all platforms. Don’t do it!
My personal favorite is Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual search engine, so not social media. Like Google, it’s good for getting traffic and customer to come to your website.
I also don’t recommend you:
a: look for a certain audience and adjust yourself to it
b: go into too much detail about your “ideal customer”.
This also goes against a lot of expert advice that says you have to know every detail about your customer, down to what magazines they read. Listen, when you’re just starting out, the best thing you can do is to make everything as simple as possible. Focus on the problem your customer has, and how you can solve it. Start there.
“It’s not about marketing, it’s about mattering.”
It’s about doing the work!
Since that annoying term “laptop lifestyle” took the world by storm, there mistakenly has been this notion that having an online business is easy, you get to travel the world while you make loads of dough, and can sit on the beach and sip Margaritas all day.
That’s just rubbish!
NO ONE GETS TO SKIP THE WORK! No one.
Yes, starting an online business is easier and cheaper than ever before, but that is not the same as there not being a TON of hard work involved.
This stuff isn’t easy. A helluva lot more people would have successful businesses if it was. You and I know how difficult doing creative work can be. In all kinds of ways. Starting a business is hard work. But you CAN do it. You absolutely can.
I hope you find comfort in these steps and can ignore all the rest for now. Yes, there’s more to learn (isn’t there always in any job) but my intention is to help you get out of feeling overwhelmed by following a simple plan.
Everybody started from scratch. This isn’t about going from 0-100 but making the transition from a creative hobby to selling your work or service online as simple as possible.
I’m rooting for you.
If you want more help, I send emails with creative and business tips. Make sure you sign up below and get the 2 workbooks too. There are loads of good tips on those too.
