They say that if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. While 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for many, it has inspired a shift towards different ways of working and inspired the rediscovery of hobbies and interests. If you’ve lost your job, your workload has decreased, or you’ve decided to change career paths, you may be looking to turn a passion into a profession. In this guide, we’ll explore some tips and tricks you can employ to facilitate a smooth transition.
Coming up with an idea for your new venture
The first step to take in a transition when converting a hobby into a job or a side hustle is coming up with an idea for your new business or income stream. Think about what you enjoy doing and how you like to spend your time and then consider how you could utilize your passions and interests to increase your income or forge a new career path.
From sports and baking to mentoring and DIY, there are endless transition opportunities. Take a love of sports as an example. If you love to train, you spend every available hour in the gym, or you live for weekends that involve watching back-to-back soccer or baseball games, there are several ways you can make money. If you have in-depth knowledge of the biggest spenders in the transfer market since 2000, you can list every top scorer in the NFL for the last ten years, or you can’t help but provide your housemates or family with a running commentary every time a game is on, have you thought about starting a podcast or a blog?
You could also offer your services as a writer or pundit on a freelance basis. If you’re more partial to playing than watching, you could use your passions to start a career in personal training, you could launch a blog or a social media channel devoted to working out and health and fitness, or you could develop a new sports clothing brand or home gym equipment, for example.
Creating a business plan
Creating a business plan is an excellent idea for any type of venture because it provides clarity and outlines a series of strategic steps to take an idea and turn it into an income stream. Once you’ve figured out what you want to do, the next step is to determine how you are going to make money.
Your business plan should be shaped by the findings of market research. Conduct extensive research to gauge the level of demand for the services you’re offering, identify competitors and get to know your target customer. Your research should provide you with information about how people shop and spend their money, who you are competing against, and how they are making money and give you an insight into which marketing techniques are most effective.
Outline funding plans within your business strategy and transition. How are you going to get the venture off the ground and then cover running costs? There are various options available, including putting your own money into the business, borrowing from people you know, seeking investment for external parties or taking out a loan. Consider each option carefully before you make a decision.
The key element to focus on in your business plan is monetizing your ideas. It’s not enough to have an ingenious idea. You need to be able to turn that idea into a viable operation. If you were to launch a blog, for example, your business plan should highlight the methods you will employ to generate an income. You could make money from advertising or affiliate marketing, for example, or you could charge a membership fee for exclusive content.
Marketing and promoting your products and services
When you have a product or a service that is ready and raring to go, the next step is to promote and market your venture. Use the findings of your market research to identify the best ways to connect with your audience during your transition.
If you’re going into blogging, for example, you might want to promote your articles and encourage readers to sign up for updates or members-only content via social media and optimized posts. If you’re providing services, such as consulting or personal training in your local area, local SEO, flyering, local social media groups and feeds and advertising in neighborhood magazines is an excellent idea.
If you’re offering access to online courses or virtual workouts, make sure you have a fantastic website, optimize your content to improve your search ranking and use social media and email marketing to tell followers and subscribers all about the latest deals and new courses and programs.
Once you have marketing campaigns up and running and you’re posting content and working with customers, monitor your progress and collect and analyze feedback. Ask your customers, readers, followers, and viewers questions, encourage them to leave comments or write reviews and take advantage of analytics and sales data.
Take the time to read and digest comments and use feedback to improve the service you provide, develop ideas and address weaknesses. It’s also an excellent idea to ask clients or followers to make suggestions.
If you’re a blogger or a podcaster, for example, you can gather ideas and get inspiration from topics or headlines that your readers or listeners want to talk about. If you’re a trainer, you can explore different types of workouts, change the hours to make sessions more flexible and accessible, or introduce new options to enable people to choose between solo or group activities.
Are you thinking about changing career paths, or have the highs and lows of 2020 inspired you to think about turning your passions into a profession? If you’re keen to make changes or start a new job or a business based on your interests, the first step to take is coming up with an idea, which has the potential to make money. Create a business plan, research the market and figure out how you’re going to earn an income, reach out to and attract customers and scale up the venture.