Your passion could be one of a huge variety of activities. Turning this passion to profit depends greatly on the nature of the passion. There are, however, several generic methods of generating profit, and it is just a matter of applying these to your individual passion.
But first, consider the golden rule of business – value creation.
How Does Your Passion Create Benefits?
Any venture that wishes to become profitable must generate benefits. This is the most important aspect of any successful business.
Benefits are the key to creating a profitable business from your passion. Without benefits, nobody is going to pay you for anything.
Ask how your passion can be translated into something that will benefit others. How can you help others by taking part in your passion? How can they enjoy what you do?
At this point you probably face a choice: You can either make money by doing your passion, or by teaching others how to do it.
Marketing Your Passion’s Creative Output
Making money by doing your passion can be difficult to define. Chances are it is a creative pastime that others can enjoy the results of. In this scenario, it is just a case of marketing your work.
Marketing doesn’t have to be a distraction from your creativity. If your creative output is good enough, it should sell itself. It is just a case of getting your stuff out there, and thanks to the internet, this has never been easier.
Get Your Passion Online
Make sure that you at least have a website, even if it is simply an online business card so that you have some kind of presence online. It doesn’t even need to cost anything. Try Tumblr, Blogger, or WordPress and just make a basic page telling people what you do. Use this site to share examples of your work.
To get started marketing this site, share it on social networks with people with similar interests. There is much more you can do to market your web presence but this is for another time.
Marketing Your Passion
The internet is only one aspect of your marketing campaign. But given that your passion has a creative output, you should find it easy to market by simply “getting your work out there”.
Investigate trade fairs, markets, and other events in your area. Get yourself a stall for the day and see how you go.
Speak to business owners who might be interested in your work – for example, cafes might be looking for some artwork for their walls.
Self publish. If you write, you can sell your work online as ebooks (on your website, or even someone else’s) or get hard copies printed by Lulu. Not only do they print your book for you, they give you a platform to promote it too.
If you have something unique to say, what about starting a blog?
If you write creatively, it has never been easier to turn your creativity into something. Xtranormal allows you to create quirky videos by simply typing in a script. But this is just one example. With Windows Movie Maker (which comes with Windows) you should be able to knock up some creative videos by simply using your own voice and some stock images.
Think about other ways that you can turn your creativity into something real. Once you have something, you can sell it or put it online and earn from advertising.
There are new ways to do this coming along all the time. It has never been easier to turn your creative passion into profit.
Profiting from Being Good at Your Passion
Maybe your passion is a skill. In this case you might be able to become a freelancer, selling your skill as a service.
Freelance Your Passion
There are a growing number of freelance websites where you can market your skills and bid on work. These are changing the landscape of employment for many people. Imagine working from home doing what you love!
- Elance
- Freelancer
- Fiverr – Do anything for $5!
Turn Your Passion into a Business
You could also consider starting a business based on the skills of your passion. While it might seem daunting at first, you can start small, simply helping out friends and family.
As you build up a customer base, you can move away from working for someone else and turn it into a fully fledged business.
Profiting from a Recreational Passion
But what if your passion is something that doesn’t directly produce something marketable?
Maybe you enjoy a sport but know you will never be good enough to compete professionally. Or you enjoy driving, or fishing, or some other recreational pursuit. Maybe you just enjoy sitting on the couch watching movies all day in your underwear.
Well, that’s fine, because as long as you are interested in something, there are actually a whole host of opportunities. Many of these are available to everyone, no matter what your passion.
Report on your passion
If you like movies, why not talk about them in a way that generates income?
Even if you don’t think of yourself as a great writer, you could maybe create a video show about your passion. People are earning a tidy sum on YouTube doing exactly this. Because you would be reporting on your passion, this will give you an edge.
Profit from Selling Stuff Related to Your Passion
How about opening a store or online shop selling items relating to your passion? Retail can be a good way of making money, and now it is easier than ever to create an automated online store. You can then put your effort into marketing the store, perhaps by having it as your forum signature while you become active in forums on the same topic, something you will probably enjoy anyway!
Those Who Can’t, Teach
If none of these ideas are an option, you could always teach. Teaching others your passion opens up all sorts of profitable avenues.
Write a book or ebook
As mentioned before, Lulu allows anyone to be an author. But nowadays, physical books are becoming less necessary. Thanks to the wonders of Kindles, Ipads, and other devices, there is a growing demand for electronic books which are easy to create and distribute.
If you have something you are passionate about and you have the knowledge about it, you should definitely consider putting together an ebook. It doesn’t need to be a novel, in fact people love short, concise guides. Just remember to spell check and maybe get some friends to cast their eyes over it before you publish.
And how do you publish? Well, even this is free and easy now. Simply use Google Docs and create a document which you can save as a read only PDF file.
To give your ebook an air of professionalism, use pictures, page headers or footers, full page chapter titles, and maybe even web links.
Create a blog
Blogging is still as profitable as ever for those who can make a success of it. And blogs teaching people things seem to be the most popular. The benefit of this is that you can use your blog to promote other work, such as your books.
Record podcasts or videos
Blogging is good, but it’s likely that there is more money to be made by creating podcasts or videos. Because it takes slightly more effort to record something than it does to write something, good podcasts and videos are rarer than blogs, and as a result can be much more popular. Also a good video can have a lot of impact and can be easily consumed.
Become a consultant
If you are really good at your passion, you can help others to be good at it too. If this is the case, you should consider charging for your services. You’ll never know if people are willing to pay for it unless you try…
Hold Seminars
Seminars are similar to consultancy, except that you can get income from multiple people at once. Also you only have to do a seminar once and video it, and you can continue to profit from it long afterwards.
There are many ways to profit from teaching your passion. You might even be able to think up other ways that haven’t been mentioned.
Profit Fun
Never stop having fun. Profit is always a bonus but it should never be your primary focus. Remember that your skills and abilities are derived from your passion. The passion is what makes you better than the competition. If your attention shifts from your passion, you will lose your edge in this field.
What if you absolutely can’t turn your passion into profits?
If your passion can be monetized, this legitimizes it to a certain extent, verifying that people are willing to exchange something of value for what you do.
However, even if you can’t profit from your passion, you should still endeavor to enjoy it as much as possible. Not all passions are profitable. But if yours isn’t, this is by no means reason to believe it is a worthless pursuit.
The nature of the market system dictates that not everything has a monetary value. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no demand. People may still get lots of pleasure from your creations. And even if there is no demand, it is you who will benefit from following your passion.
If you find something enjoyable, then pursuing it is worthwhile. You never know what benefits it might provide; new skills, new knowledge, new experiences. This could open the door to untold opportunities in the future.
Remember it’s about doing what you love, not money
Note that money should never be your motivation if you want to truly enjoy life. Money is a bonus side product that can come from finding your passion. By building a business around your passion you will find yourself motivated and passionate to improve your experiences.
Imagine how exciting your life will be if you can make your love into a business – turning passion into profit!
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