Don’t follow your passion; develop instead your business skills to meet people’s needs
As you think about starting your own side business, you will come across people who will advice you to follow our passion, doing something you love. If you love to bake, you should open a bakery. If you love kids, you should open a kindergarten. There’s no shortage of such recommendations.
Here’s the kicker. It’s a mistake to start a business purely out of love and passion.
The reality is that businesses don’t care about you or your passions. It’s not about you, whether you like it or not. Businesses exist to serve an unmet need, the needs or wants of your customers. People have problems or pain points that need to be solved, right now. They are willing to pay someone to solve that problem for them, whether it’s you or someone else.
If a guy wants to date a girl this weekend for the first time, he will desperately try to find the right information now on how to approach her and ask her for a date tomorrow, when he meets her. He’s going to frantically search the Internet for answers now to solve his immediate problem. If you have the right product or service for him now when it’s most needed by him, then you have got a sale from that customer. (How he’s going to find your solution on the World Wide Web is another challenge in itself.)
In this example, the guy has a need. You have a solution that solves his problem. If there’s not many options available to this guy, and yours is the best option for him, he will gladly pay you for your solution.
When you have the right set of information and experience that will solve other peoples’ problems or pain points at the time of ‘desperation’, you will make money from people who will vote with their money. They will gladly hand over money to you for solving their problem.
Remember this. Businesses are borne out of a market or customer need or want. It doesn’t start with you. It’s not about you. Don’t assume that you know what your customers want until you have asked them, found out about their emotional needs, and have validated your assumptions with them.
If there’s a gap or need in the market for people who are desperate for a solution and who are willing and able to pay for, that’s a good reason to start a business for yourself.
If you don’t know of a solution people would be desperate for, then start thinking about business ideas in one of the three mega niches of wealth, health or (our) relationships (WHO). This is in line with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
You may also want to gain some inspiration for profitable money-making ideas from this website. Use the ideas listed to get your creative juices flowing. Some ideas may surprise you.
Following your passion is exactly the opposite. It’s about indulging in your personal wants or needs, not other peoples wants or needs. It makes you feel fulfilled. If you want fulfillment, then you may be better off with a hobby or a 9-to-5 job rather than starting a business with no paying customers.
If you cannot meet the needs of others, you will not get paid. No matter how passionate you are about a product, service, idea, or otherwise, it doesn’t pay your bills. It does not put food on your table. Your passion cannot be used as a currency to buy things.
Having a passion is one thing. Earning a full-time living from that passion is a very different ballgame. Sometimes, work can be fun. That’s why it’s called ‘work’ for a reason.
Unless you are launching a business as a labor of love (hopefully not!) and don’t want to be paid for your time and effort, you really need a healthy dose of realism.
Remember also that a lot of businesses do fail. Your goal is to minimise the risk and exposure to you.
Businesses do not run solely on passion
When you start a business, you have to run or manage the business for the long haul. It’s not only to do the one task you really love or are passionate about, whether it’s baking, or spending time with children. Unfortunately, it’s doing more of the things that you are not passionate about.
You really have lots of other things to do just to keep your business afloat, let alone make money. You have to oversee many functions from marketing to accounting to handling people to dealing with customer service and more.
The hard truth is that you will actually spend less time doing the things you enjoy most, the things you are passionate about.
If you are truly excited about wearing multiple hats and want to or are prepared to tackle the challenges of managing all aspects of a business, then you’re headed in the right profitable pathway. It’s no guarantee that you will succeed, but it’s a good start.
If you think that you will only be spending most of your time just focusing on that one particular passion of yours, then you are doomed to fail even before you start your business. You really need to shift your mindset.
Be aware that passion alone doesn’t necessarily translate into finding paying customers and earning a full-time income solely from your business.
Passion doesn’t create systems and processes to streamline your operations. Knowledge does. Your business skills do.
That’s why it is so important for you to educate yourself first. Invest wisely in your own education. You may need self-help management courses and books to help you accumulate and apply your business knowledge.