Hobby Or Business?

Are You Willing To Look At This As A Job

This is a crucial question, as you will look at your hobby differently. Until this point it has likely given you a lot of happiness and you are passionate about it. The idea of being paid to do what you love sounds immensely appealing. To do this as a business requires a lot of time spent on other tasks such as, research marketing and budgeting, which are not related to your hobby. For some people their hobby is their escape from their normal life. Now you have to look at this activity differently. It requires commitment, because you essentially need to work, as you would a nine to five job.

Are You Willing To Do This For Long Hours Everyday

It requires a commitment as you need to work a nine to five job. This will not be your escape anymore, but something you rely on to make an income. You have to deal with things that you may not enjoy. I work faster with deadlines, but my largest painting for instance, can take a month of work. That is spending many hours a day every day on the painting. But I love it, I have other things that are my escape such as playing the piano. Other things can become your escape while your hobby becomes your business. Businesses are stressful, you have to hope people will give you an income. What you make or do is solely tied to making money and that changes how you look at your former hobby. Some people just see the people making money from their craft and want to do that themselves. They only see the success stories. You have to be willing to devote yourself to your craft or skill and do it everyday for many years before you can think of doing it as a business. Passion is something that doesn’t wain with the struggles of a business.

Market Your Work When You Start Your Hobby

This gives you options for starting a business in the future. While you are learning your hobby, you are growing your brand on social media. It is fun to see someones journey of learning a skill and mastering it. You see their beginnings as well you are learning how to market yourself. This is likely going to be where your first sale outside of your known acquaintances, may come from. It may come quickly or slowly, but it allows you to start working towards a business, if that is want you want.

Marketing and Accounting Is A Part Of This Job

When you start to have sales, use the income to make and host a website. Start posting on other social media platforms. If you get to the point of making enough sales you can leave your day job and focus on your business. You have to devote a number of hours a week to growing on every social media platform as you have to find other people to follow you, then like and comment on their posts. On Twitter, a nice thing is that people constantly have art shares which can include hand made items. So you can grow organically without following and unfollowing people. Pinterest will take more of your time because you cannot just post and go. You have to work at building your boards. It is drastically different to the other social media apps, but it is one of the few social media platforms where follower count is meaningless. You can become noticed early on by people. Then there is Etsy to sell hand crafted items and other stuff. For Illustrators who normally illustrate children’s books and draw concept art for video games, there is Artstation to show your portfolio. With musicians there is Soundcloud, for writers there is fiverr.com and upwork.com. There are blogs where a whole group of people can contribute, as they are not personal blogs. Network with people in your industry and start an email list. Every little thing helps. When I started painting years ago the only option to become noticed in art was through the galleries. That is great that there are galleries, they are needed especially as art looks better in person, but more options are better. I ran another business that has nothing to do with art, where word of mouth was all that I needed because I had built my reputation. It fed my family for many years. You need a starting point now and that is through social media. Though I have been painting for years this is only something I am working towards now, by building my art into a business. A lot of my time is devoted to marketing and building my reputation in the art world through social media. If you don’t do it, no one will. When it is your business it is all on your shoulders. If you don’t like this aspect then you won’t succeed.

Have A Side Business

There are many reasons that may preclude a person from running business. One of them being that they have a good job that pays well. Though you may not enjoy and wish you could turn your hobby into a business it isn’t possible. Instead have a side business, that will slowly grow. It doesn’t come with the stress of worrying if enough people will buy your product and you have enough money to feed your family. You can focus on practicing your hobby with some posts on social media. With a side business you can do as much as you want without relaying on the business itself and just do what you love. If social media is not appealing to you, what you can do is start a blog and post once per week. Don’t be dissuaded if you have a niche hobby as you may grow a select and loyal following. On Reddit there is a subreddit called r/entrepreneur, it is a wonderful resource for information, as it deals with every aspect of growing a business. There are other subreddits that deal with specific interests this is where you can network with people that share a common skill with you. I was looking at r/Pottery on Reddit, because I was curious how do their businesses work. This is the inspiration behind this blog entry. One thing you notice is that people are passionate about their craft and love speaking about their hobby. There is a lot of great advice, support and knowledge that people gave to each other. You don’t go into this for money, as you have to spend many hours mastering skills. It is a long journey for anyone that wants to succeed. With a side business, keep at it. What may seem to be an overnight success, is someone that has worked for many years to hone their craft.

Additional content provided by Francesca Darcy, Twitter @francesca_darcy