Grow Your Hobby into a Successful Business

I have talked and worked with hundreds (many more) hobbyist and crafters who learned to grow their hobby into a successful business.

Actually, it is not rocket science to grow from making family gifts to selling at craft fairs to having your creations in retail stores.  Of course, there are numerous different systems that you need to set up (check them out here) before selling wholesale, but that is the easy part!

So what is the harder part?  Making sure you have the mindset to Grow Your Hobby into a Successful Businesssucceed!  So many producers self-sabotage before they even get started.

Jess Van Den from Create & Thrive believes this as well.

Here are a few tips from one of her recent newsletters:

5 ways I see these people sabotaging themselves…

1. Giving up too soon

…Unless you are in the infinitesimal minority who have an absolutely brilliant, unique idea, AND know how to run a brilliant marketing/advertising campaign to get your brand off the ground, it is very likely going to take YEARS before you’re making really decent money from your handmade business….

You need to up your game.

Not only that – you need to go into this thing with patience and dedication.

If you’re not in it for the long haul, don’t start.

2. Focusing on the negative

The perfect place to see this in action is on the Etsy forums.

There is some great advice in there, but it’s more often than not buried amongst the masses who are moaning about some change Etsy has made that’s apparently caused their sales to suddenly cease….

This is just one example of how people are sabotaging themselves by focusing on the negative.

If you catch yourself doing this – stop.

No-one is responsible for the success or failure of your business but YOU….

Don’t focus on the sales you don’t get – focus on making the customer experience for the sales you DO get absolutely fricking amazing …

Focus on how you can grow your business in the right direction. See every challenge as a way to grow and evolve.

3. Split focus

…starting too many new things at once, and not being able to give any of them the attention they truly deserve because I’ve spread myself too thin…

Sales follow your focus….

Give yourself a time frame to focus on one only (say, 12-18 months) before you’re allowed to start a new venture….

Give it true, 200% effort in the time you devote to getting a new business up and running.

4. Too much ‘research’ not enough action

How long have you been ‘just learning’ about how to do what you want to do?…

There comes a point where you just have to take the leap.

Stop planning and start doing.

…until you actually step into the arena and start failing and succeeding, you’ll never make real progress.

5. Waiting for perfection

This is closely linked to number 4. Too often, people hang back from taking action because of fear.

They’re afraid of not being perfect. Of not having a perfect product, or perfect packaging, or perfect photography.

Nothing is ever perfect….

You can evolve. You can work on it, you can make it better.

Don’t hide your light from the world – let it shine.

So where is your mindset in growing your hobby into a successful business?

 

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