Turning a Craft into a Successful Moneymaking Business

Many people have a hobby that they enjoy. You may well be able to turn your own hobby into a viable business, but is does take some doing. One of the first things that you are going to need to do is to look to find some of the other people who are working in the same field. These are your peers and your competitors. You should respect them, and learn from them – both the good things about their business and their mistakes.

Someone who makes soap, for example, is going to want to look at some of the other homemade soap makers out there. Order some of their product so you can see the quality of the soap, the packaging, and more. You never want to copy from another no matter the creative field in which you are working. However, learning about your competitors will help you to find your own niche and learn what not to do.

Online and Offline Sales Opportunities

When you are selling, you have to remember that with crafts, you have opportunities online and offline. You will certainly want to sell on your own site, as well as at craft sites such as Etsy.com. However, do not forget about the real world out there. Look at some craft shows, street fairs, and boutiques that might be interested in carrying what you have. Grow your brand.

What Other Options Do You Have to Make Even More Money?

You should never consider your business a one and done deal. Even if you only make one type of product, you still have other outlets where you could make more money using your skills and knowledge. If you are a soap maker as we’ve used in the examples above, what other areas do you think you might be able to write an e-book or a paperback book about the hobby. You could hold classes and show people how to make the products that you make.

Going Full Bore

Should you just decide to quit your job and turn your craft into a new job tomorrow? It usually isn’t quite so easy. You have to think about marketing, making sure you can keep up with demand, and more. It might be a better idea to start out slowly, then gain customers and build your business until you are sure it can sustain you. Learn more about putting more cash in your pocket. Create $500 to $1000 of new cash every month!

What are some of your thoughts on turning crafts into a business, and how have you been successful?

Stop Working Solo!

Do you want to have more time to enjoy your business and that thing that you used to call a life before your business took it over? Most people who go into business for themselves do so because they want to stop working in a traditional environment, and they want to become their own boss. For those who initially choose the route of a solo entrepreneur, it can be a lonely road packed with too much work. Working solo might be fine for some types of businesses, but most people are going to need to delegate and mete out some of the work.

Benefits of Having Others Help with Your Business

Of course, the biggest benefit is that you are going to be able to get a break! How long have you been doing everything for your business, from making the products to blogging and marketing and writing emails and taking care of all of the daily tasks? Not to mention, you are probably the one who is taking care of the books as well. You are just one person doing the job of many, and it is going to wear you thin before long. This means that your business could suffer, and your dream of creating a real way of making money is over. You do not want that to happen, so think about hiring others, at least on a freelance basis.

When you hire freelancers for jobs, you do not have to put them on your actual payroll, and you only have to pay them for the work that they do. Thus, if you have a freelancer working on your blog posts three times a week, you only have to pay for those three posts rather than having someone on staff whose only job is to write for you. You could hire this type of freelancer to help with marketing and in other areas too. It is possible to hire freelancers for building your site, working on your graphics, and much more.

This will give you more time to work on other aspects of your business so that you can grow it. It also gives you more time to catch your breath.

Have you used freelancers before, or have you had to hire some fulltime staff for what you thought was going to be a solo business? Or do you have fears about letting others help with your business? What have your experiences been? Is life a bit better now that you have some time to relax?

Create a Cash Machine with a Home Business

Admit it. You’ve always wanted to have your own business. You are tired of working for corporations and toiling for little pay and less respect. We’ve all been there. The question is this. What are you going to do about it? You can only complain for so long. It’s time that you took the steps to recreate your own life with your own business. It’s time that you started a home business that could turn into a real cash machine for you. The first step is in finding something that’s right for your home business. One size does not fit all.

Finding the Right Business Idea

When you are searching for the perfect business idea that you can do at home and hopefully parlay into a real cash machine that will bring you money, security, and happiness, you have to choose something for which you have a real passion. If you are in a business that you simply do not like, how much effort do you think you can put into brining your best game to the table each day? You really have to love and believe in what you are doing. When you do, when you have that passion, you will find that you can often turn it into a viable and sustainable career. Just imagine the feeling of freedom that you would have being able to work from home doing something that you love!

Make the Right Choice

You have countless options when it comes to working from home. You could turn you love of art into a viable business in countless ways, such as designing t-shirts or greeting cards and selling them online and at craft fairs and local shops. It could be possible to take your love of computers and programming and start creating websites or blog templates that you can sell. The only limit is your imagination and your skill level. You really can take your dreams and then turn them into a business that is viable and that is going to make money. Once you start building your business, look for other ways that you might be able to add to your company or branch into other areas.

How long did you wait before you decided that you could turn your passion into a business success? Share your success story as well as what you had to go through with us, so that we all might learn how we can go from passion to profit.

The Home Office Goes Global

Like a lot of other entities, from large corporations to small and home-based businesses, Live Out Loud is a global company. The only problem that occasionally gets in the way of seamless communication is time-zone differences.

However, for the average small or home business, there’s a bit more than just time zones (and perhaps languages) that make the global office of today tricky to navigate.

For instance, most of the world works in metric, but the biggest Internet market works in imperial. (The imperial system is base units of length, mass and time.) So, some customers won’t know what a mile is, and others won’t know what a kilometer is. There’s also difficulty with the variety of currencies, though that’s getting better all the time.

Today, even with a home office, you can compete on a global scale.

The majority of the 16.5 million home-based businesses are working online. And with the technological advances brought on by today’s Internet, such as cloud computing and smart phones, it’s only going to get bigger. I see the number of home based businesses possibly even doubling over the next decade.

That’s good news and I want you to be part of that expansion. I don’t think anybody twenty years ago would have imagined that someone could sit at home and make a comfortable living (or better) by typing words into a computer.

While my business has a brick and mortar base (in the U.S. and Australia), I conduct global activities and have venture partners and independent entrepreneurs (several from home offices) working with me. I have great respect for small businesses whether they’re home-based or otherwise. They’re instrumental in my everyday business.

In fact, I’ve always said the only way we’re going to build a robust economy again is by the efforts of entrepreneurs, of people working independently, outside the corporate structure. I’ve also always believed the only way for individuals to build their own robust personal economy is by building a business of their own.

This is a changing economy, complete with changing roles. The traditional, outdated model of working a j.o.b. until you retire and then collecting on your 401K and social security is gone.

More and more, entrepreneurship is driven by people who are tired of the rat race, taking early retirement, or by those whose jobs have disappeared completely.

Take a look at the facts based on recent studies about home-based businesses:

They provide for at least half of their household’s incomes.
Together they employ one in 10 private-sector jobs. (That’s actually 13 million more than venture-backed companies.)
35% have revenue above $125,000 while keeping a greater share of their net income (36% vs. 21%)

In many cases home-based businesses are as competitive as their counterparts that rent, lease or buy commercial space. Most are even more competitive within the market because they have lower operating costs. On top of that, they’re getting more and more sophisticated. Today it’s much easier to run a business from anywhere in the world and cater to a global market.

However, what might be even more important than all of the above is that the corporate world is recognizing the home business as a legitimate enterprise. You might want to read that again because it’s very good news for all entrepreneurs.

Your turn

Do you have a global home (or small) business? What have your experiences been?

If you haven’t gone global, is it in your future plans? What do you think the hardest part would be?

How can I help?

Working from Home

Did you know that a new home business is started every 11 seconds in the U.S.? That’s right and that means you’re not alone (by any stretch of the imagination). It’s crucial that you think like a business person. That’s the only way you will succeed. And it stands to reason that you have a 1 in 5 chance of making six figures in your business.

You see, of those home based businesses, 20% gross between $100,000 and $500,000 per year. (Source: Money Magazine.) That’s a heck of a lot better odds than you’ll get with the lottery, so take your home business seriously! (And scoff back at the naysayers in your life!)

The double edged sword

Working from home can be an exciting venture. It can also make you feel like a kid in a candy store. So much to learn and conquer, which equates to so much stuff to choose from (especially online) – so you go on a whirlwind buying spree.

What category do you fall into?

Bright, shiny object syndrome

You get your widgets, open them up and take those exciting first steps. But it ends there. You never take the second step. You’re feeling overwhelmed.

Or, worse yet, another hot and trendy product catches your eye and you buy it. And on and on. You might take a few more steps but more often than not these widgets end up sitting on your desktop or computer hard drive gathering dust. You’re suffering from shiny-new-object-syndrome.

The way the new object was presented made you fall in love with it. The right buttons were pushed. The thought of making money using it got you excited, you wanted it – so you got it. But then the newness wore off because you didn’t stay focused on what enticed you to buy the product to begin with.

You won’t ever succeed when you continually buy products if you don’t actually take the practical steps of using them. How many shiny new objects have you bought in the last year? The last six months? Did you give any of them a fair effort before moving on to the next?

“I’ll make this work if it kills me!”

Perhaps you do things the other way around! These people don’t reach out to try anything new because they get stuck vowing to achieve the same results that were promised on the sales letter. They’re going to go down fighting despite the writing on the wall that tells them they need to move on.

Instead of being caught between two extremes and trying to force yourself into a mold, create what works out of what you get and do things your way. There is no rule police squad that will come bang on your door if you don’t follow step by step what marketer A did to reach success.

You’re a unique person with personality gifts and traits that marketer A doesn’t have. So pull together what you’ve learned and the products that you’ve bought and take a hard look at your efforts.

Did you really give it all you had? And it still didn’t work? Then there’s no shame in moving on. But if you have product after product and you’ve never genuinely attempted to work them, put the effort into it and you might be surprised at the results.

Finding the sweet spot!

That’s what you’re looking for and what you need to find. So how are you doing? Let me know where you are in this conundrum. Are you somewhere in the middle or at one end of the spectrum or the other? What is it you’re dealing with and how can I help? Or jump in and add to the conversation. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Your turn

The double edged sword

Bright, shiny object syndrome

“I’ll make this work if it kills me!”

Finding the sweet spot!

What's the #1 Obstacle Holding You Back from Ultimate Wealth?