If you are reading this, you undoubtedly know me from my work in the planner community. Perhaps you already know about my business, have purchased from me before, consider me a role model for business and productivity, or perhaps you followed a link from a YouTube video to this blog to read more planner related content. No matter what you’re experience is with me, we both have a passion in common, planners! For me, that passion was so great that I ended up turning it into my full time job and started an entire enterprise around it. You can read the story of how it all went down here, but today I want to break down the path I took that lead me from loving planners to selling inserts and courses to help others with the same love.
Follow your passion
My journey begins as most do with a passion. We’ve already established that my passion was planners and a deep love for productivity. Back in early 2014 when I entered the planner craze, I was completely obsessed and entranced by this world of planners. Without thinking about it from a business stand point, I started making videos and posts on planners and stationery supplies and gave myself permission to play with this passion with a child-like intensity that brought me happiness and joy in creating. This is really the key sign that you have a real passion for something, when you can get lost it in for hours upon hours and create endlessly and end the day with more ideas for tomorrow! If you feel this way about something, don’t ignore it, it’s a true passion.
Become part of a community
Like I said, in 2014 when I started diving deep into planners, it was already a craze, which meant that there was a community of people who were interested in this same topic (you are probably one of them!) and so connecting with others and gaining a following from my passion seemed so easy. When you become part of a community with the same passions as yourself, things really do seem a little easier and sometimes effortless. Early on, I strove to not only be a consumer in this community, but to also be a leader and a creator, making videos and content that shared my knowledge and skills. I spoke to so many planner people in such a short time, really taking time to understand what they wanted to see and know and I made so many videos that were in response to questions I had received or seen frequently asked in different Facebook groups. Because of this, not only did a grow a following, but I gained a lot of insight into what people in the planner community were looking for. No matter what your passion is, I highly suggest finding a community or creating a community if one does not exist, around it. When you have a group of like minded individuals ready to consume your content and telling you what they want, it makes it that much easier for you to create.
Identify the opportunity
Now, once I had the passion and community under my belt, it actually took me a while to identify the opportunity that I was being faced with as a creator. Although I loved planners, had an audience and was creating constantly for them, I didn’t recognize that there was an opportunity for me to create a business around this passion. It took me several months of my followers and community members asking me to sell my designs for me to acknowledge that there was a market for my work. Part of it was fear I think. Fear that I couldn’t do it or my work wouldn’t be good enough and then part of it was that I was focusing on the wrong things. I initially thought that my business would be blogging and creating YouTube videos and making an income from sponsored posts and ad revenue, and because I was focused on this, the idea of selling my own goods and having my own shop was something I glazed over. When it comes to our passions, a lot of times we have many options for how we can proceed with turning those passions into profit, but if we ignore the signs (in my case, people telling me to sell my designs) we can miss the real opportunity!
Create value
It’s one thing to find out what people want and then give it to them, and it’s quite another to take it a step further and create real value for people. When I mean value, I don’t mean pricing my products so that they are in a certain range, and I don’t mean having sales or giving discounts. I mean value in terms that transcend money and really give people more than they expect. In my business, this is a major topic and a reason why I believe my business still works after two years. So many people start these passion projects and side (or full time) businesses because they have passion and a market to sell to but they end up failing within a year because they haven’t found a way to create value that keeps customers coming back for more and brining new customers to your community everyday. For me, I create value through all the extra free content I create on my blog, YouTube and through social media. I create value by responding to emails and giving people answers to the questions they bring me. Think about how you can create value for your audience, the type of value that gives people a sense of confidence that when they buy your products or engage your services they will get more than they expected!
Make it work
The final step I took to make a profit from my passion is something I continually do day in and day out, making it work! Every day I have to get the job done and solve problems that potentially threaten the existence of my business. I have to make plans, execute and then change them if they don’t work out. I have to keep my head in the game and find a path forward even when challenges block my path. The ability to make it work stems from a sense of responsibility and perseverance that when the going gets tough, I can’t back down or else I loose it all. That’s why this whole process must start with passion, because without true passion, you will give up before you ever get your idea off the ground!
So, let me turn the tables and ask you a question now! Do you have a passion that yo want to turn into a profit? If you do, I want to invite you to check out a Free Training video I have that will help you get your business idea started if you are ready to start taking the steps to make your passion a full-time or part-time income! Click here to sign up for my training and you will be emailed a link and study guide to get started ASAP!
xoxo,
Excellent! Thanks for your inspiring posts and endless enthusiasm!
Loved this blog post Alexis! When you wrote “For me, I create value through all the extra free content I create on my blog, YouTube and through social media. I create value by responding to emails and giving people answers to the questions they bring me. Think about how you can create value for your audience, the type of value that gives people a sense of confidence that when they buy your products or engage your services they will get more than they expected!” really resonated with me and I think is so vital to for creative entrepreneurs to realize. Keep up the awesome content!