And why it might just be something you want to avoid.

You might be thinking about making money from your hobby, I go through the pros and cons of shifting gear and using your hobby to earn cash.

Let me know if you have been considering the shift, and what, if anything, is holding you back.

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Hi, Christie here on Monday, the 9th of November in the UK, and I’m ready for episode 13. 

Hope you are OK, this week we’re going to be discussing whether it’s a good idea to do turn your hobby and your beloved craft or art into your career or a job. 

But first of all, just a quick little intro into my week. It’s been NaNoWriMo or it is in November and I’m writing a novel and it’s a young adult science fiction, which is a new, exciting episode for me. I’ll be writing lots of words for that. 

If you’re doing Nano, I’d love to hear what project you’re doing. 

I’ve also done something else this week that I’ve not done before, which is a product review on my YouTube channel for the Kindle Oasis. I hope you’ll go over to the YouTube channel, have a look at that and maybe subscribe, because I’m really excited that I’ve started sort of widening the remit of that channel if you like from too bookie stuff.

Also on the podcast next week, I’ll probably be able to tell you much more about this, but I’m widening my Patreon channel or Patreon channel to include my podcast. 

Once a month, I’ll be giving you exclusive content purely from our patrons who can pay anything from the price of a coffee, upwards. 

I will let you know more about that next week and I will drop the current Patreon link in my notes, on my website, on my show notes. 

If you’re over on Patreon I would thank you very much for the support. 

So back to the subject for this week, why it’s a good idea to change your hobby into your career or, or maybe not such a good idea. 

It might be that you’re a creative writer. You might be an artist or make jewellery, something that you really, really enjoy by having bees or hiking or walking or whatever, but it might be something that you think actually, I really love doing this.

I would love to do this all the time full time, which is great. 

It’s fantastic that you’re inspired in that way, but I want to go through about eight pros and cons that you might not have thought about just to give you a little bit of food for thought. 

I’ll go through the pros first, because I’m a very positive thinker, as you know.

First of all, you’ve already got the skills 

you’re already doing something, which is amazing. It might be guided walks for hikes, maybe making t-shirts. It might be sewing, bandanas, anything. It could be anything at all, writing books, whatever. You’ve already got the skills. That is a big deal that you’ve already got the training.

You’ve already got the knowledge you need 

how to do that thing that you’re doing, because you’ve been doing it for a while now. You’re really knowledgeable about it. 

You’ve probably got a network.

You’ve already studied, maybe you might’ve even got qualifications in it. It’s something that you’re really passionate about, so you don’t mind learning constantly. 

You might be a subscriber to magazines that support it, etc. 

So you’ve got the skills and the knowledge, and you’ve also probably got the tools. I’ve just got a dremmel, you know, like a carving implement for stone carving, you might have already got the equipment, you might have got the paint, she might have got what you need.

If it’s independent author, you actually won’t need that many tools apart from a computer, which you’ll already have. 

So there’s three things there already that I’ve quickly whizzed through that you can tick off on your list of things that you need. 

You’ll also probably have connections because if you’ve been doing this for a while and you probably have, if you’ve discovered that you really love it and want to do it for a job. 

You’re probably in Facebook groups or Pinterest communities, or you’re the subscriber to YouTube channels, you might have a local help group. 

Do you have some connections? Again, fantastic advantage. 

Also, if you wanted to change it into a career, you won’t need to as much investment. You’ve probably already got quite a lot of the things that you need, not just tools, but just most of the stuff that you need to do that hobby or that craft. You’ll have probably already invested in quite a few.

You might have got them as gifts and things over the years.

So you’ve got a lower investment to change it and to start a business. 

The next one is massive, especially at the moment [I’m recording this in November 2020 and in the UK we’re in partial lockdown] 

At the moment, especially, there are a huge, huge number of online opportunities. 

I can’t stress this enough. 

There’s an awful lot of doom and gloom around at the moment, but there are a huge number of opportunities. People are shopping online, people are looking online. So if it is something that you’re looking at selling online where people can access it from home, then tick that box because you’ve got a massive opportunity there.

And a huge number of businesses are transferring online. 

While the technology is there and you can use it. 

You’ve already got your networks, we’ve spoken about that earlier. You’ve already found your people online. 

A huge ‘pro’ for going pro is that you’re working for yourself and there can be nothing better, nothing more rewarding. It might be that you work twice as many hours as you ever did in the office or in the factory floor, but because you’re doing it for yourself, it doesn’t matter. It’s a fantastic advantage.

The stress and the worry might be there, but you’re working for yourself so they’re your stresses and strains that you’ll feel in control of. 

The rewards are yours, more importantly, and it might be a whole new career. 

It might be exactly what you’ve wanted all your life, that you’ve pivoted.

You’ve got this fantastic new creative career. And what more can you ask? 

Sadly, there’s always some cons to it that you need to think about, anytime you’re going into any sort of pivot or change. 

It’s a good idea to get a note pad and have on the left hand side pros, right hand side cons. You can call them strengths, weaknesses, gaps, whatever, but it’s always a good idea to do that. 

Cons

Marketing is the first one, 

probably because I really hate marketing, but it is a massive part of working online and working in your industry. You will need to do the marketing. It might be that you need to pay somebody to do the marketing, but you need to up-skill on marketing because any business relies on it.

You need to sell your jewellery, hiking tours around the Dales or whatever it is. As a guided hiker, people you need to learn you’re there. 

So marketing is not a con as such, it’s just a new area that you will need to accept that you need to do. Obviously when you’re doing this as a hobby marketing doesn’t really matter. You’re doing it anyway. 

You might need to step up because the product that you’re offering or the service you’re offering might go viral. It might be fantastical if it does, it could go viral, huge customer demand and you’ll need to step up to that. 

It might be that [your clients] require something slightly different. So before you start your business, you’re going to need to be very strict and very defined on what you’re going to provide. 

How are you going to provide it?

and what variations you might be able to offer, when to say no, because you will need to say no.

You might have to have special insurance.

Say that you into cake decorating for a party eg. you’ll need to comply with regulations with regards to food hygiene. You might even need to get food hygiene certificates. You’d definitely want insurance. You know, if you send a cake to a party and they get food poisoning, not something you want. 

Make sure that whatever you do, that you cover yourself and your property, because if you’re working from home, you need to make sure that all your equipment and everything is insured, if the worst happens. So have a look into what insurance you need and what regulations are locally and nationally. 

That includes online as well because things like the GDPR (data protection in Europe) all these regulations are something that you will need to keep up on.

Don’t worry. I’m not here to frighten you. 

There are plenty of online resources, you can get free training in a lot of cases, so look at those.

You might need to step up on what stock you carry on your premises. 

If you’re doing something as a hobby and you’re doing, I don’t know, woodcarving, you’re making a chair. It might be that if you’ve got to make three or four chairs that you haven’t got room in your back room. 

You might need a workshop at the moment with lockdown. 

It’s very, very difficult for an awful lot of artists and creatives who work in artistic space because quite often they’re no longer allowed to use those spaces. But if you work from home, you do need to accept that from a health and safety point of view, from a business survival point of view.

If you’ve got dangerous carving equipment, sharp chisels and things, you don’t want your three year old getting access to that.

You might need to step up on costs of stock and your premises. 

Realistic pricing is very, very difficult. I go into this in quite a bit of detail about books and writing, but it’s something to consider on whatever you do. 

‘How much should I charge?’ 

To be honest, you may never be able to charge the right price for everybody. There will always be somebody who won’t be able to afford your services. There will always be somebody who will sort of think it as a bit cheap and be put off because the price is low. 

They’ll also be the difficulties with regards to maybe postage or distribution costs. You might think you’re underselling yourself. 

Pricing is always, always a dilemma, and it’s something that you need to definitely consider as to how much you need to make on an item to break even.

How many do you need to sell? 

You need to do a really good analysis of all your financial investments and look at whether pricing is an issue for you. And whether you will be able to turn it into a business. There’ll always be a way, but it might be something that you really need to get expert advice on. 

Again, that is something where your network can come in and help you, it’s a big thing. 

It is a ‘con’ with regards to changing your hobby into your business, and something that I know friends have suffered with. If it becomes a job it’s no longer your creative release for your stress. I used to know a climbing instructor years ago, who was absolutely obsessed with rock climbing. They loved it, they changed it into their career, they became an instructor, really highly qualified instructor, extremely successful in business. But they found that there wasn’t a release anymore.

When they went out climbing, they didn’t feel as if they were off work anymore. It became a real issue for them. 

Just consider, do you really want to change what you’re using as your de-stressor into a stressor? 

If so, maybe you can find something else that will refill your creative well and de-stress. It might be that you can just find another hobby to supplement the one that you’ve changed into a job. 

You might need to share the load. 

This comes down to control. Are you a control freak? Do you like to keep hold of everything? Or is it something that you’re willing to let go? 

As a hobby, you’ll probably have been doing it on your own, maybe with a few other people, but usually a hobby is something that you choose to do yourself. 

Are you willing to let that go and let someone else take control of part of that? 

If it’s a business, are you willing to let control of something that can raise money or bring in the bills, you know, and pay your mortgage. Are you willing to let that go to someone else? So consider, will you be willing to share them load? And the load may be bigger.

You’ve got more responsibility, if you are willing to share the load you may need to take someone on.

You might need to take an employee on, luckily nowadays there’s lots of virtual assistants where you don’t have to worry so much about employee insurance, [investigate your responsibilities locally] 

You might want to get a team around you, 

who you trust, who trust you, who you care for, who you look after, have concern for their welfare. 

It might be that you’re responsible for their income. You know, even if they’re ‘only’ a VA, who’s at a distance. If you’re paying them regularly, then they’ll come to rely on that as a business, you know, as an expense to their business and an income to their business. It might be that if you suddenly stop using them, you can affect their income. And that responsibility can sit heavy on some shoulders.

I know this has been a whistle-stop tour, 

but I’ve given you eight pros and eight cons. 

I definitely think if it’s something you want to do, that you should pursue your passions. 

I’m a strong believer that creativity is a massive de-stressor. It really keeps the world turning. 

I’d love you to join the Pinterest group for this podcast

If you’re creative, you should be using Pinterest anyway, because it’s a very visual forum. It’s also one of the biggest search engines after Google and YouTube so you definitely want to be over on there. 

Also why not come and join our Facebook group. 

It’s exactly the same name as the podcast Midlife Isn’t A Crisis – come and join us.

You can network there, and if you do want to promote your products and services, you can do that as well. We have regular threads for that. 

And finally I’d really like you to comment either here or on my website, or in the group. 

Tell me, what are your ideas, changing your hobby into a business? 

Is it something you’re going to do? 

Are you going to pursue it and really jump in with both feet?

Are you really going to pursue your passion? 

If you want a one-to-one chat, there are discounts available on my coaching. 

The discount codes run out at the end of the year. I’ll drop a link in the show notes. 

So have a lovely day, enjoy whatever hobby you doing. 

Stay well, stay safe and I’ll catch you next time. Thanks for joining me.