Have you ever wishedyou could find a magical way to get paid for doing your favorite activities so that you could have more time to do them? I wrote this post sponsored by Name.Kitchen to help you get the ball rolling to do just that!
According to the Washington Post, only 13 percent of people worldwide actually like going to work.
While I certainly don’t advocate attempting to eliminateeverything that isn’t your absolute favorite pastimeand live in a hedonistic bubble, I do believe that those who have a passion for their work do the best job and impact the most people.
There isnow, more than ever before, a deluge of opportunities, tools, and resources to work your passion into profit, soit can be overwhelming to know where to start.
Check out these important tips for profiting from your passion, and get inspired by some real-life examples of people who are already succeeding.
5tips to make money doing what you love!
1. Checkyour “why”.
Say you really like making daisy chains. Before you rush off to demand money from people and come back jaded when they don’t share your enthusiasm for daisy chains, consider how making daisy chainsaffects your overall life and the lives of others.
If your sole purpose is self-indulgence, it’s unlikely that others will be positively impacted by what you do, let alone become customers.
At the same time, you will find yourself quickly burned out by the mundane aspects of running a business, even if it’s doing what you love, if you don’t have a greater goal than just getting paid.
There can be a lot of bumps along the way, and if you don’t have a solid “why”, it will be easy to want to just give up.
In our lives, for example, we want to enjoy what we do for an income, but that’s not our main focus. Our real “why” is getting to be at home with our kids and having more time to help others.
A self-sustaining “why” is multi-faceted.
2. Developa product or service that simply solves a “main pain” point.
It’s pretty rare to be so awesome at something that people just line up to give you money without any planning on your part.
Sure, there are plenty of stories of people who made something and someone else wanted one, and suddenly they couldn’t keep up with orders, but it was because they took time initially to figure out how to solve a problem, or create something of beautythat inspired others.
The biggest key to making money doing what you love is understanding how to best serve others through what you do.
Find a need and fill it.
3. Understand the real value of progress over perfection.
Don’t get caught up in trying to make something perfect. Someone else will beat you to the table and start stealing your business with a “good enough” solution, because it’s better than no solution at all.
Keep it simple, there is always room to grow.
4. Know how to make the right connections.
People only care about you and what you’re doing in direct proportion to how it benefits them or someone they already care about. You have a very small window (seconds) to pique their interest and make a connection to something they already have a frame of reference for.
Break your product or service down into human connections that everyone can relate to.
5. Pick a memorable name and domain.
Photo: Driftaway.CoffeeOne simple way to connect the dots faster in someone’s brain is with a great business name and domain.(It almost goeswithout saying that you’ll want to have a website for whatever endeavor you undertake.)
You can find awonderful batch of business naming inspiration at Name.Kitchen, where they share a360-degree approach of blending business with human interest and pop culture.
Until recently, people have been pretty stumped coming up withgood domains, often resorting to hard-to-remember hyphens or versions of their business name because the availability of “dot-com”s has become so scarce.
Luckily, thatfrustrating scenario ischanging! Sincelate 2013, hundreds of new “not-com”sare becoming the domains of choice for discerning entrepreneurs. Becauseall thesenot-com’s are sonew, the best names are still available to be registered!
Real-life examplesof these tips in action:
Driftaway Coffee: Suyog Mody and Anu Menon ditched their corporate careers to work together to create somethingthey were passionate about (their “why”): a coffee subscription service delivers fresh-roasted coffee personalized to your palette.
They started small (progress over perfection), butdeveloped a beautiful brand to connectwell with their customers!
Photo: Driftaway.CoffeeMody says switching their domain to a ‘dot-coffee’ (.coffee) has been a great conversation starter with those curious about their two-year-old business, and it provides a more obvious digital storefront (great name and domain). “We are an online business exclusively selling online,” says Mody. “It’s a URL that implies what we do.”
Read more about why Mody &Menon picked their name and why a not-com here.
The Fermentista’s Kitchen: Kirsten & Christopher Shockey teach people about the art of fermentation and have recently published a bookon the subject.
Photo: Fermentista.KitchenThe Shockeys initially experimented with selling their products commercially (progress over perfection) before they realized (through making the right connections) that people especially needed help (“main pain” point)learning the fermenting process for themselves.
Photo: Fermentista.KitchenThey chose to build their online brand with a ‘dot-kitchen’ (.kitchen) domain because they wanted the name to evoke the culinary art that fermentation is (pick a memorable name/domain). Says Kirsten Shockey: “People like to be in their kitchen, and we want it to bring this idea that fermentation is really easy and really accessible into your life.”
Read more about why the Shockeys picked their name and why a not-com here.
Are your creative juices flowing withways you might be able to create an income from one of your passions?
Find moreinspiration inName.Kitchen’s video series, and reserve your own domain here.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Name.Kitchen.
