Entrepreneurs like to proclaim that you can turn your passions into money. There are two things they’re not telling you.
What they don’t tell you is that it requires two factors to transform a hobby into a cash flow.
And they are as follows:
#1 … Marketing skills
#2 … Luck
Now, you may achieve success with only #1, but in many cases, luck plays a role.
There are many online articles on how you can turn your hobbies or passions into a money-making machine. Like toss raw ground meat into a grinder and out will come a grilled steak.
It’s one thing to say, “Hey, you can make money off of your hobby.”
But when entrepreneurs say you can make a LOT of money or job replacement income off of your hobbies, they’re being very irresponsible and misleading.
Some entrepreneurs make it sound as though all you need to do is just keep engaging in your hobby, and the money will start coming out of the woodwork.
There’s No Such Thing As Turning a Hobby into Money
If you look at this literally, there’s essentially no such thing as monetizing a hobby.
That’s because the dynamics considerably change when the hobby is done for money vs. for recreation and enjoyment.
The Dynamics Change when It’s Done for Money vs. When Inspiration Hits
For instance, suppose someone loves to draw women’s faces, hairstyles and the human figure.
My Case Is a Classic Example
How the heck could I have made a livable income drawing? Who wants to buy ballpoint pen drawings of women’s faces?
Well, what about turning this into fashion illustration? That’s what I’d been told growing up.
Fashion illustration, during the era of my growing up, required learning to draw in a certain and very peculiar way. I didn’t like to draw like that.
Someone recommended illustrating superhero comics. The illustrations must be done a certain way (note that all the drawings in superhero comic books appear done by the same artist), and, they must correlate to a storyline.
That last part removes the “hit with inspiration” component. I just never had it in me to learn the superhero-illustration technique and then sit there trying to come up with matching the drawings to a storyline.
After college graduation I interviewed for a job with a greeting card company.
The job consisted of producing marker caricatures of a person in a photo that was supplied by a customer for their birthday or some other event.
I was given a test to see if I could pull this off at warp speed because the company always had so many incoming orders.
I wasn’t able to use the markers the way they wanted, and I was not skilled with caricatures.
Not every person who can draw an anatomically accurate human face or body can pump out remarkable caricatures at sizzling speed.
The idea of having to rush like this eight hours a day was unbearable. Even if I had passed the test, I wouldn’t have taken the job.
Love to crochet?
You can sell your crocheted afghans on Etsy. The required marketing would be relatively minimal.
You can keep making the same beautiful afghans you’ve been making for family and friends for years, then posting them on Etsy and hoping they’ll outsell all the other afghans that are probably on there.
How many people in the past 20 years do you know purchased an afghan?
I’m producing shirt designs for Zazzle. I love making the designs. We’ll see how much this love will bring in the $$$, being that this site’s shirt library seems to be thousands of pages. Keywording the product description isn’t enough.
Like to play tennis? One article by an entrepreneur suggested becoming a tennis instructor.
This is a classic example of how a hobby’s dynamic significantly changes when it’s done for money.
When you’re a tennis instructor, you’re an instructor, not a player.
I love to lift weights. So it sounds like a no-brainer to become a personal trainer.
When I became a personal trainer, I also had to be a mental health counselor.
One day a client was telling me she gained weight because her new boyfriend kept taking her out to dinner.
Then she began crying. I was no longer a personal trainer at this point. I was now dealing with a crying person who needed relationship counseling, not physical training.
What about turning the hobby of writing into money?
Many writers have superb editing skills. So I decided to try to make money editing.
In my earliest days with this, a woman who was writing a book contacted me by phone. The book was to be an autobiography detailing her broken relationship.
I thought this would be very interesting to edit. Then suddenly, as she was starting to tell me about the relationship over the phone, she began sobbing.
And I mean sobbing — literally choking on her words about how her ex had put her through an emotional ringer.
I was now suddenly a relationship counselor. I told her I couldn’t work with her. So much for “Turn your passion into money.”
I had a plumber friend whose side gig was wedding photography. He was good at it but completely lacked marketing skills. He’s still fixing leaky pipes.
Monetizing hobbies into a liveable income is a pipe dream and few people can actually pull this off.
Now don’t get me wrong here; I’m ALL for pursuing your dreams! GO FOR IT. Don’t let the naysayers stop you.
If you want to be a country singing star, don’t let someone who can’t carry a tune in a bucket dissuade you.
If your dream is to be an aerospace engineer for SpaceX, don’t let someone who flunked out of basic trigonometry shoot down your goal.
Some dreams are easier to make true than others. Not a whole lot of people know how to build spacecraft. The supply is exceedingly low.
But a LOT of people know how to make jewelry, bake cupcakes, take pictures and draw. The supply is ridiculously high.
Luck Can’t Be Ignored
I have read so many stories about how someone “turned their hobby into a living.” In every single case, luck played a key role.
The luck often pertains to a chance meeting with a person who’s in a position to boost the individual’s marketing. (Real-life examples follow).
Some passions are relatively easy to make liveable money off of, such as doing hair and nails, fixing cars, driving a big rig, cleaning someone’s teeth, performing handyman tasks, and interacting with preschoolers and toddlers.
But others are far more vexing due to stiff competition or lack of demand such as selling your acrylic paintings of seascapes and water color paintings of horses.
Real Life Examples of Luck that Turned a Passion into Big Dollars
Sheri Schmelzer was selling homemade shoe charms when her daughter wore them to a neighborhood pool.
By sheer coincidence, Duke Hanson noticed and gave the girl his business card, asking her mother to call him.
Duke later became instrumental in bringing the product to the attention of Crocs, which ultimately acquired those “Jibbitz” ornaments that you put in the holes of the Crocs shoes for millions of dollars.
Sara Blakely’s Spanx business exploded after Oprah Winfrey featured the product on her “Favorite Things” list. Dayum, need I say more?
Debbi Fields was simply trying to sell her homemade cookies when a local customer shared them with influential business contacts.
The resulting word-of-mouth chain reaction generated publicity leading to the Mrs. Fields brand.
Cathy Hughes was developing hair-care products as a passion project when actress and comedian Tia Mowry unexpectedly became a fan and mentioned the products publicly. Need more be said?
Julie Deane started making satchels from her kitchen table with a goal of earning money for her daughter’s schooling.
A fashion blogger happened to discover and feature the bags, leading to coverage by major fashion publications — leading to an international brand.
Catherine Cook and her siblings created a small social networking site as a side project.
By chance, a TV producer learned about the site and featured the young founders on national TV.
The Takeaway
Keep dreaming. Keep making your fidget jewelry. Keep selling your pies to the neighbors. Keep taking pictures of flowers. Continue making pine cone art. Don’t stop making colorful potholders. But remember: Luck is a very real thing.
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