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Supporting Bajan Entrepreneurship
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ISSUE 3
SEPTEMBER 1 2012
Renee Crichlow
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. – Napoleon Hill
10 Steps to Turn Your Passion into Business by Anastasiya Goers of Balance In Me, @balanceinme http://www.dragosroua.com
Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is
the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move
and without a pilot she would be lost. – Proverb
Do you have a dream to do what you want to do and get
money for that? Support your family while being fulfilled in
life?
I always enjoyed watching nature and travel shows because
the hosts seemed like the luckiest people in the world to me.
They could travel all around the world, do fun stuff and get
paid for enjoying their lives. Now that’s what I call life!
I must say that I didn’t become a TV host of any of those programs and I am not even Chris Guillebeau (from the Art of Non-Conformity) but now I earn my living doing what I love. I have been pursuing my passion for many years (eight if you want to be exact) and now it is finally turning into a business. Following your passion is the only way to be great at some-thing (we’ve all heard that saying, right?). It is the only way to be thrilled with your life and the only way to be fulfilled. However if you follow only your passion then you will most likely find yourself broken-hearted somewhere along the road. Your dreams will be just your dreams and your reality will get boring and sad again. When you decide to follow your passion you must make sure that your reason is always showing you the right way. When you combine reason and passion you can create a great business that you will enjoy.
Here is what you need to know in order to turn your passion
into a business:
1. Make sure that you have a passion not just a mere in-
terest/hobby.There is a huge difference between what we
like and what we are passionate about. I like cooking, it is
my hobby but I am not passionate about it. The thought of
spending the entire day in the kitchen cooking for hundreds
of people is horrifying to me.Ask yourself this simple ques-
tion “Am I ready to do this every day of my life for 5, 10, 20
years?” If your answer is “yes” then you have found your
true passion.
2. Expand on your passion. Look at your passion from
different angles in order to see what the real source of it is.I
have been a fitness instructor for 8 years and I considered it
my passion. However, a few years ago I realized that my
true passion lied in helping people perfect their bodies, im-
prove their health and find their life balance. This is how
Balance In Me (my blog) was born. Pilates, Yoga, self
growth, spirituality and healthy eating are different
branches of this passion and they help me stay enthusiastic
about my goals.Do not choose a very narrow passion that
you might outgrow in a couple of years. Look at the broad
picture by analyzing everything that makes you feel fulfilled
in life. Do you see a connection?
3. Think of all possible ways how you can pursue your
passion. This is the opposite of the previous tip. Brainstorm
all possible ways how you can pursue your passion. Let’s
say that you are passionate about cooking. You can become a
chef and eventually open a restaurant, you can write a book
of recipes, you can have a blog about cooking, you can give
private cooking lessons or cater for private parties. The more
business opportunities you see the easier it will be to find the
one that will work for you.
4. Get support from your family. If you are married then
this is a must before your even start thinking about making a
business out of your passion. Misunderstandings, argu-
ments and constant nagging can kill your passion really
quick.
5. Treat your passion like a business. A lot of people when they venture out in the pursuit of passion make a mis-take of treating it like a hobby. There is a common miscon-ception that when they love something they must do it only when they feel like it. In terms of writing it will mean writ-ing only when you have inspiration (whether it is once a day or once a week). Treating your passion like a business means: - Doing it whether you feel like it or not. - Having a to-do-list or some plan that must be com- pleted in a certain amount of time. - Having regular work hours (do not let your family or friends disturb you during those hours even if it means skipping a cup of coffee with your best friend or missing that great movie at the theatre). - Getting dressed for your work (you will need this if you are going to work from home. I can never come up with post ideas while I am wearing my pajamas). - Having an organized uncluttered work space (even if your office will consist of a chair and a table, make sure that you do not have any clutter or any thing that will distract you from work. - Not expecting to earn a lot at once (at first you might even have to do everything for free to gain the experience). - Having days-off and vacations (otherwise you will experience burnout really fast). 6. Be prepared for the boring stuff. Every business has its boring side. Even though your passion will be your business you won’t escape this part of being an entrepreneur. Whether it is accounting, meticulous personal tax software, cleaning tons of dishes (if you choose cooking), fighting hun-dreds of spam messages on your blog or dealing with cus-tomers, you will have to get used to it. There is nothing much exciting about it other than the fact that this boring stuff lets you enjoy what you are doing 90% of the time. 7. Get some critique. You might think that your passion and idea for business is awesome but in reality it might be a disaster waiting to happen. Talk to your friends or family and let them critique your business to make sure that you have realistic expectations. Do not get offended when they criticize but rather use this information to come up with bet-ter plans for business. 8. Try a few different ideas. It is important to try a few dif-ferent business ideas to see which one will work for you. A passionate writer might be great at writing children’s books but he/she will suck in personal development articles. Fig-ure out what works for you.
9.
10.
This American College of Sports Medicine cer-tified trainer is the owner of Reac Fitness, which focuses on women’s fitness through all the stages in a woman’s life. She has been cer-tified in Dancing Thru Pregnancy Fitness. Renee can whip you into shape whether you are an adolescent, pregnant, a new mommy, a woman in her prime or a woman experience ‘the change’. Renee has designed various pro-grams to fit your needs. Renee’s love for fitness was cultivated from her family being very sports-oriented. She has al-ways been physically active, representing the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Cam-pus at the Inter-Campus Games in track and field and netball. Her passion has led her to enter the arena Body Building and Fitness, where she com-peted in The Body Figure category of the Bar-bados Amateur Body building and Fitness Fed-eration competitions over a span of three years (2007-2009). She has also competed in the local Island Fitness Pageant. She also received the Barbados National Sports Council Prestig-ious Family Award in 2007. As a trainer, friend and coach, Renee is com-mitted to guiding, motivating and educating women to exceed their fitness goals and to per-manently adopting a healthy lifestyle.
Turn a Hobby into a Business by The Sloan Brothers http://www.startupnation.com
The dream of many would-be entrepreneurs is to
slide seamlessly from their passionate, enjoyable pursuit of a
hobby into the passionate, enjoyable establishment and op-
eration of a company based on their favorite pastime. Noth-
ing is better to do for money than something you already
enjoy doing for free!
But there are caveats. As much as you might really enjoy learning different ways to filet salmon, for example, it might be difficult to "monetize" that expertise into a busi-ness, even on the internet. At the same time, if you're really good at making Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners, you might find that there are just too many other similarly gifted folks in the marketplace already doing the same thing. And there are other important considerations when you want to turn your hobby into a business.
Focus on the prize This is a goal worthy of a lot of effort, because there may be no greater joy for an entrepreneur. "You'd much rather start a business based on a hobby than something else, right out of the box, because you're connected with it, you understand the vernacular, the concepts, the community, and the psychographics and demographics of the market," says Lawler Chang, author of the new book Passion at Work and a management consultant. "It gives you an unfair com-petitive advantage." Gregg Steiner, for example, was always helping techno phobic friends and family members set up their com-puters and TiVos and cell phones and plasma TVs for the fun of it. Then, last summer, a friend of a friend offered to pay him to wire his huge house in Los Angeles. And Steiner soon left his family's baby-ointment manufacturing com-pany in Cleveland to turn his geekdom into a lucrative con-sultancy. "Now I'm getting paid $95 an hour and I get all these perks, and I'm busy all the time and just having fun," says the 35-year-old Steiner.
Extrapolate carefully
Just because you enjoy a hobby, and maybe you
even know a bunch of fellow hobbyists, doesn't mean that
your group's enthusiasm for this activity translates into a
viable business.
Gene Fairbrother, lead business consultant for the
Dallas-based National Association for the Self-Employed,
advises you to "step back" first. "It's not any different from
any other business," he says. "You've got to determine first if
there's a market for it, then determine how much profit is in
it."
Chris Cameron, CEO of TheToyPeddler.com,
a marketplace for collectable toys, says that you must "look
at the whole value proposition. How widespread is this
need, or is it something unique to my experience?"
Jill Caren did exactly that before launching her com-
pany, Expressions Photo Design & Boutique, in Matawan,
New Jersey, which sells her unique photo-album and scrap-
book products. "I attended local craft shows and found an
overwhelmingly positive response," says the 35-year-old.
Evaluate yourself realistically
Because your commercial success will be so tied into
your personal proficiency at this hobby, reckon with your-
self realistically. Are you skilled enough at this hobby that
other people actually will pay you for your service or knowl-
edge, or do you just enjoy the heck out of it? Do you have
the commitment and disciple to fully pursue this venture
when it starts to feel like a job instead of fun?
"When I'm working from my passion, I tend to be blinded by
that passion," says Marilyn Heywood Paige, a 39-year-old,
serial entrepreneur in Philadelphia whose businesses have
included making greeting cards and professional singing. "I
can name five things I would do differently now if I was mar-
keting myself as a singer. I wasn't able to see those five things
when I was in it because my ego around my talent was in my
way."
Understanding your top line It's one thing to get paid for what you already do for no monetary compensation. But if you're going to try to form a company on the basis of buying and selling NASCAR para-phernalia, you need to figure out realistically what kinds of revenues this will generate. Even if it may work in micro-cosm, you'll want to figure out how to "scale" the business over time. "Many hobbies don't allow for much leverage and so have a natural limit to their growth," says Rita Gunther McGrath, an associate professor at Columbia Business School and an author on entrepreneurship. John Vence nailed this principle. He did such a good job of making a loft bed for his son, Michael, for college that word of mouth soon was garnering him dozens of orders from within 100 miles of his Horseheads, New York, home. He treated this venture like the hobby it was for awhile, but then he decided he wanted to make a full-time business out of it. So Vence checked with UPS to learn about how he could ship his beds nationally, and moved the business from his garage to an industrial park. Now, College Bed Lofts should make and sell about 5,000 lofts this year to customers coast to coast.
Figure out how to stand out You've got to differentiate your hobby-based business as you would any other company. But if the only thing you can rely on is to underprice the competition, you might want to keep your day job. It's harder and harder to sustain a price edge once a marketplace gets populated. Jimmy and Andrea Zeilinger loved to cook for their family and friends, and they longed to leave their professional jobs and turn their hobby into a business. But when they finally did so in early 2004, they didn't just launch a generic cater-ing business or buy a restaurant: They came up with a snack-making kit for kids. And then they obtained a unique license from Crayola, the crayon company, to manufacture and brand it. "We couldn't find anything else like this on the market," says Jimmy Zeilinger, a former film director and now co-owner of Brand Castle, in Shaker Heights, Ohio. "And we're going to be coming out with other fun products in 2006."
One last thing
Make sure you don't ruin something that brings you enjoyment by making a business out of that particular thing. Hobbies evolve from passions, but a company re-quires work and responsibility. Before mixing the two, be certain you've planned it out so the fun doesn't get lost!
Why do you do what you do? You started your
business for a reason. Is that reason still valid? Has
it evolved or changed over time? Or have you lost
focus?
A.J. Allmendinger was once a professional race car
driver. He worked 20 years to achieve that status,
which he recently lost as a result of a failed drug
test. It appears he took an “energy pill” from a
friend of a friend. Turns out it was Adderall, a
banned substance. Allmendinger is working to re-
claim his eligibility.
In a recent interview he commented, “I’ve always
let racing define me. I’ve always said racing was
the most important, to be out there every week
and winning. That’s what I defined myself by.”
This sounds like a lot of business owners I know.
They are totally absorbed by the business and of-
ten have little else in their lives. But Allmendinger
goes on to say, “You can’t do that. If everything is
going well and you’re winning, great; everything
is easy. It’s those bad times that you have to get
through and have something to stand by.”
What's Your Mission?
I love my business. I enjoy what I do. The struc-
ture of my business allows me to focus on office
work and writing late at night. A lot of business
gets conducted late at night by people who are on
e-mail. I know this because I am frequently online
with these business people. Some of them have
full-time jobs during the day and pull a second
shift at night. Again, it sounds like a lot of busi-
ness owners I know. Do you run your business?
Or does it run you?
Call it your “mission” or “vision” or “objective”
but what is your reason for being in business? Do
you even have a reason besides that you hated
your old boss and thought you could do it better
yourself? Not a bad reason to get started, but a
difficult one to sustain. In fact, many businesses
were started on this basic premise. Then they
grew and with success came challenges. The
past four years have been some of the most chal-
lenging in business history. It hasn’t been as fun
or as profitable, and more than one small-
business owner has wondered if it would be bet-
ter to shut the doors or just let everyone go and
do it myself.
Think Like Big Business
Last month I attended my trade association con-
vention. The National Speakers Association
(NSA) is the organization for experts who speak
professionally. I go to learn ways to make my
business better, to see my buddies, talk with
people who understand what I do and get moral
support. It is an important annual booster shot.
At NSA I am reminded of the opportunity
speakers and consultants have to make a posi-
tive contribution to society. It reminds me of
why I chose this business—beyond the fact that
I hated my boss and thought I could do it better
myself!
Larger businesses will conduct some sort of business or strategic planning each year. This is another way to regain focus and help your busi-ness. That doesn’t sound like most small-business owners I know. It is essential for you to remain connected with the business in a healthy way. It is also important for you to step back and evaluate where you are and where you want to go, and to then implement action steps to get to that better future. That future will never come if you don’t know why you are do-ing what you do.
Do You Run Your Small Business, Or Does it Run You?
by Wally Adamchik president of FireStarter Speaking and Consulting http://www.openforum.com
The entrepreneur who is a business leader looks for ideas and puts them into effect in fostering eco-nomic growth and development. Entrepreneur-ship is one of the most important input in the eco-nomic development of a country. The entrepre-neur acts as a trigger head to give spark to eco-nomic activities by his entrepreneurial decisions. He plays a pivotal role not only in the develop-ment of industrial sector of a country but also in the development of farm and service sector. The major roles played by an entrepreneur in the eco-nomic development of an economy is discussed in a systematic and orderly manner as follows.
(1) Promotes Capital Formation:
Entrepreneurs promote capital formation by mobi-lising the idle savings of public. They employ their own as well as borrowed resources for setting up their enterprises. Such type of entrepreneurial ac-tivities lead to value addition and creation of wealth, which is very essential for the industrial and economic development of the country.
(2) Creates Large-Scale Employment Opportuni-
ties:
Entrepreneurs provide immediate large-scale em-ployment to the unemployed which is a chronic problem of underdeveloped nations. With the set-ting up.of more and more units by entrepreneurs, both on small and large-scale numerous job op-portunities are created for others. As time passes, these enterprises grow, providing direct and indi-rect employment opportunities to many more. In this way, entrepreneurs play an effective role in reducing the problem of unemployment in the country which in turn clears the path towards eco-nomic development of the nation.
(3) Promotes Balanced Regional Development:
Entrepreneurs help to remove regional disparities through setting up of industries in less developed and backward areas. The growth of industries and business in these areas lead to a large number of public benefits like road transport, health, educa-tion, entertainment, etc. Setting up of more indus-tries lead to more development of backward re-gions and thereby promotes balanced regional de-velopment.
(4) Reduces Concentration of Economic Power:
Economic power is the natural outcome of indus-trial and business activity. Industrial development normally lead to concentration of economic power in the hands of a few individuals which results in the growth of monopolies. In order to redress this problem a large number of entrepreneurs need to be developed, which will help reduce the concen-tration of economic power amongst the popula-tion.
(5) Wealth Creation and Distribution:
It stimulates equitable redistribution of wealth and income in the interest of the country to more peo-ple and geographic areas, thus giving benefit to larger sections of the society. Entrepreneurial ac-tivities also generate more activities and give a multiplier effect in the economy.
(6) Increasing Gross National Product and Per
Capita Income:
Entrepreneurs are always on the look out for op-portunities. They explore and exploit opportuni-ties,, encourage effective resource mobilisation of capital and skill, bring in new products and ser-vices and develops markets for growth of the econ-omy. In this way, they help increasing gross na-tional product as well as per capita income of the
What is the Role of an Entrepreneur in Economic Development ? By CHINMOY KUMAR www.preservearticles.com
people in a country. Increase in gross national product and per capita income of the people in a country, is a sign of economic growth.
(6) Improvement in the Standard of Living:
Increase in the standard of living of the people is a characteristic feature of economic development of the country. Entrepreneurs play a key role in in-creasing the standard of living of the people by adopting latest innovations in the production of wide variety of goods and services in large scale that too at a lower cost. This enables the people to avail better quality goods at lower prices which results in the improvement of their standard of liv-ing.
(7) Promotes Country's Export Trade:
Entrepreneurs help in promoting a country's ex-port-trade, which is an important ingredient of economic development. They produce goods and services in large scale for the purpose earning huge amount of foreign exchange from export in order to combat the import dues requirement. Hence im-port substitution and export promotion ensure eco-nomic independence and development.
(8) Induces Backward and Forward Linkages:
Entrepreneurs like to work in an environment of change and try to maximise profits by innovation. When an enterprise is established in accordance with the changing technology, it induces backward and forward linkages which stimulate the process of economic development in the country.
(9) Facilitates Overall Development:
Entrepreneurs act as catalytic agent for change which results in chain reaction. Once an enterprise is established, the process of industrialisation is set in motion. This unit will generate demand for vari-ous types of units required by it and there will be so many other units which require the output of this unit. This leads to overall development of an area due to increase in demand and setting up of more and more units. In this way, the entrepre-neurs multiply their entrepreneurial activities, thus creating an environment of enthusiasm and conveying an impetus for overall development of the area.
My aim with this magazine is to promote, motivate and in-
spire Entrepreneurs.
If you are in a dead end job or a job that is not satisfying your
need to challenged, maybe it is time for you to seek what makes
you happy and see if it is a viable business option.
When you are “working” doing something that you love
and are passionate about, it is no longer work.
Wouldn’t it be absolutely wonderful to have a career doing
something that you like doing, something that, when you are fin-
ished you feel that you have accomplished something and have a
sense of pride in your work?
My passion in life is to teach and impart knowledge to fa-
cilitate the growth and improvement of your Personal develop-
ment. At this stage, I have chosen to use this magazine as my
medium. It is difficult at times but my passion and vision of
what it can become keeps pushing me onward.
Do not be scared to live your dream!
Lisa White Managing Director
Ashiek Enterprises
If you would like to begin your life as a self-employed person but have
no idea what to do or where to start … give me a call at 234 0581 … I can
help you sort through your difficulties and make the best decision for your
life.
