The Financial Art Of Turning Your Hobbies Into Money

There is a reason why you are given a talent or you acquire a skill, or you create a passion - it is to draw profits from them. You will agree with me that when you do what you are passionate about or what you love to do, not only will you have ease of doing it, but you will want to do it over and again. This also can become a powerful tool to make money. Imagine turning what you love to do and monetizing it, you will make so much profits from it. A lot of people are already monetizing their talents and making money from what they love to do, you too can.

_{Image from Pixabay}

There are some people that all they do is to do what they love to do and earn money from it. Take some professional footballers for example, some of them grew up to love the round leather, and they would play just anything because they love the game. No wonder when they enter football professionally, they would do well and earn from it. I once heard a discourse with a friend that is into stand-up comedy. He made a humorous, yet very revealing comment. He said; "isn't it adorable that people pay me to do what I love to do"? He enjoys what he is doing, which he would have also been doing even if he was not paid for it, yet he figured out a way to monetize it. The processes involved in trading one's hobby and talents for money include:

1. Outline the particular unique skill that you have, which you want to monetize.

Before you can make money from what you love to do, or from your talents, hobbies, etc, you should first outline them and this will keep you focused on the track. The man that founded the KFC (Colonel Harland Sanders), after failing so many time, he then figured out that he could cook. So with the little gratuity he was paid, he started a cookout business, which set him on the pathway of founding KFC. You have to specifically identify what you wish to do that will bring you money. These can also be centered around your strengths, passion, discipline, etc. When you have identified your hobbies or the skills you have, it will be easy for you to make money from it. A friend once made this particular statement during the course of our discussions some months back:

What you can do well, do not do it for free; make money from it.

Story was told of a local piper in the place were I grew up. He loved to play the Oja (local flute) that he was normally called to the Palace to play. He was so good at it that whenever he started playing, you could literally hear songs coming out from the Oja, but he was very poor. One day, he met a wise man that advised him on how to monetize his art of piping. He met with the traditional ruler and told him to absorb him into his cabinet so that he can be piping for him, and that is the only way he can continue piping for him.

The ruler thought to himself "the end-of-year festival is fast approaching and we need a skilled piper to grace the event." So the ruler granted his request because there was no other person that can pipe so well like him. That was how he started earning money as part of the cabinet members. If he had not done this, he would have still be going to the Palace to play for free, while wasting his talents. He figured a way to monetize what he has and used it to get what he wants. I once told someone that "the reason we have talents is to make profits from them."

_{Image from Pixabay}

2. Create a saleable brand around your passion, hobby, or talent.

In the place where I grew up, many people sell bean pudding (moi moi) as one of the staple foods. However, there was a particular woman that turned her own into something spectacular. She would put fish or egg inside it and the packaging was brilliant. She registered the company and then branded the moi moi with the labels of her company. People from all over the neighbourhood and beyond would leave other sellers that are close to them and come to patronise her because of the brand she created.

More often than not, it is branding and packaging that makes something that is seemingly ordinary to appear extraordinary and attractive. It is true that you may have talents or skills or gifts, but how you package and brand them will determine their value and saleability. What makes your business to stand out from other similar products in the market may just be your branding. So you have to take branding with utmost seriousness.

3. Market yourself and your product.

After observing the above points, then you need to extensively market what you have so that others will know about it. Good a thing, in this era of Internet proliferation, social media has presented us with many options to market our products from the comfort of our devices (like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp Status, etc). So you can leverage on any of these for effective marketing.

Thanks for reading