Thank you James for guest posting on Derek's Home and Business Blog and I'm sure my readers will thoroughly enjoy your post.
Do You Love Your Business?
Most people dream of running a successful business. The idea of having enough money to do whatever you want to do, and of being your own boss, is incredibly tempting. Many people start up online businesses while trying to hold down a full time job, hoping that one day the online business will grow big enough to allow them to quit the office job.
Sometimes, that dream works out, but in many cases, the online project falls by the wayside because it was "too much work". What's the difference between the abandoned website and the successful one? In many cases, it's nothing to do with consumer demand, competition, or even marketing - it's just down to one simple thing - love.
Do What You Love
Running a successful business takes a lot of work. It's not just a matter of setting up an online shopping cart, paying an SEO expert, and letting the efulfilment software and outsourcing take care of things. You need to pick the right products, write good descriptions, market in the right places, and engage with your customers. It's a lot easier to do all that if you love the niche you're working in.
When you start a business that relates to a topic you enjoy, not only does it give you the freedom to engage in your hobbies, set your own hours, choose your working conditions, and even pick your colleagues, it also makes it easier to stay motivated.
No matter how successful your business, there will be times when work is slow. There will be days when you have to do tasks that you don't like (accounts, anyone?), and there will be customers that irritate you, or suppliers that let you down. It's during those times when your love of the subject matter will be what helps you get up in the morning, sit down, and get to work.
The Best Businesses Start as a Hobby
Many of the most successful businesses started out as hobbies. Successful Karate dojos are often ran by people that have been training in the art for decades. Some of the best writers started out as hobbyist bloggers, and the airline Era Alaska was started by someone who loved airplanes, and chose to use his skills as a bush pilot to create an airline to serve one of the most remote parts of the world.
When you turn a hobby into a business, the extra parts of running a business such as sorting out your accounts, finding suppliers, and setting up efulfilment, are much easier to cope with. The time fiddling with your efulfilment and ticketing systems becomes something you do in order to work with the things you love - and that's a whole lot more satisfying than doing things the other way around. When work is simply a means to an end, instead of the end itself, you're more likely to feel the stresses of being self employed, and if you're doing a job you hate you may as well go back to an office so that you can at least enjoy fixed hours and stability!
About The Author: James Harper writes on behalf of Hallmark Consumer Services who provide efulfilment services to businesses large and small. James writes on subjects relating to business and the internet and has experience of ecommerce solutions of all sizes.
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Great post! If you don't love your business, then it's a failing business.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew, thanks for your comment. You are indeed right about that, it is incredible the number of businesses that fail for just this reason.
DeleteOrganize your business with the right process. Be flexible as well to the market.
ReplyDelete