I love passion! I love purpose! I love making money doing what you love! I love all of that stuff and I do believe that everyone can do exactly that. However, finding the thing that you want to build your life around, that is passion-fuelled, that is purpose-driven, and that you love, is just the first step.

You also have to make this passion make you money.

And guess how you do that?! – PEOPLE! People are how you get from having a great big dream of what you want to happen to actually making it happen. Let me explain as I go through these 4 points.

What is the problem

So, you have taken the first step. You decided to make money doing what you love. You wake up with a spring in your step knowing that you have finally found the thing you want to drop dead doing.

Well, it will not be long before you realize that you cannot live on happy feelings alone – You have to bring some money in. And you bring some money in by solving problems for someone else.

You know what you want to do, great. But how does it solve a problem or meet someone else’s need? Why will they buy it from you? Do they know that they have a need for it?

Take a moment here to see how your thing aligns with their needs. If you can find an urgent, pressing need that they have, even better.

Listen, this does not mean giving up your ideas of how you want to spend your life. This means getting VERY creative on how you position what you want to deliver as a solution to a problem that they have.

If you have something completely novel, then you may need to spend some time trialing different ways to position your self in the marketplace – BE COMMITTED to this process and in time, you will get clear on how what you have solves their problem.

If you choose to put stuff out there that’s already in the market, then check your competition’s strategies. Notice any gaps in the way they deliver and also remember that you are unique and the way you do things will never be the same as anyone else.

Allow your novelty to shine through. Go to Amazon, see reviews, see what people complain about if your product or service is talked about online, go to forums, do the research. Decide how to position yourself as solving the problem.

This is one major key to making money doing what you love – YOU NEED TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM. As mentioned, this may take trial and error to figure out how to solve the problem but DO THE WORK! And please do not give up hope even when it seems long and tedious.

Communication

OK, so now you need to start communicating with people, online, offline, anywhere and everywhere. You need to express yourself and how you can help them in as many different ways as possible.

Brainstorm different ways to tell people about you. Guest blog, write articles, get active on social media, go to networking events, get featured on the radio, be on magazine fronts. Do not hold back. When you get an idea for how to spread the word about you, follow through! Don’t give yourself too much time to think about it. You can refine your approach later.

For now, just go all out. When you get ideas of results, you can then decide to change tactics as you see what is working and what is not. But for right now, simply go all out! Be everywhere, doing something.

And if you are just getting started, do not underestimate how much effort it is going to take you to get seen everywhere. Do not think it is too much and people will get fed up of you – It is not the truth! It is just your fear talking. You need to keep getting out there in as many ways as you can think of!

See Also: How Online Blogging Is Influencing Business Trends 

Capture

Ok, now that people start to notice you, your next point of business is to start to capture people into your world. You need to have a social media platform of your own – A business page or a group that you run and that you can invite people into. This is a safe starting point for more people.

And then you want to get them onto a mailing list of your own. As much as we live in a very social media-driven world, you have no idea which platform will still be here next year. If you have spent lots of time and money getting people onto the one platform that closes down, you lose your audience and honey, you need an audience.

You need to start building an audience from point zero so please do not read any of these points in a sequential fashion and think that you do this stuff one after the other. NO!!! You do it all at once. You start to build an audience even when you are not completely sure what solution you provide.

Yes, I know it seems contrary to what you thought but that, my honey, is why lots of people do not succeed in business. They think that it all needs to go along with the way we were all trained in school. No! In school, you were trained to be an employee and now you are an entrepreneur. Everything is somewhat contrary to what you learnt.

Start building that mailing list now.

Close

Every day, in some way, you need to be mentioning your product, service, art, books, music, whatever! EVERY SINGLE DAY!

I am appalled and horrified by the numbers of entrepreneurs, particularly online ones, who do not tell people how they can solve problems and then take it one step further and tell people exactly what to do to BUY something. Never assume that people will read through the lines and know what to do next, they will not. They will just assume you are entertaining, inspiring educating for no reason. They will love you but they will not buy from you.

And remember that people are very distracted! Life today is very busy. If you are not specifically telling them what to do next to buy from you, then they will simply not buy. You will, however, have created space for the next savvy entrepreneur who is offering what you are but has the wisdom to mention it repeatedly. You would have warmed the customer up!

And again, do not be disheartened by how much of an audience you have to build to start making consistent sales. Just simply get on with following all these key ways and get on with creating wealth for you and yours slowly but surely and consistently.

See Also: How to Ensure Growth in Small Business 

Yes, you can create a life making money doing what you love but it will take some hard, committed, focused activity from you. But hey, if you love doing it, is it really work?

Fight for, deliberately design the life you are born to live. Because you want to.

 

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Regardless of the nature of business one engages in, there’s no downplaying the importance of branding. The success of any entrepreneurial endeavor depends on the way it’s packaged and presented to the general public. There’s so much at stake with reputation that it’s of great advantage to put good effort into maintaining a positive public image.

When you are working and no one is looking, it’s an indication that something is off. You may write this off as a down-time period in business, but without rapid action, not only will you lose the few customers patronizing you to your competition, you’ll also lose any competitive edge you previously had over your competitors.

Five Reasons Why Your Brand Isn’t Getting Attention from Anyone

In any venture, there’s usually more than one causative factor that results to a problem. There are several possible reasons why you are recording low attention from your audience. Before you decide on a course of action to take, it’s imperative that you examine every observable flaw in order to effectively troubleshoot the problem.

Too much information

This should be the first point of call as most Entrepreneurs, in a bid to outclass the competition, churn out loads of information without considering how relevant it is to the receiving audience.

Before engaging on a marketing mission, you must keep in mind that the average audience has a limited attention span. In order to deliver your message across effectively, you need to get to the point while you still have their ears. As your business grows to a higher level, lesser effort will be required on your part as your brand begins to capture the audience on its own. But before then, you should stick the basics.

Inconsistency

Many Entrepreneurs are guilty of being inconsistent. One day, they are singing a particular song, and the next, they are on to another due to impatience. Sometimes, the audience needs time to assimilate your message before making a favorable decision.

When you change your message and tone too often, you leave your audience confused, making them lose confidence in your brand.

Customers need to understand that, not only can they trust you with their time and money, they can also depend on you to deliver exactly what you promised. If your business messages are fluctuating, there’ll be little or no room for trust, making you lose the attention of even the most dedicated patrons.

See Also: 5 Smart Ways to Boost Brand Awareness 

Lack of proper outreach

Having the best product(s) along with a killer marketing plan will have absolutely no effect if you fail to properly reach out to your audience. It should come as no surprise that people will pay no attention to your brand if they have no interest in what you are selling. To fix this, endeavor to reach out to your target clients and watch as you reel them in one after another.

The most popular media might look great but they may not necessarily be most suitable to reach your target audience. Before choosing to advertise on TV, ask yourself, do members of my target audience watch TV often? Perhaps they read newspapers more.

Poor reputation

It goes without saying that reputation is a key player in business. When your brand is known for quality services, more people will want to associate themselves with your business. Not only will a great reputation garner more attention for your services, it helps to improve your company’s profile.

With bad reputation, no one will be interested in what you are selling even if it beats the price of your competition. And that’s because people consider the bearer of a message just as much as the message itself. In such a situation, it’s important that you put a hold on your promotional campaigns and implement crises management strategies to cleanse your brand of the negativity surrounding it.

Lack of uniqueness

It’s not your fault that so many people are doing what you do. But, rather than follow the crowd, you need to add a little touch of uniqueness to yours, and carve a niche for yourself.

If you are going to be doing exactly the same thing that other brands are doing, you’ll probably have no audience. Ask yourself “What are those things that others aren’t doing?” Put on your creative cap and implement some exciting ideas that are hard to ignore.

In business, attention translates to sales or patronage in the long run. When people are interested, it’ll take very little or no effort to convince them to patronize you. It’s better to do little and get well deserved recognition, than do it all and have no one giving you a second look. Don’t just wait for people to give you their attention; sometimes, you need to command it.

See Also: 6 Tips for Designing the Perfect Logo for Your Brand

 

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