How To Transform Your Passion Into Professionalism
Est. reading time 3 minutes
Five Key Business goals
It’s absolutely true that if you want your business to thrive you need to love what you do. For many people, that means turning a passion project into a fully-fledged business—but they can fall into the trap of not running things like a business.
Whether it’s a lack of knowledge or the wrong mindset—this professionalism trap is where most small businesses fail. To help kickstart your business, here are our five Key business goals to help you transform your passion into a professional business mindset.
Put Productivity First
We don’t doubt that you’re keeping yourself busy and constantly working away at your business—but are you being productive? The first thing you need to do is keep track of your business goals—this can be profit, growth, recognition etc., but make sure it’s something that’s measurable.
Then you need to have a daily or weekly list of tasks related to your business—not just the creating of products and services that you love, but things like marketing, accounting, logistics, anything that goes into the furthering of your goals.
If you spend most of your time accomplishing tasks that achieve your goals: you’re being productive. If not, you’re simply being busy.
Make Informed Decisions
Let’s clear something up first—intuition and empiricism aren’t polar opposites that don’t belong together. Transforming your business into a thriving professional outfit isn’t just about making decisions driven purely by numbers—it’s about using all the information available to make an informed decision.
This means digging deep into the numbers to understand your spending, profit margins, and more. But it also means letting your creativity and instincts guide you, whether that’s a moment of marketing inspiration or partnering up with another business whose products or services you admire.
Using all of the tools at your disposal will help you build a unique brand while also making smart decisions that work towards your business goals.
Don’t Go It Alone
For many small businesses—and especially those that start out as passion projects—the solo entrepreneur model is a popular path to follow. It’s easy to understand why; you have the relevant skills and a genuine love for what you’re doing that you’re worried other people won’t share.
But you need to begin preparing for an eventual scaling up of your business—bringing in a small team at the right time can be an essential step on the ladder of growth.
You should also ask yourself if there any areas of running a business you’re struggling with or not prepared for—these are areas you should consider outsourcing. A virtual assistant, bookkeeper, copywriter, etc. are all professions out there to help you and your business be the most productive it can be.
Marketing Matters
One of the true differences between a passion project and a professionally run business is the level of resources you’re putting into marketing your products or services.
Marketing is essential to growth—but chances are it’s not something you have any background in. The first step you need to take is to set out some clearly defined marketing goals—and then establish whether you can achieve these yourself, or if you need to invest in outside help in the form of an agency or business expert.
Update Your Website
Before we get into why you need to be updating and fine-tuning your online presence—does your business have a dedicated website? If it doesn’t, it will be impossible to achieve your business goals.
If you do have a website—there’s a good chance you set it up when you were first starting out, or maybe even before you came to view your business as a serious project. If that’s the case your website needs to reflect your business—this means having something that’s professionally designed and relevant to your branding and products or services.
Thankfully—Radar Hill are experts when it comes to building professional-quality websites for businesses. We can also offer a wealth of advice and services that will help make 2020 a successful year for your business. To find out more, get in touch with us today.