Passion to Profit: Turning Your Hobby into a Business

Hello and welcome to the show. The usual apologies because I am in a noisy environment, but let's get on with the show. So today we're going to be what we're still on this whole thing about passion projects and profitable businesses. And today we're going to look at how to build a sales mindset that is going to help you transition from your passion project to your profitable business. That's because there are people out there who, like I was a decade and a half ago, you know,

you're good at photography or you're good at sewing. You're good at knitting. You have a green thumb. You're curious about agriculture. You know, whatever it is, there's this thing that you're doing in the closet and you have thought deep and hard within yourself, and you think, you know what? Instead of just baking bread in my kitchen for my husband and my kids, I think I can bake bread and sell to the neighbourhood supermarket or to the Madam down the road or whatever.

You're thinking about making the transition from passion project to a profitable business. So the sales mindset that is required for that is quite simple. Well, depending on who you talk to. Now, I know that if you approach most of the folks that you see on Instagram and things like that, they're going to start going all woo, woo and spiritual on you about how you need to manifest. You need to call this into existence and blah blah, blah blah, blah.

Now all of that is important. And yes, we should be manifesting and calling things into existence. You know, in fact, scratch that From a philosophical point of view, I would say you shouldn't be manifesting or calling, calling anything into existence unless you have a firm understanding about, well, let's have a firm understanding about what constitutes reality. Because if you're going to have a relationship with some nebulous, mysterious force of the universe and, you know,

bloody bland, all that crap, you at least want to be sure that you are speaking to the right being, the right entity, and then all of that. So my own opinion, stop manifesting unless you have a firm grasp about who you are calling out to to help you manifest whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing. So yeah, manifest. Oh, sorry, let me scratch that. Don't manifest. Say your prayers. Ask God for help and get the journey on the road.

So now, once you get all the spiritual stuff out of the way, there are two primary questions that we need to figure out. And in the process of figuring out these two questions, your sales mindset is going to take care of itself. So all that psychological stuff? Yes. All the spiritual stuff? Yes. Really important. Yes. One. In the beginning, we just need to sort out two main questions, and if you get the answer to the questions, then the rest is going to take care of itself.

So number one, we have to determine if this project has some commercial viability. So if you're like me and you're in university, you're handy with photographs. You're trying to figure out, will people even pay for my photographs to begin with? If you're good at baking bread, you make wonderful banana bread. Your husband loves it. Your children think it's absolutely the best you have to try and figure out. Will anybody else want to buy my banana bread if you're very good at making clothes for your kids,

just like my grandmother was. My grandmother was a seamstress that's on my mother's side. That's why she made all the clothes for her children. You're now trying to figure out that OK, my husband thinks I make wonderful clothes for the kids. The children wear their clothes proudly. Will my neighbours? Will people in church? Will people at the office? Will people at the market with anybody else pay me on my clothes? So we're trying to figure out if this project, if this passion,

has any commercial viability. That's the first thing we need to sort out. Then second thing we need to figure out is if we can build a selling framework around it. Because if I can figure out that people will pay for my photography, but I don't know how to build a selling framework around it, then I'm just going to be dead in the water. Which is what happened not just to me, but a bunch of other folks that made us struggle and things took longer than it needed to be.

Because if you don't, if you can't build up the selling framework around what your project or your passion is, you're going to find that you get one or two buyers this month, and then things will be quiet for next month. And then in March you will get two or three other people. And then things will go quiet for another three or four months. And, you know, you get the whole point here. That's what we used to call feast and famine back in the wedding photography days.

I mean, my own set, people who started being photographers in, you know, a decade, you know, like 2 decades back, that's what we used to call it, feast and farming. So you know, December comes round, everybody from America, Germany, UK, everybody's coming back home, people are getting married. So December what? There's lots of business. You know, you you book like 5 or 6 weddings in December, you make a profit of maybe 100 grand,

150K each wedding. Then you know you're swimming in money and everything is looking nice. And then January comes and everything is quiet. February comes and everything is quiet. And then after that Lenten period, the Easter, then wedding seem to pick up back again. And then you make a bunch of money. And then all of a sudden everything is quiet. So that's what we have to try and figure out in Step 2 if we can build a selling framework around it.

So if you answer those two questions positively, #1 is anybody else going to pay me for this passion, for this interest, for this whatever I'm doing in closet, in the closet? And then #2, if I can build a selling framework around it, then making the transition is pretty much going to take care of itself. Now I know I'm talking about it as if it's very, very easy or very, very simple. And I'll say yes, it is simple in the sense of the questions that we have to tackle are not complex at all.

The questions are relatively straightforward. The hard part is going to be in the day-to-day trying to execute, to try and answer those questions. Now to step one, what is the commercial viability of this, my project or this my passion? We have to figure it out. There's no way around this. We have to figure this out before we start, before we go beyond baking banana bread for your kids in the kitchen or taking photographs of your brother and his children.

I mean, which was my own case, you know, taking my brother had kids long before me. He got married early about 25 S his kids are teenagers now. The fact makes me wish I had started when I was early and where was I anyway, So that's how I started, you know, taking pictures of the baby at home and then family is gathered. You take pictures of everybody with the baby and then it's a birthday party, you take the pictures and then blah blah blah blah blah.

But eventually you have to figure out, is this thing commercially viable? Apart from my brother and my mom and my girlfriend, Does anybody like what I do and what people are going to be willing to pay for it? Now the answer to figure out commercial viability, it's twofold. Their quantitative methods and their qualitative methods. The qualitative methods involve going around and talking to a bunch of people, and if you're listening to the show, you have kind of guessed the one that I

prefer. I prefer the method where you go around and talk to a bunch of people, because when you talk to a bunch of people, it's good data. It's not the kind of data that you can use for a doctoral thesis or put in an Excel spreadsheet, but it gives you a good sense of who you need to be talking to, how much they're willing to pay. Are these people serious? It helps you put a finger on the pulse in a way that quantitative methods which is sitting down and doing research and stuff.

It gives you richer first hand data. So that is what I prefer and that's what I think everybody else should start with. But if you don't like talking to people, don't worry. There are other ways of going around this. So yeah, figure out if there's interest or demand. Now, in my own case, especially since I I prefer going around and talking to people, I I went and I printed up, printed off a bunch of business cards in my own case.

I think that was a mistake. I don't think the first thing you should do, you should go on print out business cards. But now is how I thought about building business back in the day. You know, go and print your business card, print Flyers, print whatever. And then start handing it out. But before you put down money because the expense might not be that bad, because I think in my own case it cost me about, I think it was close to £20 back in the day.

That was back when I was still in Scotland, young man doing my postgraduate. Yeah, doing my postgraduate studies And OK, back then I was not married. OK, Patience. And I were just dating back then. And so that's where it all started for me. So I printed off the business cards. My recommendation, I don't think you need to do that. And I started talking to people. So first thing I tried to do was I spoke to a classmate of mine who was having a birthday, a birthday party.

He was the son of a Supreme Court judge. So he was more flush with cash than the rest of us. And so he was throwing this big party. But there's going to be lots of booze. And for those of you who spend time in the UK, you know that alcohol is crazy expensive in the uki mean. I just, I don't know why alcohol is really expensive. So it's going to be this big bash. And I figured, OK, big boy, Yoruba boy, big spender, rich family, you know, who want to have photographs taken.

So I went to go and talk to him And so I offered 50 lbs To cover this, his birthday bash and the whole thing failed. He ghosted me so I didn't end up taking pictures there. But then I spoke to one of my wife's classmates who had a young family at the time, just one baby at the time. I think now she has three kids and she's an Instagram influencer in the fashion space. So I spoke to her and I wondered if she was going to do 30 lbs for me to cover her kiddies birthday and I was only going to provide soft copy only, no prints.

Also, because in the UK it's not just alcohol that is expensive, printing photographs is mad expensive in the uki. Just don't know why. But that's just the case. So you notice I spoke to one person £50. You know, maybe I was in shock, maybe I was afraid so the next person I spoke to I just knocked off 2030 lbs and that was successful. Oh, by the way, that's one of the reasons why I'm really heavy on these things in podcast posts where I tell people, stop negotiating against yourself.

It's possible that I could have started off my photography career doing birthday parties for children at 50 lbs, but I'll never know because my first 50 LB conversation didn't work out. So I negotiated against myself and I took off 20 whole pounds. That's a lot of money and started off at the lower rung. So let's stop negotiating against ourselves. It's hard enough negotiating against other people. If for some reason you started off the arbitrary whatever at 50

lbs, I really think you should stretch that 50 for as long as possible. This 50 did not work. At least try and have a conversation with like 5 or 10 people before you decide. You know what, this £50 is too much. In my own case, I had a conversation with one person, charged £50, it didn't work the next person and went to 30. So if that didn't work, what was I going to do? Go to the next person and then offer ten? I mean, you guys see how it goes, so let's stop negotiating against ourselves.

And yeah, so that that turned out to be successful. Like I said, she was the classmate of my girlfriend, my girlfriend who is now my wife, and that's how I got it going. So this was the beginning of me trying to figure out, is anybody going to pay me for this thing that I love doing and how much will they be willing to pay me? I went out and I started talking to a bunch of people. It helps if you start with people that are within your,

what would I say, social space. So I spoke to my classmates. Then I started talking to my girlfriend's classmates. So you start off with people that you know. It's a lot easier when you go and start talking to strangers. So summary sales motions that included in this case, it's a stage called prospecting. Prospecting is when you're trying to answer the question who might be interested in this product or service and then start having conversations with these people.

At the time, I knew nothing about sales, so I didn't know that this is what I was doing intuitively, but that's what I was doing was prospecting. So you need to ask yourself that question. So yes, my husband loves the bread. My children say this bed is the best, is the best in the world. Then you ask yourself, who else might be interested in banana bread, this kind of banana bread that I'm baking. And then you start the prospecting with the familial circles from a familial that's family and familiar people that you know.

You start the sales motion based on that. So OK, I have 20 friends. We go to church together. Of the 20 friends, ten of them have young children in the same age as my own children. Perhaps I can go on, talk to those 10, send them WhatsApp messages, talk to them after church to see if they would be interested in buying banana bread for their family. So that's how it starts. See, it's not that hard. It can be nerve wracking.

It's not easy putting yourself out there first time, especially when you have no prior business experience. So it can be nerve wracking, but it is doable. You just sit down with a pen and paper and you start coming up with any idea that seems reasonable at the time who might be interested. So like in the Baker case, it's very simple. I have friends similar situation as me. There are ten of them out of my group of 20. Let me talk to them, let me see how it goes.

Then for the other ten who don't have kids, perhaps they might like banana bread to eat themselves. Or maybe one of them is in charge of planning the end of year party at the office. Perhaps might need banana bread for that party. Just don't worry about getting the answer right at this stage. Just get your pencil and your paper, try and come up with as many possible common sense answers as possible, and then we'll track them down.

Then qualification. That's the next stage. You have to be sure that you're speaking to the right person. And then discovery is where you're trying to figure out if your product or service can indeed solve the problem. So those two stages, I prefer to talk of them in one breath because it's hard to tell them apart. So am I speaking to the right person? Does the person have a problem I can solve? How bad is the problem?

Those sorts of things. So typically it will be the same conversation. That's the point where you go and talk to your friend saying how now, how are you doing as a family, as a husband, blah blah blah, small. Talk about the kids, how the kids are driving you crazy, blah blah blah. And then eventually you switch into the whole whatever I bake bread, I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of selling, selling this thing. I beg, you know, you're my best friend, you know, being friends,

so, so, so, so, so I beg just help me come and buy from me, you know, that kind of thing. That's how the average Nigerian person I think would start off the conversation and is not a bad approach. But in having those conversations, you're going to be able to quickly figure out if your banana bread is a shit and if people are going to be willing to pay for your banana bread. Because your friend might say sure and bulk at the price that you have, or your friend might say sure and then buy a lot because the price is low or something.

But bottom line is, from having all these conversations, you're going to quickly get a sense of the people like my banana bread. Are they willing to pay for it? How much are they willing to pay for it? One another thing, Most importantly, I'm going to be able to figure out all the stress that I'm going through. Buying eggs, buying flour, baking, sweating, losing sleep. You know, is this worth the worth, The hassle? That's also something we'll need to consider.

Then when you're done with qualification and discovery, the next stage is the proposal, which is where you have to put something in front of someone that they can say yes or no to. That's why you ask them the question. You don't just go and talk to somebody and you say, Oh my sister, how now, how you did, blah, blah, blah. I'm thinking of starting this business. And then your friend says, that's a beautiful idea. That's beautiful, that's beautiful.

God to bless you, God to bless you. And then you finish and say, okay, sister, thank you very much. Bye, bye. And then both of you walk away. And that's not the way they start this. You go there, you have the conversation. You try and figure out if they're interested. It looks like she's interested. Then you put a proposal because OK, And then you know what? Because it's you. Because you're my friend. Let me deliver 5 loaves of banana bread.

You can be using it for the children's morning snacks when they're going to school. I will give you each loaf AT-75. What do you think you know? That's the proposal. So you've given her something she can say yes or no to, and then you keep quiet and then you wait for the answer. That's a proposal. You're going to be able to come away from the conversation knowing whether you have a customer on hand or well, anyway, you get my point.

You're going to be able to come away from the conversation with something rather than just going and talking to your friend and telling her how you're thinking of starting this business. But then you don't have the conversation about whether she'd be interested or not, and you don't give her any proposal and she just leaves you saying, God bless you, God bless you is nice, It's good for people to pray for you. But our prayers is not what we're looking for.

We're trying to figure out at this stage, is somebody going to pay for my banana bread or not? And then of course, of course, after you make a proposal, you have to ask for the commitment, then repeat this process over and over and over and over and over again. You have to do this multiple times. Don't do what I did, which is you ask one person at 50 lbs, the person says no, and then you drop the price to 30 lbs and then whatever, stick to that initial price that you've picked or pricing.

That's another conversation altogether. But The thing is, whether it's arbitrary or we do some research, we come up with some price. Don't back down from that, speak to lots of people. First, we need to get lots of data about this current price that we have before we decide are we dropping the price. And you'll find in some cases that you might have to increase the price. You know, a friend of yours might buy and after a while say,

look, you know what? I'm feeling guilty. I've been buying this thing from you at 75. But the truth is, honestly, if you go and check this market or that market, people are selling it for 15K for one loaf. So I think you should raise the price. But for me, we'll keep it at 75. You know, if your friend comes to you and has that kind of conversation, then yeah, it's it's good. You can thank her for the feedback and keep selling it to hard 75.

But now, you know, for other people, perhaps it's time to increase my price to 10K for a loaf or 12K or 13K. That's if you're too scared of trying out the 15K that seems to be prevailing in the market. So repeat the process over and over again from doing that, from talking to multiple people, let's say, OK, back to the initial example. You have 20 friends, 10 have kids. You decide to start with those who have kids. By the time you're done talking to the first set of 10 who have kids.

OK, let's say by the time you're done talking to the 20, the 10 who have kids, the 10 who don't have kids, you're going to be able to get a sense of who is interested. Is it the single folks that love my banana bread? Or is it those who have kids and they're buying it for snacks for the children to take to school? And then things like that. You find out who's interested. You get a sense of how many people say yes, how many people say no.

You're going to get a sense of how much they're willing to pay. You're also going to get a sense of whether this profit margin is worth your while. So if at 75 you're taking home profit of three K5 per loaf and it's taking you 4 hours to bake each batch and you run the numbers you know either makes sense or it doesn't make sense. You know this is all the data that you need. Then also try and get a sense of how many people you have to talk to to get a paying client because it helps.

We try and figure out if you can build a selling process or on it later on. Because if you figure out that you have to talk to 20 people to get one person to buy, then now you know two things. Number one, you need to get better at selling so they can increase the conversions. So instead of talking to 20 people to get one client, perhaps you can talk to 20 people and get three people to buy or get four or five people to buy.

Then you're also now going to know that if you talk to 20 people to get 4 customers, you now know for the future that if you want to get ideally 1010 customers every week, then you're going to have to be talking to, OK, I've lost my mouth, Is that three times the amount? OK, let's say three times the amount of people, so 60 people. So that is how you start answering all these questions of whether you can build a selling framework around it.

But you're not going to figure this out if you only talk to one person. So talk to multiple people. So back to the bread case. Talk to these, your first set of 20 friends, and then take a step back. You know, talk to your pastor, talk to your husband, talk to your business coach. You know, whatever. You guys will be able to walk through all the data that you've gathered so far and you get a a better sense of how you're going to move forward.

Most importantly, this will give you a sense of whether this passion project is worth building a business around, especially with the amount of stress that you're going to go through. Please, I can't harp on this enough. Baking bread for your children and your husband is not the same thing as baking bread for a list of 10 customers that you have. It's the same. Taking photographs for your brother and his kids is not the same thing of taking photographs for strangers that you don't know.

I mean, your brother is your brother. He's paying you chicken, paying your chicken feet, or maybe he's not paying you at all. But it's a different. I mean, if you take photographs for your brother's baby and you take two weeks to get back to him, he might not be mad that much because you guys are brothers. But then if it's your bride and you've taken 3 weeks, you haven't delivered, she could be absolutely pissed. It's different.

So we have to try and figure these things out. Now like I said, if you don't like talking to people, that's not a problem. You can do quantitative research. That is where that's where those people like to sit behind keyboards. So you sit behind your keyboards, send out all your emails to folks asking them questions. You send out Google Forms with your surveys. Are you willing to buy banana bread? Take care. If yes, how much?

How many loads do you want? Blah blah blah. Some people prefer to do things that way. Send Google Forms through e-mail, Send out SurveyMonkey to everybody in your church or everybody in your office. And then there's also secondary research. That's the way you look for books, papers, things that have already been published about those things. So you're thinking of getting into the wedding photography space. You go online, you see who has written research about wedding photography in Nigeria, the best way to get into it, blah blah blah.

So yeah, check Google, look for books. Yeah, so there's quantitative stuff. If you don't like talking to people, like I said, my recommendation is please do both. I'm not saying one is better than the other. So do the quantitative stuff. Send out your emails, Send out SurveyMonkey, send out your Excel sheet. Go and look for reports on the Internet that talk about how to enter the bread market in Abuja in 2024. Yeah, by all means do all that,

maybe even attend one or two classes. But eventually you start the business. We will have to talk to strangers. This is a skill that comes in handy for the future, so don't delay it because you're going to have to get to it at some point. You might as well start now. Even after you do all this quantitative stuff that I've spoken about from behind your keyboard, you still have to go and start talking to some people. Make it easier on yourself by starting with people that you have a familial relationship with.

Your mom, your dad, your uncles, your aunties, your brother, your cousins. You know, it's a lot easier to talk to those people after that. Now start talking to people that you have a familiar relationship with, people that work, people at church, your neighbors you know. So start with familial family and after that familiar. You start with those people you you know, you get some reps and you'll be a lot more comfortable before you start talking to total strangers.

Then the second part, can you build a selling framework around it? Talking to strangers is going to give you all the information that you need to decide whether you can build a selling framework around it by talking to these people. Back to the bread example, talking to your 20 friends, they tend to have kids, they tend that don't have kids. It's going to give you a sense of should I be having these conversations online or offline?

Should I be going to people's offices? Should I be making phone calls? Should I be sending out stuff on Instagram, DMS or should I be on Tiktok? You know, this is where you're going to get all the data you need. We're going to be able to figure out pricing. Should I be doing that 75 per loaf or 13 K per loaf or 15, five per loaf payment terms? Should I be collecting 100% upfront or can I do 60% down, you know, blah, blah, blah.

It's all those conversations that are going to help you figure out all of this. So that's why it's important. And if you're scared of making the transition, don't worry, don't be too scared because we all go through it. Wedding photographers, you know, we have all gone through it. Web developers is the same. You type fancy code on your keyboard, but eventually you have to talk to somebody and say you know what? For this website you have to give me 50K.

Eventually you have to have that conversation. Same thing with the cake Baker, even the pig farmer, you have to have that conversation. Eventually you have to take your pigs to the market to say Madam, I'm selling a this so and you can see that this show is important for Afghanistan. It's a superior breed, you know, blah blah blah, give me 250 K for this pig. So eventually you have to have that conversation. So best way to think about it is to think about it as baptism of fire.

We all go through it, especially those who also have legal backgrounds. You know, you go to to cope with your orga and then your guy doesn't tell you when he tells you, look, you know what, today's motion. You're the one that is going to argue it and then they just throw you in and they see whether you sink or swim. So for those of us who studied law and medicine, you know, it happens. You go there, you don't know. Today is your day.

And then the chief consultant says, OK, you're the one that is going to handle today's client consultation session where I go, go and talk to the person. So think of it as baptism on fire or think of it as losing your virginity. Either way, it gets easier the more you do it. Now, I am not saying that you guys should go out and have premarital sex. That's the podcast for. Sorry the subject for another episode and maybe for another podcast entirely.

So no to premarital sex, but think of it in those terms. It's a baptism of fire. You're just losing your virginity. The more you do it, the more fun you're going to have. So that's all for today folks. Remember to connect with me on WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are hitting me up outside the shores of Nigeria, also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayedeh.

I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and the e-mail address from the link where you're currently listening to this episode. Please reach out. I love hearing from you guys what you like about the podcast, what you find confusing other questions that you would like me to answer. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.