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Is Your Business a Hobby?

    if not now, when

    Nothing happens without a sale” isn’t quite true.

    A lot happens to get a sale.

    The first thing being, you need something to sell. If you don’t have something to sell and offered for sale then you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.

    So, ask yourself – “where are my buy buttons?”

    Can’t find them? Maybe you don’t have a business after all. Now if you are literally just starting out then you might be excused – just make sure you don’t fall into the perpetual student syndrome.

    A buy button could be a digital or a physical product such as:

    • a product you’ve produced and are selling on your website
    • an affiliate link to someone else’s product
    • an Amazon carousel
    • a product on Amazon or a book on Kindle
    • a product on eBay or Shopify
    • a free offer on your site to get people’s email addresses to market to
    • an offer on Fiverr or Elance or other job site to provide a service

    So step back from your ‘business’ for a minute or two.

    Check in with yourself and ask if you are actually selling anything or are you playing at this business.

    You can’t learn forever. At some point you have to put a baby out there in the world and test if it will fly. It may not be perfect. It may flutter its wings and crash-land. It may plummet to the ground (but you’ll have a soft landing). It may just clear the tree tops yet keep flying low. It may surprise you and take off and soar.

    You won’t know if it’s good enough unless you push it out of the nest so if you’ve got a product or service, be honest about whether its time to let it fly. It will never be perfect, or finished, or just how you want it to be. Give it a go. You can always launch it again as version 2, the new improved one.

    Still undecided about what you’ll sell? If you’ve been trying to work this out for longer than three months just draw a line in the sand and pick something. Use it as a test pilot to learn what will and won’t work.

    It’s time.

    If you still have ‘reasons why’ you can’t put up any buy buttons yet then think about closing the workshop for a bit and coming back to it after you’ve had some time to reflect and rethink where you’re going and what you’re doing. The internet and potential opportunities will still be there in some form when you get back.

    No matter where you’re at, do something. Take action towards an actual sale. Stop pfaffing about and decide on a product or service, get it 80% of the way there, put the logistics in place then let it go.

    What’s your very next step?

     

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