Starting a passion based business

I have always believed that following passion in your work life, was a given to enjoy work satisfaction. I never understood the school of thought that argues following your passion is irresponsible, and risky for achieving financial success. My personal journey has been influenced by the opposite school of thought that actively pursuing personal passions in your work life, helps you to achieve your potential. However I am aware that the measure of achieving your potential for some people is defined by financial success, and for others a sense of achievement not related to money at all. In the following series of interviews I will explore the meaning of passion and success from the point of view of several entrepreneurs with vastly different business interests. The interviews will explore how these entrepreneurs’ personal insights about passion and success have been used to build a passion based business.

It is truly inspiring to hear from people who have a special zest for their business based on discovering and following their passions to success. Each person will share what following their passion has meant for them. Listening to these stories has helped me to clarify what passion and success means to me. I hope the interviews help you to clarify what success and passion mean to you and helps you to track down and unearth passion in your own life and business.

The transcripts of these interviews have been edited slightly, to make it easier to revisit the information provided by each entrepreneur. Full audio is available from here

Following her passion for diving in and learning new things quickly and a drive to create a lifestyle that allowed her to spend time with her son. Marta founded Movabo a marketing business that specialises in helping entrepreneurs start under budget that now has clients from many corners of the globe.

Martas take on passion

Your passion is really driving you and you can make a difference into the world. You can change peoples lives. It doesn’t matter what you really do it can be a small thing but it can be very profound. No job is not exciting if you like doing it, it doesn’t matter how small and insignificant you are. It does change peoples lives.

Being passionate in business is when you treat them like as a true person with their own unique story and problem. That when you can start to have a conversation with them and really listen. If you take things on face value and don’t take the time to dig deeper, you are just going to do a disservice to people.

I’ve heard people talk like “ I haven’t converted any leads into sales” and I have you asked them any questions. Do you know anything about those people at all. Its really important with social media to make this connection and find out what you can do for them and find out how you can really help them.

Not all passions are made for business

Not all passions are supposed to be businesses. One thing people don’t understand is they start their business from passion and think ‘ why don’t I enjoy it anymore, why don’t I love it, why do I hate it, I used to love it’. Then you realise you used to love it when it was just time to time, when it was just your reward, when it was something you were doing on a weekend. When you are doing it for a living when you have to do it day in, day out. Sometimes the passion, the love for it can be lost. So its important to start a business from passion with a bigger mission, with a vision that’s driving you. But we really have to think carefully” Will I enjoy being for it, will I enjoy selling it because that is what you will have to do.

The seed of Martas passion

You don’t want to have a whole list. I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to be a secret agent. Other passion was for books. I always loved reading them, writing them. When I was growing up I was so sure I was going to get a nobel prize for my novel. That I am going to be so important. Everyone is going to see how good I am with my words. My passion was always being creative. My curse is I learn very quickly. The other side of learning quickly means I get bored of it very quickly. I was quickly mastering subjects and getting bored with them. I was thinking omg I changing a job every 6 months, every 2 years. I was always going to a company, fixing it, then wanting a new challenge. That would drive me. That’s why everything I do to this point has lead me to consult for businesses for helping people because I can dive in quickly into their business and see everything.

How Marta started her business

I started in a round about way. I needed a way to earn money whilst kids were young and didn’t wnt to go back to the office job. So I found clients that were in the opposite time zone to me. When my kids were going to sleep. My clients were just waking up and that is what really worked for me. I actually have very few local clients. When I go to meeting locally people are saying “ how do you get those international clients”. They all think the only way to get clients is by going to the networking meetings. Social media is like an open room, like a party for the networking meeting. Its funny when you get a client referring you from one end of the world to a client on the opposite end of the world. Suddenly you are an international business run from home.

On starting a business

A lot of people say I really want a business but I don’t really know yet what I’m really good at it. I say just start doing things because then you will see how it naturally evolves. A lot of people start with online courses, and reading a lot but if you’re really just get an idea for business and just go out over the weekend and try to find 3 clients that might like it.

You don’t have to start really fancy. You don’t have to have this business education. Yeah sure it helps. But really if you have an idea and start doing it that counts for more than any kind of education than you can get. No amount of readings about it can prepare you for what it’s really going to be like. There is always going to be something unexpected. You really have to learn by doing things. Planning is good but if you plan so much you can plan yourself into oblivion. You can spend 5 years planning your perfect idea for a perfect business. You can spend 6 months designing a fabulous website. It’s not going to lead anywhere. You have to find clients, you have to find people that have the problem and that’s the biggest thing. That’s the bare bones of it.

I have a metaphore about branding your own circus. You have to become a ringleader and pull everything together. All the monkeys, all the elephants. At the end of the day you are the person knee deep in elephant dung. You have to shovel it. You won’t know about it until you actually start

All you need is a ….., a proper service and you can bootstrap it to the top. Start to grow under budget. We can start with very little money, technology is our friend and what makes it possible to start a business from home and really make it.

Roadblocks and Insecurities

One thing I know is when you think “ Am I the only one who doesn’t want to be on video or I’m scared I’m going to do something funny in the podcast or oh no one is going to understand me or I can’t make the pictures of myself on the website because people going to think I she looks horrible. We all have that and all women I think we are just born with it. Thinking someone else is having a better life, more confident. They are better at everything and we are thinking ‘ no one is going to like little old me”. Then when you step into your own business you have to face that, that you are extraordinary.

A lot of people are not starting because they think my website is not looking as good as someone else website. Or I’m not looking as good as Marie Forleo in her video. If you look back she started with skype like everyone else.

When you are starting you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to keep doing things, you have to keep learning and then you will know and you might stumble across the perfect solution. Just start doing what you think you can do.

Balancing Business and Life

You have to be really careful to take care of yourself first. Its like an aeroplane you have to put the mask first on yourself otherwise if you collapse you’re not going to help anyone. When people say about growing their business they often think about getting staff, getting a virtual assistant or team manager. But the one thing that will really grow your business is looking at your personal life. For me childcare was a big problem, so hiring a nanny was how I solved it. Lets be honest we are only people so if there is something really wrong with your life, if you are feeling burnt out, if you are feeling overwhelmed, frusterated. You’re not going to produce that much. If you are unhappy your work is not going to be brilliant.

Defining Success

Success isn’t a numerical value contracted to people. There is a lot of talk about how you are successful in business when you are making 6 figures, when you are making 10 000 plus monthly launches. When you’re hitting the 7 figures, that is when you are successful.

But really the number is different for everyone and everyone should look into their own lifestyle and how it works for them. Because some people might want to travel the world and they want their online business because it gives them freedom to do that. For other people like freedom is, I can pick up my kids. I can stay at home when they are ill or unwell an I can just be there for them.

There was a study done that says, your happiness level increases when you’re earning at the $60 000 level per year. But after that it doesn’t make you any happier to earn $100 000 or $200 000 or 2 million.

Most people are earning $20 0000- $30 000 per year. Its like 5% of people earning those 7 figures, 6 figures businesses.