Are you side-hustling as a coach, consultant, or creative entrepreneur, and want to turn this passion into a full-time thriving business?

Let me help you!

Watch the video below to discover the three biggest lessons I’ve learnt about leveling up your passion project or side hustle into a proper business.

Prefer to read? Scroll down for the transcript!

Hey, it’s Iris helping you to find your passion, and make it your work. 

If you are new to my YouTube channel, welcome, so good to have you. And if you are returning, then thank you so much for coming back, it’s obviously great to have you too. 

In today’s video, I’m going to be sharing some of the best lessons I’ve learned on how to turn your passion project into a business. 

Because what I’ve seen is that a lot of you have discovered there’s this something that you love doing, you’ve discovered something that you are passionate about, and you ultimately want to turn that into your full-time thing. 

Stay tuned for those lessons, because I think they’re going to help you.

But before I do that, as always, if you like this topic, if you like what I’m talking about, then please leave a like. 

All right, enough talking, let’s get to it.

Turning a passion project into a business

So, what do I mean when I say passion projects? 

A passion project is something that you’re working on for and by yourself, and you just love doing it. 

Maybe you’re making a bit of money doing it, but that’s not why you started it, you started it out of pure love. 

Having said that, you do want to make a good living out of it at some point in the future. 

So, to help you do that, let me share the lessons I’ve learnt about how to turn your passion project into business.

Turning your passion into a business lesson #1

Lesson number one: it’s not about you. 

So, I know this sounds a bit harsh, but hear me out. 

With a passion project, it can be totally 100% about you, about what you want to do, what you want to offer.

But with a business, you simply can’t. 

So, with a passion project, you might have a really cool idea and it just feels good and you just go for it, you do it. You don’t necessarily ask your potential customers or clients about what they want, or you don’t ask them for their input, you don’t necessarily put yourself in their shoes. 

It doesn’t mean you don’t want to help them, or you don’t want to serve them, but the focus is much more on yourself and what you want to do. 

Whereas with a business, it’s less about what you want to do, and much more about the people that you are serving: your customers and clients. 

You need to shift your focus much more on them, and what they want, and what they need.

So, with a passion project, you might be asking yourself: “what cool things can I do?” What amazing things can I do?”

But with a business, the question should be more one of: “what do people want? How can I help them? How can I make a difference? How can I be of service? What do people want, and how can I give this to them?” 

Let me give you an example to illustrate this.

When I started my yoga and events business, The Wellscene, back in 2013, the initial concept was to host really cool yoga and fitness classes in secret locations around London, and then to offer food and drinks after class. 

Now, at the start, I struggled to sell tickets. People liked the idea, but I just struggled to sell tickets. 

So, I started asking for feedback from the people that attended events, as well as people that were following me on Instagram, and that were signed up for my email list. 

What I discovered is that they didn’t care about getting food after the class. 

I thought that was a really cool idea and that it should be an essential part or an integral part of the evening, but they didn’t care about it.

So, then I made the decision to just stop being stubborn, and take out the food element, and what happened… you know what? 

All of a sudden, ticket sales started going through the roof. 

So that’s a really good example where, when I focused on turning that passion more and more into the business, I had to start listening to what people were saying instead of just stubbornly focusing on what I wanted, what I thought was a good idea.

Turning your passion into a business lesson #2

Moving on to lesson number two which is: high prices are overrated. 

So, pricing is a really tricky thing. 

What I’ve noticed that happens a lot is when people are starting out, they look around at their peers, and check how much they are charging, and then they set that as a baseline as to how much they believe they should be charging themselves, even though those peers might have years more experience in the field. 

Or they listen to people who say, “Charge what you’re worth, and then add 20%,” or, “Charge premium prices. It’s the only way to make things financially sustainable.”

Now, look, you are free to charge however much you want, it’s completely up to you… but please, please, please, please, don’t believe that you have to either charge premium prices or the same price as your peers. 

The fee that you’re charging, your prices, are not a reflection of your self worth. 

They’re a reflection of a much wider set of things like your experience, your pricing strategy, the market dynamics, supply and demand. 

And by starting with a premium price, you’ll likely end up competing with people who’ve had 5 to 10 or even more years of experience in the field that you’re working in, or you’ll likely end up feeling like a fraud.

So, I wish someone would have told me when I started: 

“Hey, it’s okay. You can start with £40-50 sessions. You don’t have to start with premium prices.” 

By starting with lower price sessions, £40-50, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to work with more people, to build up your clientele list, to build confidence – and it doesn’t mean that you are a bad coach. 

It simply means that you value building your client list, building experience over getting paid the big bucks. 

But instead I was told:

“No, don’t waste your time with £40-50 sessions, design a package, and sell it for £1000.” 

So, that’s what I did. 

And I ended up really stinging myself because I felt not only like a fraud, but I also really started doubting myself when that package didn’t sell.

And look…

There are plenty of stories abound of successful entrepreneurs who have started out with charging super low prices just because they are testing out the waters, trying out different things.

They wanted to get an opportunity to feel what works, to get real life experience, to get feedback from people – and they did that by charging low prices. 

So, long story short: high prices, premium prices, are overrated. 

It is okay to start with lower prices. 

Remember, you can always increase your prices later. 

This part that you’re on is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. You have got time. You’re in this for the long haul.

Turning your passion into a business lesson #3

All right, moving on to the final lesson, lesson number three: share your work freely and generously. 

So, at this stage, a lot of people worry that they are giving away too much of their knowledge. 

They’re afraid that if they give away all their good stuff for free, that no one will end up working with them, or if they do end up working with them, that they don’t have anything else, no additional value that they’re adding to that one-on-one work. 

Here’s the thing though: if you’re offering a service, then people need to know what it’s like to work with you. 

They need to know what they’re going to get.

It’s very hard for them to commit to working with you if they don’t understand what they’re going to get or how you work. 

So: show them. Share your work and share what you do freely and generously.

I host free online training sessions in which I share the exact same methods, strategies, and tips that I share with my paid clients. 

This gives them a real sense of who I am, what I do and how I work. 

The difference is that the people who work with me on a personal, on a one-on-one level, get an extra level of personal support, so that makes all the difference. 

So whilst I share some super valuable things in my free training sessions that give people something to work with, regardless of whether or not they decide to work with me on a one-on-one basis, I make sure that the people that do decide to work with me get that extra level of guidance and support that I know gives them superior results. 

Don’t feel afraid to share your work freely and generously through Facebook lives, through Instagram lives, through webinars, through online training sessions, through YouTube and so on. 

You can always decide to start charging for certain things at a later stage when you have a solid client base.

All right, there you have it: my three biggest lessons on how to turn your passion project into a business. 

Did you like this video? If so, please leave a like. 

And if you want to stay in the loop of upcoming videos that I’m posting here on my YouTube channel, as well as free training sessions that I’m hosting, then make sure you hop on over to irissmyth.com and sign up to my email list. 

I’ll also add a link to that email list in the description box below this video. 

That’s all I had for you today. 

Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you again next week. Bye.

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