Turning Your Passion into Profit

How many times will we hear keynotes, gurus and speakers say “If you are passionate about what you do, you will succeed.”? Probably until the end of time. As someone who hears this message, it sounds simple enough… but to many it can also seem like a load of crap. From both point of views, it’s true. You really never hear about the failure stories of how a web site was started up based on someones passion, then it went to nothing… instead you always hear about the success stories. I have plenty of attempts at making money in niches I’m passionate about, but the truth is… it won’t always work. Instead of wasting time and talking about what hasn’t worked, let’s look at a few concepts that have… which really were passions!

Let’s talk Oprah, and I’m not talking about the use of her images on slinging berries and rebill offers. How many millions of Americans hang on every word of what Oprah says? A ton, and everything Oprah touches or even mentions turns to gold. Robyn Okrant, the writer of “Living Oprah”, decided in 2008 to perform an experiment. For an entire year Robyn would live her life completely according to the advice of Oprah Winfrey. You can read a great interview with Robyn at Forbes, but the point here is that Robyn went from being an unknown yoga teacher, to now having her own book deal, several interviews on major tv stations and has done something no one has done before… live by Oprah. Robyn took her passion for Oprah, did something different, blogged about it every day and has over an estimated 10,000 readers a week. This passion was a celebrity and financial success, but took quite the toll on Robyn as she mentions in her Forbes interview.

Next topic is the Design Industry. I love web design, graphics design and playing with Photoshop… but compared to the average designer out there, I suck. Often times I find myself browsing through sites like Abduzeedo, Hongkiats and SmashingMagazine. But here’s the kicker… all of these sites were created by designers who are extremely passionate about what they do, and they is a whole world of design sites just like we have our own little affiliate marketing world. And yes, there is plenty of money to be made in web design. Just like ad networks want to advertise on our blogs to bring in new affiliates, software and app companies are doing the same on design sites. Want to get an idea of how much some of these sites are making, most are running their advertising through BuySellAds, and many of them are continually sold out. Another great example of being passionate about a topic, then it becoming it’s own business.

There you have it, amongst millions of examples, there’s two to get your mind juices flowing. Not all passions can turn into profit, but it can be a fun ride finding out. How can your passion be either more fulfilling or turned into a profitable business?

“If you want to be successful in a particular field of endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities.It’s very important that you find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for, because you’re going to have to devote a lot of your life to it.”

– George Lucas