Three simple words could have the power to change your life completely...

Say goodbye to stress, goodbye to deadlines, goodbye to coming home from work every night tired and depressed...

This small, simple phrase could be the key that unlocks the life you’ve always dreamed of.

What is it?

What phrase could mean that you could quit your job and spend all day doing the things you love to do?

Monetise your hobby.

That’s it.

Sounds too simple doesn’t it; too easy to be true?

But one of the best and most rewarding ways of escaping your 9 to 5 is to get paid to do what you like doing.

It sounds like a pipedream, but you can make it work. Of course it takes time and it takes some hard work initially.

But just think...

You could be your own boss... you’d be paid for doing what you’re good at and, best of all... your work wouldn’t seem like work at all.

Believe me, it’s possible.

So, how can you ‘monetise your hobby’?

How can you escape the resentment of your 9 to 5 and get paid to do what you want to do?

A good friend of mine (who’s getting paid to do what he loves) will show you…

Discover what makes your hobby saleable
Glenn Fisher, Editor of Shortcut Bulletin

The first thing you need to do is establish the product and service elements of your hobby.

Most hobbies, but not all, have a product element (something you produce and can sell) and a service element (a service you can offer to people at a cost).

For example, let’s say your hobby is painting. You love to paint watercolours at the weekend and you love paint in a decorating sense, coming up with new interior designs. Any form of painting, you’re happy.

Here we have the two different saleable elements of the same hobby. You could sell your watercolours as art – a product – or you could sell your decorating skills as a service.

You can use both of these elements to build an income and escape your 9 to 5. But you need to keep them separate, as two different ventures.

On the whole you can use the same techniques to sell your hobby product as your hobby service, but there will be a few minor differences here and there.

So, now you’ve identified the two saleable elements of your hobby how do you go about selling them and generating a regular income doing what you enjoy doing?

The best outlet for your saleable hobby

Let’s take the product element first...

You’ve got a bunch of watercolours you’ve amassed over all these years and you keep producing new ones when you have the time.

Perfect: that’s your ‘stock’. That’s what you’re going to sell.

But you need an outlet.

By far the simplest and most cost effective outlet available to you is the Internet. You need a website that potential customers can visit, view your product and order.

I produced a special report that outlines how to create an effective website in much more detail and if you haven’t picked it up yet you can do, for free, here.

But the basic questions you need to ask of your website are:

1. Can people visit it?
2. Can people see your products?
3. Can people order your products?

If the answer to all those questions is ‘yes’: you’re sorted.

You can develop and clean the website in time, but to get started, that’s all you need.

Your website doesn’t need to cost the earth either. You can create simple but effective websites with website builders like Webs.com This shows you how to put text and pictures on a webpage and it hosts it online for you.

The drawback with such free services is that online order forms are a lot more difficult to set up. But you can get round this by providing customers with a telephone number or an email address with which they can order directly from you. At this early stage of your business this is actually a lot more effective.

Once you’ve set up a website for your hobby product, in exactly the same way you can set up a website for your hobby service.

In regard to your hobby service website, you need to ask these three questions:

1. Can people visit it?
2. Can people see what your service is and what’s included?
3. Can people book your service?

You should follow exactly the same principles as your hobby product website: keep it simple and easy to use, making sure prices and contact details are easily identifiable.

OK.

You’ve set up two websites. One for your hobby product and one for your hobby service. People can view the websites, people can see what you’re selling and how much it will cost them and people can contact you to purchase your product or service.

You’re on your way.

So, set yourself a goal to identify your saleable hobby and create either one or both of your websites.

If you set yourself to it, that’s easily achievable. And you’ll have set up an outlet to start selling your product or service (or both).