Mompreneur Passion & Planning

I have interviewed quite a number of mompreneurs and a lot of them mentioned passion as one of the things that you will need to have is your want to start your own business.  I do agree with them when they mention that mompreneur passion to be one of the necessary requirements before starting your own business. For me though, this isn’t enough.

Passion is an emotion. When you look it up in the dictionary or in wikipedia, it is defined as a strong (positive) feeling for something or someone. I believe that you cannot start a business with merely having a feeling that that makes you want to get up and do something. I had the same feeling about businesses before that I just wanted to do. At one time, I was really passionate about being a freelance makeup artist. I attended classes for it. I knew I also had the skill and the artistic talent. I bought a lot of make up. I bought my own kit. I spent probably almost Php 75,000 from all the make up that I bought and the classes that I took. Was passion there? Yes, there was definitely passion there!

But, after a year of offering my freelance make up services, it died down. Why? Because I lacked planning. I just jumped the gun and offered my service. I didn’t study the market. I was too excited to start.

Planning is crucial in creating a business. With planning, you utilize not only the heart but also your mind. I remember my strategy when it came to creating new products for the corporation that I worked for before. I use it now for my business and for when I mentor mompreneurs. I create three plans. I create a full blown business plan, a financial plan or analysis and a marketing plan (which I normally just do in PowerPoint).

These are the three plans that I suggest that you create, too, before jumping into any business. Why create these plans? It will help and steer you into the right direction for your business. By going through the whole business plan, it will help you check on the feasibility of your business (to see if it’s not only your needs you are answering). It will help you see the potential market or customers for your business (to see if ‘passion’ actually addresses concerns and needs of a substantial amount of individuals). And lastly, it will help you see if this ‘passion’ is something that you can sustain financially (of course, all of us want to continuously do what we are passionate about).

In the next business tips that I will be sharing for mompreneurs, it will be on how to create effective business plans, financial analysis and marketing plans that are simple enough for us, mompreneurs.

What are your thoughts on passion and planning? I’d love to hear them!

Mommy Ginger