Screw Your Passion – Solve A Problem

If I’ve heard “follow your passion” once, I’ve heard it a million times. While this may be sound advice for your hobbies, it’s not really good advice for starting or building a business. Now, I’m sure there are or have been successful businesses where the founder was passionate about the core product or service but, most cases, it is not.

 

screw your passion

 

My business is a great example. I am not passionate about building websites or managing clients social media profiles. The reality is I’m not really passionate about internet marketing. The part of my business that I am passionate about is helping other small businesses succeed online. That passion comes from my past experience with being on the other side of the business.

The Key To A Successful Business

 

The true key to building a successful business is not to follow your passion or really being passionate about the “thing” that you do or the business your in. It’s about solving a problem or creating a better process. My company was started because I realized that many web developers who cater to smaller businesses seemed to charge hefty fees for internet marketing and tie businesses into long binding contracts. Those two things can be detrimental to a business just getting going.

Getting Back Up

After my bad experience with internet marketing I decided to really dig in deeper and instead of hiring a company I’d research and train myself to market my own business online. It was during this time that I realized that I could ‘fix’ the problem for other small businesses.

These are the opportunities that create a strong and healthy business. I also realized that I was really good at digtial marketing. Funny how we seem to be good at things we aren’t passionate about eh?

 

Looking Back

If you look at some of the wealthiest people to walk the planet, like John D. Rockefeller who pioneered refining crude oil into valuable commodoties like gasoline and kerosene he was solving problems of his era. I sincerly doubt he was passionate about crude oil. Standard Oil quickly became one of the biggest companies in the world and Rockefeller became one of the wealthiest. Solving problems or creating new processes like the founder of McDonalds did can create wildly successful businesses.

 

Conclusion

So, instead of doing what your passionate about, do something your good at. Solve a problem. Build a better process. I can not think of a single business or product that is perfect. Everything can be improved. Just like I realized I could fix the problems with digital marketing for small businesses, you’ll likely find your passionate about the process and not the actual product or service like I did. So get out there and solve a problem, screw your passions.