5 Tips To Turning Your Passion Into A Profitable Business You Will Love

By: Dr. Alvin S. Perry

The initial investment was $250 and within the first year, over $25,000 in sales were generated.Passion for bowties drove the new business venture. 

1. Listen to the market

It is so important to listen to what people in the market are saying. This entire venture started from the passion that was developed for bowties in 2008. The day I wore my first bowtie an old gentle paid me a compliment on how well the bowtie looked on me. This began the validation process that was needed to make a style change. The more bowties were worn, the more the complements were received. What was noticed most, was that compliments were received from men and women and it did not matter the age or race, the compliments kept coming. The complements provided the validation needed to move forward with a new bowtie venture. The market was feeding my passion and selling bowties seemed like a good idea.

2. Pursue your passion

Passion was driving the need to develop a premium bowtie collection that could be worn and sold. However; paying a premium price for the bowties was not an option. The bowties that were currently being worn were discounted department store brands selling for no more than ten dollars per bowtie. There was a huge desire to wear and sell bowties that would retail for $75 dollars or more. As an entrepreneur, it was realized that to accomplish my goal, there would need to be a cheaper and faster way to build a bowtie portfolio. There has been much knowledge and experience gained building new business ventures.  So the process of developing a bowtie line with the main goal of creating a personal portfolio of bowties that would be at a premium level was started. The second goal was to sell enough bowties so that a small monthly car note could be made. A manufacturer in China was sourced to make the P5 bowties. This manufacturer provided over 600 patterns to choose from. My daughter, who was about 12 years old at the time, agreed to pick out the patterns that she liked. We then ordered 20 sample bowties and this was the start of P5Neckwear.com. The “P” stands for Perry and the “5” represents the five members of my family, which are my wife, the three kids, and me.

3. Build your business

Now it was time to Construct the systems and processes. The next thing we needed to do was to take pictures of the 20 bowtie samples. We needed to do this so that we could develop all of our marketing materials which included a website, business cards, and eBrochures. A friend was asked, who had a good camera, to take the pictures and we used the office space that was being rented as the location for the photo shoot. The idea was to keep cost way down during the business building process. Once we had the photos, the graphics team in India was able to receive copies of the pictures via email and the development process of the website and other marketing collateral began. It did not take more than a week to get the marketing items completed. At this point we had sourced manufacturing, international transportation, developed marketing collateral, and the delivery system for providing customers the product. All this represented the supply chain.

4. Count your cash

Now that the supply chain was setup, P5 bowties were ready to be sold. The first seven bowties were sold for $100 each to guys that were in my network who loved bowties. Now P5 had $700, which represented the initial $250 investment and $450 profit.  The brand was already in the black, made a profit, with the project and it did not take more than 30 days. This was the validation needed that pursuing a bowtie business was the right decision. Within the first six months P5 was able to secure a University as a client. We were able to custom design four bowties and sell the University $14,000 worth of product. In addition, three events were attended where P5 was able to set up a vending table and make sales. Bowties are always kept on hand for what is call hand-to-hand combat. This means bowties were sold out of the back of the car or anywhere a sales opportunity presented its self. By the time 12 months had passed, P5 Neckwear had generated over $25,000 in sales.

5. Review lessons learned

The key lessons that have been learned from this entire process are that it does not take much money to start a profitable business, having a foundational understanding of business systems and processes are very important, and it is much easier to follow your passion when seeking to start a business. There have been many entrepreneurial projects pursued over the years without following a standard approach. By not having a good system and process in place, working hard versus working smart seemed to be the plan and the results were not always what had been expected. This particular project provided me with an opportunity to follow the entrepreneurship principles that were developed and written about in TheCircusAct.com. This book represents a view of entrepreneurship from the most elementary perspective and most important, it will allow you to follow a system and process for success.