Ok youve got a hobby that is well received by your family and peers. Youve spotted a window of opportunity or hole in the market. How do you overcome all the obstacles and turn your hobbies and ideas into a successful business? Well heres a list of questions to ask yourself.

1. Is your idea really viable? Can you make enough sales to not only cover your business costs but also make enough money to live on.

2. Can your sales be sustained? After the first interest in your products from your friends, family and peers, you will need to keep selling to strangers that you will need to find. Are you sure that you can do this? Have you thoroughly investigated the need for your product? Have you made it unique enough?

3. Will you enjoy turning your hobby into a business? At the moment your hobby is your escape from your business life. Starting a business is hard work and very stressful do you want to involve your hobby?

4. Will people be interested in what you have for sale? Are you sure that you are not getting so enthusiastic about your hobby that you have let it cloud your judgment?

5. Is there a future for your business? Can you keep improving your product and add extra items to your offerings? Plan this out before you make the decision to start your new company. A stagnant business which does not change its offerings soon disappears.

6. Can you afford to start you business? Starting up a business is expensive. Setting up the production or manufacturing of your new product could be expensive especially at the beginning when you are only selling small amounts. Check thoroughly that you have considered ALL costs, including taxes and professional fees before you make that first step.

If you understand all of the above, are sure about what you want to sell and to whom, are sure of the costs and stress of turning your hobby into a business then good luck. Many people have made their hobbies very profitable businesses and with good planning you may well be able to join this group.

Lee Lister

Lee Lister is Management Consultant and Program Manager with more than 25 year's management and consultancy experience and more than 20 year's program and project management experience in projects for Banking, Finance, Insurance, Leisure and Government bodies. She also have more than 10 years bid management experience ranging from bids for medium companies to large international and infrastructure bids.

British born, Lee received her BA(Hons) Financial Economics from the University of Essex. She went on to work in or for a considerable number of countries within Asia and Europe as well as Australia and the United States. While building a name for herself through helping company restructure, change management and project management consultancy, Lee became a well-known figure for her skills in analyzing, problem solving and trouble-shooting. She has consulted for many major industries, including banking, telecommunications, insurance, transportation, leisure and governments from many different countries. Some of the companies who have benefited from Lee?s expertise are Hewlett Packard, Siemans Nixdorf, Electrolux and the Philippines government.

Whilst working in the Far East she became a recognized expert on preparing and evaluating large World Bank Proposals (infrastructure projects within developing countries). These accomplishments called upon the skills of bid and project management, risk assessment, contract negotiation and supplier management and required dedicated work to very tight time scales. This expertise was acknowledged by an invitation to be the principle speaker at an International Business Development Conference in Washington, USA. She has also consulted at very senior level in several countries.

She owns and manages two companies, Biz Guru LLC in the USA and Biz Guru Services Ltd in the UK as well a considerable number of profitable web sites. She works almost entirely via the internet, visiting clients on site during major consultancies and training. Her Internet skills span from when major companies first started to consider obtaining their own web sites. During these years, she has kept up to date with the rapid changes on the internet, including the dot com boom and the resulting bust ? which her own web based companies survived.

She regularly consults, writes and lectures on business, bid management and marketing and has published numerous courses and books.