Ask any business guru how to find the right business idea and they’ll go: start with your most profitable skill. 

As a multi-passionate, you have no shortage of skills. All those jobs you’ve had, hobbies you’ve started, and courses you’ve taken have equipped you with plenty of skills you could turn into a profitable business.

Picking the right skill is a bigger hurdle. But you can get over that by asking people what they’d be willing to pay for. Chances are you already have contacts in your network that could do with your help and would hire you on the spot.

Boom. You’re in business.

That’s how I got into skincare coaching a few years ago. 

I know how to make sense of those incomprehensible ingredient lists. I’m the go-to girl all my friends come to for help every time a pimple rears their ugly head or they’ve suddenly noticed a new wrinkle creep up around their eyes. I received emails every single day from readers of my beauty blog asking me to put together a skincare routine for them.

I had the skill. I had the knowledge. I had demand. All the ingredients you need to start your own business and make money from day one.

It would be silly not to go for it. All the stars were aligned.

Well, almost. The passion wasn’t there. Ok, I am passionate about skincare. Just not to the point of dedicating my whole life to it. 

That’s a huge warning sign you should hit the brakes. Building a business around your skills may bring you money, but it won’t necessarily bring you happiness – especially when you’re multi-passionate.

Why You Shouldn’t Build Your Business Around Your Most Profitable Skill

I get it why business gurus push you to build a business around your most profitable skill:

1. Skills are reliable: Once you know how to cure acne, speak Japanese, or create a beautiful website, you never really lose it. You’ve got that skill forever.
2. Skills can also lead you straight to your passion: Have you noticed the better you get at something, the more you love doing it?

BUT…

Skills also get boring fast. Once you’ve mastered it, the challenge’s gone. You’ll still enjoy speaking that language or building a new website, but that excitement you felt at the beginning isn’t there anymore. Your skill is now… routine.

This is what happened to me. When I first got into skincare, everything was brand new and exciting. I was invited to exclusive blogger’s events, got sent the latest serums and creams to review, and learned all about the science of skincare from dermatologists and cosmetic chemists.

Creating skincare routines to treat acne, fade away dark spots, and banish dryness (sometimes all at the same time) was a mysterious puzzle waiting to be solved.

Now, I can do it all with my eyes closed. No effort whatsoever. Turns out, once you get rid of the marketing hype and old wives’ tales, skincare is pretty simple and basic. I’ve written a book about everything I know about skincare and I don’t feel like I have anything more to give here.

That’s a dangerous place to be.

If you stay there, if you keep doing what you’re great at without evolving, you’re going to stagnate. To a multi-passionate, that’s like a life sentence.

Related: How To Find Your Strengths

Profitable Skill Without Passion = Failed Business

Stagnation is the beginning of the end for your business.

Now the passion’s gone, you just don’t care about your business as much. That’s when you start to self-sabotage.

Instead of looking for new opportunities to market your business, find new clients, and create new products, you keep doing the things you’ve always done. The things you’re good at. They got you this far, didn’t they?

They won’t help you grow your business more. 

Passion does. It’s passion that keeps you going when you don’t feel like doing the work. It’s passion that keeps you looking for new ways to deliver more value to your clients so they come back again and again. It’s passion that makes you go the extra mile and set your business apart from your competitors.

You can be the best in the world at what you do. But without passion, your business feels like work you don’t want to do.  

And so you don’t do it. Not as well as you used to, anyway. If you’re honest with yourself, you’re just showing up for the money. This has become your 9-5 now.

Your heart’s aching for something else.

A Better Way To Find A Profitable Business Idea

I would never recommend anyone to start a business around something they’re not skilled at. If you’re not good at what you want to do, learn it. If you don’t, you’re just scamming people (and I know you’re not a scammer, my multi-passionate friend).

But a profitable skill is just one piece of the right business idea. The other pieces are passions and values. Here’s what I mean.

• Passion is the what: If money wasn’t a concern, what would you spend all your free time doing? (It’s ok if you list more than one thing. You wouldn’t be multi-passionate if you didn’t.)
• Skills are the how: What are the abilities you’ll use every day to pursue your passion?
• Values are the why: What’s your purpose in starting this business? Why do you have to do this for a living instead of keeping it as a hobby? 

The combination of these 3 pieces is your calling in this season of your life and the foundation of your multi-passionate business.

Wrapping It Up

Building a business from your most profitable skill is a bad idea for a multi-passionate. Your skills are just one small part of the puzzle. You also need to be passionate about your skills and have a clear purpose for your business. Without them, your business will bore you to death and fail within a few months.

Liked it? Share it with a friend who needs to hear this too.