How can you gauge whether you can turn what you love into money? Here’s what the authors told us.

A lot depends on what it is you love best. You might have a burning passion to spend your days hula hooping, but you’d probably find it tough to get paid for it. The key here is to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and ask yourself what you can offer that will motivate them to part with their hard-earned dollars.

There are two big questions to answer when you’re defining your business: ‘What am I selling?’ and ‘Who are my customers?’ They might sound simple, but every great business builds out from the answers to those core questions. So start by getting clear on those two things. Perhaps you’re a nutritionist who wants to work with pre-and postnatal mothers, or maybe you’re designing stylish belts for discerning fashionistas.

Once you’re clear on that part, you can expand on the basics by determining what it is that sets you apart from the competition: Do you tailor your advice to each client individually? Are your belts handmade and exclusive, or factory-made and affordable?

One exercise we can’t recommend highly enough: dream up a couple of imaginary customers, complete with names, ages, occupations and all the details you can think up. The more detailed, the better: the point is to put a ‘face’ to your ideal customer base, to help you get inside their heads. Once you have your profiles, sit down with each one and list out the reasons they’ll choose to buy your product or service. From there, you can begin to evaluate what kind of prices they can afford, which gives you something to work with once you sit down to create a budget for your business.

by Jennifer Valentine

For more than a decade, I had two demanding roles: one as the primary caregiver for my aging mother, the other managing a fast-paced data processing company.

My mother was a force of nature for 86 years. It was a challenge for both of us to handle the transition from independence to the ever-increasing need for assistance. I loved my mother, and it was an honor to care for her. She always let me know that she appreciated me.

I also loved my job. I worked for the company from its beginning and felt like it was my baby. I thrived on the challenges of managing and growing a business, working weekends and evenings, whatever it took to get the job done. I had every reason to think my employer appreciated my efforts as well.
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by Lara Hall
I started my career in recreational therapy, working with seniors with depression and anxiety at a day treatment program. I led sessions that focused on improving their quality of life through cooking groups, music, art and crafts.

Recreational therapy had been my dream since I was 12, after I heard a practitioner speak at a career day in junior high school. I had my career figured out. Or so I thought.

But immediately after graduating from the University of Utah, where I had a full scholarship, I realized the field didn’t pay well. My first job offer was for $8 an hour. Welcome to the real world!

No matter. I liked my job and loved the people I worked with. But it was emotionally exhausting to see elderly people who had lived good lives and were now desperately depressed.
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Patricia MacPherson was intrigued last September by a small display ad she saw in The Boston Globe for the Women For Hire expo at the Sheraton Boston. “There were a couple of things that piqued my interest,” says MacPherson, 39. “One was that there was a networking seminar beforehand. I also liked the idea that it was specifically geared towards women. So I pretty much figured what the heck, I’ll give it a try.”

Within hours of talking to a recruiter from DHL at the event— that afternoon—MacPherson had an interview with a district manager. Within weeks—just two weeks before Christmas—she began working at DHL. It was trial by fire, she says, since holidays are the toughest time for a delivery company. She passed the test.

Today, she is a DHL field service supervisor at its Stoneham, Mass., facility, managing drivers, physically sorting packages and lately, running a local part-time hiring initiative. MacPherson is one of thousands of women across the USA who have found careers through Women For Hire expos.

For women planning to attend any of Women For Hire’s 10 fall expos, MacPherson has this advice: “Keep in mind there are opportunities and it can move quickly. It did for me.” She came to Women For Hire as many women do: looking to get back to work after some years off to raise kids. MacPherson hadn’t worked for a decade while her children were young, but she knew that she had valuable skills that someone would appreciate. She just had to connect with the right company.

So she did her homework before the Boston expo, narrowing the list of companies that planned to be there with ones that interested her and then looking at the kinds of positions they were interviewing for and matching it with her skills.

Before having children—now 12, 8 and 5—MacPherson helped arrange pickups of donated clothing and household items for the charity Big Brother Big Sister Foundation, so she knew quite a bit about customer service, pickups and deliveries. “My background is pretty much in a male-dominated industry and being a woman in that industry makes me stick out. Fortunately for me it has been for the good.” MacPherson says.

“In general being able to stand out in the crowd makes me more visible,” she says. “I thought that a lot of women going to the expo would not be going in that direction so I was assuming I would stand out among other women there. I think I did because I was interested in transportation logistics, but also because I was pretty aggressive.”

She found the networking seminar beforehand helpful. “I hadn’t been in the work force for a decade and it was a nice refresher. It felt good to me personally to be among other women who were in a similar situation. It felt good to be a part of that again. I really liked the caliber of women who went to the event: a lot of women in different places in life. My age, younger and older, at different career levels.”

Having career expos geared to women “makes it more of a comfortable situation” to discuss careers, MacPherson says. “As opposed to girls on one side, guys on the other, like at a high school dance.”

Returning to work, she says, was “an adjustment for my family. I feel lucky that my husband (David, who works in construction) has been supportive and able to rearrange his time to handle some of what I do. For a good number of years I was basically the Kool-Aid mom on our block. That has changed but I still make it a point to spend time with my children.”

She has told friends to attend Women For Hire expos. “It’s not scary at all. It’s not a job interview. If anything, it’s good practice for getting involved or moving forward in your job search. There’s a lot opportunity there. Keep an open mind as to what can happen.”

Cost-effective advertising options are available in the Women For Hire’s magazine. In addition to advertising among top employers committed to women and diversity, the publication features editorial coverage that is meaningful to the career women we serve. The magazine is also an ideal highly affordable vehicle for reaching decision-making consumers. The core content spotlights exceptional diversity initiatives by employers, leading executives, and a myriad of career resources, as well as addresses other lifestyle issues, such as personal finance, parenting, health, and fashion, that are relevant to our audience. Because of the depth of articles and resources offered, this guidebook will serve as a meaningful reference tool for each recipient.

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