Hobby to Business - start paying for things

When you are just getting started and are testing the water, operating with all free things is fine. When you want to move your hobby to a business, one of the things you need to do is start paying for things!

Some of the things I suggest you pay for are:

• Mailing list software - there are a lot of cheap options on the market. Sending your newsletter with ads from other people that you have no control over is not a good look. I went into this in my post a few weeks ago, you can read it here.
• Domain name & hosting - move away from the free hosting services and get your own domain and hosting. Again, there are many cheap options on the market. Having your own domain will help people see you as a serious business.
• Packaging - use great packaging for your products, rather than nothing or whatever you can find around the place. You may want to get bags printed with your logo or simply invest in coloured tissue paper to wrap your products in when you send them out.
• Business Cards & other promotional materials - invest in your business and get your promotional material professionally designed and printed. Again, the impact on your image will be huge.

These are just a few things to start paying for. There are others, but I won’t go into them all here - they will be in future posts. These things are an investment in your business and will help show your business in a great light.

What things have you paid for to help your business grow?