55% of Americans want to turn their passions into profit, according to Vistaprint. Dose of Travel Founder Nabila Ismail joins Wealth! to discuss how people can turn their hobbies into full-time gigs. Starting off as a pharmacist, Ismail spun her love for travel into creating her own travel blog and brand.
Ismail encourages people to start building a portfolio of their work and even take unpaid opportunities initially to get more experience under their belts. Once their portfolios are in a good spot, they can start securing paid opportunities and even set their own prices.
She also stresses the importance of having an online presence to showcase their work and potentially secure new clients.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth!
This post was written by Melanie Riehl
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Video Transcript
Have a hobby you’d like to make money off of, well, guess what?
You’re not alone, 55% of Americans want to turn their passion into profit according to vista print.
But the process can be daunting to break down how you can turn a side hustle into your main money maker.
We’ve got Navia Ismael who is the dose of travel founder here with us in studio.
Great to have you here.
Uh, you gotta break this down because a lot of people out there are thinking all right, would I spend margins of my time doing and working on a passion or side project?
How do I make that the full time gig?
And you’ve gone about doing this?
Yeah.
I mean, it’s taken a long time to get here.
I think I was a pharmacist first and now I run a travel club.
Pharmacist.
Yes.
What a change.
Ok. Yeah.
You can blame the pandemic on that.
I was burn out on that one.
so that led to building and my passion.
So I’ve been traveling ever since we’ve been able to and before then, and now I quit my job in 2022.
Just to travel and somehow this kind of came out of it.
What was the first place that you went to and said, you know what I think I can create enough content, enough of an experience to be able to tell other people about it.
And also make sure that I’m monetizing my own, you know, ability to do storytelling and also perhaps drum up some partnerships along the way.
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s from the very beginning.
So I was an au pair when I was in college.
So I moved to Madrid Spain and I was living nanny taking care of three kids and I started talking about that because that was a affordable way to travel as a college student.
Um And I started making videos, people were really interested and then that’s kind of how it began.
I started speaking at different platforms, publications about how to travel on a budget because I think obviously wealth and money is like really important when it comes to travel.
Oh, absolutely.
So that was how I was able to offset um the cost and write for publications.
And then I started to work with brands.
One of the common debates that I see, at least on social right now is the number of people who are getting offers from companies to do work, but it might not fully be compensated.
How did you go about perhaps that time period where it was a brand that you wanted to work with, but you also knew there wasn’t going to be a check attached to it maybe, but you still needed to build up a portfolio and then win along the way.
Did you realize?
OK, you know what I need you guys to, to pay me for this, right?
This is such a good question because that’s how I was able to make that pivot when I was working my full time job, I think I was able more likely to take these unpaid opportunities to get that experience.
Because at some point, you do need experience when you’re completely jumping ship like pharmacist to running a travel club and a full time traveler, totally different, totally different skill set.
And so I did that for a few years before I fully took it.
And then once you have a portfolio which now I can say I’ve worked with X brand and whatever, then I’m able to charge and they’re going to be willing to pay because they can see what I can do for them.
I mean, how does that conversation go?
I mean, people, people need the actionable tips, especially if they’re gonna say, you know what, I’m, I’m leaving the company today.
I’m gonna go start my own thing and now I’ve got to figure out how to represent myself in those conversations with the behemoths out there that you’re trying to make sure, hey, man, I just wanna send you this invoice I just wanna make sure it gets paid.
Exactly.
I think it the same skills apply like negotiating is really important, being able to like Valley like advocate for yourself and say like, hey, I need to get paid for this.
This is what I’m looking for.
I’m willing to budge on it.
But this is like my starting rate but also having an online presence where you’re able to showcase your work is so key.
I think social media and like having a personal brand carries so much weight nowadays.
So for example, if I work with a brand, it’s up there.
So they’re going to know that I worked with this brand.
Um And that really helps with like the negotiating power and are there brands that you’ve had to turn down?
Oh yeah, all the time.
Yeah, it still happens even now.
Interesting.
We gotta go favorite destination.
You’ve been to uh Cape Town, South Africa.
Oh, interesting.
All right.
I’m gonna add that one to the list.
Nabila Ismael Dose of Travel founder.
Thanks so much for taking the time.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
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