HOBBY BOSS: Turn Your Passion Into Profits Online

By Steve Mastroianni

Yes, you CAN make money from your hobby!

Have you ever wished you could make money doing what you love? Hobby Boss is a simple step-by-step system for creating a profitable online business out of your favourite hobby—by teaching that hobby to other enthusiasts!

Based on Steve Mastroianni's own success in building a six-figure annual revenue with his hobby business, Hobby Boss walks you through Steve's "Four Pillars of Profit" for creating and growing any online hobby enterprise. Use them to quickly create your first solution, your first sale, and your first customer success story.

By following the steps laid out in each chapter, you'll have your own Hobby Business Plan filled out and ready to launch in twenty-four hours or less!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781544519326

Book preview

Download the Audiobook Free!

Read This First

Just to say thank you for buying my book, I would like to give you the audiobook version of Hobby Boss 100% FREE!

TO DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK GO TO: hobbyboss.me/audiobook

]>

What Others Are Saying About Steve Mastroianni

My man! Steve is one of the good guys who always overdelivers and shows people he can help them by, get this, actually helping them!

—Frank Kern, Founder of Frank Kern Inc. and creator of Intent Based Branding

When I think of you, Steve, one word comes to mind: growth. As I’ve gotten to know you, every layer that peels away, you impress me even more.

—Ryan Levesque, bestselling author and creator of The Ask Method®

Steve, you just got a huge heart. That’s one thing I know about you. You’re quite slim in reality, but a big heart must be taking up your whole chest. What I like about you, Steve, is you document and systemize everything, and you’re in a great position to help other people create their own thing.

—James Schramko, Founder of SuperFastBusiness

It’s rare to see someone care as much about their customers as Steve does. He has a genuine level of excitement for helping people succeed and become the best version of themselves.

—Ron Reich, Founder of Player A LLC

Steve (or VØID as I like to call him) helped me start a mentorship program a few years back for up-and-coming electronic music producers. One conversation we had over breakfast helped my business generate over $10,000 that same weekend. Listen up. This guy knows what he’s talking about.

—Shaun Frank, hit songwriter, DJ, and award-winning producer

Steve’s ability to connect with his audience, understand their needs, and quickly solve their most frustrating problems in the simplest way possible is second to none. Steve is an incredible guitar player, a talented coach, and an amazing human being.

—Charlie Wallace, Founder of Guitar Mastery Method

Steve is a unique blend of serious musician, top-class marketing knowledge, great communicator—and huge passion. He helped me see possibilities for my business because I just couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I now have a set of products that work, my students love, and are scalable for great business growth. I have a simpler approach, more confidence, and can ultimately see the future of an online business that fulfils me professionally and supports my family personally. Cheers, man—I’m super grateful!

—James Eager, Founder of eBassGuitar

]>

Contents

Introduction

Profit Pillar I: Profile

1. Your Identity Shift

2. Your Ideal Hobby Market

3. Your Motivation

4. Your Ideal Workspace

5. Your Ideal Schedule

6. Your Ideal Outcome

Profit Pillar I: FAQ This!

Profit Pillar II: Produce

7. Your Ideal Customer

8. Their Ideal Outcome

9. Their Motivation

10. Their Current Status

11. Their Success Path

12. Their Ideal Format

Profit Pillar II: FAQ This!

Profit Pillar III: Promote

13. Your Ideal Advocates

14. Your Ideal Offer

15. Your Clear Difference

16. Your Ideal Marketplace

17. Your Promo Schedule

18. Your Ideal Sales Process

Profit Pillar III: FAQ This!

Profit Pillar IV: Propel

19. Your Actual Customer

20. Their Welcome Experience

21. Their Reason for Buying

22. Their Support Path

23. Their First Win

24. Their Next Purchase

Profit Pillar IV: FAQ This!

Conclusion

Stay in Touch

Acknowledgements

About the Author

]>

Introduction

From Six Strings to Six Figures

Steve, it’s cancer. Call me as soon as you get this.

The sound of my father’s trembling voice on my answering machine shook me to my core.

I can still remember it like it was yesterday. What had started as a regular lunch with my band turned into an absolute nightmare that still haunts me to this day. It may have been pouring rain on the drive home, but the storm outside paled in comparison to the one going on inside my head.

That was the day I found out my father, my biggest supporter and number-one fan, had been diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

I knew my life would never be the same.

From Rockstar to Caregiver

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a pro guitarist in a rock band.

In the span of twenty years, I managed to teach myself how to play and write songs on guitar, and I eventually formed a band called The Envy that got signed to Gene Simmons’s record label, Simmons Records. Before we knew it, we were opening for KISS across North America, rubbing shoulders with celebrities, with a bright future ahead of us.

But on April 9, 2013, all of that changed with one phone call.

Game over. Family comes first.

In one fell swoop, I became my father’s primary caregiver, and my life instantly switched from stages and studios to emergency rooms and surgeries. Of course, if presented with this situation again, I would make the same decision in a heartbeat. My father had always been my biggest supporter, and now it was my turn to return the favour and support him.

I vowed to be by his side the entire journey, no matter the outcome. My dad needed me, and I needed to be there for him.

However, I still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I had so much more to accomplish, so much more value to share with the world—and nothing to show for all the excruciating work I had put into my craft so far.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for an overachiever like me who needs to create in order to maintain sanity.

From Caregiver to Coach

Even though the majority of my time was devoted to taking care of my father, I still needed to pay the rent.

For years before my dad got sick, I had coached guitarists while I was on and off tour, and I developed a true passion for helping other people achieve their goals faster. I always knew coaching would be part of my life, no matter what happened with my music career.

One day, one of my guitar students suggested I start a guitar website, taking everything I teach offline and making it available online.

I remember hearing his idea and brushing it off at first. I treated it like a small project I couldn’t complete right away, but that I would build over a few weekends and then start collecting the cash. It’s funny now just how naive I was in assuming how easy it would be—that because I put my stuff online, people would just magically show up and buy it.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This ain’t Field of Dreams, buddy, and you definitely ain’t Kevin Costner.

Between hospital visits (and sometimes during), I started researching this online thing and was surprised to find out that there was more to it than I originally thought.

A lot more.

I really liked the flexibility an online business offered and definitely liked the profit potential. It would mean I could take care of my father, still build my business during any spare moment I could get and pay the bills without having to worry about getting a job or applying for employment insurance.

I decided to give it a shot, and soon after the decision was made, a humble little guitar business called Rockstar Mind was born on May 11, 2014, at 2:34 p.m. at Sunnybrook Hospital.

My business was created out of the need to make money from anywhere with an internet connection, using nothing but my laptop and my imagination. I would build it in between caring for my father and helping him return to his own hobby: playing golf. (I’m proud to say he was able to play again, on July 22, 2014.)

I wish I could say it was all fun and games.

From Coach to Consultant

After the emotional roller-coaster ride of late 2014 to early 2015, trying to keep both my father and my business alive, we eventually lost Anthony Mastroianni on April 27, 2015, just two short years after his grim diagnosis. Losing my dad was absolutely devastating, and the hardest part of it all was trying to navigate my life and my business on my own without any of his guidance.

I was lost. I didn’t feel like doing business at all, and it was the first time I wasn’t able to create anything.

Fortunately, my partner in crime—my girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife, Desirée—was always there to cheer me on and encourage me to get my head on straight again and break through to the next level. She was very patient with me, which helped me realize how important it is to have someone on your side who believes in you even when you don’t.

She was also pushing for marriage and children. Initially, I resisted, but ultimately that push also created a new purpose for my work:

Save for a wedding.

Save a lot more for kids.

The power of working with a purpose is unparalleled.

Up to that point, I’d always believed that everything in life can be fixed by increasing monthly revenue. The problem was, Rockstar Mind just wasn’t bringing home the bacon. And for good reason: I’d never really taken the time to make a solid plan of attack, so I was just flying by the seat of my pants in a business that always felt like a hobby.

I decided to temporarily put Rockstar Mind on the back burner in order to take a deep dive into online marketing.

I became a student of every major name in the industry, and within about eighteen months, I began consulting for some of the biggest names in online marketing.

From Consultant to Hobby Boss

I thought I had it all figured out, but it turns out life had other plans for me.

While consulting seemed like it would be the answer to all of my problems, it wasn’t long before the excitement of landing large clients wore off and the reward wasn’t worth the effort. It eventually became all about the money.

I found myself at yet another fork in the road. On one hand, consulting quickly provided me with enough money to pay off over $20,000 of personal debt and pay for my wedding in cash—not to mention the fact that I was meeting a lot of heavy hitters in the industry and had the potential of making a bigger name for myself as a consultant.

On the other hand, I was starting to lose my passion for the work I was doing, which was unfortunate because I really did love and respect the people I got to work with.

The bottom line was that building someone else’s dream just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore and I needed to do something that was 100 percent mine.

Let the soul searching begin (again).

Since I still had some unfinished business to take care of in my music career, I began to heavily pursue songwriting again in 2017 and went on to write two songs that did very well on the radio. As excited as I was that I still had it, the problem with songwriting royalties is that they can take up to nine months to start paying out, so I needed a source of income that was more immediate.

Let the soul searching continue.

Fast-forward to January 2018 when my wife and I had our first daughter, Milana, and my wife told me about daycare.

Daycare is going to cost how much?!? I shrieked. Man, I knew daycare wasn’t cheap, but $3,000 per month seemed pretty steep. Granted, my wife accidentally thought the bi-weekly rate of $750 was the weekly rate, but regardless, the message was loud and clear: Papa needed to start bringing home some serious cashola and he needed to do it now.

Rockstar Mind to the rescue!

I took everything I had learned in the four years leading up to that point—the early days of Rockstar Mind, studying direct-response marketing and consulting for some of the top names in the industry—and I put everything I had into growing my hobby business. My time, my money, and all the energy my sleep-deprived daddy brain could spare.

I researched my hobby market and produced solutions they actually wanted.

I created value where there wasn’t value previously.

I basically did everything I’m about to share with you in this book.

As a result, Rockstar Mind had its first six-figure year in 2019 (over $100,000 in annual revenue), and it achieved almost triple that amount in 2020. Strategy and focus for the win!

Sure, there’s still a lot more learning to do; however, I take great comfort and pride in knowing I can turn my passion into profits online and I can help people just like you do the same thing.

I’m enjoying every minute of it! Now let’s switch gears and talk about you.

My Promise to You

I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this book:

You are skilled and/or knowledgeable about a topic that many people would consider to be a hobby.

You want to take your hobby and turn it into a profitable online business with the intention of generating a part-time or full-time income.

You like the idea of being your own boss and the freedom that comes along with it.

Am I right?

I’m also going to guess that:

Maybe you’ve always wanted to own your own business, but you never knew where to start.

Maybe you are considering a hobby business because you think it will be fun, but you’re unsure (and maybe even a little skeptical) about how you can actually make any money from it. After all, we’ve all heard parents everywhere saying, You can’t make money from that! It’s just a hobby! Right?

Maybe you’ve recently lost a dependable source of income and you desperately need to get something going using the skills and interests you already have.

No matter why you decided to open this book and whether your hobby is a musical instrument, photography, skiing, personal fitness, or anything in between, I’m confident you are going to find value in these pages. In fact, that’s why I wrote this book: to save you from making the same mistakes I did.

It turns out that flying by the seat of your pants simply doesn’t work in business. It never did for me, and it probably never will for you. What you need instead is a proven set of strategies, an unshakeable mindset, and relentless execution in order to turn your passion into profits online.

Luckily, that’s exactly what I’m going to help you achieve in our time together.

It doesn’t matter what level you’re currently starting from or why you started. You can win the game of online business from any stage!

What’s Inside This Book

This book contains the result of thousands of hours of trial and error and tens of thousands of dollars of my own money to collect the best techniques and strategies I’ve found to increase monthly income. Absolutely every strategy included in this book (whether created by me or learned from one of my brilliant mentors) has been road tested multiple times by me or by my coaching clients.

It’s also worth noting that there’s nothing inherently new inside this book. If you’re looking for some secret technique or strategy to instantly make you a fortune overnight, you aren’t going to find it here. That’s because most principles of business (and success in general) are as old as time.

And that’s another reason this book is so valuable: it will save you time.

I’ve structured the most effective strategies, techniques, and mindsets I used to build my own hobby business into an easy-to-follow framework that I call the Four Pillars of Profit.

The Four Profit Pillars are PROFILE, PRODUCE, PROMOTE, and PROPEL. You will see that I’ve broken up the book into four parts, which mirror the Four Pillars of Profit:

Profit Pillar I: PROFILE will set the stage for your role in your hobby business, the market you will serve, and the overall vision of your hobby business.

Profit Pillar II: PRODUCE will focus on identifying your ideal customer and producing your first solution to help them achieve their ideal outcome.

Profit Pillar III: PROMOTE will teach you how to construct an irresistible offer in order to sell your solution to your ideal customer.

Profit Pillar IV: PROPEL will show you how to help your customer achieve their ideal outcome and purchase more solutions from you in the future.

Each of the Four Profit Pillars consists of six key questions (or Six Strings, as I like to call them): WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, WHEN, and HOW. Each of the Six Strings connects you to valuable answers and insights you can use to set up a hobby business that generates six figures per year in revenue (hence Six Strings to Six Figures).

You’ll see these Six Strings reflected in the chapters of each Profit Pillar, so the overall structure of the book looks like this:

Profit Pillar I: PROFILE

Who: YourIdentity Shift will help you clarify your role in your hobby business.

What: YourIdeal Hobby Market will help you choose the specific hobby you base your entire hobby business on.

Why: YourMotivation will uncover your deeper motivations for the hobby market you choose.

Where: YourIdeal Workspace will help you plan where you will do your best work.

When: YourIdeal Schedule will help you decide when you will work on your hobby business.

How: YourIdeal Outcome will help you envision your future and plan how you will respond to both positive and negative outcomes you may encounter along the way.

Profit Pillar II: PRODUCE

Who: YourIdeal Customer will help you identify the characteristics of the person your solution is most likely to help.

What: TheirIdeal Outcome will show you how to discover the results your ideal customer wants to achieve.

Why: TheirMotivation will help you understand your ideal customer’s motivation for wanting to achieve their ideal outcome.

Where: TheirCurrent Status will help you pinpoint where your ideal customer is starting their journey and how your solution can bridge the gap to achieving their ideal outcome.

When: TheirSuccess Path will help you map out your ideal customer’s entire experience using your solution and plan when each major milestone will occur along the way.

How: TheirIdeal Format will help you decide exactly how to package and present your solution to your ideal customer.

Profit Pillar III: PROMOTE

Who: YourIdeal Advocates will help you round up the people who can possibly help you promote your solution to your ideal customer.

What: YourIdeal Offer will walk you through the process of crafting an effective marketing campaign that captures the attention of your ideal customer.

Why: YourClear Difference will help you highlight the elements that make your ideal customer want to invest in your solution over other available options.

Where: Your Ideal Marketplace will help you decide where you will promote your offer online.

When: YourPromo Schedule will outline various campaign structures and schedules to sell your solution online.

How: YourIdeal Sales Process will help you structure your sales message and present your offer to your ideal customer so they can complete the transaction.

Profit Pillar IV: PROPEL

Who: YourActual Customer will help you discover who actually invested in your solution.

What: TheirWelcome Experience will help you wow your customer after they invest in your solution.

Why: TheirReason For Buying will uncover your customer’s motivation for investing in your solution.

Where: TheirSupport Path will help you direct your customer to the various places they can get assistance if they get stuck en route to their ideal outcome.

When: TheirFirst Win will help you usher your customer to experience their first meaningful result and beyond.

How: TheirNext Purchase will outline various ways to sell more solutions to your customer.

By following the Six Strings to Six Figures Framework I present in the book, you will form your Hobby Business Plan—your blueprint for making your first sale and beyond. If you can sell your solution once, you can sell it thousands of times.

Fun Fact

Anywhere there is an aside that I think will be beneficial to you, I’ve included a Fun Fact like this one or a B.O.S.S. Tip (a tip Based On Simplicity and Speed) to enhance the topic in question.

I wish I’d had this book that day in the hospital when I decided to take the leap of faith into the unknown and start my own hobby business.

I hope it serves you well!

What’s Not Inside This Book

The principles in this book are based on creating a profitable hobby business in the multibillion-dollar eLearning industry.

In other words, I will be walking you through how to create a hobby business that sells info products and how-to solutions to teach your ideal customer how to become more skilled and knowledgeable about your hobby of choice. While the majority of strategies in the book can help you create and grow any type of hobby business, you won’t find specific advice for selling hobby-related commodities like hockey sticks or jewelry on e-commerce sites like Etsy.

This book is all about teaching hobbies in order to turn your passion into profits online, because I believe it’s the simplest and most reliable type of hobby business you can start.

I’ve tried my best to cut out as much jargon as possible. The book is mostly conversational and assumes you are new to most, if not all, of the topics. No previous knowledge about business is required. That’s why I start from the ground up, and each chapter builds on the previous one.

While I don’t expect you to understand and use every single technique or strategy I mention, I’ve included everything that has worked for me so far in my own hobby business as a reference you can keep coming back to.

The goal of the book is to expose you to powerful business strategies and sharpen your thinking as an entrepreneur. Many successful entrepreneurs will agree that mindset is everything. Since it’s outside of the scope of this book (or any book) to include details about every single concept or strategy I mention, anywhere I think you might want to dive deeper into a topic, I’ve provided a link to a resource I recommend.

All that being said, I want to give you a quick disclaimer: this is not a get-rich-quick book.

If you’re hoping to read this book and think money will magically appear, this is the wrong book for you. This book will require hard work. It will require deeper research and deeper thinking than you may be used to.

Even though this book makes the process easier, it doesn’t make it easy.

You may experience some of the most stressful days of your life—and you may also experience some of the most joyful.

If you aren’t prepared to show up consistently and do the work necessary to grow your hobby business from the ground up…or if you aren’t willing to commit to creating value for your customer and helping them become the best version of themself, then please save both of us the trouble and put the book down now.

On the other hand, if you are willing to work hard, try new things, and go all-in and bet on yourself, then I’m thrilled to be your guide!

How to Get the Most Value from This Book

Before we dive in, I want to share how to get the most value from this book.

I first learned this technique from my friend and mentor Ryan Levesque (a former Hobby Boss himself). I suggest you first read this book quickly from cover to cover with a relaxed focus. This will give you an overview of the entire scope of this initial foundational phase of your hobby business.

Once you finish, go back and read the book again while thinking about the specifics of your hobby business, completing each exercise and action item in the book to form your Hobby Business Plan.

While you don’t have to use every single strategy I lay out in each chapter to have a successful hobby business, I don’t recommend jumping around from chapter to chapter before completing your Hobby Business Plan, as it will likely leave you with a hobby business full of holes.

After your Hobby Business Plan is complete, you can keep this book and your Hobby Business Plan on your desk to refer back to whenever a question or obstacle arises in your hobby business or when you feel like experimenting with a new technique or strategy you haven’t tried yet.

Make sure to mark up the book, take notes, and most of all—do the work!

You can make money from your hobby, and I’m about to show you how.

It’s time to unleash the Hobby Boss within…

Let’s get started!

]>

Profit Pillar I

Profit Pillar I: Profile

Welcome to Profit Pillar I: PROFILE.

In this section of the book, we lay the groundwork for your hobby business. (Hint: that groundwork begins and ends with you and your overall mindset.) We will be discussing your role in your hobby business, the market you plan to enter, and your motivation for entering it.

Once we do that, we can set up both where and when you work and begin to plan for the future of your hobby business.

Don’t skip these steps, as they will make everything else in the book much easier and give you the best shot at becoming a Hobby Boss.

Ready to dive in? Let’s go!

]>

Chapter 1

1. Your Identity Shift

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

—Dale Carnegie

So you’ve decided to start your own hobby business and you picked up this book to find out how to get started.

Congratulations! This is a big deal.

Starting a business (especially an online business) is a lot like having a newborn baby:

The constant urge to talk about it with anyone who will listen

The nagging fear about knowing what’s best for it and what isn’t

The messes you have to clean at ungodly hours of the night

You get the idea.

Whether or not you’ve ever experienced the chaotic roller-coaster ride of parenthood, you, my friend, are in for a real treat.

Much like a new parent, you’re probably experiencing a mixture of both fear and excitement as you envision what you believe will be a better life. The best part about this vision is that it’s 100 percent yours—and it can be literally anything you want.

When you achieve your vision, you will embody an identity I call Hobby Boss. Ultimately, you define what that means to you, but to me, it means gaining the instinctive ability to turn your passion into profits online and doing it all on your terms.

In order to achieve this new identity, you must first identify the gap between where you are now and where you envision yourself as a Hobby Boss. Once you have determined your starting point, you can make the necessary identity shift to manifest your vision into reality and grow your new hobby business effectively and efficiently.

I didn’t really understand this concept when I first started my hobby business, Rockstar Mind, in 2014. I was just winging it, and it led to many months of hustling to make every dollar and kept me stuck working in my hobby business rather than on it.

Once I completed the work in this chapter and the following chapters in the PROFILE section of the book, I became a more strategic thinker and started noticing my sales and my free time multiplying.

Fun Fact

You’ll know you’re on the right track because you’ll begin to notice more zeros appearing on your revenue statements with less effort.

So how do you make your identity shift happen, and what exactly does it entail?

Well, in order to effectively become a Hobby Boss, you must get clear on who you are, how you will conduct yourself day to day, and how you want others to perceive you and your hobby business.

That’s the focus of this chapter, which will be split into two sections I like to call Front Stage and Backstage: Front Stage is who your customer will experience when they interact with your hobby business, and Backstage is how you will operate your hobby business day to day behind the scenes.

Let’s begin with Front Stage.

Front Stage

Who will be the face of your hobby business? Will it be you? A spokesperson? A cartoon character?

If your hobby business is anything like mine, you will likely be the face—at least at first. And truthfully, that’s a good thing.

Here’s why:

You will save money (no partnering up or hiring just yet).

You will build rapport faster with your audience, which will encourage buying behaviour.

You’ll constantly be on the front lines to learn the ins and outs of your given market, which will inform your strategic decisions in every facet of your hobby business (we’ll discuss this more in the next chapter).

If you’re not the face of your hobby business for whatever reason (because you’re too timid in front of the camera, you can’t find the right voice when writing and speaking, you don’t have interest in it, etc.), that’s okay too. You will still play many different roles in your hobby business even if being the face isn’t one of them. Just make sure to keep the principles I’m about to outline in mind, so the face of your hobby business adheres to them.

While it’s not extremely important to decide right this second whether you’ll be the face of your hobby business or not, that decision will need to be made by the end of chapter 6 because we’ll be getting into producing your solution in the next part of the book.

For the purposes of this chapter, however, I’m going to assume that you are going to be the face of your hobby business because it’s the most common scenario for entrepreneurs on a budget.

The face of your hobby business will appear in pictures, videos, products, advertisements, and basically any front-facing part of the business—in other words, anything your customer can see. That means you must be conscious of various elements that will impact your audience’s perception of you. These include your internal and external qualities, which will become a large part of your reputation with your audience.

To keep things simple, let’s call them your ABCs.

Front Stage Tactic #1: Know Your ABCs

The six internal and external qualities embodied by the face of your hobby business are:

Attitude

Behaviour

Core Values

Demeanour

Expressions

Fashion

Let’s take a look at each to see how you can put the best face forward.

(Please note that I believe these qualities should be as authentic as possible to you, or at most, slightly exaggerated, because your audience will see through any inauthentic qualities, and frankly, it won’t be sustainable for you to maintain.)

Your Attitude (Internal)

The attitudes of successful entrepreneurs vary greatly, and there’s no such thing as a master list of attitudes that will make you successful. However, here are some attitudes that definitely help make you show