Learning to take baby steps
At my coffee check-in with Maria
(the Lioness) earlier this week, I asked her to suggest a book – some kind of
complete guide to starting a business. Her gaze was level and her voice firm.
“No,” she said. “That would be overwhelming.”
She’s right. But not having a guide can be overwhelming,
too, even though I’ve started to chip away at my to-do list.
In the last 2 weeks I:
·
Decided that
my company will be an LLC in order to separate my personal and business assets
·
Came up with
a couple of possible business names that I like and am investigating whether
they and the associated domain names are available, and
·
Identified
three groups of target clients and the services I can provide to each
But…what next?
Maria’s favorite word is
“clarity.” She cut through the clutter in my mind with one question: How are
you going to generate consistent monthly income?
Oh. I realized that my focus had
been on my “ultimate” client – a high-end customer who would hire me to do a
big project. The problem is, those projects are time-limited and happen
unpredictably.
Instead, I needed to develop a
plan to bring in a guaranteed monthly income, even if it wasn’t enough to earn
a profit (very unlikely) or cover my household expense (highly probable). Take
baby steps, said Maria. Get a solid footing and then grow your business. My
eyes had been on the finish line and I needed to shift my gaze to the starting
line.
Maria’s advice to me was to
package my services in a way that would attract clients willing to sign on with
me for an extended period – 6 months or a year. Be specific, she said
(clarify), on what you will offer,
for how much, under what conditions.
We discussed an example. One
service I will offer is writing blogs for clients’ websites. I could create
three tiers of packages:
·
Basic
package:
o
The what: One 300-word blog/month
o
The how much: $250/month (assuming 2 hours
of work/blog, this provides me a decent rate and the client an affordable
service)
o
The conditions:
§
1-year
commitment
§
Paid monthly
§
Blog topic
and supporting materials (up to 10 pages) supplied by client
·
Standard package:
o
Two 300-word
blogs/month
o
For
$500/month
o
Under the
same conditions
·
Deluxe
package:
o
One 300-word
blog + one 1500-word article/month
o
Cost: $1,000
o
Conditions
§
Same as
above, plus the following for the article
·
Client
provides topic
·
I research
topic and provide an outline for approval before writing the article
Good, said Maria. Now put it in
writing so that it is clear to you, to me (Maria is developing my website), and
to your clients (I’ll have a menu of services I can hand or email to potential
customers).
Maria’s advice has caused me to
shift my thinking from the short-term to the long-term. I now understand very
clearly that it will take some time – probably a couple of years – to develop
my business to the point that it is profitable. I accept that I’ll have to take
on some part-time work for the foreseeable future to supplement my income from
the business. And, surprisingly, I’m okay with that. The clarity is calming.
Everyone needs a Maria.
I’d love to hear about and learn
from your experience. Feel free to comment on or share this post.
To read Part 1 of The birth of a business (and a business owner) go checkout my blog page.
