Six months on: Five lessons in entrepreneurship

Most people have designs on working for themselves and setting up a business that may give them a better quality of life than working 'the 9-5' for someone else can.

In many respects, there has never been a better time to run your own business if you bring something valuable to a particular customer set or have the funds to buy into a franchise.

It, does though, takes a certain drive to get up every day and focus in on a life involving all aspects of a life of hustling, networking, coffee shop catch ups and providing endless estimates, quotes, proposals and plans - every one feeling like the next big opportunity!

So, how can you mitigate the risks and hit the ground running?

Here are some things, I've picked up on my own journey creating Vision B2B in October 2015 and reflecting six months on that you might like to take something from. 

1. Have clarity of focus.

When you start a business, the tendency is to overstretch and take on work that probably isn't the right sort of work or necessarily with the right sort of customer. It takes guts to say no occasionally, but it's hard when you're in business building mode.

I entered into this period of my career wanting a 'portfolio' career' after dabbling for five years in giving talks, writing blogs and publications and running the odd private client.

The sorts of things I've been doing over the last six months or so have included (bear with me, there is a point):

• Taken on in-house digital training assignments within a UK plc
• Taken on a marketing planning training contract across the UK for a public sector client
• Worked as an outsourced marketing director for two metals sector clients
• Operated as an outsourced content strategist/PR in packaging
• Delivered brand positioning workshops and reports for a client in IT 
• Delivered competitive audits and board level marketing consultancy for a legal sector client
• Been awarded and currently managing two website projects
• Run 10+ social media accounts for five clients
• Updated my SmartInsights 250 page digital marketing publication (available by special request, through my profile)
• Sat on two live BrightTalk digital marketing video webinars and a recent SuccessFlow webinar
• Delivered paid training for multiple professional services organisations
• Developed my own Linkedin workshop, marketed it and delivered it in Manchester.

The objective of sharing this isn't to show off.

It is to demonstrate how quickly you can get taken off your road if you have a go at everything that comes your way without clarity of focus. When you start you want to take advantage of every opportunity, but perhaps focusing on 2-3 might return better long term results.

Q: Ask yourself, where do you make your money/impact? Where do you want to make your money/impact?

2. Offer something exclusive.

Business buyers don't generally like to change so you have to make a compelling, time sensitive offer that fits your business.

I put my heart and soul into my Linkedin training course but it didn't achieve the numbers I anticipated. Everybody I mentioned it to seemed interested. This might have been the date, the time, the venue, how I positioned it, who I positioned it too. I also offered a number of freebies from the off, instead of perhaps using time sensitive value-based marketing to stimulate action.

Try. Learn. Try again.

Think about your own new customer conversion and activation. You might consider time reservation as a driver, booking available production capacity, free training, bundled information products and services, or an early bird price.

Whatever you do, make it time sensitive or it lacks the urgency to make a decision. 

Q: What can you use to convert a tricky customer? What will they see real value in? 

3. Get a contract in writing. 

Never use an image like this (!) and never do business solely on a handshake. Things go wrong. Things break down. Things don't go full-term.

Contacts and agreements, where necessary containing probation periods, termination and payment terms ensure that specifications are met and services are honoured. 

Q: What aspects of contracts and financials do you have issues with that could be addressed earlier on in the process?

4. Invoice upfront. 

Why? Cash flow is king. Maybe when you worked in a corporate you didn't quite appreciate it, but working for yourself you sure as hell do.

More fundamentally, though and as a way to get your client to look at you a little differently as a sole trading start up, you actually need to be solvent in order for your client to really benefit from your experience. 

It's also much easier to achieve more favourable terms with smaller companies than large Tier 1 companies and their one-size fits all approach to procurement.

(Tip: Your business development strategy, like mine, may need re-configuring to fit - big companies may offer more volume, but it comes at discounted rates and extended payment terms).

If delayed payment terms can't be negotiated, evaluate the effort vs. reward.

Here are a number of ways to ensure you benefit from a relationship with a company that has unfavourable payment terms:

• Offer a discount for early payment to get your customer to reconsider.
• Secure a longer term commitment - 12 months rather than six, billing monthly - to offset your initial cash flow concerns. Once you're into a run of payments, you won't notice the delay any more.
• Seek access to other parts of the company through direct internal referral (be specific about who and where you want an introduction).
• Seek access to other companies in the supply chain (same rules as above for these external referrals).

In all cases, it must be a given that you can use your work as a case study, preferably as a named case study. The detail of how this might be used can be negotiated down from being named on your website, used in email, social media and PR, down to un-named and in 1-2-1 sales discussion only. Add it to your contract.

5. Secure endorsements and referrals.

I don't think it's human nature to take time to thank someone for a great job - it can often be a surprise when you receive a compliment - and feel odd sometimes giving one too.

So, ask for an endorsement.

On this particular platform, people also don't realise that the rules of keyword density work here just as they do elsewhere online. 99+ endorsements for 'marketing strategy' become very important to Linkedin Search if you want to be found by people looking for experts in 'marketing strategy'.

Consider offering a referral, we do at Vision B2B. We're offering 10% on first invoices with new clients to the referrer. It's rough but it works and it has paid out.  

Final question: What lessons have you learned from working for yourself that would be worth sharing? What things prevent you from leaping?