So you want to get out of the rat race? No longer wanting to climb the corporate ladder and build someone else’s dreams. Congrats!! You may want to be your own boss…An entrepreneur or small business owner. Transforming from an employee to an entrepreneur can be a tough road to go down. First, let’s get your ducks in order to make sure the transition goes smooth.
Concrete Idea For Business Model
Before you throw the deuces and walk out the office door…pump your breaks. Do you have a concrete business plan that has a proven track record in the industry. It’s time to write your creative business plan that will guide you/r business throughout the years. It’s okay if you sway from it or write a completely new one down the line. My first business plan was 25 pages and was for a resale company. Now I run a fashion tech company. Too different industries causing a pivot and a rewrite of my guidelines.
12-18 months of savings
Customers and clients will not be lining up to spend money with you soon as you open your doors. It takes time to build solid relationships with vendors, clients, customers, press and more. In that time you are going to need an income of sorts to live off of. Calculate all your expenses and bills then average those numbers out. That is what you need to make monthly to live. Save that money up for the next several months in a high interest savings account. This is separate from your current savings account. This is your businesses livelihood til the money starts coming in. Having this money is crucial. Last week a client had to tap her saving account so her and her family could live. She was extremely thankful to have that money.
Clients/Customers Lined Up
Building word-of-mouth is essential to your company’s growth in the first 90 days of business. You want income coming in immediately so you don’t have to tap the above mentioned savings account. Before you quit your job officially get clients or customers lined up who are excited to work with you. If you are a service based company have at least 5-7 of those aforementioned excited individuals on a 6 month contract. This will secure money for your business. Use social media to spread the word about your business. In addition to growing your brand locally get out in your community.
Establish A Marketing Plan
Too many people assume their family and friends will support them monetarily from the start. They think they will spread the word about their business and the next thing they know Oprah will be calling. Sorry to tell you it doesn’t work like that. Create a marketing plan for how you are going to bring your product or service to its idle target demographic. Will you be using guerrilla marketing, social media, word of mouth, pay-per-click, advertising or some other means? Will you bring on a PR or Marketing specialist? Devise the plan now to know how your customer is going to learn about your business.
Advisory Team
Never go to war without a wise counsel advising you to do so. When launching a business it can be very stressful and tough. You need a team around you that can help you when it comes to various topics. My advisory board consists of people in the beauty, tech, PR, magazine and a couple other industries.
They are each brilliant and help guide my business. Are you planning on quitting your company before the new year? Have you implemented these 5 steps to help ensure your transition from your 9 to 5 job to pursue your dreams?
