What's it Like to Be Your Own Boss?
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This document discusses the pros and cons of being an independent service provider and working as your own boss. It outlines the flexibility and control that comes with setting your own schedule and policies, but also the isolation, difficulty staying motivated, and business tasks like accounting that come with running a sole proprietorship. The second half provides low-cost marketing ideas for independent contractors like leveraging word of mouth, digital marketing, volunteering, trade associations, trade shows, chambers of commerce, and email marketing to build awareness and relationships.
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What's it Like to Be Your Own Boss?
- 1. W H AT I S I T L I K E T O B E Y O U R O W N B O S S ? THE INDEPENDENT BUSINESS CONTRACTOR PROMOTION NOTIONS
- 2. PRESENTED BY: Sheila Gregory Corporate Communications Professional Social Media Strategist promotion.notions2@gmail.com sensationalwriters.wordpress.com 2
- 4. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER PROS Flexibility Work whenever and wherever you choose
- 5. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER PROS Have Control • Set your own policies, prices • Choose which clients you want or don’t want
- 6. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER PROS Pride or prestige of running your own business, and being your own boss
- 7. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER PROS No wasted time on office politics or chit chat
- 8. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS Isolation No one to bounce ideas off of, no one to socialize with
- 9. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS Finding Your Motivation Do you have difficulty applying yourself or getting side-tracked with distractions?
- 10. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS Where does the time go?
- 11. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS Becoming too successful all at once. How to get all the work done and still provide excellent customer service with only you or few employees.
- 12. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS Handling difficult clients and those who don’t pay.
- 13. INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER CONS You must spend time on business requirements not directly associated with the daily work that you enjoy. • Banking • Billing / Invoicing • Accounting • Income Tax • Sales • Marketing
- 14. C H E A P & E A S Y I D E A S F O R T H E I N D E P E N D E N T B U S I N E S S C O N T R A C T O R MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS PROMOTION NOTIONS
- 15. “HARD” BUSINESS OBJECTIVES Have you set these “hard” business objectives to carry out your marketing, for example? • Get more foot traffic (for stores) • Get more orders or paying clients Are you trying to go from A to Z in one step?
- 16. YOUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES There’s a whole lot of B to Y in between. That’s where most of the marketing takes place. You cannot go directly from A to Z
- 17. KNOW, LIKE, TRUST • Building your brand • Raising awareness • Developing relationships • Building trust
- 18. B TO Y OBJECTIVES Your B to Y marketing plan will get you from A to Z: Set intermediate objectives That will help your target get to know, like, and trust you.
- 19. MARKETING TACTICS • Word of Mouth • Digital Marketing • Volunteering • Professional Associations • Trade Shows • Chambers of Commerce • Email marketing
- 20. WORD OF MOUTH •Customer Service Excellence •Building Your Reputation •Online reviews
- 21. DIGITAL MARKETING •Website •Blogging •Google My Business •Social Media
- 23. PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS • Find a trade or professional association relevant to your business • Subscribe to their newsletters • Go to their workshops & meetings
- 24. PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS • Become a member if there’s a good fit • That may allow for discounted ads or getting listed in their directory for free • Work hard to establish a reputation as a reliable, hard working person
- 25. TRADE SHOWS • Exhibiting not necessary when you first start out • Attend shows related to your business and look for business partnerships
- 26. TRADE SHOWS • If you have something in common, chat with exhibitors about their businesses and make friends • If appropriate, offer a plan to cross promote complementary businesses or fulfill some need they may have
- 27. CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE • Attend a free breakfast meeting - usually offered to introduce yourself • Become a member if it’s a good fit and get a link on their website • Help other business people – give advice or tips where you’re the expert
- 28. CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE • Look for complementary businesses to develop partnerships or cross promote • Provide referrals for other business owners • Do a presentation – how your business helps others (re-use your presentation at Rotary Club, Optimist Club, etc.)
- 29. EMAIL MARKETING • Build your list of contacts • Everywhere you go, ask for contact’s business cards • Get permission, “May I send you an email occasionally?”
- 30. EMAIL MARKETING Open a MailChimp account
- 31. EMAIL MARKETING Free account up to: • 2,000 subscribers, and up to • 2,000 emails / day or • 12,000 emails / month
- 32. EMAIL MARKETING Create and send something special exclusively for those on your list: • Your take on news related to business • Industry announcements or roundups • Must be something the target finds valuable • Discount coupon or a way to collect reward points
- 33. EMAIL MARKETING Frequency/Length: • Monthly or at least eight / year • Keep emails SHORT! • Use graphics with a link
- 34. EMAIL MARKETING Keep building your list: Create a landing page Offer something of value in exchange for people subscribing to your list Promote your landing page on social media
- 35. EXERCISE 1. Find an organization that complements your business: • Trade Association • Charitable Organization • Chamber of Commerce • Potential business partner 2. Find an activity to get involved in that organization: • Volunteer to work at a trade show • Sponsor a charity event & attend • Offer to write an article or blog post • Offer to give a presentation • Serve on a board or executive committee
- 36. DISCUSSION 36
Hinweis der Redaktion
- I am a Corporate Communications professional and have been in Digital Marketing for several years concentrating on content marketing. Most of the service I’ve provided was writing web pages and blog posts to enhance search engine optimization for my clients’ websites. Going forward, because of my expertise is in Social Media, I plan to start promoting Social Media Strategy development as my main service. I can do the actual day-to-day social media management too, but would rather focus on strategy and communications planning alone. So that’s where I’m headed in 2019. My email and website are here at the bottom and I have business cards here for those who want them. Now, I’ll be posting this presentation on SlideShare and providing a link to Aasma after. I hope she’ll share that with you, so you don’t have to write anything down today, unless taking notes is something that helps you.
- No wasted time on office politics or chit chat Some might consider the lack of chit chat to be one of the CONS …
- It depends on your personality but you might think of being on your own as very lonely, With no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to socialize with
- Getting motivated is one of my biggest problems with being an independent. It’s so easy to say “I need a break” and go play with the cat or go look in the fridge. You might have to play little tricks on yourself – like sometimes I pretend I have an earlier deadline than I do. Or I’ll tell myself I can go to Starbucks if I finish writing an article by early afternoon.
- I often don’t know where the time goes. It has a magical way of disappearing when you starting surfing your social media accounts, doesn’t it?
- Now here’s a problem I hope you’ll all have: Some businesses take off so quickly that they get too much business all at once and have no way of doing all the work. And don’t forget that you must guard your reputation by providing excellent customer service. Don’t let anything slip through the cracks just because you’re busy. If you’re swamped, how do you do that by yourself or only a few employees? A WORD OF WARNING: Don’t move too fast to hire employees, because when starting up if business you never know if it’s going to be sustainable. One way to deal with too much success is to take on a subcontractor or partner with a similar business who might take your overflow work. That can help in both ways, as you might be able to take on some of their overflow when you’re not so busy.
- You didn’t have to worry about this when you worked for someone else, did you?
- You also need to learn about these areas of business which can take a lot of time away from doing the actual work.
- When I start a social media marketing strategy for business owners, I usually start by asking what their objectives are, what do they want to accomplish. I first try to understand where they are in their business right now (Point A) and find out where they want to be (Point Z). Most say the objective is to get more sales, or more foot traffic into a store. They are expecting to instantly jump from Point A to Z in one step.
- But marketing is not sales. A marketing plan or strategy is a series of steps that prepares potential clients to become aware, like and trust your business so they will be receptive to the idea of buying your product or service when their need arises.
- When you’re starting out, you have to spend a lot of time on getting people to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you and your products or services. That’s because it’s been estimated that 90 % of the time, people buy something from someone they KNOW, LIKE, & TRUST.
- So what follows now is a number of things you can do to market your company, some of which are free and some cost money but can be done at pretty low costs. You’ll see that most of these activities have nothing to do with sales because they fall into the B to Y objectives. They are ways to get others to KNOW, LIKE, AND TRUST you and your products or services. You can start to build your marketing plan by setting some objectives and using the following tactics.
- If you already have clients, there is nothing like the value of excellent customer service to build your reputation. Protect your business reputation like it is gold. Repeat clients are your most valuable asset. *Online reviews are the modern digital word-of-mouth advertising with 67% of consumers reporting that their purchasing decisions were influenced by online reviews. If you have a have a store or come in contact with your customers, prepare cards to hand out asking for a review on Facebook, Yelp or wherever you have a digital presence. If you contact your clients only online, include a line in your email signature or on your invoices telling them how to provide a review. *https://moz.com/blog/new-data-reveals-67-of-consumers-are-influenced-by-online-reviews
- Your website is up, but is anyone visiting? Blogging for: Search Engine Optimization Content Marketing Does social work anymore? Organic vs paid exposure
- CHARITABLE VOLUNTEERING Do the front line work at a charity and get to know people. *82% of consumers consider corporate social responsibility as an important factor when making purchasing decisions. If you feel passionate about the cause, make it your corporate social responsibility to support the organization – You can support their social media, sponsor their events or become a donor, and share your goodwill on your own website and social media. Serve as a board director. You might have some expertise related to business to offer (e.g. waste reduction or environmental protection) *https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226974
- PROFESSIONAL VOLUNTEERING Find a trade or professional association relevant to your business Subscribe to their newsletters Go to their workshops & meetings You might be able to write an article for their trade publication or blog Provide referrals for your professional contacts – they may do the same
- Your professional association might put on a trade show. Make sure you attend and volunteer to set up or do a presentation. You’ll get known for being helpful and bond with people in your industry. You can even take an executive position in your association - you’ll get known for what you do.
- If you don’t have a professional association, you can still attend trade shows: Do a Google search on: Eventbrite Free Trade Shows Toronto Look for events where you might find like-minded business people or an industry that complements the one you’re into.
- Example: One of my friends is a wedding photographer. There are plenty of things a bride will need to purchase besides photography – flowers, the dress, decorations, jewellery, hairstyling etc. She approached brick and mortar businesses that might service brides to be, and asked if they’d like to form a marketing partnership and set up a draw for something free. She asked them to put out a bowl to collect business cards to be in a draw for a free half hour photography session when clients paid for flower arrangements for their wedding. In return, she did something to promote the flower business – on her website, she created a discount offer from the flower shop when clients booked a wedding with her. On an even simpler level, you can do the same thing with your social media – you can approach complementary businesses about cross promoting each other on your social media pages. You post a link to their page and they post one to yours. You can even find some Instagram groups where the members agree to like and comment on each others posts to help boost exposure.