Making Room for the Business You’re Slowly Building
There exists a certain phase of creating something on the side that people do not speak of often. You are not a beginner anymore as you have experienced a successful first project, gained some customers, earned money, and learned at least something about your area of interest. However, it is too soon for you to consider the business as your main job.
You are still employed somewhere else and receive your salary. Your side project is only taking space in your evenings, weekends, or day offs. Nevertheless, the project has started living on its own. You have clients, who need to be replied to, bills to be paid, papers to work on, and many other things that you have wanted to implement for quite a long time without having the opportunity to do it yet. You might even have many tabs open in the browser on the subject of your business.
This is an interesting phase because the issue is not purely how to generate the idea or acquire the first client anymore but how to create the necessary conditions for the idea to grow and develop without being a constraint for your life.
Stop Building Around Leftover Time
When a new business is working, there seems to be plenty of time. You might work late continuing your work, be on the phone while cooking dinner, or spend part of your Sunday finishing off your website. There is a sense of fulfillment and progress, good as protecting these hours.
However, from a certain point on this free time disappears and one’s business has to compete with things like sleeping, socializing, exercising, hobbies, and everything else which is nice.
The need to organize your working hours sets in.
Instead of asking yourself when you can do important things related to your business, state how many hours you want to devote to your business. One can say that a few evenings in the week are good enough or suggest allocating the necessary hours from Saturday morning.
When clients start thinking that just because you operate on your own, you are available at all times, that boundary becomes even more necessary. Businesses headed by professionals have defined working hours and response times, plus days when the owner doesn’t reply to emails at all. One can set such boundaries even before becoming a full-time entrepreneur.
Create a Minimum Version of the Business
One might assume that success in business means establishing everything right from the get-go, meaning a perfect website, branding, newsletter, social media accounts, proposal, customer onboarding process, bank account, and all possible productivity tools.
However, this can turn into a delay tactic in and of itself.
Instead, think about what the simplest possible version of your business will be. That is, suppose a potential client was to contact you today. What would you actually need in order to help him?
Possibly, you may need a professional email address, a simple website, an explanation of your services, an agreement, invoices, and a place to store documentation.
All the rest can be built as the need arises.
This approach prevents you from developing systems for problems that do not exist.
It makes no sense to spend time creating a complicated customer portal when you have three customers and communicate with them via emails only.
Create what you need for your business now while being flexible enough for the business of the future.
Pay Attention to the Invisible Work
One of the most prominent indicators that your side hustle is on the upswing is the increasing volume of workload associated with the work. You still keep doing the work that generates income, but the number of invoices, revisions, schedules, follow-ups, agreements, receipts, documents, passwords, inquiries, and emails increases.
Though none of these steps seem significant when considered separately, cumulatively, they can demand a large portion of your time and energy.
That is exactly the reason why documentation becomes important much earlier than it might seem. If you realize that you are explaining one or the same thing to clients for the third time, the best thing you can do is to write the explanation down once. If you find yourself creating the same proposal over and over again, save it as a template. If you can’t remember what you agreed on during the calls, take notes on the project.
An efficient system does not have to be complicated. Sometimes it can be just a “Client documents” folder with a naming principle that stays in your mind. The goal is to avoid solving the same irrelevant problem again and again.
Keep a Record of Decisions, Not Just Tasks
Most people note what they need to do but few keep notes on why they decided to do it.
This could prove to be an incredible insight.
It could be that you decided not to offer a certain service because it took too long to provide. You might have changed the price after recognizing that a project required almost twice as much effort.
Put down your thoughts about these decisions.
A few months later you might have remembered only that you made some changes but not the reasoning. A business diary might become a valuable reference. It would allow you to see the evolution of your decisions instead of getting stuck in the spiral of the same problems.
This diary also gives you what no application provides: data on how your business is moving forward in reality.
Formalize Things When There Is a Reason
Once you reach a certain level of development, there are issues that seemed unimportant when you were doing little aside from testing your theory. So are you supposed to register your business? Should you keep your accounts separate? What kinds of contracts to use with customers? Are there any taxes or reporting requirements you should be aware of? Is it worth it to use a different company structure?
There isn’t a single answer to any of these questions — it all depends on your place of residence, the manner of your business operations, and your future plans. You don’t have to register your business organization just because you start making profits in it.
Incorporating your business can be easier when you have a clear idea of the information and documentation involved. However, you still need to make sure you understand the specific requirements that apply to your business before starting the process.
The principle applies to various kinds of documents in business. Examples of documents include contracts, invoices, and other documents. It is necessary to gather documents for the purpose of solving business problems and not just to show that the company is legal.
Separate Being Visible From Being Available
Starting an online business comes with a challenge. You might be led to think that being seen means being all the time reachable to your audience.
You work on your posts, replying to comments to messages, your profile, and sharing your work, only to find out that running your business feels like a full-time job of showing that it exists.
But it does not have to be that way.
The web presence should help the public grasp what kind of business you are running rather than ask for continuous engagement with clients. You can have a website, which would provide answers to common questions, and a portfolio to help potential customers see your work without you personally showing it to them. Overall, you can create some powerful content for your audience without having to post something every day.
Social content does not have to be perfect. Rather than looking for polished pieces, you can use a clip taken behind the scenes, a quick celebration after reaching a goal, or a simple visual made on a GIF maker and get the desirable effect from your content.
The important thing is to develop a presence that month after month keeps doing work while you are busy with the real tasks.
Notice What You Keep Avoiding
At times, the most valuable information for your company may lie inside the task that you keep putting off.
If you have not done your bookkeeping for a while, perhaps your system has been overcomplicated. If the procedure of sending the proposal makes you anxious, it may be that the proposal should be changed.
If you are not keen on updating your website pages, maybe you are trying to give it too much information.
When you do not reach out to your clients because you don’t know what to say, what you need is a template for a follow-up letter.
Not every kind of procrastination points to the problem with motivation. There are times that you need to find a good design.
When some process causes problems over and over again, it may be necessary to examine the process instead of blaming yourself for lacking self-discipline.
Build Around the Life You Actually Want
It can be easy to accept other people’s measurements for entrepreneurial success: more customers, more money, more followers, more products, more employees, or more expansion. However, just because a business is larger does not make it better.
Maybe you want to replace your salary. Or perhaps you desire an income that lets you make flexible choices. You could want to work only four days a week. You might also prefer to keep your business small because intimacy with every client is what you like most.
The type of your goals determines the kind of the needed systems. For example, if you want an enormous advertising agency, you will need advanced methods that could be followed by individuals. If you have only a small creative business in mind, you might pay more attention to time management and choices of projects.
Thus, growth is not the only way. Before thinking about growing your company, think about what you want your business to help you achieve in your life.
A Few Tools to Have in Your Corner
As the industry matures, it will normally include paperwork. There are a limited number of special tools that may assist in this regard.
1. LawDistrict
For those ready to formalize a growing business, LawDistrict offers an articles of incorporation template that can be a useful starting point when exploring the documentation involved in incorporating a business.
2. Bonsai
Bonsai is an ideal solution that helps small entrepreneurs and freelancers use numerous practical business documents like contracts, invoices, proposals, and client agreements. Bonsai will come in handy when assignments will begin to flow in.
3. HoneyBook
HoneyBook is a software that helps your business in all paperwork related to client relationships like contract agreements, questionnaires, invoices, and all other documents related to the project. If you are able to keep all of these documents organized then your side business will not seem too scattered.
4. Termly
Any professional website will need its own set of documents as well. Termly concentrates on legal and compliance documentation that contains privacy policies, terms and conditions and cookie policies that will help business owners in dealing with some of the least visible parts of getting their business online.
5. Contractbook
Contractbook is a company that gives you more information about the services that it offers for the creation and management of agreements. This tool becomes really helpful when your business involves more than occasional freelance assignments and you start to have regular relationships with your clients.
Give It Enough Room to Become Something
Starting a business isn’t an elaborate process.
It’s not like you’ll wake up one morning and have it all figured out. You don’t need a perfect logo, a large following, or a five-year plan to get started with your work.
Generally, it’s small steps that help you make a transition. For example, you stop mixing personal expenses with business ones. You save contracts instead of creating them from scratch every time you need one. You provide your clients with better working options. You document your decisions. You limit your availability. You learn what aspects of your business should be formalized and which can wait.
At some point, everything pays off. Running your business becomes easier and simpler for others to understand, whilst your memory doesn’t have to be perfect.
This is real business development. Not working every hour available, but creating the structure for your business and still leaving time for your personal life.
