What a mentor - lucky old me!!!
What a few weeks I have had!!! Not!!!
I thought I was born to be a free spirit – entrepreneurial spirit oozing out at every opportunity. But now over 6 months in - the reality is that is very hard being a one man band. The expression/words that spring to mind is honeymoon and over!!!!!
I still enjoy being in charge of my own destiny, but some days I wake up a think wow what am I going to do today. Am I selling or am I delivering – quite often it is a bit of both.
I am really lucky that I have found a colleague who is happy to spend an hour with me on bad days and will often give me that little bit of motivation to try something a bit new – he has seen it and done it as he has been running his business for 10 years. This is advice that can not be purchased. I am really luck y to have found somebody with the business experience that I have formed a friendship with who can advise on those bad days when every cloud looks black and full of rain not with a silver lining. A good mentor that you trust is like gold dust - I have had a few days recently where mine has given me that little push when all the doors are shut he has motivated me to get at them with a big hammer.
The second bit of advice I will give everybody – is networking. Do as much of it as you can. 50% of my leads have come from networking events and 50% have come from my existing network of friends and colleagues. I have just done an analysis of my marketing over the first six months. I have had very little luck with marketing in industry press. But all of my customers have come from either new networks or my existing network from my corporate life. If I could start again I would ensure that I did not burn so many bridges in my corporate life. If you are a few years away from starting your own thing – fix all bridges and work on making relationships stronger. Believe me if you don’t it will come back to haunt you. The best thing advertising has done for me if wake up old contacts and colleagues and encourage them to give me a call to find out about my business. Please if you are about to start get your address book out – do not spend thousands on marketing until this has been exhausted. If you are selling products use tools such as google ad words and have a strict monthly budget in your business plan – do not break the bank. I have spent lots of money on adverts that have not given me a return. Also remember your web site is only a portal – if you sell products - the web site will help – but if selling services it is people who will sell your services – i.e. a great case study will go further than a web site. Don’t spend unless you have to.
Just trying to share some ideas and thoughts with you all – have a great bank holiday!!! And remember – its only business!!
Gary
Scarecrow Consulting
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Hello Gary
Thank you for your advice on networking, it's come at just the right time.
Kind regards
Harry R Smith
Hi all
i have now been trading for 6 months so have changed the web site to reflect changes to my operation - would like to hear your comments.
Gary Sales
gary [dot] sales [at] scarecrowconsulting [dot] co [dot] uk
www.scarecrowconsulting.co.uk
Yeah, I have a friend who was in business for himself for a long time, he designs machinery, has worked for the government, the phone company, been all over the world, he still gets call from all over for advice and problem solving.
His advice to me was this. Develop your ideas and sell them to a company. Under no circumstances work for yourself. It's lonely and exhausting and keeps you awake at night.
This worries me a bit.
But I'm going to do it anyway.
Anne..