#freelancerskill

Learning by doing, and how not to do it. 4 Things I learnt from my first business.

Guitar Solutions. My first business.

What an experience. So much time spent, and late nights. Trying and trying and trying again.

GS is on hiatus right now. It has been for a few years. It may well be forever at this point. I keep toying with the idea of following through with the big rebrand I had lined up shortly before I gave up and kicking it back into gear.

(Note -I did give up. I had a bad stint after the biggest opportunity that had ever presented for GS became a sour, arduous experience. I set it to one side, I needed a break, and never picked it up again).

The knowledge is there. The enthusiasm’s there. But, so is the key takeaway from it all.

You can’t just start a business and expect it to be financially viable. 

A successful business needs a little more thought than none at all.  I started GS because I needed more money, I wanted more money. I looked at my skills and thought “What can I do, I can fix guitars”, and went from there.

Musicians, as a rule, don’t tend to have a whole bunch of cash anyway. Especially after a couple of years in 2008 when the recession hit. People were literally losing their jobs. Things like a spanky service on the guitar was just too luxurious to consider.

If I’d considered it at all, I’d have realised that it was a very small marketplace, and I was going to struggle.

Now, any one of today’s sales and marketing gurus will tell you that getting right down to specifics is good. Find your niche. Make it super focused. 

This is great when the people in that niche have plenty of cash to buy your services. But if they aren’t there, it’s gonna be an uphill battle.

Thing is, those clients were there. I knew they were. I wanted them but was too scared to approach them. The impostor syndrome was so strong I didn’t dare promise them anything, which didn’t matter cos I didn’t approach them at all.

I didn’t consider learning to sell cos I thought of it as pushy, sleazy absolutely not for me or my customers.

People would ask me about work and I’d pitch them, and 4/5 times they’d say “Cool, I’ll give you a shout on payday”. Payday never came.

The most salesy I ever got would be to say, “I can squeeze you in this week, before XYZ for *name drop*, and we can sort out the other stuff (payment) after”.

This improved things a bit. The workflow increased, happy customers came back. Until the “pay me later” bit reared its head and I ended up waiting 2 months for payment for a big job. It shouldn’t have been a problem except that I’d sunk all the assets I had into paying the supplier to complete this one. Deposits I’d put down on items to buy and sell were forfeited. It cost me more to come back from than I made.

I rethought the pay me later approach. It was a hard lesson in Liquidity, the lifeblood cash flow of a business. 

If the cash flow stops, the business stops.

It served a second lesson too. Serving friends. The guy I did the work for was a friend, in a locally known touring band, they were doing well. It made total business sense, plus my mate wasn’t going to let me down on his end of the bargain, was he.....?

There’s lessons in owning your own business that you’ll NEVER expect. You end up doing things you never saw coming, and you get to see people you think you know really well in a very different light. 

Honestly, now, I avoid working with anyone I have a prior relationship with. Just in case.

I wasn’t gonna let myself be a mug again. It was the second time that working with a mate had burned me. The first time I started teaching lessons with another friend of mine. I put the word around, sorted a venue to teach in, hand wrote the lesson plans and teaching materials, and dealt with the contact with the client - a lady looking for guitar lessons for her two daughters, about 9 and 11 years old, during the summer holidays. The first lesson went really well, we got paid and I split the cash with him 50-50 like we agreed. 

The second week came, we started the lesson. He was hungover and swore, albeit casually in front of the girls. NOT COOL. I told him that if that’s how he felt then I’d do the lesson without him. They never rebooked. My reputation as a teacher was dead, thanks to my friend.

So, be very careful who you trust your time, money and reputation with.

Anyways, I persevered. It took a little while, but basically, I lent the business the cash from my own pocket. I wasn’t about to let all that effort lose steam and go to nothing. Custom was steady but slow. I tried to get people engaging online, to interact with the posts I found. I’d get a like. One post had a few shares, and no-one even mentioned GS. I was gutted.

I know now that I was trying to market, but didn’t know it. I thought if I post cool content then people will talk about GS. This is kinda true, cos content marketing IS a thing, but it’s one aspect. 

You need a call to action (tell people what to do - call me, email, message here, get in touch for your 10% discount, today only!) But you need to tell them how you can help them. Don’t just say “We’re so great, we’re the best, blah blah”. 

Try “We’re the best. We’re the best because whatever instrument you send to us will be so improved, and make your playing so great, whoever you like will fall at your feet pleading to go out with you! Oh, and the record company will offer you so much cash you’ll be crushed”.

Well, not quite like that, it’s long-winded for a start. But what it does is portray the benefits of your services. They imagine the hotties falling at their feet, and swimming in cash. 

Some people care about the height of the action on a guitar neck. Others care about it cos they know it’ll make them shred and look SICK. AS. FUCK.

Y’see the difference? 

What you do is one thing, but how it relates to the customer is the important bit, so tell them that.

On top of all this, I learnt about registering as self-employed and doing tax returns, which aren’t nearly as terrible as you think they are, getting adverts in relevant magazines, buying domains and hosting. Trying to set up a website (I was using the wrong platform).... The list goes on.

Choose your niche.

Cash is king

Be careful who you let in.

Learn to market yourself. Tell your customers how your services benefit them.

Read this. Remember the pitfalls I discovered. Set your business up anyway (after relevant research!) and GO FOR IT!

Good luck!

So I bought this recently, Way Of The Wolf by Jordan Belfort.

It’s a very enjoyable read, and the insight into the Straight Line System from the man himself is fascinating!

I admire The Rock. A lot.

Controlling your mindset is a critical skill.

Yup, that’s right. YOU have to decide what your future looks like.

A bit like making a vision board, but y’know, much more better.

(You can make a vision board too if you like, I’m just messing, If it helps it’s all good!)

You have to decide what really makes you tick.

Is it freedom or income? It’s usually some mix of the two, but yours may be different.

Success for most people is reverse engineered. They take the end vision of their ideal life and then work it back. They take the beach house with the Ferrari and the pool and the helicopter, and they work back the steps they need to take to make it happen.

Maybe you want to write, or spend your time with Horses, or race cars, or work out, or just while away the hours sunbathing on the beach. Maybe you’ll even just be happy working on your own schedule, making enough to live comfortably.

That end vision is important. Very important

When you go to the shop, you know where you are, and where the shop is, and you work out the steps and directions between here and there.

This is the same. If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t get there.

The choice is up to you, but you need to work out where your own level of success lies, and then use your chosen niche as a way of getting there.

Tasty, helpful, nuggets of wisdom.

Yup, these will be coming at you via Freelancers kill. 

Tips on which niche to adopt, along with hints and tricks on sales, marketing, improving your skill-set, mastering your motivation, personal branding, the list goes on...

Everyone has their thing. That thing they do, whether they enjoy it, or are good at it, or even do it better than everyone else, everyone has their thing.

Which is good for you. 

You may not see yourself as an entrepreneur, but guess what?

It means there IS something that you do, that you can probably hone and monetise.

You might be a good photographer. You could sign up for the Adobe suite to make your pictures more saleable, and sell your work.

You could be a dancer. Get your DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) certificate, find a local studio and see about becoming an instructor. You can even start your own studio.

If you’re a gym fanatic you can have a youtube channel and podcast with the best exercises for developing chest, butt, arms, fat loss. Which gym wear brand you find the most comfortable.

FIND. YOUR. NICHE.

Once you have your niche, you can begin.

You will need to learn how to market and sell your product and yourself.

*This quote from Grant Cardone sums it up perfectly;

“I believe that the number one reason a business or for that fact an individual fails in accomplishing its endeavors (regardless of the endeavor) is "it’s inability to sell products in quantities great enough, at prices high enough and at speeds fast enough to capitalize the business, the idea or whatever it is the company or individual’s survival depends on." 

Sell enough of your product, at a high enough price, that you can be successful.

What is your skill? What do you do that sets you apart from everybody else? What do you do that makes you in-demand and saleable?

Forget all that “Follow your passion and the money will come” nonsense. That happens for a FEW, LUCKY individuals. Also, not all ideas will work. 

Sorry to be negative, but this about the reality of success, not just nice dreams.

Chances are, you’ll need to find your niche, and work hard at it. 

Think about what you do. Consider what you will sell, how you will sell it, who will you sell it to, and how much will you charge? 

Good luck

Entrepreneurs On Fire.

I love this blog. The backstory of the eofire main man resonated with me. John Lee Dumas looked for success, then found his niche, and the rest is history!

Entrepreneurs On Fire offers AMAZING content AND free courses!

Wanna find your niche? Entrepreneurs On Fire. 

Wanna discover new clients and spread the word? Entrepreneurs On Fire. 

Wanna be inspired? ENTREPRENEURS ON FIRE.

Seriously, if I’m feeling lost for ideas, or overwhelmed at what to do next (let’s face it, going freelance and blazing your own path throws up A LOT of challenges), I can check in with the latest podcast, and either get a new angle I hadn’t considered yet, some outright new ideas, or just plain reassurance. 

Knowing that ALL these successful people had to go through the pinball machine of trial and error, mistakes, and seemingly endless setbacks make wading through the small stuff a bit less arduous.

Entrepreneurs On Fire covers LOADS of different topics, from product development to communication skills, the list is LONG.

You’re probably reading this because, like me, you want to walk your own path. Entrepreneurs On Fire is a FANTASTIC resource for you. 

Check out the link below!

Diane’s interview with Dan Lok is FASCINATING. 

Traditional approaches to work are now irrelevant, the workplace has changed and so must we.