I’m a little late in getting to writing my post tonight. It’s been a rainy, rainy day here in CT and traffic was terrific!!! I kid you not, I saw the below driving home tonight.
Tonight’s topic was a struggle to come up with, as I was fresh out of ideas. Then it hit me – blog about the lessons I’ve learned over the past 5 months of building Bedford Street Marketing, LLC and share them with you. So, here it goes:
1)If you have a full-time job, don’t give it up
If Hollywood and sitcoms were to be believed, we’d all have this wonderful idea for a company and after a great montage moment or 1 episode of struggling, the company would take off and we’d all be millionaires.
Obviously, in the real world, that is far from the truth. So, my first pearl of wisdom is don’t give up your full-time job until your company takes off.
In the first few months, you will incur expenses like website costs, marketing costs (if you choose to use something like Google Adwords or IG/Facebook post promotion), setting up an office infrastructure(getting a professional email set-up and phone system for the home office) and incidentals like office supplies. Having a consistent revenue stream makes bearing these costs easier.
Plus, you can glean inspiration from your full-time job and see ways that you would incorporate things about their structure into your own firm. It keeps you in contact with potential partners and suppliers that eventually, when you branch out, can be leveraged for your own firm.
2)Use all 24 hours in the day:
Sure, it means working 9-5 at one job and then coming home at 6 or 7 and working till 2AM or later. However, think of it this way- it’s a second job you truly love and as the saying goes If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.
For most of us, if you’re single like me, the hours of 6 or 7 PM to 2 AM are spent either watching TV, going to the gym or going out. There is a reason there are 24 hours in day – use them all.
Additionally, it does wonders for your bank account when you use the evening to work on your own project…. 🙂 And when you have a breakthrough or a great idea, you feel like this:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292961
The link above is to an article from Entrepreneur entitled “Good News from Science: Night Owls are Smarter and More Creative“. I’ll let you read the article (it’s a good read) – but to paraphrase, the hours that most people starting up a firm work coincide with being a night owl. My favorite part of the article highlights how working late at night fosters creative solutions and allows for more alternative, out of the box thinking. So, my point is take advantage of working late and make your business really stand out from the rest. Plus it means you’re wicked smart, how about them apples!!!
Increased Motivation and Self-Confidence
If you’re over the age of 25, we’ve all had that “Office Space” moment.
An interesting stat I read was it takes 21 days to create a habit and 90 day to create a lifestyle. So, the first month of your start-up is the creation of the habit of working when you get home from work on your business. And here is where the perseverance and increase in self-confidence come in, if you hold to that habit – by month 3, it’s become a lifestyle. There will be lots of distractions and times when you feel like it’s not working – but you have to push through and keep going.
As you see your social media feed grow and interactions with potential leads develop – you feel good about yourself. Little things like getting emails to your business account or even a VM (Even if it’s someone pitching you their services) show you that your effort is paying off and people are listening to your messaging and connecting with your branding. These are things you crafted, developed and executed – it’s really an extension of you. And when you see even little successes, you build on them to achieve greater ones.
Conclusion:
It’s not an easy task to try to build your own company. It’s a rocky path filled with multiple distractions to make you want to give up. But if you hold firm to your vision, it’s a path that is rewarding.
Bedford Street Marketing Insights 