I’m heading into the fifth year of my company Ignite Insight + Innovation. How it’s been this long already? Well, I think I’m having serious time memory issues. So I thought I would spend some time kicking off this year reflecting on owning my company and hopefully this is valuable to others as well. After all, it’s been five years and I’m still going strong. So first and foremost… WOOT!
The highlights that I believe helped me get here:
- I spent a lot of time really thinking about my purpose and brand. I wanted the name of the company to be in alignment of what I was trying to do. Over five years, every time I want to review, enhance, etc an offering/tagline/etc – it flows wonderfully with my purpose and brand. Ignite was a wonderful choice. My purpose of Ignite What’s Possible allows me to expand and focus my offerings as things develop. As much as naming my company drove me bonkers, I’m beyond grateful for really digging in before deciding.
- Experts: I still panic that I’m not doing something as a business owner (especially legally). I’m extremely grateful I hired a bookkeeper, accountant, etc in areas that I want proactive support as new information emerges.
- Connections: Almost all of my work is from word of mouth and referrals. People will frequently attend a class or contact me for advisor sessions based on someone else and then become repeat clients. I did not know it but building a network of amazing connections ahead of starting my company definitely was a primary factor in successful outcomes.
- Visibility: I maintained an active presence in conferences, linkedin, newsletters, etc. One, I just enjoy sharing and giving back. But two, it helps me stay visible to people so that when they think of needs, they might think of me.
- Diversification: I have private clients. I hold public offerings. I do classes. I do 1-1 advisor sessions. I speak at events. I work with various clients and partners. This has been significant in helping with ebbs and flows in the market. This has been significant in keeping me inspired and innovative. This has been significant in having choices in how to proceed forward.
- Organization: There is an endless list of things you could do. I could update my website. I could create new image assets for marketing. I could create a new offering. My ability to prioritize and focus has been huge in keeping my mental sanity, not dropping any balls and still getting checkmarks. If (or when) I start to scale, I will have to engage with an assistant.
- Value: Even if everything else is perfect, if what you are hired for… you fail at. The quality is poor. The delivery is not valued. The client is not happy. Your business is done. I continue to level myself up with trainings, with feedback, etc.
- Foundation: I would be amiss to not acknowledge that I had an amazing jump start from Agile For All. I had existing clients and was able to roll them into my company upon the new year. I didn’t have to start this company with nothing – I had a strong foundation from working with a wonderful group of people. In addition, I had a ton of time to slowly prepare all the materials I would need in my company… templates for contracts, offerings, website, bios, email, gov filings, etc. It took me (while doing my day job) about 6 plus months to not feel like my list was enormous and still growing for setup.
What I’ve improved the most – so far:
- Balancing my desire to help and my need to pay bills. I have had some advisors indicate absolutely no more free offerings. And I understand their point but it never felt authentic to one of my goals of paying things forward – and there have (and still are) so many people that help me without payment. So after experimenting, I’ve found a balance of offering to meet people a first time free and no expectations. Just offer help. Now if it becomes repetitive, then I explore advisor session payment packs. Similar for speaking at conferences, is it a new conference that I want to explore/engage? Are there alternative value that can be provide value (such as naming an underrepresented speaker on the program as an alternative payment)? I don’t want to block people but I don’t want to be taken advantage of. I feel very comfortable now in the balance today.
- Figuring out how to handle invoices, payments, cash-flow. I now have data to help me see projections. I now have experience with how to adjust tax pre-payments, retirement payments, etc depending on outstanding vs paid invoices. I now have experience of how to handle expenses, vendor payments, etc. This is one of the areas that I have tended to avoided and just relied on a lovely salary check month after month and the rest was someone else’s problem. If I want to scale, I needed to learn this area. I still have room to grow but happy with this growth.
What I would have done differently:
- Marketing: I mentioned in the highlights that my connections and visibility have been really pivotal in my sales. That’s wonderful and yes it is a form of marketing. But I am and continue to be horrible about intentional marketing. I really wish I had hired a marketing expert from the beginning. I’ve been successful to avoid it and now when it could be very valuable for me – it seems even harder to start (I don’t know why – that’s a different reflection post). I do not believe in scarcity – that this are plenty of people that could benefit from what I offer – the trick is how do they find me.
- Cohort: I mentioned earlier that I had the benefit of leap starting because of Agile For All. All the rest of them had experience starting and owning their own business. This was a first for me and basically, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I think it would have been very helpful for me to intentionally meet with people to check in with what are you doing this month (top priority), etc. I would occasionally get this just in passing and always resulted in me going “oops”. In all honestly, this could still be beneficial for me today too.
Starting my own business was something others always asked me about but not something I believed would happen. Now I’m entering year five and starting to think about what’s next… and that is beyond cool. It’s not an easy road and the timing had to be right but I’m grateful I took this step and look forward to the years to come.
What is a tip you could share for building a business?
