When I started my business, I didn’t start from zero. I was able to build on top of more than a decade in the corporate world, a strong network and – dare I say it – a relevant and strong personal brand within data.
Still, it’s a lot of work and it isn’t easy, but my starting point was not having a business idea and having to build everything from zero on day 1.
I’d say my business was born out of my corporate career.
That, however, led to the naive assumption that clients would simply come my way. Yes, I laugh about it now, but I genuinely thought that people would approach me. Why?
Because I had already done a lot of mentoring in the previous years and people appreciated my career advice and the content I shared about it on social media. I didn’t give a single thought to how I would “sell” my services.
When the time came to launch my side business, I started by looking for two women who’d be my first “test” clients. The deal was they’d get free coaching with me for 4 sessions in exchange for feedback and a testimonial.
I launched at a women in data event (virtual) and invited attendees to put themselves forward for a spot. 24 (!) women applied and that was partly what made me think “this will be easy, clearly people will want to work with me!”
Haha.
Yes, the initial buzz around doing something new and different helped but winning clients isn’t easy and it never was. The people who work with me are smart people who evaluate their options and the general economic climate and the job market have meant people think twice before spending money on self-development.
This is why I think it was so helpful to have an established ‘brand’ in the data world. It helped. People still mention things like #MakeoverMonday or a presentation I did at a Tableau User Group, or other things from my past as the reason they connected with me and eventually talked to me about coaching.
Now before you think something like “I wish I started focusing on this 10 years ago”, please know that everyone has a thing they wish they started sooner (investing, anyone?).
No need to dwell on the past, the best time to start is today because 10 years from now you’ll be so glad you did.