Goodbye to All of That

CHAPTER 5

Goodbye to all of that, Or How I became my own Help Desk

I’d been pulling someone else’s plow for decades and was ready for a change. Influenced by Villians and Heroes alike, I decided to step away from a career of corporate work and start on a new adventure, setting off into the wilds of entrepreneurship.

In large organizations its easy to find built-in community and ready made opportunities to plug into one’s own tribe within them.

Some of the folks you’ve worked with you’ve known for decades, growing up with them professionally. 

You’ve worked together through both the fat and the lean business years.

You’ve congratulated one another on the births of children and attended funerals of one another’s parents. 

When you leave, these folks remain dear to you, but the day-to-day casual interactions proximity brought fall away.

When in Doubt, Find Friends

To fill this gap, I began to plug into communities of people who were doing something similar to what I wanted to be doing: coaches, consultants, small-business owners, entrepreneurs. Loads of people were generous with their time, providing encouragement and helping me avoid the pitfalls awaiting the unwary.

In addition to needing to expand my people circles, I needed to expand my skills to be an entrepreneur and to learn to create and run a business all by my lonesome.

Things I had never had to think about as a cog in a someone else’s wheel:

• What’s my message? What’s my target market?

• If I want a website, how on earth do I get one? How do I get a logo created?

• If somebody wanted to pay me, how would they do it?

• What’s my legal structure? What about intellectual property?

• What’s the number for the IT Help Desk? Oh wait, that’s me!

To answer these and other questions,  I took Ferriss’ advice of outsourcing as much work as possible, especially in areas where I was weak. 

I hired a Coach, Cody Williams, to lead me through the fundamentals of setting up a business and of message creation, marketing, selling, etc.

Which led me to hire Lacey Akins to set up my website, posting my blogs and managing my email marketing.* I create the content, but Lacey is working out how to make it live in virtual space.

The point here is I could learn to do all of these things myself (though perhaps not very well), and at a very high and possibly fatal opportunity cost to my embryonic business. 

And, there was plenty to do which required my direct engagement and attention. 

Which is why I wanted to leave company life in the first place:  to focus on what I wanted to focus on.

And of course to accept along with the opportunities change brings and the ambiguitities it likewise drags screaming through the door.

As the weeks passed, bit by bit, piece by piece, things came together.

I became operational.  And, I had actual clients.

Which is where I’ll pick up next time and will conclude this series.

If you would like to discuss ideas for your own v2.0, then Let’s Talk.  Please feel free to schedule a Discovery Session with me by clicking on the blue button below.

You can also sign up on my website, or at the bottom of this form, to receive these blogs in your email inbox!

Be well everybody,