Who wants to be an entrepreneur? Start here... (and those who are, help here please!?)

[WilfSell]

OK, I was inspired by the 'earn 1k a month working from home' thread, which turned into an inspiring if terrifying 'don't sell yourself short' thread. And wondered if, those of us who might like to work for ourselves but don't currently, could get started here? I aim to keep my job, and perhaps try to move to part-time at some point. I have some business ideas, some good, some over-ambitious, mostly attempts to roll-out my current skills into a private consultancy, not necessarily linked to my existing job (university research/teaching).

I know it is an incredibly tricky time to think about this, and I'm sure it is not easy or comfortable to make a living... But some people manage it, so why shouldn't more of us?

I hate socialising for work things. That will have lost me a heap of money. I don't so customer entertainment. I'd have to be dragged to a works drinks thing. I don't watch sport. I don't drink alcohol. I am not clubbable. I despise the Masons, London clubs (I turned down membership at just about the best one). I dont' play golf. I would need to be paid a fortune to endure a women's have your nails done corporate entertaining in a beauty parlour in London evening even. If I did I would gather more business but I can't stand it. I like being at home so I've drawn attention to myself in other ways.

I am exactly the same! Good to know there's still hope of making a success without too much schmoozing.

I quite like the socialising part - could certainly do that.

I have got a temp job next week - nothing to do with the business I want to build but a week's work for an interesting company. I applied today, and within about an hour I had a starting date for Monday. They were looking for a German speaker to start pretty much immediately, and coming up empty in this part of the country.

There are huge advantages to working and living out of the major cities.

Dolomites - Your poor boy lapdancer's grandma has taken his passport taken away, confiscated his "What happens in Vegas..." tee-shirt and grounded him until he can get married to a sensible English Rose type.

It certainly does work for lots of women and there are women's networks, clubs you can join. Lots of people get work from connections - I certainly do although it not likely to be a business networking thing. I turn down every conference thing as I'm quite busy (unlessw I'm paid) but perhaps as the children get less demanding I might do more. I could certianly be out 5 nights a week in London on work things and I suppose if I ever get lonely I could do that but I doubt I will. I am still waiting to live alone and never have in my life. Perhaps I''ll be 80 before I get the chance.

Very interesting discussion. My issue is that I am already self employed, but I make a secondary income, rather than the substantial income I would like. I do struggle with confidence and this has struck a cord with me. I think I hold myself back.

I need to know how to take my small business to the next level. I also need money behind me, which I don't have yet, so I'm struggling with how it's all going to come together.

I would also like to join the Facebook group, I think it would be really helpful.

PM me your FB name and I will add you to the group, Dontcallmehun

I was speaking to a woman recently who was talking about ways for women to get funding for start ups / scale ups of businesses. Particularly in tech field there are many companies who are looking to invest. I am meeting with her next week so will try and have a chat with her about this.

I'm planning on creating an education based blog, with resource recommendations, sample resources I have created, model essays and articles about the latest initiatives and developments in teaching/tutoring. Will work on it once dcs are back at school. I want to build a reputation, before I take the leap.

Can anyone suggest anything else I should include? It will be aimed at students/ parents and my specialist subject is English.

I have been lurking and cogitating on this thread. And it struck me this evening (like a whack in the head actually)that the biggest stumbling block to getting going is the fear of not 'being good enough'. I feel I could attract clients handily enough- I did before. BUT getting reports out was/is a problem as I spend inordinate amounts of time making sure they are perfect. Ditto treatments- have to be sure that I know exactly what I'm doing even with new patients. I have literally shaken with nerves going to see a new client.
The other problem I have is not being an organised bunny...I will come in and treat your kid and do a good job BUT the paperwork, billing, filing phffft.

Any links/books/TED/whatever resources aimed at the female brain to get over these, the fear more than the organisation? I am good at coaching myself through problems.

Dontcallmehon...could you add a section with specific resources or links for the kids who have specific learning issues e.g. Dyspraxic hand writers, dyslexic spellers etc?

Can I join please? I was also inspired by the other thread and have decided to get off my bum and start some of the projects that have been lurking in the back of my mind. One is to do with buying and selling on ebay, another is a resource based website I want to set up. Not sure how much money the website will make in itself, but I'm hoping it will cement my reputation as an expert in this area and lead to other work. I also want to write, but again, I'm not sure what format I want this to take.

My biggest problem is that within my current job (education) I'm a bit of a 'jack of all trades, master of none' in that I've worked in various roles but I'm painfully aware that there is always someone better than me. This does make me self conscious about branching out as an 'expert' in any of the areas I've worked in.

Porridgelover
You are not in Scotland by any chance? I am involved in the TEDxGlasgowWomen this year. The speakers have not been announced yet, but since it is all about women, there might be something along those lines.

I LOVE socialising, gladhanding and talking to complete strangers...! Perhaps you big earners could outsource your schmoozing to me for 1k a day?

Fairy
I have been a bit like that this past year. I thought about journalism but realised it is v hard to get into and v difficult to make money. I spoke to a few freelance journalists earlier this year and was quite shocked at the low rates. I have now settled on the thing that I like doing best, and am going to concentrate on that.

MmeL I regret I am not near Glasgow at all though that sounds very interesting. Presume it will be streamed?

Fairy, It seems to me that the message the successful entrepreneurs here say is that you don't have to be an expert. You just have to be good enough, and if you meet a problem that's beyond your capability, you outsource to an expert who's too scared to freelance.
Think I answered my own question there

Porridge
It will be available online, yes. There are other events around the country at the same time - in London for example.

Thanks MmeL. While browsing your link I found this. I'll look properly over the weekend.

Any other ideas on how to face the fear and talk back to it?

nanky That made me laugh thank you! :)

PorridgeLover But you are good "enough". Presumably other people have thought you're good enough to sign a permanent contract with you to pay you tens of thousands a year plus NI + employment taxes etc? :) Would your idea really need an enormous amount of start-up cash?

I've seen a few women's networking groups out there but tbh they do seem to be geared towards the cupcake brigade - or, actually there was one I saw based in London (but part of an international consortium) and it seemed to contain the "already there's" like Xenia. Where's the middle ground?

porridge As far as "paperwork" goes, I hope I've translated this correctly - from 2013 there is an EU directive that all invoices must be stored electronically (or available to customers electronically). As it stands you are already allowed to store everything electronically (for 7 years) so you don't need shoeboxes full of unsorted paperwork. There's a myriad of software solutions on the market for as little as a tenner a month if you're not sending out too many invoices. Of course the software does all the work for you - all you need to do is tap in your customer's details & services provided! There's probably also a way to tie that in to your CRM tooling and all you do is type 1001 (your daily rate ).

On the note of electronic back-up. Do not, not, not under any circumstances rely solely on the back-up of your laptop! Think about investing in an external hard drive and keeping the information there. Yes, you could use a "cloud" service, but beware i) they could "disappear" overnight, ii) many of them claim to "own" your data and iii) they've already been exposed to hacking issues (well, durrrr) and I'm not sure if it's ethically right to be leaving confidential data out there if you're in the legal/medical fields. Right now I'm using dropbox (which is free) - they don't claim to own your data, it does sync with your PC - so even if you're somewhere without an internet connection, you've still got your data. But, I do not keep any client information there.

Wouuld anyone fancy going to this? www.greatbritishbusinessshow.co.uk/index.asp Safety in numbers type thing - and you know at least one person will talk to you over a coffee.

I would say to porridge do the admin every day. For me keying in one business purchase of paper or printer ink does not take long. Thinking about and dreading doing 3 months takes ages and makes most people feel rotten so I have that rule virtually every day I spend a few minutes doing the admin. I always send invoices very very quickly and force myself to see it as my most important task (without that we starve). Or you could hire a mother at £10 an hour to do that stuff for you - the one skill shortage there never is is willing women (or men) who want to do a bit of part time secretarial work as just about anyone organised can do it.

There are loads of business networking groups for women of all kinds. In fact it's a business itself which some women make quite a lot of money at. I just choose not to part of it but that just shows there are plenty of ways to skin a cat (market in other ways etc).

As for being good enough a journalist once interviewed me and a number of other successful women in a sequence. She said the one thing she'd found we all had in common was no guilt and being able to stop a task whether work or child related and say that wa good enough, stop thinking about it nad move on to the next. Perfectionists as opposed to "satisficers" tend to do better. There is some research on satisficers (awful word). I think at the start of any work role of course you need to be thorough and check and check - I see that with my 3 graduate children and how important it can be. However you have to get a balance and if you spend 10x longer on things than other people that is rarely going to be right nor make money.

Hi ladies, I have recently been made redundant and used it as an opportunity to get into freelancing/consulting.

I echo the comments about believing you're WORTH IT. I have just started out and am already charging more than I thought I'd be able to.

Just heard ds wake but wanted to say i am a marketing and brands consultant and here if anyone wants a bit of advice.

Will check in later!

Morning, have just seen this thread. If I could go back a couple of years before I started the business I wish I knew...

1. Your cash flow is the most important thing- 'turnover is vanity, profit sanity and cash flow a reality!'
2. Use account software - I use xero and is £20 a month. It does everything from invoicing, VAT returns, all the reports you could ever need and links to your bank accounts.
3. Don't be too hard on yourself when you make bad decisions or make a mistake. Just take it on the chin, learn from it and move on.
4. Book holidays or they will never happen
5. Don't let your emails come through to your phone. That email that comes through at 11pm from a customer cannot be addressed then and you will only waste energy worrying about it until the morning. Just because they are contacting you then it doesn't mean you need to reply!!!
6. For every pound you spend you will need to earn a extra pound - will that fancy desk tidy really make a difference winning your next job?!

Good luck ladies. It is the hardest thing I have ever done but with all the lows there are the highs as well.

Hi everyone,

I'm delurking to join this thread, if no-one minds?

I suppose I've already been freelance for the past five years, but I'm currently trying to step up business and earn more from it. I'm definitely still at that "need more confidence" stage!

Good luck everyone :)

Catching up with these discussions - very interesting. I'm currently doing freelance journalism/social media/copywriting and slowly, slowly getting things off the ground so a bit of a support network would be good.

I do the freelance work PT alongside a new job - when I began freelancing in earnest about 2 or 3 years ago I would have liked it to be my only source of work/income but it soon became apparent this wouldn't be enough, so I've been looking for work and now found what seems to be a great PT option and I'm hoping to keep freelancing too - some days it feels like, adding them up, I've got a full time job - or even more than that!

Issues of concern for me - not so much confidence, I think I'm becoming more and more aware of my skills (doing a gazillion job applications will do that for you) but perhaps organisation, finance -the nuts and bolts of being self-employed and VAT registered etc. and I also think I may be under-pricing myself for some work, but I guess I 'feel bad' for asking for more from the small businesses I deal with, who I often know very well.

I would echo the advice about not waiting for everything to be perfect - that's just procrastination - once you get stuck in it's much more exciting and new ideas and developments will unfold as soon as you start getting 'out there', networking, finding a voice. Ironically, I have more freelance work than ever now that I'm starting a job but I'm determined to keep up with it - it's something I enjoy a lot and just a different aspect to my work life, I suppose.

Self-esteem + not feeling worth it.

I've just had a great chat with a woman I shall probably go in to partnership with - we complement each other - she's the networker, I'm the analyst.

Anyway, I mentioned that one of the reasons I hate networking is that I'm not 100% comfortable with my looks and feel that I will be judged on the circumference of my arse as opposed to my brain. I followed up with "can you just imagine 2 men having this conversation and one of them saying "I'm just not handsome enough to do meet & greet?" - us women are MENTAL!

That's funny, Dolomites - that's exactly where I am at!

I'm slowly losing weight (again), and the thing that's making me feel uncomfortable about working for myself is how I'll look in lycra...

However, I've been looking at figures this morning - and, though doing a big launch would be ahmahaizing, it's going to cost too much money.

It's going to cost about £600. For that I'll have a max of 150 people - but, in reality, maybe 100. My practice will build on word of mouth, people recommend their great hairdresser/chiropodist/threader and physio - so, can I justify £6 a head on people who may not actually use my service?

I've realised it makes meore sense to just DO the clinical stuff - generate enough money to pay back my loan, enough statistics to write up my research and THEN, once I've got a reputation, THEN do a fancy schmancy thing to get the press involved in.

Which, will also give me time to get thinner...huzzah! I know, I know, I know

Sometimes I feel like jacking the whole thing in.

some bastard has stolen one of the Gruffalo's Child feast sets (worth £15) from the display.

God knows when that happened! I didn't see any suspicious behaviour, so it must have been an expert.

FUCKING HATE THAT!!!