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Peri on May 18th, 2012
I’ve been writing a lot about kind of heady stuff lately, focusing on ways to get into the right headspace for strategic thinking and offering tips and tricks for managing your most important resource: your own brain. But of course there are important business-y aspects of running a business, and these are often the things that creative, non-MBA types tend to resist. One of the most commonly dreaded of these things is the business plan.
When I want to convince a student or client to get cracking on writing a business plan — and not just talking about it or doing research for several more months — I explain that a business plan really just boils down to two basic things:
- A narrative portion that describes the business and persuades readers that it will be a success.
- A numbers-driven portion showing that the financials are sound and the business will in fact make a profit.
In reverse order, I like to call these the head and the heart of a business plan.
Heart
The narrative portion wins over the heart of readers. It describes the product or service the business will provide, but even more important, it makes it clear just what unmet need in the market the business will serve and creates a case for why you’ll succeed in attracting paying customers. (Wonky business types like to use the term “unique value proposition” for this.)
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by
Peri on May 14th, 2012
Neglect leads to ruin.
Mother’s Day was super chill. Turtle played with the kids, and when he needed downtime I let them watch TV for hours while I puttered on my laptop, mused about stuff and did some writing, so it felt pretty decadent. I’m good at setting the bar low when I don’t want to be disappointed, and my plan for Mother’s Day was to just take it down a bunch of notches and not to expect much out of myself. It was an easy bar to clear, and I now have a happy sense of accomplishment at successfully doing a lot of nothing.
One thing that made the day really pleasant is that I decided to allow myself to be preoccupied, which sometimes is a drag when I have competing demands for my attention. I need a lot of quality zone-out time both to relax and to push ideas forward, and it can be really hard to get it with little kids and general life tugging at my sleeves. It’s not that I don’t want to focus attention on my kids — I love it when I can just do kid stuff and not worry about deadlines or checking email. But what’s hard is getting away from the kids for decent stretches of time, which is what I need for work.
To get any meaningful forward momentum it’s important to be able to push projects forward to a point where real progress is made: for instance, finishing editing a draft to the point it’s ready to show a client, or writing and posting a blog post, or anything else that allows me to actually check something off my to do list. And long stretches of work or creative time are elusive when kids are in the picture.
So for Mother’s Day, my gift to myself was permission to be preoccupied. Thankfully Turtle is awesome enough to get this and support it. But it’s not always easy.
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by
Peri on May 10th, 2012
Can you spot the tar balls?
In my last post I wrote about distinguishing between productive creative/organizing jags versus procrastination exercises. Today I found myself in the latter, but it kind of morphed into the former, and it’s all working out well enough.
I have a couple pressing deadlines this morning, including getting ready to play music at Stories in the Sky at the Balloon Museum tonight. I’m still finalizing the set list and really need to practice some of the new songs I just learned. But for some reason I walked into the backyard for something, I can’t remember exactly what (this is the part where I was procrastinating), and was reminded that the roof repair guys yesterday had rained little shiny tar pebbles all over the backyard, including inside my newly planted vegetable garden.
The pebbles were small and light and didn’t really damage anything but I didn’t want the little tar bits in with the growing vegetables. You know, leaching out yucky petroleum compounds and all.
Even though I really didn’t want to get sidetracked, next thing I knew I was hunting tar pebbles in the garden.
As I started picking them out of the dirt, I quickly realized how hard it was to spot them since the dirt and the tar pebbles are almost exactly the same color. Which led to a few other thoughts.
If you let yourself get sidetracked, at least do it right. By the time I let my eyes adjust to seeing the little tar pebbles, I figured I might as well stick with it and finish the job. (This is when my procrastinating turned into a productive cleaning jag.) Professional organizers often preach the “touch it once” rule. As in, when you’re cleaning your desk and you pick up a folder of health insurance receipts, don’t put it to the side to deal with later. Put it where it belongs, then and there, so you don’t have to touch those receipts twice. Same deal with little sidetrack projects. Do them all the way, or don’t start them until later when you have time to finish in one push.
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I’ve been taking a little time off from blogging and other work stuff, and it’s been great. The best part is that my awesome friend is in town visiting for a few days, and we’ve been having magical Albuquerque spring time from the moment she arrived. We’ve seen some great music, went to the best birthday party ever (with a deep frying station!), and have had just the most lovely porch and kitchen hang-around time drinking coffee, kicking around with the kids and catching up with each other in the most leisurely way. Fantasy-life, in other words.
I also have been in at major home and life jag which started a few days before my friend got here. It started out with taking a couple days off last week kind of spontaneously, as I was feeling more and more angsty to catch up with all sorts of stuff that was falling by the wayside. Blogging every day really makes it hard to keep up. Home, office, administrative stuff — not to mention children and husband — were looking sadly neglected.
It hit me late last week that shifting gears and giving some overdue attention to these things was really the most important thing at the time — more important than sticking to my self-imposed daily blogging routine — and needed to be prioritized.
Once I got started, I got on a hugely productive tear that would not be denied. In the course of 5 days I’ve gotten our garden prepped and planted; porches cleaned of debris and broken Christmas lights; backyard cleared of Black Widows and dog poop; cabinets purged and stuff schlepped off to donate; Turtle’s bike repair station outfitted with vintage Craftsman cabinet from a yard sale outside the grocery store; guest room cleaned, bed made and flowers cut and arranged for my houseguest friend; furniture moved and dark corners swept, both literally and metaphorically.
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A couple years ago on a road trip to California (yeah, I have road trips on my mind at the moment), we realized on day two we had forgotten our camera charger. In our motel in Palm Springs I did a quick Google search for a compatible adapter, and found a few online retailers who sold it. One of them (unlike most online-only operations) listed a phone number and city, Hacienda Heights, which another quick Google map search showed was right on our way into Los Angeles. I called and explained that we were traveling, so I was hoping we could drop by in person to purchase the charger. They said that was fine, gave me the address, and an hour or so later we were pulling up to a home in a solidly middle-class residential neighborhood.
Walking into the home and seeing the extent of the retail and phone operations there was fascinating. It seemed to be a family operation, with about four 20-something young men installed at computers with headsets, some taking orders by phone and others managing databases and website orders. The sweet woman who greeted us at the door appeared to be their mom and/or aunt, and she seemed to be running the show. The entire set of rooms that we could see — living room, dining room and kitchen (and garage, which we walked through) — was filled with well-organized shelves of inventory and packaging supplies. The phones rang constantly, the tapping of keyboards was constant, and the woman who greeted us never stopped moving or packing boxes with product ready to ship.
We were only there for a few minutes, but I’ll always remember my geeky thrill of seeing the real-life operations of this online storefront — and having a moment of realization that probably a huge percentage of online businesses are run this way.
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Day 1 of 2011 family road trip
I have a love/hate relationship with this month. On one hand it’s the month of my daughter’s birthday, my husband’s birthday, and perfect spring weather here in the high desert. Cactus flowers are blooming, the neighborhood roadrunners are busy hunting lizards, and there seems to be a music festival or other fun event every weekend. What’s not to love?
Well, the imminent end of the school year is causing me angst (again). This is my daughter’s third year in pre-school so you’d think I’d have gotten better at planning this transition, but I haven’t. Just like last year and the year before, our summer plans are half-baked at best, largely due to the total unpredictability of Turtle’s work schedule. (Seriously, would some studio just hire him for some regular union work already? Dang this is getting old.)
All our friends with kids are talking about art camps, summer theater programs, community farm programs for kids and all sorts of other summer activities — most of which are already full or filling up, causing me considerable stress.
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by
Peri on April 30th, 2012
I get the following question a lot:
“What is the difference between being a freelancer and running a business?”
Or,
“I want to be self-employed, but I don’t want to run a business. How do I do that?”
And the like.
Technically speaking, there is no difference between freelancing, being self-employed or running a business. As soon as you start doing something in return for payment — like writing articles, refinishing furniture, doing interior design or walking people’s dogs — you’re running a business. It may not feel like a “real” business, but it is. Being a “freelancer” or “self-employed” basically means earning money not as an employee, which by default means you’re in business for yourself.
But everyone who asks this question intuitively recognizes that there are some real differences between being a freelancer and running a larger business operation. And it’s not just a difference in size. In a nutshell, freelance businesses offer more short-term freedom and lower financial risk than larger businesses, and have a more limited potential for long-term freedom and higher profits. A big part of this dynamic is that freelance businesses don’t typically develop operational systems, which is understandable when there’s only one person (or maybe two) running the show.
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by
Peri on April 27th, 2012
Scroll to the bottom of the post for links to download two contract samples.
All week long I’ve gone back and forth about what free download I’d offer as promised this week. Invoice tracking worksheet? Warranty tracking worksheet? Billable rate calculator? After getting a whole bunch of these ready in the last several days, it occurred to me that one of the most stressful things for the newly self-employed is developing a standard contract for their services. Hiring lawyers is expensive, and the many free contracts you can find online tend to be crappy at best.
The best way to go, as I’ve always advised, is the Nolo route — Nolo offers a long list of business books that include contracts and agreements, plus its website has tons of downloadable agreements, most for under 20 bucks. There are more than a dozen downloadable contracts just for independent contractors (ICs) alone, each aimed at a specific type of IC such as accountants/bookkeepers, consultants, and creative professionals. The terms and clauses in Nolo’s agreements are comprehensive and detailed, and the step-by-step instructions are the best out there.
But besides using a solid standard contract template to help you draft your own, sometimes it can be incredibly helpful to see examples of other businesspeople’s contracts — and that’s what I’m offering today. Below, you can download two (yes two!) of my own contracts that I’ve been using (and refining) for years for my editing and consulting services. I’m offering two versions so you can see the difference in how I do a flat-rate contact versus an hourly rate (sometimes called “time and materials”) contract.
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Peri on April 26th, 2012
A little over a month ago I decided to start blogging daily, in large part to get back in shape writing-wise. I haven’t written daily since late 2009 when I was finishing my last book and had baby #2. After working at a fairly minimal level since then, in the last few months I’ve really felt the need to get my writing chops back up to speed.
But today, a couple other high-value things seem like a better use of my time than writing a new post: 1) strategically promoting some of the blog posts that I’ve already written in the past few weeks, and 2) finishing up the super cool worksheet download that I’m prepping for y’all. (The download will be available imminently so keep your eyes peeled.)
I have to say, though, I struggle with the idea of taking today off. There’s something about posting at least once every day that helps keep me motivated and on track. The sense of necessity definitely helps motivate me — and even better it helps generate ideas. I worry that if I start taking a day off here and there it’ll be a slippery slope to blog stagnation.
Successful blogs do need to be updated regularly, but not necessarily daily. Most in the blogging field say that 2 to 3 posts a week is probably ideal. So eventually I’ll shoot for that but for the moment, I feel that I need the discipline of writing something every day. Compared to many writer friends of mine, I really am weak when it comes to writing regularity and discipline.
One thing I’ve gotten pretty good at over the years is how to trick myself into doing things — for example, announcing last week (and above) that I’d have a free downloadable worksheet this week. Setting deadlines for myself and announcing them publicly, or to my colleagues, is one of my favorite ways to keep my feet to the fire.
Or, tricking myself into writing a blog post about not blogging. Damn I’m good.
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Peri on April 25th, 2012
Man goes where water flows, they say. (At least it says so on a parched, withered billboard in California’s Central Valley along the I-5. But I digress.) Ditto for the flow of information: People are attracted to informative, quality content, and businesses and nonprofits that provide it gain a crucial competitive edge. It’s that simple. If your photography business has a blog with twice-weekly posts about different camera techniques, for instance, or well-organized, regularly updated links to unbiased product reviews, you’ll not only gain web traffic but you’ll develop a reputation of being helpful and informative, which is hugely valuable in establishing trust with customers and building a strong brand.
The downside is that being informative is time-consuming and resource-intensive. To produce informative materials you have to become a publisher at some level, which isn’t easy. So the trick is to find efficient, streamlined ways of sharing valuable content with your audience of potential customers. If you can maintain a blog or a newsletter, great. But there are lots of other ways to communicate with your peeps that might involve slightly less of a commitment, but can be similarly powerful. Consider the following (note that I typically recommend going paperless with all communications unless there’s a compelling reason to print and distribute a hard copy):
- Articles: Contribute occasional articles to other information outlets. Doing so on a semi-regular basis — say every month or so — is a considerably smaller commitment than starting a blog or publishing a newsletter. Don’t promise any regular publishing schedule, otherwise you’re venturing into “newsletter” territory. Contributing op-ed pieces is a great way to get your name out there.
- White papers: These are similar to articles but with a more research- or technical-oriented bent. Writing high-quality, in-depth reports is a great way to connect with niche audiences and demonstrate your specific expertise. Nonprofits in particular can benefit from publishing professional reports. Read more…
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