Bring your ideas to life: first lessons from launching my own business
by Niki Marin, Co-Founder & Owner of the Leadership Supply Company
Many of us have ideas for a business — concepts that inspire and excite us that we can’t shake for whatever reason. The notion of bringing one of these ideas to life in a meaningful way is alluring yet when we take the time to scrap together a minimal business plan, it becomes quickly apparent that the internal fortitude needed to do the tactical work is overwhelming. That initial excitement also becomes doused with doubt as the realities of business administration set in. The multiple components needed just to get up and running such as obtaining the proper business structure, licenses, software, etc., take away from the inspiration of the actual work you set out to do. Withstanding the “getting up and running” phase takes patience and perseverance, but for those of you holding out belief in your ideas check out what I’ve learned so far about building my own business.
Balancing the need for short term wins vs staying true to your long term vision.
From the outset as I was getting set up, I quickly learned I had to focus on the short term with an eye on the larger vision. Without the short term, you can’t achieve the vision yet without the vision, the short term becomes a random collection of tasks. For most businesses, the short term means doing the work and getting paid for it. At the beginning, it’s a relief to receive your first customer, a validating experience that provides a morale boost. However, chasing contracts and invoices isn’t why most businesses are created. There are typically intrinsic factors that we draw inspiration from. For The Leadership Supply Company, the vision is to change the perception that learning and performing are in competition. Our goal when working with clients involves working ourselves out of a job — where every person and organization we work with learns to perform in the way they intend to. While the pursuit of money is essential for any business to operate, staying true to your intended vision will show up in the quality of your work. Balancing this tension to operate today with an eye on tomorrow helps to ground you on the most difficult days.
Social media is an extension of your voice, it does not dictate you.
In a former job, I was exposed to the pitfalls of social media. Having this greater awareness may have kept me from personally engaging, yet I understand that when handled with caution and with the right parameters put in place to keep us safe, social media has the ability to do good — and for businesses it’s essential. To not invest in your online footprint would be a disservice to your business especially because of how interchangeable the physical and digital spaces are today. How you position yourself and the voice you use to describe your beliefs goes a long way in speaking to intended audiences, or customers. While you don’t need a marketing degree to run your social presence, you do need to have a vested interest in building this function of your business. I want our potential clients to have the opportunity to learn more about our business philosophy and understand how we approach issues through the content that we post. With that said, social media should not dictate and overrun your life, which can become tricky because it’s inherently designed to keep you engaged. Much of what’s out there provides tips for gaming the algorithms on any given platform, but my advice would be to not create content only for likes. Have a point of view — make sure your audience and potential clients can learn more about you, but stay grounded in your vision as inspiration for what you communicate. This will help your brand maintain its integrity and steer clear of falling into a never-ending game of chasing affirmation.
Modesty is essential and no task is too small to optimize for.
Unless you’re endowed with large stashes of cash, the necessity to be lean, optimize, and adapt quickly is the only way to survive at the beginning of running a business. Every dollar counts these days — so much so that letting a digital streaming subscription continue for “in case” use or from sheer laziness is no longer accepted. The financial pressures can build immensely and while this pressure can cause panic, it also has a way of re-framing how you use resources, for no matter is too small to optimize. It’s this scarcity mindset that necessitates creativity because having limited resources forces you to think differently and learn new skills. I’ve learned to manage social media accounts, create original content, manage payroll, understand the different tax classifications of a business, and countless other topics that I previously took for granted. These are by no means flashy skills that anyone will be eager to hear me speak about, but the point is that I used learning as a means to perform better because the circumstances demanded it. I’m a better business person as a result and have refined my approach to assimilating new knowledge while increasing my learning agility.
When you choose to work for a company you have no need to understand the intricacies of the system because you’re expected to focus on the work you’ve been hired to do. There’s actually quite a bit of comfort in knowing that those responsibilities are taken care of for you. Who really wants to decide the company tax structure, whether to update the company website, or worry about the type of payroll software you’ll use — let alone all at the same time?
More than likely, you spend hours learning company systems to move your work along. The difference in running your own business is that you get to create your own system that actually works for you! If you’re worried that you won’t know how to go about forming your business, don’t be fooled, you already have what it takes to learn and make important choices in running a business because many elements of your current work require the patience of managing bureaucracy, or “administrative” tasks.
If you have an idea for a business and are still in your current job, I encourage you to look under the hood of your current company and learn its underlying structures. While you won’t be fully prepared to run your own business until you’re actually doing it, you will at least have a solid starting point. And, remember, don’t let the list of the “unknowns” prevent you from realizing the ideas you’ve carried with you. The gap between performing a difficult task and an easy one is learning.
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