As I mentioned in Strategies for your startup Part 1, there are pros and cons to starting up your own consulting business. This also entails a few challenges, that don’t fall into either a “Pro” or “Con” list.
Here are a few of what those challenges could be:
– Federal and State laws are in constant flux. Make sure you have a strong resource for legal compliance, even if that is the service you provide for others, it’s important that you have someone else watching your back while you are watching the backs of your clients. You will most likely miss some of the details of your own business, we are always more willing to make sacrifices for our own sake but never for our clients. Remember that the room in yoru house with the most dist is typically the broom closet.
– when you have your own employees, make sure you have an HR resource to handle the HR items, even if you have to farm it out in the beginning, again, they will watch your back.
– you must always be improving on your product & service offerings. Be thinking 6 months to a year in advance, plan your work and work your plan.
– people will not always want to hear what you have to say. Develop and continually improve your “elevator speech”, a 30 second speech clearly stating who you are, your vision, and why they need your services. Don’t look dejected or surprised if they don’t buy right away. Your goal is to plant seeds, sometimes they’ll take root immediately, but the bigger harvests always take more time to cultivate. So be patient and remain confident.
– it’s okay to be poor for a little bit as you invest all of your resources into your startup. If it means you have to eat ramen for awhile so that your marketing materials can be higher quality, it will be worth it. Reinvest as much capital as possible into your business, don’t readily give discounts, you only want to do business with the companies that place a high value on excellence, they are also the ones who will not ask for a discount or scoff at the price tag for excellence.
– do not make decisions in isolation. Surround yourself with colleagues who have wisdom, from every era and industry. They will see things differently and may in fact hate every idea you come up with. But they will sharpen you and your product. You don’t have to listen to everything they say, and only 20-30% will be useful, but that 20-30% will mean the difference between $100 and $100,000,000 ideas.
Honestly all wisdom comes from above, so the truest way to have strategy that works is to ask God in each decision you make, and you will succeed.
