Three years on; five lessons learned

February 27, 2009  FILED TO: Business Management

It’s been a little over three years since I sat nervously at a borrowed desk and visited the Business Victoria website to register “Spiral Designs” as a business name.  I had recently returned from 18 months’ living in Europe, where I worked as a programming contractor.  At some point during that stay I decided that I never wanted to work in the corporate circus again, I would work for myself and help small businesses. I had a business plan, a mentor and some ideas but no guarantees – that I would be successful nor that I would actually enjoy it.

I worked those first eight months from my parents’ house while my partner and I sought to buy a house and planned our wedding.  I spent every spare moment researching, thinking, planning, pitching, writing and proposing.  I was told by other designers that there was plenty of work to go around and indeed, by the time we moved into our new home and got married, business was well and truly – well, not booming, but perhaps popping.

Three years on, I have no regrets about leaving the nine-to-five world and business is still ticking along.  There have been surprises, disappointments and changes of direction; loneliness, boredom and stress. But, Spiral Designs is still essentially my main source of income and still “does” websites. The three years have taught me many valuable lessons: about business, about people and, most importantly, about myself. And I still love it.

So, in celebration of three successful years, I’d like to pass on five hard-learned lessons to anyone considering starting out on their own:

1. Planning a business is essential but don’t expect things to go as planned - they may take different, even better paths.  A little gem I learned about life from a book on writing (The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Treddinick) goes: Write a plan, don’t stick to it.  I think the same applies to business.  I started out with a simple, seemingly sensible goal of selling websites in the form of templates.  I wanted that to be my niche. I learned that if a client is willing to pay a person to create a template (rather than buying a template online), then they want it to be completely custom.  Where I did find a niche was in coding up sites for designers.
2. What looks simple is complex and what looks complex could be done with your eyes closed.  Even today, I still over- and underestimate projects either because of technical complexity I did not anticipate or because of problematic clients. Nothing is ever as it seems.
3. Learn when to say no. Say “no” to work that is not part of your businesses’ offerings. I may say that I’ve learned this lesson but even recently I disregarded (or rather, forgot) my own rule and was promptly reminded why it’s important. I tried to help a client with email problems on her computer and it took up 2 hours of my time, for which I did not bill her, and she ended up needing help from elsewhere (to my embarrassment). I don’t know Microsoft Office, I don’t use windows, and I don’t do technical help. I should have said no.
4. Don’t panic during the quiet times. Take the time to enjoy the benefits of running your own business, pay yourself back for the long hours you have worked.  Don’t feel guilty about going to the beach or relaxing with a book.  When you get that out of your system use the time for learning, organising, catching up with administrative chores, thinking about the future, etc.  I tend to do a lot of thinking when times are quiet, and the thought patterns often lead to white papers or blog posts (such as this one!).  And don’t worry, the work should come back; if it doesn’t it might be a good time to think about marketing, offering new services and other ways to attract business.
5. The customer is not always right. I like to think that customers come to me for my expertise – because if they knew all about building websites they’d do it themselves (though many do try and wretchedly fail). I won’t ever argue with a client but I will do my best to give them the benefit of my experience and knowledge. If I think something they want is stupid, I’ll tell them (in more words of course, and more politely!) and I’ll tell them why.  You have to keep customers happy but I’m more concerned, in my business, with keeping their customers happy.  If I can convince my customer that I’m doing right by their customers, I can win them around.

Of course, I have learned a lot more about running a business than just these five points but I think they are good advice for anyone starting out as a freelancer or with their own business.  And they didn’t come from some tedious business textbook.