One of the very first things you want to do as an entrepreneur is to start formulating your plan. What do you envision? What lifestyle do you want to live?
For example, if you’re a stay at home parent you might have time during the day while your children are in school to work on your writing business. You might decide that you want to work three days a week from 9-3 while kids are in school.
You may also know that you want to earn at least $30,000 from those 18 hours a week. Assuming you take 2 weeks off each year for vacation that’s 900 working hours a year. That means in order to meet your income goal you need to average around $33/hour. Now you can start looking at creating a plan to achieve that income.
For example, you might decide that you can become a professional blogger and you have a passion for and knowledge of pop culture. You can create a plan to find 5 blogging for pay jobs that pay enough to ensure you make about $100/day.
So you see, planning is important. You need to begin with a vision of what you want and that vision needs to include everything from how much money you want to make and how many hours you want to work to who you’re going to be working with and how you’re going to get those writing jobs.
Sales & Marketing – How are you going to market your business and get clients?
You may spend several days, weeks even depending on your schedule, formulating your business plan. Before you sit down and start writing it’s important to know that your business plan is going to be an active part of your writing life.
Ideally, you will sit down once a month and look at your plan. You’ll take note on where you are. Have you achieved your goals? Are your strategies working?
You’ll also set new goals or adapt your strategies to better meet your existing goals.
Here’s a small example.
Let’s say that you decide you’re going to market your writing business by interacting on social networking sites. You commit to spending a half hour each day interacting, commenting and publishing valuable information for your prospects. You also decide that your goal is to get five new clients a month via social networking.
So you sit down a month later and look at your business plan. You evaluate your success as it relates to social networking as a marketing and business building tool. If you did get your five clients then great. You know that this is an effective strategy and you can set a new goal or continue with the status quo. If you didn’t get your five new clients then you may need to re-evaluate. What didn’t work and how can you make adjustments?
Your business plan is a tool you’re going to use on a consistent basis. This means you not only want it to be thorough, you want it to be easy to use.
Many people simply create a three ring binder, separate the sections of their plan with dividers and start writing/typing/planning. It’s accessible. It’s low tech and it’s easy to use and modify.
Once you have your business plan in the works it’s time to turn your attention to building a business and that begins with your website.
2. You Need A Website
Even if you decide that you’re only going to work with local businesses and meet face to face, you’re still going to want a website. Why? Because most people find their service providers online. And if they meet you at a networking group the first question they’re going to ask is, “What’s your website address?”
Your website is often the very first impression people have of you. It needs to represent you as a person and as a business owner.
When creating your website, or blog, focus on providing benefits to your visitor and potential customer. They don’t need flashy graphics or a crazy expensive website. They want to know what you can do for them.
Your Writing Business Website Might Include:
Landing Page
Tell your visitor who you are and what you do. Highlight your USP, Unique Selling Proposition, or what makes you unique and different from your competition.
Contact Information
Use a web form and/or make sure your contact information and communication process is easy to find. If you’re going to have a Facebook Fan page and/or a Twitter and LinkedIn profile you may want to include those find me follow me buttons on your site too.
Services, Policies and Procedures
What services do you provide, what is the process for hiring you and what can your customers expect?
Portfolio
Include any work samples or links to samples. If you’re new to the writing industry then you may need to create a few samples until you have paying clients.
Testimonials
Publish any rave reviews you get from clients. This is a great motivator for potential clients.
Rates and/or Rate Packages
How much do you charge? You can give a range for projects and include the disclaimer that you will provide a quote for each project.
Do spend time on the content for your site. Don’t waste too much time on the appearance. A standard template site or blog that tells prospects “What’s in it for them,” will sell your services better than a $10,000 site with flash graphics and distractions.
Once you have a website and a business plan it’s time to get out and start marketing your business and making connections.
3. Making Connections and Tapping Into Your Resources
As a business owner you’ll quickly find that going it alone is hard. You want to make sure that you have a support system in place. This means if you have children and a spouse that they recognize that working from home is still working. You have a job to do, deadlines to meet and clients to appease.
It also means that many of the things you normally do during your free time are going to be changed. For example, if you normally make dinner every day you might find that you’re making meals ahead on the weekend and reheating things during the week.
You may find that errands and household chores move to the bottom of your priority list. You may find that your neighbors and friends become valuable resources to watch your children and help you out. You may find that spending money on a housekeeper means you have more time to write and make money.
Things change when you own your own business. Right now, take a look at the resources you have around you. Take a look at your support system. Are your friends and family on board to support you? If they’re casting doubt and nay saying your dreams of being a paid writer, then it’s time to explain to them how important this venture is to you.
Coaching, Mentoring and Masterminds
There’s a lot of value to finding a person or persons to help guide you toward success. Many many successful business owners attribute their success to a coach or mentor. You can also find or create a mastermind group. A mastermind group is a group of business owners who meet regularly, once a month for example, and push each other to succeed.
Whether you go the coach, mentor or mastermind route, having someone who is unbiased, can point things out, and hold you accountable can be the key to your business success.
Speaking of success, let’s talk about how you get experience if you’re a newbie to the writing field.
4. Getting Experience
What do you do if you want to be a writer for pay but you don’t have any previous writing experience?
Well, you write.
It is pretty much that simple. If you don’t have any writing experience, start writing. Read about writing. Take classes. And practice. Create your own samples.
For example, if you want to be an article writer then start writing articles for free sites. If you want to be a ghostwriter and write ebooks, then write an ebook. If you want to be a paid blogger then start blogging. Get the idea?
Here’s a working example. Anne wanted to become a specialist in ezine content. That is, she wanted to write email newsletter content. She built her website as an ezine specialist and she wrote a free report on the top things a small business owner needed for an effective ezine. She then wrote ten articles on how small businesses could use ezines to build their business. She published them on article directory sites. And guess what…
She got clients. People read the articles she wrote. They respected her insight and advice. They had no idea she’d yet to have a paying client. They hired her based on her articles and the free report.
This idea can work for just about any writing niche or specialty you want to focus on. And in the meantime, while you’re waiting for the clients to give you a call or send you an email, keep writing.
A word about freelancer job sites...
Job sites like elance, guru, and ifreelance do have their time and place. They can be a good way to gain samples, references and experience. They get a bad rap for being low paying and troublesome but not all clients are the same. You can find wonderful, loyal and high paying opportunities on freelance sites.
The challenge to using these sites is standing out amongst thousands of other freelance writers. Many people stand out by bidding very low for projects. So, you can compete this way if you’re just looking for samples and experience. It’s your decision. Once you’ve built a business and have clients coming to you, you may again turn to job sites to fill in the occasional gap in your schedule. They do serve a viable purpose.
Some writers actually make a very good living using only job site projects to fill their schedule. Again, the choice is yours. In the long run it may be more enjoyable to build a practice based on reputation and quality and to have customers coming to you.
Now that you have things rolling, it’s time to pay some attention to your work space. After all, a productive work space helps you have a productive day and that means profits.
5. Working From Home
Ah, the joys of working from home. If you live with others there’s a very strong possibility of being interrupted while you work. The home office can help reduce those interruptions.
If you have a separate working space, that’s the idea. However, many writers have a small living space and work quite well from their kitchen table. Meaning, you don’t need to have a pricey home office to work effectively from your home.
What you do need is a designated space and a bit of equipment.
Let’s start with the equipment. You need:
Get access to a computer and Internet connection.