LinkedIn is celebrating its 15th birthday today.
They are asking their community of users to share what they wanted to be at age 15 (#WhenIWas15). I love that! What a way to engaging a community to be thoughtful about their lives.
At 15, I wanted to be a model. At the time it seemed every female teenager wanted to be a model–or at least look like one. It was the 80’s and I don’t recall conversations directed to females to consider fields like science, math and technology. If there were, I wasn’t a part of them.
As I reflect on being 15, I can recall wanting to be pretty enough to model, which I wasn’t but I was ambitious enough to start a cake decorating business. Yep! Entrepreneurship is in my blood.
Although I didn’t think of myself as a small business owner, I got paid to bake and decorate cakes for weddings and special events. Sure hope the IRS doesn’t read this! 🙂
I can remember my first wedding cake earned me $150. I didn’t know about income vs expenses and my parents didn’t think to teach me. So I stashed it away and gave no thought of how much time I committed, the cost of my ingredients, electric or delivery.
Isn’t funny how even today many small business owners don’t count up the costs to launch and build their businesses. Or even run a new campaign. I wasn’t any different when I first launched.
After working for a bad boss (or perhaps I was a bad employee), I just knew I didn’t want to do that again–work in an environment where I didn’t feel valued. Are you feeling the same way? Stuck and stuffed in a position that suffocates you? Do you give your best, but it goes unrecognized?
Before taking the leap, here are just a few questions to ask yourself:
1. Is there an active market for what I want to sell?
2. Where is the market?
3. What do they want to achieve?
4. What are they willing to pay?
5. How much should I charge to create the income I’m looking for, plus take care of my expenses?
6. Who do I want to be in the marketplace–high quality or high quantity?
7. How long will it take to yield a profit?
8. Is it best to continue to work a job and start building the infrastructure for my business or am I ready to go cold turkey?
Warning: Don’t get caught up with tactical marketing lingo, beautiful pictures of affluent life styles and promises for a quick 6 and 7 figure business. Nothing is quick to build that has longevity and anything you want to grow requires your attention.
By the way, I launched my modeling career after leaving a corporate position and worked as a freelance model for 10 years. The money earned was used to pay taxes :), purchase my first home at age 25 and buy my second car–#WhenIWas15.
Copyrights 2018. All Right Reserved S. Renee Smith. I offer practical advice and strategies for steady escalated personal and business growth and marketplace position. I can be reached at 888.588.0423 or here.