Micro Biz / Side Hustle

Your 6 Core Competencies Broken Down:​

​

Leadership & Vision:  Develop a clear business plan and personal goals to transition from a side hustle to a scalable business.  Before you can effectively tell others about your business, you must be clear about it yourself.  This may seem obvious, but it is more common than you might think.  Before you can lead a team of people, you need to be able to lead yourself; this includes setting clear expectations, having discipline with your time, and having a strong work ethic.

​​

Financial Acumen:  Establish simple accounting systems to track income and expenses accurately.  Often, depending on how much revenue you are bringing in, a simple spreadsheet can be effective enough. However, as you increase sales and expenses, you want to invest in one of these solutions.  Whichever solution you choose, ensure it is something that enough people are familiar with, so when you grow and want to hand this off, you don't have to have someone recreate all the information, which will be costly.

​

Sales & Marketing:  Arguably the most important competency of this stage.  Leverage affordable tools like social media and networking solutions to build awareness and attract clients.  Consider a simple, inexpensive website, or maybe use your social media platform initially.  If you are networking, invest in business cards and, ideally, a digital card solution.  Don't get crazy with any costs during this phase; remember, until you have a proven model, you don't truly have a business yet.  There is no need to make major investments in websites, logos, and other collateral, at least not until you start bringing in real sales numbers.  Create a sales process that converts and consistently duplicates these results. 

​

Operational Excellence:  Optimize personal productivity solutions and automate basic processes to save time.  Often, this can be achieved using a business management solution (a CRM on steroids) or dedicated software for your business category.  Also, consider using some task management solution tools to help keep your ideas and projects moving forward.

 

Human Capital Management:  Learn how to leverage human capital before you hire staff.  Outsource small tasks (e.g., bookkeeping, graphic design, or marketing efforts) to freelancers. Learn to leverage AI to cost-effectively complete daily tasks more efficiently and conserve time and effort while building your business.  Consider expanding on this concept to capitalize on virtual assistants, particularly when working on tasks you are not as familiar with. 

​

Customer Focus:  Build strong relationships with early customers and collect testimonials to boost credibility.  Leverage your Google Profile for tracking testimonials, and ensure they are on your website and visible on your social accounts.  Additionally, make sure to leverage automation, where you can, for client communication, follow-up, and deliverability.  Lastly, listen to customer feedback and adjust your offers, product solutions, and client expectations accordingly.

​​

Key Tools you may find Valuable:

• Affordable business management or customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

• Regular goal-setting resources to align daily tasks with long-term objectives.

• Social media content creation tools.

• Task tracking solutions or use a CRM that incorporates this.

• A Business Plan.  It doesn't need to be a 60-page plan, but you should have something that you can review and reference regularly as you determine the next steps.