Written by Fernando Maciá
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We’ve been hearing “get started!” for too long. It is a very familiar and well-known term among everyone but only a few have dared to experiment with it. The path of entrepreneurship is a complex task in which many factors come into play.Some of them depend on us, such as perseverance, effort and hard work; and many others we cannot control: the economic crisis, market demand… Without a doubt, a concept that only the bravest can conquer.
The idea arises
Don’t deny it, I’m sure you’ve had a GREAT idea worthy of materializing, but many times you haven’t known what to do or where to start. Not having a reference or a guide that tells us the steps we should follow, often ends up pushing us back and finally our idea ends up anywhere but where it should be, which is being executed. The truth is that there is no mathematical formula that tells us what steps we must follow to become an entrepreneur, but we can give you some small recommendations and tips that will help you during this long and beautiful road that is called ‘entrepreneurship’.
Make yourself known
There is no point in saying I am an entrepreneur, self-employed, freelance or any other term we usually refer to when we talk about self-employment, if you are at home waiting for work to knock on your door. Create your personal image and start eating the world.
Get out there, create opportunities and the offers will come to you.
A website or blog is an ideal option to start building your reputation and image on the Internet. Write and show what you know, this way everyone who reads your blog will realize that you know the industry well and that you know what you are talking about. You will leave evidence of your level of training and generate confidence in those who read you.
Don’t despair, the offers will come, you just need time, a lot of patience and a lot of dedication. It would be really interesting if you could add a “Shall we work together?” section in your blog, where you could specify what services you offer. This way everyone who is interested in working with you will be able to know a little more about you. The offers won’t be long in coming, you just have to be patient.
Divide your time well
The first customers are starting to arrive. What a joy, it seems that so much effort is beginning to pay off! Now that you are in that ‘euphoric’ moment when you still can’t quite believe it, you should stop and think about some really important issues that we sometimes overlook. You must learn to manage your client portfolio well and divide your time well so that the work does not overwhelm you. Dedicate a certain amount of time to each project and do not exceed the hours, otherwise you will find yourself at 3 a.m. in your living room finishing a presentation that you need for the next morning.
Be a versatile person
It will be right around the time you start getting job offers when you realize that you are obliged to become a multi-skilled person. We will have to specialize in everything: from finance, human resources, sales, etc. This is what makes self-employment a complex business model. You are your own boss in exchange for managing and controlling all departments of the company.
Delegates responsibilities
Oh, what good news! Everything seems to be going smoothly and we keep getting more and more customers. Now comes that moment of “I’m overwhelmed”, “I don’t have time for anything”, “I’m swamped with work”, “I’m overwhelmed with work”, “I haven’t slept tonight”.
At that moment when you don’t know what to do, you will have to start making decisions. Has your workload increased so much that it is now impossible for you to handle everything? Maybe it’s time to hire someone to lend you a hand with those tasks that you can’t handle yourself. This is where you become an entrepreneur with knowledge in human resources and start to make an exhaustive selection to find the ideal person who will work for you.
At this stage we tell you the same thing, “don’t despair”. The search for a qualified person who meets your requirements is not easy, but on the contrary, it is an arduous task that must be taken calmly. Don’t be afraid to delegate responsibilities. It will take away your work and you will be able to dedicate more time to your projects, and in this way, offer a more personalized attention to your clients.
Don’t be afraid to say NO
When your business starts to bear fruit and you have a considerable amount of work, you will have to start prioritizing. It’s time to say goodbye to all those customers who give you more sadness than joy. Don’t be afraid to say NO. With respect, education and kindness, everything sounds better.
If a customer doesn’t bring you anything, why waste your time with him? We should discard those that add the least value to our business.
When our workload grows, we need to make choices, and choices mean discarding some options.
Set a schedule
If you are an entrepreneur, you have surely gone through this phase. Those long nights until five in the morning to finish that project of the most exquisite client of your company and those Saturdays getting up early to finish jobs that we have not been able to finish during the week. To prevent this from happening to us, we must know how to manage our time. Set yourself a schedule and stick to it. Spend a little time on each project (depending on the workload of each project, of course). If your schedule is from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm and from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, what are you doing awake at 2:00 am instead of being rested?
Having an established work schedule will help you keep order in your tasks and control the time dedicated to each one of them. The hours outside these hours do not count as work, so go to dinner and forget about anything that has to do with projects or clients. Having such a frenetic pace in which rest is not one of your main options will end up generating negative consequences such as lack of concentration, fatigue, low productivity, poor performance… do you really want to get to that point?
Time management tools
There are a large number of tools dedicated to time management. You can find some more traditional ones, such as post-it notes or diaries (the traditional ones), and other more modern ones, which are the ones we are going to focus on in the following lines. These are a series of applications that were created as tools to help all those entrepreneurs who are running out of time. These apps are very useful because they can be consulted from any device, wherever we are. We will be able to control the time we dedicate to each project and at the same time activate alarms to warn us when a task is finished.
Among the large selection of applications currently available on the market, we show you some of the most practical and easy to use ones:
1. Wunderlist
With Wunderlist you can create lists of tasks and prioritize each one of them so that you have all your time under control. This application will allow you to delegate tasks to the collaborators of each project. It has a pleasant and very clean design that invites its use. Undoubtedly, a very useful tool for anyone, but especially for those freelancers who need to organize their time.
Nozbe
With Nozbe you will be able to register all your projects and attach files to each of them. This will allow you to have all your tasks organized. In addition, you will be able to synchronize your Google calendar to have a better control over the time dedicated to each client. The application allows you, from creating a simple to-do list, to elaborate projects of a much more complex nature.
4. Evernote
The Evernote application is a work tool that allows you to create everything from short lists to much more complex research. In addition, it offers you the possibility to collect and save everything you import, so that you never lose the information you are working with. You can also make comments, which allows feedback to be created between collaborators on a particular project. Last but not least, another feature of the application is the option to make presentations, which will be very useful for your meetings and conferences.
Evernote has a Freemium model , in which you can enjoy the basic options of the application for free, and a Plus model, in which you can enjoy the basic options of the application for free.
Plus
y
Premium
which allows you to access a greater number of functionalities and options of the tool for a small annual payment.
5. Do it
Do it is a very simple and easy to use application. You will be able to schedule pending tasks for today and tomorrow. Ideal for all those who love traditional tools. We can say that it is a type of agenda (one of those of a lifetime).
Astrid
Its clean, clear and modern design makes this application a very attractive tool for the user. Create a list of tasks and add collaborators to each of them. In addition, one of its most interesting features is that it allows you to attach comments to each project, so you can keep track of each one.
7. Producteev
It presents a freemium model, with a more limited service and a premium one, which allows you to enjoy all the functionalities and options of the application. Register your projects and add the collaborators that will participate in it, this way you will be able to distribute the different tasks among the members of your team. You will also be able to upload and download files whenever you want, so you can keep up to date with the progress of each project.
Don’t stop training
Your level of education will influence the service you offer to your customers. The more trained and knowledgeable you are, the better services you will be able to provide, the more satisfied your customers will be and the better results you will achieve. Training is a matter of considerable interest and even more so if the sector in which you work requires constant learning. In online marketing, e-commerce and everything related to the Internet, everything changes from one day to another, so we must be attentive, to know how to adapt to these changes and to offer the best service.
You will have to constantly update yourself to improve. You will enrich your knowledge and acquire new ones that will help you grow as a professional, whatever sector you work in. There is no point in using the formulas of the past in the future, since they may no longer be of much use in the present.
Have confidence in yourself
Don’t stop trusting and believing in yourself, because no one else will. Don’t give up even if you have moments when you want to give up. Don’t forget that the greatest achievements are born out of the smallest battles. Cheer up!
Don’t be afraid of the dark, face it. Don’t wait for the perfect moment, create it. Don’t wait for opportunities, look for them.
