7 Steps to Opening Your Creative Business
We see you! You have a dream, but you are waiting for some magical time to tell you "that now is the time to start". The timing is right, you are prepared and you are financially ready. We hate to tell you this, but there never really is an ideal time to start a business.
Maybe you are like us and couldn't find a job so you started a cupcake shop (just ask Emylee). Or maybe you were laid off after just switching jobs 3-months earlier (just ask Abagail). Or maybe you weren't thrust into the fire like us and it has just been on your mind and burning in your soul for a while.
We challenge you to get started. We have laid it out in 7 easy steps and heck, because we want you to succeed so much we have even put together a FREE 7-day course to help you get started (see more about that below).
1. Find Your Passion And Purpose
Knowing you have passion is one thing, but giving it purpose is another. Passion is engrained on your heart with a carving knife; you just have to be willing to take a look. Deep down we all know our passion and where our heart truly lies. What is yours telling you to do? Does your job align with that passion? If not, how could you change that?
When you use your passion the way nature intended, you start to feel purpose. You begin to see that what you do matters. I am not telling you to sell your house and move to Africa; I am just saying take baby steps towards making an impact.
2. Make a Plan
After you have analyzed that gut feeling of yours and realized it was more than just a daydream, it is time to make a plan. You need to begin to build a plan to put that passion to work. How can you create a business focused on this central mission?
Our mission at Boss Project is to help people realize their dreams and put them into action. We do this because we are passionate about people! We believe you have dreams worth achieving. We want you to wake up every day empowered to do what you love. We educate thousands of creative entrepreneurs (just like you) through our 180+ blog posts, free online workshops and through the Strategy Academy. We strive to create a path to achieving your goals and reward yourself with a purposeful and profitable business.
At Boss Project, it is so much more than just a cute Instagram feed or being popular. We strive to harvest a community built on giving. You can sit with us. We are about helping businesses become brands that make a difference. We’ll give you the kick in the butt you’ve been needing to grow your business, simplify and streamline your life.
Take your own mission and put it to work. Our first suggestion would be to build your own business plan. Never majored in Business in college? Don’t worry, there are lots of helpful resources out there to help you get started.
3. Get Organized
Once you have your business plan in place, it is off to the races. Time to start putting those immediate goals in action. This process can get pretty overwhelming. So instead of pulling out your hair over it, use some tools to get organized.
TRELLO
Trello is a free organizational tool to help increase your productivity and streamline your processes. You can use it to track goals, as a daily planner, a client relationship manager, virtually any need you have, Trello can help with that. It’s laid out as a board with different “cards” that you can group together. Added to those cards can be links, pictures, files, and you can even add multiple people to your boards if you have a team, a client, or a group project.
It’s pretty user-friendly, but if you’re stuck on where to start, we created a free Trello board focused all around tracking your goals and the steps you’re taking to accomplish them. Try it on for size, and if you think you want to dive deeper into the power of Trello, we have a course dedicated to teaching you everything you need to know to make it work for your business.
DUBSADO
Keeping track of clients has never been easier with Dubsado. You can set up automations and workflows to streamline your processes and increase productivity. From scheduling calls to onboarding and beyond, Dubsado allows you to send proposals > contract > invoice all in one. From there, your clients get their own portal where you can send emails, share files, and allow them to review/save documents and even pay invoices. The limits are endless.
You get your first 3 clients for free with Dubsado, and with our link, you can ___. If you try it out and decide you love it, we even carry templates for your Proposal and Client Portal in The Shop, and we’re working on more as we speak.
4. Set Up Shop
Time to make this business a reality. You have really started to nail down the specifics and check them off one by one (no multitasking folks). There might come a point where you just need more help and that is ok. Generally, when starting a business, creative or not, you need certain staples like:
A logo
A website (with valuable and descriptive content about what you do)
A reason for people to keep coming back (perhaps using a blog or newsletter)
Social media setup, strategy, and implementation
And the list goes on
Don’t let this overwhelm you. There are tons of free resources and tutorials that you can find with a quick search on Google or Youtube. As far as your logo, you can try your hand at a mockup in Canva. It’s mind-blowingly user-friendly, and they even already have a variety of logo templates that you can customize for your business.
You shouldn’t feel the need to perfect these things right away. A start is a start, and at least you’ll have something to work with at first. Your main focus should be bringing in some revenue so that, if the time comes, you can outsource things like graphic design for your logo, a social media manager, and our Squarespace for Business templates and mini-course to show you how to DIY your own Squarespace website.
5. Generate Buzz
You aren’t building an arch. No one just lines up two-by-two. You are in charge of generating buzz for your new business. I am a huge fan of doing this the organic way rather than paying for publicity. Especially when you are starting out, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to pay for someone to see what you are up to. The more you are ignited, the more your audience will be excited. Shout it from the rooftops, a.k.a. your social media platforms.
6. Plan a Launch
Things are about to get very hectic!! Instead of pulling your hair out with no plan or direction - build out a marketing schedule centered around your launch.
Start by identifying where your dream clients or customers hang out, whether it’s on a certain social media channel or in Facebook groups. Then, get to talking! Network and find the chance to talk about your launch any chance you can. Showing that you’re excited and that it’s a big deal will help make others get excited about it, too.
7. Just Do It
Well, believe it or not, you are ready to rock it! You have made the plans, got them organized and put them in motion. Now it is time to take the ball and just keep rolling. Or if I were Ellen playing Dory in Finding Nemo, I would tell you to “just keep swimming”. The key to making this all work is believing you can do it. The body achieves what the mind believes! You are 100% capable of whatever you set your mind to and make happen.
8. Get Your Profits in Check
Ok, ok. We know we said 7 steps, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. Helping other business owners is our passion, so can you be surprised that we snuck another step in there?
There’s no overlooking this one. Once you finally launch and start seeing the money come in, it isn’t over after that. You have to know how to use those numbers to your advantage. Doing so will allow you to not only track your revenue and profits from month to month, but you’ll be able to identify what’s working in your business and what isn’t. You’ll easily see what you’re doing that’s making the most money and what you’re doing that it may be time to cut the cord on.
It sounds confusing, but it doesn’t have to be. At The Shop, we have a Cash Flow Worksheet & Profit Report Bundle that will help you do all of these things.
We show you what numbers to use, where to plug them, and how to calculate it to make tracking your profits throughout the year so much easier. You’ll be able to either let go of certain aspects of your business that just aren’t working, or you can rework them to figure out how to make them succeed. The one-off price for this bundle is only $19, so, yeah, basically a steal. But be warned. Once you visit The Shop, the most common side effect is piling templates into your cart. If you want to save some $$ (Who doesn’t?), you can join our membership for only $47 a month and have unlimited downloads to all current and future templates. That’s an otherwordly value for such a small price.
Ok, that’s actually it this time. We’ve given you the keys, now you just have to turn them! You’ve got this, and if you need extra support, feel free to join our Facebook community of 24k+ other likeminded creatives.
