Business Part 2: Your Financial Plan
Think about what you want your monthly and annual revenues to be? If you want to earn a six-figure a year salary then you will need to take that number and divide it by twelve to know what you need to aim for. Here is an example, if I want to start out at $100,000/yr divided by 12 equals $8,333.33 month.
What Do I Need?
If you have been working as a W-2 Employee, what will you have to have in order to replace your current income? Be specific! If you have been earning a $50,000/year salary, then this is the bare minimum you will have to make to replace your current income as a freelance service provider.
What Is Your Budget?
You need to also consider your monthly expenses when it comes to planning on the amount you will need as a bare minimum. Don’t just consider your personal expenses but also consider any additional business expenses that you may inquire for being out on your own.
For example, if you are an online service provider, who aids your customers in video production and editing you may need a high-speed internet provider.
If you happen to be an on-sight freelance service provider like in the home services arena, you may need a heavy-duty pickup truck or van. Your personal car may have been fine to get you to your Employer’s business and using his/her company vehicles, but what about you now as a self-employed person just starting out?
Setting Your Budget
When it comes to setting your budget, think about the one time expenses and the recurring monthly expenses.
Business Part 1: Vision & Goals
What’s Your Big Why
The first important step when it comes to setting goals for the vision you have is knowing your Big Why. What is the motivation for you wanting to start your freelance or service business? What are the reasons for you wanting to invest the time, resources, and effort into building your freelance service business?
Your Vision
What does your ideal future look like? Think about the big picture of where you want to be one year from now. What does it not only look like, but sound like, smell like, feel like? Use as many senses as you can. Who is your ideal customer? If you’re great with numbers and like to do bookkeeping, will you be serving business owners? Or maybe you might consider being a tax accountant that could serve either personal or business. Knowing your who is important part of developing your big picture.
Your Strategic Goals
What are the necessary steps you need to take over the next twelve weeks to move you towards your vision? What are the steps over the next month, week and today? Examples to get you started is to consider giving your business a name and brand. Consider what type of identity you will assume. Will it be a sole proprietor, LLC- Partnership, Corporation, etc.? What about investigating the domain and social media names are available to complement your business name and brand. You can always start out as a sole proprietor and do business as an assumed name. And then later as you grow to become another identity like LLC or an Inc.
Business Planning 101
Many people don’t know where to begin when it comes to developing a business plan or what should be covered. Think of a business plan like a map to a destination on where you want to go. And then what you will need for your trip and the destination itself. This is not considered to be an all-inclusive list either. But let’s cover what the major components you should know below.
Part 1: Vision & Goal Setting
Part 2: Financial Plan
Part 3: Technology Plan
Part 4: Content Plan
Part 5: Marketing Plan
Part 6: Learning Plan
Part 7: Productivity Plan
Each of these seven areas will be broken down in greater depth for you to have a clearer understanding of what you should know. Plus, any recommended resources to help you maximize your planning for that particular category.
What type of resources does Use A Pro have to offer?
What does Use A Pro have to offer? Use A Pro is about equipping you with professional resources ranging from a number of ways; from the the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and the FYI (For-Your-Interest) learners who are looking for training mediums from various industry service professionals. These would be resources like a podcast aka podclass, videos, guidebooks, courses, etc. or for the person who just wants a professional service they can hire to get the job done.
Use A Pro also wants to be the place where you can be alerted when a service professional is looking for opportunities to be hired or to offer job seekers a position to be apart of the service professional’s team.
Plus, Use A Pro is also about looking for service professionals who have a heart of a teacher to share their expertise through various online events; by offering monthly or weekly webinars, masterclasses, virtual conferences or summits about their service industry to their community members and the Use A Pro marketplace.
So hopefully you have a glimpse into what Use A Pro is about. Now, the question for you is where do you begin? What resources do you need? Services, Training or Job Post?