Is what you’re charging congruent with your ‘value’?

Last week I posted this quote on my Facebook page and it seemed to resonate with a lot of people, so it got me thinking about how do monitor your ‘value’?

Anyone starting out in business or freelancing will always have those big dilemmas of ‘what should I charge?’ and ‘will people really pay that?’ and for most people it’s a source of real uneasiness, as money is an uncomfortable subject to discuss.

When you’re an employee it’s easy to figure out what your hourly rate is, but when you’re working for yourself not only do you need to have an income so does your business; you’ll have overheads to pay and you’ll need to make provisions for your tax and national insurance bill.

This is why I think time tracking is invaluable, as even when you’re not working on client projects you’ll still need to work on your business and you need to make sure your charging will enable you do this. Every time you answer an email, take a phone call, write a blog (the list is endless) takes you away from your client projects and the potential for earning.

Time tracking really gives you a true account of the time you’re spending on your business and can show you areas you could either outsource or where you could cut back. I know for a lot of people social media takes up a large proportion of their time, but if you’re not seeing a return on that investment you have to ask yourself is it worth it?

If you’re offering clients ‘packages’ it’s very easy to undersell yourself, even if you say x amount of hours are included, I bet you’ll over deliver on that EVERY time! So even if a client’s on package, I challenge you to time track and see how many hours you’re doing, and how that reflects on your hourly rate and effectively your bottom line!

It’s all these small pieces of the puzzle that should come together and start helping you figure out your value – if you offer potential clients a free 30 minute consultation and wow them with what you can do; don’t then undersell yourself when it comes to what you’ll charge!

I use Toggl to track my time but there are plenty of other online systems available, I just like Toggl as it’s really user friendly and if you pay for the upgraded version you have the ability to put an hourly rate and see in an instant what your ‘value’ is!

So my challenge to you this week is to track your time – then use that information to see if what you’re charging is congruent with your ‘value’!

Working for yourself – is it all it’s cracked up to be?

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m positive person; I’m a glass half full kind of girl! Yes, I have my down days occasionally but don’t we all? Setting up my business has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and the self-belief I’ve needed to continue at times has been enormous! But I’m doing it and living the life I want; working to live and not living to work.

I couldn’t help but notice all the talk about zero hour contracts in the news recently and felt inspired to write this post. I currently know a lot of people on these types of contracts and have seen first-hand how hard it is for them trying to juggle everything around the hit and miss nature of this type of work. I was even tempted once, and before I started working for myself I was offered work on a zero hour contract but when I actually weighed it all up, I decided setting up the business was the better option of the two; and as crazy as it seemed at the time would probably give me more security! How right I was!

Now, don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been smooth sailing setting up the business, it’s been a massive learning curve but I’ve felt in control the whole time and for me that was really important. The leap into self-employment is always going to be somewhat scary for anyone, but I found the thought of a zero hour’s contract was equally scary! I would never know how many work hours each week I’d get and it was always totally dependent on the requirements of the employer.

I suppose you could say there is a direct comparison between that and self-employment and I suppose to a small degree there is; you never know what clients you’re going to have, what work is going to be available, who might to use your service/buy your product – the list goes on, but at the end of the day there’s something you can do about that, whereas with a zero hours contract there’s not. 

People often say to me ‘I couldn’t handle not knowing what my monthly earnings were going to be’ and my reply is always ‘My income may not be fixed, but that’s what’s exciting – the only limits are what I set, not anybody else’.

So, in answer to my question – yes, working for yourself is all it’s cracked up to be! It may not be all sweetness and light all of the time, but that for me is what drives me on, my business will only ever be what I put in and what I make of it, not anybody else.

If you’re thinking of setting up your own business and weighing up the pros and cons, maybe this fab quote from Dhirubhai Ambani will help! “If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs” it certainly keeps me going on the days when there are a few clouds over head!

Follow your dreams!

Social Media - a numbers game?!

Yes, I am back! After feeling totally inspired after watching ‘Be Your Own Boss’ with Richard Reed CEO of Innocent on Wednesday night, I felt the need to write!

It was fantastic to see so many people looking to set up on their own business, and seeing the amazing creativity out there, especially amongst young people! Although, there were some, how shall we put it, unique ideas ;-)

The thing that hit me most when the final 3 made it through to meet with Richard Reed and pitch for the seed funding was the lack of understanding of social media. One of the teams said they had over a 1000 likes on Facebook so expected to see massive sales once their website went live. Richard very quickly put them right that ‘Likes’ do not equate to sales!

My ’concerns’ with Facebook over other social media platforms such as my beloved Twitter, are well documented. However, over the past few months I am beginning to see some benefits – shock horror! I still whole heartedly believe though that it is very much dependent on your type of business if it will work for you.

I was recently asked by a friend to like a Facebook page, so I duly popped over to see what it was all about and I was disappointed to see that they hadn’t posted in over a month and were just ‘chasing numbers’ thinking that the more likes they had would increase traffic to their site. Now of course all likes are good, but asking someone just to a like page when you aren’t posting interacting with people just defeats the point!

Sadly, Social Media is not the quick fix solution to building a new business it takes effort and a LOT of time! It’s an immensely powerful tool but you have to be committed.

It goes back to my little old analogy about social media and how it relates to ‘real life’ networking as I believe they should be treated exactly the same!

• see your auto tweets/posts as handing out your business cards to people telling them what you do

• your interactions are your conversations amongst the people in the group and connecting possible contacts (re-tweets/re-posts)

• And your DM’s/ Personal Messages are for the next stage when you start talking about possible business together, where you wouldn’t want the whole world listening!

I believe Social Media is not a numbers game! When starting out it is far better to have 100 quality followers/likes that re-post/re-tweet your content rather than go out all guns blazing after thousands. Growing your accounts organically is the key to success!

The day the SAS went to see a Dragon!

So, it has been well over a week since my last blog about winning my #SBS award from a certain Mr.Paphitis and what a week or so it has been!

When I finished my last post I had just about recovered from the shock of winning and was breathing normally again! Skip forward to Friday 30^th March and the day had arrived to go and meet a dragon! To say I was excited was an understatement but I was also a little nervous as nobody knew what to expect.

I travelled up to Edgbaston with the lovely Amanda a.k.a @CrecheonLocatio (www.crecheonlocation.co.uk) and her husband Damian who were kind enough to drive. We were having a relatively smooth journey until we hit the M40 junction of the M25 when we saw the big red X signs for closure – aaaah! So, we quickly decided to carry on along the M25 & figure out our new route plan. Between the SatNav & our smart phones (what on earth did we do before these were invented?!) we found an alternative route –phew!

At just before 12pm we arrived at the stadium and as we pulled into the car park we saw the ‘Theomobile’ and everything started to feel much more real! Me, yes me, was off to see a Dragon!

We entered the building and everything was being handled brilliantly by the team from Rymans, we got our badges and off we went to the waiting area. Now the nerves really started to kick in!

It was the strangest feeling walking into a room full of ‘strangers’ I say strangers because even though I tweet a LOT and often daily with a fair few people who were in the room I didn’t have a clue what most of them looked like! It really was surreal! So you would find yourself looking at badges and thinking 'oh yes, I know you'! I was on a mission to find Kim from @WelshRoyalCryst and Nici from @WoodandWillow1 - eventually we tracked each other down and it really was like meeting old friends!

Whilst we mingled the main man walked past as he headed towards the conference room, he was such a gent and stopped and chatted with people and shook hands. All of a sudden everything felt very real!

So now, the moment everyone had been waiting for had arrived and we were all ushered into the conference room. We all took our seats whilst the Black Eyed Peas track ‘I gotta feeling’ blasted over the stereo. Theo's live tweet feed was being shown on the big screen and everyone was tweeting him to see if they could get their's seen - I was always just a bit too slow!

We were welcomed to the event by the lovely Kypros Kyprianou the CEO of Rymans; he spoke of how excited he was to support the #SBS event and then he welcomed the man we were all waiting for for Mr. Theo Paphitis!

 

Theo didn't let us down in the slightest! He spoke honestly about why he had started #SBS, why he felt passionate about inspiring other small businesses and wanting to share some of his 'luck' to help us move our businesses forward. He joked about how we all shamelessly wrote wrote press releases name dropping him and he said 'I love it, that's why I started this whole thing in the first place'. He then introduced us to the brand new #SBS website and there all of a sudden, I was on the big screen! I has known about the new site for about 3 days but had been sworn to secrecy by the development team and Rymans! Anyone who knows me would have known how hard I found that! Theo then made all of last weeks winner stand up *crimson moment for me!*

  

Theo then introduced Chris from Metal Frog (the #SBS website design team) and he talked us through all the functions on the site, which is truly amazing, Chris and his team have done a fantastic job!

The tables were then turned and Theo wanted to hear from us about what we wanted from the #SBS website and in the future, people came up with some fantastic suggestions and you could tell Theo really was taking everything on board.

Even after a nearly epic 3hrs on stage, Theo then made sure we all got the opportunity to have our photo taken with him & that famous smile never faltered!

I can genuinely say that the whole experience was amazing! It really has lit a fire within me to drive not only my business forward but I am also now looking at other ventures too – so watch out Theo I may be after a seat in the den soon ;o)

To network or not to network, that is the question?

If you are in business you will no doubt have heard the buzz word of the moment, ’networking’ & have invitations coming out of your inbox! But what is networking and is it worth it?

Now, to be fair I have only been to a few a network meetings & they all seemed great; lots of other eager & enthusiastic people wanting to spread the word about their particular business.  There was tea & biscuits and it was all very British, with everyone politely listening to each other’s 5 minutes in the spot light where you  ‘sell’ your goods or services and tell of any exciting news that may have happened since the last meeting. But, in all honesty I did not see the benefit (sorry!)

Don’t get me wrong it was lovely to meet other likeminded people and talk to them about the benefits and pitfalls of owning your own business, and I did hear some useful tips, but I don’t make any particular effort to go anymore. The main reason being the timing of the meetings, most are either early morning or after ‘work’ hours and being a busy working mum of 2 young boys and with a husband that works shifts that makes it incredibly hard.

I know there are lots of mid-morning ones too but they don’t work for me either! I am fussy aren’t I?! I work on a ‘pay per hour’ basis so for me to leave my home office for even 2 or 3 hours in the morning is not just difficult but also not financially sensible! By the time I have driven to the venue, been to the meeting, chatted with people and driven home again, I have lost valuable billable hours and more importantly I am not there for my clients should they need to speak to me.

I totally understand the need for ‘networking’ and I think if your business is a local service such as a plumber, electrician, beautician or something that has fixed boundaries within your area, then I think they are fantastic. But if you sell goods online, or offer services nationwide then I really think you need take into consideration the time & effort it takes you to go to these events versus spending time on social media platforms which will get your message out further and to many more people.

My business is ‘virtual’ in every sense of the word, with clients based up & down the country so I don’t have any ‘boundaries’ for my work area. So, for the time being at least, my networking will remain on my ever faithful Twitter. During the course of any one day I can ‘network’ with thousands of people in a single tweet J plus I can drop in at any time & always find someone to chat too!

And before anybody asks, no this blog is not sponsored by Twitter, lol! Just a twitter addict ;o)