pjrvs — the blog of paul jarvis

working for yourself

i’ve worked for myself (full-time) for 12 years now, and have collected some thoughts on what makes my business continue to work:

learn when to say no and when to say yes
figuring this out has helped me save time, money and stress.

be an asset
doing work “on the clock” is fairly important if i want to make money, but i don’t marginalize the fact that i need time to: learn & research, hone skills, take vacations/sabbaticals, or take a few hours off – even if it’s a weekday – to recharge. this helps me become more focussed when i am working on client work.

hire professionals
i get hired because i am a design and development professional. so if i need legal advice, i hire a lawyer, or if i need accounting, i hire an accountant. i even have a bookkeeper and financial advisor so i can continue to focus on providing my skillset to others, and not have to worry about the other aspects of keeping my business running. i don’t bother trying to figure these things out myself, since i know there are people out there that know how to do it faster and better than i could.

work smarter, not more
this is still work in progress for me – to be more focussed when i am working, so i can get things done quicker and spend less time working. it’s not because i don’t like my work (i’m very passionate about it, see the next point), it’s because it’s work – and there needs efficiency and also a balance between work and not working, especially for entrepreneurs.

be stoked, or don’t bother
if i wasn’t totally stoked on what i do, i think i would have failed by now. passion shows in work, especially if it’s creative work. it also shows when talking to potential (or current) clients. if i wasn’t passionate about what i do, i’d probably just work for someone else doing a 9-to-5 type job.

dream big, fail often, let it go
there’s nothing wrong with having lofty goals, i’d even encourage them. but it’s also important to let things go, quickly, if they’re not working out. you only need to truly succeed once, and success doesn’t only happen if you’ve not failed. i fail a lot at various ideas and learn from it. i’ve started half a dozen other companies and they’ve not worked out, but every time i figure something pretty important and new out, and i’m sure that helps keep my businesses that do work well running.

manage your growth
i don’t grow my business because it goes against my measures of success for myself. so figure out if it’s right for you to add more people to the mix or not if your business gets beyond what you can handle.

find a mentor, or several
i’ve been lucky to have people at various points in my life that helped me learn valuable lessons and tools. sometimes it’s been because i simply reached out to someone i admired and asked them a few questions. don’t be afraid to reach out.

your customers are your salesforce (treat them well)
this is a huge one for me because i don’t like and don’t care for doing sales. i’ve never put out advertising or cold-called anyone about buying any product or service i’ve had. instead i’ve used word of mouth from my existing client-base. this isn’t as passive as it might seem either – i’ve worked very hard to foster good relationships with the clients i have so it’s a no-brainer for them to refer others to me. i think there’s some formula to figure out how much of every budget your company should take and spend on selling to the next potential client – which i think is bullshit – i’d rather use that time in the budget to do better work for the client that’s paying for my time. and it works out in my favour every time. sure, my business model is to do large projects for not many clients a year, so i don’t need as many new clients as say a company that needs to sell lots of their service/product to make a profit, but the same idea can be applied to that to some degree as well.

don’t fake it
unfortunately there are a lot of web companies out there that take on projects they don’t know how to do. i know this because i get hired to “fix” or “redo” a lot of work where the project was obviously over the last company’s head. i only take on projects i am 100% confident i can do. so if it requires a skillset, i am absolutely sure i’ve got it, because i’ve (a) done it before, or (b) learned it inside and out on my own time. it only makes you look better if you deliver, with ease, what you are paid to do.

do what you say you’re going to do
i make sure timelines aren’t stressful for me, so i am always absolutely sure i deliver what i said i was going to. to me, this seems so fundamentally logical – but for so many creatives, it’s not. by dealing only with projects that don’t have unreasonable requests, i can ensure i have enough time to make them perfect at every stage. i don’t miss deadlines, i don’t over-promise anything in the “sales” part of a project and make sure every deliverable is spot on. it seems simple (or even overly silly to mention this), but i hear all the time from clients that some creative “professionals” don’t do this, and that it’s a factor in why i get hired.

don’t be afraid to be the bad guy/girl
i’ve fired clients, accountants, lawyers, subcontractors... because they weren’t working out. if you’re calling the shots, you’ve got to make hard decisions, quickly, and move forward.

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i hope the points above help to focus your own entrepreneurial endeavours – it’s truly an awesome thing to work for yourself – provided you are an awesome boss... knowing that you are your most valuable employee.

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