Before your clients can see you and your business as professional, YOU first have to believe you and your business are legitimate. One way to do this is to treat your business as a business and not let it operate like a hobby. If you want your business to produce business like results, it must operate differently than an occasional hobby. In the beginning......
When beginning in your entrepreneur journey, there's the desire to just want to help others. That's one of the reasons I began my business. While this is a noble and never incorrect desire, there's more that goes into creating a successful business than simply helping someone else. I truly believe in what a mentor of mine said, "if you operate from a place of service, you can never go wrong." I believe that the aspects and offerings of your business should always consider the question, does this help others and how? However, there are hard questions to answer as you begin to build your strong business foundation. A strong foundation will allow you to help others in a sustainable way.
As a life coach for birth professionals and entrepreneurs, I've helped business owners build and develop strong foundations, and flourish in their careers. I've helped with several aspects of personal and professional growth, including topics of mindset, balance, clients, systems, and much more.
Here are some common topics I've consulted on and questions I've been asked by entrepreneurs as they've navigated their beginning steps or rebuilt cracks in their business foundations.
1. When it comes to free or low priced offerings, you must ask yourself, how much can you offer at an introductory or free price?
Many times, when starting out or when we don't feel 100% secure in our skills, we make sacrifices or concessions in the pricing of our offerings. For example, after I completed my doula training and was working towards obtaining my certification, I was told to offer a service for free. I was completely fine with this piece of my certification, as I was new to this specific field. However, I quickly realized, especially as gas prices rose, that this was not sustainable. After looking at my finances and figuring out what I realistically needed financially to make my business successful, I realized that I could only have a few offerings at a complementary price for a few months. I then decided on the lowest price I could offer, especially while starting out, making sure it helped families and mine as well. As my experience increased and I became more confident in my skills, I felt more comfortable offering more in my packages, which included higher, more sustainable prices. I quickly realized that sustainable prices allowed me to help more families by being able to offer some lower priced packages as well.
2. How can you create properly priced packages you're comfortable sharing with potential clients?
When we're excited about our offers, we want to share them! When we're feeling unsure about them, we remain quiet and keep our gifts and offerings to ourselves. This does nothing to grow a business. When creating and pricing my offerings, I always stick to a few core values.
I think about my clients and their needs
I must feel comfortable with the aspects of my offerings
I make sure what I offer my clients actually helps them (bonus points if it solves a problem for them)
I do research to see what others, especially in my area, are charging and offering in their packages
I offer what I know I'm comfortable delivering
Once I've come up with a price, I sit with it for a few days to see if it feels good
Most importantly, I make sure my offerings are worth the price
3. How do you be seen professional and remain professional as a beginner, especially when working with friends and family?
What you put out in the world, you get in return (hopefully more often than not ❤️). When working with friends and family, the familiarity can hopefully help us better engage and create a beneficial working relationship.
Conducting yourself professionally, hopefully, will allow your clients to see you as a professional.
Take your clients through the process of their project, services, deliverables, etc. This can assist your clients in seeing you as a pro.
Be timely in arrivals, responses, follow up, etc.
Be prepared
Lastly, while securing your foundation, there are some business rules that I found may help to prevent cracks.
Rules to consider:
Be involved in all aspects of your business as much as possible. From finances to needs and all the steps in between.
Be realistic in your plans regarding your time, goals timelines, energy, etc.
Know your vision and goals. The more clear your goals, the easier it will be to know your needs, delegate tasks, and move intentionally towards your goals.
Your client experience matters
Only offer what you're comfortable delivering
Surround yourself with support and opportunities that will help you grow personally and professionally
As you build your business, allow yourself the space to dream, alter and grow your vision, and create. Envision how you'd like your business to flow and build from there. Over time and step by step your business can grow into a legitimate and financially secure business. If you put in the work and intentionally move forward, who knows what you can build? The sky's the limit!
If you're ready to build a strong foundation and make a personal plan, let's chat!
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