Setting up a business is not a particularly hard task. Running a business may prove to be harder. This is where I believe the process and the right tools play an important part. The idea of having a process is nothing new, but I must thank made.by.james for highlighting the importance of processes not only for you but for the client. If we have a clear series of steps to how we run our business. Then this should allow not only transparency for the client and you. But it will allow you to identify potential issues and pain points. This will allow you to adjust your processes, to further streamline your business as well as improve the client’s experience of working with you. My main aim is to have a silky smooth business process that requires minimal time and effort.
I have no direct experience in running a business. This will be a steep learning curve for me. No doubt some things will work and others will not. Nothing is permanent and adaptability is one of our greatest assets. Don’t let denial get in the way.
At this stage of my travels through the world of freelance, I have not one single client. But this will change. The way my brain works is that I need to have all the processes and tools in place and ready to roll, before even thinking about getting clients. Others may fly more by the seat of their pants and make it up as they go along. I guess it comes down to your situation and personality. There are many ways to achieve your goals. Pick the one that works for you.
To mentally simplify my business strategy. I came up with a tagline for The Fuzzy Sofa Design Studio, which is ‘Discover. Create. Build.’ This enables both me and the client to understand what phase we are in, in the project. Each phase has defined outcomes that allow me to know when to move on to the next phase. The discover phase is all about gathering information and doing research. The creative phase is where you take what you have learned in the discover phase and start solving problems. The build phase is where you have narrowed down your ideas to a single one, then you start putting together the final deliverables.
The tagline Discover. Create. Build. Not only applies on the project level but also at the business level. Discover applies to marketing. Create is the work I do. Build related to the business. My brain likes the number three and it also likes to create neat little systems. Which creates and gives me a sense of order. The following is what I have done in setting up my business and the tools that I have chosen to use that best suit my needs.
The Business and the Bureaucracy
This is the part where you make your business official. In my case living in Australia, I needed to do two things. Get an Australia Business Number (ABN) I did this as a sole trader. This is free to do. The next thing was to register my business name Fuzzy Sofa. I think you only need to do this if you are not planning on using your name as the business name. This costs A$42 per year or A$98 for three years. There are other considerations such as registering for GST (goods and services tax). I have not done this as you don’t have to charge GST if you are earning less than A$75,000. It is unlike I will earn close to this in this financial year. A word of warning, I am not an expert in this area, so take what I say with an unhealthy pinch of salt. There are no doubt bags of information out there in your neck of the woods for ‘how to set up a business.’ So go forth and access the knowledge.
The Process of Running a Business
This may seem on the surface to be a pretty simple process. Yet, the more I thought about it and researched the finer details. It proved to be a tad more involved than my initial thoughts concluded. The basic process is as follows.
The Client contacts you. You have a chat and the client decides to hire you. You do the work. The client is happy and pays you. You are now happy. Rinse and repeat. Until you can retire at 60 and travel the world with your partner, now your kids have all piss off to follow their dreams. Happy Times, not quite.
The fact is that you are a business that is providing a service in return for financial remunerations. In my view, that sounds very much like a contract. This means that if the contract is not fulfilled by either party. Then that could spell trouble.
I like to think about it from a customer's point of view. I go to the big yellow mega electrical store after serval months of research and buy a new shiny toast. I pick up my toaster, pay my money and go home. The process was super easy and now I can have lightly toasted bagels for breakfast. No, I can’t. The toaster explodes. I take the toaster back. I get a choice, get the toast replaced or get my money back. I like my bagels so I get a replacement. All good. Nice lightly toasted bagels for breakfast. That was all a bit troublesome but sh*t happens. But, It all worked out in the end. All this happens due to the processes in place and our consumer rights. The big yellow electrical store has a process in place within the bounds of consumer rights law. Their process enables them to be transparent with their customers, who will have a degree of expectations. But also allows the staff to provide frictionless transactions and services. The customer is happy. Thus they return. The key takeaway here is that processes are important for all parties involved. Yet, processes built on empathy are the most powerful.
As a freelancer, your process begins with a client contacting you. How and where they contact you overlaps with marketing which I will cover shortly. Here are the basic steps I plan to follow. Again thank you ‘made.by.james’
As I have yet to put this process into real-world practice. I can not say whether it will work well. But the point is that you have a process in place, to begin with, and then you can refine it as you receive feedback. Now the next section is how the hell you manage all this information.
The Tools for Running a Business
The tools that I have chosen to use have several requirements: cost, simplicity and doing what I need them to and no more. Finding, testing and evaluating these tools took far too long, thanks to my arsey brain. The truth is that there are no perfect tools, only close enough ones. I must say I got a little frustrated that there were tools that would do something well. But lacked in other areas. Even so, I managed to hobble together a bunch of tools that met my needs. By the way, I have no affiliation with any of the companies I mention. No brown paper bags of cash have exchanged hands.
Porkbun - Domain Name Registrar. They offer affordable domain names and their renewal price a reasonable.
Midagu - Business Email $19 per year. Midgau was the most basic business email service I could find. No frills. Unlimited mailboxes and addresses. Hook up to your domain name and plug it into your email app and you are good to go.
Tally - Form Builder - The free plan is all I need. The reason I chose Tally over others was their embed forms look best in Framer. Which I used to build my website. Also, the free plan is super generous.
Indy - Business Management - Limited free version. $9 per month paid yearly. Indy is a basic CRM and all I need. It does all the basics like proposals, invoices, and contracts. It was also the cheapest. They also update regularly. So their current feature set will only get better.
Hnry - This is Australia and New Zealand only I believe as they have accountants calculating your tax based on the local tax laws. They charge you A$1 per A$100 you make, it is capped at A$1500. You can add all your expenses as well. They also offer invoicing and quotes. There is an overlap here with Indy. So I will use Indy for the invoicing so that I can keep all the client information together in one place.
The process and tools that you use to run your business will no doubt differ from mine. I have yet to test my process in the real world with real clients. I do not doubt that adjustments and changes will need to be made. The process is a juggling act between what is good for you and what is good for the client. How you balance between the two will determine the experience had by all. Approaching the client with understanding, empathy and a genuine need to help, will go towards building long-term relationships. If your processes are built around these ideas then hopefully you will do well.
Thanks for your ears