The Everyday Entrepreneur Podcast
#16: How To Start A Business While Working A Full-Time Job
Episode Summary
In this week’s episode of the podcast, I’m covering everything you need to know about starting a business when you have a full-time job. I share 5 different strategies you can implement in your life to help you balance your full-time job and a growing business.
Episode Takeaways
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You need to be clear on why you are starting your business, otherwise, the other demands in your life will win.
Having a strong why keeps you going, motivated, and inspired to work on your business.
Write down why you want to start your business – why is it important to your, who do you want to help, who do you want to serve, what difference will it make to your life, how will you feel as you work on this business?
When you add something else to your plate, it HAS to be worth it!
Do it for the joy and because you love the process.
Starting a business while you are working a full-time job will require your time, money, and mental energy – realistically decide what you are willing to commit.
Don’t crash and burn – you are on this journey for the long run!
If you over-commit, you will be disappointed in yourself and it can lead to a downward spiral.
Set yourself up so you can win.
Your commitment will change depending on what else is going on in your life at the time and that’s ok.
The beauty of having your own business is that you can decide how much time, energy, and money you commit to it at any given point.
Start small and be realistic – starting too big will make you feel like you want to give up.
Be ruthless with how you spend your time, energy, and money.
You don’t need to go and get fancy branding and get the latest hardware etc – they are all great but focus on getting your business up and running instead.
Get a website presence, accountant, and bookkeeper straight away.
Be really clear on what service or product you are offering and who your ideal customer is, as well as why you are doing it.
Start building your email list straight away.
Get yourself out there and in front of your ideal customer.
Don’t get caught up in the busy work that is not getting you in front of your ideal customer.
Book Recommendation – Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Outsource the busy work or leave it out altogether.
Busy work is the work that doesn’t really need to be done by you or you’re not very good at.
Some of the finances you bring in with your full-time job can be used to outsource.
Examples of work to outsource – bookkeeping, accounting, legal, social media, download creation, research,
Set things up properly at the start so the foundation is sorted.
Physically schedule time in your calendar to work on your business.
There is no race to the finish line – every step you take will get you to be a business owner.
Remember…
Start a business for the joy and because you love the thing you want to start. You should truly have love or passion for it. Do it because you love the process! Your business should not just feel like more work.
You Don’t Want to Miss…
03:34 – Balancing a full-time job and side hustle
05:45 – Getting clear on your why
11:20 – Being realistic on commitment
16:50 – Being ruthless with your resources
20:58 – Outsourcing the busywork
25:50 – Scheduling time to work on your business
Chat With Me and More Free Resources At…
Website - http://hollyknoll.com/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hollyknoll/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/consult.hollyknoll
Email me – holly@hollyknoll.com
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Welcome back to the Everyday Entrepreneur podcast!
It is a new year. Happy 2021. I am coming to you from my brand new “cloffice”. That is a closet that I've turned into my office. It is so nice to have a recording space and a space that's just separate from the rest of my home that I can come into and think, and be creative. I've even got some green wallpaper that is inspiring and brings some life into this cloffice. So I would love to hear what you have made into your workspace. Given the time of COVID, have you transformed your home or your space in any way to help you work more effectively and efficiently, and creatively? Okay.
Enough about that. Today, I am talking about how to start a business when you have a full-time job. Now, maybe this year, you are like, "Yes, this is it. I am going to start this business." but maybe you're thinking like, "How do I start this thing? How do I get it off the ground? I'm working a full-time job."
For many of us, there's not the luxury of being able to just up and quit your full-time job in favor of starting a business. There's life we have to take care of. We have to pay our mortgage, our rent. We have to pay for childcare or costs that are associated with having kids. Maybe there's insurance or parents that we need to take care of. All things that require our financial resources. And so many people start a business while they have a full-time job. Now, maybe you're thinking, how do I even balance this? I'm super busy as it is at my job. It requires so much mental strength and mental capacity and my family obligations or my personal obligations keep me so busy, by the end of the day, I'm completely worn out.
I got you. Let me just say it is still possible for you to start your business. We all have so much going on right now. Our worlds have been turned upside down and it may feel like adding one more thing to your plate is the last thing you want to do. And if that's the case, that is okay, don't start a business yet. Wait, just wait until you feel that you can personally take something on. And when I say take something on that can mean many different things, and I'm going to get into five different ways of things. If I have different things to implement, to help you balance having a full-time job and starting a business. And it doesn't mean you have to go full throttle and work on your business, in addition to your full-time job and family obligations, 24/7. Absolutely not.
There are really smart ways to keep the balance of your life while starting to work on your dream. So if you're ready, I'm going to go through five different ways that have really helped me balance my life. My full-time consulting jobs and building my coaching business. These are all things that I've implemented in my life over the past five years that have helped me be super productive, super focused, and ways to help me stay creative and inspired, and excited about what I'm starting and what I'm doing with my business. So that I don't quit and throw in the towel because I over-committed myself. So I'm going to go through again, five different things that you need to implement and seriously consider when you're starting your business while having your full-time job.
Number one, get super clear on why you're starting this business.
If you don't really know why you're starting this business, or you're not really serious about it, the demands of your life in your full-time job are going to win, most likely. Because having a strong why, is going to be what keeps you going, what keeps you motivated, and what keeps you inspired to work on this and to dedicate your precious time to when you're not doing all the other things. So having a really strong why, and being crystal clear about why you are willing to give up some of your precious resources, like time and money to start this new thing. And take some time, write down in your journal or on a piece of paper or in the Notes app on your phone about why you want to start this thing. Why is it important to you? Who do you want to help? Who do you want to serve? What kind of difference do you think this is going to make in the life of yourself and the life of someone else?
Think about what your life will look like as you're working on this business. Do you imagine yourself being joyful and excited and creative as your stepping away from other obligations you might have in your life to dedicate some time to this? If the answer is yes, how do you want to feel? Think about exactly how you will be feeling and what you will be doing as you work on this business, that ties back to why you want to do it. Because when you start, when you add something else to your plate, right? You're a busy person, you're adding something else to your plate. It darn well better be worth it, right? We don't want to add more things on our plate that we don't like to do, that we aren't passionate about, or we aren't excited about. So coming up with a strong why of why you want to add, yet one more thing to your plate will keep you going even when you want to quit.
For example, I recently started a new consulting gig. It's full time. It's at a very well-known company in Silicon Valley. And after taking the past nine months off of consulting and working 100% in my coaching business. The past week or so, I've really had to kind of rejigger my mental capacity. I've had to rejigger my physical time into finding ways to still have both my full-time consulting gig and be able to be an online course creator and help others start their own consulting businesses. So my why keeps me going, even when I'm like, "Oh no, now 40 hours a week of my time are now taken working as a consultant. How do I balance now this extra workload of also being an online course creator and teaching others to do the same?" So my why is so strong that I am willing to sacrifice may be doing other things in favor of working on my online course.
So coming back to your why, is going to keep you going when things get shaken up. My why personally is that I truly want to help others change their lives, be less dependent on a 9:00 to 5:00 job, working as an employee for somebody else. And I want to help others be their own boss so that they can call the shots in their own lives and design and build a life that really utilizes their gifts. And so that is my why, I also have otherwise in terms of my own financial freedom. My own freedom with time. And I have my own personal life as well, but ultimately it's because I love helping others. So when you think about your why, that's just my why. Think about your why deeply and get as detailed as you can about why you were starting this thing, because it is requiring commitment and probably a little bit of sacrifice. All right, hopefully you're on board. You're going to come up with your strong why.
And the last thing I'll say is, I hope you are starting your business because you are doing it for the joy and because you love tinkering with whatever it is that you want to start, you truly love or have a passion for whatever it is you're starting. And hopefully starting your business isn't going to feel like just more work, do it for the joy, if nothing else, and do it because you love the process. I love working on my online course. I love being a digital marketer. I love the process. I love the learning. It's exciting for me. I love feeling like I'm drinking from the fire hose with things like Facebook ads, something I never knew anything about. And so I love the process. I love tinkering around.
That's what keeps me going. I'm very curious about the process of becoming an online digital marketer. And that's what keeps me going because in my day job, I don't get to do that. So this is something that fulfills a desire and a need for learning for me as an online course creator. So a little bit more about the why, do it for the joy and because you love the process.
Number two, determine what you're realistically willing to commit to your side business.
What are you realistically willing to commit when it comes to your time, your money, and your mental energy, because starting a business while having a full-time job will require your time, it will require your money, and it definitely will require your energy. So realistically is the key here. Think about what you can realistically commit. Yes, you're going to be super excited because you're starting a business. That's amazing. And I'm super excited for you.
However, I also don't want you to crash and burn. Remember you are on this business owner journey for the long run, for the long game. And to think about just throwing yourself in, going full throttle 100%, sacrificing everything you can is really shortsighted. Because my guess is you're going to crash and burn and then kind of just leave your business to the side and just decide it's too hard. So realistically, what can you commit? If you can commit an hour a week and that's the most you can commit. That's great. Start with an hour a week right now, how I balance my time is, my client is on the Pacific coast, so I am able to wake up super early in the morning, get started, get working on my online course business, the Consultant Code. I'm able to do my social media. I'm able to work on my weekly emails, my newsletter. I'm able to do anything else that requires my time and energy in the mornings before I start work with my Pacific coast client.
So I set my alarm a little bit earlier. I become really focused on exactly, and I'm going to get to this a little bit later, on exactly what I need to do that ties back to my bigger goal. And so realistically, what I am able to commit to my business right now is probably about six to eight hours a week. I also reserve Sundays, Sunday afternoons for three to five hours. However much I decide on a week by week basis to commit to working in my business. I've decided that I take Saturdays completely off. Saturdays being completely off with absolutely no work has been critical to have the mental energy and the mental capacity to focus on my business, the rest of the six days of the week.
And again, during the week, it may be an hour that I work on my business an hour, three or four days of the workweek in the morning. And then I work on... I set aside a larger chunk of time on the weekend, on Sunday to work on my business. But I've learned over time it's very important to be realistic and not over-commit to how much time you want to spend. A, if you over-commit, you're going to be really disappointed in yourself. If you don't follow through on your commitment to yourself. And then that just leads to a negative downward spiral around, hey, I'm not meant to do this. This really isn't for me. What am I thinking? Who do I think I am starting a business? Like don't even go there, set yourself up so you can win.
Be realistic about what you can commit when it comes to your time, your money, your financial investment, how much do you want to invest in this business? How much can you invest in it without going in the red and how much energy you want to put into this business? And that will change an ebb and flow given what else is going on in your life. For example, over the holidays, I decided I'm going to take a two-week break from my business. I'm going to focus on my family. I'm going to focus on recharging and I'm going to just put my online business on the shelf for two weeks. So I can focus on recharging myself. And there are other times where the month of January, February, March, I'm going to be going hard in this business because I have an upcoming launch of the Consultant Code coming in March. Yes. You heard it here. I haven't announced it to anyone else yet.
But yes, I'm launching in March. Email me, holly@hollyknoll.com directly if you want to get on the waitlist. There's going to be a limited number of seats. But if you email me, I will put you on the waitlist. So you will be the first to know. All right. Sidebar. But that is to say January, February, March, I'm going hard in my business because there's so much that I need to prepare for my upcoming launch of the Consultant Code in March. Now, April, maybe I'll just scale back on kind of the time that I'm investing in my business because my course will be up and running. I will have my group of students and I will only be committing to serving them during that time. We'll see.
So that's the beauty of starting a business when you have a full-time job, you get to decide how much time, energy, and money do you want to commit to it at any given point. And again, the key to doing this is to be realistic on how much you can do and start small. Start small so you don't disappoint yourself, start small so that you feel that you are winning, that you are achieving something that's realistic, starting too big and then failing to do so will only dampen your spirits and probably make you want to give up. I don't want you to give up. I want you to keep going and how you keep going is to be realistic with your commitments.
Number three, be ruthless about how you spend this and focus only on what gets you to your ultimate goal.
Now, this is one of my, I guess, pet peeves when it comes to the perception of starting a business. You don't need to go get some fancy branding. You don't need to go get a fancy logo. You don't need to go spend all this time on buying fancy hardware, the latest Mac book, the latest iPhone because you're starting a business Do not get bogged down in that side stuff. Those things are all great, but focus on actually getting your business up and running, focus on getting your first clients and customers. And what are those things that are going to help you get those first clients and customers? Trust me, it's not having the right logo. It's not having the right branding colors or the right tagline under your business. That is not what is going to get you your first paying customer.
But things like getting some kind of a web presence, getting a landing page to tell people what you do, and getting some kind of a scrappy website template out there. Yeah, that's definitely something you want to do right away. There are things like, you want to get your bookkeeper. You want to get your accountant. You want to know exactly what it is that you are going to be offering. Clearly be able to articulate what service or product it is that you are going to be offering your clients or customers. So building that foundation of exactly what it is you do, why you're doing it, and who you serve is huge from the very beginning. So be ruthless in focusing on what is going to land you, your first customer or client, be ruthless.
Think about how can you start building your email list? How can you start giving an ideal client something for free so they can get that first foray into what it would be like to work with you? How can you develop a social media presence? So you can start talking about what it is that you do. How can you reach more people? What podcasts can you go on to talk about what you do, get yourself out there, and start getting yourself in front of your ideal client or customer. So that people can know what it is you do and how you serve them. So then they can go ahead and hire you.
Don't get caught up in the busywork that's not getting you in front of your ideal client or customer. That is incredibly important. Just be ruthless on how you spend your resources, on how you spend your time, how you spend your money, how you spend your energy. Make sure you are always, especially in the beginning that you are figuring out ways to get in front of your ideal client or customer. And building that foundation of identifying who it is that you want to serve, what it is you want to do, and why it is you want to do it.
A resource that I love that really is a beautiful framework for really helping you to be ruthless in the prioritization of your resources is the book Essentialism by Greg Mckeown. It is an awesome book that teaches you how to focus only on what's essential. And he gives a really great framework on how to go about this. I'm not going to dive deep into it today, but if you are somebody that maybe... I consider myself a ruthless prioritizer of my resources, but I learned so much from that book that I was like, "Oh gosh, I really am wasting a lot of time, money, and resources. Here are ways that I can narrow in my focus even more."
So if you're someone who, whether you think you're a great prioritizer of your resources, which you probably are, or if you're thinking like, "Yeah, I have some work to do. I don't always know where to focus." You're not alone. Most of us don't. So pick up that book, Essentialism, it's a great book that will help give you a framework on how to ruthlessly prioritize your resources.
Number four, outsource the busy work or leave it out altogether.
That ties right back into number three, be ruthless in how you spend your resources. So that busywork, that like just doesn't need to be done by you or work that you just aren't great at, outsource it if you can. Think about how you want to leverage some of the financial resources you're bringing in from your full-time job, think about how you want to allocate some of that money to outsource some of the work that's still necessary for you to run your business and start your business. And think about how you can outsource that work.
So some of the work that I outsource and I've outsourced from day one because I'm not good at it. I don't want to be bogged down in it. And for some of these things, there are governmental repercussions. If I get it wrong. So things I've outsourced, which 100% I recommend outsourcing, right from the beginning, bookkeeping, don't try to do it yourself. Like no. Yes, there's software out there and FreshBooks and all of that. Great. But hire an expert that can keep your books for you unless you're an expert bookkeeper, then, of course, it makes sense. Probably makes sense for you to do it. If you enjoy that work and you're really, really good at it. If you're like the rest of us, outsource it, outsource your accounting, get a good tax advisor immediately, immediately, immediately. Get somebody that can advise you like, "Hey, I have this full-time job now I'm starting a new business. What do I need to know? And how do I need to plan for my taxes to get set up right?"
Outsource your legal. A lot of lawyers will probably hate me for saying this, but I started my business. I incorporated my business using LegalZoom. It was cheap. It was easy. Now I know that this is not a popular opinion within the legal community, but I found a very effective, simple, straight to the point. And most of all it was cost-effective. So think about areas that you can outsource some of that busy work or those professional services where you're not an expert and get that framework set up right away. That is critical because you don't want to have to be backpedaling and figuring things out later on and spending your precious time and resources to undo the mistakes that you did, had you just set things up properly from the beginning.
Other busy work could be some of your social media, although I recommend doing your own social media from the beginning so that you can establish your voice and your brand. And just so you get the feel of it and you get an idea of what your ideal customers or clients are saying when they respond to what you post. Eventually, it may make sense to outsource some of your social media, but from the start, I do recommend getting into the social media aspect of yourself. So you can start building a personal relationship with potential clients or customers. But eventually, down the road, you may want to think about outsourcing some of your social media. Think about, let's see, what else can you outsource?
A lot of people hire virtual assistants. I personally do not have one yet. However, it is on my list of goals to hire a virtual assistant this year, virtual assistants can be amazing. They can do a number of things that is that busy work. That isn't necessarily strategic. It's more transactional. I don't know. Gosh, now I'm trying to think off the top of my head, but they can do things like creating PDF documents for you if you want to. If you want to set up some sort of a freebie lead magnet for your ideal customer or client from your website, they could help you put together a PDF for you. They could do research for you. They could do hashtag research for you on Instagram. There are many, many things i.e. The busywork that you can outsource to a virtual assistant that is very, very cost-effective.
There are multiple services, both onshore and offshore that provide virtual assistants that you can look into, and whether or not it's important to you to have a native English speaker or not there are a variety of options out there. If you want to hire a virtual assistant for a very low cost.
The next thing is... Oh, and the second point to that was, I want to leave it out altogether. There is some things that you will hear about online or read about, or somebody's trying to sell you something that trying to convince you that you need to do this. There are many things when you start a business that you can actually leave out altogether, that there are people telling you online that you must have. So think critically about what exactly you need at the bare bones to get in front of your ideal clients and customers. If that thing that comes across your way, that you think you might need is not getting you in front of your ideal clients or customers, you probably do not need it, and you can leave it out altogether for now.
Number five. Fifth, and final, super easy implementable tool for you to deeply consider when starting a business while you have a full-time job is to schedule time to work in your business.
Now, I talked about in point number two, determine what you're realistically willing to commit. And I gave you my schedule about... I have my rough schedule of where I actually work in my business during the week and on the weekends. Now I physically schedule that time in my calendar, because if I don't schedule it, it's less likely to happen. Yep. Even I'm guilty of this, I've definitely said, "Oh yeah, I think I'm going to work on my business tomorrow. I think I'm just going to do these things. And I'm going to work on that." Well, Netflix comes out with a new season of The Crown or a friend wants to FaceTime, or do a Zoom call.
Or I decide I want to go buy a pair of cross country skis and go skiing that day, which totally happened today, which is why I'm going on the night ski. Because during the day I'm working on my business, things are going to come up that you want to do rather than working on your business. And if you schedule the time in your calendar, physically put that meeting in your calendar. If you have a spouse, send it to them so that they know you are working on your business at that time. Or negotiate out with your spouse, if you have kids, "Hey, I'm going to need an hour on Sunday to work on my business." Can you either do it maybe during nap time or can you negotiate with your spouse to perhaps you've occupied the kids during that time? Or use this to hold yourself accountable like, "Hey, I said, I would work on my business from 12:00 to 1:00 today. I'm going to sit in my chair and work on my business from 12 to 1:00."
So putting it in your calendar will keep you accountable. It is a great tool to just mentally know that you've blocked that time. And then any time outside, before or after it is free to do whatever you want instead. But just knowing that you have that time blocked in your calendar will keep you accountable to others that depend on you and to yourself. So let me just run through the top five things to consider when starting a business and balancing a full-time job and life. Number one, get crystal clear on why you are starting this business. Number two, determine what you are realistically willing to commit to your side business. When it comes to your time, your money, and your energy. Number three, be ruthless in how you spend your resources. Focus only on what's going to get you in front of your ideal client or customers. A resource that you can pick up, the book of Essentialism. I love that book. It will help you with a framework on how to prioritize your time, your money, and your resources. Time, your money, and your energy.
So I hope you found these steps very helpful. It's not easy starting a business while you have a full-time job, but let me tell you it can, and it does happen. People have been incredibly successful starting a business while they have a full-time job. Again, not many of us have the luxury of just up and quitting our full-time job responsibilities for a variety of reasons. But let me tell you, I don't want that to stop you from going after your dream of starting your own business, of redesigning your life, of serving and helping the people that you want to help the most. And getting joy out of doing what it is that you do and loving the process along the way.
Don't let your full-time job keep you from pursuing your dreams.
Realistically, commit to what you can do to start this job, or to start the side business. This is to start your business and know that with every step you're taking incrementally, we'll continue to build your business one small step at a time. There is no race to the finish line. I really don't believe there are hardly any overnight successes and just know and trust the process along the way that every step you take will get you to be a business owner. So hopefully, if this is your goal, you can leave that full-time job to focus on your business 100%.
Now, if you found this episode helpful, I would love for you to log on to iTunes quickly and just leave a review. Your reviews mean so much to me, let me know how I'm doing, how we're doing my guests and myself when I have guests. And here, we all love to read the reviews. So thank you so much for being here today.
And if you want to start your business and you're just, aren't sure if your business idea is a good one or it's feeling a little squishy and you just want to hone in and get a really excellent business idea that you know, will make a profit and turn your contacts into clients, go to hollyknoll.com/free grab my free business action guide. And in six quick steps, you will have a solid business idea.
So friend, I salute you on your business owner journey. Let me know how you are doing, how I can help you. I would love to see you in the Consultant Code when I launch in March. Again, you can email me directly or go to theconsultantcode.com and get on the waitlist. I will notify the people on the waitlist a couple of days before I open the cart to let them know that registration is opening. I'm only opening it for a limited amount of people. So if you want to get on the waitlist, go to theconsultantcode.com or shoot me an email, I will definitely put you on the waitlist, holly@Hollyknoll.com. Thank you so much for being a listener here on the everyday entrepreneur podcast. And I will see you next time. Happy business building.
Thank you so much for joining me this week on the Everyday Entrepreneur, there are thousands of podcasts out there and you chose to be here with me. And for that, I'm truly grateful to you. Make sure to stop on my website and you can subscribe there to the show in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS. So you'll never miss an episode. And while you're at it, if you've found value in the show, I'd love your rating on iTunes. Or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show that would mean the world. Finally, check out my free guide to starting a business at hollyknoll.com/free. And be sure to tune in two weeks from today for my next episode, until next time, keep taking action to build your business.
