Five Questions You Need to Ask Before Starting Your Agency – Q2

Hey, Congrats!
I commend your desire to launch out and create your own agency!
Entrepreneurs are the drivers, the movers, and shakers of the world. They make things happen. If you launch your agency, then YOU will begin to make things happen in your part of the world.

I want to help you get there.

(See my first blog in this series.)

Here are five questions to answer before beginning the journey to create your own agency. In future posts, I’ll go into more details for each.

Here are the Five Questions to ask before launching your own agency:

1. Why? The Question of Motivation

This question has been discussed here.

2. When?

“When?” is the question of urgency.

What is motivating you to ask this question right now? Is there something in your circumstances which is pushing this question your way? Do you simply need to pay your bills as soon as possible so you want to start a business? (If this is your reason, please realize that there is no quick way to grow a business from making zero dollars to thousands of dollars a week. It takes time and effort. ) If you need to pay bills right now, then get a temporary job while you make your plans.

Are you going to be getting married soon? Or you want to propose to your girlfriend, but want to have a stable income before you do so? ( See previous answer above.)

Or, are you reaching an inflection point in your life?

What’s an inflection point? An opportunity; a pause; a place for reflection and consideration. It’s a time in your life when you’re not FORCED to make a decision, but you may CHOOSE to make a decision. You look at your life and decide, ‘Hey I want to go THAT way, not THIS way.’ And then you do it.

If you are at that point in your life, then you’re in a great position to plan the launch of your software agency.

Here are the steps to work through the When? question:

First, think about your public launch date.
Will it be a soft-launch, or a firm grand opening where you launch the rockets, hire the band, and tell the world what you are doing? A soft-launch is much easier, with less pressure. There’s no need to tell everyone. Only your potential customers need to be notified, and they can be approached directly. All you need is one person or company to hire you, and you’re in business.

Once you have your launch date, work backwards from there. Make a list of the ‘must haves’ before you feel comfortable launching out on your new venture. After assigning dates and timelines, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how reasonable your launch date is.

I recommend doing a little schedule juggling, and start your soft-launch on nights and weekends, while you get your feet wet, spread your wings, take your first steps, dip your toe in the water, take off, and mix some other metaphors.

I coached a woman who wanted to launch her own software agency (Yes! I do agency coaching. Contact me with your questions.) How she proceeded was very smart:

Learning: She started expanding her knowledge of the craft by attending conferences and trainings. Although she was good at what she did, her experience had been limited to one company as an in-house developer.

Small projects: So she started working for HighPower on small projects, while she kept her existing job. She worked on small projects for some clients and even worked for free for the experience. Then she let friends and family know she was open to doing projects for them and picked up a few more jobs from that.

Wages to Freelance: Finally, she took the smartest move ever; she had a conversation with her current employer and informed them that she would be leaving soon to launch out on her own. But she wanted to be available for them for any work they might have for her, so that they weren’t left without help. Her old company became one of her first new clients! This guaranteed her 15 – 20 hours of work at the beginning of her venture, right when she needed consistent income. And it gave the company time to slowly phase her out.

The best way to get started is to just START. Just start doing what you do. Work for others, for family, for friends, for strangers; work for free; just start working.

Do NOT make the mistake of following most of the suggestions you find online when you search on the phrase, “How to start your own agency.” You’ll get bogged down by a bunch of bad advice like “Write a business plan”; “fill out government forms to become a corporation”, etc. Do NOT do those. They are soul-sucking, energy draining activities that will destroy your business before you get started.

If you’ve decided the answer to your “When?” question is NOW. Then just get to work and do it. Start producing. Start building your portfolio. Get to work.

There is the story about a famous writer who was asked to speak to an audience about how to become a writer. As he walked to the podium, the crowd became silent, waiting in anticipation for the words of wisdom that would come from his mouth that would help them to also become famous writers. The writer stood at the podium in silence for a moment and looked over the crowd. He simply said, “If you want to be writers, then why are you here? You should be home writing!” He walked off stage. (I don’t know if he received his speaker’s fee or not!)

If your answer is Now!, then get to it!

The question of When? is affected by the following variables:

• Economics – how long can you wait to launch before you must pay your bills?
• Business Relationships and Networks – do you know people who may hire you?
• Emotional Readiness – are you motivated and prepared for the challenges?
• Skills Readiness – do you have all the skills you need to launch?

Here are your Action Steps:

1. Answer this question, “Why now?”
2. Make a list of everything that must be done before starting your agency, but keep it to the bare minimum.
3. Get to work.

Here are the other questions we’ll look in the next blog(s):

• Who?
• What?
• How?

Some actions you can take to move forward on your own agency:

1. Sign up for our “Automate Your Business” eNews to receive future articles right in your email box.
2. Download and try some software to help you run your agency: projects.highpowerdata.com
3. Keep reading the next set of blogs.

~William Miller
Minneapolis, MN
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