It takes time

When chatting with friends, they sometimes ask what made me decide to start working for myself. They wonder why I gave up (half of) a permanent job with good pay to start working for my own business. They are suprised that I chose uncertaintity over stability and that I am taking a big risk in these economic challenging times. It is a risk and I do not have paid assignments yet. The first couple of weeks or months I might not make a penny because I do not have customers.

I will start advertising my services soon, but there are still things to clear up. Who are these potential customers and where do I find them? What are they willing to pay? What do others charge for similar services? What exaclty do I have on offer? What are my unique selling points? I have been using instruments to help me working on the mission and vision. I found the 'Inspiration Game' very helpful. I played with Jorien the other day and it gave us great input about what we want to get out of the business and what we find important. Also useful was 23plusone from the Brand Station, about emotive branding from a company in Cape Town.

Surely there are many other ways to dive a bit deeper into the what, how and why of Master Your Ability, but I hope I can take some decisions this week, cos time is money and I do want to have paid work at some stage. I use Kotler's Ps, SWOT and PEST and after these exercises I hope to be ready to start working on my project proposals for an exchange project Malawi-South Africa-the Netherlands, an exposition in NL for a talented visual artist from Cape Town, and of course trying to get work at other universities lecturing & coaching. I will also use a little book & website by Roel Grit on how to write a business plan and the worksheets of 'Thinking Big' to thoroughly look at my marketing and of course my own (Dutch) website www.PodiumPower.nl. Still so much to do I untill I can really start..