Business Without Networking is Dead

Business Without Networking is DeadI’m sure you guys have heard that faith without works is dead, well business without networking is dead. This saying is true. Yes, it probably took faith for you to step out and start running your own business, Leaving the comfort of knowing that there’s always a paycheck coming when working a steady 9 to 5 job. You are now your own boss, you are responsible for paying your own salary. You no longer have benefits so you have to provide your own. What a headache! In order to do this, you have to have a strong client base and a steady income. Steady incomes don’t come on their own; you will spend the bulk of your time networking with like minded businesses, so that you can share resources, and also build with them to catch their overflow, this is called contracting.

What Makes Contracting So Important?

Contracting is important because it helps you as business owners supplement the income that you are not making on your own. Networking will not happen if you hesitate; it takes time to build a steady client base. This is why networking is necessary, because there are businesses that have been doing this longer than you have and they have a steady clientele, but fortunately for you need to contract out the work because their workload is too heavy. Great! So how do you get involved with a company so they can know that you are who you say you are. Well the first thing is it starts with relationships. Contact others that are doing what you are doing, and simply ask them if they need help, they can give you one of two answers, no, not at the present moment, or absolutely we do need help. You’ll be surprised at what responses you will get. Once you accept a contracting job, don’t short change yourself. It would be smart to have some verbal agreement or written contract in place. Let me remind you, you are not going to make the type of money you would if you were doing the job on your own, so have in mind how much money that you would like to make per job, and I’m sure you and the company you’re doing work for will come to an agreement. Contracting is a different kind of income, because you are not necessarily employed by the company, but you are not exactly working for yourself either. So understand that there is a fine line between the work that you do for them and the work that you do for yourself. Any work that you do for a company automatically becomes their property, so when you get paid for a job, it’s most likely going to be a 40-60 split, if you have a good relationship with the company, then they might do 50-50, but don’t sell yourself short. Know what the company is making per job, so that you will be compensated fairly.

Another networking tool is social media, follow the businesses that do the same things you do on facebook, twitter, Linked In, and any other avenue you can think of. After you follow them, engage with them on a regular basis, and control the relationship. Think of this relationship as a water faucet, if you turn it on slightly it’s going to take a long time to fill your cup, and if you put the faucet on full-blast then the cup is going to overflow, you don’t want to be so overwhelmed that you can’t produce what you promised you could do. Turn the faucet on medium strength so that you build a steady relationship, and a steady relationship with a steady business will produce steady work and a steady income. If it sounds simple, it is! Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet, you will reap what you sow, if you sow into relationships with others, you will reap the reward of them wanting to make money with you, rather than through you.

Also, it would be a good decision to get involved with small business groups. There are groups like the Chamber of Commerce and BNI, which require that some dues are paid, but these are not the only ones. There are plenty of people that form small business groups that meet once a week or once a month, just to learn from each other. Most of them will have an agenda, like a theme for the meeting, or maybe going through some business strategy book as a group and discussing the benefits of it, but overall, you are making yourself available to others who can help bring in referrals for you, because you have now expanded your resources by putting more people in your corner, and it costs you nothing but invested time.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this is not going to happen overnight, in order to make friends you have to make yourself friendly. I would not contract work out to someone that I didn’t feel was trustworthy, and I wouldn’t accept a contracted job if I didn’t feel the company that I was working with was not trustworthy. Allow grace sometimes when you’re working with people you trust, sometimes money is tight, and if it gets to the point where there having a hard time paying you, then use your better judgment, and forfeit working on new things until your balance is paid up. Overall, contracting relationships are great networking relationships, and even if the company that you’re contracting with doesn’t have work at the moment, they can lead you to other companies that they are networking with, creating a full networking circle. It’s a beautiful thing when small businesses decide to work together, to grow each other’s income. Keep this in mind when you’re in a position to hire or contract work out. One of the greatest benefits of contracting for companies is that they don’t have to pay a direct salary only share a portion of the income of each job that is being worked on. I pray that this is useful information for you small businesses out there.

God Bless!

Bridging The Gap Between Being a Consumer vs. a Business Owner

Bridging The Gap Between Being a Consumer vs. a Business OwnerHow do you bridge the gap between being a consumer vs. a business owner? Well ask yourself, which one are you? If you are out in public shopping for your household, technically you are a consumer, but no matter where you are, you are still a business owner as well. As a business owner, you can’t write off your household groceries to feed your family, but you do pay your salary. So how do you separate the two? Prayerfully, I can help give you an understanding what the difference looks like being and acting like a consumer and operating as a business owner.

A Consumer State of Mind

When you have a consumer state of mind, you will think like a consumer, measure facts and figures like a consumer, you will buy and purchase as a consumer. As a consumer, all these things work to your benefit, because like most families we all operate on some kind of budget. Budgeting is good, but it’s this same consumer mentality that will cripple you when you are handling your business expenses. Business Owners don’t compare fact and figures like consumers, a smart business owner will go with the service that’s going to benefit the business in the best possible way, regardless of the price. Business owners worry about the overall picture when developing a business, rather than looking at the price tag of a particular item. Now I’m not saying that business owners are so frugal, that they just throw money away. I’m saying that spending money as a business is a concentrated and calculated move, just like playing chess. When militaries go to war, they don’t go to war without counting the cost first. No military will go to war, if they think that they are going to lose. As a smart business person, you should be a smart investor, and don’t jump on every band wagon that moves, but calculate your investment, so that you can pursue increase.

The Small Business Reality

As a small business, the economy is counting on you being successful. Success comes by submitting yourself to God, and trusting that the plan that has been set before you is designed for your benefit. As a small business owner, it is beneficial for you to work with other small businesses to increase your revenue. Big business works with big business to increase their revenue to hi-jack the pockets of the consumer, but small businesses should work with other small businesses to help the consumer balance their budgets. We all are in business for a reason, and that reason is to make money. Business is business. We should be well aware of the companies we partner with, and what they stand for, and what their motives are as businesses. If you have partners that are like minded, then you will build an alliance that can’t and won’t be broken by the economy, or anything else that this world tries to throw at you. Being a small business is one of the scariest liberations that there is. Not only are you in control of what your profit is, but you also are responsible for every aspect of what the IRS considers an entity. This means that you’re business has a physical existence. So you are in charge of a mini-empire. Scary, right? Well it should be encouraging to change the way you think and feel about the way you do business.

Conclusion

The truth is that most small businesses fail in the first 5 years. That is a stereotype. Weak-minded people cannot run businesses. You have to be strong-minded, long-winded, motivated. As a business owner, you are the CEO, the accountant, the marketer, the recruiter, the receptionist, the administrator, and the janitor. One thing you are not is a consumer. You are a Small Business Owner, and you are on a track to success. I want to encourage you to separate yourself from the Consumer State of Mind, and focus on being business minded. I’ve said this before, but study other businesses, pick up on their business model. If it works for them, it can work for you. Big Business has incredible business models that Small Business Owners can adopt into our own work practices, it might just make us successful!

GOD BLESS!

Ramirez Creative Solutions