How do I balance working full-time while building a consulting business?
Working full-time while launching your consulting business is the reality for many folks. This was my reality when I started my consulting business. I was still a principal when I started my consulting business. I'm sure the full-time role is a lot especially if you’ve got co-workers at home, and we're all managing so many different things right now.
If you have a full-time role, or even just in the midst of this pandemic, how do you create space for your business? First, you want to start with getting really clear on why you want to start your business? What does this mean for you? What does this mean for your impact? What does this mean for your community?
Get real clear and grounded in what you want to be true as a result of leading through your business. You could be doing many different things. You could have an idea on how to create a stream of revenue that isn't a consulting business. Why specifically are you choosing a consulting business? For example, when I started my consulting business, I had two whys. My first why was that I wanted to help more principals. I had been in many different networks with many different principals and there was just such a gap in quality professional learning for principals, and I wanted to do something about it. I was driven by the impact. I was driven by having a significant impact and wanting to help other leaders because my belief around improving education really centers around having great leaders within a building.
My second why was centered around the reality that I was going to be transitioning to grad school so it was a little bit of pressure prompted. I needed to start saving in order to have the type of transition that I wanted. I needed to save. I needed to pay off debt. I had to make some moves.
Starting a business is not easy. Starting a business while you're working full-time is not easy. You have to be really grounded in your why, because that's what you're going to come back to. That's what’s going to motivate you when you're just in the thick of it, when you have to do the hard work to build your business from the ground up.
Then you actually have to think about the technicality of it, which is like, "Well, how do I actually create the time and space for my business in the midst of everything that's happening and going on?" A good question to ask yourself would be realistically, "How many hours can you dedicate to your business a week?" Sit down and think about your time, your day, and your energy. So for example, for me, it is not realistic to plan to work on my business Fridays after 5:00 PM, because my energy is no good. My mind is fried from the week. That's not the best time for me to be thinking about my business. For me, I actually get my juices flowing on Sundays in the afternoon. I also get juices flowing late Saturday. Especially now in the pandemic and DJ Nice is on IG and spinning tunes Saturday around eight o'clock. I'm going and I'm in the zone. That's how my energy fluctuates.
Think about realistically how much time you can spend on your business per week in terms of hours and thinking about your energy level throughout the week. Then make a commitment to yourself to actually dedicate that time to your business even if it's just an hour a week.
Whatever that time commitment is, make that commitment by putting it on your calendar and eliminating distractions. When I'm working on my business, I literally move my phone to the other side of the room so I'm not checking it. If you have co-workers at home, this might mean having some type of arrangement, whether it's your physical space, if you have a partner, maybe you're in a conversation with your partner about how to make that time for you as distraction-free as possible. Really setting yourself up to have that uninterrupted time focused on your business and thinking through what that requires from you. If you have the financial means, it could mean getting a hotel room or AirBnB for the weekend to have a distraction-free environment.
Maybe it's not working from the couch, maybe you work at the dining room table. Take all of those things in mind to be able to create that sanctuary for yourself dedicated to your business.
Pick a starting point, an hour a week or two hours a week is significant. That's better than nothing given that you're figuring out your time commitment to your business, and it's going to take a little bit of trial and error. Give yourself some grace.
You also really want to prioritize your time to focus on the decisions that matter in your business. You don't want to only have an hour per week and be spending an hour on animations on a presentation. That's not going to be the best use of that hour. If that's the only time you have during the week in your business, you want to be spending it in ways that are going to have the biggest impact in your business. That may mean taking time to brainstorm a list of five to 10 leads or potential clients and spending that time reaching out to them. It could mean making some type of collateral for your business so that way you can send to people as you're making these contacts. You want to spend time on the things that matter. My business coach, Rachel Rodgers, would say you want to spend time on $10,000 decisions, not $10 decisions. Animations in the PowerPoint is a $10 decision, but sending emails to potential clients, to potential leads is a $10,000 decision. When you're balancing your consulting business and your full-time job, it is critical that you are prioritizing your time around those $10,000 decisions.
Lastly, there's a really, really fine line between not having enough time for your business and avoiding making time in your business because you're afraid of the unknown or what will come next. There might be some of us who are feeling the tension in dedicating time towards our business while we're still working full-time, and the tension could be because you have many things on our plate because we all do in the middle of the pandemic.
And/or the tension could be, this is the first time that you are launching a business. It feels really scary and you're not quite sure what to do and you're afraid to fail….so you are actually avoiding spending time on the business you want to build. If that's coming up for you, then actually the action step is a little bit different. It's less about creating the time and it's more-so around shifting your mindset away from thinking about all the things that might go wrong when you spend time in your business to focusing on all the things that could go right when you dedicate the time in your business.
Reflection questions:
How much time are you thinking about per week that you can realistically dedicate towards your business?
What do you need to be able to create a distraction-free zone for yourself?
How will you protect the time you have allocated for your business?
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