ARTICULATED

Last week I participated in a brief business-planning retreat for a friend. It was all about probing best practices in trading in the traditional career path and going it alone in the communications / marketing / PR space. It occurred to me how regularly I am asked how I managed to get Kinkennon Communications off the flight deck and into the air without plummeting headfirst into the abyss.

Folks want to know what I learned. It’s two primary things. Here goes:

1. Write that business plan.
I know, I know, this is obvious, right? But PR people go into freelancing all the time — it’s not exactly radical. There are no capital requirements. There typically is no need to borrow money. So why did I invest the time in writing a business plan? That’s the question I get, because it doesn’t sound very fun. The answer – so I myself would know what the hell I was doing, and why, so I could do it with a sense of purpose.

It’s pretty astounding how often I ask new or aspiring freelancers what their mission, vision, or overarching business goal is, and they don’t know.

Me: “What is your business going to do that is unique to your skills and interest and different than anyone else?”
Victim: “Ummm…”

Me: “What exactly does your marketing plan call for this year?”
Victim: “Uhhh…”

So before you leave your cozy current job and your income continuity and leap haplessly into an economic malaise, pose yourself these three questions:

• What stuff, precisely, and in excruciating detail, is it that I want to do?

• Why, precisely, and in excruciating detail, do I want to do that stuff rather than any other stuff?

• How, precisely, and in excruciating detail, am I going to find and sustain the kinds of clients that will enable me to do that stuff?

2. Appoint a board of directors.
Do WHAT?!  Sheer astonishment. But yes, I mean it. Find 3-5 people who you trust, who know your industry, who are smarter than you, and who might find it a fun diversion from the monotony of their days to give you advice. Designate them as your new board.

They won’t have governance responsibility like a corporate or nonprofit board, of course. But you can give them a significant guidance and advisory role. Think of them as fancy chaperones.

Run your business plan past them. Run your marketing plan past them. Run your financial projections and goals past them. Host a meeting, present your best thinking, and ask them to poke holes in it. Task them to help you be sure you’ve done your homework and are really ready to run a business purposefully. Because that’s probably what you want to do if you’re daring to leave your steady job right now.

Two years ago, a former client owed me a small Lexus’ worth of money. Heated as I was over the matter, I concocted a raucous plan to try to collect that sum. As a courtesy, I ran the plan past Kinkennon Communications’ three board members. Each of them, separately, told me to stop, called my plan a stinker, and suggested a 180 degree opposite course of action. I was irritated, to put it mildly. But I begrudgingly complied.

As you’ve already guessed, I collected every bit of that money. Had I done it my way, I would not have collected a dime. Lesson learned. At that moment, it became clear to me that no one should ever start their own PR business without a solid, active, committed board. Create one – you’ll be glad you did.

Tags: freelancing, Kinkennon Communications, Shane Kinkennon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Work and Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.