Months ago I wrote a post about 3 things to do when you received a sack letter. I wrote that post, the day I was made to resign from my last paid employment. I got home and tried working on the things I wrote on that post which is

]1) Reflection: Had a deep thought about the past few months on my paid employment, my mistakes, challenges and triumphs.

2) I took note of my strengths, weakness and opportunities around me.

3) Then I took action

The result is that, few days after I started by own business. I didn’t just make a start after leaving my last paid job, but the background work has been on long before the forced resignation. Before then I have taken steps to document

What I was frequently asked to do by friends, colleague and others for which I was paid for ( in this case Website design, Web Maintenance , Content creation and optimization, SEO and Social Media Management activities )

I sat down wrote a business plan around it, put one or two things together and went to CAC got the business name registered and did other things i ought to, to make it a legal entity.

Once I left my paid employment, I dusted up the business plan and ran with it. The business is still in its embryonic state with no physical location ( my meeting points with clients far and near has been my emails, WhatsApp number, eateries on both the island and mainland of Lagos and any other location sometimes home and offices of my clients ).

So far I have leant valuable lessons that I will work improving come 2018.

1) IT’S MORE WORK AND A BIT LONELY AT FIRST:

Some people always assume that having their own business will mean less work and ultimately more freedom to do anything they like.
Yes, to an extent you’re right, I remember having to get home late and wake up very early to beat the traffic as I journey from the mainland to the island and we all know how Lagos traffic is especially on a Monday morning the stress and all that, as your own boss who might not have to be doing this ritual all the time but that doesn’t mean you will be in bed snoring when others are up running off to their various offices, far from it.

I found myself working more since am mostly everything from the very beginning and unlike before when you have just one boss, this time you will have many bosses with each making many demands and expecting you to deliver at the very best.

I’ll have to get up much earlier, run from one appointment to the other, stay up late to find answers, found myself missing out on some activities and bit more alone.

But then, nothing quantifies the joy, when one more clients get satisfied, an alert hit your bank account and more trust established as you build your business.



2) MOST OF YOUR FIRST SET OF CLIENTS WILL COME FROM FRIENDS, FAMILY AND REFERRALS

Yes my first few clients came from friends and colleagues who knows my skill set and abilities and have seen me work in real time. I start hearing things like “Help me build a website for my business” “A friend needs a website for his/her business” and when the phone rang, I will hear things like “A friend gave me your number that you can do so and so”

From the above list came my most loyal and trusted set of clients.


3) YOU NEED TO SET A DEFINED CEILING IN YOUR PRODUCTS/SERVICE OFFERING.

One of the qualities that will enable offer your best when you’re starting out, is knowing your business inside out. Having a well-grounded knowledge of your business will enable you define your offering’s properly to your clients including costing and other extras.

When you don’t know the above, you won’t be able to have a define ceiling and those who are out to exploit you will exploit you to the full.
It’s also important to know that you’re running a business and not a play ground for family and friends, you must be able to define the boundaries that guides your business and reviews this as you grow from one man show to a multinational empire.

4) YOU CAN’T SATISFY EVERYONE
Unfortunately, no matter how much you try, you can’t just satisfy everyone and you don’t need to as your business is not meant for everyone. Some will tag your products/services as expansive, some will want you to do the impossible, but it's your duty to politely let them know your stands, the values you offer and nothing more.

Most of those who proves unnecessarily difficult might be competitors masking as clients trying to sieve as much information from you as they can, I personally do not do this, but they’re those who do. So you just have to watch out.

5) BE WILLING TO TAKE RISK AND IMPROVE ON AREAS YOU SHOULD IMPROVE ON

I didn’t know everything in my field before starting ( I'm still learning and I will keep learning till the end ) and base on that sometimes I will turn down some jobs.

But I soon learnt that I need not know everything and need not struggle with Google or Youtube for a DIY steps to do the things I don’t know when I can easily outsource same to a master and still get paid for what it’s worth.

Things might go wrong here if the person you outsourced to is a dubious character, but from the questions you’re been asked, you can easily find out areas to improve on and become better in your craft.

BONUS: SOMETIMES YOU WILL BE TEMPTED TO QUIT Yes this one is common, especially when the initial euphoria you have about how your business blowing begins to die down...

The up's and down's.

The confusion from people not really understanding what you're doing especially when you work from home.

The subtle and direct voices and urges from your family asking you to look for 9-5 Jobs again.

The long calls, meetings with clients that later failed to translate into sells.

The months with long silence as if your business does;t exist.....

Etc i can on and on. As a young business person you will have these moments and that's when you ought to look inward and pull your creative tricks to unveil the other sides of your business and not time to quit.



The above are my lessons thus far. Sometimes it look as if i made a mistake working for myself and maybe i should jump back again into the labor market for another interview for a 9 - 5 job, but then everything is going on fine and I'm learning everyday.

My Christian brothers will say, today is the day of salvation, now is the acceptable time, tomorrow may be too late. You don’t have to wait till tomorrow, you can start that business today.

Start with what you have.

Start from where you are.

Someone is waiting to pay you for your services.

By Rutherford Ejimonu - 08095966698

Lalasticlacla

Business is successful when friends and relatives pay for services renderd. I only give my goods on credit to 90yrs olds but you must come with your parents.

Lalasticlala
Mynd44

PointZerom:
Business is successful when friends and relatives pay for services renderd. I only give my goods on credit to 90yrs olds but you must come with your parents.

Bro's you're funny...90years old to come with their parent?...AM WATCHING YOU

Doerstech:


Bro's you're funny...90years old to come with their parent?...AM WATCHING YOU

Abi I no try?. Some people will tell you 'No credit today come tomorrow'.

PointZerom:
Abi I no try?. Some people will tell you 'No credit today come tomorrow'.

You do well bro

The fear of falling keeps many from making an attempt on being their own BOSS

Clearly defined. !!!

Like I stated here Not starting your own business is one of the mindsets that will ruin your chances of being rich

Op, I congratulate you for this.!

I want to start web design using wordpress. Pls can i make it using wordpress only?

kingsleyugo41:
I want to start web design using wordpress. Pls can i make it using wordpress only?

One core reason for starting a business is to create a multiple stream of income and for you to do this, you need to know your craft inside out.

Having said this, you can start your Webdesign business with WordPress but you will soon realize that you need more than that to stand out from the crowd.

You must know how to build Website with frontend quarters of HTML, CSS and JS

Add CSS frameworks to the mix ( Bootstrap and Foundation )

You must go further to know more about building Website with WordPress in terms of knowing PHP so you can create customized themes and plugins.

With time you can ADD backemd technologies to the mix.

Not forgetting other things your clients will need like SEO and the rest.

.......So knowing more than WordPress will open you up to many other things....and knowing WP in depth will also do you a lot of good.

BiafraBushBoy:
Clearly defined. !!!

Like I stated here Not starting your own business is one of the mindsets that will ruin your chances of being rich

Op, I congratulate you for this.!

You're welcome bro

Doerstech:


One core reason for starting a business is to create a multiple stream of income and for you to do this, you need to know your craft inside out.

Having said this, you can start your Webdesign business with WordPress but you will soon realize that you need more than that to stand out from the crowd.

You must know how to build Website with frontend quarters of HTML, CSS and JS

Add CSS frameworks to the mix ( Bootstrap and Foundation )

You must go further to know more about building Website with WordPress in terms of knowing PHP so you can create customized themes and plugins.

With time you can ADD backemd technologies to the mix.

Not forgetting other things your clients will need like SEO and the rest.

.......So knowing more than WordPress will open you up to many other things....and knowing WP in depth will also do you a lot of good.

thanks, am learning html,css,js and php just that is not easy through online learning. I started learning wordpress with this my blog https://ugokingsblog.

kingsleyugo41:
thanks, am learning html,css,js and php just that is not easy through online learning. I started learning wordpress with this my blog https://ugokingsblog.

You're right... not easy with online learning and its mostly easy if its project driven and you're learning with a group.

Always look out for an opportunity to learn with a group and any good onsite learning centers

Doerstech:


You're right... not easy with online learning and its mostly easy if its project driven and you're learning with a group.

Always look out for an opportunity to learn with a group and any good onsite learning centers

thanks can u give me any project to start with. God bless u.

[quote author=Doerstech post=

You're right... not easy with online learning and its mostly easy if its project driven and you're learning with a group.

Always look out for an opportunity to learn with a group and any good onsite learning centers [/quote] thanks can u give me any project to start with. God bless u.

kingsleyugo41:
thanks can u give me any project to start with. God bless u.

Few creative ways for you to get projects to work on when starting off

1) You can build one for your religion organization ( church or mosque ) or even an association eg youth group within your church

2) if studying you can work on one for any association you belong to within your school.

3) Look around you, one business or the other around you might need a website. you can offer to do this for them for a reasonable fee or for free.

You can also ask around your friends or colleague at work ( that's how I started ) and build their stuff for a fee.

While working on any of those, you can build a portfolio website for yourself to list all of the above, brand yourself properly and get better offers

Op nice one. Hw did u get ard d family nd frds issue?, dats 1 of d biggest biz killers in naija..

Btw dnt ever tink of goin back to wrkin 4 some1, u're definitly on d ryt track here

Running a business is 100 times the work of an employee. It ain't gonna be easy for the first 3 years @ least, it will be well with time and you won't have regrets if you doing it right. All the best.

I don’t know how this happened, but @op’s story describes me exactly. I forcefully resigned, practicing in the exact same field and also at the exact same level. Everything he wrote is word for word with me. This is very wonderful yet strange. But it’s a good feeling to know someone too is in your exact position many miles away. I think I should give him a call. Damn!

Doerstech:


One core reason for starting a business is to create a multiple stream of income and for you to do this, you need to know your craft inside out.

Having said this, you can start your Webdesign business with WordPress but you will soon realize that you need more than that to stand out from the crowd.

You must know how to build Website with frontend quarters of HTML, CSS and JS

Add CSS frameworks to the mix ( Bootstrap and Foundation )

You must go further to know more about building Website with WordPress in terms of knowing PHP so you can create customized themes and plugins.

With time you can ADD backemd technologies to the mix.

Not forgetting other things your clients will need like SEO and the rest.

.......So knowing more than WordPress will open you up to many other things....and knowing WP in depth will also do you a lot of good.

Can I disagree with you? Now with Wordpress and the right theme and plugins, you can do 90% what you will with conventional coding. However, you’ll need to be extra creative. After all, templates and plugins and all are packaged programming languages. Trust me, with the right knowledge of Wordpress and exceptionally premium themes built specifically for customization, you’ll do wonders.

Nice write up

Very nice and inspiring..

Op, how did you get clients, am into digital marketing too

yrex01:
Nice write up

Thanks bro

J0nyb0y:
Very nice and inspiring..

Op, how did you get clients, am into digital marketing too

Thanks from clients came through, first

1) Colleagues and friends. These colleagues have seen me built websites and get them to rank against outlined Keywords starting with the organization one, they saw my abilities real time and then brought their own sites to be built by me.

2) Friends who knew my competencies and former satisfied colleagues referred me to others they know that needs my services.

3) I started reaching out to others that needs my services with any opportunity that i got ( on the go, events, word of mouth, arranged meetings, Social media marketing you name it )

4) Nairaland. Yes Nairaland although some peps that comes through nairaland are not really customers, some are competitors masked as customers, but i have gotten a great deal of my clients from here.

Once you brand yourself properly and continue to improve on what you do, clients will come along

accelion:


Can I disagree with you? Now with Wordpress and the right theme and plugins, you can do 90% what you will with conventional coding. However, you’ll need to be extra creative. After all, templates and plugins and all are packaged programming languages. Trust me, with the right knowledge of Wordpress and exceptionally premium themes built specifically for customization, you’ll do wonders.

Bro's i understand what you're saying completely and there's no limit to what you can do with any CMS ( WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and co ) infact the last 10 Websites i have worked on have been with WP.

But at the end you can't just call yourself a proper web designer, if all you know how to use is WordPress. Even knowing WordPress in itself has levels, one must graduate from buying and using Premium theme's or page builders to actually creating one by himself and can't do this if you don't know the fundamental language of the web ( HTML plus CSS and JS ) and also the language which WP is built on (PHP)

Moreover not all websites requires CMS as tools eg websites that don't need regular updates

That's my point bro

ola12:
Op nice one. Hw did u get ard d family nd frds issue?, dats 1 of d biggest biz killers in naija..

Btw dnt ever tink of goin back to wrkin 4 some1, u're definitly on d ryt track here

Thanks....taking some legal steps around the business from the beginning made it easy to get FAM & frds to pay for services rendered ...by the grace of God going back is no longer an option

Doerstech:


Few creative ways for you to get projects to work on when starting off

1) You can build one for your religion organization ( church or mosque ) or even an association eg youth group within your church

2) if studying you can work on one for any association you belong to within your school.

3) Look around you, one business or the other around you might need a website. you can offer to do this for them for a reasonable fee or for free.

You can also ask around your friends or colleague at work ( that's how I started ) and build their stuff for a fee.

While working on any of those, you can build a portfolio website for yourself to list all of the above, brand yourself properly and get better offers

thanks but i dont have money to buy domain and hosting for them or i should go for free domain and hosting?

kingsleyugo41:
thanks but i dont have money to buy domain and hosting for them or i should go for free domain and hosting?

This is simply. You can make use of local server ( WAMP, XAMPP ) and the rest. Build the site in there after which you can show it to those, then you can now source for funds from them to host the sites.

Make a start they're many options to enable you do just that

Doerstech:


This is simply. You can make use of local server ( WAMP, XAMPP ) and the rest. Build the site in there after which you can show it to those, then you can now source for funds from them to host the sites.

Make a start they're many options to enable you do just that

ok thanks

kingsleyugo41:
ok thanks

You're welcome all the best

Good points.....nice one OP