Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, I'm Liz, a digital design lecturer at a creative
Business School in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm also a design and
brand strategists. My own consultancy
called ostara Studio, and I've been running that
business for eight years. Welcome to my class. Starting a Business, Business Tips For Freelancers
and Entrepreneurs. As a Skillshare teacher, I help create a freelancers, entrepreneurs and
small business owners to create and shape branded content
with authenticity, meaning, and confidence. I'm also null helping
you to start a business. I've been in the branding and marketing industry since 2013. And I've helped multiple
corporates with the branding and the
brand strategies, helping them to streamline their businesses and attract
the ideal audiences. I am very passionate about teaching as electron also null, helping new designers
into the market, teaching them digital
design skills, helping them to find the
own creative voices. As technology changes. As a Skillshare teacher, I now have the opportunity to bring those two worlds together. I'm bringing my knowledge
of Business and I'm matching that with
my knowledge of creatives and the
creative industry. I created this class
because I've noticed that creative Freelancers and
Entrepreneurs having need to start their businesses
in a way that helps them to set up that
business for success. Let's face it.
Running a business is a completely different skill set from doing creative
work for clients. They, for this class, aims to help you to set up
your business for success. I offer guidance and Business Tips across multiple
topics like branding, pricing your services, leveraging networks,
and many more. The lessons come in the form of bite-size, manageable chunks. This class is for anyone who is considered to start a business but has no idea where to start. It is also for
creative freelancers and Entrepreneurs who are interested in any of the individuals topics covered
across the Business Tips. This class is also for small
business owners who want to empower themselves and make
better business decisions. If this is intrigued you
and you are ready to start a business or planning to start a business
and the future. I'd like to invite you
to join the class. Thank you for watching and I am excited to see you in the class
2. Class Project Calculating Your Hourly Rate With CODB Formula: Hi, hello. This is your class project. You will see in the
lessons that one of the lessons is around
pricing Your Services. For the Class Project, you will be focusing on
that lessons specifically. And you will be working out the Cost of Doing your business. You have access to template, which you can
follow easily along to work out the Cost of
Doing your business. The template comes
in the form of a Google sheet that you
will be able to copy. You won't have direct access to edit rather than
requesting access to edit. Because everyone won't be able
to edit the same document, you would need to make
a copy of the sheet. They are directions in the
description box below. Help you make a copy. Please do feel free to share your project with us in
the Projects section. It's a great way to get engagement from others that know what you're going through. And it's also a great way to get some feedback from
myself for this class. So if you sharing
your sheet with me, I can give you some advice. We're all learners here. This is a safe space
for you to learn. So please do feel free to share. I am excited to see your project
3. Motivation: Start With Why: In this first lesson, we will explore motivation. It's probably one of the most
key elements when starting your business and running your business is
to keep motivated. How do you get up in
the morning every day? What drives you to get up
in the morning every day? In talking about motivation, I'd like to speak about Simon Sinek's Golden
Circle code or method. Essentially, Sinek explains that the Golden Circle is a method that leaders that have inspired people use to
communicate their message. He says the most
inspiring leaders use the same methodology. So essentially you can
think of it like a target. In the sense of
the target is why. In the next Circle, it's how, and in the
outer circle it's what. Now it says why some people
are not as effective in communicating
inspiration to others. They often start from
what and go into why. He says that a lot of marketing professionals also do that. They talk about what they
do and how they do it. And the wire is often neglected. Rather what he says
these inspiring leaders do is they inspire
from the inside Art. They Start With Why. As an example of this, I'll go to advertising to explain how this
could look like. If we take a brand like Apple, which Simon Sinek also uses
to explain the Golden Circle with Apple's differentiator
is not in what they do. There are other competitors
that do exactly what they do. They differentiate,
it really comes in. They Why? Sometimes
the house as well. But it really starts with the Y. That's where that
resonance between Apple and its customers happen. So taking something
like when they marketed and
advertised the iPod, they didn't start with what? They didn't say, Oh, we've
got a great MP3 player. We do this because we
have a great device. That's the whole With
so many various songs. Because we love creating these devices that's not as impactful as what
they actually did. They've always said that
they think differently, that they believed
that they think differently and because of that, they can make an impact. They believe that
going directly to a creative industry and
using the own passion for music can help them to create something really unique
and valuable to people. So they shave that, why they shave that
they think differently, that they passionate
about music. And as a result, they were
able to create a device for so many songs that could easily fit into a pocket
that was sleek and sexy. And that's why you need
to buy this device. Can you see how these
a real difference between starting with Y? Now this can be used in your own personal
capacity when it comes to motivation and
inspiration for yourself, rather than always focusing
on the Watson, the house. You can focus on the y's. Start with the why. What I'd recommend
you do is it's the why that gets you up
every day in the morning. It's why you do what you do. It's why you started the business and make it
visible for yourself, put it up some way
within your space. Because having a great
visual reminder will also subconsciously affect you and it will affect your
day-to-day activities. If you constantly seeing that subliminal
messaging in your space, you can even make
it a screensaver. And for all things business, this Why factor really
works super well as well. That's where everything
in business should start. It should start
with the Y factor. It should start with the real core
motivation in branding, we call this the brand
purpose, or purpose statement. The purpose statement is a brand's most meaningful
reason for existence. It is valuable,
it is meaningful. It creates clear
direction for the brand. Some people even
call it the soul of the brand or the
essence of the brand. When you are clear on that, you will have
direction for all the other elements in your
business to fall into place. It all starts with Y. So remember, keep your
wife factor close to your heart and fall back onto it when you've
got a tough day. Remember you Why factor, remember why you're
doing what you're doing. In the next lesson, we will explore the
importance of Market Research
4. Market Research: In this lesson, we will
explore the importance of market research when you're
starting your business. Many people who have
been in business for awhile haven't even done this. And it is really important
because Market research allows you to really bold your business around the client and what the client needs. Rather than basing
your business off of your own assumptions and biases
around your client, you. My tips for market research. With market research,
it is important to start with the client. This is about understanding
what the client needs, what the client's
lifestyle is like, why client would be supporting your business and making
a purchase from you. Now, when you're thinking
of market research, you might be thinking of large corporations
doing market research. Focus groups might
be coming Tim pine. And yes, that is often what Market research
is associated with. You might be wondering, but I'm a small business owner. I'm a creative freelancer. How am I going to
have the capacity or budget to run focus groups? Market research does
not have to be complex. It can be fairly simple. You can run things
like online surveys, social media poles, or you could interview a
few people over Zoom. What's important
here is to identify the perfect client and then incentivize them so that they can have
interviewed with you. In that interview, you
will be asking questions around the lifestyle,
social media usage, around the needs
and pain points, and really why they make certain purchases and how
often they make purchases. So you're looking into what
we call psychographics, demographics of a client. You could also, even
if you've already got a few existing
customers or clients, you could reach out to them
and ask them for feedback. They could be the first
people to interview if they fit your ideal
target audience. Next step, when you've
got all these surveys or interviews and the information that you've gathered from it. You want to compile it, you want to create
something from it. This is when you will be
creating a client avatar, user profile, or even
a customer journey, you can do any of those things. A customer journey
just focuses on the various touch points and contact points that
are client will have with you and your brand and business before
they actually make the purchase or the
continued cycle of that. And the client avatar
looks more about compiling all these interviews and creating a single profile. When you've got this one profile and this one specific
person and mind, you will be able to market
more easily to clients. In the Projects and
Resources section, they will be a little resource for you around a client avatar. So there's an example
they for you, just so that you can
have a look and see what kind of things would be an a client avatar or
what it could look like when all that information
has been compiled. Another form of
research that you can do is secondary research. Now, secondary research is
what academics to refer to as research you do based on research other
people have done. When other people have done
interviews and surveys, or what other other
types of forms of research it might be and
they write up about it. You go and read that
written section of work. A more common way of
thinking about it is specifically in
terms of statistics. Now certain countries
run statistics. There's also big market
research companies that really snippets of the
reports online like Deloitte, Accenture, euro
monitor, international. So there's these bodies that depending on what type
of industry you're in, they release research
around that. As an example, for instance, have vast who is marketing
company or agency. They released reports
on consumer behavior, so general consumer behavior. And in the recent years, the statistics have
really focused on the ethical consumer. That doesn't focus so
much on consumerism, but an ethical consumption
and how they expect brands to be more ethical so that
they can be more ethical. So that's just an
example of that. You'll also see that lots
of social platforms or social media
scheduling platforms have the own statistics. Software like Social Sprout released statistics
on social media, which can also be very
useful to look at. Then lastly, you can look at what is happening
in your market. So what I mean by this is
that you will go and look at people who do similar
work to what you do and you will go and
look at what they do. Now the idea is not
to copy the ideas, rather to have a look at they clients and potentially what people are
willing to pay for. Because if that's an
existing person in the market who's made money from a specific group of people. It will give you insights into that group of people
and whether you want to shift or potentially also look at that specific
group of people. You can look at your
competitor on social media. You can look at their website, you can look on Google, and you can see who's following your competitor on social media. You can also access the
Facebook ads library to see what kind of adds your
competitor has run. Because that will also give
you an idea of how they're communicating with their
clients so that you can form insights around
those clients. Remember, the idea
is not to copy. Copying will never work because it's not
authentic to you. This is really just
an exercise to get more information around
your target audience, What's relevant
for your business. And also to give you insight into what's happening
in the market. In the next lesson,
we will explore the difficult task
of pricing services
5. Pricing Your Services: In this lesson, we will
explore pricing Your Services. It's vital to
understand how to price your services because
it will affect the profitability of your
business if you're able to make better business decisions around pricing so that
your business can grow. Then looking at pricing should be one of the top of
the list things to look at. If you want your
business to grow faster, you need to make better business decisions
around Pricing. Let's start with the
Cost of Doing Business. The Cost of Doing
Business is essentially a little mathematic formula
to work out your hourly rate. It looks like this. You will start with
your monthly expenses. You need to think
of all the expenses that you pay for and you need to put them
altogether and have a lump-sum of your
monthly expense amount. Then you'll look at the
amount of hours you want to work for in a month. So For me it might be something around I want to
work 40 h a month. What You will then do is you'll take your monthly
expense amounts. So there will be something probably around, as an example, $5,000 and divide
$5,000 by the 40 h. And that will then give you your hourly rate that
you shouldn't be charging in order to be able to cover your
monthly expenses. When you are calculating
your expenses, you want to consider few things. Firstly, you want to add fluff. What I mean by fluff is that
in your Expenses you want to cover for things like inflation and
possible emergencies. So that's one of
the things you will add to your monthly
expense amount. The second thing you
might be wondering is, but what about assets? Because they cause
something to the business, but they're not necessarily
a monthly expense. So there's a way to work that out into your
Monthly Expenses. What You will be
doing is that you'll take an acid like a computer. And with that computer you'll look at the
computers lifespan. On average, I would say a computer should
last you three years. That would be 36 months. Then you take the Cost
of what you paid for the computer and you divide
that by the 36 months. And that will give you
the monthly amount of the computers Cost that you will add to your
Monthly Expenses. Now, important to note what
the Expenses you really need to think of anything and everything that would
be costing you money. So you're thinking
about software cost. Do you think about rental? You thinking about travel, you thinking about the
education you pay for some initial treated like an acid that you pay maybe
four over here. And fact in the education, because education means
experience and knowledge. You'll even think
about things like the coffee and tea that
you keep in your office. Even if you are
working from home, that is stolen Expense your business because
you are consuming coffee and tea when you
are doing business. And then the last
thing to do with this calculation
is to add profit. If you want your
business to grow, just covering Expenses
won't be enough. You would need to
have some kind of profit margin that you
will be adding to that. Next up, I want to talk a
little bit about value because there are other things
that you can be adding to your hourly rate. Then on top of that, once you've got
that Hourly Rate, a business strategists
called myelin k-mer, explains that your self-worth
equals your net worth. Now, you need to look at the value you add to
your clients lives. You need to look at
your own experience. You need to look at
your own knowledge, your own unique value add that you offer
in your business. Because that will cost more, that is worth something and that should be added to
your hourly rate. Specifically, if you've
been doing something for a very long
time or you're very talented if you're not adding that talent and value on
top of your hourly rate, you're missing out essentially,
if you're, for instance, have done something
for very long time, you might be faster Doing it. Should you be charging less because it takes you
faster to do something? No. So add additional fluff to
cover for that in pricing, also consider the
psychology of pricing. Now, there is a psychology of pricing around how people think about money and purchases and how it impacts them and they decisions
that they make. So it's really interesting to go and get knowledge
and insights into how people think
about money and adapt your pricing slightly
to account for that. I'm not going to go into a
lot of detail about this. But in the Projects and
Resources section of the class, you will find a resource. There's an article around
the psychology of pricing. In that article, I speak about
the center-stage effect. I speak about odd
and even pricing. And I speak about
why you often see so many nines in pricing, like $99 or $5.99. These are very specific
reason for that. Go to that resource and have
a look at that as well. I've got two more Tips for
Pricing Your Services. When you're pricing, be very careful of negotiating
your prices. You should not need to negotiate your prices with clients. They should just note
your pricing or and then support you because
of the value add. Of course, there
are situations we, you might really
want to work with a specific brand and they might not be able to afford you. In those cases, you can
set a goal for yourself and lower your pricing
for very specific goal. What I mean by this is
they have been brands that I've really wanted to work
with, who I've approached. And I've offered to give discounted rates for them
because I really wanted to work with them because
essentially I want it to be associated with that brand
and with the publicity. That's not the same as
when a client comes to you and tries to negotiate
your prices down. It does something
psychologically if you constantly
discounting your prices. And if you're not
working on yourself, remember your self worth
equals your net worth can have lasting impact on your business and
not in a good way. Sustained, stronger new
boundaries and your prices away from the serious kind of
talk around pricing years. One last step, go and have
a look around what is going on in your industry
and a new market. Look at the country's standard. A lot of countries you'll see
pricing really differs from country to country because of what's ever going
on in that country. You don't want to be
the most expensive. So it's not about
the most expensive, but rather about being relevant and realistic
within your market. You might be in
the wrong place or your clients you might
need to look for in a different place than if you want to raise your
prices higher. The point of this is
also not to come and lower than your competitors. Because essentially that's
what a good differentiator. They will always be someone
that can come in lorem, this is really just
to get an indication of whether your prices are
realistic and relevant. Hope this has given you
some newer thinking about pricing and has given you
clarity on how to do pricing. In the next lesson, we will be speaking about
one of my favorite things as a brand strategist
and that is branding. See you in the next one.
6. Branding: In this lesson, we will
talk about branding. Branding is obviously one of my speciality is I'm
really excited to share some tips around branding that will really
help you in your business. Now branding is really, really important because
if we're thinking about branding simply in terms of the visual
look and feel, we're thinking about the
brand's first impression. And first impressions matter. They've been studies
done way when people meet other people
for the first time, what they look at first and one of the things
people notice first, our shoes and then they make an impression base of
the shoes people way. You can think of branding
as businesses shoes. And then obviously
when people meet, then they hear someone's
voice and then Make another type of impression, end assumption
about that person. And that's when
we're talking about things like brand messaging. So first impressions matter. Branding is really about how a brand positions
itself in the market, how the brand and business
wants to be perceived. It's vital to get
branding right. The first tip I'd
recommend for branding is student faced in brand strategy. Now when we're looking
at brand strategy, we're really looking at how brand positions
itself in the market. We're looking at things
like the brand's purpose, the brand's vision,
the brand's values. We're looking at the
brand's position, but we're looking
also at things like the brand's personality and how it will make an
impact in the market. Those things are really good
and vital to understand even before considering the
visual identity of the brand. Because when we have the strategic understanding and understand the value of a brand, we will know what type
of logo resonates with our markets and also resonates
with our authentic solves. A lot of people only invest in brand strategy much later on. And then they find out that they need to change the brands, that maybe the brands on optimal for the
position in the market. So to start off with
brand strategy is really good because
it will help you grow easier in your market. The next thing, of course, is to invest in your
brand identity, the visual identity
of the brand. Now, of course, when we have budget constraints when we Starting
out of business, it's easy to choose
the five-dollar logo. But once you've got
to fit running, really do try and get a re-brand as soon as possible
and invest in a good designer who
will look at your brand holistically and
will create a logo, not from an aesthetic
point of view, but from a strategic
point of view. Again, remember the shoes,
first impressions matter. And it's all about
being memorable for your specific client. The topic of the brand's
visual identity. Ensure that you
receive a brand guide. A brand guide is really
vital and helping you to stay consistent with
your brands look and feel. A brand guide generally
has elements like fonts, color breakdown, and elements
like image or icon style. And it will also
show you how to use your logo in
different situations. It's also important
to have a brand guide because let's say
eventually you're creating a website
and you don't know the color or the
funds of your brand. And the brand card doesn't have what the brands
is really about, like the brand story
or the brand messages. Now this website designers
expected to create a website and they might not know how to really
interpret your brand. So when they have access
to their brand guide, they can also more easily bold something like
a website for you. This would also work for
copywriters or other types of creatives that would benefit from having a
look at your brand. Another tip I have is
to ensure that you get a vector file of your logo
visuals or your logo files. The reason I suggest this
is because if you're a digital business
owner and you just received digital
logos, that's fine. However, I've been in many
situations with clients, we feel years down the line. They need to use the
logo in a different way. They might, they
might need to change the logo style or
they might need to go and print signage. And then the digital
logo might not suffice. What a vector file
essentially is. It's a file that not like a PNG. When you stretch
a PNG at pixelate and the quality
dissipates a vector file. You can stretch and
stretch and stretch. And the file and the visuals integrity
and quality will remain. Generally a vector file comes in the form of illustrator PDF, or it comes in the
form of an EPS file. Just inquire from your designer. They will give you what
you asked for January. If you don't get it,
don't be afraid to ask because this is
industry standard, this something you
should be getting. Then lastly, but I would almost like to say most importantly, remember to keep your
brand consistent. You don't want to
create confusion in the minds of your
clients or customers. If you are using
different templates, like different Canva templates. Or if you not sticking
to your fonts and colors and constantly
switching it up, you creating confusion. Your brand will
not be memorable. Want to always be associated
with your colors and fonts and Image.all because that will be what will make
your brand memorable. Think of it like
Coca-Cola for instance. Coca-cola doesn't
constantly change. Coca-cola font is generally the fonts are the
colors they always use. They use it for very
specific reason. And it's to create
that consistency and that Memorability. They make it easier for the
clients to remember them. In the next lesson, we will explore
managing Finances as a creative freelancer
or business owner
7. Managing Finances: In this lesson, we will
explore how to manage your finances as an entrepreneur or a small business owner. Now quick disclaimer, I am not accounting or financial
professional by any means. I have ever been running my
business for many years. So the Tips I'm sharing, it's from my own experience. It looks more at
a top Overview of managing Finances
rather than getting specific details
related to finances. So always approach a
financial professional for specific advice
on your situation. Managing your finances
is really important. Because if you're not
managing your finances, you likely lack control and focus when it comes to
your business is Finances. If you can manage your finances, it gives you a bit
organisation and you can make better business
decisions when it comes to the money
in your business. So let's jump into the tips regarding managing
your finances. First and foremost, I'd
recommend to keep your personal and your business
bank account separate. What this allows you to
do is that you can simply track your finances when
it comes to your business. So you can track your income, you can track your expenses
for your business. You don't want to model that up with your personal expenses. Many sole proprietors use their
personal bank account for the business income that they're receiving and
expenses as well, in those cases, get
two separate accounts. It really helps you just to look at your finances with a
different perspective. Next up, I would like
to recommend that you always research financial
compliance within your country. This will obviously be
country dependent gate. Every country has specific legal
requirements when it comes to registering a
business or Doing business activities
within that country, it is important to know that the business
activities that you do are legally compliant and
financially compliant. It is your responsibility to research what you're
countries requirements are. It will also give
you peace of mind. So if you know that
you're compliant, you have nothing to
worry about and you can continue doing your activities
as you're doing them. Something I learned that
was really valuable for my business was this
idea of outsourcing. In the beginning of can be quite stressful to outsource
to others with it is because of lack of control or
because you might not have the budget of Finances
really to pay other vendors. But really it's one of
the best things you can do in your business to spend money and outsource
on tasks that really don't sit your soul on fire or that you aren't good at, allows you to grow your
business in a way where these people who really
loved doing what they doing, Doing it for you
in your business, so your business
can grow better. To see an example of my
own type of outsourcing, I do work with a lot of creative freelancers
and my business. But one of the first things I outsourced was five
senses, funny enough. So I outsourced my accounting. That just gave me peace
of mind because I'm not a financial
professional and then I know I'm financially compliant. That's just allow
me to know that I'm financially
compliant and not missing something up that I have no idea how to do in my country. One of the financial
compliant examples would be things like
filing tax returns, paying income tax
on my personal tax. So those types of
things, obviously, that is part of
financial compliancy. But I really went and researched
just to have a bit of overview to understand why I'm doing it and what it's
for so that I know, even if I'm outsourcing
my accounting, there are understand what its full form, good
financial habits. This will be unique
to you and you might trial and error
a few different things just to see what
really works for you when it comes to
good financial habits. Essentially, what it means to
have a good habit is that, that good habit has a positive influence and
impact on your business. If it's a bad habit, it doesn't have a good
influence on your business. So that's how you can
gauge when you are attempting different
things to see what works for you in
terms of habit forming. That's how you can engage
with It's good or bad. A few examples of good financial habits
is to pay yourself, to pay your vendors
or other Freelancers timelessly NTD your monthly
bookkeeping consistently. The faster you form
good financial habits, the smoother your
business will be going. Invest in good
accounting software, depending on where
you on the Wald and your personal preferences, how big and small
your business is? That one form which type of
accounting software you need. But I really recommend
to do it quickly. For years as a designer, I used to create my quotes and invoices on Adobe InDesign. Now the template
CC look fabulous. However, I guess it's
been always quoting people because having that
custom design software, just let me do a lot
more custom quoting. And I used to spend
hours typing things at the moment I transitioned
to an accounting software. I could send quotes
out very quickly and fast and my invoicing was a
little bit more streamlined. Also with the
accounting software, I can now track my expenses. I can also track how
much income I make. I don't have to go and
manually calculated. The software, does it for me. And that's really a bonus. Investing in good
accounting software really streamline your
business the next step, and it's really a key tip, is to plan and strategize, set financial goals
for yourself. This will be dependent on
your own personal style. You might want to
do this yearly. I don't like doing it
yearly because there's so many months that it almost becomes like a New
Year's resolution that just never
gets implemented. I like to look at sitting
quarterly financial goals. And then I have a
monthly target as well that I aim for in planning
and strategizing, I like to use smart goals. Smart stands for Specific, measurable, achievable,
relevant, and time years. I like using that method
because it's almost like a little mini plan of
action within the goal. So I can easily
create tactics around sitting a smart goal for my
business and for myself. And lastly, I want
to go back to one of the good financial habits
examples that I mentioned. And that is to pay yourself. I'd even go so far as to say pay yourself first before
you pay your expenses. It does something psychologically
to pay yourself lost. Which many entrepreneurs and
small business owners do? They wait for all
the expenses to be paid and then what's remaining? They will go and look
and pay themselves. Subconsciously, you're
telling yourself that you are not valued and that
you come last. So forming that financial
habit where you paying yourself almost forces you to work a little
bit harder because, you know, if you're
paying yourself first, the Expenses need to be covered. This might not
work for everyone. However, I always
want to recommend this trip because it has
changed my life personally. And I think back
to that pricing. Listen, we have said unit
width equals yourself with and that really is at the center of your businesses
and you'll Finances. If you are taken care of, your business will
be taken care off. In the next lesson, we will
explore legal Compliance
8. Legal Compliance: In this lesson, we will
explore legal compliance. Now, like with the
previous lesson, I have a disclaimer to make. I am not a legal professional. I would always recommend
that you go in see a legal professional for your
specific legal situation. I am yet to talk to you about
business advice and just mentioned on oversight
around legal compliance. Firstly, live with accounting. Legal compliance will really
depend on the country urine. So you need to go
and investigate legal compliance
within your country. Ensure that your
business is registered with the appropriate bodies
within your country. When you're registering
your business, you are ensuring that you
have all the licenses and permits needed to do business activities
within the country that you operate in. The next one is to ensure that as a creative entrepreneur, you understand the
differences between trademarks, copyrights
and patents. When you understand the
differences between those three, you are essentially
Understanding different laws around ownership. In this is vital when you're
working with other people, designing things for them, giving it to them, we
ownership starts and stops. It will also help you to
create better contracts with your clients when you understand the differences between patents, trademarks, and copyrights,
the next step is to understand laws around
data protection. Daughter has a big
thing right now. Specifically when we're
marketing our businesses, we need to know what it means to protect someone's
data and that we actually have a
legal responsibility around that data that
they share with us. If we're collecting e-mails, if we're tracking on websites
with things like cookies, it's really important to understand where
our responsibility lies as business owners with the daughter protection
of our clients and beads. This will be dependent
on country as well. Some of the laws and policies that I recommend you go
and look at is GDPR, CCPA, all GPD and puppy. Lastly, let's talk about contracts and agreements
with clients. Contracts and agreements
are essentially an agreement that's
in place between you and your client to cover the parameters of
the relationship between you and the client. An agreement might cover
things like payment terms, cancellation terms, terms
of work, project scope. These are all things
that will influence the health of their relationship you and your client have. And it also ensures that you are legally compliant and covered, as well as your client's
rights are covered. A terms and conditions
agreement is essentially an example
of such an agreement. That really is an
agreement that covers the terms you have that a client would need to follow to be able
to work with you. Sometimes clients will provide their own agreements
to you to sign. Are the examples
could be things like NDA's non-disclosure
agreements or MRAs memorandum
of understanding, other policies, smaller
types of agreements that you might be familiar with if you're running
an online business, shipping policy would
be very important. Data protection and privacy policies would also
be important to set up as actual agreements to
help you and your clients Art. To summarize these steps
are the to really help you to understand
your rights and also to understand the
rights of your clients. In the next lesson, we will go through leveraging your networks to
grow your business
9. Leveraging Networking: In this lesson, we will discuss the importance of networking. Now, networking may be an
opportunity for sales, but generally people don't like the pushy sales techniques. And some people might
even say that a lot of networking events feel cold. They feel superficial
rather than importance of networking comes to play
in building community. Running your own business
can be a lonely venture. So networking
really helps you to connect with like-minded
people who know what you're going through to
have that level of support can be very important
within your business. Networking can also
be a great way to be inspired by others. So when you meet other
people new year, they amazing stories that
can impact your own journey. For me personally, the
reason that I liked network is because it pushes
me outside of my comfort zone socially. And I know that when I'm out of my comfort zone, change happens. When I'm in my comfort zone,
change doesn't happen. So that's why I like Networking. You are my tips for
leveraging networks. First and foremost, listening
a severely underrated, and talking is severely overrated when it
comes to networking. There's this perception
that we should be filling the silence spaces with words. And that we should be talking
about what we're doing. Listening actively to
someone else is really a key tool in building a
relationship with someone else. Next step would be being inquisitive and
open and curious. Ask questions. If you are shy person, asking questions can
be a great way to take the attention away from you and focus on the person that
you're talking with. Most people would like to
talk about themselves. Specifically, if you're asking meaningful and
thoughtful questions, asking questions goes hand-in-hand
with active listening. Because if you're active
listening and asking questions specifically to what the
person is talking about. They will feel more
special and there's a greater chance for a meaningful connection
to be formed. Next step, my favorite tip, be uncomfortable, get okay
with being uncomfortable. Networking events
can feel awkward. It's after all, a bunch of strangers often meeting
and connecting. But everyone knows it. Everyone is they to connect. So simply leaning into the discomfort can really
help you to move through it. And eventually you'll get to space where it won't
feel like that anymore. Lastly, have a money pit redeem. Although I do sometimes discouraged talking too
much about yourself. Of course you are the to connect and share what
you do with others. People do want to
hear what you do. However, I'd like to
recommend that you focus less on the watch you do and focus
more on the Why you do it. So going back to that
motivation and what Simon Sinek's is about Why is really being the
attracting factor rather than the what you
do. Shade that. A technique I like to
use to do that is the I help clients to statements. Essentially, you are sharing
how you help clients. And often the Why will
naturally fall into that rather than what you do. It also takes the focus
away from you and puts the focus on the
client so that the people, if they are potential
clients for you, they will feel
special if they know how you can help
them specifically, it focuses on the needs. When you say, I helped
clients to share an example, if you are ashamed,
my general go-to, I help clients to statement
minors that I help clients to authentically
communicate the brand messages. I help them to get
clear on who they are, on what they purposes. And then I help them to
communicate it to other people. And by doing that when they're clearly and
confidently and authentically
communicating who they are and they're communicating the values and what they do. The people who need to
be in touch with them, they potential leads can
then contact them with ease because they will be resonance
on an emotional level. So remember, when you
are sharing your pitch, It's not about
droning on and on. It's rather about sharing the
value you offer to clients. And in that way, people can
connect more easily to you. In the next lesson, I will be offering some tools that I've had a look at or that I've used my business to really help streamline a business. See you in the last lesson.
10. My Recommended Tools To Streamline Your Business: In this lesson, we will
discuss some tools that are recommended to help
streamline your business. Tools that streamline
your business can be really great because it essentially means that it's easier to operate your business. Let's first talk about
social media tools. Now, many people might
be familiar about scheduling tools
that helps you to schedule social media
content out there. There's many, many on the market plan Lee
later, HootSuite. I personally prefer the
Facebook business manager to schedule from when it comes
to Facebook and Instagram. But HootSuite is
also really great because we'd suite covers
things like LinkedIn. The next social media tool that I really liked
have a look at, is to look at the
Facebook ads library. It's a great tool to really look at the types of ads that are running and to look
at what type of ads competitors are
running specifically. I also like to use the actual social media
platforms when it comes to data and to
review the analytics. So investing in the paid
version of LinkedIn, for instance, or looking at your statistics on
Instagram or Facebook. And TikTok can really
be useful to have an understanding of
what's happening with your social media content
and to review that. In regards to content
creation tools, canvas, obviously first and foremost, the tool most people would recognize and be
familiar with Canvas, a really great tool to
create any types of professional content with its social media
content designs, or whether you're planning
proposals or presentations. A video app that I really
like to use is in short, this is a great app specifically
for reals or tech talks. In terms of photo editing, I really like Snapseed. Obviously, if you're creative, you might be very familiar with the Adobe suite of products
to create content. However, these types of smaller apps and platforms
are very simple, user-friendly to use for the day-to-day types of content creation that you
might be considering. Now, website tools. So let's discuss WordPress Furs. We'll press is great to
design your website on. Specifically if you're using
a boulder like Elementor, DV or Beaver Builder. These are all kinds of Boulder add-ons plugins
that you installed WordPress and it makes it user-friendly and simple to
design your own website, even if you are a layman. If you prefer something a
little bit more simplified. And that doesn't have that extensive functionality in the forms of plug-ins
that WordPress does. You can look at Wix or
Squarespace in terms of other website tools
that you might be considering using
for marketing. Specifically, if you do
have a WordPress website, the Yoast plugin is really
great for SEO management. Such a great tool to really help you with your own
search engine optimization. If you're a layman,
you can then also use Google itself with
your business listing, with running paid ads, Google really has a
lot that can help to support your business
when it comes to marketing your website. Next up, email tools and
final tools to consider. I prefer the email tool
called mailer lights. I like to use mailer
light because it's free up to 1,000 subscribers. And also there's a lot of functionality that
you often need to pay for on other platforms regardless of how many
subscribers you have. So things like
email automations, things like landing pages, that's free on the
initial beginner option. All these platforms tend to be very similar nature and
they work very similarly. So it's up to
personal preference. I'll mention a few others. You get MailChimp, GetResponse, lead pages, active
campaign, and convert kit. You can use any of
these tools really to create a funnel with
a landing page, an e-mail sequence afterwards, were you sharing
potentially a freebie? They all kind of work
exactly the same. It's just about
personal preference. You might want to look at
project management tools, specifically if you're managing bigger projects for clients with time tracking is important, or other freelancers are important and schedules and
deadlines needs to be set. Some of the papilla
tools are Asana, trello, Mondays end up sotto. My favorite tool
to use as ClickUp, because I really
feel that ClickUp is a beast when it comes
to functionality. And it's just simple to use them to integrate with other tools. As we had a lesson
on market research, I'd also like to mention
some market research tools specifically related to collecting questionnaires
and surveys So the three ones that I've worked with and that
I really enjoy, or Google Forms, type form. And then Survey Monkey. Since many of us
are working online and remotely,
video-conferencing tools. Webinar tools for finals would be something you
might be considering. My personal preference for video conferencing
and webinars is Zoom. Zoom is great to have those smaller meetings or
larger meetings with clients. And it's also really great
to do webinars when I'm running funnels related to
specific educational content. Another webinar tool that is really great to use Webinar Jam, But that's really great if
you have a specific apps all. You can also look at a
platform called Loom, which is great for sharing video messages and also
videoconferencing. There's also some general operational tools
that are likely to recommend that don't fall
within a specific category. Firstly, I'd like to
mention the G Suite. So Google's G Suite, which really covers
all kinds of types of platforms and
software that you can really use to make
your business thrive. You don't necessarily need Microsoft Word Excel PowerPoint. You can now use Google Slides. You can use Docs, you can use sheets. I like it because it's quite integrated onto
your Google Drive. So everything is centralized. I know that Microsoft also has its Cloud option
with centralized. But I just like the more UX friendly
approach that Google offers. If you're looking for storage
other than Google Drive, you can also look at
WeTransfer and DropBox. There's an app that
I really enjoyed. My phone called CamScanner. It's an app that I used to scan documents
right to my phone. And then lastly, another
app that I really like is Tomato Timer, which tracks time. And you can see how long
it take Doing things to see if you're actually being resourceful with your
time and energy. Then most importantly, the best philos would be
tools to use to inspire. So these are not directly responsible for any kind of streamlining within
your business. I feel that these tools of vital for me and my
personal business, because I feel good using
these types of tools. The first tool is Pinterest. I like to use Pinterest
for inspiration. I use it quite a lot to
also break away from my own design patterns so that I can see what
other people are doing. And also just to be inspired
and motivated about all the beautiful
things that are out then what other
people are creating. I used to use Instagram
like that as well. But now that Instagram
is more video unrelated, I've stopped using it for that. I love listening to music. Spotify has a mass for me. I like to have music on
Iran me when I'm working. Music helps me to focus. It helps me not to get
so distracted or hung up on specific things when I work because the music has
really calming to me. I do like to listen
to specific types of calm soundtracks are playlists that really helped to calm
my nerves when I work. Youtube is a great resource, specifically, education-wise. There is so much knowledge out the shade freely on YouTube
that you can access. So if you need to know something
specific for your work, if you just like to learn, YouTube is just a great platform to use within your business. Then lastly, if you'd like me, you might like to
listen to audio books, or you might like to
listen to podcasts. In terms of podcasts, they are so many
great platforms. You choose the one
that works for you and that's really
on your device, like Spotify, Apple podcasts
or Google Podcasts. If you want to get some tips
on which podcasts to follow, I listened to quite
a few creative ones. So do feel free to ask me
in the discussion sections for podcasts related to your industry and I will
gladly share those with you. Thank you so much for watching. I hope that this lesson was
really resourceful for you, that these are tools
that will help you. It was really great making this lesson because
I had to really list out and go through all the tools I've used
in the past years. It's been FUN. In the next lesson, I'll share my final
thoughts with you and some key insights of all the
lessons we've already done. See you in the last video.
11. Final Thoughts: Thank you for
watching this class. I hope that it has been a very valuable class and is provided many
insights for you on general business
practices and approaches that can help you
in your business journey. In this last video, I just want to offer my key
insights on each lesson. So in the first lesson, we spoke about the importance of motivation in
running your business. The key insight here for me
is really to Start With Why. Always remember your why and
keep it close to your heart. In lesson two, we focused
on market research. And the key insights for me and market research is that
Market research is really the for you to move away from your biases and to understand
your client better. Because if you understand
your client better, you can serve as
your client better and your business and brand
will be stronger for it. In lesson three, we discussed the importance of pricing
your business properly. Essentially, the key insight is that it shouldn't be
something that scares you. It should be something that
excites you because it's essentially the way you
will receive income. And it's also the way in which your business will
grow and thrive. So you can make better business
decisions when you price your business properly. In lesson four, we explored branding as a brand strategist. You know, by now that this is probably the one I get
the most excited about. And for me as a creative, you probably know how to
create beautiful things. So rather than focusing too much on the visual
side of things, my key insight would
be to focus on the strategy side of
branding that will really enable you to grow your
business and to bring that why in more easily in
your branding and messaging. In lesson five, I
discussed managing your finances from a
top level perspective. The key insight you would really be to plan and strategize, set financial goals for yourself that you
can work towards. That will help you to grow your business and the long run. In lesson six, or shade
information on legal compliance. It's all probably very important because we have to be
legally compliant. The key insight that I'd
like to recommend is to really pay attention
contracts and agreements because that will
make your business runs smoothly if you've got good contracts and
agreements in place. Lesson seven explored
networking tips. And for me, the key insight
would be really just two. First and foremost,
be yourself and not take things so seriously
when it comes to networking. See it as something
find, lean into them, uncomfortableness
and just get going. Just go and both
community and have FUN connecting with people that know what you're
going through. And lastly, in lesson eight, I shade some business tools that you can use to
streamline your business. Definitely, the key insight here would be to find
tools that really just work for you and that help you personally within
your business. The tools are they to
make your life easier? Feel free to ask me any
questions related to the class and remember to
share your class project. I really do want to encourage you to share
your class project because pricing your business
is really important. It's a vital step in
the profitability of your business and the
growth of your business. If I can be of service and
provide any feedback and help you in that process of doing the costing
for your business. I'd really like to do so and help you in the
Projects section. I'd also like to
request that if you've enjoyed this class and
it's been helpful for you, please do leave me a review and helped me improve
on my classes. Thank you so much for watching. I am so grateful to have had
you here on this journey. See you in the next class.