Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Want to Save Time and Frustration Starting Your Freelance Business?



Flexibility vs Rushing It Through

I was sitting in the bank.  My bank guy was on vacation.  It turns out switching company names on my accounts wasn’t the simple thing it was supposed to be.  It required closing old accounts and starting completely over.  I learned this ensures important details are all there, avoiding a tax nightmare down the road.  Joy.


The Joys of Switching Mid-Stream

Starting a business is complicated.  Many decisions.  Time and focus intensive.

Deciding the type of business structure is important.  I chose sole proprietorship initially because I didn’t understand the value of a higher level of protection from frivolous lawsuits.  I also didn’t feel like I had the resources to invest in creating an LLC.

Therefore, I’m starting over.  Somehow, I missed that someone had the LLC version of my company name.  

Starting over as an LLC feels a bit like new because the name is different.  I feel just as uncertain in the technicalities as I did when I started my sole proprietorship last fall.  That’s leading to a problem.

“Should Be Simple”

I feel rushed.  Stressed.  That’s a problem because I’m less likely to take the time to:


  •         Figure out every detail in advance
  •          Research every option
  •         Know where to find the answers for those details


Since I didn’t get far down the self-marketing route, it should be a simple matter to change my company name. 

Yeah.  Not so fast!   I feel more than a little dismayed at the time I’m spending on admin stuff right now.  

What I Didn’t Expect

Changing my name changed the way my company feels to me.  Certain aspects are the same, like copywriting for the personal growth niche.

Copy By Design felt purposeful.  Carefully designed.  Upscale.

Words To Soar By, LLC feels very different to me.  

When I came up with it, I was just trying to nail down a name.   I just wanted to get that professional email set up.  I didn’t expect to revisit the other details.

I should have expected the logo questions.  Things like framing the company purpose.  Tagline.  I just didn’t realize they should change.

I didn’t realize the impact of the name change until I was trying to order the logo.  This name feels powerful.   The delicate, classy script no longer fit.  The tagline needed to change.  The logo needed a picture. 

Flexibility meant realizing it wasn’t the same and changing the feel of the logo.  Winging it meant trying to zip through a simple name change without other adjustments.   I needed to slow down.

Worth the Extra Time

Being prepared means confident follow through rather than rushed decisions I might regret later.   I’m finding I prefer to have the patience to work through it first.   

Weekly Challenge

This past week was about finishing as much of my homework as possible for the Joshua Boswell workshop this week.  

The logo process has started.  I have peeked at the website building process, but hurrying to purchase a domain isn’t going to mean a live email address until I make the website live, I think.  I need to slow down and not rush that process either.  I’ll probably wait until after the workshop. 

What are you doing to move your business forward this week?

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