Starting My Own Business
People often ask how I got started, sometimes thinly veiled as “what gave you the guts to do this?” When I first started conceptualizing this idea, I didn’t have it, the guts that is. I was working two part-time jobs, and honestly, that’s where this story starts.
Building Community
At the Medford Farmers Market, I was the manager: the only paid staff in a volunteer organization. For 20 weeks every year, we organized all aspects of the market and I focused especially on: vendor relationships, weekly logistics, the physical market space and presence, and promotions.
Talk about being embedded in community! Getting to know the regulars, orienting new shoppers, working with local organizations and performers, the city, and all our volunteers. I got to work with dozens of small businesses and supported them in getting the word out. Some were first-year businesses that moved on to forming their own storefronts. Others were firmly rooted in their farmers market circuits. Regardless, we found ways to promote them to our customers. Every year I got to build my skills: newsletters, social media, the website. It was honestly a dream job for me.
Job Searching (ugh…)
But after 4 years, I got tired. Physically, mostly. I didn’t want to lug tents and tables. I didn’t want to work on Thursday afternoons throughout the summer. I wanted year-round work. So I did what we all do and entered the job market. Cover letters, resumes and interviews followed, but for every single job I realized I didn’t want to do it. I needed another plan.
Looking at the skills I had, I considered developing bookkeeping skills, and actually I still think I’d love to do that sometime in life. Though I need a lot more skills than I currently have.
Figuring It Out
Then I remembered this family website I built in 1996, creating rainbow letters with html code was such a satisfying feeling! And I thought of all the ways I’d been helping small businesses over the past four years through developing their virtual presence. I knew I was on to something because so many business owners asked me questions about it and were unsure of how to represent themselves online.
I had a clear sense of being needed, but I still didn’t have the guts. Tentatively dipping my toes in, I started telling people that I was “trying” to start a business, “considering helping businesses with social media,” or “doing some websites,” things like that. “I need a website,” an author friend told me. And suddenly it was real.
I’m still at the beginning of my business journey. But I’m over a dozen clients in and have developed confidence and expertise. I’ll tell you about the biggest help in that department next time.
Leave a Reply