STEP TWO: Creating a Business

Step Two is what HerHQ is built on…..which is helping women craft businesses around services that they enjoy offering & with clients they love working with.

[Haven’t read Step One yet?! Click here to read this, first!]

There are often two paths that will lead you to this specific step.

• Path 1: If your journey starts with freelancing [see above] – there is a natural point where your income is limited based on the amount of hours you work. Therefore, it’s a natural process for freelancers to want to get AWAY from charging hourly work & instead charge a set fee [per project or per month] based on the VALUE of their service.

• Path 2: For those who do NOT have any of the above skills…..your journey will often immediately start at Step 2. The reason being….you get to PICK the skill you want to learn….and then work towards building up a portfolio through working with beta clients. [Most folks looking to hire freelancers are looking to immediately hire someone WITH experience.]

Getting Started

Let’s say you are on Path 2….you do not have any current experience…but you’re interested in learning how to create websites. You would be able to use FREE resources through YouTube/Google to learn a specific platform [let’s say you choose to master SquareSpace]….and to build up your portfolio – you reach out to 2-5 different beta clients to build their site for FREE in trade of a testimonial. This allows you to practice building a site, learn from the experience, and now have a bucket of nice & shiny testimonials to showcase future clients. Now you’re ready to start offering websites as a PAID service for new potential clients.

Creating Packages & Set Pricing

Now that you’ve built up a nice portfolio from your beta clients – it’s time to start charging! Figuring out what to charge & your rates is a WHOLE process. [We specifically dig into the complex elements of pricing in our Foundations program.]

But the MAIN take-away here – is to try to stay away from hourly pricing. This is the quickest way to get booked out & physically TAPPED on time – without being able to scale your income. Let me give you some examples:

• Building a Website:
  • Hourly: $30/hr x 20 hours = $600
  • Value Based: One set fee of $1,500 [the goal would be to do this in LESS than 20 hours]

• Social Media Management
  • Hourly: $40/hr x 20 hours = $800 [but this will require you to track your time]
  • Value Based: $850 Set Retainer based on DELIVERABLES each month [and goal would be to stay under the 20 hour threshold]

As you can see ^ if you can approach your business services with a value-based mindset, it will allow you to SCALE your income….without having to directly link to hours logged for clients.

Determining a Long Term Marketing Plan

The other MAIN element of getting your service based business out into the world is the concept of marketing. Getting in front of ideal customers & specifically creating appealing content that will align & showcase your expertise.

This is another HUGE topic that we cover together in Foundations!

The core thing to remember here – is that marketing is NOT ABOUT YOU as a service based business owner. Your content should not be able you, your services, your rates, your information – but instead, should be completely focused on WHO it is that you are helping & WHAT it is that they want to achieve.

This is also why having a specific niche/target customer is a critical component of making marketing/sales EASY. If you know WHO it is that your service helps – creating content and marketing material fundamentally becomes easier!

BONUS TIP: This is also why we do NOT recommend building a website when you are first getting started. If you haven’t TRULY figured out WHO you want to help….then your website is going to be a massive “ABOUT ME” effort – which is NOT what your ideal customer needs to see from you. Instead, we recommend implementing a Service Guide download which directs interested customers to learn more about how you can help them! [We go through this sales funnel, document, and follow up sequence in our Foundations program.]