No Money, No Connection, No Plan: Monica Flores
April 2, 2008 by Akemi
Recent survey shows 72% of American workers want to have their own businesses.
Welcome to the third post of the Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series. I hope this series shed light on your path to your own dream business. While I knew firsthand many people wanted to become entrepreneurs, I am impressed to read this article exactly how many of us yearn to be their own boss.
The words of those who actually have made it is like gold for aspiring entrepreneurs. This is why I have this interview series. Learn how they handled their challenges – each challenge is unique, yet you will also start to see patterns as you read more posts. I plan to post for this series two to three times a month, so stay tuned!
Today’s interviewee is Monica Flores, who contacted me after reading the first post of this series. I love people who actively seek opportunities – that is the spirit of great networking. In addition to her business website, Monica writes a blog called A Successful Woman.
1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.
My partner and I do web design and development for women, minorities, green businesses, nonprofit groups, and membership organizations. We’re minority-owned, woman-owned, and green certified. We’ve been creating websites since 1999 but launched our own company, 10K Webdesign, in 2004 from our kitchen table. From there we’ve grown and now have clients and partners from all over the United States. We specialize in highly functional and effective websites that help our clients spotlight their success, make more sales, and connect with their community.
We started our business because we saw and targeted the real need for “regular folks” who wanted to establish themselves in their business or initiative with a professionally-designed website but who wanted to be smart about maintenance and updating their own content. All our tools use back-end administrator panels so our clients are able to make content edits without having to rely on someone else to maintain their site and keep their website current.
We also believed that a focus on community-building would serve our clients well, so we’ve maintained our outlook to be one where entrepreneurs, consultants, and member organizations may connect with their fans and customers online.
2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?
- Very little capital
- Minimal networking contacts
- No real plan
3. And how did you work through these challenges?
Very little capital
Like may people, we didn’t go for bank financing and instead we bootstrapped it and put a lot on our credit cards to get through our first few years in business. It takes a lot of faith, a belief in your market, and of course lots of *sales* to make it through those initial stages. Many businesses close up shop after a few months because they don’t get enough business…. we were lucky in that we had one long-term contract and we worked hard to find more and more. After those first two or three years, it definitely became easier because we had an established record and many more customers vouching for us.
Minimal networking contacts
We overcame this by joining a BNI (Business Networking International, a professional networking group that admits one person per profession into each chapter) and networking with just about anyone who we thought would be a good fit for us. At first, you will probably have to identify the types of people who will be more helpful to you… some people will not naturally have a mutually beneficial relationship with you, so go for the people who either
A) know more people than you do or
B) are in a position to make purchasing decisions or can make higher-level decisions.
It also helps if you establish relationships with people you would naturally do business with or refer business to / for us, we work closely with graphic designers, computer networking gurus, printers, print brokers, and even other web designers who are not as strong on the programming side. These constitute our natural circle of referrals.
No real plan
I don’t know if this was so much a challenge or even a blessing in disguise. I think many people just starting out get mired in “analysis paralysis” and think they need to write another business plan or develop another research plan. For us, we had a two-page business plan to begin with, but our biggest efforts went into meeting and landing potential clients. As we became more aware of what our market needed, we targeted our efforts even more and spent a lot of time doing research and development to create our tools, which we now sell on a regular basis. If you have a product or service, start selling it and see what the response is: to me, that’s better market research than anything else.
4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?
Freedom was, for me, the most important part of launching myself, and the ability to control my time is one of the best parts of being in business for myself. Because we’ve been able to find such great staff who help us with all aspects of our work, we’ve been able to identify and target those parts of the business that we both enjoy and are good at.
What I’ve also found as added bonuses are the ability to contribute proactively to my community, the ability to have more volunteer time, the ability to share my gifts and talents in many different ways like speaking, blogging, serving on boards, the luxury to have time to think about different ways to participate and “show up,” and the time I am able to have with my family and to pursue my own creative interests.
5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?
I think someone has to decide their own risk tolerance and what they want to get out of their business. Plenty of people are able to do freelancing, part-time work, online sales, or some other combination and don’t have to leave the safety and security of their full-time job. Many other people are able to piece together multiple projects
along the way and don’t feel the need to launch their own full-fledged company.
If someone dreams of having their own business, probably two good questions to think about would be
- why they want this
- what success would look like to them
You’re basically replacing one customer (your boss) with many customers (your clients). This is a good thing for some but a bad thing for others!
Also, if you’re starting your business, figure out what your exit plan is. Do you want to build a business and then sell it? Do you want to build it and pass it on to your children? Do you want to build it and then retire from it? What does the success of your business look like to you?
Once those questions and other larger questions about industry or type of business, partners or investors, processes, incorporation vs. sole proprietor, staffing, etc. are answered, then my advice would be to just go for it. Nothing is really stopping you except yourself.
My Takeaway
Thank you, Monica. She is a great social entrepreneur. Low capital is a common challenge for new entrepreneurs because it often takes more money to build a business than you might think and longer time to make enough sales and collect revenues. But don’t be too scared – it can work as a motivation for sales. Many of us are afraid of doing sales, but it’s something we must learn if we are to succeed as entrepreneur. And with determination like hers, it’s very possible to build a network from scratch. Great work, Monica, keep going!
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Thanks Akemi! Let me also mention goal-setting as a big part of how I keep motivated. Almost every goal I’ve set down in writing and actively checked in with regularly has become a reality (so far). I highly recommend using something like a vision board or a regular reminder service like futureme.org to keep your brain focused on what you want to achieve. I am also happy to mentor women in business or to pass your info along to my own business coach, Rob Seidenspinner of Sage Circle Coaching. Accountability is key!
Hi Akemi,
This is a great interview. Many thanks to you and Monica
I like how Monica said, “You’re basically replacing one customer (your boss) with many customers (your clients)”.
That’s so true. Our clients do become “the boss”, whether we want to admit it or not. This is no time to let our egos get in the way.
Monica,
You are so welcome. And your referral is very appreciated. There are a lot of people who haven’t experienced the benefits of getting a coach, so one of my mission is just to spread the word how it works and how valuable it can be for many people. I’m glad you found a good coach for yourself.
Barbara,
Thank you for pointing that out. I think the sense of service and genuine interest in the customer and their needs are critical to succeed as entrepreneur.
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