I’ve said this before but I absolutely love freelance life. I.Love.It. Maybe this is partly due to how much I hated my old job by the time I left it. But, and it’s a big but, I realized this winter that I had made a huge, huge, mistake that caught me by surprise-I was working the wrong business model.
The Signs Were All Around
I am the type of person who goes 150% when I enjoy doing something. I am a long-time all or nothing person. I either like something or I don’t. So, when my income started dropping this summer I thought that the issue was just that I was enjoying summer (and I was). It was also that I found the tasks that I was doing painful. I enjoyed doing those tasks for myself…but not for other people. I was in the wrong business.
I shared this in a somewhat similar post recently but I want to get a little deeper into this. I like working, and I like working hard, but when you are a self-employed person typically that happens for two reasons:
- Something bad happened-you were fired, laid off, or quit
- Something Intentional Happened- You planned for this
In my case, I planned to work for myself. What I didn’t take into account as deeply as I have recently (basically during the winter) was how much your personality plays into what skills you should be sharing with others and how you use those skills to help others.
The business model that I was working before wasn’t working for me because I didn’t like feeling like I was an employee (again). I didn’t realize that there is a huge difference to consider between the following:
- Business to Business Services-Such as Virtual Assistant work, writing depending on the how large the site is, Social Media Work, and other B2B tasks that you would share
- Business to Consumer-Creating products and services for a targeted clientele.
Guess which one I was doing and hated and which model I’m shifting to and absolutely love! I hated Business to Business Services. I kept feeling like I had a boss and it drove me crazy. I also felt that the tasks I was doing, while important, weren’t in line with my overall mission which was to help people.
The problem was that I wasn’t clear enough about which people I wanted to help. I also needed to look at what I enjoy doing and the transferable skills that I could bring from previous professional experiences to my new career.
Wrong Business Model
I spent a year working the wrong freaking business model. I also found what I was doing really boring. Now I’ve figured it out and that model is clearly Business (me) to Consumer (wonderful people needing help!) As I work through this transition I’m quite frankly: exhilarated, nervous, and super happy. What I’m doing now is a much better fit.
I will be developing a tool to help other people avoid this mistake so that they don’t have to do as big a professional pivot in their second year working for themselves as I am having having to do right now
Hard lesson learned.
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Interesting difference between B2B and B2C. I would like to be in the B2C business as well. I just need to figure out who my target audience and ideal customers are.
I will be talking about this more during the webinar on March 30th. I just really had no idea what a big difference this made until I made this mistake.
Well I can totally understand this seeing as I worked “for” eyeballs over 7 years and he was worse than any boss I’ve ever had.
“Eyeballs” was such a…yeah, I am not excited about working B2B ever again.
At least you found out what type of business model you wanted to do before you reached year 2. The good thing is you made some money during that 1st year even though you didn’t like it.
I didn’t make a ton and now I know why!
I am glad that you figured it out as early as now. I look forward to know what tool you’re preparing, Michelle. When is this most likely to come out?
Hi Jayson! I have already begun working on the new project which is The D.O.N.E. Society. I am specifically interested in connecting with and working people in their mid-thirties or older needed help with the pre-entrepreneurship logistics process: in particular managing the financial and mental process of becoming an entrepreneur.
Woohoo! It’s a learning process huh – glad you figured this out fairly fast!
Well, I just was so bored and my money showed it! I couldn’t motivate myself to do what I was doing. I’m so excited to do what I’m doing now I wake up and think about it like when I started blogging and I’m still loving blogging years later.