What feels like 2 lifetimes ago, but was only a few years in the past, I set up my first small business. I learned many lessons, good and bad, during that time. I learned about my own strengths and weaknesses, about legal business requirements, taxes, and so much more. Some lessons were big, some were small, some specific to that industry and some universal to any business owner. I can’t possibly put every lesson into a blog post, nor would you want to read all of them, but I can share 3 small changes that I made, based on lessons learned, while setting up my second business. These are tiny tips, but they’re universal and they’ve made a positive impact on my company, so hopefully they will do the same for yours.
Social Media-
The Problem: One of the very first things I did when I decided to open my first business was hop on Facebook, create a company page and group, and proudly announce my existence to my friends and family. While that enthusiasm was great, what followed caused problems a few years down the road. As my business grew, I did not hesitate to accept friend requests from customers and my newsfeed was soon full of work content as I joined more and more work-related groups. This caused 2 problems. 1) When I felt overwhelmed or burnt out (it happens to all of us, no matter how much we love our jobs) I could not use social media without being bombarded by work, and 2) my friend list quickly filled with people that I didn’t personally know, which lead to anxiety about what I could or should share on my page.
The Change: When I made the decision to officially open Alex Sallenger Design, I did not run full speed to social media. Instead, when the time came for my company to develop an online presence, I created completely new accounts on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook- all attached to my work email. I use these accounts to run my company’s page, friend clients and join interior design-related groups. My personal accounts are still full of family member’s pictures and friends’ silly posts, while my work accounts are full of beautiful home images and announcements from my favorite vendors. On Friday at 5 pm I log out of my work accounts, and I do not log back in until Monday morning. Having a firm separation between the 2 accounts has helped tremendously when I feel like I need to step back from work and focus on family and friends. It also gives me the freedom to share the cute video of my kids wrestling with my family and closest friends without wondering who else is seeing it. If your business is small, it may not seem necessary to separate your social media accounts, but as it grows you will probably wish you had. This time around I just did it from the start, so I don’t have to deal with the headache of switching later.
Communication Organization-
The Problem: As my old business grew, I struggled more and more to keep track of communications with clients and vendors. When I first started out it was easy to remember “Oh, Susan texted me last Wednesday about that meeting, I’ll check my phone.” or “The tracking number for that shipment is in my Facebook messenger.” However, as we grew, things got chaotic, and I frequently found myself hunting for emails or texts that were getting harder and harder to find.
The Change: I have firm policies about communication now and have from the day I opened my business. While setting up my contact information, I considered who I would be speaking with, what we’d be talking about and how I’d prefer to communicate. These are obviously things that could look different for your company than they do for me, but this is what I landed on- I have regular conversations with clients, potential clients, and vendors. We discuss projects, changes to projects, purchase orders and new products. I prefer email because I want to be able to easily search for key words while looking for a past conversation. With that in mind, I set up 2 separate email accounts. One is strictly for vendors. It gets hundreds of emails a week. They are important because that’s how I stay on top of what they are releasing, but they aren’t nearly as urgent as an email from a client with an active project. My second email account is tied to my website and is never given to a vendor. That is the address that clients use. It is their direct line to me, and I check it far more frequently than the vendor account. As far as how I communicate, its obviously email, but I also have a second phone number tied to my cell phone. I do take calls from clients, and zoom meetings are a regular part of my schedule, but I’ve learned to always summarize these conversations in an email, which allows me to track down information, like I mentioned above. When you’re setting up your business, don’t overlook the importance of an organized contact system, it will save you many headaches down the road.
Instability-
The Problem: I can’t say that I discovered this problem while in business the first time. I knew it was there from the start, but it did not affect me the way it is now. At that time, we had been living in one place for a while, with intentions of being there for a few more years, and we didn’t have kids. My situation is different this time around. I opened Alex Sallenger Design shortly after moving to a new city, while knowing that we wouldn’t be there long. I knew we’d be moving at least 3 times in the first 4-5 years of business, and that I needed flexibility in my schedule to roll with the punches of PCSs, TDYs, deployments and other challenges related to childcare in military families. While I longed to take on traditional interior design projects, my first 6 months in business were clouded with a grey cloud of dread-if I established a client base in this city, I would be stuck rebuilding my business from the ground up each time we move, and I wasn’t prepared to put my kids in traditional day care so that I could go work onsite. Basically, I woke up every day stressed out because the job I imagined and the life I am living weren’t cohesive.
The Change: I finally sat down one day and wrote down a list of the things in our lifestyle that were causing me stress. I changed the ones I could and highlighted the ones that I cannot or will not. Then I wrote down what I like doing in my job. I compared the 2 lists and ended up completely rewriting my business plan to fit my lifestyle. When you are setting up your business, please save yourself the grey cloud dread. Plan now for how you want to handle things like time off for a post-deployment vacay, keeping your business running after a PCS and, since it affects a lot of us, how to work while your spouse is gone, and you have to take care of the kiddos. For me, this plan means that instead of traditional in person design projects, I only work online. I also have limitations on how many projects I will take on at a time, and I build breaks into my schedule for PCS and deployments. One day I will be able to carry a caseload full of big home renovations, but right now isn’t that time, and I am proud to say that I’ve accepted that and created a plan to allow me to chase my dreams anyway. As military and first responder spouses we must deal with a certain level of instability, and eventually, it will affect our businesses. Lean into it, and work around it, don’t fight it.
As I am sitting here re-reading what I’ve written and thinking about the blessings and challenges that come along with owning a business, I realize that these tips all support the best piece of advice that I could give a small business owner who is just starting out. There is more to setting up a business than forming an LLC and downloading QuickBooks, you must also create boundaries. Those boundaries can be related to social media, contact methods, your work/life balance, or anything else that you feel necessary to protect. Reflect on what your business will look like if it grows beyond your wildest dreams, and set up systems and boundaries now, so that you aren’t flustered when that time comes.
