044: Taking on the Role of Entrepreneur & Small Business Owner

Is becoming an entrepreneur or small business owner on your goals list for 2022? Or maybe just being a better business owner? Because that’s certainly on my list! What if I told you it took me 10 years of side-hustling to decide to take my business full-time? Well it did!

This week, we’re chatting all about becoming an entrepreneur or a small business owner! I have a ton of thoughts around this and honestly, after over a year of full-time entrepreneurship in this podcasting business, I’m so mad at myself for not doing it sooner.

Clocking In with Haylee Gaffin is produced and brought to you by Gaffin Creative, a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. Learn more about our services at Gaffincreative.com, plus you’ll also find resources, show notes, and more for the Clocking In Podcast.

This month, I’m offering an exclusive discount to my podcast listeners of $50 off Podcast Launch Kit! If you’re looking to take the DIY approach to podcasting this year, Podcast Launch Kit is for you! Use the code CLOCKINGIN at podcastlaunchkit.com and enroll today!

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Making the Transition from Side-Gig to Full-Time Entrepreneurship

I think there are so many lessons you’ll learn in your own journey to being a small business owner, but here are five steps I’d encourage you to take in order to make it a seamless transition for yourself!

Get a mentor – find someone you know who runs a successful business (maybe even in a similar industry to you).
Determine what your startup costs are. While I am a service based business, I still have fees for programs that I use everyday in my business (which we’ll actually talk about in the next episode)..
Understand your pricing. I think this is something I’ve always struggled with —knowing what to charge, how to charge, and even how to justify my pricing when clients may not understand the work you put into it.
Don’t overbook and burn out. It’s so easy to do, and something that I did to myself in the last year. I had to correct this, lose some clients, and commit to less photography, but I’ve finally found the right approach to what I can commit to.
Determine your goals, but start small. You can’t have big goals without smart ones, so it can be as simple as saying, I need to make this much money by month 2 or 3. Just start small.

Review the Transcript:

Hey y’all welcome to the clocking in podcast the podcast for entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world i’m your host Haylee Gaffin this podcast is produced and brought to you by Gaffin Creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs learn more about our services at Gaffincreative.com plus you’ll also find resources show notes and more for the clocking in podcast so let’s clock in and get to work.

Before we dive into today’s episode, I wanted to share a couple of announcements! The first is that as you may have noticed, today’s episode went up on a Tuesday — that’s right, you’ll start seeing Tuesday release dates around here for the podcast!

The second announcement is that I want to give my podcast listeners an exclusive discount if you’re looking to start a podcast this year! Through the end of the month, you can use the code CLOCKINGIN all one word, to get $50 off when you enroll in my DIY course, Podcast Launch Kit. Head over to the show notes for todays episode or to podcastlaunchkit.com and enter the code CLOCKINGIN. Can’t wait to see you in the course!

Just over a year ago, I decided to leave my long-time contract in a marketing position to pursue this business full-time. While I’d side-hustled my way into the entrepreneurship world, I never looked at myself as a small business owner. Boy, was I wrong. I was an entrepreneur, but I think the reality of not being full-time in it, made me second guess my status.

So, if you’re just part-time in your business, stick around, because I think you’ll really enjoy my thoughts on this topic and this episode.

When I entered the advertising world, I was still shooting weddings and portraits on the side, but never imagined it as a career… once I did become an entrepreneur, it got me thinking about what held me back? Why was I so scared of this lifestyle? Was the potential of failure holding me back? Was it the work that went into it? Or was it that I truly didn’t believe that I could become a small business?

I think a lot of what I’ve done in my life and profession has been a reflection on what society and my upbringing taught me. I’m not sure if it was my parents or just what teachers taught me that essentially made me believe that there was no stability in entrepreneurship.

In my mind, the work I did with my photography, beginning in college and even going into the years after, I didn’t really see as a profession. I even had a hard time saying I was a photographer when people asked.

Of course I loved booking new clients and working on this little business, but still the goal was to never do this full time. At least it never crossed my mind as a possibility.

So I continued to pursue a corporate job—which I loved. I loved working in an office and with other people. I loved the actual projects I worked on, but soon I wanted to blend more of a passion of what I enjoyed into it.

A few years ago, I found a position that fit exactly what I needed – blending an industry I loved with a job I loved, yet it was a remote, contract role that offered a little more flexibility. It opened the doors to a lot of new projects, but it also opened my eyes to the possibility of entrepreneurship. Our clients were ALL entrepreneurs… part-time, full-time, etc.

While I was there, I still ran my little side business, tried out new services in that business, but kept going with my corporate job. I held onto the idea that corporate jobs were still the most stable option for working and incomes.

As many of us saw in 2020, that logic went out the window.

I’d spent most of my life believing that doing a good job would give you job stability in a corporate style position… but when a global pandemic happens, many of us will be faced with uncertainty.

And that’s exactly what happened to me. Thankfully, I wasn’t impacted immediately, but a few months into the pandemic, I lost half of my contracted hours. It was really out of everyone’s control that year.. Now I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but I had to act fast. I had to find other work to replace it. For the first time, I felt like an entrepreneur—I was searching for clients, booking them on my own, and almost immediately, I was able to replace that income that i lost.

That was my first taste of the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship. I could choose my hours, my services, my clients… everything.

What glorious freedom this brought..

But my whole life, I’d never imagined this as a REAL job.

And now, essentially, it was. It was what I was relying on to pay my bills, to continue to bring an income in…. So I got to thinking… could I do this?

Would this change fit my life that I want?

It took months to really play it out and decide if it could really work.

So I did it..

And what I learned from it? If you’re wanting to start a service based small business, it’s actually not as hard as you may think.

I always thought there would be tons of hoops to jump through, but once you’ve figured out what works for you and have the proper documentation and processes in place, it can be really easy.

Before all of these small business owners come after me for saying being a business owner is easy, listen, it’s not.. You have to really want it to succeed, but it’s not as hard as I thought.

If you’re looking to start your own small business or take your little side gig full-time, here’s my advice to you.

Get a mentor – find someone you know who runs a successful business (maybe even in a similar industry to you).
Determine what your startup costs are. While I am a service based business, I still have fees for programs that I use everyday in my business (which we’ll actually talk about in the next episode)..
Understand your pricing. I think this is something I’ve always struggled with —knowing what to charge, how to charge, and even how to justify my pricing when clients may not understand the work you put into it.
Don’t overbook and burn out. It’s so easy to do, and something that I did to myself in the last year. I had to correct this, lose some clients, and commit to less photography, but I’ve finally found the right approach to what I can commit to.
Determine your goals, but start small. You can’t have big goals without smart ones, so it can be as simple as saying, I need to make this much money by month 2 or 3. Just start small

If you’re considering a life in the entrepreneurial space, this is your encouragement from someone who was scared, nervous, but also someone who never imagined this life for me.

Over the next few episodes, I’ll be sharing more business focused episodes that will help you in setting up processes in your business, knowing what tools to use, and how I’m incorporated outsourcing into my business as well!

As we close out this episode, I’d love to know what has held you back or whats currently holding you back? Shoot me a DM over on Instagram to let me know! You can find my handle in the show notes at gaffincreative.com/044 or head over to Instagram and search for Haylee Gaffin.

Come join me next week as I share some of my favorite tools that I use in my business, but also highlight a few podcast tools I use as well!

This has been another episode of The clocking in podcast. You can find the show notes for this episode and more at Gaffincreative.com. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. If you love this episode, I’d be so honored if you leave me a review in Apple podcast app. Until next time, I’m your host Haylee Gaffin, clocking out.