Ralph And Carol Lynn’s No BS Guide To Transitioning From Employee To Business Owner Carbon Based Business Units

First, Housekeeping. We’re actually, really leaving for California in a week! And we’re taking two weeks off from podcasting to get there and attend Podcast Movement. We’ll be back with lots of new stuff and hopefully some good travel stories soon.
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So You’ve Quit Your Job And Started A Business! Now What? The subject came up during lunch with our business partner Michael last week. Until recently he had a “day job”. A 9-5 work-at-a-desk job. But he had enough freelance clients that he decided to strike out on his own.
When he asked us what he should be thinking about in terms of starting a business, first, we poured the cocktails. Then we came up with this list. It’s not an exhaustive list, but put it in the “what we wished we knew” category of stuff we learned. Feel free to add yours to the comments below!
1. Give Yourself A Day To Work On The Business When you’re an employee, someone else makes the decisions. Someone else sets the strategy, for everything from hiring to marketing. But when you’re the boss, it’s up to you to do that. And you can’t do it if you’re constantly in a whirlwind of client work.
Set aside a day – not five minutes, not an hour, but a solid day – each week to think about your own business. Plan. Strategize. Put systems in place. Brainstorm ideas. Learn a new skill. Go to the bank with your checks!
Make that day about your business, period.
2. Don’t Negotiate With Yourself We’ve talked about this before. And it manifests in a couple of ways. It can mean that you’ve pre-decided the outcome of a conversation. For example, Michael was working with a client and completely stressing out because he was worried whether the client would like the color he chose for the design. And whether the client would like the font. And whether the client was going to ask for changes and what he’d say about that. In the end, the client loved everything.
In other words, Michael spent a lot of time worried about something that never happened.
On the other hand, you might pre-negotiate your pricing before presenting it to a prospect. You’ll wonder if it’s too high. You’ll tell yourself they can’t afford it. You’ll second guess everything and that’s all before you even talk to the client.
Stop! Act and react when you need to. Don’t worry about what hasn’t happened. Have the courage of your own convictions.
3. Follow An Organizational Paradigm That Works For You We’re big fans of GTD. That’s Getting Things Done, an organizational system created by David Allen. It’s based on the premise that your brain is not a storage unit. You need it for thinking and creating and planning. So if you’re constantly trying to remember things, likes dates and deadlines and what color the client wanted, then you’re going to drive yourself nuts, be less productive and probably be miserable.
Ralph has notebooks by Field Notes that he loves. And he uses them to capture every thought, idea and note. Then he organizes them into an app called OmniFocus. This works well for him. You have to find your own system. Just remember that your brain needs space to think, so get organized by getting stuff out of it.
4. Don't Get Lost In Apps While you’re searching for that perfect organizational paradigm, just remember that there are a LOT of apps out there. And you don’t need to use or try every one. There will always be something new to try. From CRMs to proposal writing software to project management.
Skip the new shiny. As your business grows you’ll probably outgrow apps and need to find something else, but if you’re constantly trying new things then you’re wasting time you could be spending growing yo