I’ve spent about a third of my professional career in the controversial arms of self-employment. I’ve also worked with more than 100 small business owners. Like many of my clients, I’ve struggled to keep track of everything on my own; whether that’s admin or marketing, it’s tough to do it all.

This is my third time in the controversial arms of self-employment and I’ve learned two very important things:

This post focuses on the first learning.

As many of us have, I’ve undergone a transformation of sorts since the pandemic started. As the ways continued to grow, companies closed and people were retrenched. My consulting work was no exception.

I wanted to make a difference with my skills and knowledge

I wanted to develop an online course that would help the situation: to teach people without business education how to grow a venture idea without wasting time, money and, most importantly, emotional calories.

So, I built a course in 4 weeks and taught it to a few people I knew. I learned from my mistakes, improved and taught more people. What I learned also allowed me to understand myself better, and to share this post with you.

I found that my “students” needed to define their personal needs first

One of the products of this learning process is a list of key questions that you need to answer before coming up with your company name or hiring a graphic designer for your the logo.

These questions are related to “3 ingredient groups” and the direction for your venture at the heart of their overlap:

1. Your personal needs, dreams and boundaries.
2. Your talents, resources and constraints.
3. Opportunities that are suitable for you.

It may seem obvious to some, but it’s just too easy to get excited (or desperate) and dive straight into creating a business without defining these basics.

Why go through the process?

Answering these questions and going through this process helped me define the kind of difference I wanted to make in life and with this venture. It’s done the same and more for others, including:

• Facilitating the discovery of unnoticed business opportunities by understanding how to ethically monetise what they already enjoy doing.
• Finding more confidence and uncovering their talents by laying it all out on paper.
• Finding insights and answers that weren’t obvious and shedding the feeling of being stuck by stepping back from the problem.

You too can begin where you are today

I’m sure there are other ways to do this and this is just a format that has worked for me and my clients. Download your copy of the Life+Venture Kit and let me know how you go!