6. Use corporate knowledge. Don't just [squander] your time at your day job. The lessons you learn may help you understand future clients and competitors. When Mars was working as a marketing executive, she was struck by how outside vendors sometimes did not make their promised deadlines. As a result, speed and accountability were two of the ways she set herself apart from the competition when she started selling promotional merchandise to corporations. "Within the first year and a half, I was making about $2 million in sales," Mars says. "To win corporate clients, identify the customer's most important business goals and objectives, and tie your product and service solutions to the achievement of that company's goals," advises Smackum. Make sure marketing materials such as letterhead, business cards and brochures are polished and explain clearly the product you sell or service you provide. Also, have references willing to vouch for the professionalism of your work, Mars suggests. To find corporate clients, contact local small business associations for information on obtaining minority contracts. And don't be afraid to "pick up the phone and call people you don't know," says Tag Goulet, coauthor of Dream Careers (Fabjob, 2006) and co-CEO of FabJob.com. "Look at each call as simply an introduction of your business -- you have a service or product that could possibly help this person and organization."
7. Give freely to generate buzz. While you have the comfort of a steady paycheck, you can afford to gain exposure by giving away products or services. While working full-time as a recruiter and trainer, Tiffany Taylor Smith gave free workshops to educators as she launched her diversity educational consulting firm, TR Taylor Consulting, in Cranford, N.J. Likewise, Parris-Pinn gave away her services -- and flowers -- to build her clientele. "You have to comp a lot of stuff to get your name out there," she says. Successfully generating buzz and boosting demand is key. "One of the things that gets people moving from doing something on a part-time basis to full-time is they find that more and more people are asking them for it," says Goulet.
8. Pay yourself last. As long as you're getting a regular paycheck from a job, pump all the profits from your side hustle into the business. Use the money to buy supplies and create marketing materials, then bank the rest. Once you take your hustle full-time, "you might take a loss the first year or so," says Smackum. Bank enough money to stay afloat for six months even if you don't make a dime, she advises.
9. Switch your hustle. "Say, for example, you are an office worker but you'd like to be a party planner," says Goulet. "You could move into the party planning full-time and do some temporary office work from time to time. Now the office work becomes your side hustle." Along the same lines, check with your employer to see if part-time work is available. That way, you can scale back your day job's hours gradually while increasing the amount of time you can devote to the hustle.
10. Make severance pay. Before making any moves, be sure your firm isn't planning to downsize. Before Smith left her job, she'd heard rumors of possible layoffs. "I started praying for a separation package," she says, which would give her a financial cushion. Sure enough, the company soon offered voluntary separation packages. "When the announcement was made, I knew it was time," she says.
Source: Essence. Powered by Yellowbrix.
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