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Top Tips To Finally Quit Your Day Job

I started my marketing agency with an investment of $10 to buy my domain name, $10 for web hosting, $80 for a WordPress template – and nothing else, other than time.  I wrote my web copy myself, did my web design myself and officially “launched” in October 2010.  I would work my full-time day job, and then do client work at night and on weekends.

That hard work quickly paid off, however, and 4 months later, I was able to quit my full-time job.  I hit over six figures in my first year in business – and the company revenue has increased annually ever since.  Less than a year after launching, I had a small team of people in place.  Presently, I have 19 people who are regularly working with me.

I would say that the single most important thing I did was not listen to others.  People told me I was crazy to work a full-time job during the day, and give up my nights and weekends to focus on my marketing business.  They told me I wouldn’t be successful with my efforts.  They told me that it was dumb to go out on my own since I would be giving up a stable paycheck for uncertainty.  Pretty much everyone I know told me NOT to do what I did.

But now here I am, 8 years later, with a successful business, working from home most of the time with my dog laying at my feet, and doing something I love.

I have the following 3 additional tips to share with women who are looking to take the entrepreneurial plunge…

  1. Plan – but don’t overplan.There are inevitably going to be things that come up along the way that you just can’t plan for.  Staying up late trying to predict them will cost you valuable ZZZ’s – and your sanity.  When I first went “full-time” on my own, I planned.  And planned.  And planned.  But all that planning didn’t prepare me for clients disappearing, companies declaring bankruptcy, etc.
  2. Make sure you have your legal bases covered.  We live in a lawsuit friendly society and one in which people will sometimes do whatever they can to get out of a contract that they entered into.  To prevent these types of headaches from turning into migraines, make sure you’ve got an attorney you can reach out to for legal advice and who can help make sure that your contracts are tight.  Same thing goes for an accountant (after all, who wants to land in hot water with the IRS?).  I didn’t have all my legal bases covered when I first started out, and it cost me a lot of money since a client was able to weasel out of honoring their financial obligations to pay my company for services rendered.  Lesson learned, albeit an expensive one.
  3. Avoid burnout. When you first start out, you’re passionate about what you do.  This passion likely involves putting in long hours to get your venture off the ground.  Just be careful not to overdo it.   Make time for the other important things in your life.  It’s not fun to finally “make it,” only to realize that you are celebrating your success by yourself because you’ve dropped everyone else in your life, like a bad habit.
Tabitha Jean Naylor
Tabitha Jean Naylorhttps://www.tabithanaylor.com/
Tabitha Jean Naylor is the founder of Women Entrepreneurs Can - a digital magazine designed specifically for women entrepreneurs, startup founders and small business owners - and the proud owner of TabithaNaylor.com, a marketing firm that delivers ‘big agency’ quality at rates that are affordable for startups and small businesses. Her intimate knowledge of how sales and marketing go hand-in-hand has resulted in a variety of successful campaigns for start-ups through NASDAQ traded companies.

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CONVERSATIONS

  1. “I would say that the single most important thing I did was not listen to others.”

    Agree, Tabitha! Unless someone has a specific idea of what might stop us or help us, listening to them isn’t helpful. Generalized fears don’t help at all!

    And I wonder if some of them — not all, but some — might unconsciously see someone like you as a threat. If you CAN succeed, why haven’t they been able to? Maybe that’s why some need to pull us down to their level, rather than raising themselves up to ours or someone else’s and sharing in the success we all might achieve.

    If it’s truly impossible to work a full-time job and start your own side gig at night — and make it all work — what’s their excuse?

    No matter. You did it. Congrats! And I often have one or both of my dogs lying under my chair in what I laughingly call my office — a tiny corner of my home that overlooks the bay — so I know how wonderful it can be to work from home.

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