Self Employed Success

Like a dog on the scent, I keep my nose to the ground, looking for signs of a strengthening or weakening economy. I’m not looking at large, macro, worldwide events, but instead using my own eyes and ears to determine how the average person is reacting to things.

All around me I’m seeing signs of economic life:

• In the past month, whenever we go to restaurants (even on the traditionally slow restaurant days), the places are crowded. Not as crowded as they were a year ago, with lines snaking out the door, but tables are full and waitstaff is bustling.
• Where I am seeing lines form is at the movies. In January and February, you could walk through the door and right up to the ticket window. Not so anymore. Short lines, but lines none the less.
• I keep close track of people who steal my website text for their own websites. Over the past six months, the instances of plagiarism had decreased, but within the past month I’m seeing a resurgence. This means people are creating new websites, which is a good sign. The fact that they’re comfortable stealing someone else’s text to promote their own business tells me they won’t be in business for long with low ethics and lack of creativity and skill leading them to their demise.
• I’m getting many more calls for coaching and consulting. People are understandably cautious on finding just the right person to help them with their dreams and challenges, but once they find the right fit, they’re willing to invest in growing their businesses. Month over month, I’m seeing a 10% increase in revenue for the past three months.
• My clients are also reporting a small uptick in revenue, and more prospect calls.

Could it be a thawing economy? I hope so!

What does this mean for you? Keep your eyes and ears open, make sure all your systems are in place, and make sure you’re ready for an upswing in business. Now is the time to clean out your office, get a filing system in place (AND everything filed away properly), create intake forms for customer information, and generally automate your office and financial systems. In this way you’ll be ready when the surge begins instead of getting caught with your systems in disarray.