I didn’t want to write a blog post this week, yet here I am writing it and soon you’ll be reading it. And had Shelby not published “Content creation can’t always come first” yesterday, it’s unlikely I would have written for SheHe Media this week. Why? Because we are busy, darn it. Of course, “busy” is just an excuse. It’s a code word for “I don’t wanna” or “I failed to plan, so I planned to fail.”
What’s really going on here?
Our little “She Said, He Said” project has grown into a real honest to goodness business. The revenues and projects we are working on have reached the non-trivial level pretty quickly. We have ongoing clients. We have three site development projects behind us and are working on one and have at least one more in the backlog. It’s not a bad place to be for a new business.
The thing is I’ve done this new business dance more than a few times in my life and we are at a critical juncture. We’ve reached that point when we need a plan. Earlier this week, we spent an entire day working in the same office together. We collaborated on both SheHe Media work and work for my other company ColorMetrix. For a few hours, we divided and conquered some issues we’re having with a site project. We kept reminding each other that if it was easy anyone could do it, and we aren’t just anyone.
Sales, client work and cashflow
When you are a small and growing business, not losing sight of your own branding can be a challenge. I’ve actually exchanged emails with some peers on this very subject in the last couple of days. The reality is you have to have sales. You have to complete client work and then all that turns into cash flow that drives your business forward.
In our case, “She Said, He Said” started out as fun back and forth blog posts on my personal blog. That grew into our #SheHeChat on Twitter each Thursday evening at 8 p.m. CST. Then that led to folks wanting to do business with us. Then you add to that our speaking gigs and this becomes way more work than people could ever imagine. All of this is our brand. It’s how we got to where we are.
Plan for the brand
As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve come to the realization that I need to set aside more time to write. These posts, the posts on the ColorMetrix blog and on my personal blog matter. If they didn’t, the businesses I’m involved in would not have grown and prospered in tough economic times.
I guess at our core Shelby and I both realized that this week. Sure at 8:31 p.m. on a Wednesday night there are plenty of things I could be doing besides tickling my MacBook’s keyboard. But you know what? This is exactly where I want to be. It’s where I’ve planned to be.
And that’s all I’ve got. Leave a comment with your thoughts to help me finish mine. Or better yet, make sure to jump into #SheHeChat over on Twitter at 8 p.m. CST tonight so we can discuss more.
Jim you oddly always seem to understand things I've been thinking lately. The only difference is that my corporate job has been sucking my time away from a couple of side projects that I really wanted to hammer out some details on. The non-starting because of other commitments excuse. I admire the drive that the two of you have and I am truly inspired by your ability to keep it all moving forward. Congrats on the successful start and here's to a long road to travel down with it all.
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@tvorse Tim - As I think about it, saying no is a big part of making this work. We have another potential SheHe Client but after looking at our current workload we had to tell them we can't take the project on before Oct 1. Turning work away is difficult, but in this case they have so far agreed to wait for our availability. That is kinda flattering.