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January 13, 2021 at 9:57 am #1000531Up::0
Hi folks. I’ve been noodling with an idea for a business throughout the year gone; running team building activities for corporate customers both face to face and online.
The info I’ve gathered thus far indicates that the main marketing work I need to do is direct business development calls to companies in my target market.
The scary bit is, I work a nine to five day job where the only time I have to either make calls or take calls back is my hour for lunch.
How do you folks who are juggling / have juggled a side hustle with a nine to five job handle marketing and taking calls?
January 14, 2021 at 2:44 am #1224685Up::0Hi Rob,
I hope you have considered Covid in your projections as it has had a major impact on the sector.
I have had side hustles before and the key for me was never to let it interfere with my performance in the job my employer was paying me to do.
As well, my side hustle operated outside of business hours so I just made the time as needed.
Cheers
PaulJanuary 14, 2021 at 9:16 pm #1224686Up::0Thanks for your reply, Paul. Folks have told me that COVID may actually be a benefit as businesses start putting staff on remote work; my service could help staff separated by distance stay connected.
As your hustle operated outside business hours, how did you handle any direct calling you needed to do to business that only operated during regular hours?
January 15, 2021 at 6:50 am #1224687Up::0Rob F., post: 271766, member: 37982 wrote:Thanks for your reply, Paul. Folks have told me that COVID may actually be a benefit as businesses start putting staff on remote work; my service could help staff separated by distance stay connected.As your hustle operated outside business hours, how did you handle any direct calling you needed to do to business that only operated during regular hours?
I was in employment services full time and had a recruiting website that serviced the USA so it was no drama.
If you PM me your contact details, I can probably put you in touch with somebody who was in your field for over 10 years. No guarantee because we aren’t close but I knew her through a business group.
Cheers
January 18, 2021 at 11:00 am #1224688Up::0I don’t think you can effectively execute your sales calls during your lunch hour, and as Paul says you will risk comprising your focus and value for your day job.
Its hard enough to get these strategies working well when you have a lot more of your day to work with.
Either you need to pay some one properly to do these calls and see if you can achieve a good ROI or scale down or restructure if possible your day job to focus on these tasks as a test case.
January 18, 2021 at 6:51 pm #1224689Up::0Sounds like you aren’t serious about your new business, or are planning for it to fail.
2 really simple options.
1. Resign from your current job, and give 110% to your new venture.
2. Give up on new venture and stay with current role.Your current approach wont do justice to your current employer or your potential future clients as neither will be devoted the time or effort they deserve.
I get the impression you are not really serious about your new venture so stick to your paid employement.
February 1, 2021 at 8:58 pm #1224690Up::0Paul – FS Concierge, post: 271773, member: 78928 wrote:I was in employment services full time and had a recruiting website that serviced the USA so it was no drama.If you PM me your contact details, I can probably put you in touch with somebody who was in your field for over 10 years. No guarantee because we aren’t close but I knew her through a business group.
Cheers
Thanks, Paul. Will do.
A couple of folks have suggested targeting overseas businesses as I’d be able to reach them during their business hours whilst being outside mine. That seems to make sense!
February 6, 2021 at 1:49 am #1224691Up::0You could advertise a different number and hire a VA. That’s one solution. The free way requires more organisation and is only useful if you get a few calls a week. I was a professional editor for 20 years as a side hustle. I always returned the calls at breaks, lunchtime or after 4pm. I steered all content to encourage email enquiries first and mentioned that if we did not answer immediately, to please leave a message and we’d call back within a few hours. You’d have to call back in a quiet space. Most folks prefer to email / message first anyway these days. All the best! These days i am building an online retail business, so 99% of comms is online. It’s much easier to be accessible.
February 6, 2021 at 9:53 am #1224692Up::0Rob F., post: 271754, member: 37982 wrote:Hi folks. I’ve been noodling with an idea for a business throughout the year gone; running team building activities for corporate customers both face to face and online.The info I’ve gathered thus far indicates that the main marketing work I need to do is direct business development calls to companies in my target market.
The scary bit is, I work a nine to five day job where the only time I have to either make calls or take calls back is my hour for lunch.
How do you folks who are juggling / have juggled a side hustle with a nine to five job handle marketing and taking calls?
Hi Rob,I’m not sure exactly what is involved in your business. However, here are some suggestions:
1. Set-up a standard process in place to systemise your business. For example, are there a standard set of questions you ask potential clients? You can send them the questionnaire or survey as a way to pre-qualify a potential client before speaking to them on the phone.
You can also use virtual staff to go through the questionnaire with your potential clients on your behalf. Once the virtual staff has gathered the info for you, you can guide the virtual staff how to progress to the next stage to further engage with the potential client on your behalf.
2. Do you have a template when you message and contact potential clients? For example, do you have a phone script or an email template or email and message sequences that you can document?
If you can document the process that will help you to train a virtual staff they can follow the procedures to handle the potential client interactions on your behalf.
When you use a virtual staff you can organise a catch up with them to brief you outside of your working hours over the phone in addition to the email update they can send you during your working hours.
I’ve partnered with a company that is based in Sydney but she has an outsourcing company with a virtual team based in the Philippines.
If you would like to find out more how you can benefit using a virtual staff, please refer to my website for more info about outsourcing to virtual staff or how you can set-up a virtual team in the Philippines without the challenges of employing people paying for their wages, staff benefits, etc.
You can have a virtual staff or build a virtual team without the added challenges of managing payroll costs, etc. as our outsourcing partner will cover all of it for you.
If you are interested to find out more info please let me know by referring to my bio to contact me. I can ask her to call you to discuss further your requirements so you can make an informed decision if you’ll benefit from her services.
She’ll hire the virtual staff for you based on your job description. You can interview the potential virtual staff as part of the final round of their interview process so you will have the final say who you employ as a virtual staff.
If you refer to the “Services” section of my website under “Affiliate Partners” go to the section “Outsourcing Virtual Assistants” to find out more info about the outsourcing company that I’ve partnered with.
I’ve written a blog about the different tasks you can potentially outsource that you might not have thought about. Please refer to the “Blog” section of my website for the 2 blogs I’ve published on 26/1/2021 and 31/1/2021. In my blogs, you can find out more info about some of the benefits of using outsourcing services and how outsourcing services work.
If you refer to the “Services” section of my website, go to the section “Tasks You Can Outsource” if you want to get some ideas what tasks and services you can outsource to virtual staff to help you build your business or side hustle while you have a full-time job.
I’m in the same situation as you as having a 9-5 commitment working on a project for the next few months on site makes it very challenging to speak to people during business hours.
However, I’ve partnered with various people and companies so I’m leveraging my time by utilising the services of people I’ve partnered with. This is the way I found where I can have my own business but not feel like I’m in business by myself.
If there’s a will, there’s a way if your “why” is big enough to overcome any challenges that come your way. You need to be clear on “why” you want to have a business more than the money as the financial reward is the outcome.
The potential financial reward alone is not always a strong enough reason to have a business to give you the motivation to keep going when times get tough.
If you continue to focus on how you can help people through your service offering then you will never go wrong if you keep following your heart’s true desire.
Hope this information helps you. Wishing you all the very best in your business idea. It sounds like you have a great service offering so keep going and never give up. Good luck with everything.
Kind regards,
Mel -
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