Currently I´m thinking of starting my own business. I want to provide financial knowledge to creative persons such as musicians, actors and artists. Since several years I´m acting within both fields: music and finance. The focus shall be on financial psychological support. I want to enable clients to obtain a better understanding of financial topics and how to deal better with money.
Being employed vs. self-employed
Thinking about starting my own business is nothing new to me. Since I graduated high school I have been in a constant consideration and evaluation process of joining a big company in order to enforce a management position or to run my own business. Here´s the outcome: Since I graduated I never seriously turned an idea into an own business activity. I only thought about it. The good thing is that I have progressed on the first: I´m part of a big company and I have gathered management experience. Nothing to complain about my current salary and the job itself.
However I need to admit that thoughts are getting stronger in terms of implementing my business idea into reality. I want to serve people. That´s what I´m missing as part of my current position. Acting as a servant means that I feel a deep intrinsic motivation to support my clients. This sounds ridiculous as obviously it should be one of the main factors when launching a new service. But it´s true. I enjoy when I´m able to enable people to understand things they were facing lack of knowledge or understanding. It´s satisfying to recognize having a positive impact on people.
I have been checking this business approach in terms of my personality, my skills and my interests. I´m concluding that running this business as a freelance consultant is in line with all of the three mentioned. What makes me confident is that in 2018 I went through „Mach was du kannst*“ by Aljoscha Neubauer. The mentioned content has provided useful insights in order to decide when it´s worth to focus on something. It has emphasized when it´s worth to put effort on a specific topic.
Selection process
After going through the mentioned I created a list of job opportunities which I´m interested in based on the jobs listed within the book. During the recent years I have evaluated if the listed opportunities are in line with my skills and my personality. From time to time I have reduced the list to figure out the opportunities which provide the highest matching score in terms of my interests AND skills AND personality.
As it´s not obvious it´s worth to mention here: I have a lot of interests. But I have limited skills. Additionally based on scientific research my personality is set at least when compared to the factors as part of the Big five model. I´m aware that there have been lot of amendments and additions in terms of the Big five. But nevertheless I still consider them as serving well. I have cross-checked them when being confronted with daily situations. Meaning when being within my routines and usual behavior which I consider as „normal“. As a result I have established a scale for each of the five factors which I consider as relatively stable. This being said in first instance it´s worth to stick to on which area I made my dot. Furthermore it´s wasted effort to put effort on topics which are outside of my marked area.
My current restriction
Usually people do not start something new as they feel a certain kind of restriction. As I have not started my business yet probably I feel a restriction too. I do not want to hide or restrict myself. My current position is within finance too. That´s why I cannot start my own business as long as I´m part of my current employer due to competitive reasons and potential interest conflicts. That´s understandable. There´s nothing to discuss about.
The interesting point will be if I will accept this restriction and continue being employed or if I will leave the company in order to run my own business. As I´m forcing a specific and very small niche („financial psychological support for creative persons“) I do not see an opportunity to run this as part of my current employer. Likely that the business field is to small respectively less in profit for an established German Dax corporation.
No need to run away
As mentioned above: I´m far away of being dissatisfied with my current position. I do not see myself running away from something in the case that I will leave the company. It´s more about the fact that it´s driving me to something new, something differently. That´s comparable when going on travels: Some people go on travels in order to get rid of their previous lives. They try to forget about everything what has happened in the past. But there are also some people who enjoy their current environment. For these kind of people it´s more that they feel that another environment might also be pleasant to them.
I do consider myself as being part of the second group. I never complained about my current employer. Working in an office is something which I enjoy. In addition I have created a strong network within our building. Everyday I could share lunch with a different person. I don´t like people who sign a contract and then start complaining about the working circumstances. Why did you sign the contract? is what I immediately ask. I do not feel like sitting in a „Hamsterrad“. That´s a German phrase to describe people who are doing the same thing everyday basically just for money.
Working habits
It´s true that most of my days do look and feel the same. It´s also true that my biggest driving force to head to the office is driven by the fact that I´m getting paid well. But I do not consider this as a burden. In fact I´m proud of being able to provide my skills as part of my current team. On Sunday evenings, I never think of „Damn, tomorrow it´s Monday again“. Actually Mondays are some of the best days. Usually I´m feeling relaxed and empowered with new energy rather than when compared to a Friday afternoon.
That´s one reason why I changed to a four-days contract. I did not enjoy the lack of energy I was facing on Friday afternoons. As a conclusion I have canceled the whole day. Since one year I´m not heading to the office on Fridays anymore. I´m primarily using this time to focus on my music: Recording, writing or just playing the guitar. I assume that me being a musician is also one reason why I did not start my own business yet: If I want to be a full-time musician I should spend my full-time in pursuing it. Running my own business as a freelance consultant in a second hand sounds that I´m not convinced of my creative output. As a conclusion I need something in addition to make it a living.
Running a business vs. artistic expression
I´m not aware if this is true or a valid thought but it´s the thought which is coming into my mind when thinking about running my own business. Famous artists became successful because they dedicated their life to their arts. That´s my impression. The musicians I enjoy, I enjoy them as the artists they are. I do not want to know if they´re running businesses besides their artistic expression. Will anyone take me seriously as an artist if I act like a business person running my own business in parallel?
Seriously I should not waste any thought about what people think what drives me more: Making music or being a freelance consultant. Currently I´m thinking about the following: As long as I do not have more than 50,000 monthly listeners it should not be an issue to run a business in parallel. If I do have less than 50,000 monthly listeners I´m far away from being a „star“ hence people will not take any note of my further activities. The artists which I admire and which have less than 50,000 monthly listeners I still consider them as being „normal“ persons. I assume that most of them run a job in parallel to make it a living.
As I have always done two things in parallel (making music and gathering profound skills in finance) I never reached a remarkable success in one of my fields. I´m not able to say No to one of them. This came up to my mind more than four years ago. As it´s still valid it seems that it will stay stable. Running my own business by providing financial knowledge to other musicians sounds like an opportunity to combine both of my fields.
How to charge clients
In the case I will run my own business I will start with a „Pay what you want“ approach which gives me less pressure on how to charge clients. Currently I do not see a comparable service related to the German market which makes it difficult to value my service so for now I will leave it with my client. I´m not afraid of not making money. I´m trusting in the following phrase which has been taken out of Napoleon Hill´s „Think and grow rich*“: „If you´re valuable, the capitalistic system will do the rest.“. I know by heart that my service is valuable for the people which I want to serve.
Influences
These thoughts were influenced by Derek Sivers „Hell Yeah or No*“ and Guy Kawasaki´s „The Art of the Start 2.0*“ which I´m currently on. I detected Sivers as part of DistroKid when I was searching for a new distributor. I´m aware of Kawasaki´s publication since several years. In 2018 I read one chapter as the publication was part of the books free to read at the area of the reception when I was staying at a hostel in Singapore. I decided to buy it once it feels like the suitable moment.
Any thoughts on this can be sent privately to send@realthoughts.me or publicly via the comment function below
Martin
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