As I drove around Columbus, Georgia this weekend it appeared that many small businesses have been forced to close. However, my storefront survey only told part of the story. Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article on Americans starting small businesses during the coronavirus. Interestingly, the writers conclude that “Americans are starting new businesses at the fastest rate in more than a decade, according to government data, seizing on pent-up demand and new opportunities after the pandemic shut down and reshaped the economy.” You can read the full article here.

You may have left the corporate workforce or are thinking about leaving. You may be a veteran getting ready to transition out of the service. You may be thinking about starting your own company. What would a blueprint look like for starting up a business in the pandemic?

The Fivecoat Consulting Group started in earnest in March when I started blogging and building it into a leadership training and business consulting firm. It has been a fun ride trying to get the business going during the pandemic. Over the nine months I have developed a process for blogging, learned how to build and run a web page, learned how to use MailChimp, developed a sales funnel, made sales, delivered leadership talks, helped a business improve its sales, and helped a company enhance its veteran hiring and retention, all while being my own boss. Since I’m neither an attorney nor accountant so please consult the professionals before you proceed.

A Small Business Blueprint

• Determine Your Risk Tolerance — I have a new found respect for the small business owner. Whatever you make or don’t make in sales in a small business determines what you take home. If you are not ready to go months without income (or the converse to have months when you are swamped with work) a small business may not be the right fit for you. Understand that 80 percent of start ups close within five years, 15 percent survive, and 5 percent are highly successful.

• Determine Your Corporate Strategy — There are several key decisions to make.

  • Are you going to do Leadership Training, Executive Coaching, Business Consulting, Speeches, Sell a Service, or Make a Product?

  • Are you going to do this in-person or virtually?

  • Do you want a co-founder/partner?

  • What is your core product?

  • How are you going to differentiate yourself from the competition?

  • How are you going to establish yourself in the market? A physical store or office, blog posts, LinkedIn posts, Instagram, Facebook, or a Podcast are all ways to help get your business in front of potential customers.

  • What is your passive income device? Book, recorded webinars, or on-line courses are all options.

  • What does your ideal customer look like?

• Determine your financing — are you going to bootstrap (using your own money or revenue from the company), take a loan or take on investors?

  • I recommend bootstrapping until you see if your product is viable in the marketplace.

• Learn as much as you can

  • Read books — I recommend New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg, The Consultant with Pink Hair by Cal Harrison, Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller, and Making Money is Killing Your Business by Chuck Blakeman

  • Listen to podcasts — Tara McMullin’s What Works and Mariah Coz’s The Mariah Coz Show (She stopped doing podcasts at the end of 2019) have been useful.

  • Read blogs — I recommend Becky McCray’s Small Biz Survival and Buffer’s Blog are helpful.

  • Talk to others who are doing it.

• Establish Your Limited Liability Corporation and get your Employer Identification Number (EIN). At least in Georgia, the LLC is done by a lawyer and submitted to your state government. Once you have the LLC you can apply for the EIN through the federal government.

  • Before selecting your name, check the web for similar domain names and similar acronyms. For instance TFCG is also the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group. The name is important for Search Engine Optimization and getting your company to show up first when someone does an internet search.

  • A recommendation is to create a new word for your company name by combining parts of two words (I didn’t do this and should have.)

• Get a corporate checking account and corporate credit card.

• Organize your home office.

• Establish a daily routine — every day you need to do something for your business’s marketing, your content, your sales, your brand, and your current and future projects. This is challenging, especially for people who have had a schedule dictated by corporate battle rhythms for years. See Post #34 for more on Battle Rhythm.

• Create and Build Your Web Page. Conceptualize your web page as your store front.

  • I used Squarespace to build my web site. It has dozens of templates to help get you started.

  • I found Paige Brunton’s blog very easy to understand on how to build and improve a Squarespace web site. She also has a podcast I found useful.

• Expenses — these are some of my expenses.

  • Health and dental insurance — I was fortunate to have Tricare and dental provided by the government due to my 24 years of service on active duty in the US Army.

  • Business insurance

  • Web page — Squarespace

  • Professional pictures for the web page — Squarespace

  • Professional head shots — Local photographer

  • Connectivity — internet, Zoom, Teams, MailChimp, LinkedIn Premium

  • Corporate branded stuff (if needed)

    • Pens

    • Hats

    • Shirts

    • Cards

    • Challenge coins

• Develop Content — I blog twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays prior to 7:00 AM EDT. My blog is here. My blog topics are exceptional organizations, leadership, great teams, superb culture, and processes. Writing about these topics forced me develop my ideas better, create a 500 to 1,000 word article twice a week, and create content that can be used for a book or an on-demand course in the future. Also watching the number of views of the blog post gives me an idea of what topics or concepts are more popular than others with potential customers.

• Talk to your customers, or potential customers, and get feedback.

• Develop your email list — the email list is your most important resource since it contains your most loyal customers. You also own your email list — you are not at the mercy of ever changing algorithms on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Work to grow the email list every week. A good goal for the email list is 500 people by the end of your first year.

  • MailChimp — I use MailChimp to help track my contacts, send out my blog posts, and send out special offers to my email list.

• Develop your passive income device. A passive income device is something that you put the work into it up front and then you can sell it without using your time and energy. A good passive income device provides recurring revenue for you while you work your in-person engagements. Here are four ideas:

  • Book — I am working on a book for the Currahee Mountain Leadership Experience. Pre-Sales are open here.

  • Recorded webinars

  • An on-demand course — This is my next endeavor after the book is finished.

  • Intellectual property

  • Products

• Marketing

  • I have done three free webinars, been on one podcast, written two free book reviews, and written a free article as a way to market my services. Most of the links to these events or articles are here.

  • I have posted 68 blog posts on my website and on LinkedIn.

  • I have not done any ads, but will try them in 2021.

• Sales

  • A good rule of thumb is that it takes 10 calls or emails to make one sale. Persistence is key to making the sale.

  • A couple of ideas on sales are in Post #31 — F3AD and Post #36 — Annual Sales Plan.

• Contracts — once you have made a sale, both you and the client need to sign a contract. You may also need an invoice.

• Deliver the work — your best tool is providing your client an unforgettable training event, excellent coaching, great business advice, or a superb speech.

• Track your data — it is important to know your numbers so you know what is working and what isn’t.

• Pay your quarterly estimated income taxes to both the federal government and your state government.

• Follow Up — develop your plan for how you are going to follow-up with the client.

• Make mistakes and learn from them — keep putting one foot in front of the other and making your business better. You have to have this mentality as a small business owner. You are going to make mistakes and maybe even fail, but if you continue to learn from the experience you can turn your small business into one of the 20 percent that survive and thrive.

There is never a perfect time to start a company. But, as the Nike saying goes, “Just Do It.” My blueprint is one of many but for some of you it may provide the jumpstart to stand up your own company. If there is something you want to know more about, put it in the comments or send me an email. Good luck! And enjoy the challenge of being a small business owner in these unprecedented times.