Things I've Learnt So Far. Number One- There Really is No 'Back-Office' Here!

Hi- and welcome to this second edition of ‘The Mix’: the occasional blog through which I’ll be sharing news and reflections on my journey into self-employment, also learnings and resources that can hopefully be of use to you- wherever your own journey is taking you!

In today’s outing, we focus on time management.  Or we will… as long as we have time!  I think we just about have- if we are quick.  Let’s dive straight in.  I’m calling this one….

Things I’ve learnt in my first six months of Self-Employment- Number One- There Really is No Back-Office!  

It’s Monday morning, so I’m going to spend some time sorting out my expenses.  Just like when I was an employed person, this is a task I’ve been putting off for several weeks- and am only getting round to it now, when the pile of receipts (from coffees with customers; train tickets around town; trips to the Post Office for printer paper, etc) has become too sprawling and unwieldy to any longer ignore.  Unlike when I was part of a well-oiled corporate machine however- there is no Finance Department here at Jonathan Baker Consultancy (I’m pretty sure; I’ve had a good look around)- so whatever admin needs doing- I’m going to have to do it myself.

Actually, it was even more daunting the first time the pile of receipts began bursting out of my wallet around a month or so into my new self-employed life.  No finance department within my fledgling enterprise, I realised, meant there was no expense process in place whatsoever- meaning I would have to set one up from scratch.   An afternoon lost in Excel Spreadsheet World was to follow, punctuated by a visit to the Post Office to purchase a serious-looking black ‘A4’-size binder, duly labelled: ‘JBC-Expenses’.  The appropriately-filed receipt for that stationery purchase became my first record of business-related spending- to be deducted for taxation purposes, when the time comes (my accountant having ensured me that This Is A Thing).  By teatime, a fundamental truth of self-employment had dawned on me: There Really Is No Back-Office Here.  I really am, to all administrative intents and purposes, On My Own.

During the ensuing months, the list of back-office functions discovered to be unserviced by any specialist department has continued to grow.  IT, Marketing, Social Media, Facilities- you name it- here at Jonathan Baker Consultancy, we don’t have it!  In the absence of any such reassuring in-house expertise, I have realised some kind of system will be needed, lest I am to spend so much time taking care of niche administrative matters that the rather important business of finding and helping customers would fail to happen altogether.  My very own ‘Terrific Triaging’ system has emerged- which is serving me well, so far at least.  It consists of sorting out all this ‘non-customer-facing’ stuff into three categories- as follows:

 …. Category ‘A’-  Fiddly but actually quite easy.  Just get on with it!

This is where the expenses spreadsheet and the serious-looking black folder come in!  Some time spent keeping on top of our business-related spending is inevitable- but nobody is going to pay us for it, so the key is to get a simple but effective system that works for us in place, then to use it! 

How do we know if we are succeeding?  My own rule of thumb- if I can open my wallet without fourteen bus-tickets/coffee receipts/business cards falling out of it in an ungainly heap- then I am clearly operating at an acceptable level of efficiency!  Which may mean I have time for some of the tasks in…

 …. Category ‘B’-  Complex but interesting to learn…. Commit some time! 

Having decided that my new business needed a website, my initial thought was to hire a developer- but then I remembered one of the golden rules of The Rebel Business School, whose practical, no-nonsense approach to helping cash-strapped would-be entrepreneurs ‘Start-Up on a Shoestring’ had first inspired me to dream of making my own leap of faith. ‘Business is about making money, not spending money’, goes the rule- and I remembered how the Rebel School’s online resources included a guide to the various ‘Build Your Own Website’ platforms available.  The attractive range of templates offered by Wix thereby caught my eye- and approximately three days of cutting, pasting, colour-co-ordinating and tinkering with their (relatively) user-friendly jigsaw-like design interface later, I was the proud owner of the very website whose blog you are now reading! The cost?  Equivalent to approximately three coffees a month (with completely free options also available for the very cash-strapped/economically-inclined ‘Starter-Up’)!

Could I have saved myself the time and paid somewhat more for a specialist to take on this unfamiliar technical challenge?  Absolutely.  Would it have cost me money I didn’t really have to spare?  Also yes!  Would I have been able to indulge my creative side by spending a weekday morning wandering around the park with a takeaway coffee in hand taking blurry close-up pictures of the daffodils which I could justify as ‘work-time’ as they were going to feature on my homepage?   Not really.  Case for Committing Some Quality Time to Making My Own Website absolutely made!  Meaning that I have saved myself some money which can now be diverted towards tasks within…

 …. Category ‘C’- Not Just Highly Technical, but also Business-Critical.  Hire an Expert!

In designing my website, I could be fairly relaxed about making mistakes- a good job, as my cack-handed attempts at desktop publishing led to a disappearing ‘About’ Page, beautifully crafted paragraphs that ran off the sides of the browser window never to return, and sudden leaps in text-size along the range from ‘microscopically minute’ up to ‘glaringly ginormous’.   All quite problematic to resolve- but nowhere near as existentially significant as the horrors that would surely result if I was to turn my technophobic traits towards the servicing of my entire IT operation! 

And so- realising that no in-house helpline would come to my rescue were I to pour a steaming cup of coffee on my laptop, or inadvertently delete its every folder while attempting to edit a single excel document (both very real possibilities, let’s face it)- I determined that some relevant expertise was more than worth paying for.  A google search of IT specialists in the Stockport area led me to the very man I needed, in the form of Damian Holland from ’‘SR Computers- who in a single and comprehensively-diligent appointment returned my ageing lap-top to ‘good as new’ functioning, as well as making sure all my unlosable data was safely backed-up in case of any future calamity.  A fantastic relief, and well worth the affordable fee! 

With Damian now available at the end of an email to take care of IT matters, my ‘Terrific Triaging’ system for the effective running of my ‘back-office’ is helping me to keep the ‘front-end’ of my business moving.  I’m sure it’s not perfect yet though- and I’d love to hear how others manage to keep on top of all of our administrative ‘stuff’, so we can focus as much as possible on doing what we love to do and makes our living (employed or self-employed, really..!)- ie, helping and serving our customers!  All tips and learns I am sure will be very gratefully received by all- so please do share…

 …. Coming up in future editions of ‘The Mix’:   

•            Community Funding tips/ news of some help I’ll be offering on that theme

•            Reflections on the loneliness of the self-employed consultant (and ways of mitigating…)

•            A review of the coffee shops of Stockport, rating them for the comfort and functionality of their environments for lone-working (and possibly also for their coffee). 

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