Taking the business from 'me' to 'we'

January 20, 2024: This year is off to the races. I will write this as weekly email for the remainder of the year. Bear with me.

If we haven't met yet, welcome! Shoot me message, would love to connect.

Transparently, I’m still finding someone to close the financial books for 2023 for the consulting business. Once that is done, I’ll write the end of year summary. If you want to read the quarterly results, they are here: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 (pending).

Last year I intentionally underinvested in the business. Processes, documentation, automation, etc. Why?

Well for 2 reasons:

1. The plan was to be a 1-person shop. And I would rather go to the park with my son than write an SOP on sending invoices.

2. The main priority of a solo consultant is to focus on sales. Too many fall in love with non-revenue generating activities and ultimately go broke. If it wasn’t sales, I didn’t care.

Well that all started to change in Q4 of last year. I made the decision to treat this consulting venture as a real business. More on why soon. The volume of work coming in meant I was falling behind on invoices, client status, etc. because of my lack of processes.

What a good problem to have.

Hiring offshore gave me the scale needed to recognize that I wasn’t building a 1-person company anymore. I will talk more about offshoring this year. What an absolute game changer.

This year the plan is take the industry by storm (bootstrapped storm, anyways).

I’ll share more details in the coming weeks as plans start to unfold.

What I realized in my early conversations this year is how poorly ‘we’ve conveyed the size of the business today, the number of projects completed last year (31), and our ambitions publicly.

A few things I need help with this year:

• Big theme: grow business brand to drive inbound vs relying on my personal brand 100%

  • Marketing - specifically branding the business and growing a following on our LinkedIn page. Any tips?

  • Marketing - website and SEO advice.

• Big theme: financial acumen

  • I want to learn the financial side of the business world better this year. I can’t find my business undergrad accounting and finance class books. Starting fresh.

Pumped to share more this year. Lots more in the works.

Reply to this email if there’s a specific topic (personal or professional) you’d like me to explore.

The End

2024 is about growth for me. I'd love to grab coffee/chai or jump on a quick call. Shoot me a text and we can schedule something. 404-731-7814. Go big! - Nik Fuller Sta