Category Archives: Young Professional

Chipping Away at New Product Development

By: Jarrod Mains

What do you know about product development? If you are like me when I decided to start a company that makes a new golf training aid, then nothing! I had zero experience designing, producing, building, managing, sourcing, or engineering a new product. The only thing I have ever done professionally is sell. But I was very passionate about this product my next door neighbor invented and I truly believe that it makes people who use it a better golfer. So we decided to start Perfect Shot Golf Loft, LLC.

I have learned the hard way that the most difficult part of developing a new product is getting the design and manufacturing set up. The initial steps you take during this process are crucial. I could not afford to make any mistakes as my budget was very limited, but like anything you haven’t done in life before, you live and you learn. I have listed several of the lessons I learned during my product development cycle over the past 18 months below with the hope that they can help you develop your own product quickly, efficiently, and as equally important: within your budget!

Lesson #1 – Do your research.

I’ve always liked the saying, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” I’ve never started a job I hadn’t researched and crunched numbers for prior to beginning and this venture was no different. Knowledge is power and the more knowledge you have, the better off you will be. Before starting a business you need to research the entire industry you are looking to enter and dissect any/all information available. Developing a business plan and researching how to make it happen is by far the most important step before you decide to start your own company.

Again, I had ZERO product development experience and really didn’t know what I was getting into but was so confident this product was going to be successful, that I didn’t care. I was focusing on what was going to happen several steps away, looking forward to the point where I had inventory to sell. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be so hard to get to that point! There is only so much you can do during the development stage as a sales/marketing guy. So like any smart CEO would do when he didn’t know what to do, I hired a consultant.

In August 2014, we sent our home built prototype to a company we contracted with in Buffalo, NY to look it over so they could build us a more professional, consumer ready product. They succeeded in doing this about eight months later. Which brings me to my next lesson…

Lesson #2 – Don’t contract with a design firm that is so far away.

The design stage of developing a product is critical. The more you can communicate and meet with your designers the better off you will be. Sam (my business partner) and I are in Florida; the consultants we hired were in Buffalo, NY. While we did do some Skype sessions and conference calls, it’s not the same as being able to drive down the street and check to see how your project is coming along.

Looking back, there were many small things these design consultants messed up which could have been avoided had we been closer to point things out sooner. Whenever somebody messes something up in the design stage, it not only costs time, but costs money too! Of course there will be some trial and error along the way, but the errors they made were pretty standard requests.

Sam was a foreman on large scale projects such as building power plants and skyscrapers, so he was very specific with how he wanted his invention built (our “blueprint”) yet these guys kept getting measurements wrong, spacing off, and all sorts of other things that seemed simple to us. We thought we were pretty clear as to what we were asking for and they always said they understood, but whenever we got a new part or sample piece the changes we asked for and things we stressed were not done properly until the second, third, fourth time.

For example, it was very frustrating having to tell professional design engineers to make sure the holes in the stakes are close enough together to where you have to squeeze the poles together providing more stability and friction on the unit, yet it takes them nine tries to get it right!

Lesson #3 – If possible, pay for the project as a whole, not on an hourly basis.

Design engineers are like lawyers. If you let them, they will rack up billable hours! We had the option upfront in this firm’s proposal to pay for the project as a whole, but we decided to go with the hourly option and have them send us monthly invoices for the time they spent working on our project. Maybe they were making all those mistakes referenced above on purpose to run up the bill on us, who knows. But we had to learn the expensive way that it would have been much better to pay one lump sum for the project instead of leaving it open to the engineers to “work” on it at their own discretion will while working on other projects for their other clients simultaneously.

This company itemized their hours so I was able to see how much time they claimed they were working on each portion of the product. After looking at the monthly invoices each month, I was getting fed up of seeing some of the same stuff on there each and every month for things that should have been completed already. Again, being so far away and never meeting these guys in person was a big mistake. The trust factor was lacking.

Lesson #4 – Search for vendors yourself.

Again, I had to learn this the hard/expensive way! The consultants we hired claimed they already had resources in place to get us all the parts we needed in their initial proposal. We soon figured out that was far from reality as they were simply searching online for vendors and charging us to do it. After a few months I finally asked them why it was costing us so much for them to search for vendors and why it was taking so long to find these resources they claimed they already had in place. After that conversation, I decided to take over this aspect of the process myself.

If you don’t search for your own vendors – which isn’t hard, just time consuming – you pay engineers $90+ per hour to do it for you! The consultants initially got us three quotes on injection molds, all of which were over $100,000. I made the mistake of simply sending them websites saying, “Hey look into these guys,” not knowing they were still going to charge me so much money to gather these quotes.

I finally told them to stop searching for vendors, I’ll do that from now on. And boy was that a great decision! I not only saved money by searching myself, I saved money by finding better priced vendors for virtually every part we needed! Plus, I learned a lot about manufacturing while doing my searches and talking to these vendors so this move was quite beneficial.

Lesson #5– Plan for your product to take longer than expected.

Our objective when we first started was to have a finished product in time for the start of golf season, spring of 2015. That didn’t happen. Designing and ordering custom parts that don’t exist yet takes longer than you probably think. For one, it was tough to find vendors in the USA to do it at a reasonable cost, so lots of times we had to get sample parts from China…which means waiting for them to get here. If you don’t want to spend the extra money on shipping overnight internationally – which can add up quick – you have to wait longer. But time is money so you have to consider what is best for your situation.

Around June of 2015, the product was finally designed the way we wanted it and we had found vendors for most of the parts. Now we were finally ready to go to production! Except there was one more problem…we didn’t have enough money to pay for the injection molds. All of our start-up funds went into product development and legal fees (patents, trademarks, operating agreements, etc.). While we could make our product cheaper and “dumb it down” a little bit, we don’t want to do that.

We want this to be the Cadillac of golf training aids instead of being like most of the other cheap crap out there on the market. We want people to use this product for years, not just once or twice and throw it away like a lot of other goofy golf gadgets. I’m smart enough to know that cheap doesn’t last and you get what you pay for, I’m a big believer in that. If we start cutting corners now and cheapening our product, it’s going to cause us more work and cost us more money in the long run. And we can’t afford that. So we decided to build it the right way rather than the quick and cheap way.

I hope these lessons and our company’s start-up experience have helped you understand the product development stage in some way. While it does require hard work, I want to encourage you to go for it, just be mindful of what it takes to be successful. We have passed a big road block but the route has only begun as we have many more obstacles to navigate through. Stay tuned for my next article on fundraising and creating a crowd funding campaign. Until then, to be continued… GOLFLOFTNoBackGround-500X500

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Jarrod Mains is the CEO of Perfect Shot Golf Loft, LLC. He has many years of experience working in the professional sports industry with a variety of leagues and in a variety of roles. He earned his MBA in Sports Management from Florida Atlantic University. He can be reached here.

The WIMS Guide Pivot

I originally launched my blog, The WIMS Guide a little over a year now, and have been writing sporadically ever since. I mostly receive positive feedback with each post, which is nice, but to be brutally honest with myself it wasn’t going anywhere. And to keep doing it in that perpetually half-assed manner is just not in my nature. So I made it a point to redo the blog in order to breathe new life into and to tweak the approach as well. Here’s a brief overview of the concept, let me know what you think and perhaps even go one step further – and actually subscribe.

Now I read a ton daily, not just books but lots of blogs and how-to articles like “The Top X Things to Improve Your Y” type stuff. A lot of them are just subtly trying to sell you stuff, and usually they’re written by some intern but placed under the by-line of a famous entrepreneur or a partner at a large firm who most likely didn’t even read it before posting (I know this because I used to and still write for some).

I’m not just trying to bash Inc., Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Elite Daily, etc. of the world as a lot of their content is quality. However so much of what’s out there is the same. Its lessons learned, tips to keep in mind, success stories from people who have already made it. At times I love reading them of course, but other times I’d prefer a different approach and angle.

So, rather than focus solely on the destination, I want to create content that focuses more on the journey. I want stories, insights, and life hacks from the people who are still in the trenches, scratching and clawing their way to success but haven’t quite made it yet. I want to read the words of the hungry hustlers and learn what they’re doing on a daily basis to achieve their goals.

We live in a world today that anyone can realistically become a pseudo-celebrity. With the compounding nature of our social networks, any one of you can create a massive following and loyal audience. I want The WIMS Guide to help enable that, not by only writing content myself, but with A LOT of help from my friends.

I’ve enlisted the help from members of my network, spanning across an extremely diverse range of backgrounds and expertise. The content will be primarily geared towards entrepreneurship and ways to enhance the daily grind in the lives of young professionals but with an occasional curve ball thrown in there to keep you on your toes.

We’re going to have entrepreneurs, consultants, health care professionals, bloggers, MBA students, lawyers, bankers, accountants, real estate brokers, investors, and on and on. The main goal is to provide an outlet to empower and raise each other up rather than focusing so much on celebrity entrepreneurs that we don’t even know.

If you have a compelling story you’d like to share, or know someone that does please send an email to [email protected] with an overview of the concept. If you’re not a writer but want to share your thoughts on the concept, I’d love to hear that too.

Finally, to end with a shameless plug: please make sure to subscribe and share!

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Start Preparing for 2016 NOW: Gain Momentum Heading Into Next Year

It’s now December 2015 (wow that’s crazy to think about!) and we have one month left in the year. While New Year Resolutions typically get all the rage around this time, this year I’ve been trying something much different so I can hit 2016 with serious momentum. Why wait to get started on getting better at a mostly arbitrary point of time?

Personally, it’s the beginning of week 7 of sticking to a legit workout/training regime. I’ve been working on improving my Spanish almost daily in the same amount of time as well. And, I just relaunched my new website and blog. Sure I could’ve waited until January 1 to begin, but why when now is the perfect time to begin getting better (or even better: yesterday).

Of course that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy the holidays and indulge in the parties, family time, and especially great food and drinks. However, you should simultaneously begin planning for next year as well, both personally and professionally (this post will stick to the “professionally” part). Otherwise January 1^st is going to smack you in the face with the inevitable onset of panic and regret.

Here is my list of the top 5 things to consider, plan for, and think about implementing in your business, etc. for next year. Of course there are about a million others, but for brevity’s sake (if you’re into the whole brevity thing) I’ll keep it short so you can get back to your holiday shenanigans.

Rethink Money.

This may seem obvious but cash, checks, and credit cards aren’t the only way to pay for things, nor to get paid for the products and services your business provides. Electronic currency is extremely convenient and safe. For example, it’s quite common that I get paid for a project via PayPal (whether via their PayPal account or their credit card), and subsequently pay a company expense via my PayPal debit card or by transferring immediately afterwards. All this without having to deal with a bank in the middle or crazy credit card transaction fees.

There are also a ton of benefits in using Venmo, Square, Apple Pay, etc. Lastly, while it may take a little more time to yet to go mainstream, I’d also be thinking about how to implement BitCoin into your business as well.

CRM & Marketing Automation

I’ve been preaching this one for years now, yet people still keep pushing it off because of the perception of extremely high costs both monetarily and in resource allocation. Sure a well implemented and administered CRM and Marketing Automation program remains a relatively expensive investment. But the cost of not utilizing these tools is even greater, and the ROI more than makes up for it.

While you may not want to admit it, your competitors most likely have a program either operational or at least in the works. Soon just having one isn’t going to be enough to remain competitive either, as economies of scale will be reached and adjustments will be made. There are approaches and methods to get a program implemented in a cost effective manner, and I’d love to be your resource to show you how.

Content Marketing: Video in Particular

Content marketing includes your blog, social media posts, ebooks, how-to guides, white papers, podcasts, etc. (You do have a content marketing strategy, right?) All of these will remain extremely valuable in 2016 of course and leveraging them is still a great marketing strategy, however the one that will continue to trump them all is video. Again, this isn’t anything new, however the impact of video is going to continue growing even more. Whether you begin leveraging 6 second Vine clips, hour long webinars, or 20 minute “fireside chat” videos like my boy Gary V, you really need to think of creative ways to incorporate videos into your 2016 strategy.

I’ll admit this hasn’t been a strong suit of mine in the past either, which is why I made it my mission to partner up with an excellent team to not only deliver video services to my clients, but for my personal/WIMS, Inc. 2016 video content strategy as well.

Online: Improve Mobile

You most likely already have a website, and maybe you’ve even incorporated some SEO to the back end as well. You’re absolutely set now right? Not quite. The numbers showing how many people are now solely viewing website content on their mobile devices is staggering. Fortunately, most website publishing and template companies like WordPress and Wix come with complementary mobile optimization capabilities. But if you created your website a long time ago, or if you haven’t tested your mobile site recently there may still be some issues. It’s well worth getting this right now.

Extending this further is the still growing world of mobile apps. I won’t say that you absolutely need to create an app right now for your business to survive, but if you can identify potential value in having one then it’s at least worth exploring. Costs to create them have been significantly reduced due to economies of scale and improved technique. There’s even a free tool called Yapp that allows you to build a bare-bones version of an app, and it’s definitely worth taking a look.

Operations: Reduce Costs; Increase Productivity & Sales

You may think you’re already operating on a bare bones budget, and perhaps you are. But there are always areas to cut back on, especially for mid-large professional services firms. The biggest area is human resources, and by extension the overhead to support it. You may love having an in-house marketing department and beautiful office space for vanity purposes. In reality though, rather than allocating such extensive resources that aren’t very efficient you could pay for work output and space as needed, rather than 24/7 in the form of salaries, benefits and a huge office location. You can dramatically reduce costs while improving efficiency and productivity, which in turn will increase revenue and profit margins. There obviously isn’t one perfect way to go about this but it certainly worth thinking about objectively.

Hopefully you’ll find at least one or two, if not all of these insights valuable as you begin winding down the year and preparing for next year. If nothing else I hope they at least get you thinking and the wheels turning. The main thing I want to reiterate is to not forget your goals and lose focus for an entire month. There are 31 days left to do great work, crush some of your lingering goals, and hit 2016 with serious momentum. I guarantee you won’t wake up on January 1^st regretting that you did.

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The New WIMS Inc: Putting In-House Marketing Departments on Notice

Unlike my typical blog posts, this one is certainly going to piss people off, including current and former colleagues, friends, clients, and prospects. While I usually try to avoid that, I can’t any longer as some things just need to be said. Change can be a scary and complicated thing, but there’s just a better way to do business and it’s nothing personal.

Now, the trend of outsourcing is far from a new or innovative concept. Yet companies like professional services firms continue to allocate extremely high budgets of $500,000-$1,000,000 and often much more to their in-house marketing departments. They do this despite the fact that they could spend a fraction of the cost while simultaneously getting significantly better service and results.

Regardless if you prefer to keep your team in house or to use a consulting firm, one thing is constant in either case, you need to DEMAND to see ROI. There are some advantages to keeping the team in-house I’ll admit that, but you should at least be able to make an apples to apples comparison between both approaches.

The way to do that is ROI, the objective metric that evens out all playing fields. I’ve seen many CMO’s apply the “smoke and mirrors” strategy year after year. They avoid accountability by overlooking past failures while waving the amazing, shiny new “marketing strategy” that they’re going to deploy this year. This is often just the old strategy repackaged to appear new however. CEO’s looking to avoid conflict accept it as a cost of doing business and then proceed to kick the can further down the road.

Now while there are plenty of exceptions, as there always are when dealing with people, there’s something I’ve often observed in the corporate world, I call it the “comfort theory.” Essentially, when you’re paying someone a predictable and stable salary it inherently allows most people to start cutting corners and reducing the quality of their work because they can get away with it. Not only is there a reduced quality of work, but why subsidize employee’s internet browsing time and social media addiction when you can just pay for the work that’s actually done. Besides, I doubt they’re going to give you a cut of their fantasy football winnings despite squandering hours a week of your time managing their team.

Don’t just take my word for it, conduct your own experiment and see for yourself. The next time you’re in a meeting with your marketing department demand more out of them or suggest changes, and watch the level of pushback, reluctance, and resistance you get. On the contrary call a consultant about a new project idea and watch them passionately geek out about all the possibilities.

I understand the comfort of familiarity and the status quo believe me, but is it really worth spending $50,000-100,000 on a salary for someone to just write an occasional blog post or article, blankly stare at a twitter feed, or create an occasional ad. You can get the same result or better for a tenth of the cost in many cases.

As another experiment, this Friday afternoon say around 3pm, take a walk around your building and see how empty the offices and cubicles are. The mentality of being an employee and working for your boss vs. being a client and working for your business partner can’t be compared. Working with independent contractors that need your business takes the quality of work to another level. They are mini-CEOs trying to better their lives, they’re not just punching a clock while desperately waiting to leave the office early on Friday afternoon. They’re the ones working at midnight on a Saturday because they’re hungry and ambitious.

You create the best work when you absolutely need to, like when writing a paper the night before it’s due. There’s something about having your life depending on it that generates this hyper-focus of productivity. Imagine having a team of people producing this kind of work every day because that’s how they approach their live, very deliberately.

Typical counter-arguments for in-house departments include things like, “oh but we know the brand so well,” or “what if someone urgently needs a brochure for a sales call?” It may not be a popular sentiment, but people are easily replaceable. We work with various brand guidelines all the time and pick them up very quickly. Also, I’ve seen countless desks with stacks of brochures piled high collecting dust, as much as marketers may try to convince you otherwise, your beautiful brochure is not what’s going to win you new business, relationships are.

Perhaps this post is like that old “Magician’s Greatest Secrets Revealed” show where the masked magician showed you how the tricks were really done and made a lot of magicians extremely angry. If you’re feeling that way right now I hope you take this opportunity to step your game up and prove me wrong.

Changing a decades long mindset of keeping marketing teams in-house is going to require evolution and a rebuilding process, but there’s definitely hope. It will force people to BE BETTER. Think about the Golden State Warriors a few years ago. They were very bad, but they had some decent and promising players, they stuck to their long-term plan to build their team, make a few strategic moves and then a few years later they won a championship. The metaphor is very relative in business as well.

For the sake of full transparency, this long-winded blog post has the additional goal of announcing the new WIMS, Inc. We now offer a complete suite of marketing, CRM, and business development services that are provided for literally a fraction of the total cost you’re paying for your entire marketing department. By leveraging strategic partnerships and a deep team of independent contractors we are now able to offer literally any marketing service, and to any size firm in any industry. If you’re interested in video, we can develop the content, build an entire distribution network, and even create your own online channel. If audio is your thing, we can help with the creation, publishing, and promotion of your own radio show and/or podcast. If you need a website, an ad campaign, online content creation, or social media network, whatever it is you’re looking for, we can help facilitate.

Give us a call or send us an email and we’ll be happy to provide you with a FREE consultation to see if our companies would be a good fit to work together. Part of building strong long-term relationships includes occasionally offering some free advice, which we do happily. What do you have to lose by at least evaluating whether it’s worth pursuing a potential 6-figure a year cost reduction in your marketing expenses?

Cut Your Teeth

Little did I know when I first heard this rather graphic and cringe-worthy phrase how literal it could be. If you haven’t heard it before, this will explain it for you.

But first to quickly digress, after receiving such positive and encouraging feedback from my post last week (if you haven’t read it yet, you can check it out here) I figured why not tell another embarrassing and self-depreciating yet important lesson learned story. That being said, if you want more of these types of posts please let me know, and on the contrary if you’d rather me go back to providing more practical marketing/entrepreneurial advice I can accommodate that as well, regardless I’d love to hear your thoughts! Now back to the story.

A couple months ago on a Friday evening, I had just arrived to Miami for a business trip. I had driven about 11 hours straight on limited sleep as it is after a few late nights working. Needless to say, I was extremely relieved to arrive at my best friend’s place where I was staying that first night and immediately poured a glass of wine after walking through the door. I didn’t even make it through the first glass before getting up to walk to the bathroom. But on the way, disaster struck!

Somehow out of nowhere I fainted, falling face first into his granite sink and literally cut my tooth in half, while chipping several others, and bit through my lip. To add insult to injury my limp body subsequently collapsed into a kitty litter box, which thankfully at least had recently been cleaned out. I came to a few minutes later laying in the litter box, and lots of blood all over me. For full disclosure’s sake, the picture above is not of me, my accident looked much worse.

Luckily my friend and his girlfriend were there to help clean me up, and get me back to the couch where I promptly received 1950’s era medical treatment, i.e. a towel, a bag of ice, and aspirin. Of course I didn’t have health insurance at the time (nor dental) so I essentially had to just suck it up. That’s one of the trade-offs you have to sometimes make when going from a corporate gig to becoming an entrepreneur.

I spent the rest of the weekend sleeping, recovering, and mulling over whether or not to just head home with my tail between my legs and finish recovering with my fiancé in the comforts of my own home. Considering I can be a little vain, and didn’t want people to see me looking like that, I came very close to making that decision. Not to mention I had a feeling my reputation as a partier would generally be considered the culprit for my accident, and I wanted to avoid the condescending, “uh huh, sure that’s how it happened…” comments that would likely ensue.

Obviously, I didn’t make what in hindsight would’ve been a very poor decision or I wouldn’t be telling you this story now. Come Monday morning I decided that despite how much pain I was in, and how bad my face looked, I needed to rally and make the best of the trip.

As an entrepreneur you don’t have the luxury of taking a paid sick day. I knew I desperately needed to close business while I was there so I mustered all the courage I could, bought a BIG bottle of ibuprofen, and got to work.

An hour after making this decision I got a call about an opportunity I hadn’t even anticipated with a potential dream client. Since I was still in town I was able to make some moves, and ended up landing it! That client then led to another big opportunity with another client in Miami as well. Not to mention I was still able to attend the HYPE Awards with an interesting yet lisp-y story to tell.

Not only does being an entrepreneur, or any professional for that matter, require skill, intelligence, and hard work, but it also requires a little grit and relentless determination as well. The easier and comfortable decision is always to give up and call it a day, but that’s not what’s going to make you successful. Sometimes you have to learn by figuratively cutting your teeth, and sometimes it takes literally cutting them to learn what you’re capable of.

Running Out of Runway

Typically I don’t discuss my personal life or experiences in this forum, I now realize how much of a missed opportunity that has been. While people sometimes enjoy reading how-to guides and the “Top 10 Tips for X,” it’s the personal, and hopefully relatable stories that really move people and resonates with them. This story is about the moment when you get the sobering realization that you are speeding rapidly down the runway, and you better take off very soon…

So, a couple of weeks ago, my fiancé and I were invited out to dinner with my future in-laws. Initially it seemed normal enough, and I didn’t think much of it as dinner with them is pretty common. But then all of a suddenly it dawned on me, I was about to get grilled.

To set the scene a bit, while my future father-in-law is one of the nicest men around and we do have a great relationship, he is also a typical alpha-male and very successful self-made entrepreneur in the aviation industry. He knows better than anyone the struggle it is to start your own business, but at the same time he also has his only daughter’s present and future to be concerned about, and he wanted reassurance that both were in good hands.

Now, I’m an eternal optimist for the most part, so I excitedly began telling him about all the amazing opportunities I have going on, the wonderful current clients and projects, the great prospective ones coming up, etc. Success is a foregone conclusion in my mind, and only a matter of time. The thought of failure doesn’t even cross my mind.

Needless to say, he was thoroughly unimpressed. He had heard similar things like this from me before but at this point wanted to see real tangible results. He now wanted me to put a deadline on when, if I wasn’t making enough money that I would give up my dream, face reality and get a real job to make real money. Up until this conversation I hadn’t really made the connection that what some people (like myself) consider optimism, others consider bull shit. I can’t say I blame him. After all, over a very long career he’s seen it all before, and seen many optimistic young men just like me with all the passion in the world still fail.

Gulp!

While I was feeling pretty down after this conversation, I certainly wasn’t going to let it defeat me. After the initial sting wore off I realized that I had two choices: I could take his advice and go update my resume, or I could use it as motivation to light a fire and get back to work.

Obviously I chose the latter, as some of the recent success I’ve been having prior to this was extremely encouraging and I just know that this is what I’m meant to be doing. But I also knew that I needed to tweak my approach.

Now I have simplified my priorities to the following: provide exceptional service for the clients I already have, track my time and bill them regularly (unfortunately collecting is by far the hardest part of being an entrepreneur), and then focus on bringing in new business after the first two are covered.

At the time it was a very awkward and uncomfortable conversation with my future father-in-law, but in hindsight it was very necessary. In the couple weeks since I’ve been much more focused and disciplined in the day-to-day operations of my business. I’ve always had a keen instinct for self-preservation (that’s even more so now that I have others to take care of as well) so there’s really no greater motivation than realizing that if you don’t soon take off, you’re going to crash and burn.

Bootstrappin’: How to Launch Your Business on a Barebones Budget

Starting a business today is far easier than anytime in history. The caveat is that it depends on what type of business however, thus I’m primarily referring to professional service businesses (i.e. consulting, accounting, real estate, photography, legal, etc.). The type that don’t have the overbearing regulations attached to them or endless red tape to acquire permits and licenses, on the contrary those probably have more hurdles than ever (particularly in the US). But if you’re like me, and want to start a consulting or other service business, you can do it quicker and cheaper than ever, not to mention minimize overhead so you can compete with larger competition.

Before I begin, I want to emphasize that every single business is different and has various requirements, so while I’m speaking from a more general manner, please make sure to do the appropriate research regarding your specific industry and niche to make sure everything is legitimate.

Establishing Your Entity: My attorney friends may not be too happy to read this, but you don’t necessarily need one to establish your business. You don’t always need an automated service like Legal Zoom either. If you’re certain of the structure you want to use and don’t plan on having partners (which require more complex operating agreements, etc.) than in most instances you can go directly to the source and bypass additional fees (they can range anywhere from $150 to $1,000+). In my case, WIMS, Inc. was established in Coral Gables, FL so I used Sunbiz and set it all up for around $75. I will say that in most instances seeking counsel from an attorney is invaluable and worth the cost, however.

Website: Nowadays you can create your own website for free, using sites like Wix and 1and1. They have many elaborate templates to choose from so that you don’t have to start from scratch or learn to write code. You can simply swap out generic text for your own as well as graphics to completely customize it. It even ads easy to incorporate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) functionality. The catch of using these for free is that you can’t use your own domain name (they include theirs in the free versions) and there may be some ads. However, it’s quite affordable to create your own domain name (costs typically around $15 a month) if you’d prefer to go that route.

Email: By now it’s no great revelation that you can get great email service for free using Gmail. In most cases businesses can even get away with solely using a Gmail account (not to mention you get the added benefit of the also free Google Docs). However if you want to step up the professionalism a notch and create an email account using your domain name it’s relatively affordable to do so. For example, when I registered my domain name with GoDaddy, it also allowed me to leverage a custom email account via Office365 for about $10 a month. I find both to be well worth the cost.

Blog: Another one that is far from a novel idea, but you can start a blog for free using sites like WordPress (my personal preference) or Blogger. This is a great marketing tool that when coupled with social media can be very powerful, and all it costs is time. Providing thought leadership type content to your network demonstrates your expertise and adds value to the services you provide. Of course, there are upgrades to the service as well that are both affordable and worth it as your blog’s following begins to grow.

Marketing: I’m going to keep this section short and sweet as most of you know the usual suspects that can help market your business for free (yes, I’m referring to social media). My personal favorites: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. If what you’re selling is more visual (photography, hairstyling, tattoo artist) consider Pinterest too. There are plenty others as well.

CRM: CRM programs used to be thought of as these overly expensive and overly complicated Big Brother like programs that only the big boys could afford. Not anymore. Now you can get access to simpler CRM programs for free. My favorite is Insightly, it has a web based version coupled with a free app. Can’t beat it for the price!

Financing: If you need to raise money and aren’t able to get financing from a bank (you can’t show “2 years worth of income” when you just started, HELLO silly bankers!) consider crowd funding. Kickstarter is a good one, as is GoFundMe, which leverages your social media accounts to spread awareness. They’re “free” to start but make money by taxing 5% per donation or so (but hey 95% of something is better than 100% of nothing)! Although I’ll admit, I’ve recently set one up without much success yet.

Freelance Income: As you’re getting started you may need to build up some short term income with smaller projects as you build your network. Consider sites like Elance (I use it and love it so far) or others like Fiverr and Freelancer. There are million of projects searchable by expertise that you can do online or in person depending on location. Typically you get paid using PayPal (you do have PayPal right?), which is great, if you don’t have a fancy credit card machine. Although one solution I’m evaluating now is Square as I’ve heard good things.

Loose Ends: Just wanted to touch on some other things to consider in this paragraph. For one, you can get free digital storage space at either (or all if you’re a true hustler) Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box. For business cards, (which some people don’t even use anymore, although I advocate for them still) check out either Vista Print or Moo. Lastly, office space, this can be one of the hugest overhead expenses around. Do you really need to pay a ton of money each month in rent? I advocate a mix of home office, Starbucks, or local library (free internet!). But if you need tangible office space you can look at some of the shared office spaces from places such as Regus, or if you’re in Miami, Pipeline Brickell.

So there you have it, just some of the ways to start your business on the cheap. There are plenty others of course but I wanted to hit on some of the main ones to help get your started (if you have others please share in the comments!) Keeping low overhead is one of the ways to remain competitive with larger competition, so be relentless about every dollar you spend and you’re business will stick around long enough to start being profitable. Good luck!

So I Moved to Charlotte for a Girl…

Well THE girl. And if you knew Claire you’d understand. I like to think she’s the Daisy Buchanan to my Jay Gatsby, except I’m still working on building the fortune of course. The other difference, which is a fortunate one, is that we still have the opportunity for the happy ending Gatsby and Daisy never got.

Mike Simmons, CEO of WIMS Consulting, and Claire Hosmann

To make it happen I had to move from the city I love and lived for the past decade, Miami. After nearly 6 months of this new adventure, in hindsight I’d still make the same decision every time. Not only did I take a big chance moving to a new city to be with the love of my life, but it also led me to taking another risk by starting my own business. It’s not every day you get the opportunity to pursue both of your biggest dreams at the same time.

In order to find true happiness you need to take chances on the things that matter. Life is tough though, and it makes holding on to your comfortable and predictable job, or your same circle of friends, the easy and safe choice. But the only way to grow is to get out of your comfort zone and chase after the things you want in life.

Alas, rather than settling for a job working for someone else, and having to start over, I decided to start my own consulting firm. I had been planning on how best to do this for a couple years, yet while having a comfortable and mostly enjoyable job it was tough to work up the courage to take the leap of faith. I found myself over-thinking and second-guessing myself. I kept postponing my dream for tomorrow when I would have more time and money saved, like that would ever happen!

Sometimes you just need to jump and hope for the best; otherwise you risk living a life of regret. To me, that’s a fate far worse than trying and failing. It certainly hasn’t been easy, and it’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but so far it’s been the most fulfilling as well.

Fortunately, with the help of technology, my business can service clients all over the country and even the world. So moving to Charlotte doesn’t mean I have to completely forget about all the relationships I’ve built in Miami. I will absolutely keep working with clients and helping people there too. I’ll even be pursuing business where I grew up in PA and CA as well. I don’t plan on stopping there either. They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but I certainly plan to try. And hopefully I can help many other aspiring business men and women to the day same.

I know I have a long way to go, and I haven’t figured everything out yet, but I’ve learned so much along the way that I wanted to start a blog (as if the world needs another blog!) to share my experiences and insight with all you like-minded entrepreneurs and young professionals out there. Who knows, perhaps it will help me finally finish the book I’ve been “planning” on writing for years now too.

The purpose isn’t just to tell you stories or offer suggestions with how to market your business, but to create an open dialogue and share ideas and resources in a collaborative manner. I can admit that I don’t have all the answers, but I believe you can learn something from every single person out there if you’re willing to listen.

The WIMS Guide as I’m calling it, will discuss a wide range of topics that impact the daily (and future) lives of entrepreneurs and young professionals alike. It will feature regular posts from me, along with a variety of featured authors to ensure a well-rounded, dynamic, and fresh perspective. If you have an idea or desired topic you’d like to discuss, or if you’d like to be one of our featured authors, please don’t hesitate to reach out. In the mean time I hope you enjoy and perhaps learn a thing or two along the way!