Business Plans
Dec. 17th, 2008 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
errantemberIt's very clear that it's time to start my new businesses. In addition to engineering contracting, which will continue to be my main financial engine for now, I'm pursuing two vectors. One will be permaculture based, with my co-op as the core. The other will be a combination of music, firedancing and other performance and visual arts marketed to the poly and BDSM crowd.
It's clear from reading Seth Godin's work that gaining a following of interested parties to whom I have permission to market is key, and is a very front-loaded process. Because I've already made substantial progress on my own property, that's probably the place to start. I'm going to create a new website and blog for it, and start an e-mail list for interested parties. I'm going to have regular updates on our progress, solicit feedback on which projects most interest my readership, and get them involved in what's happening. I'll probably host workshops where members can come and learn and participate hands-on. My goal has always been to formalize my permaculture design and property management skills into a permaculture rental business, and this is the place to start.
I'm even considering a new way to market myself as an employee for engineering contract work. I'm already engaged in a Project that I'm planning on following up with a Powerpoint presentation demonstrating how it qualifies me for no less than four or five different types of tech-related jobs. Rather than simply slapping this up on a website, I think I'm going to give the presentation exclusively to people willing to interview me. Which is not to say that only those people will *know* about that opportunity! After setting up a professional website, I'll start a permission marketing campaign to local companies that interest me. I'll have some other form of selfish motivation for those that join, but the presentation will only be available to those that allow me to give it, in person, during an interview. And, possibly, only with the hiring manager rather than the HR and other screeners who's job it is, essentially, to reject people. Seth's guidelines for presentations show the value of having a presentation that *must* be done in person, rather than simply e-mailed ahead of time, and this is one very good usage for it. Naturally I'll still be pursuing a job by more conventional means, but there's no reason I can't do both, and in the long run, a permission-marketing approach should eventually get me to a point where I no longer even have to post my resume anywhere publicly except on my own website.
It's clear from reading Seth Godin's work that gaining a following of interested parties to whom I have permission to market is key, and is a very front-loaded process. Because I've already made substantial progress on my own property, that's probably the place to start. I'm going to create a new website and blog for it, and start an e-mail list for interested parties. I'm going to have regular updates on our progress, solicit feedback on which projects most interest my readership, and get them involved in what's happening. I'll probably host workshops where members can come and learn and participate hands-on. My goal has always been to formalize my permaculture design and property management skills into a permaculture rental business, and this is the place to start.
I'm even considering a new way to market myself as an employee for engineering contract work. I'm already engaged in a Project that I'm planning on following up with a Powerpoint presentation demonstrating how it qualifies me for no less than four or five different types of tech-related jobs. Rather than simply slapping this up on a website, I think I'm going to give the presentation exclusively to people willing to interview me. Which is not to say that only those people will *know* about that opportunity! After setting up a professional website, I'll start a permission marketing campaign to local companies that interest me. I'll have some other form of selfish motivation for those that join, but the presentation will only be available to those that allow me to give it, in person, during an interview. And, possibly, only with the hiring manager rather than the HR and other screeners who's job it is, essentially, to reject people. Seth's guidelines for presentations show the value of having a presentation that *must* be done in person, rather than simply e-mailed ahead of time, and this is one very good usage for it. Naturally I'll still be pursuing a job by more conventional means, but there's no reason I can't do both, and in the long run, a permission-marketing approach should eventually get me to a point where I no longer even have to post my resume anywhere publicly except on my own website.
