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Apr

24

Building a Snowflake Business: (Part 2) Explaination and Answers

Snowball Planning! Listen to the podcast for this post over here!

I’ve received a great amount of comments and emails since my post on how to build up snowflakes with side income. If you’ve sent in an email or posted a comment and I haven’t responded yet, fear not! I have a plan. And thank you, all of you, for your great responses
Since this is one area where I can speak with a lot of authority, I have decided to expand that post into a mini-series on side businesses developed solely for the purpose of snowflaking - which I will now call “snowflake businesses.”

In this part we’ll answer a question, and then explore some of the stuff you’ll need to know to get started.

Multiple Snowflake Jobs

Why do you keep saying businesses? Isn’t one enough? Why do you say we should have multiple jobs?

I say “businesses” in the plural, because I definitely think you should have more than one. The purpose of a snowflake businesses is to earn more income for you to throw into your debt snowball (or savings, retirement, etc.). And as with any business, it will take a while to grow into anything substantial.

Even if what you want to do on the side is something you’d love to do full-time someday - such as contract carpentry, for example, or graphic design - it still has to start like any other business: very slowly and small. Any successful small business owner will tell you that it took a while (usually a year or two) for their business to engage them enough, and give them enough profit, for them to do it full time. So in the meantime, while your baby business is just starting out, you will need other small businesses to bring in more money.

My Story: I’ve already shared with you how when I first started snowflaking, I planted seeds like crazy for Italian lessons. A week went by and there were no emails, no phone calls. So I planted more seeds. Still nothing. So I decided to try tutoring instead. I seeded for that one like a mad woman and still, nothing after two weeks. So I told my family members that I was doing web design still, and asked them to tell their friends about me if websites came up.

About a month into this, I started getting emails about Italian! My mind did a double-take: But! But! I’m focusing on web design now! But after the response Italian was getting, I decided to focus on it. And just as I was getting underway with Italian, tutoring opportunities started coming my way! And then after finally settling on those two, web design started pouring in!

The Lesson: My point in telling you this is to show you that 1) getting seeds to sprout does take a while, and 2) the more seeds, and different KINDS of seeds, you plant, the more will grow.

Plant as many seeds as you can manage. Most likely, you won’t get a lot of work for any individual one. But the more different things you offer as service, the more work you’ll have overall. What does it matter if you only have one dog-walking customer if you also have two fence-painting projects and a lawn mowing job? See my point?
Pricing Your Business

How should I price my services? How do I know how to value myself?

Though it wouldn’t appear obvious, there are actually two parts to this question. One part is internal, one part is external.

The External: The best way to determine this is a combination of your skill level and the standard going rate for your services. So if you’re mowing laws (I use this example often because it’s what always comes to mind!), you need to consider 1) how good you are at mowing, and 2) what a lawn mowing job normally costs.

The going rate for anything can easily be found by doing a search online. Think about what someone would normally search for when looking for your service. In my city for lawn mowing, they’d probably search “lawn mowing seattle.” Your job is to google what you think they’d search for, and then do a little research.

The best way to price out the same service in your area is to make a chart. I’d just visit the first 20 or so hits on google and write down what they charge for a standard job - and write down any other fees they tack on as well. This will give you a good idea of what others are being paid for the service you want to provide.

Price yourself $5 less than the lowest competition. You don’t want to sell yourself short, but being a brand new business, your smile and your low price is about all you’ve got going for you when starting up. So use a price slightly lower than all your competitors to win over customers.

The Internal: A lot of us have a problem thinking highly of ourselves. I found it nearly impossible to price my web design services over a certain point two years ago - I just simply didn’t think I could justify the price most web designers were asking for; I thought I had too little experience, or not enough schooling, or whatever. I was new to small business, and unsure of my talent. As I’ve grown into the role much more fully, I wish I had always priced myself where I am now! I had just as much skill back then, but I didn’t have the same confidence.

So believe in yourself! You must honestly believe that you’re asking what you deserve, and that you deserve to be paid reasonably for you services. If you’re confident, so will be your customers. If you are unsure of your capabilities… well, you won’t be getting much work anytime soon.

Other questions:

What do I need to have to start a tiny side business?
How do I advertise? Any suggestions?
How much money should I spend to start up my side business?
How do I manage all the different “leads” and stuff?

I’ll address these and other questions in the following days as we continue this series! Feel free to ask more questions in the comments, or email me.

—–

If you want to work at home, first work your way out of unsecured loans. This includes the debt that has piled up on your debit cards too.

Filed Under Random Tips, Tricks, and Advice, Small Business, Snowflaking Debt and Savings, money and finance

Comments

5 Responses to “Building a Snowflake Business: (Part 2) Explaination and Answers”

Mydailydollars on April 25th, 2008 10:16 am

Great post! I think “businesses” make a lot of sense when it comes to snowflaking money. Thanks for explaining your evolution on the idea.
Foxie on April 25th, 2008 10:54 am

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this little series of yours, you may actually inspire me to step out of my comfortable box and try something new.
no more spending on April 25th, 2008 12:20 pm

Excellent advice Shanti
That monkey scares me!
Funny about Money on April 28th, 2008 5:37 pm

I like this. In fact, it speaks directly to an important issue: I tend to think I should present myself as doing X or Y on the side…not as doing X and Y (and Z). But really, it’s like putting several hooks in the fishpond. The more lines you have out there, the more likely you are to catch a fish!

BTW, having found this on the Carnival of PF, I’m linking to it at Funny. Thanks for this good post!
Dana on April 30th, 2008 9:19 pm

This looks like an awesome series so far. I just put up one of my pairs of earrings on Etsy in a bid to branch out from eBay, which might be good for kids’ clothes but is terribly oversaturated for jewelry. *sigh* Trying to figure out what else to do in between mommy duties. Yay!