Paddling Furiously - Recent questions and answers

Answered: Social Media

Fri, 16 May 2025 16:23:43 +0000

Even with software, voice and brand are on you to integrate into your posts. Sure software will help you with automated posting and maybe engaging with others, but the key part is knowing what you want to project onto the market (and knowing it resonates with your target audience).

Until that's sorted, all platforms/offshore agencies/assistants in the world will not help you.

Answered: I've finished my business plan, so how can I find funding

Mon, 12 May 2025 13:32:32 +0000

There are a lot of elements that go into answering that question.

First, you don't necessarily need or want outside funding. Not only is it expensive and time consuming, it can be a distraction from your business. Often, if you break your business plan down into stages, you can think of ways to advance with little or no outside funding -- and you can learn a lot and build customer relationships while doing it

If you do need outside funding, there are two important things to remember:

You fund a project or stage of development. So you don't want to just say "I need money", you want to say "I'm opening a store, so I need this much to lease it, build it out & equip it, this much for staring inventory, etc." Know how much you need and what it will do to help grow your business, so that lenders will understand how they'll be repaid and investors will understand how they make money as your business grows
The type of funding is very specific to the type of project, business, stage of development and other factors. A single business may want different types of funding for different projects or at various points. And there are many options. In addition to loans and investors, there are other types of borrowing, many types of crowdfunding (rewards, debt, equity), a range of "do it yourself" solutions (presales, revenue- or profit-share arrangements) and bootstrapping

Answered: Every year at tax time, I realize I'm way behind. Does anyone have hacks or ideas to make things easier?

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 18:22:17 +0000

One thing I always advise is to try to set money aside regularly over the course of the year. Set up another account so the money you're going to owe in taxes isn't sitting in your operating account. It may not help with the paperwork around taxes, but at least you're not scrambling to make the payment.

As an added bonus, set aside more than you'll need for taxes. That way, you'll not only have the tax payment, you'll be creating your own funding that you can use in a pinch or to seize an unexpected opportunity.

Answered: How should I think about hiring my first employee?

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 19:02:29 +0000

When I first hired someone, I tried to find an assistant who could help me with everything. But it was hard to train them and I kept thinking it was easier to do it myself. So then I made a list of the tasks I really didn't like or felt like they were wasting my time and found someone who could do many of those things. Because the tasks were better defined, I was actually able to start with a remote virtual assistant, which wasn't very expensive. It saved me time and took away a lot of the things that were bogging me down, so I felt much more productive

Answered: Does anyone need help with Marketing?

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:08:09 +0000

You're probably going to have better luck over time gaining clients here through providing useful information than straight sales posts like this. There are also no details here as to whether you're experienced/capable/successful.

Not telling you what to do and not discouraging you, and I do love that you're taking a shot, but the immediate downvote by someone here signifies to me you've missed resonating with the audience.

-RP

Answered: How can I market my company better

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:02:40 +0000

There's nothing wrong per se with hiring a social media person but it's a long tail play, meaning that sales won't materialize overnight and you'll need to give it 6-12 months before you understand if you're getting a return on investment.

Word of mouth is amazing and will yield better prospects than people who are not familiar with you. The downside is that you need people to talk you up on their own accord. Consider incenting them - offer them a discount on your next consulting project (or retainer, not sure about your business model) if they can connect you with people you know.

Do also consider partnerships with other companies (consulting, software, hardware, etc) that are relevant to your customer base. Again, it's not necessarily an immediate sales generator but investing the time here will pay dividends later.

I'm happy to provide some more concrete things you can do if you can share more details about your consulting work and customer base.

Answered: Are using AI for day-to-day work?

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:50:42 +0000

Hi Stacey,

I've been using AI in my business for a few years now - for context I have a direct-to-consumer company selling fine shortbread & savory snacks where I've expanded into more wholesale business. In addition to my primary business I also do some private consulting work, food styling and recipe development.

I use Claude.AI as I've found it to have a writerly voice that I like (I started originally a few years back using ChatGPT but find Claude better for items that require the softer skills like writing copy and handling customer service inquiries).

What I use it for:

Drafting and responding to initial business inquiries - I have since saved a lot of these initial responses in a document draft that I can just now plug and send to quickly respond to things that I often get asked
Responding to customer service inquiries - AI has helped immensely come up with some quick solutions to issues that folks I work with encounter - whether thats a simple "where is my package" or a more complex - I simply download the email chain, feed it into the AI, add a little context and then refine my response
Responding to difficult clients - I used to get so thrown off when I had a challenging exchange with a client, it's hard not to take things personally, but now I actually just download those email chains, drop them into AI and respond from there - for instance I had a client who was really dragging their feet earlier this year and then showed up to the table ready to take me up on something that I could no longer deliver because of the timeline - in the past responding to them would have taken me hours and I would have probably given so many concessions - instead I once again put the email chain into Claude, gave a little extra context, said what I was willing and not willing to concede on and was able to get an email out within a half hour or less
Drafting marketing plans, emails, etc.
Writing or drafting initial action plans - this has been great for my business or individual client work - I often have AI help me generate an initial framework when I begin working with someone new or a new project, then I flesh it out, and feed it back into AI and go back and forth that way to refine it
Writing job descriptions for hiring

I'm sure there are other ways that I'm using it! But these are the ones that come immediately to mind and have been most helpful in cutting down time. I also think I'm way faster at responding to inquiries, which is great because a lot of times in freelance it does feel like it's all about hitting the timing!