Growing Business
When I started Keith Michael Productions a couple of years ago, I had really big eyes. I figured this was going to be easy, and I would get customers and so on. I quickly learned how hard it is to start out and to continue growing. My first three jobs I actually booked rather soon after I started my business, but then I had a dry spell.
When I met with woman who was going to be the person handling my own wedding at the hotel, she gave me some hope. She said that a business like this takes at least three years to really start taking off. This is about the time the referrals start to kick in. And a friend of mine has also given me good words of wisdom. A salesman by trade, he told me that for every 10 people you talk to, 1 will hire you. That’s a 10% return rate. With these things in mind, I haven’t been discouraged when I didn’t get the job because I have actually been beating the 10% rate.
In the past year, I have met with people who haven’t hired me. Then, I was hired by people who never met me. Now, as I sit here on the first day of December, I think about where I was at this time last year. I had only one wedding booked, and it was for that same month. I had nothing booked for the next year. This year I look ahead at my calendar and I have 3 weddings next year along with my own, and I am working two other couples to book their weddings as well. In business terms, that is a 300% growth in future jobs compared with last year. That is something that I can be very happy with. Of course if I wasn’t getting married in June, I would have one more since I have had to turn someone down because their wedding day was the same as mine.
Even though I am seeing a 300% increase in business, I am no where near ready to go full time with this. As yet another friend of mine said to me the other night, when you make 2/3 of your current income doing your own business, they you can take that chance. That means if I can book around 20 weddings within in the next 6 months, I can go full time independent, except for the fact that I should wait until my fiance is out of Grad school.