What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…
What a high – I feel as if we’re lifting off! A big part of the boost is working as an associate of this consultancy in London with my mate Mr. P. He’s just GREAT.
Meeting in London last Tuesday. Insurance company. Our contact there is a personal friend of Mr. P. Within an hour, the guy is sold and wants to send our pitch up to his HR Director. Apparently, the timing is perfect, the company motto is ‘People First’, and they’re going through lots of changes that need some kind of support. It fits. I’m heartened.
We walk down the road to a café. Mr. P gets a sandwich. I grab some soup.
Next up is a well-established training company. Again, our guy there is a personal contact of Mr. P. Within an hour, him and the Director of Learning he brought along to the meeting with him are sold. Apparently, the timing is perfect because they recently launched a ‘team productivity’ training programme and it flopped. They need something in its place right now. Mirror Mirror slots straight in. I never thought of it as a training programme before, but people going through Mirror Mirror learn how to be more effective together. Wow. Next steps, I write the training materials, Mr. P organizes the contract. It fits. Again. I’m ecstatic.
Mr. P goes back to his office.
And to finish the afternoon, is an appointment I’d set up for myself. They’re a huge start-up out of San Francisco who basically run an app that delivers targeted content to employees and gathers employee feedback data. I’m thinking they could do with something extra that adds 5 levels of sophistication to this transactional feedback loop, right?
The European Manager took an interest. Could lead somewhere… somewhere big.
I did get a bit neurotic about that appointment a few days in advance, to be honest. It is the kind of situation where they could buy a ditty-bitty like Mirror Mirror up, if they liked it.
What scared me is that I could feel in my heart of hearts that I’d have to accept if the offer was half-decent. Why? Because as much as I love Mirror Mirror, I’ve had three years of scrabbling around trying to sell it with NO funding, NO organized marketing, NO pre-established brand or credibility, and NO big product all figured out, like the guy from the San Francisco app had when he started selling his app in Europe.
But it’s amazing how two good sales meetings can turn one’s confidence. Now I’m all cool. I’m just fine as I am. I’d have to think about an offer.
Now, if this training company and their endless contact list gets going, I need to prepare myself:
- To turn my little one-man-band into an established, incorporated company
- Completion of our Tableau-based reporting tool
- Some trained delivery agents
- A pretty good administration system to make sure all the contracts and invoices are properly processed.
And that’s what I’m going to spend the summer on. People are starting to buy. WOW!!!!!!!!
Mirror Mirror– We identify and close alignment gaps between people in organizations to improve engagement and performance.
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By: Angie Falls
Help you to succeed in life and work 