1) A steady flow of prospective clients (lead generation process)
2) An way to turn a prospect into a buyer (sales process)
3) An ability to deliver what you promised (e.g., a product or service)

That is the essence of pretty much any business.

The tricky part is if you’re not YET in business. What do you do then?

Ideally, you try to get as much of those three steps underway as possible BEFORE you jump ship.

According to the SBA, 80% of the businesses that last beyond 10 years were business whose owner used to work in that field as an employee previously. So 80% of the plumbing business that last 10 years, were started by an owner who used to be a plumber for another company.

So in this respect, step #3 of delivering what you promise is usually the least risky–especially if you stay within your current area of expertise.

The far more vital steps are steps #1 and #2 - a steady flow of prospects, and an ability to convert prospects into buyers.

When you’re sort of moonlighting, the safest place to start is to work on a slightly modified version of Step #1 - generating lead flow. Only in this case, you generate “audience” flow instead of lead flow — the difference is in the case of audience flow you don’t try to sell them anything just yet.

If you can build up a sizeable audience, before you jump ship, and assuming you’re competent at what you do, then you massively reduce the risk of starting a new business.

While blogs and email newsletter are certainly inexpensive and easy ways to build an audience, there are other methods too.

The gold standard for setting yourself up as an expert is to write and publish a book. This certainly would not be in conflict with any existing job, yet builds your personal brand and profile in your marketplace. A book = instant credibility.

I’ve written and published four, and it really opens doors. I’ve been a guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School and been featured on the Fox Business Network, MSNBC, MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, Inc Magazine, & SmartMoney Magazine.

Without a book, none of that would have ever happened. Frankly, if you compare the day before I published my first book vs. the day after, my own skills did not change one bit. But after my book was published, my perceived credibility shot through the roof.

Another method to “build an audience” is to be an active public speaker. Give speeches to local business groups or at national events. You can use the speeches as an opportunity to get people to subscribe to your blog or join your email newsletter. You can also use the organization that hosts your speak in your bio.

This makes it easier to build an audience/get lead flow (i.e., step #1), and actually makes the sales process (i.e., step #2) a whole lot easier. When you’re a credible expert, prospects are much more likely to believe what you say. Again, a lot of this can be done while you’re on someone else’s payroll.

Finally, I agree with Anna Miller’s comment about being careful with social media. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can very easily lose dozens of hours a week and get no benefit in return.

You have to grasp what each social media tool is useful for (e.g., lead flow or it’s cousin audience flow), converting prospects to buyers, or product/service delivery.

If you can’t figure out how each tool fits into one of those three areas it means one of two things: a) it’s not useful in your business, or b) you don’t know the tool well enough for it to be useful in your business. In either case, it probably means you shouldn’t be using it.

Aside from marketing, you can also use it as a free customer relationship management (CRM) tool, which any new business will probably find useful. Here is an instructional simulation on using it as a CRM - http://minutebio.com/LI/PowerTips.htm

Jeff