FPRA Annual Conference: Breakout 4B, Meeting the Challenge: Employee to Employer! - Becoming Your Own Boss Has Risks and Rewards - Joe Curley, APR and Dr. Jay Rayburn, APR, CPRC, Fellow PRSA
One of FPRA's dynamic duos, Dr. Jay Rayburn II, APR, CPRC, PRSA Fellow and Joe Curley, APR led an afternoon breakout session on setting up your own business. There are a number of successful independent practitioners within the field and within FPRA. But what does it take to go out on your own? Jay and Joe shared some secrets.
First up was Joe Curley. Joe said that starting a business can be one of the most rewarding experiences in your life, or the biggest drains. Often creative individuals aren't well suited for things like taxes and running a business. However, when you're starting you need to do much of that work. But it's important to shed those responsibilities quickly. You're time is best served doing billable work, not doing the books.
As to when to start your business? Joe says don't do it right out of school, get some agency or corporate experience first. Take advantage of the time you work for an agency. First off the mistakes don't cost you, it costs somebody else. Agency work is also great for networking and building relationships.
Joe wanted to quickly open up to questions to drive the discussions. The first question was about setting fees, do you start off with a reduced rate. Joe heavily stressed that you shouldn't discount yourself. You're discrediting yourself and the profession. Also look to other professional services, what are attorneys charging? How about CPAs?
Your billing structure needs to match your strategic goals. In Joe's case they did no project work, it was all retainer. You're building a long-term relationship. However, some individuals only want short-term projects. In retainer work, Joe talked about periodically revisiting the compensation model. Often there are special projects that are out of scope. When you develop a retainer make sure there is a specific scope of the services you will and won't provide. It takes work/time to develop this scope, but it will save you time and money in the long-run.
Jay then presented some research he's done regarding independent practitioners. All of Jay's data was available in handout format so we'll try to get some PDFs posted shortly.
When Jay was talking about how firms acquire business, Joe mentioned that he doesn't spend any time with yellow pages or basic forms of advertising. It's not worth the time.
