如何将你五位数收入的自由职业生涯转变为六位数收益的小企业
Whatever you call yourself–“freelancer,” “consultant,” or “solopreneur”–you’re getting by just fine as your own boss. You’re regularly pulling in a comfortable five-figure income, and it feels good answering to nobody but yourself. But now you’re ready to think bigger. You want to build your solo operation into a proper company by making a few key hires and expanding your customer base beyond the handful of clients that just you yourself can personally manage. Here’s what it takes to make that happen.无论你是将自己称为一名“自由职业者”，“顾问”还是“个体企业家”，你都可以算作是自己的老板。你常常能轻轻松松地就拥有五位数的收入，不用对别人做出交代，只对自己负责也让人感到身心畅快。但是现在，你已经准备大干一场。你希望通过对几个重要岗位的招聘，在个人能处理的客户基础上扩展客户群，进而将个人业务扩建成一个合适的公司。那么以下几点就是你所应该了解的。
1.OUTSOURCE BEFORE YOU CAN QUITE AFFORD IT
1. 当还能承担费用时将业务外包
After two years of running my own business as a solopreneur, I hired a business coach to look at things from an outside perspective and point out a few ways to take everything to the next level. It quickly became clear that if I wanted greater rewards, I’d need to take bigger risks. Most of those came in the form of hiring help–namely a virtual assistant, a video editor, and my own publicist. At the time, these looked to me like expenses I couldn’t easily afford, but I took a chance anyway and it soon paid off.作为一个个体企业家经营自己的生意两年后，我聘请了一位商业指导，请他以一个旁观者的视角来指出一些方法将现有业务提升到一个新的水平。我很快就明白，如果想要更大的收益，我需要承担更大的风险。而其中大多数需要雇人帮忙，即聘请一名虚拟助理，一名视频编辑以及我自己的公关人员。那时看起来这些费用我很难承担得了，但是我还是冒险一试，并且很快就有了回报。
Other entrepreneurs agree that this type of early investment can be crucial. “There is so much that goes into running an online business, and there’s no possible way that you can do it all,” shares Lori Kennedy, founder of the Wellness Business Hub, which offers personal development and professional training for health and wellness experts.其他企业家也认为这种早期投资至关重要。The Wellness Business Hub,一个促进个人发展和给卫生健康专家提供专业培训的平台，其创始人Lori Kennedy分享说，“运行在线业务涉及太多的事情，你根本没有办法可以做到面面俱到”。
“I learned that lesson quickly. I didn’t want to waste any time trying to code or figure out how to set up webpages. Even though I wasn’t making enough money,” she explains, “I decided to hire a virtual assistant who specialized in tech development to help me get all of my online properties set up properly. It was like I was buying back my time.”“我快速吸取了这个经验。我不想浪费任何时间去尝试编写或弄明白如何创建网页。尽管我没有赚到足够的钱”，她解释说，“我决定聘请一名专门从事技术开发的虚拟助理来帮助我将所有的网页内容进行正确设置。这就好像是我花钱买回了自己的时间。”
2. SCALE UP YOUR AUDIENCE
2.扩大客户群
Once you’ve outsourced a few key functions, you need to spend the time you’ve freed up strategically. One of the first things you should do is focus on growing your audience.一旦将一些主要功能外包之后，你需要有策略地花费富余的时间。而其中应该做的首要事情之一就是扩大客户群。
Every digital entrepreneur has heard it time and time again: the money is in your email list. “It takes 90 days to attract at least 2,400 new people into your audience on an email list,” says Shanda Sumpter, a business coach and CEO of HeartCore Business. “If you haven’t built a list yet and are busy trying to build a website, work on your branding, or create products, then stop!” Sumpter says.每个数字企业家总是能一次又一次地听到下面这句话：收益就在你的电子邮件列表中。HeartCore的商业指导兼首席执行官Shanda Sumpter表示：“仅吸引2,400名新的客户进入你的邮件列表就需要90天时间。” Sumpter说：“如果你还没有建立一个列表，而且还正在忙于创建网页，品牌或者产品，那么你真的该停下了！”
Those are all important projects, but they can come later. When you’re trying to transform your freelance work into a full-fledged startup, your critical next step is to “give your potential clients what they want,” she explains, and “the only way you can do that is to ask them”–ideally by email. “Focus your energy on creating a list of subscribers” before you turn toward any other business-branding projects.虽然这些也是重要的项目，但可以暂且搁置，稍后处理。然而当你尝试将自己的自由职业工作转化为一个完整的创业公司时，关键的下一步应是“为潜在客户提供他们想要的”，她解释说，“而且唯一的办法就是直接询问他们”——最理想的方式则是通过电子邮件。在转向任何其他商业品牌项目之前，“集中精力创建一份客户列表”。
Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips from Fast Company’s own newsletter editor Cayleigh Parrish, on the nuts and bolts of launching a high-impact email newsletter.不知道从哪下手？以下是Fast Company的通讯编辑Cayleigh Parrish的几个小提示，介绍了发布一则高影响力的电子邮件通讯需要的具体细节。
3. FOCUS FIRST ON SOLVING A PROBLEM FOR FREE
3.先把注意力放在免费解决一个问题上
As you work on scaling up your email list, don’t forget about the “know, like, and trust” factor; that’s not only the key to actually getting subscribers, but it’s also what the most meaningful relationship with your startup’s customers will be based on. So instead of just pointing people to your website, offer them content upgrades, lead magnets, and opt-ins. Translation: hand out a free download, checklist, training exercise, or something similar in exchange for email addresses.当你在扩大电子邮件列表时，不要忘记“知道，喜欢和信任”因素的重要性；这不仅是实际获得客户的关键，而且也是与公司客户最有意义的关系基础。所以，不应该仅仅让别人访问你的网站，而是应该向他们提供内容升级，卖点，并让他们有权选择进入网页查看与否。翻译上可以提供免费下载服务，罗列清单，提供培训练习或类似的项目以换取电子邮件地址。
“You should be able to create your lead magnet within 24 hours,” notes Kennedy. “Pull together some of your existing content, and package it into a guide, report, or checklist.” Chances are there’s something you’ve developed in your previous work that you can repurpose–and don’t overthink it. “Remember,” she adds, “your lead magnet has to tie into your program or service offer. It should provide the reader with a quick win.”肯尼迪说：“你必须得在24小时之内形成自己的卖点。”“将现有的一些内容放在一起，打包成一个指南、报告或清单。”很可能你会重新调整之前工作中你形成的内容，不要过多考虑这一块。她补充说，“要牢记：你的卖点必须符合你的项目或提供的服务。它应该为读者提供一种速胜的感觉。“
4. GET REALLY GOOD AT MAKING DEALS OVER THE PHONE
4.善于利用手机进行交易
I will admit, until this year, I myself had let this one slide a bit. With 2015’s and 2016’s surge in webinars, online classes, and virtual summits, I’d come to rely exclusively on making sales through digital means. But as Sumpter points out, “Everyone wants to sell through a website, and websites don’t make money.”我承认，直到今年，我自己已经在这个地方丢掉了一些业绩。随着2015年和2016年间网络研讨会、在线课程和虚拟峰会的兴起，我将完全依靠通过数字方式进行销售。但是正如Sumpter所指出的那样，“每个人都想通过网站进行销售，但是网站并不赚钱”。
“If you want to go from five to six figures,” she says, “you must learn how to sell your product or service over the phone. You build a connection and a rapport that helps you to truly understand their vision, so you can strategize and then share your options that can really make a difference for them.” There’s no substitute for being able to react real-time as somebody weighs a decision, Sumpter adds.“如果你想让收益从五位数跨越到六位数”，她说，“你必须学会如何通过电话销售产品和服务。你与客户建立联系，巩固关系，这可以帮助你真正了解他们的想法，然后你可以为其制定策略，并向他们分享这些真的能够为他们带来改变的选择。”当别人在权衡决定时，没有什么可以替代实时的反应了，Sumpter补充说。
“More often than not, even though they know it’s a good idea to take the next step with you, they’ll usually talk themselves out of making a commitment: ‘I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money.’ You have to hold the vision for the person on the other end of the phone to help them overcome their objections,” she says. “The phone = financial freedom.”“通常情况下，即使他们知道与你进行下一步的交易是一个好主意，他们通常会说服自己不给予承诺：‘我没有时间，我没有资金。’而你必须得在手机的另一端保持住这个势头，帮助他们克服这些拒绝的理由，”她说。“电话=财务自由”。
5. START SUCCESSION-PLANNING EARLY
5. 早点着手继任计划
In the first days of our businesses, most of us solopreneurs are pretty scrappy, wearing the hats of CEO, intern, graphic designer, writer, and sales rep all at once. But there’s a reason you don’t see Tim Cook at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store or Elon Musk servicing Teslas. To truly become the head of your own company, you need to develop the leadership skills to delegate tasks and inspire your vision in others.在我们从事业务的头一段时间里，大多数的个体企业家工作起来毫无章法，我们身兼数职，既要扮演着CEO，又要当公司里的实习生，平面设计师，写作者和销售代表。可是你总没看到蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）在苹果商店的天才吧里招待客人，或是埃伦·马斯克（Elon Musk）在特斯拉门店里服务消费者，这总得有个原因。要想真正成为自己公司的领头人，你需要培养自己的领导能力来委派任务并用自己的愿景来激发其他人。
“In order to stay laser-focused on your key revenue-driving activities, you must have a plan in place to groom a successor,” says Bianca Sprague, cofounder of doula-training company Bebo Mia. That may sound premature, but from the very first hires you make, look for people you could eventually trust to make management-level decisions. After all, if your own duties change when you go from solopreneur to CEO of a startup, they’ll change yet again when your six-figure company adds even more staff–and, eventually, a seventh digit in its revenue count.助产培训公司Bebo Mia的联合创始人Bianca Sprague说：“为了专注于关键的盈利项目，你必须适当地制定计划来培养一个继任者。”这可能听起来为时尚早，但是你可以从最初聘用的员工中，寻找你可以最终信任的人拥有管理层的决策权。毕竟，当你从一个个体企业家变成一个创业公司的CEO时，职责有所变化，那么当你六位数收益的企业增加更多的员工时，且最后还有七位数进账，你的职责将再一次发生转变。
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