Anna Moss is the Co-Founder and Director of Communications of 3 Door Digital (Manchester) and has been named Young Business Woman of the Year 2012 in the Forward Ladies Women in Business Awards.
Building a Business
Building a business was one of the most daunting and exciting years of my life. Before I delve into the highs and lows, the processes and where we are today I wanted to give you a little bit of background information on me.
My name is Anna, I am 27 years old and I was born and bred in Manchester, United Kingdom. I attended Leeds Metropolitan University and studied Law and I.T. After leaving university I went on to work as a solicitor in the commercial property sector. The recession hit the UK a year later and I decided to retrain in another field in case I was made redundant. I secured a junior position in a web design and SEO company in Manchester city centre. After being there for 8 months I asked for a raise and I wasn’t offered what I felt I deserved. So, I made the bold decision to leave and set up on my own. There I was with no regular income and one client paying £400 a month.
I worked incredibly hard and began to grow and grow my freelancing company, working from my dining room table, until I had reached capacity. My husband who was the SEO manager at a large company was doing any design and technical work for my clients after finishing work and it was all getting a little too much for the two of us. During this time an agency in Tel Aviv were outsourcing their content to me. We became good friends and following further discussions we discovered that our strengths were their weaknesses and vice versa. We decided to join forces and then the hard work really started!
Yes I had built my own freelancing company but that was just me working from home. Suddenly I was faced with a huge number of decisions to make and hurdles to overcome. From choosing a company name and getting accountants and legal advice to designing business cards and choosing an office location… the pressure was on. Needless to say the nine months that followed were intense. I was working with my husband and two guys who were 3,000 miles away who I had known for a relatively short period of time.
Now that you have some brief information on me and how I came to help build a business I will tell you about some of the lessons I have learnt along the way and some of the good times and the bad.
Getting The Right Team Behind You
One of the most important aspects that I found when building a business is to ensure you have a team of accountants, advisors and solicitors that you really trust. I was in a lucky position, a very good family friend of mine is a respected accountant in Manchester and my father is a commercial solicitor. I have spoken to people who have not been so lucky and have either encountered huge problems with people they rely on or get charged over and above what they should be, simply because they do not understand certain things and get taken advantage of.
If you don’t know anyone directly, shop around. Get to know the people you might be working with and their personality and how well you gel is just as important as their experience. Seek the advice of friends and family and take their recommendations into account, don’t simply rely on Google to “tell” you who you should entrust with this side of your business. This is one of those areas where I do not believe that you should base your choice solely on page one results, which considering the industry I am in is quite a statement to make.
Some Essentials
Here are some of the most essential things I learnt over the nine months I built the business:
Have an Elevator Pitch
You must know how to sell yourself and your business in one or two sentences. I have come across so many situations when I only have a minute or two to grab someone’s attention (and this has actually happened to me in an elevator before). Have a couple of options so you can tailor it to the people you meet or the environment you are in. Learn it and repeat it and change it and adapt it as and when you need to but I now have mine firmly in my mind so it is ready to go no matter where I am.
Have a Business Plan
We did not seek any financial backing when we started 3 Door Digital however I created a business plan as if we were doing so. This is important so you have a firm idea of what your service/product is, who your potential clients will be, how you intend to progress and build your business and what you will do for future developments.
By having all of this written down it is something to refer back to so you don’t lose your way. I am not saying you have to stick to it; of course things will change as your business starts but day to day life can get in the way and can keep you from moving forward. This was something that I found; after the excitement of launchingwe were pretty much on track with the document I had produced but then staff need to be employed, phone calls need to made and emails need to be sent and without a clear direction of where you are going you can get too bogged down in day to day management. This leads well onto my next point…
Learn to Delegate
I am a control freak, always have been and always will be! I find it very difficult to delegate tasks to others, not because I think they are incompetent and I am the only person for the job but because I can’t let go. I worked like this for some time when 3 Door Digital first opened and after a couple of months I was exhausted and the pressure was too much that it was starting to affect my professional and personal life.
When I hired my first content writer to work directly below me I can honestly say that I think I was more nervous than she was. I checked and double checked her work for weeks; she is an incredible writer and brilliant at her job and I was checking perfect work and driving myself mad. It was nothing to do with her…it was all me.
It is important to have a team that believes in your business but that you can also rely on. It is hard to let go but you are one person and it is impossible to do it all yourself. I now rely on my content writer for certain aspects of work and it is incredible to see someone grow and develop in your company. This has definitely been one of the most rewarding things throughout the entire time we have been open (and my husband is happy because I am now much more pleasant to be around!)
In Conclusion
Some other key things to keep in mind are:
- Always be thinking of how you can develop future products or services, never stand still, I am constantly thinking of new ideas to push the business forward. Don’t try and do them all at once but if you don’t adapt to the ever changing market then you will get left behind.
- Do what you love! You will be miserable and your company will not succeed if you don’t love and believe in what you do.
- Don’t rush the process. I wanted the company up and running as soon as possible but I soon learnt that this is not the way. You want to set yourself a launch date but be realistic; if you rush, things won’t be as close to perfect as you want them. You need time to decide on everything from web design to bigger legal agreements and contracts and you don’t want these to blow back on you in coming months.
The last two years has been incredible. We have built our teams in both offices and now have 14 employees. In November 2012 I won Young Businesswoman of the Year in the Women in Business Awards and our agency has been shortlisted for a number of awards. We have won fantastic accounts and now work with a number of nationally known companies and people are now approaching us, wanting to work with us. I have built some strong relationships within the Manchester business world and 3 Door Digital receives a lot of work from these people connecting us and recommending our services to people they know. You need to make sure you get out there and make as many connections with as many people as possible. Even if they do not need you for something they could end up recommending you to someone who does.
The list of what to do and what not to do when building a business is endless. It is tiring and you will be putting in long hours, you will never stop, I worked every day whilst on holiday in Italy and every weekend. I am not going to lie, it is hard but it is worth it! No matter whether it is for 1 second or 1 minute, I look around my office every day and see the team and think…I helped to build this and that makes it all worth it and there is truly no other feeling that is better!
Anna Moss
