When I decided to start my Pinterest Business, there were two big obstacles that held me back. The first was knowing where to start and the second was the website. Sound familiar? If yes, then keep reading! For months, I was ready to start my business and make money but I was nearly paralyzed by these two things, specifically the website. How could I have an official “launch” if my website wasn’t built? How does an online business find clients if they aren’t ONLINE?
I finally decided to break it down, step by step and brick by brick. I took messy action and just got started! I realized that a website didn’t determine the fact that I was a legit business! Yes, I would need this eventually, but waiting to have this, and all things, to be my version of perfect, was holding me back from making money. And who wants to delay that?
So today, I’m breaking down the steps I took to get my business off the ground and how I started making money without a website! Let’s do this, shall we?
Determine the ideal client for your Pinterest Business
This sounds a lot easier than it actually is. As an aspiring Pinterest Manager wanting to start a Pinterest business, it’s easy to say “blogger” when it comes to your ideal client. But what KIND of blogger? What NICHE blogger do you want to work with? You must ask yourself some questions to help define who your ideal client is. Doing this helps you target exactly who you want to work with when you start reaching out to potential clients. It also helps you become an EXPERT in one particular space!
- What industry or professionals would you like to work with?
- What are you interested in?
- What does your ideal client like to do in their free time?
- What is their age?
- Male or female?
- Where do they hang out online?
- Where are they overwhelmed in their business?
Once I went through this process, I knew exactly who I wanted to work with! You can read more about how I became a Pinterest Manager, but it wasn’t until I niched down and defined my ideal customer that my business took off.
Create your service offerings and determine your rates
This is another one of those areas that paralyzed me. How do I package my services and what in the WORLD do I charge? Ultimately, I invested in the Become a Pinterest VA Today course to help me with this, but it didn’t stop there.
Ultimately, your packages should include services that you enjoy performing and services your ideal client needs. For example, if you love creating Tailwind schedules but graphic design isn’t your thing, you don’t HAVE to offer pin design! If this is the case, perhaps your ideal client has a pin designer on his/her team but only needs you to manage their schedule. See how that works? This is the best part of owning your own Pinterest Business!
Deciding on your rates is a simple backward equation.
- Establish how much money you need to make per month
- Don’t forget about taxes! Determine your rate and build that in
- What are your monthly business expenses? FYI this should be relatively small if you’re just starting out.
- How many hours do you have available to work?
Let’s break this down. Say you need to make $2000 per month as your “take home”. We’ll assume your tax rate is 30% (better safe than sorry here!) and you have approximately $100/month in expenses. Now to hours.
Let’s assume you have approximately 20 hours per week, or 80 hours per month, to spend on client work and it takes about 10 hours per client to manage their Pinterest account. The breakdown looks something like this:
- $2000 + 30% = $2600
- $2600 + 100 (business expenses) = $2600
- 80 available hours / 10 hours per project = 8 potential clients
- $2600 / 8 clients = $325 per package
If you want to work hourly, use the same process then divide the price by the number of hours. WA-LA – you’ve priced your Pinterest management packages!
Choose your entity and register your business
This is a step not to be missed, most importantly when it comes to tax time. For purposes of truely establishing your business, I recommend applying for an EIN and creating either a Sole Proprietorship or an LLC. Let me define the differences:
Sole proprietorship – is a type of enterprise that is owned and run by one person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business entity.
LLC or Limited Liability Company – a corporate structure in the United States whereby the owners are not personally liable for the company’s debts or liabilities.
Basically, the main distinction with the two is what happens if you are ever sued. If you are sued as a sole proprietor, your personal assets are up for grabs. However, as an LLC, they are suing company assets and personal assets are protected.
There are financial distinctions between the two. It does cost to set up an LLC and in most states, there is an annual fee to maintain. Personally, I started out as a sole proprietor, but created an LLC as my business grew and the liabilities became greater. Check out your state’s website for more information on how to establish either entity.
Create a business portfolio – Download my portfolio template!
As I said from the start, a website should not be a deterrent from starting your business and making money. The longer you wait to have your website perfect, the longer you’re waiting to make money.
Once I decided to put the website aside, I created a Services Portfolio, and started pitching clients. And you know what, I was hired! Three times to be exact. Yep, that’s 3 clients for my business WITHOUT a website. And at this point, I had the cash to outsource because let’s be honest, building a website takes TIME. And it was more time than I had to give.
I want you to be able to start TODAY, so I’m sharing my portfolio template with you. This template was designed in Canva, so you will need a Canva account to access and edit. But once you do, it’s completely customizable. You can edit anything to fit your brand!
Create your processes and systems
One last step before sharing that portfolio and getting clients and that’s making sure you have your processes and systems in place. I am a process NERD. I love setting up systems and creating timelines to help me manage my business. If there’s something that aids efficiency, I’ll find it!
My favorite system for organization and workflow is Asana. I have each of my Pinterest management packages built out, step by step, to help me stay on track. I will have many more posts about Asana in the weeks and months to come, but for now, check it out and see how it can work for you. Assigning due dates assures that I never miss a task or deadline.
Asking yourself a few questions will help you start the process and workflow planning:
- How will you onboard your client, and what questions will you ask?
- If you do a discovery call, on which platform will that take place (i.e. zoom, phone, Skype, etc)
- How will you send your service contract?
- How will you invoice your client?
- How will you gather passwords (i.e. LastPass)?
- Lastly, what steps are necessary to deliver your service, or what is your service process?
Defining these processes and systems early on will help you better provide your service and keep your clients coming back for more!
GET CLIENTS
It’s time to get some clients for your Pinterest Business! Now that you have your newly created portfolio, let’s put it to use. You can use any or all of the following resources to start reaching out to potential customers.
- Create a pin image (I love using Canva!), upload to Tailwind or Pinterest and link it directly to your portfolio! You can do this by saving it as a .pdf in Google Drive. Bam, links directly to your services!
- Sign up for Upwork, start submitting proposals and attach your portfolio. You can read more about how I was hired on Upwork within a week! I also have a free proposal template available for download!
- Once your determine where your ideal client hangs out, go there! For instance, if it’s Facebook groups, join that group and share your knowledge! Many groups offer “promote your goods” days where you can link to your portfolio. One piece of advice, I find the small to medium size groups are more beneficial that the gigantic ones. It’s easy to get lost on a group that has 5,000+ members.
- Tell your friends and share your portfolio!
- Post it on your LinkedIn profile!
If you go through this process, get your portfolio set up and land a client, drop me a line and let me know!