How can I start a side business as a career coach?

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Starting a Business,

If you are thinking about starting your own business, the National Nurses in Business Association (NNBA) is a great resource. You can check out their website and consider membership. At their annual conference, they offer seminars on all aspects of small business ownership and offer networking opportunities.

It's always good to look at what other successful business people do, and learn from them. Nurse Keith is a great example of a nurse who coaches and counsels nurses on their career paths. You can find out more about Nurse Keith at nursekeith.com. 

Consider the following:

• Who is your market? New nurses? All nurses?
• What is your product? One-to-one counseling? ebooks? Virtual conferences? 
• Who is already offering what you plan to offer (your competitors)?
• What makes your services unique?

Social media is great for marketing. Establish a presence on Twitter, Instagram, and facebook and grow a following. On facebook, look for nursing groups and engage with the members. There are facebook groups designed to help developing nurse entrepreneurs. You can also market yourself on YouTube (start a channel) and podcasts.

Right here on allnurses is the Entrepreneur/Innovators Hub where you can post and engage with established nurse entrepreneurs. There are many successful nurses in business for themselves here, including Damion Jenkins, Elizabeth Hanes, Carol Ebert, and Maureen Bonatch. 

Best wishes and good luck! ?

Nurse Beth

[Jill Weberding MPH, BSN, RN]

When I started my business, I thought about these things first:

1) I took an inventory of my skills/experience & what I was passionate about.

2) I decided who it was I wanted to work with .... for me it was nurses or patients. I needed to choose (at least starting out). I could always expand but when you try to talk to everyone, you end up speaking to no one.

3) I did research on my audience. What problems were they having? NOT what I thought they needed or what I could "fix." What problems did THEY want solved? There is a big difference and often this is a mistake nurses make starting out.

4) I made a list of their top problems that were in my wheelhouse and brainstormed solutions.

5) I listened ... a lot. So I knew the solution I was creating would actually solve their problem and my messaging would connect with them. If not ... you'll never get any traction.

And then you start testing your solution.

Start serving. Learn. Tweak. Repeat.

So for your nurse career counseling... where are you going to connect with your audience? You can start with your current network, but you need to go where they hang out. You need to be able to answer the questions they're asking/searching for. Start building your presence with your audience. You might decide to start doing YT tutorials or social media lives with tips & tricks related to your niche. You can also start a private group. *Just make sure that you don't start a group, feed tons of free content and then never switch over to making an offer. The longer you do this, the harder the switch will be and you're literally conditioning the audience to expect free content/training/counseling/tips. 

I found a mentor and joined NursePrenuers group on FB (not my group) -but it has 10K nursepreneurs or nurses wanting to be nursepreneurs so it's a great community to get questions answered. Now I help nurses across the country do just the same thing. Whether it's learning how to create courses with their nursing skills & experience or starting a business, they must first get clear on what they want, choose who they want to work with, do the research, wrap a business model around it, uncover their unique selling proposition, nail their messaging and get ready to launch their course or services. It's usually creating courses, coaching, or consulting ...but could be anything from creating memberships or a brick & mortar clinic, or speaking, etc. And I do a lot of work around Inner Game issues most NursePreneurs experience! ? I stream a live Inner Game episode every Tuesday as well if you've already started bumping into any mindset issues. You can check out our previous episodes. 

Your only limit is your creativity and your grit. Stay in your scope of practice based on your state and always protect your license. Otherwise, choose from the very large buffet that nursing has to offer! Best wishes! 

If you'd like to connect you can reach me at [email protected]. Happy to chat! Welcome to being a NursePreneur! ?

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

What great advice! I love #3