 Welcome to The Journey. Today we're going to talk about how to start your service business. Let's go! Hey, I'm Emma, your GoDaddy God, and today I'm super excited to be joined with my co-host, Justin Nealy. Hey Justin, what's up? What up? How are you? What are we going to talk about today? Starting your service business? Exactly. We're talking about starting your service business. I'm already like dying to know where do you begin because there's a lot of things that I'm sure you have to do, but what's first and foremost? Right. And you have to take that first step of really figuring out what you want your business to be, right? You can't just go, I want to be a service-based business. Well, what do you want to do? If you want it to be something that you're actually passionate about because you're going to get a lot of the things that you don't want to do, like the admin or just the runaround. And if it's not something you're really passionate about, it's not going to last. I love the passion component. I mean, to me, if you're doing something that you're passionate about, you're going to give it your all. You're 110%. Absolutely. You're going to do the best work. Right. It's your why. It's why you do what you do. Yeah. So what do you need? Where do you start? Probably step one, just to make sure that you're productive is to buy a computer if you don't have one. If you're watching this on a computer, then just disregard this. Move on to step two. That's going to be step one. Move on a smartphone though. I feel like I do everything on my smartphone. You can do a lot, absolutely, but it's all about being productive. You can flip two different tabs, to go different screens, do a bunch of stuff that you potentially couldn't do, or if you have to go and type everything out on a smartphone, it's going to take you a lot longer than on a computer. It's good to have both though. That's a good point. Okay. So you have a computer, got it. Then what's next? I'm thinking social media, but that's just because I'm obsessed with it. Domain, like where do you go from there? So probably the next step is to figure out what your name is and buy a domain name and get your social media handles. We've got a couple of videos that we talked about really diving into Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook in the links or descriptions below. As soon as you have that domain, then you need a website. Social media is great, but you can't always control social media. Do you remember Vine? Yeah. Yeah. It was a super popular platform, right? Everyone invested all their time and it's gone. So all those followers went with it. And with your website, it's there to help you generate leads and you control it. And it'll, it's there for as long as you want it. And then you piggyback into social. Another thing, I'm so just wrapped up in the digital world. Absolutely. But I was at a trade show recently, walking the floor, networking, and I forgot my business cards. And it's easy to do because I do so much in the digital world. Right. So I just, but I got by. I got by. But I'm just curious as a small business owner and the local heroes listening in, are business cards still an important thing? Absolutely. It's, it's absolutely relevant. In fact, I got a business card today. And it blew my mind. The quality of it, right? Look at that. Super cool texture with the font. It's something tactile. And if you're on the go, sometimes you might not remember the domain name or the handle or things like that, but that business card is just something to really make yourself stand out. And especially if you get a cool one like that, that it's different. It helps. Did you want it back? I mean, I might. I'll get it later. I didn't even notice you put it in your pocket. So some places you get business cards, there's places like mood.com. That's pretty cool. There's Vista print. They've been around forever. We talk about Canva a lot. You can create your own business card on there and they can print it off for you. What do you use? I use Canva because I like to really design every part of it. And there's a couple templates, but to each their own. Now when it comes to getting your actual work done, I imagine you need to have what? Office space, workspace, space in your home. It's going to vary, right? Is that important? It's somewhat important. It depends on where, what type of service you provide. If you don't ever really talk to someone face to face, you don't need an office. But if you want to be able to have meetings with people, things like that, you don't have to invest in an office space. There are a ton of just co-working spaces popping up all over the country. Some are free, some are freemium, some are paid. It just depends what the budget is. But with those co-working spaces, what I love about it is it's not only a place to work, but it's a place to... Free coffee? There's free coffee too. It was coffee and kickflips, but it's a great place to network. You get all these like-minded people around you that you can piggyback ideas off of or find just complementary businesses that maybe I'm a web designer, right? And you're working there and you're a graphic designer. You start sending me web design leads, I start sending you graphic design leads, and your service just builds and builds and builds. Or work at home, have a little office space, something that's just yours free of distractions. I know I'm like a squirrel, I'll just get distracted all day. I'm working and then Netflix will pop on and my dog runs by and I get distracted. So what I like to do is go to a coffee shop and drink coffee. I love the working at home. It's not for everybody, but... Not for everyone. It is if you like to work in your PJs. That's how I do my web apps. Okay, so one more question for you. How do you stay productive doing this? That's tough, and it really depends on the type of service business you provide. There's not one answer fits all, but I'll go over some of the things that helps most people. First off, you need some type of productivity suite. The most popular out there are Google Suite with all their Google Docs, Sheets, all that good stuff, and then Microsoft Office. I would almost caution people to have basically get a second number. And what I mean by that is not going to get another phone, right? Get another... There's lots of digital services where you can basically have another number on your phone. So that way, people aren't calling you on your normal line and you're like, is this personal? Is it business? Then it gets confusing. Separate the two. Absolutely. And then you don't answer like a weirdo and like, hey, this is Nealey's web design and it's your mom, right? You want to make it professional so you have that difference. She'll be happy to hear that you're always working and working hard. She's so proud. And just separate your personal life from your business because otherwise it's going to start getting overwhelming. I say the same for social media. If you have a business, go and get a business page. Don't use your personal page. Absolutely. All right. And then let's talk about getting paid. Like your service business, right? All right. You want to get paid. You're not doing this. It's not a hobby. Not just a hobby. We all got bills. Yeah. Passion that pays. Yes. Lots of tools out there. If you're going in person, probably square or something like that. So you got that little dongle and you can swipe that credit card. Get that money. Venmo is probably my favorite just to read the comments personally that people talk about. But quick and easy way to get paid. Otherwise, there's PayPal and Stripe for your website and things like that. Sounds like a lot of options. We got options. All right. That's a wrap. I want to thank my co-host Justin for being here. It's been awesome. You're the expert. And we learned a lot about how to start your service business. But I'm sure you have questions, so go ahead and drop them below and be sure to subscribe to our channel for more videos like this. See ya. Bye.