After over a decade in the communications consulting business, including a stint with the City of Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics, Lesli Boldt rebuilt her business as a boutique agency rather than a sole proprietorship.
She uses a stable of other consultants who specialize in various areas, such as speech writing or media relations. The structure lets her expand or contract her staffing levels based on the size and nature of the job.
While Boldt Communications grew rapidly between 2010 and 2012, her business hit a speed bump in early 2013. Several major projects had just wrapped up, and Boldt suddenly faced a huge drop in revenue.
“I had a disastrous first quarter,” she said.
She realized she had neglected to find new business leads while she focused on existing clients.
“You learn when you’re a small business that you have to do business development at the same time you’re doing billable work,” Boldt said.
“Then when you have a lot of billable work on your plate, you can let the business development go, and it creates these gaps.”
It was a hard lesson to learn: she’s had to cut costs, such as her attendance at conferences.
“It’s hard on your ego,” she said.
Boldt put a system in place to make sure she spends a certain number of hours each week on finding new clients. She uses a spreadsheet to track her business development goals, such as following up on four sales leads per week.
Boldt also commits to setting up at least two events per week where she is developing new relationships, such as coffee, after-work drinks or attending networking events.
“Rarely does a week go by that I don’t do some prospecting or research,” she said.
On equating being busy with success: “There’s a work ethic you develop when you start your own business where you work all the time, evenings, weekends; I haven’t taken a proper vacation in three years. … You end up being exhausted, run down, burnt out, and you don’t have time for the other things that are important … Now when people ask me if I’m busy, I don’t say yes and talk about all the work on my plate. I give a more qualitative answer about how my life is going.”
