One Year In: What Happened When I Bet on Myself
One year ago, I did something that was equal parts exciting and terrifying: I started my own business.
I wish I could tell you I had a perfectly mapped-out plan, complete confidence, and absolutely no doubts. I didn't.
What I did have was more than 20 years of professional experience, over a decade spent working in human resources, a genuine love for the work, and the belief that maybe I could take everything I had learned and use it to help other organizations so, I bet on myself. One year later, I'm incredibly grateful that I did.
I Bet On Myself So I Figured The Phone Would Start Ringing Immediately
There are some things about starting a business that seem almost funny in hindsight.
For example, I honestly thought I would build a website, hit publish, and people would somehow magically find me.
Business officially exists? Check. Website online? Check. Now we wait for the phone to ring.
Except it didn't quite work that way.
It wasn't until January, when I had a local company (Thank you Truthfully VBS) review and edit my SEO, that I discovered my website wasn't really showing up in internet searches. I had built the storefront, but apparently I had forgotten to put it on the map.
Lesson number one in entrepreneurship: You don't know what you don't know.
That's something I talk about constantly in HR, and owning a business has given that phrase an entirely new meaning.
I also discovered something else about myself. I love talking about HR. I am much less comfortable talking about myself.
Give me a complicated HR question, and I can talk about it all day. Ask me to explain why someone should hire me, and suddenly I have considerably fewer words.
Learning how to market myself and my business has probably been one of the most uncomfortable parts of this first year. I'm still learning.
Being an HR Department of One Was Pretty Good Training
One of my biggest realizations this year has been just how much my previous experience prepared me for consulting. When you're an HR department of one, you rarely get to look at HR in isolation.
A policy isn't just a policy. You have to think about how it affects payroll, operations, supervisors, employees, finance, scheduling, benefits, compliance, communication, and ultimately the way the organization functions. That experience taught me to step back and look at the whole organization and I've discovered that perspective is incredibly valuable in consulting.
Sometimes an organization contacts an HR consultant because it thinks it has an employee problem, a policy problem, or a compliance problem but when you start asking questions and looking at the bigger picture, you often find that the real issue is somewhere else.
Maybe expectations aren't clear, maybe a process worked when the company had five employees but doesn't work with 25. Maybe supervisors don't have the tools they need, maybe the owner has kept so much institutional knowledge in their own head that nobody else knows how to move something forward without them. The HR question is often just the starting point.
Small Business Owners Are Carrying A Lot
If there is one thing this year has reinforced for me, it's that most leaders are overwhelmed.
This can be especially true for small business owners and non-profit Executive Directors. They're trying to manage employees, serve customers, make payroll, answer emails, solve operational problems, plan for growth, deal with vendors, handle compliance, put out the latest fire, and somehow still find time to think strategically about where the business is going. Because they care so deeply about their businesses, they often try to do everything themselves. However, being the person who does everything can become the very thing preventing the organization from moving forward.
I've learned that some of my most meaningful work isn't necessarily taking something away from a business owner. It's helping them build the processes, policies, systems, and people around them so they don't have to carry everything themselves. There is something incredibly rewarding about watching a leader get some breathing room back.
My Favorite Question Might Be “Why?”
One of the biggest gifts of this past year has been the people I've gotten to meet.
I have fantastic clients. They're building very different organizations and doing very different types of work, but they have tremendous heart and drive behind what they do and I love hearing their stories.
Why did you start this business?
Why does this organization exist?
Who are you trying to serve?
What matters to you?
Give me an opportunity to talk about mission, vision, and values, and I'm happy.because those conversations eventually affect everything else. Your policies should reflect your values. Your managers should understand your mission. Your employees should know what the organization stands for and how the work they do contributes to it. HR isn't separate from those things, when done well, HR helps bring them to life.
One Employer vs. Many Organizations
For years, when I worked for an employer, my professional life naturally revolved around the processes, needs, challenges, and people within that organization. There was tremendous value in knowing one business deeply. Consulting has given me something completely different.
Now I get to step into different businesses, industries, workplaces, and situations.
One morning I might be talking about a handbook or a compliance question, later in the day it's compensation, onboarding, employee relations, leadership development, or helping someone figure out how to turn an informal process into something that can actually grow with the organization. Every business teaches me something, every leader sees the world a little differently and every situation makes me a better consultant. I didn't fully appreciate how much I would enjoy that variety until I was living it.
Looking Toward Year Two
I don't know exactly what the second year of this business will look like. Strangely enough, I think I'm more comfortable saying that today than I would have been a year ago.
Year One taught me that I don't have to have every answer before taking the next step. It taught me that experience matters, but so does being willing to keep learning. It taught me that building relationships matters more to me than becoming good at a sales pitch. It reminded me that sometimes the best thing you can do for an overwhelmed leader isn't hand them another list of things they should be doing. It's help them figure out what they don't have to do alone anymore.
Most of all, this year has reminded me how much I genuinely love this work. I'm grateful for every client who trusted me with their business and their people. I'm grateful for every person who made an introduction, gave me a referral, answered one of my questions, shared one of my posts, offered encouragement, or simply asked, “How's the business going?” I'm most grateful for the opportunity to meet people with incredible passion for the businesses and organizations they've built.
A year ago, I bet on myself.
Today, I'm celebrating where that decision has taken me.
And I'm really excited to see where we grow from here.
Here's to Year Two. 🌲
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