Get a Jump Start on Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business

Get a Jump Start on Your Legal Nurse Consulting Business
with Victoria Powell, President VP Medical Consulting
Are you not sure how to start or expand your legal nurse consulting business? Are you stuck at the starting gate? This program is for you. If you completed a legal nurse consulting course and are finding it hard to get clients, you are not alone. Are you struggling to find the time to start or grow your business while you toil away at your day job? Are you wondering “Am I really cut out for this?” This program will teach you how to:

• Determine your readiness to take the risks needed to start or expand a business.
• Use practical strategies for getting started.
• Use marketing ideas on a shoestring budget.
• Know when to quit your day job.
• Tap into resources that will give you a competitive advantage.

Evaluation and Post-Test for CEUs (pdf)

This is a sample of what you’ll learn when you buy this program.

Pat Iyer: What kind of personality qualities are important for being self-employed?

Victoria Powell: Oh I love this question. There’s a lot of talk about the entrepreneurial person. I actually read a really neat statement the other day on Twitter that you don’t decide to be an entrepreneur. You get smacked on the head with an idea. The smacking kind of occurs first and then once the smacking of this idea occurs, then you’re kind of ready to roll. For me it was not like that at all. I’m a planner; I’m a list maker; I’m very organized and detailed. I like safety nets of 401Ks and health insurance and so forth. But I’m married to the absolutely entrepreneur who is an artist by trade who has never worked for a corporation outside of the military. I say all the time he flies by the seat of his pants. I’m married to someone who is the exact opposite of me when it comes to business. I went into the business not knowing if I would be a good business person or not. And since that time I have really realized that there is a similarity between the fly by the seat of your pants type entrepreneur that gets smacked upside the head with an idea, and also me the business planner.

I think it really boils down to your passion. What are you passionate about and why do you want to do this? What do you like to do with your spare time? Do you have certain skills that you’ve developed or learned that set you apart from someone else? Do other people have things to say about you? How do they describe you? Do they describe you like as how you would like to hear a business person described? Does your family support you? I think that’s a big one. Your family’s going to have to be able to support you-- not necessarily financially but support your business endeavor so that you aren’t battling that at home while you’re trying to get it off the ground. In business there are no guarantees. There’s no way to eliminate all the risk. You can improve, you can plan, you can prepare. You can do all those things but when it comes down to it you’ve got to know if you’ve got the passion to do it. If you’re a self-starter, if you can get along with different personalities, particularly if you’re good at making decisions, I think those things make you a good business owner.

You also have to have physical and emotional stamina to run a business because it’s a lot of work. The joke is “I work 12 hours a day, which 12 hours do I work?” You know, it’s constant. You have to have a strong drive and you really have to define what your personal needs and your financial objectives are going to be. Are you wanting to start your own business or you want to get this business off the ground because you’re interested in money, or is it power, or is it flexibility? You know, everybody’s definition of success is different. And some people want to start their own business because they see a glossy ad saying they can make $100 an hour. Other people want to have the flexibility to be home with school-aged children. So you have to define those priorities and then stay focused on those before you know if you’re going to be cut out for business.

If you’re an individual like I was where I was very scared, you’ve got to find something to get you over that fear. And for me it was the planning for the income for six months saying, “Okay, I’m going to give it all I’ve got. I’ve got six months worth of income to do it and if all else fails I have another plan. And that is I’ll go back to the clinical arena because as a nurse I can get a job. It may not be the job I want but I can at least feed my family.” So I just made that commitment and jumped in with both feet. That worked better than trying to ease my way into a business. Because I think so many people don’t get their LNC business off the ground because they’re busy working 36 hours a week at the hospital trying to build their business the other four days a week and they don’t invest as much into their business development as they do working the 36 hours a week for their employer. I think they may have to switch gears and invest more in their own self than they do in the business they’re getting paid for by the company.

Victoria Powell answered these questions, and more:

• How long have you been in business and how long it took for you to get officially started?
• Where did you come from and how did you get started?
• What kind of financial investment do you think is necessary to start a business at this point?
• I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on is what kind of personality qualities are important for being self-employed?
• Can you give us some insights into how you functioned in those first six months when you had six months of income-- in terms of marketing, meeting attorneys, getting the word out about your business?
• How can you get your foot into the door of an attorney?
• Do you have any thoughts for us about business cards, for example, the dos and the don’ts or what you would advise we do when we’re designing such materials?
• Can you give us any thoughts about putting together a website and some of the things that should be considered in doing so? And first of all, are they necessary?
• What’s been the most difficult situation that you have faced as an independent business owner?
• If you were giving advice to somebody who was starting out now, are there one or two points that you think are absolutely essential to keep in mind when developing or expanding a business?