How to choose your first offer when you become self-employed
Your first offer gives a potential client something to consider. It also gives you a way to examine the business you are about to build.
When you become self-employed, your experience may give you several kinds of work to offer. Start by choosing a piece of work you know how to deliver for someone whose situation you understand. Describe what they would receive, then consider how delivering it would use your time. You need an offer you can discuss with a potential client and a working arrangement you want to try.
You can do this before you have a website or a finished business plan. A short description is enough to begin examining the choice. If you already own a business and are considering a new service, use the same exercise alongside the work you currently deliver.
Look at the work you want to carry forward
Think about a piece of work from your career that you would like to do again. Describe your part in it. What did you help someone understand, decide or complete? Which parts could you take responsibility for yourself, and where did you depend on colleagues? Those details help you see what you could reasonably offer independently.
Being capable of doing the work is part of the choice. Consider whether you want it to occupy your days. You may enjoy explaining a difficult subject and feel less drawn to managing the same process every month. Both can use your experience, while asking different things of you.
When I started my own business, I wanted to use what I had learned from building and scaling companies and work at a pace that felt like mine. Those conditions gave me something to judge the work against. Write down what you want to carry forward from your own experience, and what you want your working life to allow.
Give someone a specific piece of work to consider
Name the person who might need your help and the situation in which they would need it. Then describe what you would do with them and what they would have afterwards. Your job title can explain your background; the offer needs to explain the work a client would be buying.
Imagine someone who has spent years training colleagues and now wants to work independently. They could offer to help a small team learn an existing process through a working session using the team's own materials. That is a different assignment from taking responsibility for all of the team's training. The former employee can examine which responsibility they want before presenting either offer.
Keep your description close to work you can perform. If you would run a session and write recommendations, say that. If you would also carry out the recommendations, describe that work separately. You can then discuss the offer without leaving the other person to infer how much responsibility you are taking on.
Try putting delivery into your week
Take the offer you have described and sketch how you would deliver it. Include preparation and the work that follows the main meeting or session. Consider when you would need the client to participate and when you could work on your own.
In the training example, a session might also require reading the team's materials, adapting exercises and answering questions afterwards. The prospective trainer needs to decide which of that work belongs in the offer. An arrangement with scheduled preparation and follow-up asks for a different week from one where the client can bring new questions at any time.
Compare that week with what you want from self-employment. If something conflicts, change a part of the proposed arrangement and look again. You might narrow the subject of the session or agree when follow-up happens. Keep the client's need in view while deciding which version you are willing to deliver.
Use the draft to find out what is missing
You now have a description you can read to someone who understands the kind of client you have in mind. Ask what they think you would do and when that help would be useful. Listen for the parts they understand differently from you. A question about what happens after the session, for example, may reveal an obligation you have left unclear.
You still need to find out whether a potential client has the need you described and wants to pay for your help. Use the conversation to improve your understanding before spending more time polishing the wording.
If you are choosing between possible offers, bring the descriptions and the proposed delivery weeks into a coaching conversation. We can examine the work you want to do alongside the business you want to build. My business coaching is available online in English or Danish, including for people preparing to become self-employed. You can read about the first conversation before getting in touch.