An Unplanned Hiatus

Happy Monday!

This is [still] the Bossless Blog, a weekly newsletter about my journey to bosslessness and any tips, tools, and pitfalls I discover along the way.

Today’s highlights: An unplanned hiatus, reorienting, moving forward.

An Unplanned Hiatus

Remember me? The guy who used to send you a weekly blog with updates about his journey to bosslessness?

Well, I’m back. And so is the blog.

Aaaand I still despise having a boss.

As you might’ve realized, I took a little hiatus. It wasn’t planned. I experienced some significant life changes and needed a break. Some of the changes were happy, some were sad, and I continue to learn from all of them.

While I took a break from the Bossless Blog, my work on Garden Unit Media hasn’t missed a beat. Brock and I have been steadily working to grow our digital marketing business.

Here are some highlights from the last two months:

• We’ve been working with a graphic designer on our branding (coming soon 🤩)

• We locked down our initial offer and our pricing structure

• We’ve secured a handful of consultation meetings with potential clients

• We pitched Puttery, a national mini golf bar/restaurant chain

We’ve been busy.

Each of those bullet points has an iceberg-style task list behind it, and we have an ever-growing list of glacial tasks to be completed, but I’m feeling very motivated by our recent progress!

Reorienting

Brock and I drove home to Vermont for the holidays this year. Flights were prohibitively expensive and we never pass up an opportunity for a road trip, so we decided made the seventeen hour trek.

On the drive, we spent a lot of time reflecting on our work up to that point. In the months prior, we had laid a great foundation for our business.

We had been establishing our social media presence, studying effective social media growth strategies, and providing social media marketing services for two quid pro quo clients.

Despite all the work we were doing, we were still feeling stuck.

But after some redbull and a few more hours of discussion, it hit us.

More specifically:

First: Securing enough paying clients to cover our monthly expenses.

Second: Securing enough paying clients to generate the revenue that will enable us to quit our day jobs.

This really cracked things open. Once we clarified our north star, we could adjust course accordingly. And adjust course we have.

We’ve since been focused on compiling an ever-growing list of individuals and businesses in our service wheelhouse. We then divvy up the list, search for contact info, and craft a shitload of cold outreach emails (based on an ever-improving template I wrote a few weeks ago).

We gave ourselves a break from business talk on the ride back to Chicago. We were pretty beat after a week of fun with our family and friends (and enough local beer that I’m somehow STILL bloated).

Moving Forward

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what this blog could be and should be. Truthfully, the possibilities are overwhelming and I think it’s best that it continue to be an outlet for me to share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences as I work towards becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Writing a blog post each week helps me to synthesize the ideas I have flying around my brain. It also helps me gain some perspective on the experiences I have, big and small, with the world around me and the people in it.

Or maybe you’re just following along because you find my journey entertaining. That’s cool too.

Either way, thanks for reading!

I’m very excited to get back to sharing my journey to bosslessness with you every Monday. I hope you have the opportunity to do something you love this week.

With care,

Will

P.S. The name Will Barnes is an alias. As mentioned in my first post, I can’t leave my current job until I have another comparable stream of income and I’d like to prevent my boss from firing me first. Please don’t seek out my real identity. I will reveal myself when the time is right.

You can reach me via email at [email protected] or on Twitter, Instagram, and Threads @BosslessBlog.