How can a career coach help you start a business?
Oh, what? You thought we just talk about regular job-jobs? With ADHD? In this economy?
Career growth takes many forms. Some people do well in a more structured environment with clear expectations and tasks. Some do better with a little more autonomy to set their work priorities, but they still like the office vibe… like coworkers, meetings that should have been emails (but at least they have donuts), and PTO. And some, no matter how hard they try, are simply not cut out to have other people telling them what to do.
Thus, the neurodivergent urge to start a business appears.
But what does starting that business entail?
It’s okay, boo, we got you.
Step one is always Career Discovery
Whether you’re looking for traditional employment, starting your own business, or doing a little of both, we start with discovery.
Grab a notebook or open a new doc, because it’s time to make the big-ass list of everything you’ve ever done (to save time, we’ll call it The List from now on). We’re looking for work experience, but also volunteering, school projects, and even odd jobs you did as a teen for twenty bucks here and there. Any experience where you learned and used a skill is on the table here, so don’t worry about how accurate it is to consider it “work.” (Talking to you, literal autistics).
You can even include hobbies. Do you run a Pokémon league for your friends and manage tournament schedules? That’s a skill. Have you played Dungeons & Dragons since you were nine? That’s a lot of skills. You are more than the sum of your parts, but for this we’re going to actually discern what those parts are.
Once you have The List, sort each thing into three categories:
I love using this skill / working this way
I don’t mind using this skill / working this way
I never want to use this skill / work this way again
Your likes and dislikes help you fine-tune your resume and review job postings when you’re looking for a new employment situation, and they also inform your business.
What will you sell? It should probably be something you don’t hate. Also: just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it as a job. Also Also: you don’t have to monetize everything you enjoy.
Who will you sell to? Are there any types of people you love working with (like kids, artists, witches, whomever)? Anybody you definitely don’t like working with?
Look over your likes and dislikes for patterns. You may see that there are two or three Big Deal categories that can make or break a satisfied work life for you.
For example, let’s say Kerry has an Accounting degree and is thinking about going into business as a bookkeeper, but isn’t sure what kind of businesses she wants to target.
Likes: flexing Excel skills, auditing data to find one wrong number, critical thinking and problem solving, turning something complicated into something easy to understand
Dislikes: Interacting with the public, meetings that should have been emails, creepy glares from Jeff in Accounts Payable
Target market: Entrepreneurs who love doing their work but hate doing their math, who are too busy for long calls and prefer a digital update, and are anybody but a cis man
Working with a career coach on this particular puzzle is something you should do because Caitlin loves it. They just really go for it and come up with seven hundred ideas you never even thought to put together.
Identifying skill gaps that impact your business
You wouldn’t apply to a marketing manager role if your experience is in elementary education, dance, or banking. But you will have to be your own marketing manager to operate a business, and it’s hard to know what you don’t know. That’s where a career coach can assist, helping you identify the skills you need to develop during your startup phase so you can launch your business successfully.
Liora and Caitlin are both entrepreneurs with experience in consulting and freelancing. Our coaches have already done this crash course—it saves you years of DIY time to get the download directly from our brains.
In particular, Liora is a great fit if you need expertise in:
finding paying clients when "networking" makes you want to sink into the floor (without becoming a LinkedIn guy)
websites, bios, and profiles that sound like you and not a corporate press release
the unsexy "how do I make myself do the thing" mechanics of self-employment
the balance between "rest is productive" and "okay, but someone has to send the invoice"
deprogramming the 9-to-5 brain so you can build a schedule that's actually yours
beaded headphone cords, collage nights, and the unshakeable belief that your weird side projects are worth keeping
And Caitlin is your gal* if you prefer someone with a wheelhouse in:
balancing a creative business with boundaries to protect your creativity
anything to do with writing (copywriting, journalism, blogging, books…)
knowing random animal facts (did you know hippos echolocate?)
higher education and academia
environmentalism/climate change
turning a big pile of “unrelated” things into one cohesive idea
shit-talking your imposter syndrome so hard it never comes back
*Caitlin is nonbinary but this little asterisk is all they need to feel validated with a feminine term
A note about those skills you don’t like…
Doing the Career Discovery exercise for a job search makes it easier to say a clear no to the work you don’t like. But in business, some things are necessary elements of the job even if you hate them, such as:
customer service and dealing with unhappy clients
billing and following up on unpaid invoices
spreadsheets, tracking sales data, looking for trends
writing copy for website, social media, and email marketing
Working with a career coach can help you find a level of comfort and competence at these necessary skills until you’re able to hire help and delegate your most despised tasks.
Check us out for yourself! Book a vibe check with Caitlin or Liora here, or snag a limited time Entrepreneur Intensive to work on 1-2 specific topics.
