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The Nevada Traverse Vol.51, No.3, 2024 23When Farrah%u2019s father originally started Etcheverry Land Surveying, he made friends with a vendor who was also just starting his equipment business. The vendor let her dad take some GPS equipment on a %u201ctrial run.%u201d He was able to use it to complete jobs and use the proceeds from those jobs to put a down payment on the equipment. As these stories demonstrate, it doesn%u2019t always take a ton of personal capital to get started.How to market your businessWhile important, formal marketing is more of a %u201cnice to have%u201d than a %u201cmust-have.%u201d The most important marketing you%u2019ll likely get is from referrals from happy customers, or from other surveyors who are already fully booked. Right now many surveyors are turning away work because they have too much, but that climate may not last forever. Once you have the bandwidth to think about marketing, you can consider items like:%u25cf%u0009 Google advertising%u25cf%u0009 Google business page updates%u25cf%u0009 Collecting reviews/testimonials %u25cf%u0009 Mailers%u25cf%u0009 Phone callsEric invests about $100 per month in Google ads, and Farrah and James also run Google advertising accounts. Eric has discovered the benefit of regularly updating his Google business page, which assists with search engine optimization (SEO) which makes it easier for potential customers to discover your business on the internet. %u201cWe spend time and we post on our business Facebook page or a business Instagram page. But most importantly, you should be sharing posts%u2014pictures with simple write-ups%u2014on your Google business page. If you are updating that on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis, it gives you credit towards Google itself,%u201d said Eric.It%u2019s an easy and completely free way of getting your business name out there. Eric even knows of some surveyors who take the ultimate shortcut: they sign onto their Google business page once a week and update their address to the same address. Supposedly, regular updates will bump you up higher in Google%u2019s search results. James is a fan of mailers, but is taking a pause at the moment until he wraps up his current construction projects. He also knows the incredible power of reviews. %u201cI would almost do a little boundary survey for free if I knew they were going to give me a really awesome review, because I really love getting them,%u201d he said. When he%u2019s asked new clients how they heard about him, several have cited that they sought him out because of his positive online reviews. Farrah hopes to start a formal process to collect reviews in the near future by sending out a post-project email, giving clients the option to write a review at the end of each project. The best advice from current business ownersWhen asked to provide a lighting-round of parting advice, here%u2019s what each young business owner had to say:Anna: %u201cIf you really want to start your own business, do it. Don%u2019t be afraid of it. It%u2019s totally worth it if that%u2019s something you really want to do and that you%u2019re passionate about. Absolutely do it. Don%u2019t hold back, don%u2019t be afraid. It%u2019s so rewarding. Why did I start my own business? For me, it was the flexibility, the chance to choose the clients that I work with, my schedule, the vendors that I work with, the build crews that I work with, and to know that I%u2019m doing a good job and that I have that control over that. Those are reasons why I started my own business, and I%u2019m very happy that I did.%u201d Eric: %u201cI started my own business mostly for the fact that I was writing contracts and I was seeing what my billable rate was compared to my hourly rate. I thought: I can make X amount more money working for myself. It%u2019s interesting%u2014now after a year of business, I make less money than some of my employees. The business makes money, but I don%u2019t make any money. And if I track my time, I%u2019m probably closer to minimum wage. I%u2019m up early to meet the guys, and I%u2019m here late when they get back. You%u2019re married to it. But I love what I do. So if if you%u2019re trying to quit your job to start a business to work 35 hours a week, it%u2019s not going to happen. You%u2019re going be working seven days a week, at least for X amount of years. I told myself three years. Three years of total sacrifice for Northam Survey, and then I%u2019m going to try to start scaling it back.%u201dFarrah: %u201cMy biggest piece of advice is to find a good CPA. If you%u2019re thinking about starting your own business, get ahold of an accountant and don%u2019t let go. If you%u2019re like me and you hate accounting and you don%u2019t want to have to enter your receipts and reconcile a million accounts and figure all that out, find a good accountant. Also, don%u2019t be afraid to get started. Sometimes there%u2019s a stigma, especially if you%u2019re leaving a big engineering firm to go out on your own. It%u2019s awesome. You get to build your own schedule. You get to develop your own business plan. You get to make it and model it exactly how you want to. You can accept or decline the clients that you want to. You can really just build your own empire, and the freedom of being able to do that makes all the difficult parts worth it.%u201dJames: %u201cDo excellent work, and you will get a following. The phone did not ring that much when I started the business. For some reason I thought that when I turned on the webpage and the Google ads that my phone was going to start ringing off the hook, which was completely unrealistic. And so I was very nervous for a little while. Some of my construction projects took a little while to get started, and I was nervous about work. And now like everybody else, I%u2019m trying to figure out how I can get all the work done and not have to work seven days a week!%u201dJeanette: %u201cDon%u2019t be scared. Just do it. The freedom is rewarding. It%u2019s amazing. being fully responsible for the work that you%u2019re doing and getting fully rewarded for it was the key. The biggest key is to develop those relationships with your peers, with mentors, with related professionals, because those are the ones that are going to help you and give you the work to get started.%u201d