Starting a business in a recession is tough, but it is interesting how little you can spend to get your initial idea off the ground. So far TheEmployable has spent no more than £100 on our initial setup. Its amazing how must you can achieve and what you can do, without really any money…

So far, some of our key achievements include;

1. We have version 1 of theemployable.com live

2. We have over 335 facebook fans and another 30 or so companies following our progress. Join our facebook page by clicking here.

3. We have over 560+ twitter followers and have tweeting over 1100 times. Join our Twitter page here.

4. We have produced t-shirts, business cards

5. We have over 10 guest bloggers now writing for TheEmployable and have written over 115 articles and interviews in our first 3 months.

6. We have produced our first 30 second video – you can see it here

Apart from the obvious route of Facebook and Twitter, I would most defiantly recommmend LinkedIn and a site set up through Richard Branson called virginpioneers.com which links you in with other startups and Entrepreneurs.

Linkedin is well known for being a business to business networking tool, but it has the added advantage of letting you join up to 50 specialist groups that might be relevant to you. I have joined 50 groups and it is great to network with other members, spread your story and message and also, if like us, you are blogging and writing articles, letting other members know what you are up to and potential what you can offer them or say.

Networking is free, but it can and will make you money. Every time I mention the word TheEmployable
 and theemployable.com, I am spreading the word. Did I say that our website is called theemployable.com?!    I have so far been able to mention the words ‘theemployable’ a combined 13 times today and its not even 9am. We have quite quickly realised that to be successful on the internet, you have to be successful in using the internet, and using it every day. 

Someone,  quite recently, who was setting up a business had said to me; “I don’t use twitter much, because I don’t really like it. I think we will just steer clear of that one”. Now, I did not particularly like doing 50 sales calls + a week when I worked in Commercial Recruitment, but it was a fundamental part of my job. This was a company, that wanted to do most of its business online, and they were not that bothered about using Twitter? Its like having a Pet Shop and only advertising cats, but not dogs – you just can’t do it!
Our target, on a weekly basis, is to find out ( and we are still novices) what the next ‘twitter’ or ‘buymyface’ will be and to get in there early when it costs us nothing or very little at all. The effect that the £21.00 we pay to ‘BuyMyFace’ (see part 1) has been 10 fold in terms of the presence and publicity it has helped us have. If anyone has a sneaky feeling what the next big thing is – feel free to let us know!!

But the main question we ask ourselves each week is the typical question you probably get each week (if you are setting up a business right now) by your friends and family:

“How is it going to make you money?”

“When is it going to start making you money?”

Our Business Plan and our key idea on how TheEmployable will make us money has evolved and change; even last week it changed again! But our end goal and our messages and ideals has not – and that I would argue is very important in having a successful business. Making it as easy as possible to get to your ‘end goal’ is the key. One thing we have had clear in our mindsets from
the ‘get go’ was that whatever we ended up doing, must have the key objective of making us money, and enough money to pay the bills. We have along way to go and a lot of lessons to learn – but I have the confidence to believe we will get there. Thank you. 

Please check our part 1 of our Top Tips on a DIY career – here…

Please check out all other Diary of an Unemployed Blogaholic here…