The Beginning

The decision had been made; I was starting my own company.  That’s when the questions started to fill my mind.  Where do I start?

I knew what the idea was.  Help small businesses build websites, manage social media, and improve their processes.  The first thing I researched was what kind of company I wanted to start.  S Corp, Sole Proprietorship, Limited Liability Company.

I went with a Limited Liability Company.  I didn’t have the need to yet be a S Corp.  The biggest difference to me was the protection that an LLC offered.  It made the company its own entity and kept my personal assets out of any potential legal windfalls. 

Now that I decided the type of company I would start, I wanted to think of the name.  I knew I would need to have a name to register the company, so I started thinking.  Originally, I came up with The Pillar Group.  I got a little ahead of myself.  I started designing a logo and looking to see if the web domain was available.  My mistake was… I didn’t look to see if the actual name had been taken already.  To my disappointment, The Pillar Group was already a registered company.  I recommend to anyone that is starting a company, do a search with your state first on what company names are available. 

Thankfully with some help from trusted sources I was able to pivot to Pillar Consulting Group.  A quick check and the domain was taken but pillarcg was not.  The logo redesign was simple and the application with the state was on its way!

While I waited for the official paperwork to come back, I went to working away on the background.  I began building our own company web presence.  I set up our web page, our Facebook group, our Instagram page.  I started to research how we were going to share our vision with the community and reach out to potential clients.

The other things we needed to set up; a bank account, a PayPal and Venmo account, (we were going to be a business making money after all), new software and a new laptop, amongst other things.

While we were setting these up, we got the e-mail.  Our application had been approved by the state.  Pillar Consulting Group was real!

Now that we were an official LLC we could go out into the marketplace and help the community.  Quickly we realized the goal was simple but counterintuitive.  Our goal was to try and help small businesses create a web presence, but we wouldn’t be able to use the web to reach them (that is what they needed the help with!).  This brought about another pivot in our strategy.  We had been filling our content calendar out with ways for companies to improve their social media content.  We realized we needed to take a step back.  We needed to do some grassroots marketing.  We needed to engage with others.  We needed to outreach and see what small businesses in our area could benefit from the services we offered. 

Through some close relationships we discovered a local restaurant had a need.  They were an established business but were only really present in the brick-and-mortar site.  They had attempted to grow their online presence a few times but didn’t have the time or knowledge on how to proceed.  This led us to our first legitimate lead and potential client.

Join us along the way as we talk through what it was like to prep for our first sales meeting and how we landed our first client!