Laura Gariepy is a freelance writer and freelance coach.
After 10 years of working in corporate America, she quit her job to start her present business as a content writer and later on as a coach. She wanted to work around her life rather than live around her work.
Initially, Laura was inspired by the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early). She wanted to work and save money so that she could retire, but unfortunately, there was a death in her family and she was unable to get more than three days off from work. She was hard broken and she needed more time to deal with her grift, but there was nothing she could do about it, she was an employee and she didn’t have control of her own time. She realized that she didn’t want to wait 10 to 15 years until she became financially independent to take control of her own life, she needed to start making a change right there and then.
Three months after that unfortunate event, she gave three months’ notice at her work and decided to start a business of her own, even if at the time she wasn’t 100% of what she would do.
How did she deal with her fears and insecurities? She realized that Continuing in her 9 to 5 job was more painful than the threat of failure of starting her own business.
How did she feel about the sunk cost of her MBA? Sometimes you have to make a pivot in life and sometimes that means forgoing things you worked hard for.
How did Laura develop her business
- She became active on twitter
- Started going to conferences
- Started advertising on social media
- Started working with a mentor.
Eventually, over a period of 12-18 months, she was making the same amount of money she was making at her corporate job.
How do you start a business on the internet
- You need some sort of web presence (preferable a website) to explain who you are and what you do
- You need to have an active social media presence so that you can promote yourself and network
- Develop a portfolio of the work you can do
- Be willing to do one or two jobs for free so that you can get the referral and the experience.
Laura Gariepy is the founder of Every Day By the Lake, a written content creation company that serves busy business owners, and Before You Go Freelancing, a coaching service for freelancers who want to start their own freelancing service.
True to the name of her business, Laura resides by a beautiful lake in sunny Florida with her fiance, Brad, mother-in-law, Sandy, and annoying but adorable cat, Buddy. When she’s not creating content, Laura likes to read, travel, and spend time with loved ones.
You can also find Laura on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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