Celebrating Five Years of Helping Clients Communicate with Confidence
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April 2022 marks five years of working as a sole proprietor under the Saga Consulting brand. To commemorate the occasion, I decided to look back at the past, update you on the present, and hint at what to expect in the future. In addition to taking a moment to thank everyone who has helped me make it this far, I hope that sharing a few details about my journey will benefit anyone interested in doing something similar.
Looking Back
After living, working, and exploring Japan since 2009, I started working for myself and launched Saga Consulting in April 2017. The details of that story are best told this video. However, I’ll share a few highlights and new insights in this blog post.
Phase One: The Sprint to “Life Profitability”
Thanks to the network of people and organizations that have supported me throughout my time in Japan, I was fortunate enough to have clients to serve from day one. Considering the low overhead of a digital marketing and communications coaching business, Saga Consulting was profitable from the start. However, it’s not enough to simply ensure that business revenues exceed business expenses.
The first real goal of a sole proprietorship or lifestyle business should be achieving what I call “life profitability.” This means that your business is more than profitable in and of itself. Your business also needs to cover your living expenses (rent, food, entertainment, etc.) with enough left over to save and invest.
Thanks to a nest egg of bootstrapped funds, I was able to hold out until I achieved life profitability, which happened within eight months of launching Saga Consulting.
In Japan, business development will likely take much longer than you expect. If you are thinking about starting your own sole proprietorship, I’d recommend saving enough money to survive—without a single client—for six months to a year.
Phase 2: Pursuing Stability
After achieving life profitability, my next goal was stability—avoiding the feast-or-famine cycle that plagues freelancers, solopreneurs, and small businesses. Would Saga Consulting become a viable way to earn a living, or would it be consumed by the famine side of the cycle? Fortunately, business continued to grow. Existing clients renewed contracts and new clients came on board. By the end of 2019, Saga Consulting wasn’t only stable—it had momentum.
Looking back, a major milestone was surviving my first year in business. Potential clients can be reluctant to become early adopters, especially in Japan. However, curiosity piqued when people saw that I was still around for year two.
This is why networking, online and offline, is critical. Potential partners and clients need to be aware of what you’re doing, which requires you to show up and produce content consistently.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. This was an existential threat. I provide marketing and HR services, and in difficult times, companies tend to reduce spending in those two functional areas of business. The writing was on the wall, and I’m an avid reader. I expected the worst and started preparing accordingly. I became more flexible about the kind of work that fell under “communications,” even dabbling in some voice work to stock the Saga Consulting war chest ahead of the economic wrath that the pandemic was poised to bring.
Fortunately, the pandemic didn’t play out as I had anticipated. The coaching and training clients that I worked with the most were quick to conduct business online and adapt to the new normal. Contrary to conventional business behavior, marketing inquiries actually increased. The lesson I learned here is the importance of working with agile businesses that share your values.
The beauty of working for yourself is not becoming your own boss. In fact, in working for yourself, you’ll have more “bosses” than ever before—each one of your clients. Instead, the beauty of working for yourself is the ability to choose your bosses—organizations and people that you respect and are proud to work with.
2020 wasn’t a banner year, but the stability I had achieved before the pandemic remained. By the end of 2021, Saga Consulting was back on a path of growth. The remote work boom of the pandemic enabled me to serve more clients, in more locations, than ever before.
Taking Stock of the Present
As of this writing, Saga Consulting has:
Served 26 clients based in 3 countries, including Japan, the United States, and Denmark
Helped social media clients create and share content that resonates with audiences, with LinkedIn posts earning an aggregated average engagement rate of 10.6% (industry average .35%)
Collaborated with one of the world’s top advertising firms to ghostwrite blog content and marketing copy for Japan’s largest, most-recognizable brands
Contributed to year-over-year increases in client website and LinkedIn Company Page visits by 55% to 200% (depending on project)
Although most of my work is bound by confidentiality agreements, a portion of my collaborations are public. I would like to take this moment to thank HLS Global, Kokoro Media (combrains), and Global Bridge for enabling me to make it this far. It’s hard to imagine reaching this five-year milestone without their support. And of course, I thank all the companies that I’ve had the pleasure of serving in a confidential capacity as well. They are equally valuable links in the chain of events that led me to this point. Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank everyone who has shared their most valuable resource—time—to provide guidance, advice, and encouragement over the past five years. I appreciate your support, and I hope that I’ve been able to return the favor.
Looking Ahead
After five years in business, I’ve entered a third stage that follows life profitability and sustainability. Now, it’s time to reinvest in the business. This process actually started behind the scenes in 2021 with an IT investment that enabled me to reliably work for extended periods from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.
Going forward, you’ll see the next signs of reinvestment right here on this blog, as additional writers start producing content. Also in the works: more Japanese-language content. Although I typically work with companies that can conduct at least part of their business in English, this doesn’t apply to everyone who may initially encounter my content and the Saga Consulting brand.
Also, expect more experimentation in the form of fresh content ideas. As I often advise my clients, even on the most professional social networks (i.e., LinkedIn), you can’t take the “social” out of social media. So, expect a wider variety of content for me on this blog with some of it being more lighthearted than what came before. My writing career is built on thousands of pieces of content, much of which has never been seen by wide audiences. In addition to brand-new content, I hope to repurpose existing articles that recent followers of my work have yet to see. At first, some of this content may seem out of place. However, I assure you it will be relevant (even if tangentially). For now, you can see the lighter side of my existence in Japan on Instagram.
Lastly, I’ll be revising my branding, messaging, and marketing to reflect what I’ve learned over the past five years. For example, contrary to popular belief, it’s possible for sole proprietors to work with some of Japan’s largest firms. A corporation needs a variety of arrows in its quiver, and sometimes a sole proprietor can be the perfect precision tool to get the job done. Although Saga Consulting will be best suited for serving small- and medium-sized businesses for the foreseeable future, I realized that I shouldn’t overlook the fact that I can also address the pinpoint needs of large organizations.
A Client-First Future
Five years may be a significant milestone, but in many ways, I still feel like I’m at the starting line. A lot has happened since April 2017. Given the state of the world and the ever-changing nature of global business—especially when it comes to technology—charting a clear path forward can be difficult. However, I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done: let the needs of my clients lead the way and continue to adapt, build, grow, and take on challenges accordingly. As a client-first business, my goals aren’t based on reaching a certain company size by a certain year. My goal is to do everything within my capacity to help my clients confidently tell their stories to the world. They power Saga Consulting and will ultimately determine what this brand becomes. To all who are reading this: thank you. I hope you’ll join me in discovering what the next five years of communicating with confidence will bring.