Featured Solopreneur Dawn Svenson Holland: “I Am Blessed Beyond Measure”

This is “Featured Solopreneur,” an ongoing series that gives all of us a glimpse at how other solopreneurs operate their small businesses. Click Here to read more Solopreneur Success Stories.

Name of solopreneur:
Dawn Svenson Holland

Name of business and city:
FlashPoint Fundraising, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Web site address:
www.FlashPointFundraising.com

Type of business:
Nonprofit consultant/project firm

When did you officially go into business:
Full time February 2010, first organized April 2009

Why did you start your own business:
Found a niche my husband (co-owner) and I believe in, enacted a lifelong interest in being my own boss

What was the best thing you did when you were starting up your business?
Tested the concept at a trade show within our niche, took time to save and see and fully confirm my passion

What is a mistake you made that you have learned from?
I dropped the ball on key timing with a prospective client due to a family emergency and offered the client free services to accept responsibility for my error. Yes, “giving away my value” violates everything my SCORE consultant shared. But I was in the wrong and needed to be accountable for my error. I was reminded through this experience that accountability is a fundamental footing in building any business.

What is your biggest current challenge in the business and what are you doing to try to solve it?
There is a perception that nonprofits can enact whatever they need through only volunteers—no outside hiring. I am trying to solve that by serving my community and my industry, as well as keeping my eyes open for any time that’s right for the nonprofit (since it’s truly got to be about their needs and not mine). Amy Grant’s duet with her daughter Sarah, “Overnight,” is a source of strength for me in this venture when I need it. Successful business ventures are built one brick at a time.

What are your goals for 2010?
1. Have business income sustain the business without having to put further savings into the effort
2. Complete 15 client projects
3. Take my first salary from the business before year end

Where do you want to be with the business in five years?
Exceeding the income of the position I left for this new venture

What are your main software programs?
Standard Microsoft products and social networking

What lifestyle choices have you had to make to stay in business?
I’ve become a better budgeter with our family finances as we went from two incomes to one. This better budgeting has led me to appreciate a long walk with the family or Netflix movie night more than I ever have.

What are your strategies for staying competitive?
Deliver service that reflects the deep and abiding respect I have for the amazing work nonprofit staff and volunteers do. Respond to all e-mails and voicemails within 24 hours. Keep the focus on what the client needs instead of how much business I close in any given month. Take the time to understand client needs up front and offer project quotes accordingly.

Do you need a second household income to support your lifestyle? (Is the business primary, or supplemental to the household?)
Yes. I am forever grateful to and in awe of my husband’s flexibility and work ethic in his current position that allow me to pursue this dream. Every business owner needs a best friend and Josh Holland is mine.

If your business should fail, what is your fall back position?
Find a nonprofit or community-minded organization I believe in and help them move missions forward.

If you could start your career all over again, with what you know now, what might you have done differently? Why?
I would worry less about the amount of hours I put in and more about the quality of my work product. I would study and appreciate personality styles earlier and in more detail, both in general and as they apply to philanthropy. This was not something available to me through standard high school and college curriculum. I believe it’s at the core of appreciating the value each individual brings.

What’s your advice for aspiring solopreneurs?
1. Buy the book/take the Strengths Finder 2.0 test and reflect on what you learn in terms of the amazing, wonderful, unique value that only you bring to the world.
2. Follow your gut instinct, that inner voice, however it comes to you.
3. Find a formal or informal advisory group and always be open to the new perspectives they bring. Give back in the same manner.
4. Find an outlet that isn’t truly related to your business and actively pursue it for new perspective and a chance to reflect.

Are you glad you became a solopreneur? Why or why not?
I am blessed beyond measure taking this leap of faith because I am being pushed out of my comfort zone in areas like learning to be an accountant. I also passionately believe in what FlashPoint is doing. Although in some ways life is crazier than ever, because I am in control of my schedule, this is the first time in my career I feel like I have taken true steps towards life in the right priority order.