This week I celebrate my sixth year in business! That’s right, six years ago I left the safety and security of my Fortune 50 sales and marketing job to go full time for myself creating a business and income via social media! I had no clue at the time that just one year later I would have completely replaced my income and grown my community online to over 50k regular viewers, subscribers and followers, and now six years in, have created a steady six figure business with a following of over 125k! If you had asked me when I had gotten started to say what my business would look like in a year, let alone six, I most certainly couldn’t have predicted that my online shop where I sell digital products and services would become my dominate area of income, and that I would be shifting my focus to develop educational programs aimed at helping small businesses replicate my success. But despite all the success I have found in the last six years, I know that I also made plenty of mistakes, especially in that crucial first year of business. No business or person is perfect and I think I fell into some very common traps as I started my business that brought me a great amount of insight into the way I run my business and the direction I want to take it in the future. So, for your edification and perhaps amusement, here are the 5 mistakes I made in my first year of business and the lessons I learned from each of them!
Mistake #1: Work Extremely Hard
I think there is a major misconception that if you work really hard you can make a business a success, as though sheer force of will and effort will make it so, but unfortunately that’s not the case. When I left my job to go full time for myself, I took on a major amount of work, committing to producing five videos a week for my YouTube channel, thinking that this great effort would bring me success. Although I wouldn’t say this was a futile effort, it certainly wasn’t as effective because I was doing a lot of work but it was all over the place. The main problem was that I didn’t have a plan. I just thought I would make a bunch of videos and that would bring me a greater audience. Once I stopped this nonsense and made a plan for what I wanted my YouTube channel to become, I suddenly found that I was able to make fewer videos a week, but because they were focused against my plans for my channel, a cohesive vision quickly came together and my subscriber count grew astronomically!
Lesson Learned: Hard work is useless until you have a clear plan
Mistake #2: Make sure your products and services are perfect before launching them
When I started my business May 2014, one of my major goals was to get a shop up and running where I could sell my printable inserts. I had been asked by numerous members of my community to sell the printable inserts that I had created for my own planner and I thought that the printables would be a nice (albeit small) passive income. I did a lot of research figuring out how to set up a shop on my existing website, and spent way too much time anguishing over whether or not my inserts were high quality enough to sell. It took me until October of that year to finally launch my shop, and once I did, my inserts were met with overwhelming praise and support. I immediately regretted taking so long to get the shop up and running. That small income I had originally expected surpassed my expectations the first month of my launch and then that small income became larger and larger as months progressed and more products were added to my shop. What started off as an idea for a small side income turned into the majority of my monthly income which eventually lead me to replace my former salary in just a few months!
Lesson Learned: Done is better than perfect
Mistake #3: Try to help everyone
Within that first year of business, I experienced an extraordinary amount of growth. I know for some, my numbers may seem small, but I have been able to exceed every goal I have set for myself in terms of my community growth. When I first started off with my business, I told myself that it was of the utmost importance that I gave each and every member of my community my time if they reached out for my help, and in the beginning, this was not a problem for me. As months progressed, however, and I began to get more and more questions and emails from members of my community asking me for help, I began to realize that I wouldn’t be able to personally help everyone. There was just not enough time in the day for me to respond to each lengthy email from a subscriber with an equally lengthy email. I can’t reply to every comment, and I can’t answer every question, I’m just one person trying to do my best for my business. This was probably the most difficult lesson for me to learn, but over time, I began to train myself to give short and succinct answers to emails, to use links to my videos and blog posts to help me save time answering questions and to rely on the help of my more informed community members to pick up the slack with frequently asked questions. Although I’d love to have long email chats with my community members, I know that my time is precious and that I can help more people in less time with my new strategy, which means I can give more of myself in other areas.
Lesson Learned: It’s not personal, it’s business
Mistake #4: Make sure you look busy!
I don’t know if this mistake was something I inherited from my years in the corporate world at a Fortune 50 company, but early on in my business, I became keenly aware that I needed to make sure my community thought I was very busy because busy equals working hard! As a blogger and YouTuber I knew that I was something of an (extremely) minor public figure and that people would begin to notice and comment on how I spent my time. If I didn’t look like I had a lot of work to do I thought no one would respect me. The problem is, I have always been the type of person who likes to get their work done quickly so I have more time to do what I want instead of what I have to do! I have an arsenal of systems and hacks in place that I utilize everyday to make sure I’m getting my work done in less time and that’s the way I like it. To me, it’s not about keeping up the appearance of busy. Busy is bullshit! Way too many people like to consider themselves busy as though it’s some sort of measure of self-importance. Everyone has things to do, some people have more than others, but everyone makes choices for how they fill the 24 hours that they get in a day, so don’t let the concept of being busy create some sort of excuse for you not to achieve certain goals, and don’t let the busy peer pressure make you feel inadequate if you happen to have a simpler life. Personally, I love the fact that I have a good amount of free time during my day because it gives me the opportunity to be creative in a way I could never be if I was always busy!
Lesson Learned: Busy is bullshit! Strive for productivity & efficiency
Mistake #5: You need to discover the secret to success in order to achieve it.
I’m the kind of person who likes to research things ad nauseam! When I first started my business, I was sure that the secret to success was hidden out there somewhere and that it was my job to read and research and learn as much as I could about business until I discovered the secret for myself. Problem is, there is no secret. Literally, there is no secret to success in business. There is no reason why you can’t start a successful business from scratch right now with little to no business knowledge. I didn’t go to school for business, and for some time, I thought this put me at a disadvantage, but the truth is the unique knowledge and skills that I do have, the ones I was busy building while I wasn’t attending business school, are just a marketable and important to the success of my business as any business degree. Don’t let the fear that you are lacking some nonexistent business secret sauce keep you from starting your business and kicking butt at it! You can seriously make your own rules, create your own secrets, and build yourself an empire!
Lesson Learned: You can do this!
Yes, you can do this! The truth is that when you start a business, you will make mistakes, you will learn and you will grow, but the most important part of the process is to continue to move forward and learn from your mistakes until you find the success you are looking for. I wasn’t the first person to make the mistakes that I made, and I certainly won’t be the last, but you don’t have to be one of them! That’s the wonderful part of having the online business community and all the resources available to small business owners today. So many people, including myself, are more than willing to share their mistakes, lessons and resources they have learned in so many facets of their businesses. One such resource I would love to share with you today if you are also a business owner is my CEO Strategy Planner.
The CEO Strategy Planner is an undated, print on demand business planner with 60+ elegant and functionally designed inserts to help you organize, plan and execute on your business vision! Get your ideas out of your head and onto paper, and get down to business with the CEO Strategy Planner!
The CEO Strategy Planner is the ultimate bundle of business planning inserts designed for the modern creative entrepreneur or business owner. The planner is divided into multiple sections that follow the essential parts of any good business plan. This strategic planner seamlessly integrates with the calendar or agenda system of your choice. Whether you use a physical planner, a digital calendar and planning tools, or, if like me, you use a mixture of both- the CEO Strategy Planner can be used in conjunction with any calendar and planning system to create your custom business, marketing and financial plans.
I designed this planner first and foremost, for myself, out of a need for structure to keep myself focused on my business goals and objectives. As a lover of paper planners, who works via the power of digital media, I needed dedicated inserts with enough structure to allow me to outline all my essential business objectives, marketing activities, and financial tracking into one streamlined business plan on paper before I then executed on the work on my computer. As a paper planner lover and a creative, I know the power that taking pen to paper can be for your ideas, inspiration and clarity. There is nothing like getting ideas out of your head and onto paper and then getting down to business organizing and creating your vision.
The CEO Strategy Planner contains all of the essential planning tools you need to organize your business, tackle your to do list efficiently, manage your marketing efforts and keep track of all your key financial targets. With the help of this strategic business planner, you will create a vision for your business and have all the tools and strategies at hand to execute!
I know the CEO Strategy Planner is the perfect tool to help you set and achieve all your business goals whether you are just getting started or have been in business for years. So, click the button below to purchase your copy now because this is a business tool and resource you do not want to miss!
Enjoy!
xoxo,