Lessons Learned From 13 Years In Business
Steve and I are now into our 13th year in business, and as we've been doing our yearly planning and big visioning that comes along with it, I've been thinking about all the incredible highs that I've experienced, and the terrifying lows that come with it.
I want to share just five of the biggest lessons that I've learned over the last 13 years that I know will help make the next 13 years in business not only more successful, but full of more ease.
Hopefully, you can take some of these to heart sooner than I did, and it'll help you get there faster.
Lesson 1: Get comfortable testing things and having them fail
That really is how you create something amazing.
No matter how much I learned from other people through content, through programs, through coaches - ultimately, it's my business.
And I have to try and test things in my business to figure out what works.
If you really want to build something special, it means you're gonna have to go out of your comfort zone and create things and try things that may not always work.
In order to build something great, you have to get comfortable with that failure.
I'll give you an example.
I have probably created 100 webinars over the last seven or eight years.
I use the word ‘webinar’ loosely - it means masterclasses, recorded content, different kinds of trainings - hundreds, actually.
Each one took a ton of time and energy, and I did my best.
And guess what?
A lot of them didn't move the needle at all.
It's not that they were bad, they just didn't quite do what I wanted them to do.
Each time that they didn't do what I wanted them to do, it would feel like defeat, and failure.
I'll be honest, it would feel like ‘Gosh, I wasted a ton of time on that and it didn't even work.’
The problem with feeling like that is that it can stop you from ever trying again and can make you hesitate the next time you have to make something new or the next time you have to test out an idea.
So what I've learned after doing so many of these is that when it doesn't work, you've got to just kind of embrace it.
You've got to say ‘Okay, I guess that one didn't work. Now I have a little bit more information to use for the next one.’
And that is entrepreneurship.
But there's a beautiful upside to this, which is that if you're willing to put yourself out there and try things and test them and have them not all work, some of them are going to work.
And they're going to work really, really well.
And when that happens, you are going to be on such a high because something that you created, something that you made with your own two hands with that super smart brain of yours actually generated an amazing result.
And, if I may be so bold as to say, that's part of why we're all entrepreneurs, because that high of making something with your own efforts and having them work and succeed is one of the most gratifying things.
I think about life, especially in our space. Because we're makers - we make things.
We create brands, we create websites, we design things, we write things, we create strategies.
And it's so gratifying when those things that we create actually make a difference.
And so we're doing that in our businesses all the time when we're trying new ideas.
And not all of them are working.
Because when it works, that's when we get that elated feeling that makes the whole thing worth it.
Lesson 2: How to look at your money
Looking at money month to month will drive you insane.
You've got to look at money on an annual basis, all the way.
We often go into starting a business looking for that consistent income and everybody I talked to says I wish I just had that consistency, like a job, like a salary.
Why do we feel that way?
Because we are conditioned to think that a salary is safer and better.
But I'll tell you what.
I would rather make $30,000 this month and no money next month than make $10,000 a month steadily.
Do the math.
If I do $30,000 this month and none next month or $10,000 each month I will make $10,000 more.
Why would I rather have that inconsistency?
A bunch of reasons.
Making $30,000 this month and none next month means that my time was valued at a much higher rate, and I was able to generate a lot more money in a lot less time.
It means I'm creating more value in the world than if I am in a salaried job making $10,000 a month or even in a business making $10,000 a month.
That means I'm going from a salaried employee mentality to a business owner generating more and more value and less and less time.
Also, when I make $30,000 in one month, and none in the next month, that means I have time, which is another thing that we went into entrepreneurship for.
I have time, freedom and flexibility.
I can spend that month working on my business or doing something else like travelling, going on vacation or whatever it is.
That's what entrepreneurship is all about.
So if you're looking at your cash flow, and it's all about how can I just try to hit this monthly income and feel safe, what you're doing is you're actually constricting your opportunities.
You're going to make decisions that might not be very pragmatic and that might not make sense.
You're probably going to take lower paying gigs, just to try to hit those monthly numbers.
I want you to just think about throwing all of that out - that is incredibly stressful.
And I bet you feel that stress every month when you start at zero and say, ‘Okay, I have to make a certain amount of money this month, or else I'm going to feel like I've failed and am completely stressed out.’
Instead, look at your year, figure out how much money you need to make over the entire year and put a plan together to do it.
This is something we do inside the first phase of No BS Agency Mastery.
It's super important. It's figuring out that business plan so that you know, ‘I don't need to make X dollars every month. I just need to make this many sales, at this price point, over the course of 12 months to hit my numbers and hit higher numbers than I was even going for when I was trying to hit that consistent income.’
Not only does it free you up to do the higher value work to get those higher numbers, but it is a lot less stressful.
And isn't that what we want?
This is how to not only be more successful, but also to do it with more ease.
Ease partially comes from your mindset around money and cash flow.
Do not drive yourself crazy trying to generate exactly a certain amount of money every month. Look at the annual focus on that. It's what real business owners do.
Lesson 3: Focus on process, not outcome
This is another tough one for us, because we are so outcome based, myself included.
If you talk to somebody or try to make a sale or do an event, and you base how you feel about it just on the outcome, you're not taking into account all kinds of factors that may have affected it.
Yes, results and outcome are important. They give us data and information that we can then use to learn and adjust moving forward.
But in truth, we can only do as well as we can do at any particular moment. And if how you feel is tied exclusively to the outcome and not the process that you use to go through it, then you are going to be on another roller coaster of emotions.
I've done some trainings, group sales calls, all kinds of things over the years where the outcome was amazing, or the outcome was not nearly what I thought it would be.
Even if I did an amazing job, the reason the outcome wasn't what I wanted was because of a whole bunch of factors.
Maybe it was timing, maybe it was the economic environment, maybe it was just the people on the call.
There's so many different reasons that it may or may not have gone well.
But it's important that we as the business owners don't get rattled by that outcome not being what we want, and instead focus on ‘Did I show up?’
‘Did I do my best job and put in my best effort?’
And can't that be enough for now? Right? Is it ever enough?
If we focus on our process and what we're putting into it, we will be so much better freed up to actually do our best work, knowing that it's never going to be perfect.
And if you're always just showing up and doing our best, focusing on process instead of outcome, it’s going to free you up to have more ease in your business.
Lesson 4: The highs and lows of entrepreneurship
When it's really scary, remember that the lows only feel lower because the highs are so much higher.
We chose this life of entrepreneurship when we could have been employed.
Well, you’re probably thinking ‘No, I couldn't have’ and I agree with you. I don't think I would survive as an employee.
But we did choose the entrepreneur life because there's so much opportunity and potential for us.
When we succeed, we get everything we want, right?
We make more money than we would ever make in a job.
We have more freedom.
We can take time off when we want to.
We can set our own schedules.
We can pick the clients that we want to work with.
We can choose the projects that light us up
We can decide to work less or more depending on what we want to achieve at any given time.
These are all amazing opportunities that we have, that anybody employed does not have access to.
But the reason we're able to achieve these big dreams is because entrepreneurship is a high risk, high reward situation.
The lows are going to be lower when something doesn't work.
It may be the difference of tens of thousands of dollars, and it's why you have the opportunity to make so much more money in less time, because you also have the opportunity to lose that money when a sale doesn't come through.
So as low as it may feel sometimes when you're struggling, remember that's because your opportunity is so much greater.
I love to remind my students of this when they're feeling a little nervous, because for whatever reason, they didn’t meet whatever expectation they had of making a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time.
I say ‘You're usually just one client away from feeling completely different.’
If you really look at the numbers, especially in our industry, where clients are worth so much more money, you're usually one sale from everything turning around - just one sale.
And when you have a process in place, that shows you how to get that sale, it's just a matter of time.
And it's not nearly as scary.
You chose entrepreneurship, because the highs are so much higher. Don't forget that when you're feeling low.
Lesson 5: It's a marathon, not a race
As an impatient entrepreneur, I can tell you that I am constantly in a ‘race’ state, okay, so I know more than anyone that reminding yourself that this is a marathon is one of the most valuable things you can do.
Because I've been in business for 13 years, constantly trying to remind myself that this is a marathon, my business has looked completely different in the last six years than it did in the previous seven years.
It's evolved tremendously.
And when you are in that race mentality, you're just trying to get there as fast as possible.
And you forget that there are years in front of you, that this business is going to have to evolve.
So you don't have to get there right away.
As long as you have a vision for what you want your business to ultimately look like.
And you are taking action every day towards those goals, you will be achieving things all along the way.
So there is no ‘there’, it's just a marathon that you are going to be running for a long time.
So relax into it, enjoy the ride a little bit.
There are so many wins along the way towards your goals.
And if you aren't paying attention, you may feel like you're never getting there when you absolutely are.
I was speaking with a student recently who said she had literally 10x her price since joining our programme.
10x.
And before she told me that she said she was stressed because she wasn't getting there fast enough.
She said it felt like there was so much to do, and business was really overwhelming.
And then I asked her about her pricing and I tried to get a lay of the land of how she was doing.
And then she said, ‘Well, since joining this program, I've 10x my price.’
I said, ‘Wow, that's incredible. Have you acknowledged to yourself that you have multiplied your price by 10? And are still getting those clients?’
And she kind of laughed and said, ‘Oh, yeah, well, I know, that's very exciting. But I've kind of already moved past that.’
And I said, ‘If you feel like you're in a race to some ultimate conclusion of this, you're gonna miss the fact that you are having incredible wins along the way, and that your life and your business is getting progressively closer to what you want it to look like.’
You can be satisfied and content and excited about where you are, and still push and still be motivated to grow your business.
Let me say that again because I think a lot of people lose sight of this.
You can be both satisfied and content with where you are, and be motivated to take action to go farther.
I think a lot of people feel like if they're not unsatisfied, they won't have the motivation to grow their businesses.
But nothing could be farther from the truth.
As long as you're clear on why you want to grow your business, and you stay connected to that big ‘why’ and that vision, then that motivation will continually show up for you.
So those are five big lessons that I've learned and have been constantly learning over the last 13 years of my business.
Here’s what you need to get…
No matter where you think you are, or where you think you should be as a branding agency owner, it’s important to really enjoy this process of being an entrepreneur.
Not everything you do is going to work, but as long as you keep going, there's so much opportunity.
I hope this helps you and reminds you of what's important, and gets you out of some of those mindset stuck spots that we as entrepreneurs can get into.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to learn all my tools and strategies to scale up your agency- just go here to get started!