Welcome back to the podcast! In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the biggest failures and lessons learned from 5 years in business. And I’m going to start by saying failure is an interpretation. It’s not a fact of life or an inevitable experience you have on your way to success. It’s one perspective out of many that we have the option of choosing to buy into (which most people do).
This is why I love Tyler Perry, when you listen to his interviews you’ll hear him say, he’s never failed. Even when he started doing his plays, paid promoters, rented stages, and had 7 people show up and he knew most of them. It wasn’t a failure. In our society, most people look at that and question whether or not they should continue in show biz. And while this was definitely discouraging it didn’t stop Tyler from following his yellow brick road and sticking with the vision he believes God put in his heart.
Starting a business is an exciting venture, it can also be incredibly challenging, but challenges don’t mean failure. It means growth. So let’s get into this episode!
According to research, only 80% of startups survive after one year, which means that 20% of business owners close up shop. In this post, we’ll be sharing some of the most significant mistakes we made while running our business and the lessons we learned from them.
Maintaining A Clear Vision of The “Done Business”
One of the most challenging aspects of running a business is maintaining a clear vision and having a proven strategy that’ll get you there. At the beginning of my journey, I had a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve, the beautiful souls I wanted to help, and all of the heartfelt contributions I wanted to make in my industry of personal development while I was passionate, inspired, and fired up I lacked the right strategy to make it happen.
As a result, I found myself getting caught up in the day-to-day tasks and losing track of the bigger picture. This lack of direction made it difficult to make informed decisions about where to allocate resources and ultimately led to a shift in our messaging that attracted an audience that I wasn’t sure I wanted to serve at the time.
The Big Lesson: Always ****Begin with the end in mind. With every project, goal, intention, and even down to your daily/weekly pieces of content. If you want to hit your goals faster and double your productivity work with a clear purpose. Post with the end result in mind. And if you have a team communicate that end vision with them so they have the same level of urgency and commitment to excellence that you carry.
Easy Application Tip: Maintain a clear picture in your mind, on a vision board, in your phone, or on a Pinterest board (where ever you want to keep it is fine the important thing is to have it) because without a clear picture of where you’re going, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce of running a business, prioritizing mundane activities over things that will produce the long-term growth and momentum you’re committed to.
Make Intentional Business Investments
Another big mistake I made is two-fold.
- I did not understand how to use money to grow the business and get tax refunds for it
- I was not keeping tabs on our monthly income and expenses.
Now when I work with entrepreneurs today in 2023 even with all the content out there about business, marketing, and sales these are still two of the biggest blind spots I see a lot of business owners struggle with. So how about we do this? My whole mission with this podcast is to make it a reliable resource for entrepreneurs and Trailblazers aka people who aspire to make a contribution to the world that is uncommon. So if you find yourself unaware of how to effectively manage and allocate your business funds to produce business growth and impact and would like an episode all about how I’ve been able to grow my business over the last 5 years and the types of investment all successful business owners make then send me a dm on IG or if you’re listening in the Spotify app use the Q&A option to submit a question about this topic or simply let us know that this is something you want. Alright? Cool.
So what this looked like for me in my business was I would put money into the business to keep things running without really understanding how I could leverage the money, increase production, double sales, that kind of thing. This lack of understanding made it difficult to make informed decisions about where to allocate resources, and it led to me overspending in some areas while neglecting others.
Advertising is one of the most significant expenses in any business. However, it’s important to be strategic about where you spend your advertising dollars. In my case, when I started the business I ran ads with the support of a business coach I was working with. We ran the ads for a few weeks and when the numbers came back and I got results that I considered to be low performance (at the time) I was afraid to invest more.
I didn’t want to create an ad budget and really bump dollars into advertising the business without the guarantee that things would work. After all, what if they didn’t work? What if I ended up wasting thousands of dollars and was left with little to nothing to show for it? What if my ad strategy sucked? How would I recoup the funds? Where would I go for training? I just was not confident in the ads strategy and now 5 years in with a lot more experience running ads and a ton of ads training I look back at that time period and can see that the ads I created needed more time. It wasn’t low performance it was premature results. I didn’t trust the process. I didn’t know what was considered “normal” or even “good” performance. I just knew that it had been a few weeks and I didn’t get the results I wanted.
The Big Lesson: Trust yourself. Trust God. And trust the process. Because there is a fundamental principle in life (not just business but in life). Every challenge you experience at any stage in your life, business, finances, relationships, and so on comes with a solution. So everything you see as being a “problem” or an obstacle in your business right now is actually an opportunity for you to learn something you haven’t learned yet, experience deeper transformation, and receive the answer to a prayer you may have prayed and forgotten about. Trust yourself. Trust God. And trust the process.
Easy Application Tip: What is one challenge you’re currently experiencing in your business? And how can you use it as leverage to get to where you wanna go? What skill, mindset, practice, system, or creative solution do you have an opportunity to explore or implement as you work through this challenge? Commit to the end result and you’ll see that just as there are many routes to achieve the same goal there are plenty of solutions to your challenge it’s time for you to choose one and work it till it works. Be flexible on how you do it (strategy). Stay aware of what is happening (the results). And trust yourself. No one knows your business better than you. No one can grow it better than you.
Know Your Value To The Market (Your Audience)
Another big mistake I made in my early days and sometimes even stumble around in now is not recognizing the impact we’re having in the community we serve. I get dm’s, emails, and text messages from clients and inspiring souls in our online community who listen to the podcast or have gone through one of our free resources like Your Next 90 Days exclaiming how grateful they are for the business. They share the tremendous impact listening to the podcast has had on their mental clarity and ability to follow through on their goals, how much success they are experiencing in their business as a result of working with me directly, and the overall life-changing effect the business has had on them.
For example, we had a client who worked with us for a few weeks and received business coaching and mentorship through a program that we no longer offer (90 Days One Goal). The whole intention of the program for business owners is to generate your first $10k in 90 days. This client exceeded the goal by creating $15k in sales and the best part for me is that as a result they now had a bigger vision of what was possible for them in their business. They now have a monumental historical reference point that they can now refer to when things don’t go as planned instead of doubting themself or thinking they don’t have what it takes to build an impactful business empire they can look at their track record and see that they’ve exceeded their expectation before which means they can do it again! Pow! If that’s not a life-changing reality I don’t know what is.
Now for me in my business we were so busy doing the work and enjoying the momentum we were creating that we didn’t recognize when we hit a sweet spot, were in flow, and things were exactly as we dreamed, prayed, and worked for them to be. When thousands of people were signing up for our programs and work got busy responding to customer service emails and fixing glitches I would celebrate the growth and I know that I also focused on the pressure of this new level of business and having all of these people in our programs. The growth was fun. The pressure was not.
Out of my desire to ensure our clients were having the best possible experience and getting everything they needed to grow their business and/or experience personal transformation, I bogged myself down to working in my business instead of holding down my CEO position and focusing on the 5% that would cause more growth.
The Big Lesson: Know your 5% activities as the business owner and focus all of your time and energy on these things. This is actually the Pareto principle but multiplied because instead of doing the 20% that produces 80% of your results you’re diving into the 5% that causes the 95%. It’s insane and the productivity you have as a result of this is wild. If you want a deep dive into exactly how to do this join Master Your 5% Activities our best-selling time management workshop. It flips everything you think you know about time and time management on its head. It’s not like anything you’ve heard or experienced before. Plus it comes with a helpful dashboard that allows you to manage your life from one easy place without having to use a ton of apps, reminders, and trackers. The link is in the show notes. Learning how to manage your time is one of the best investments you can make in yourself and your life this quarter.
Easy Application Tip: It’s important to take a step back and appreciate the progress you’ve made and the impact you’re business is having in the world. Celebrate every win and keep your heart open to the ways your business is contributing to society and the ways you have already and continue to make a difference in the life of your clients/customers.
Your Experience In Business Is Your Choice
Lastly, I learned that growing your business will be as hard, stressful, fun, or confusing as you choose to make it. Everyone has a different experience in business just as everyone has a different experience in life. Some say life is hard, others say life is bliss. Some say business is a lot of work while others say business is better with friends. Your experience is entirely your own and here’s the best part. If you don’t like how it’s going you get to create something else. Here’s a powerful truth I learned and have leaned into more and more over the years.
Success or perceived failure in business is based on principles. Not how much you pray, fast, and call on heaven or how hard you try to manifest the business of your dreams. When you learn and apply business principles to your business no matter the type of business you have you’ll succeed. You could be the most religious person in the world or you could be a heartless murderer it doesn’t matter. Principles work for everyone, anywhere in the world. The only requirement is that you learn them and make them work for you.
Nowadays I see a lot of struggling entrepreneurs gathering a ton of quick tips and hacks and trying to turn all of the surface-level content into a strategy which often leaves them frustrated and feeling beat down like they have no control over how things are going but the reality is as the business owner you are the only person in control and you have all you need right now to get your business to the next big place that you want it to get to.
If you choose success, money, influence, team members, and everything else will follow. But if you chase followers, downloads/views, and collaborations, and so you’ll fill your schedule trying to get those things and miss the bigger picture of what resources you have to work with now and sometimes even lose opportunities for growth that are right in front of you. So don’t get lost in the hacks and tips. Focus on learning and mastering principles.
The Big Lesson: Your experience in business is a reflection of you. If you want things to change, it starts in you.
Easy Application Tip: Decide what you want and align with it. Cut off all other options because once your decision is made anything that doesn’t align with that outcome is a distraction which is a waste of your time and energy. No hustle, stress, or “hard” work is required to win in business. Practice being diligent, discipline, and courageous. Refuse to settle for what you don’t want and align with what you do want.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode! I hope that by sharing our experiences, you can avoid making the same mistakes we did and achieve success in your own business. See you in the next episode! Ciao for now! Mwah!
