I’ve been running my business since early 2008 – so at the time of writing this, over 13 years of being my own boss, making my own decisions and building my own business.
To be honest, it has been hard at times – and at other times it has flowed and felt really easy. I definitely don’t have all the answers, but I have decided that it might help some of you in similar positions just to read about the things I have encountered along the way, and how I’ve risen above them, struggled, or something in between.
Let’s start with the idea of “Knowing what to do“. I wonder how many of us have felt like imposters when starting out in business, as we look at other successful men & women, enjoying success apparently with great ease…. while we tear our hair out trying to figure out whether we need to be on both Twitter and LinkedIn, whether we need to write blog posts every week, deciding on the best business bank account – and how the heck to find new clients!
My advice?
Get support!
The single most important factor in me getting to where I am has been knowing that I need support, and going out and getting it, in many different ways.
- I no longer have co-workers to bounce ideas off and learn from – so I belong to an amazing networking group. In addition to having clients referred to me, they are my pals, my “work colleagues”.
- I’ve had a business coach at various points over the years, to help me get over “bumps in the road”, hold me accountable and remind me to celebrate the wins, no matter how small.
- I gave up on trying to understand tax after my first tax return! I have had an accountant since the 2nd year of my business and it just takes that stress away from me.
So what are the things that you could delegate so you can concentrate on your services? - Don’t try to do it all! In the early years of my business I used to offer SEO (search engine optimisation) as a service to my clients – and found I was spending SO much time learning about the changes Google introduces every 6 months! So now I outsource this if my clients wants SEO. Same thing with emails … I can set up basic emails, but if my clients want something more robust… I get my “email guru” involved, and he takes care of it all… and the great thing is that my clients love him 🙂
- When I wanted to create my own course, I bought training on how to do that – yes it costs, but I have learned so much and will recoup that investment back many times. You can spend time learning for yourself – but if you want a boost in knowledge, training really helps.
I’m sure there are so many other things we can do to get support – add them in the comments if you like 🙂
And get in touch if I can support YOU with your website.
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