Posts Tagged ‘Blog’
Observations And Learnings From Taking My Business On The Road
Right now I am road-testing ‘the laptop lifestyle’. It’s been over three years since I started my business and the first real time I’ve tried this. Every other trip I was on holiday or I was only away a couple of days. So far I’ve been to Frankfurt, Hannover and Dusseldorf in Germany visiting friends and hanging out in my old stomping grounds. Mid July I move on to New York City. Woo hoo!
Honestly though, as much as I love freedom and having control over my schedule, I’ve always been nervous about trying to work away from home. I like having a proper desk with everything set up – think note pads, coloured pens, printer, comfortable chair etc etc. I’m the kind of person who can’t even work in a cafe because it’s too distracting. So this trip has been quite an experiment!
So here’s what I discovered so far:
Please Give Yourself Permission (You’re The Only One Who Can)
In many of the spaces we move in before we work for ourselves there are a lot of rules around what we can do and when.
‘All promotions are based on seniority.’
‘You can’t do this job until you have that qualification.’
‘You can’t study this unless you did that first.’
And in some cases these rules make sense. I know when I go into hospital I definitely want to be sure that the surgeon did indeed learn exactly how to do the surgery needed!
Other times though these rules actually don’t make sense at all. If you are an amazing teacher does it make sense that you can’t go for certain jobs because others have been there longer than you?
Probably not. But the system doesn’t allow for this.
The reason these rules are usually created is not because someone was trying to make it hard, it’s to ensure that the person who gets the job can actually do the job in question. It’s just that this doesn’t always work.
The bigger problem here is that we lose the ability to decide for ourselves what we can and can’t do because we get used to handing over the decisions that affect our lives to someone else.
In Business You Really Only Have Two Options
In business you only really have two options.
That sounds pretty stark right? ‘
A lot of the time it feels like we are overwhelmed by options – which niche should we go for, who is our ideal client, should we sell online or offline, are webinars better than Facebook Ads etc etc.
These are micro-options, or micro decisions. Ultimately yes, which strategy you go for does matter. But what really makes the difference is at a deeper level.
Top 5 Scary Facts About Starting a Business (and How to Beat Them!)
I want to get really honest with you here today: starting your own business can be scary!
I hear the fears and doubts about starting a business from my clients all the time:
What if I don’t make any money?
What if I don’t know anything about techie stuff?
What if I get hate mail?
The truth is, starting a business IS scary! But the best way to overcome a fear is to get it out in the open and think of ways to beat it.
7 Lessons Learned From Going From 0 to $20k Months in 18 Months
Woah. That was a lot of numbers. I haven’t talked about my own business numbers in the past and there are two main reasons for this.
One, I want my CLIENT results to do the talking as to why people should work with me, not what I’m earning.
And two, honestly, I feel a bit weird talking about money like that. It’s probably cultural conditioning, and potentially something I need to get over.
I realise though that people are super curious to see what the business growth path can look like, and what really goes on behind the scenes.
By sharing honestly how it looked for me and what I learned from it, while it is a little revealing, I am hoping that you can learn these lessons without actually having to go through them yourself while growing your business.
So here are my 7 big lessons learned from going from 0 to $20k months in 18 months.