becoming a Business Owner - 12 things I wish I knew
Four years ago I left my social work job to become a full-time entrepreneur. Though many cautioned against that decision, I knew it was what I needed to do. It was a heart pull; a pull that has led me to the most fulfilling work and lifestyle. However, the journey to get here wasn’t always easy and I know many people who read my blog are in the early stages of starting their own businesses or have businesses they are ready to grow, so I felt it would be helpful to share a few things that I wish I knew.
1. Clarity = Confidence
The first, most important, thing I wish I knew was that clarity = confidence. Meaning, the more clear I got on who I was here to serve and how I could help them, the easier it was to feel confident about my work. Not only is confidence required when it comes to marketing yourself —you won’t feel comfortable sharing your work if you don’t have confidence that your work actually matters and that you can deliver on your promise to your customer —it’s also very important for shaking off naysayers and people who doubt you, as well as the people who reject your work.
2. Business can be steady
A lot of people think entrepreneurship is filled with uncertainty because income isn’t as consistent or reliable as a “real job” — and while there are parts of business that involve risk, most businesses can be stable. Which was something that surprised me! This is because there is a system to sales, and depending on the industry that you're in, there is a rate (called a conversion rate) at which people will go from finding your work, to being interested in what you do, to becoming paying customers. Knowing this you’re able to reverse-engineer a few numbers to figure out how many people need to “find” your work to reach your profit goal. Never heard of this before? We cover sales funnels and conversation strategy inside of the Empaths in Business program.
3. there is a concept called “Secondary GaiN”
Ever have a goal you really wanted to reach but never ended up taking the steps you needed to take to reach it? If so, it’s because there was something you deemed more valuable inside of your comfort zone. An example of this was when I was first deciding to charge for my work. Though I needed money and knew I couldn’t work for free anymore, I also wanted approval. I believed that putting a price on my work would make people disapprove of me. So while I needed money, I didn't take the steps to price my work because I didn’t want to lose approval. The approval was something that I gained by not charging — and I wanted that approval more than anything, so much that it held me back from leaving my “comfort zone” (quotations because being broke isn’t comfortable at all.) When we do this, we are experiencing what is called Secondary Gain and knowing about the phenomenon allows us to become aware of the real reasons we hold ourselves back so that we can confront them. For me, it was confronting my people pleasing and sacrificial beliefs; a topic I share about in this podcast episode on negative money beliefs.
4. We become who we surround ourselves with
Similarly, we become the sum of the five people we spend the most time with, which is why it was so difficult for me to finally start to charge for my work. At the time the people I spent most of my time with held sacrificial money beliefs too. In order to change my situation and learn to charge for my gifts I needed to get around new people who carried positive money beliefs. I did this through reading books, listening to podcasts and enrolling in courses. In the same vein, I also moved to a city outside of my hometown in order to take my business seriously. I needed to be around people who took creative, non-traditional career paths to know that I could too.
Money mindset and pricing for profit is an important topic covered in Empaths in Business.
5. Worth vs. Value
Another thing to know when starting a business is that there is a difference between worth and value. Worth is how you perceive your work — value is how another perceives what you do and how it impacts their needs as a customer. When I work with business owners who are sharing their work and still not making sales, there are two avenues we need to address. One is whether or not they know their worth as a product or service provider, the other is whether or not they are communicating their value to those in need of what they have to offer. You can do all the mindset and inner work to know the worth of your work, but if you can’t communicate that worth to your ideal customer in words they need to hear, they will not see your value, and if they don’t see your value, they will not purchase from you.
6. Success is Step-by-Step
If you follow my work, you know I say this all the time, but success is the accumulation of many small steps. In business you’re going to believe in yourself a little bit before you ever believe in yourself a lot and you’re going to make your first sale before you ever make your second one. If you're trying to get too ahead of yourself because you want to see your vision unfold, it's really important you know how to bring yourself back to centre and focus on the next thing you need to do to reach your next business goal. Getting too far ahead of yourself will only keep you from moving forward at all.
If this is something you struggle with, here is a Goal Setting Workbook.
7. you can’t stay hiding
Another lesson I’ve learned about being an entrepreneur is that everything external is mirroring our internal world. If you have a great product or service and a sales system that should work, yet you aren’t making sales with the work you do, it’s because there is a part of you that is still hiding. This is common for healing or spiritual entrepreneurs who don’t want their family members to see their work. When you're afraid of that, you are energetically shrinking yourself and telling the universe that you don't want to be seen and the universe takes that as not wanting to be seen by anybody, including potential customers.
8. How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything
Similarly, how we do anything is how we do everything, so if you have poor boundaries with family members you’re going to also struggle to set boundaries with those who purchase from you. An example of this is letting people skip payments or overdelivering by taking too much responsibility for those who pay you. If you never know how much money is in your bank account, you’ll never know how much money is moving through your business either. While it might seem that business is separate from relationship and family and other areas of life, it’s not. Everything is interconnected. Notice your weak areas in day to day life and ask yourself how that similar pattern is showing up in your business (or hesitation to start a business) too. That will show you the areas you need to strengthen - or outsource - for your business to grow.
9. there are many versions of success
Another thing I’ve learned is that one person’s version of a successful business is not someone else’s. Which is why you need to be very clear about the life and lifestyle you want and the business type you need to build to achieve it. Some people feel most successful with service based businesses, others love selling products. Some people love working all of the time and always reaching new heights, some people only want to work a few hours in the mornings when their children are asleep. We become entrepreneurs because we want to create a life that’s customized to our desires. Being very clear on your version of success is key to knowing the type of business you need to build and how you need to go about it. This is another topic we spend a lot of time on within the Empaths in Business program.
10. respond Vs. react
Another thing I've learned is that as an entrepreneur you need to know how to regulate your nervous system, especially during times you are choosing to uplevel. A controlled nervous system responds to triggering situations whereas an uncontrolled nervous system reacts. I see this often when a business owner wants to raise their price. If they don’t get immediate validation (via someone purchasing at the new price point) they react to that trigger (feeling unseen, feeling not good enough, etc.) by lowering their price again. A response would be to step back and review why sales might not be happening yet. Perhaps you haven’t shared your offer enough? Perhaps you need to better explain the benefits of your work to better showcase the value? Being able to respond through uncomfortable moments is what allows you to grow, as reacting to situations keeps you stuck or moves you backwards.
11. investment = self love
For the first few years of my business I felt guilty for wanting to spend money on people and opportunities to grow my business. I felt as if I should be able to do it all on my own. Until one day I came across a course I really wanted to enrol in and while hesitating to purchase a spot I remembered back to my years in university where I spent tens of thousands of dollars each year for degrees I wasn’t even passionate about. I had no problem paying for the dream that someone else had for me, but I had a huge hesitancy to pay for something that I actually wanted. That to me was a wake up call to begin to practice what it meant to have self-love, which to me is investing in the business and lifestyle I saw for myself.
12. Sell or Be Sold
A final thing I wish I knew when starting my business and becoming an entrepreneur is that we are always either selling or being sold. A lot of people associate business with selling, but the fact is we are selling all of the time — in life, in relationships. If someone says you can’t do something and you choose to believe them, you’ve bought into that idea. When you suggest a new dinner spot for you and your partner and he agrees to go, you’ve sold him on dinner in that new location. So often new entrepreneurs buy into everyone else’s beliefs of what’s possible and sell themselves on things not working out. They also sell themselves on why someone won’t buy from them instead of selling themselves on why they will. Learning to see all exchanges as an opportunity to root deeper into your power and your knowing strengthens your self-trust as an entrepreneur.
Enjoy this article? Click here to listen to the full podcast episode. Ready to start or grow your business? Join us!
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Robin
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I'm Robin —
The diarist behind the Diary of an Empath and creator of Empaths in Business, a six week course teaching empaths how to turn their good work into a business that works, with strategy, healing and support.
