When a client tells me that they want to start a business and make it a success I ask them what they’re willing to do. Why? Because it’s one thing to have a desire to start a business but another thing to be willing to put in the work to make that business a success.
One of the common obstacles that holds a lot of people back from achieving their goals, particularly women. Is yourself. Your own mindset.
So I want to share 3 tips to help you to get out of your own damn way so you can start and succeed in business by taking the right step forward.
Ask yourself what you’re willing to do, and be prepared to do it
You have to be willing to do what you say want you to do. It’s a contradiction to say that you want to start a business or make it a success, and then not do anything to make it happen.
I did some volunteer coaching a while back and I had a guy that wanted some support with creating better relationships in his life to help him to grow in his career. He talked about the impact that his inability to build relationships was having on him and said that he was desperate to find a way forward. We scheduled the first session at 5am because he was based in Paris and that was the only time he could do. I am not an early riser, at all. But I was willing to wake up early to help this man, who I knew needed my help.
5am came and went and this man did not turn up. I was …. insert expletive here. He emailed me the same day apologising, explaining that he had been so busy at work that he’d completely forgotten our appointment and overslept. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but made it clear that if he didn’t attend the next appointment, he would not be getting any more appointments with me. This time I arranged the session for an afternoon. I was not prepared to wake up that early again.
And guess what? He didn’t turn up for the second appointment. This man who was so desperate to solve his relationship problems and move forward in his career, didn’t do the one thing that he could have and should have done. Turn up for the appointment. He had the access and the opportunity to help him to reach his goals, but he wasted his opportunity.
I’ll give you another example. I want to lose weight because I want to have a flat stomach. But it won’t do me any good just to sit around thinking about losing weight. That won’t give me a flat stomach. I actually have to do something about it. If I don’t end up with a flat stomach then I have nobody to blame but me.
So I put on a YouTube video and workout in my living room. Because I can’t say that I want to lose weight then not be prepared to put in the work. Just like you can’t say that you want a successful business and then not be prepared to put in the work.
Even if that work initially is just reading a blog, like this, reading a book or listening to a podcast. It doesn’t matter. You just have to start somewhere.
Be persistent
In the words of the late great Aaliyah; “If at first, you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again”.
A friend of mine took her driving test at least 10 times before she passed because she was persistent. She was determined to pass her test by any means necessary. Even if that meant taking her test over and over again. Why? Because she wanted the freedom that came along with being able to go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted to. That helped her to be persistent and keep going even though she was being knocked back.
I’m in the process of contacting publishers to get a publishing deal for my book: Discover the 22 Biggest Mistakes that Most Business Owners Make: and what you can do to avoid them, which you can get here, and I know that it will take time for me to find a publisher. But I’ll keep trying because I want a publishing deal. It will help me to reach a wider audience which will increase my sales and help me to share my message with more people.
Nothing worth having comes easy and there is no such thing as an overnight success. Athletes train for months at a time for one race, but they take it one day at a time. Beyoncé rehearsed for 9 months for a performance at the Super bowl which lasted 15 minutes. Be persistent. It will take time but it will pay off.
Now, being persistent doesn’t mean that you continually do the same thing over and over again. You have to adjust your approach. Stay focused on your goal, because that should always remain the same. What you change are the steps that you take to reach your goal. Take my publishing deal for example. If after writing to 50 publishers I still don’t have a deal, then I need to consider revising my pitch, hiring an agent or partnering with an influencer to create a buzz about my book. My goal will still be to get a publishing deal, but the way I go about it will change.
Seek the right support
You don’t know what you don’t know. And sometimes you need someone else to show you what you can’t see and help you to grow. You could end up going down a rabbit hole, wasting time and energy focusing on one thing in your business, like building a website, when what you should be focusing on is identifying the perfect person for your services or products and being clear on the benefit you can provide them.
I was talking to my older brother about my book and he was congratulating me on it.
He told me about some of the side hustles he started like drop shipping, which is where you sell products which are stocked and shipped by someone else, like a retailer or a manufacturer. And affiliate marketing where you sell products or services on behalf of someone else and you get a commission for it. As we were talking he told me that those businesses didn’t work out, and he realised that the reason for that was because he didn’t research those areas enough to understand the product or the process.
That is exactly why I created my book. To educate new and aspiring business owners on the common mistakes most business owners make, which lead to them either failing or struggling to succeed. Even if all you have is a side hustle, you still need to know the mistakes to avoid.
If you are doing something new for the very first time, like lighting a BBQ (don’t laugh, I genuinely had no idea how to do it), wouldn’t you do all that you could to find out how to do it right, so you don’t make a mistake? It’s the same for your business.
I talked earlier about seeking a book publishing deal. The first thing that I did was research how to find a publishing deal and then I found someone with more knowledge & experience than me and hired them to help me to get a basic understanding of the process that I needed to follow. That support didn’t cost me a lot of money, but it was invaluable & saved me so much time. It also helped me to get clear on my next steps.
Support doesn’t have to be expensive. I hired a VA on Fiverr to carry out some research for me and I paid $9 for 3 hours of work. That allowed me to spend 3 hours doing something else in my business, that would help me to generate money.
To summarise:
- Be willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want in your business
- Be persistent
- Get the right support to help you
If you need some support in your business, then book yourself in for a FREE Business Buster call. It will help you to paint a clear picture of what you want your business to look like, identify the obstacles that could stop from making that vision come to life and get clear on what you need to focus on in your business.
Just click the link below to book your call.