Mistakes I Made When I Started My Business
Bonus mistake: posting images of me with flowers on my face for absolutely no reason. But this was me back then!
I started making money online as a coach almost exactly 2 years ago, so I thought it would be fun to share some of the mistakes I made when I started out. I hope they help you to avoid making the same ones – and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments or send me an email/Instagram message.
Getting distracted from the main thing. Stephen Covey said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” When I first started coaching, long before I had a certification, I jumped straight in and my lack of knowledge was actually an asset. I had no idea how to create sales funnels or do email marketing, I didn’t have professional photos and wasn’t good at pretty much any business skill. So I didn’t do any of it. Instead, I focused most of my energy on creating and serving my clients – and that worked immediately. As soon as I started to learn about marketing tactics, my business slowed down massively. It took me a long time to figure out what was wrong. I’m talking at least 12 months.
Burning my weapons. Tony Robbins said, “If you want to take the island you need to burn the boats.” In other words, to really go all in and make something work, you need to have no return, no way back. I followed this advice, and I quit my job – which was the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do was to very quickly burn my weapons too – my money. I super quickly spent almost all of it on my coaching certification, and while I’m grateful I did that, in hindsight, I should have left some for marketing, and uh, food.
Make it complicated. Business is nowhere near as complex as it seems, particularly not when you’re a solo entrepreneur. You don’t need the fancy funnels, fancy marketing campaigns, or fancy anything to make money online. You need you, a skill, and someone who needs your offer.
Closing my Facebook group. This is a very specific mistake that won’t apply to everyone in business, but I feel that my Facebook group was a great source of connection with wonderful amazing people and many of my clients were in that group. Running a successful Facebook group is a huge time commitment, but the reward for your audience is massive. It’s a place to connect, ask questions, and get help for free. This is something I will be bringing back in the very near future.
Spending forever on my website. This is still a mistake I make to this day. I love editing website – changing the colours, the fonts, the style, the layout – and I am not kidding you, once I get started, that’s it, the whole day is a write-off. On several occasions, I’ve gone without food for more than 12 hours, totally immersed in getting the exact right font or something else inconsequential. This habit particularly deceptive because it feels like productivity (my website needs to be good for my clients, right?), but it’s not. My advice: Figure out your distractions and guilty pleasures, and limit yourself.
Not having a contract. The second client I ever signed ghosted me after the first session we had, but she hadn’t paid the full amount yet. Always get your agreements in writing!
What mistakes have you made in business? Let me know I’d love to chat mistakes!
