The 4 biggest lessons I learned from 2.5 years in business
There were 3 main reasons why I started Flourish Online Management more than 2.5 years ago;
1. I had started working in hospitality when I came out of university and worked my way through from being a receptionist to working in the reservations department where I sold and organised large groups that would come to the hotel. After a couple of years, I moved to the corporate world as a business analyst and pricing manager. In those 7 years, I ran my own department and trained staff & interns, reorganised that department from scratch and managed a €65-million portfolio. But I ran into the same things over and over again in the corporate world.
It's a long story but let's say work ethic and good results don't equal appreciation and promotions. One of these moments pushed me to start my own business. I could continue complaining about what was going on. I could keep changing myself in such a way that I would fit in better. I could keep trying to find a way to improve, as speaking up was not appreciated. Or I could stand up for myself and take action to change the situation. And I did. It was time to break out from the corporate setting to let my creative side flourish and pursue my childhood dream to be a designer.
2. I wanted to spend more time with my family. My husband works in operations in hospitality which means mornings, day or late shifts. If we were unlucky and he had late shifts for a full week, while I was working 9 to 5, he would come home when I was asleep and I would leave when he was.
3. My love for travel. My husband and I met when we were in South Africa for 6 months, which was part of a semester abroad for our university degree. We both left a piece of our heart behind in Africa, and since then we've tried to go back as often as possible. With my business, I wanted to create more freedom to travel but also to give back and help out with Wildlife Conservation.
I started my business with big dreams and even bigger goals. But I could have never imagined what an emotional rollercoaster it would be to start your own business. How you can go from feeling confident in your abilities to second-guessing everything that you are doing?
These are the biggest lessons I’ve learned since then.
Lesson 1: You need to believe in yourself and embrace what makes you special instead of trying to blend in.
When I started with FOM, I expected it to be a lot of work and I was fine with that. I expected that there were going to be a lot of things I knew nothing about that I had to learn. But I love diving into something new and figuring it out. What I was not expecting (as much) was how I, as a person, was going to be challenged by my emotions and doubts.
When I left my corporate job I was working in that field for 7 years and had been building my confidence over the years, I knew that I was good at it, I build a track record of good results and I was regularly contacted by recruiters. But that confidence fell away when I started working on my own business.
Soon I realised that not believing in yourself and self-doubt can be your worst enemy. It undermines your confidence and ability to get things done. You start second-guessing every step that you take.
I learned I had to believe in myself. If I could not do that, how would someone else believe in me enough to hire me?
Getting tips, tricks and inspiration from what others in your field are doing is fine. But this is also where you need to draw the line. I learned I needed to focus on myself. And understand (and believe in) how much I was bringing to the table for my clients based on my personal and professional experience.
That this combination of working in the corporate world with numbers and having to make strategic plans to increase revenue and profit and running my own business as a designer and brand strategist was something that made me stand out from others in my industry. That I needed to embrace this, instead of trying to make myself be more like the others.
Lesson 2: You need to take advantage of just-in-time learning - not learning everything you can about every subject because you will need it later.
I got completely lost in a learn as much as you can cycle. I was going from freebie to webinar, to masterclass, to podcast to course bundle. I was consuming so much information with the idea that I would need it all. Maybe not now, but surely in 6-months or a year. And I could not stop, because what if I missed crucial information?
As a result, I had such information overload and notebooks full of things I was supposed to do, that I had no clue what to focus on or what to do next. Everything seemed important.
Which led me to implement things I was not ready for like launching my Canva template shop. Looking back, it made no sense to launch the shop when I did. I could have spent my time better, like focussing on getting in more 1-on-1 clients or building an audience that would buy in my shop.
I had to learn that to not feel constantly overwhelmed, I had to stop consuming so much information. I unsubscribed from a lot of newsletters, stopped listening to every podcast that someone released and stopped going to free webinars and masterclasses.
And that fear of missing out? That wasn't there, but I did not know what I was missing.
All that knowledge that I had gained about things I would do in the future? By the time I was ready to work on something new I had long forgotten what person x had said in her podcast that I listened to 6 months ago.
What I started doing instead was learning about a topic when I was working on it. Working on improving the conversion rate on the buttons on my website? Then I will completely dive into this topic and implement what I've learned. This leads me to the next lesson I learned.
Lesson 3: Stop looking for 'the golden nugget' in generalised courses - hire a coach instead.
It's funny to see that, while I am writing this, I am realising how many of these lessons are connected to each other (just like everything in your business is connected), as this lesson is connected to lesson 2.
So besides not wanting to have this information overload, I also had to learn that I needed to stop looking for 'the golden nugget' in generalised courses and programs.
I heard Chris Do, mention in one of his YouTube video's (ok, so this is probably ironic that I learned this on one of my days of binge-watching YouTube video's to learn about brand strategy) that clients often self-diagnose their problem and prescribe the remedy. And this was such a lightbulb moment because I realised that's what I had been doing when I would buy another generalised course.
As an example: I felt I was really bad at writing copy for my website, so I invested in Copywriting for Creatives from Ashlyn Carter. But then learned that the copy wasn't the issue, because to write good copy you need to know your ideal client, their struggles, how they are talking about their struggles and how you are the best person to help them solve their struggles. And that was the part that I didn't know well enough so as a result, I was not able to write the copy.
So my self-diagnoses was wrong. And in this case, the remedy was right because CFC is such a thorough program that it walks you through all the elements of your brand strategy so that you have all the elements that you need to write the copy for your website.
But I've had the remedy wrong more times than I can count. Every time I was struggling with something in my business I would go back into this information overload mode to find 'the golden nugget'. That one piece of information or this one course or program that was going to be the program (I had thought it before but this time it was real) that was going to make a difference and solve all my problems. But it never did.
I had to learn that at a certain time in business, generalised programs or courses, are not going to help because you need someones else's eyes to diagnose the problem (because we have a lot of blind spots when it comes to our own business) and help with finding the right remedy. Even with Copywriting for Creatives, where all the elements are discussed in the program, you're missing feedback from someone who knows you, your business and your goals.
And while I found it super scary to invest in a coach (investing in a course is so much less personal, which lowers the boundaries of buying) because you're opening yourself up (what if I pick the wrong coach, what if they think that what I want is crazy or impossible, or they think I have been running my business the wrong way) I now feel I should have done that sooner.
Lesson 4: Don't forget to have a clear vision - not just for your business but how your business can help you support to live your life.
When I was in university, we had to research case studies of great businesses and one of the things you always saw was their vision and mission. So I knew it was something that was important but somehow I thought it was something to write down once to tick of a list and that was that.
It wasn't until I found myself going in so many directions because there were so many things I could do that I sat down to write out the vision I had for my business. Once I had done this, I had a North Star guiding me and I started to realise I should have done this from the beginning. From then on it was so much easier to focus on what needed to get done to get me closer to my vision instead of everything that I could do but it also helped me to say no to opportunities because it wasn't helping me get closer to my vision. It gave me a clear direction and focus.
But this was only the start. I had a conversation with a coach who asked me what my goal was with my business and I was telling her that I really wanted to create more freedom to travel but also to give back and help out with Wildlife Conservation. And she asked me, what was going to change in the future to make that happen.
I was stunned. Here I was working I don't know how many hours each week to implement everything I had learned in the programs I had bought to make my business work a certain way because it had worked for someone else who was now teaching this. And I realised I was building my business in a way that would not allow me to step away from it to travel without everything coming to a halt.
This forced me to look at the reasons why I started Flourish Online Management.
Did I not want to spend more time with my family? Instead, I was being tied to my desk and working 60 hour weeks.
Did I not want to travel more? Instead, I was only able to take on a limited number of design clients because there was no more time in a day. And as soon as I stopped working, the was no revenue coming in.
I had to look at a bigger picture. So to create an aligned business, instead of just looking at the vision for my business, I had to look at my business differently. So instead of the business being my end goal, my business became 'a vehicle’ to support me in the way I want to live.
This is a work in progress, partly because there is not much travel going on at the moment, but also because I have to believe more in myself (leading back to lesson 1) that I can find a way to run my business in a way that is right for me.
What is helping me a lot is the creation of my ideal week. see below in the video on how I make my ideal week work in my daily life.
and there you have it
The 4 biggest lessons I learned from 2.5 years in business. Of course, there are more things I've learned and need to keep on learning like setting boundaries and actually keeping to them and that my value as a person is not tied to the success of my business.
And while it may sometimes feel I am not as far as I would like to be because I have made some detours, I don't regret having to learn these lessons. Because if I hadn't been forced to make changes, I might not have been on the path that I am on now. And while with every pivot I made I came closer to what felt was the right direction for me, I feel like I am now truly on the right path...
If you thought this post you might also like:
LOOKING FOR ANYTHING?
Popular items in the shop
FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM
FAVOURITE RESOURCES
