I’ve got something a little different in store for you today.
You hear from me a lot in this space — my experience as a business owner, my recommendations, my mistakes and successes.
But there are a lot of business owners out there with great advice and experience to share, so today I’m delighted to introduce you two six amazing small business owners who have found success in a variety of industries.
I approached these awesome people (some of whom I have worked with, some of whom I have admired from internet-distance until now) and asked them one question:
What do you wish you had known during your first year in business?
Before we dive into their stellar advice, you probably want to know who’s talking to you, right? So here’s a little background about their businesses, what their success looks like, and where you can find them online.
Elna Cain is a freelance writer and coach who, after several years of building her own business, began helping new writers get started and find success.
You can find her on Twitter as @ecainwrites.
Stacey Kraft is the owner of Flair, a boutique brick-and-mortar shop in Boston that sells wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, and accessories. Once Flair became the go-to destination for Boston brides, she was able to launch Frills by Flair, the online sister-store that provides e-commerce shopping for bridal accessories.
You can follow Flair on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Sara Jenkins is the one-woman show running Moonsteam Design.
She creates custom WordPress designs, blogs, custom landing pages, and logos. (Fun fact, she designed the theme for this site, which was how we met!)
Mathew Chan is the founder and owner of Esqido Lashes, a high-end beauty brand that makes cruelty-free mink lashes and lash accessories.
Esqido lashes are loved by beauty bloggers and celebrity makeup artists; they’ve been spotted on famous faces everywhere, including Rhianna, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and more!
Dia Marie is a sales and success coach and the administrator of the Business Crush group on Facebook. She specializes in helping online entrepreneurs find their ideal clients and create a thriving business model.
You can find Dia on Instagram and Facebook.
Michelle Nickolaisen is the entrepreneur behind Bombchelle Industries. She offers courses and tools to help freelance workers get organized and make more money, and recently ran an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign to launch her Freelance Planner (which I was thrilled to support!)
Michelle hangs out on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Now, onto the good stuff — what they want you to know to run a successful small business, both online and off!
On Social Media
“The easiest way to grow your presence is to connect with influencers and send them your product. If you have a great product, it’s easy to get people engaged. Let them try it for free, and in exchange, they’ll post about you, and help you spread the word. Influencer marketing was one of the biggest successes for us on social media and has helped us build our following rapidly.
Another big thing is to identify the right channels to be on; not every business needs to be on every social network. Some businesses thrive and resonate better on visual-based networks like Instagram and Pinterest. Some do better on Facebook and Twitter. It’s important to find which channels are working, then double down on those. Don’t spread yourself too thin.”
– Mathew Chan
“When I started as Flair’s owner, the social media boom was in full swing, so I knew I wanted to make it a priority. After all, everyone’s on it so it’s a great way to connect with customers! What I had to learn, though, is to strike a balance between quantity and quality of posts. Our goal is to only post relevant content paired with gorgeous photos, to draw our followers in. The last thing we want to do is alienate them by flooding their feeds with sub-par posts! One or two quality posts a day (on average) seems to be the sweet spot for us!”
– Stacey Kraft
On Trying New Things
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, and nobody is paying as much attention as you think they are. When I was much newer in business, I would stick with projects or services that were clearly not working, because I felt like I’d look flakey if I tried too many things. I’d be embarrassed to stop offering something a month or two after I debuted it, or refine my service offerings, because I was afraid people would judge me. Which is silly, because number one, pivoting is how businesses become successful, and number two, nobody is really paying that much attention to you – they’re all wrapped up in their own business.”
– Michelle Nickolaisen
On Managing a Team
“When you’re first starting off, you’re most likely working with family or friends. It’s important to be professional even then and really take the time to listen and accept feedback and criticism, especially if you’re in the leader role. You have the earn respect and be willing to put in the effort to become a great teacher. How well your team performs greatly depends on how well you teach them; it’s a direct measure of how effective your leadership is.
Don’t expect everyone on your team to know it all, but don’t assume they don’t know anything either. Spend the time to understand everyone on your team, from their motivations, their work habits, how they learn, their strengths, their weaknesses. You need an in-depth understanding of every team member, and your job is to put them where they’re most effective, and coach them to master that role. That’s how a successful company should function, when a band of experts work together towards a greater goal.”
– Mathew Chan
On Taking Action
“I started my sales coaching business in October of 2015 and by the end of the year I had fully booked and even wait-listed my packages into 2016. But, this success could have come even sooner! The key piece I wish I’d known in the first year of my coaching business would be to spend less time researching, comparing, taking notes of others, etc., and spend more time doing.”
– Dia Marie
On Marketing
“One of the things I wished I’d known the first year of freelancing was to not become complacent. Freelancing can be a rollercoaster and some months you may be struggling to find work, while other months you are so busy you end up contacting your network asking if they can take on another project.
I learned that the hard way early on when two clients of mine cut their content orders in half. Instead of needing four posts a month from me, they wanted just two. I lost a good chunk of income because of this, and I was stuck because I wasn’t marketing my services enough. I became complacent. So, while I currently have enough client work, I always try to say “yes” to a guest post or contribution opportunities. And, I always spend at least a few minutes checking job boards or Twitter for new leads.”
– Elna Cain
“Be willing to pound the pavement and have something pitchable. This is definitely one where your mileage may vary, but for me, I had a hard time working up the courage to pitch clients early on – so I focused on content marketing and social media marketing, in a very inbound way (i.e. writing blog posts my potential clients would like to read, in the hopes that they’d read them and then hire me).
But if you’re broke and need clients ASAP, you have to be willing to hustle – for me, blog posts have worked well in the long term, but when I need to fill my client funnel, the tactics that work are much more outbound. By that, I mean actively talking to potential clients, responding to requests for proposals and gig ads, putting yourself out there in Facebook groups, and so on.”
– Michelle Nickolaisen
On Finding Balance
“Running your own business requires incredible discipline, something that I am constantly trying to work on. You are the only person that can hold yourself accountable, when you perform at your best, that gets reflected in your business. So it’s important to establish a schedule early for yourself, and don’t let yourself burn the midnight oil too many nights in a row and burnout, you’ll end up less productive. Create and stick to a consistent schedule. You’ll end up with more time on your hands to take a break, keep your social life, and be effective at work.”
– Mathew Chan
“Running your own business is very, very stressful in ways you don’t anticipate (and can’t anticipate until you’re running a business). So the #1 thing to always have at the top of your to-do list is to relieve stress every single day.
Stress kept piling up on me my first couple of years, and while I cobbled together a few stress-relief things to get by, it was sort of half-hearted and I just kept going until a bunch of big health issues knocked me for a loop and forced me to confront what I was doing to myself. I had to start taking better care of myself and making serious efforts to reduce stress. Now self-care and stress relief is no longer an option. When I started out, I thought the taking care of the business was the biggest priority… but cheesy as it sounds, without me, there is no business, so taking care of myself is now my biggest priority.”
– Sara Jenkins
Feeling energized and ready to grow your small business toward success?
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Katharine!
Thanks so much for asking me to contribute to this awesome post. I love all the answers everyone gave.
I can relate to Sara on how stressful a freelance life can be. While I do have a product that generates somewhat consistent sales, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.
I haven’t taken a vacation since I started two years ago. I’m hoping it’s in the cards for us this year (my husband also works from home). I’ve also started exercising to mitigate the stress and improve my health.
Self-motivation is key!.
Thanks!