Three Big Mistakes I Made Starting my Business
A couple of years ago I was listening to several online business owners and trying to follow their step-by-step guide to running a fulfilling and successful online business.
Each one of them seemed to have a strategy to get to where they are and all you had to do was implement it.
Simple. Right?
Not quite.
I thought if I implemented, implemented and implemented it would all fall into place. I spent my time commenting on Facebook groups, creating stories and posts for Instagram and blogging every week.
But I kept being met with the same irking feeling. Resistance.
The truth is, despite what I had learnt through my courses, they weren’t my strategies to implement. They were strategies designed for someone else’s business.
Here’s what I mean by that.
The reason for starting a blog was to establish myself as an “authority” figure. An expert in my niche, building trust with my audience.
While this is a very valid reason and works for most. For me, fuelling the intention of each blog post to establish myself as an expert became far too restrictive.
It narrowed my perspective and ultimately the number of topics I could write about. While I love Squarespace, it’s not all that I love and there are multiple topics I would love to write about.
Think personal finance, business, books, photography, travel, and much more.
Now I’m fully aware that might send my blog on a tangent. But where’s the adventure if you never miss a turning off the highway?
In other words, I’m not here to show my authority. I’m here to share my mistakes and my passions along the journey to mastering what I do.
Next mistake. I niched down or tried to niche down.
You might have seen the videos or blog posts, that “website designers must choose a niche!”. Narrowing your focus to a smaller and more specialised group can help you build your reputation, serve better and charge more for your services.
Makes sense.
I love photography. Why not pick photographers as a niche?
Here’s why not.
As I started to design more and more websites for clients it was not so much the industry that was important but the relationship and connection with my clients.
Whichever industry I would try, there would be clients that were a great fit and others that were not a good fit.
Instead, I found myself attracting a lot of clients with strong emotional centres. Very often they can be sensitive or highly sensitive people.
What mattered to me was not so much the industry or profession but a great connection that provided the foundations of a successful design experience.
Starting my business, I was very much focused on the outer strategies of success. Another mistake. Not to say those strategies don’t work or are bad because they work amazingly well for many people. But for me, the inner process is what’s calling me.
That could be the energetic ‘hell yes’ I get after a client discovery call. Or the ‘hell no’ I got after designing my first few WordPress websites.
I know we’re not supposed to reinvent the wheel. But while I’m forging my own path, I feel my own wheel starting to take its own shape and transformation.
