SDH 408: 7 Things You Don’t Need When Starting Your Business with Amanda Boleyn
After interviewing hundreds of women on this podcast and witnessing my clients and colleagues build incredible businesses, these are 7 things that you may think you need to get started but don’t.
Thinking you need these things is what is keeping you stuck and in procrastination mode…
An expensive logo.
A flashy website.
Complicated contracts.
Years of experience doing said thing.
Thousands of followers.
Overwhelming tech.
An email list with thousands of subscribers.
An expensive logo.
When you’re first getting started and offering services and still figuring out what you want to do, your logo (I believe matters but not as much as you think). Logos can sometimes cost you anywhere from $250-$300, plus the time it takes you to find a designer, get your logo produced is time you could be spending marketing your business and landing clients. Potential clients are more focused on their ability to deliver results. Now, if you are a graphic designer, then yes, your logo needs to represent your skill level. If you’re starting a VA business, copywriting editing business, coaching business your logo may not matter as much as you think it does. I’ve hired contractors who did not have a logo because their actions and how they communicated in an email were more important. Here’s what to do instead. Spend 30 minutes researching logos by visiting websites and identify what it is that you like about them. Then create a free Canva account and click “create a design,” select “Instagram post,” and start putting some things together. Don’t spend too much time trying to make it perfect. In this case, done, is better than perfect. Click here to sign up for a free Canva account.
A flashy website.
You do not need a flashy website to start taking action on your business (that is of course unless you are a website designer, then you’ll want a website). But the truth is, there are lots of things you can do to get your business started and landing clients without having a website. I’ve seen time and time again so many women delay taking action because they think in order to get started they need a website. That thinking causes overwhelm and procrastination. Here are a few other things you can do instead: 1) Create a Facebook business page. This can serve as your storefront. It is much easier and quicker to get up and running. 2) Start an Instagram account and begin to share meaningful content that attracts your ideal customer. 3) In addition to doing one of the previous two mentioned and depending upon your business, launch a free Facebook group that helps nurture your ideal clients. Bonus! You can set up 3 different questions to ask them as they request to join your group and one of them can be their email address so you can nurture them when you get your email list set up. The whole point is not having to delay taking action.
Complicated contracts.
Let me first start by saying, I am not a lawyer and any information regarding legal that I’m about to share is based on my own experience. First, to incorporate your business, there are plenty of websites that will do this entire process for you in any state. Second, when it comes to contracts in your business there are plenty of affordable resources out there to help get you started to like The Contract Vault. You can find all of these resources on the She Did It Her Way website by clicking “Resources” and selecting “Start a Business.”
Years of experience.
Depending upon what it is that you want to do, it most likely doesn’t require you to have done years of experience doing it. If you’re great at designing websites and you’ve been doing it for 3 months, there is no said amount of time or years of experience you need in order to teach others how to do it or offer that as a service. The other day I was playing tennis and next to the court I was playing on were very experienced tennis players. In my mind I thought, I wonder if I asked one of them if I could pay them to give me lessons what would his response be? Then I thought about how he might say “Oh I’m not a coach” and think to himself, “I’m not experienced enough to be a coach.” When in reality it wouldn’t have mattered to me because he is one step ahead of where I am. If you’re ahead or more advanced, either by one step or multiple steps, then you can help someone.
Thousands of followers.
You don’t need thousands of followers in order to have a financially stable business that replaces your corporate income and then some. If you have 500 people in your Facebook group or followers on Instagram and they’re the right people and they’re engaged, that is all you need. Sometimes we focus on getting ALL the followers and folks on your email list and into our Facebook group that we lose sight of them as individuals, and that is what matters.
Overwhelming tech.
K.I.S.S. It. Keep it super simple. When you’re just starting out, keep it as simple as humanly possible as you can. If you want to coach people on a certain topic, I recommend starting with a Facebook group and expanding to Instagram. If you want to offer services, I recommend starting with Instagram.
An email list with thousands of subscribers
While having a massive email list does help the growth of your business long-term, when you’re first getting started and finding clients, again, you don’t need a massive list, you need to get in front of the right people. Once you make contact, you can nurture those relationships.
A few things you do need:
An idea of who you want to work with
The services you want to offer
The result your clients receive by working with you
A place where you’re going to create content. Depending upon your business this may vary but I’ve found Instagram to be a great place to get started when creating content and your brand.
The key takeaway from today’s episode is to always find the path of least resistance when starting a business. If building a website creates roadblocks, slows you down, and gets in the way of you taking the next step you need to in order start your business, ask yourself, “How can I find an easier way to take the place of my website? Do I need a website in order to land clients?”
To learn more and get a full list of resources, head to www.shediditherway.com, and click the “tools to start a business” or “free training” to learn more.
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