Launching Our Business and Insights Gained Along the Way

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Organized Chaos. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so glad you found the podcast and I hope you enjoy the show. If you want to check out any of the other shows, you can actually go to OrganizedChaosPodcastcom and check out all of the episodes and there's some extras in there. There's some templates you can download and all kinds of good stuff. So if you want to check that out, you can go to OrganizedChaosPodcastcom. So today I want to talk about the things I wish we would have known before starting a business. I started to make a list of some of the things, the insights, the mistakes to avoid, the things we learned throughout this almost 10-year journey, but the list was starting to get really long, so I shortened it a little bit and I tried to pick some of the things that I think really made a difference, and some of the things, not that we wish we would not have gone through, but because some of these things were necessary to go through. So I don't want this to be a avoid this at all cost. It's more of a cautionary tale of, hey, this is probably something you might go through and if you do, it's okay, you're going to get through it and it might be part of the process. So it's not too late. If you already started a business, you're in the thick of it, because this is still things that are going to be really helpful to know, regardless of where you are in this journey. So I first want to get started with the concept of going from an employee mindset to a be your own boss, entrepreneurial mindset, because it can be hard, because we, for the most part, have been conditioned to think like an employee. You think, well, there is somebody above me and I need to maybe be told what to do. There's a steady paycheck. I expect this money to hit my bank account every couple of weeks, and that's just not the case when you're your own boss, because there is nobody above you, it's you and only you. And maybe you have a partner, like maybe you went to business with your spouse, but that money isn't always going to be coming in steadily. And that's just a couple of the things that I noticed going from an employee mindset to an entrepreneurial mindset. But I think those are kind of like the key things that I wish I'd known to look out for. So, keeping on the concept of kind of like this steady flow of money, it's not going to be that way when you start your own business. I mean, it depends on what type of business you go into. Maybe you have a brick and mortar, meaning you actually have, like a product or a service and you have an actual building that you rent out. Or you have some type of business model that's going to require you to take out a loan to be able to jumpstart or kickstart this business. So you are not going to see profits for many years sometimes. And if you go into business like, let's say, an online business, like we did, it takes time, no-transcript, create momentum and sometimes that momentum will go up and then there'll be a big dip in it. So you're going to have to prepare your mind and know that this is going to be a roller coaster. It's not going to be steady. Now, if you're lucky, hey, maybe you might get a great start and keep going up, but that's usually not the case. It goes up and down, especially online, and there's a lot of potential for growth, don't get me wrong. But it can still go up and down depending on what's going on, because we are also depending on different things like algorithms and market trends and all of that stuff, and we also have to be open to changes. Now our business does not look anything like the business we started 10 years ago. Things change and we grow and as we grow, we start to create different content, we start to learn new things, we start to get different ideas, we start to network with other people, other industries, and it's just going to be this constant change, which is great, and we have to be open to opportunities and to those changes so that we can continue to grow and not just burn out and just get frustrated and quit. So be open to those changes and those opportunities and just understand that there's going to be changes out in the world as well. Like going back to my example of an online business. This changes so much. I mean, in the last 10 years, I've seen so many different changes and at first it seemed very frustrating because it's like you couldn't keep up. One thing was well, this new thing is going on on Instagram and you got to jump on it because that's how you're going to see growth. And then you start learning and then, before you know it, that is obsolete. And then something else pops up and you have to learn that. So it can be frustrating, but as long as you keep your vision and your core values intact, then you'll be on the right path. Another thing I wish I would have known is knowing when I should take advice from certain people and when I shouldn't. You'll have a plethora of unsolicited advice from people, and a lot of those people have never owned a business, so just keep that in mind. Take it with a grain of salt. You know people are. You know they mean well. Most people mean well, and they will try to give you advice. Or they will say oh, you know this is a dumb business idea or whatever, but if you feel like this is something that you truly love and you know that it's gonna make a difference not just in your life but other people's lives, then you go for it. You know, take some of their advice but don't take it all, especially if they don't have any idea of what they're talking about. So now let's talk about running your business itself. So keeping organized is super important, because it can get really complicated and you can feel disheveled when you don't know where to find certain things or it takes you a lot of time to. You know create a post, or you know just even know how much money is coming in and how much is going out. So having a system to run your business is going to help you keep everything streamlined and avoid headaches. Now you can piece together a system with different apps, different programs and just you know physical things, just creating a system where you know where to find things and how to make sure that you're using your time wisely when it comes to actually doing work. So you know it could be anything from when you do your work, where you do your work and you know having tabs open on your computer. I am guilty of that of having 50 different tabs on there, that I don't even know what I'm doing and then it just crashes my laptop, so I have to, you know, waste a lot of time rebooting it and everything like that. So having some of these little things in place is going to prevent you from burning out and just headaches. And this list of things is in no particular order, because right now I'm gonna talk about vision, and this is probably one of the main things that you should do casting a vision of what you want your not just business to look like, but what you want your life to look like in conjunction with your business. So what do you want your business to look like? What do you wanna be doing? How much time and effort do you wanna put into it? What do you want this business to create in your life, and how do you want it to impact your family? You know this is also a goal setting, like you know, what do you wanna see in six months to a year, to five years from now? So you wanna paint that picture early on and you wanna make sure you also defined your priorities and your values so you can, you know, use that as your North Star and in that vision, make sure you add on how you are going to grow, and I mean as far as personal and professional growth, because this is inevitable. You are going to have to grow if you want to see your business grow and I would also say, if you want your you know family connection to grow and to improve, if you want your relationships to improve. I mean, you know we try to compartmentalize certain areas of our lives, but it always crosses over and there's nothing really we can do about that. But instead of making it a negative where if something negative is happening in your business that it crosses over onto your relationships, we wanna make sure we take advantage of the positives. So strengthening those, those areas are strengthening each other, rather than us pitting them against each other. Maybe you've been in business for a while and maybe you've uttered the words you know my business is affecting my relationship with my husband or my spouse or my kids, you know. So make sure that you understand that there is going to be changes in your life when you bring in a business and that you can use that to your advantage in a positive way rather than negatively impacting the rest of the areas of your lives. So something else that I've learned is that I should focus on my strengths. I have tried to be the one woman show in our business, and when I started to do things on my own let's say I've, you know, tried to create a program or even starting this podcast my thought is, well, I don't want to bother anybody else, or I don't want to hire somebody else to do something that I could do, so I'm just going to do everything, and that is a big mistake. I think that there's a better use of our time to focus on what we are good at, our zone of genius, our strength, and then the things that we don't enjoy doing or we're not very good at. We delegate it to other people that that is their strength. So I've done this with my husband and vice versa. So if I have a particular strength, he relies on me to do that. You know, one simple thing is like graphics. I love to create graphics, especially on Canva. So if my husband needs a graphic, he's like hey, can you hook me up with something? Because I can do it really quick for him. And usually if he gives me some tips on what he wants in the graphic, I can do it pretty quickly. And he knows that he doesn't enjoy doing that and he's not very artistic, so he knows that he should delegate that. And if I have a particular thing, like, let's say, I want to, you know, write something up or an email or anything that I know he is really good at, I ask him if he'll do it. And we also have assistants that are amazing at what they do and they help us out a lot. So, you know, kudos to Naise and Kurt out there, who do such an amazing job and do some of the things that we did for many, many years. But then we decided to, you know, have someone else do this for us so we can focus on either growing or really doing the things that only we can do, like coaching. Okay, so I'm going to switch gears a little bit and talk about comparison and how. Such a huge waste of time and mental energy to compare yourself, your business, to other people and other people's business. Everybody has something special that they can provide and that they are good at, and it doesn't make any sense to compare, you know, ourselves to other people, and you know social media is, you know, really tough, because you know we got to be on there because that's part of our business. But I have to really limit my time on social media, because I tend to go on there and start comparing myself to other people and you know it's just a waste of time. I mean that's that's all I can say about that Like it kills your momentum. So, you know, be inspired. One thing is to be inspired by other people, and then another thing is to compare yourself and feel less than Because you see other people growing or having something different or whatever. Just don't do it. Okay, so I'm almost done here. I just have a couple more, and one of them is boundaries. So set boundaries for yourself and what you're going to be doing and what you're not going to be doing, but also setting boundaries as far as your clients and understanding that you are not a 24-7 Online business, or I mean, if you have a brick-and-mortar, you have boundaries. You have set Business hours, so set those same business hours if you have an online business. Especially if you're a mom entrepreneur who has a family and has other responsibilities, cut it off at a certain time and make sure that you have set business hours on your calendar that you honor, because honoring your you know those hours is also honoring yourself and honoring the fact that you're also going to take time for Self-care and you're gonna take time for your relationships and your family and whatever else you need to do. And one last thing is To seek a community. You know, sometimes we feel like a solo entrepreneur, meaning that you know we're like I was saying the one woman show or one man show and I mean, hey, if you work really well doing that, kudos to you. But also you know you want to have some type of community, people that understand what you're going through, that also have a Business and, you know, are trying to balance it all or juggle everything. Just having that community makes a huge difference. First of all, you know you're not alone, that other people are struggling as well and trying to find solutions, and you can also find different ideas and Sometimes there, that community, are your ideal clients that you could even start to network and start to create relationships with those people. So having a community has been one of the biggest contributors to our success. Okay, so that was a lot, but I do want to give you one bonus one, because this one is you know it applies to both life and business and that is finances. So you want to make sure that you are keeping your finances straight and Knowing that there are different buckets that you should have. You know you have your business Finances and you have your personal finances and you don't mix the two. Now I'm not going to go into detail on what you need to do and as far as taxes and all that, but just make sure that you actually do talk to a professional when it comes to Finances, have a financial analyst who can tell you you know things that you should do, things that you shouldn't do, things that you need to keep track of and money you need to set aside, because you know some of those things we didn't Initially know and I think that you know it. It will avoid a lot of headaches Later on, especially at the beginning of the year when you start to do your taxes. So I hope you got some good nuggets of information here and, as always, I hope you have an amazing day and I will see you next week.