21 Things I’ve done (and never done) in my business
If you walk away from one thing from this article, I hope it’s this, “you do not need to hit any specific income goal in your business to be a legit entrepreneur.”
🎧 If you’d rather listen along to this blog post, it’s also in podcast form here.
When I started my online business in 2015 I had a lot of assumptions about what I “must do” in order to be successful.
I thought that if I wasn’t hitting those $10k months or bringing in a $20k launch that I must be missing some success secret or worse, maybe I wasn’t doing enough money mindset work or was thinking all the wrong thoughts and making the universe give me the wrong things.
::big eyeroll::
I fell into a lot of “traps” online when I first started my business.
For a long time I really bought into the whole manifestation thing. I thought that everything was connected to a bigger meaning about something else. I wanted to believe that everything had a reason behind it because it made things feel safer and less overwhelming if I could come up with an explanation for the unknown.
I envisioned that all of my success was due to the thoughts I was thinking and then beat myself up when I was going through a spell of clinical depression and had other business owners telling me that “I just needed to be more positive and get my energy aligned with the universe” and THEN I’d see the money flow in.
Or I’d believe that I had all these money blocks that I alone was causing. Definitely completely me and NEVER policy, socio-economic factors, or small business taxation issues.
Then I’d also believe that when I DID see success it was because “I had manifested it” instead of realizing all the ways that I was also coasting on forms of privilege that allowed me the time and space to work on and build a business without as many issues or distractions.
I share all of this because I think a lot of new business owners find themselves within similar experiences.
You’re doing something that the majority of the population is not doing. You’re “going against the grain” by doing something you don’t learn in school and that society hasn’t paved a pathway for so by default it feels daunting, exciting, and unnerving.
Because of this and the lack of support from people around understanding what you’re even trying to do, it becomes really easy to fall down rabbit holes of toxic positivity, cult-like entrepreneur advice, and spiritually bypassing forms of “logic” that are based in magical thinking vs. grounded realism.
Now that it’s nearly the end of 2021, I think it’s time to share some things I’ve learned and also share all the things I’ve never done and the milestones I haven’t hit that don’t disqualify me from being a “real” entrepreneur.
This post is about sharing what I’ve done and how my business growth is going. It’s not me saying that doing or not doing any of these things are bad, it’s about sharing a different version of what business growth can look like.
More than anything I’m really tired of entrepreneurs feeling like the only way to exist in the business space is to shout about high income months, project “mindset work” like we all have control over the flow of money in some magical way, or to make others feel like we know something they don’t.
Because news flash, there is NO MAGIC SECRET to running an online business. It takes time, experimentation, the right network/audience, a business model that works for you and your energy management, and a willingness to set a realistic and sustainable pace that you can keep working with.
To be honest, the biggest shift that occurred for me that allowed me to make more money was to FINALLY hold space for how I truly wanted to run my business and then actually DO it that way.
It wasn’t one specific strategy I learned in a mastermind or decoding the algorithm, or finding a way to manipulate people into buying.
It was true, honest time, tears, confusion, backtracking, experimenting, failing, trying again, trying yet again, saying no, saying yes, building one thing, trying another, having meltdowns, being burnt out, wanting to give up, seeing success, feeling more confident, questioning everything, and then basically doing that over and over again until it happened less often and I found what felt best.
Ew, right? LOL. This is not the way to sell programs, Sarah! This kind of real talk isn’t fun or glamorous but it’s so real.
I also knew that doing things my way and not jumping on board with some slimy sales tactics meant that I would likely see slower growth, wouldn’t make as much money as fast, would find it difficult at times.
But looking back I’m so glad I decided to honor slow growth, it’s allowed me to land in a place that feels so good vs. making tons of money in a business model that sucks my soul away.
Now I run a business where I no longer offer 1:1 coaching. My business model is built on offering online courses and programs where I serve one to many. I use my podcast for the majority of my marketing, continue to build my community of email subscribers (you all are amazing!) and provide ongoing value to all of my current and past students with lifetime access models for all programs.
I share whatever I want on my Instagram stories. Really, it’s mostly me sharing videos of nature adventures I take with my bulldog, Bella, treasures I find at thrift stores, my home office, and how I continue to make our home as cozy as possible.
I am my real self on social media and my podcast. (Take a listen to this episode for a very real example haha).
I don’t try to be the “expert” or the “authority” - I just share what I know to be valuable and helpful and also am real about life lessons and experiences along the way.
Nothing about me is inherently “special” or novel. I’m just Sarah and I keep doing all of this regardless of what anyone else might think because it brings me joy, it helps others, and its allowing me to make a living in my business in ways that feel good, rewarding, and down to earth.
So let’s get onto the list already, yeah? Here are the things I want to share with you that may (or may not) surprise you….
I’ve never gotten professional headshots or photos of me. Any photo of me was taken by me, in the form of a selfie or selfie stick.
I’ve never spent thousands of dollars to go on some fancy retreat somewhere to network with other business owners.
I’ve never gone to an in-person networking event for other business owners.
I don’t make 6 figures a year in my business yet. It’s not a goal to hit the number per se but as I continue to grow I will likely get here.
In year 6 of my business I started making more than I ever made working 9-5 and I work FEWER hours than I did in that career path.
The first 3 years of my business, I worked a lot MORE than I had ever worked in my life and made very little income. There was a lot to figure out, learn, and experiment with.
The first handful of years in my business I reinvested most of what I made back into my business in the form of online courses, coaches, trainings, software, etc.
My business goals don’t revolve around hitting a specific monthly income or launch goal to share about on social media.
Some months I make a lot more than other months. Summer, for example, is usually a slower season where net income can be thousands less. Fall and Winter tend to be my bigger income months where I’ve hit higher numbers and can make thousands more than my average months.
I don’t share income reports in my business. That’s a boundary I’ve set to protect my mental health and own sanity. I also never want to feel like the value of my work or the worth of my endeavors is always tired solely to that metric. Making money is important but it’s not the only way to measure business success and longevity.
I don’t have a specific morning routine or evening ritual. My days change all the time.
I don’t have a specific book recommendation that “changed my life” - more so it was experimenting over and over again that helped me see what would work best for me.
I don’t work ALL the time anymore. There are a lot of days where I will work 3-4 hours during the day and then spend the rest of the time on my responsibilities outside of my business.
I’m pretty chill with my students. If you’ve a part of any of my online programs and attend calls, you’ll soon realize that I show up as a human, in a sweatshirt, sometimes without makeup, and will help you do the thing and come up with great ideas but I will also tell you when I don’t know things. You’ll notice that I’m also awkward and occasionally knock things off my desk in the middle of a video. And I’ll always share when I’ve made mistakes and how you can learn from them.
I take a lot of naps and have my own set of mental health struggles, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. These things make me both incredibly creative, compassionate, and fun but also can limit my mental capacity and drain me rather quickly.
I’m not always the best at planning my content ahead of time. This is sometimes by choice because I like to create as I go but other times it’s because my brain gets “stuck” and I can’t create new things for a while.
I am not perfect and have my own set of struggles just like any other human. One of these things includes finding community outside of my business.
I have done and continue to do all of the tech and backend integrations in my business. Every email sequence, trigger, integration, connection, sales page, sales cart/checkout, etc. I’ve taught myself how to do it and then I do it.
I have written and continue to write all of my own sales page copy, blog content, podcast content, and course curriculum.
I say the above things not to brag but to share the extent to which I work in my business and why this can also lead to slower growth. Hiring a team could absolutely speed up parts of these processes but that hasn’t been something I’ve wanted to do yet.
I also create ways of “duplicating myself” in my business so I can do more. This includes running an ongoing FAQ database for my Publish with Purpose students so they can access my brain and the processes I walk them through without needing me to respond specifically.
There are many things that you may or may not do in your business. No one thing dictates your ability to make money, see your version of success come to life, or help other people.
I find it so fascinating that entrepreneurs feel the pressure to be all these certain things in order to give back to the world and run a business they love when so many other industries don’t make us feel this way.
I never once thought that I needed to have everything in my life together in order to make money at my past 9-5 job but for whatever reason, running a business paints this false picture of what it means to be human.
There are so many endless ways to “do the thing” - don’t get stuck on what everyone else is telling you, focus on what works for you, and if you don’t know yet, keep experimenting.
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