5 Entrepreneurial Mistakes
5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Made So You Don’t Have To Make Them
Starting a business is not easy. You will, no doubt, make mistakes along the way. Just like the mistakes these entrepreneurs made. But chin up – overnight success can take 10 years. Building up your business takes time. Need some validation? Let’s look behind the scenes into the businesses of a thought leader strategist, a gourmet food expert, and a PR maven. Tanya, Lindsay, and Lexi share how were they able to build their business and learn from the mistakes they made.
Tania Bhatacharyya @taniabhat is no stranger to the difficulties of starting a business. As a successful thought-leadership expert, Tania guides her purpose-driven clients in cultivating their personal brands. And yet it wasn’t smooth sailing when she first started.
Mistakes:
- Focusing on the visuals before her what & why.
When Tanya started her business the first thing she did is to hire a logo creator…even before she knew what she was selling. Takeaway: don’t start with the cute imagery first. Get really clear on what your thing is. And why you’re doing it. Otherwise, you don’t even know what direction you’re going. It’s almost like having the fanciest car but with a GPS set to nowhere. - Underpricing her services
As a service-based business, many people undervalue their talent, experience, skill, and set of connections. So in setting up the business price rates we need to consider these components and as time passes by, rise your rate little by little. You get better and more valuable at what you do the more you do it! If 80% of the people you sell to say yes to your offer, you are pricing yourself too low.
Lesson She Wished She Had Learned :
- Ask Your Audience What They Need & Build Around That
In conversations with your clients, during your discovery calls, the pain points your clients have – lean in, see how you can solve that problem, and build around that. What is it that they’re Googling in the middle of the night? What are they talking about? What are they struggling with? What are they like? What are they into? And really having those deep, intimate conversations, we figured out what it that you can provide. Fill that need. ( Click here to check out some steps in crushing that sales call)
Next up we have Lindsay Kinder founder of @food.la.la. From frozen salmon 🍣 to being featured in Forbes, Lindsay Kinder has had quite the business adventure.
Mistake:
- Forgetting A Major Detail
The very first time Lindsay catered was for her supportive friends who bought tickets for dinner at her boyfriend’s house. There were 10 of them so she bought a huge table from Craiglist. She had also flown this amazing salmon from Seattle to cook. As she had set up everything, turned up the music, and opened the champagne she realize that the salmon was still frozen. And she was set to serve it in 45-minutes. Lindsay soaked the salmon in water and cut up little strips, and started cooking it right away. It started to fall apart and turned into a salmon hash. The drama seemed straight out of a reality cooking show! Yet, Lindsay persisted. Her friends supported her as she continued to grow Food La La. And just this year they were featured in Forbes.
Lesson:
- Make Space to Grow Into.
In starting a business there will always be repetitive mistakes that you may encounter in year one that repeat themselves in a different level or different situation in years two, three, etc. So remind yourself that you have already done this a million times, This is not new. You’ve been here before and you always figure it out. Remember change is inevitable. Fear is the natural response to change. This is normal. Simply make space for growth.
Lastly, we have Lexie Smith of @theprbar_inc generously sharing some of her mistakes and lessons she learned throughout her journey from being a VP of PR to having her own business.
Mistakes:
- Launching Without Building An Audience First
As Lexie started the coaching industry she built what is now her signature one-on-one coaching program called Pop Clink, initially, an online course. And she thought that she had put all the work into it, she made all the modules and she was so amped up. And with her background in PR in mind, she thought she was going to slay but instead launched to crickets.
- Not Listening To Her Intuition
Lexie had this one client whom her gut feeling say NO however as a new entrepreneur she could not say no. So she signed with her despite the feeling that this will be a red flag. And within a week Lexie was right so she canceled and refunded the client. Eventually, she realized that those kinds of clients are not her targeted audience.
Lesson:
- Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right
Mindset is so important! If you think you are not good enough in what you do it is just an opinion. Remember opinions, and perceptions are subjective and this can be changed. So think about how you can keep it in a positive mindset. A practical way to do this is to put it into something more concrete. Lexie will print some of her awards or clients’ wins and decorate her office with them as a tangible reminder.
TLDR? Building a business isn’t easy but good humor, grit, and the ability to try again go a long way! Looking for more support as you build your business? Check out our brand coaching page.
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