4 Business Lessons Learned When Starting My Online Business

Business Tips and Tools

Sep 16

Written By brandmerry

4 Business Lessons Learned When Starting My Online Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

I love learning from other's mistakes and have found it so refreshing to earn from what other's have done. So in today's episode, I'm sharing four of the greatest lessons I've learned in business. | brandmerry.com

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I started my business in 2016 after the birth of my son.

At the time, I had no idea what I was doing. I spent eight months building a website and brand only to find out that a) no one cared and b) I had no clients to show for it.

I made a lot of mistakes in that first year of business, but ultimately those mistakes and lessons learned led me to 6-figures cash in one year from signing my first client.

It’s these lessons that I’ve found to be the most beneficial to my clients and recently I compiled them into a free ebook where I share 15 Lessons to Propel Your Business forward.

This is a limited-time gift available at brandmerry.com/lessons, but today I want to share with you four of my favorites.

BUSINESS LESSON #1
DON’T CREATE JUST TO CREATE

Don't create content just to post content. Always have a purpose.

Now, a little backstory on this. When I first started my business and what I was ultimately exposed to in terms of programs and coaches within my first year, year and a half of my business, I was told to just show up.

Now while showing up is relevant, the reality is there is an art to showing up and getting visible.

But when I was starting my business, and I still see it happening today, is that entrepreneurs are just posting anything just so they have something to share.

And that's how we start to get really burnt out with content creation. We start to wonder why is this not working? Why is no one responding? The reality is that there's no purpose behind what you're doing. You're just posting to post. You're just creating content to create content.

It might not even have a direct connection to your brand or the product and services that you're selling.

I see a lot of entrepreneurs who come to work with me that have been showing up consistently, that have been creating content, but no one is taking advantage of their offers because they’re not effectivaly reverse engineering their content to led to the sale.

You need money to begin to build a sustainable business. So when you're just starting out, one of the things I recommend is having a core offer, one thing that you're really focused on. If you're showing up and you're creating content and you're never creating content that ties to that core offer, it's going to be hard for your audience to make the connection.

You also might start building an audience of the wrong ideal customer. If you're just talking about random things, then you're not bringing in the ideal customer that you want to attract for your program.

This is something that I went through my first year in business when I loved talking about productivity. I loved talking about systems, all those different things. And that's a core staple of my business today but it wasn't back then.

So I would talk about productivity, and I would bring in people who weren't necessarily ready to start a business or I'd bring in people who weren't interested in branding.

So my numbers were incredibly off.

It’s important to understand the end result so you can reverse engineer your content.

Do it for everything in your business. What's the end result? What do you want people to do? Buy X program. Reverse engineer, how do you get them to that spot?

If you’re not yet at a place where you have your core offer mapped out, another thing you can do is create brand containers. This is something I shared in Episode 14 of the podcast.

BUSINESS LESSON #2
STOP WASTING TIME

It’s incredibly important that you get ahold of your time.

Honestly, this is why I created my annual program Roadmap to Freedom. In my first year of business, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing and in what order. And then when I figured it out and I started making consistent money, I was like, I'm just going to give people the roadmap I wish I would have had.

That's how Roadmap to Freedom was born and it still serves the same purpose today.

One of the best things that is going to serve you at the highest level as you continue to scale your business, is being very selective with your time and your energy.

Where is your time going?
How much time are you giving each particular project?

When I first started my business I spent almost a year branding myself. That is ridiculous. It is not necessary. And the reason that I took that much time is that I didn't have a clear understanding of branding or a plan of action for building my brand. I was just flailing around trying to piece it all together.

Then the other piece of it is that I didn't give myself a deadline. I didn't say, "All right, I want to have my brand up and running in two months. I want to have my website at a place where I can put it out in the world in this amount of time." So what happened was I wasted my time.

When you can start practicing putting these boundaries in place with your time, it's going to support you as you grow your business.

One of my clients came to me the other day with a concern about her weekly workflow. She was doing the work but felt like it was taking so much time.

We sat down and started talking about it and I said, "Do you set a timer for your blog post? If not, I want you to do that. And I want you to focus your energy and your efforts on getting as much writing done in the time frame.

“Rather than writing a paragraph and editing it, then moving on to another paragraph and editing that set an alarm for an hour and a half and write. Then when you’re done, set it for another 30 and go clean it up. I bet you carve your time in half.”

And she did! In fact, with the strategies, we implemented she was able to plan two weeks of content in less time.

Sometimes it’s about thinking more strategically about how we’re doing things in your business.

Your time is precious. The more time you can create with systems and workflows, and the more that you get in the habit of implementing them, especially early on, the better it's going to serve you as your tasks, requirements, client load, and customer load increase as you grow your business.

As you grow your business you’ll have an opportunity to hire team members to help you with the load, but in building a sustainable business, one that just doesn’t do more to do more, why not get in the habit now of being selective and purposeful with the time that you have available?

Protect your time.

When you're building a sustainable business, you don't want or need to be working every second of every day. You're going to burn out.

It’s important to be selective with your time and smart about how you're utilizing that time. Focusing on the things that are going to move your business forward.

If you don't know what those things are, invest in something that's going to give you the step-by-step. That's why I created Roadmap to Freedom. Whether that's the program for you or not, find what will work for you to lay out that process so that you can get to work and not just be flailing around the internet and keeping yourself busy.

BUSINESS LESSON #3:
DON’T BUILD YOUR BUSINESS ALONE

When I was first starting my business free Facebook groups were the end all be all. Everyone had a free Facebook group. Some people had multiple free Facebook groups. You were in them every damn day. It was just exhausting.

And honestly, I had my own and I loved showing up for my community but as someone who was growing their business, in other groups, I hated using them. I didn't even feel like I wanted to show up and ask questions. I never really felt like I wanted to show up and build a connection because it always kind of felt like a pitchfest.

When I was first looking at educational content and programs to purchase, I looked at the community aspect because in my mind I knew I needed a place where I could get education and mentorship, but I also needed a place where I could come and ask questions of my peers without feeling like I'm being pitched to regularly.

For me paying for this element, in addition to the education insured that I was with the right group of peers.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to go out and pay for a community, but if you’re investing in the education of your business (something I highly recommend) why not find a community to support you.

I looked for those opportunities inside of group programs and small masterminds. As my business got bigger and I needed less handholding, I would invest in more of a membership type of situation.

The reality is your best friend from grade school probably doesn't understand what the hell you're setting out to do. Your partner probably doesn't fully understand what you're setting out to do, even if they support you. I am blessed with an amazing husband. He's always willing to listen, even though he had zero idea what I was talking about those first few years.

This is why it's important to have that place, that community.

And I'll be honest, sometimes you gotta pay for it. I prefer to pay for it, and that’s part of the lesson that I learned.

Most of those paid groups don't have a pitchfest opportunity where you're constantly feeling you're being pitched to by somebody who has no idea what you're doing. And for me, it's always been worth that investment because I know I've got a central place where I can go ask questions.

I know I've got a central place where I can go and get some support.

I know I have a place where people will celebrate with me and know what the hell I'm talking about when I say, "My Facebook ads are converting at $1.25. Woo!"

You're going to want people in your corner and you can't do this alone. I just don't know anyone that has.

It's one of the reasons when I launched Roadmap to Freedom, back in 2016, I knew I wanted an interactive community, a place where you could go and ask questions and celebrate things. And it's been one of the perks of the program every single year since I launched it in 2017.

When individuals share their feedback for the program, they always rate the community as one of the top elements. To be able to come together with other entrepreneurs at a very similar stage is priceless.

It's like a golden ticket. It's incredibly helpful so that you don't feel alone. Don't try to do this alone. Lean on support.

To piggyback off of that, and something I'm a huge advocate for is to have a mentor. Now, this could be a mentor that you don't have to pay. Amazing. But many of you will have to invest in a mentor. That is okay. We all do it.

I’ve always viewed it as an investment in my time (see lesson number 2)!

By having a mentor and a clear step-by-step plan, I can save myself time and energy and down the line, money, even though I have to invest upfront.

BUSINESS LESSON #4:
COMMUNITY IS EVERYTHING

While I was referring to your peer community before, in this case, I'm talking about your brand community. I'm not talking about your support system. I'm talking about the individuals that are attracted to your brand that become part of your community.

When building your brand community, I want you to focus on your email list. That is the central community that you want to focus on because when it comes to social media, you don't own your followers. You don't have a way to get in touch with them if the platform goes down. If something happens to your account, you have no way of saying, "Hey, I've moved here."

With an email list, you can download your email subscribers frequently so if something ever happens, you have that information. You can email them and let them know what's going on.

That is the central community that we focus on building over here at Brandmerry and stats show that email list building is essential.

In fact, there is an estimated $42 return on every $1 spent for email marketing which results in a 4,200% ROI!

When you're thinking about the pieces of your business broken down into two key elements: branding and marketing, once you have your brand created your next step is building an audience to sell to.

This is where your marketing efforts and your community come into play. You've got to start building your community right away. Inside of Roadmap to Freedom, we focus on building the brand foundation in four weeks, and then we're immediately focused on building community.

If you want to sell, if you want to make money, you have to have someone to sell to. Don't skip this step.

Spending too much time building your foundational pieces is ultimately postponing your community growth. That's why in R2F, we focus on streamlining the branding process because it's taking you all way too long. You need to get started on building community immediately.

Community is everything as a business owner.

CONCLUSION

There you have it. Those are the four top lessons that I’ve discovered throughout my business journey. If you want to take advantage of this limited-time resource and learn the full 15 Lessons to Propel Your Online Business you can grab the resource at brandmerry.com/lessons.

In addition, the doors for Roadmap to Freedom are opening for 2021 on October 24! Right now you can join the waitlist and get all the details about pre-enrollment, a special bonus including 1:1 time with me, and a chance to win $500.

Now's the time to see if the program is the right fit for you. Head to brandmerry.com/freedom to learn more about the program and join the waitlist.

This is one of my favorite programs because it means so much for me to support entrepreneurs with the pieces I didn’t have five years ago. Inside of R2F, we cover the entire step-by-step roadmap for scaling your business.

In addition, you get your copy reviewed, you get your sales pages reviewed, you get your branding reviewed. Everything. It's a very strategic, step-by-step program that includes high-level information, implementation, feedback, and support.

Head to brandmerry.com/freedom to learn more about it!