Lots of people dream about working for themselves. I've been lucky enough now to have my own business for about 10 years. I'm still not where I want to be, but I'll be honest with you that goal changes very regularly, yearly.
I began my entrepreneurial journey in a separate business to coaching, which is still running, that really solved my problem, at the time which was that, I didn't want to work in corporate anymore.
I felt like a corporate zombie. I felt like literally, it was a waste of my life, I had a good job and good pay. It just wasn't good for my soul. For me, it meant I had to look outside of corporate and work out what I could do. That would bring me more joy.
So it started with that business, then a few years, I started coaching and this began by accident as lots of people were asking for help starting their business. The journey really helped me work out who I wanted to be and what I was hoping to achieve.
In my journey of being an entrepreneur, I found that there are a lot of things that were really useful and some of them not so useful. To begin with, I think you really need to have a vision of what you're trying to achieve, I like to call this my dream life.
When I first left corporate, I really I didn't like being restricted. Basically, I didn't like that I had to dress a certain way. Before COVID, I had to go into office in a suit and I wasn't customer-facing, so I just found that suffocating. (Longtime readers will know I'm a bit dramatic.) So wearing a suit was quite dramatic to me and it just didn't really like match the vision of who I was, essentially, my work output wasn't really restricted by my clothes.
One day I sat down and worked out my vision, I was planning to have a family and I'm not personally somebody that would be able to stay at home or I don't believe I would, because I still haven't had a family. But I don't believe I'd be able to stay at home like work is a big part of my life and who I am. So I wanted to start building a business that was going to allow me to work around having a family. I also wanted to move from the area I lived in. I lived in a lovely area, but it was just very suburban. I wanted to live by the beach.
As I've discussed previously, I've moved from England to Australia and I wanted to keep living that Australian life like having a house by the beach. Whereas in my job before I quit it was based in the city, just a very regular life. Nothing wrong with a regular life but I'm extra. For me the vision was all about daily walks on the beach, working for myself when my energy allowed (I have health issues), and not being dictated by what I'm wearing.
I just wanted a different life, to be completely honest. I didn't want a life that if I got hit by a bus and died, that job was a waste of who I am. I thought I could do more for the world which we know is a bit big-headed, but I just thought I had a bit more to give than my corporate job. So I sat down and mapped out my dream day by doing the following:
Create a Pinterest vision board, save it on your phone. Includes where you want to live, what car you want to drive, what you want to wear, and where will you holiday?
2. Create your dream day. This is an exercise I have, in my Millionaire Mindset ebook. It's where you map out your entire dream day.
Questions you should answer:
What time are you working?
Waking up at?
Are you getting up having a coffee doing some exercise?
Do you want to be client-facing?
Or how many clients do you want?
Do you want an online business? Or do you want to see people in real life?
How many hours a day do you want to be doing this? Do you want to be doing nine to five or 10 to 2?
These questions are so important for me because I had that vision of having a business around a family.
So take some time out, try and do it when you're not already working and when you're not stressed, to really create that vision of who you want to be.
3. Create some goals. I love goals I'm so A type. It's really difficult, in my opinion, to see success without goals. Whether it's finance goals, or number of customers, how many people you're helping, how many followers you have or networking goals.
They pay plays such a huge part in achieving success. I've discussed this before many times in my first business, my goal was to make a million dollars. We did that in just over 12 months and that was because I was so fixed on that goal. I didn't know how I was going to do I just wanted to make a million dollars. There wasn't a real reason, I just wanted to make a million dollars and that for me like it was scary.
I didn't know anybody that had done that before, nor did I know how to do it. I just became super focused on that goal.
Don't be afraid to dream big, write them down. I always say your instinct, the first thing you think of is that really scary goal but often we can trick ourselves into not thinking about it within two seconds of that thought.
We can be like, Oh, I'm just this isn't my goal. But oh, I don't want a Lamborghini. Well, I bought drive a Lamborghini. I don't want a Lamborghini. But people have that as a goal and lots of people. And I think it's a very fine goal, an appropriate goal. But make sure you write those goals down because once you write them down, it starts making you focus on what you want, and what you're trying to achieve.
I always say so share your goals with others, because that creates some accountability. Now I know that some people you can't share these kinds of things with. So it might not be your family members because they might think you're ridiculous. But like find somebody that you can share them with.
4. Find a mentor. Obviously, you can share some goals with them. But learning from those who have been where you are and where you want to go is so essential.
I didn't get a mentor for probably my first 12 months, it could have been less it could have been a bit more. To be honest, I didn't get one because I didn't know what I didn't know. So I was like going in full naivety which I think there's so much value to that. And so I was going full steam ahead.
But once I kind of stopped and took a breath, especially after we hit that million-dollar goal. I realised Hang on, there's a lot going on here. I need a sounding board. I need somebody to just support me to help me and often tell me things I didn't know because they've already done it often.
I like to think like for me, I was them a business bestie so it's a bit like I'm your business partner, but not really because I'm not taking a share in your business. What I will say though, is the most success you're going to have with any mentor is listening to their advice and also asking questions like don't be afraid to ask for help.
There are no stupid questions often as well. And I say this with a pinch of salt but also I mean it does what they say and so whether it's that you've both decided, this is the next action step, actually do it. Because often what I found, like the difference between my successful mentees, and my unsuccessful ones is they do they take action.
And that is a big difference in business because you can have a call with your coach or your mentor, and you can discuss your problems. But if you get off that call, and don't do anything, you're just gonna constantly loop around in circles. It's just it's not helpful for anybody. Anyway.
5. Setting yourself up for success in business. Read books, whether it's business books, personal development books, or podcasts, there's so much information out there.
For me, that is one of the most beneficial things and I do, I do a walk on podcast, when I walk my puppy on the beach in the morning, I listen to a podcast then or an ebook, audiobook.
I found that it often you can be getting told the same thing because ultimately, unfortunately, I'm not curing cancer, I am not that smart. So you'll notice, you get told a lot of the same things. But some people tell it to you in different ways, you often just need to be told the same thing in a different way for it to sink in.
So read as much or as listen to as many business and personal development books as you can. Especially if they motivate you if they want you to do better. It's just a really great way to find out more, especially if you're on a budget.
6. Create killer branding. Like I love branding and marketing. I love it. I'm obsessed with it. I think branding is how you tell people about who you are without saying any words.
I've chosen pink, I like pink, I wear pink nearly every single day. It's feminine. I'm making a conscious effort to help female entrepreneurs. That's who I think I can deliver the most value to and who I can help achieve success. Not all girls like pink, obviously. But for me, it's very much who I am as a person and it balances nicely the lols of my name Resting Boss Face, which was a play on resting bitchface and that is because people always used to say my other business that I don't smile, I'm not happy enough. I'm not feminine enough. I always used to think did you tell a man to smile and he's in this meeting too. He's not grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
Branding is really important. Branding includes your logo, your tagline colour, palette, writing style, your fonts, and any marketing materials, you want it really to enhance, especially if you're it's a personal brand, you want it to enhance yourself like it really is a reflection of you.
If it's e-commerce like an online store, make it reflect the vision of your brand. So if you're selling healthy products, you will probably want a calm colour palette, you're not going to want red and blue and primary colours, there'll be a lot more pastels. Choose colours and logos that really enhance the message that you're trying to give the world.
You can use stock photos in your branding, especially when you're beginning. But with phones now, it's super easy to create really good images yourself. Use your iPhone and Canva. You can go on websites like Fiverr, they can do some really good economical images for you. That will really help with your branding. I love a photo shoot if it's personal branding.
Again, you can do it yourself. but there are some really great photographers that do personal branding shoots. I don't think you need to do hundreds and hundreds and I don't think you need to do them every quarter especially not in the beginning. But I do think there is value in investing in at least one professional photo shoot.
One last thing I do want to say is in order to prepare yourself for success in business, create a routine and whether that routine, be a morning routine or things that you're going to tick off throughout the day. A routine really helps when you're an entrepreneur because we go through life like going to college going to work, we go through life, very structured.
As much as I wanted an unstructured life, it's super important to actually get the kind of structure of okay, well, today I'm going to send out five emails, or today I'm going to go to a networking event, it's really important to get that done. Because that way, you can start ticking off your goals in order to build a bigger, or sorry, ticking off your goals in order to achieve your bigger goals.
So a routine is super important. I've discussed before, I'm not amazing in the morning, I'm not. But having a consistent routine with like exercise. I do wake up at the same time every day. But I don't wake up at the same time and do a workout I just walk my dogs with my coffee and my podcasts. Like I said, I'm a much more slower person in the morning. But that works really well for me. And then between 10 and 2, that's like my key core work hours, I'm super high energy, I can honestly do about 24 hours of work in that four hours. But outside of those hours, I'm a bit sluggish. So that routine helps me also identify my energy, which then makes me be able to schedule things accordingly.
So hopefully, that gives you some really great tips on how to prepare for success in business. And hopefully, it's really helpful for you. If you've got any of your own tips, let me know definitely share them with me.