Mistakes I Made in my First Year of Business

2023.

My first “real” year as a full- time business owner. It was a year full of ups and downs (and some tears), but not once did I wonder if I made a mistake leaving my cushy corporate job.

Mistakes will happen.

And to be honest, mistakes are important for growth and I view them as learning experiences. So let’s get into what I consider to be 3 of my biggest mistakes of 2023:

Getting Caught up with Financial Goals

In early 2023 I had a monthly financial goal in mind that I wanted to meet and I got way too caught up with this number. So much in fact, that I looked past many red flags when I started working with a particular client. Working with this client would mean I met my financial goal so I had to work with them. From the start, issues arose and I knew I had made the wrong decision in working with this business owner. I won’t go into too many details, but this lead to me cancelling the contract after the first month.

What I Learned

While this experience was a stressful one, it made me realize that I had to be more selective with who I worked with so I could create long- lasting relationships. Only this will allow me to have a solid foundation for growing a successful business.

Bringing in money all on my own was so different than what I was used to after being in the corporate world for 8 years. Realizing that it wasn’t the most important thing really was eye- opening.

Red Flags

You can actually tell a lot from the way a potential client fills out your inquiry form/ or questionnaire or how they come across during a discovery call. I do have a detailed questionnaire and use this method to screen potential clients and in most cases I decide from their answers if we’re aligned to work together or not. However, sometimes red flags aren’t always apparent until after you start working with someone. These are some examples of red flags I encountered after starting contracts this year:

• no time to onboard

• lack of communication

• micromanagement

• lack of understanding about scope creep

I’m always honest with my clients and happy to talk anything out, but there are certain things that I wasn’t able to get past. Sometimes I chose to ignore red flags but something would always come up again.

What I Learned

Ending contracts and saying no to clients really is OKAY. This also goes hand in hand with realizing that finances aren’t everything. Of course, ending a contract will mean I am down financially for the next month, but for the couple times I’ve had to do this, there is always a major sense of relief and I knew I had made the right call.

Not Dedicating Time for my Business

After becoming fully booked with clients, dedicating time for business planning quickly went to the backburner. I would spend hours each day on client work, and really didn’t want to do much else after that. I especially didn’t want to take up my weekends to plan out social media content or these blogs. Because of this, certain things weren’t getting accomplished and was impacting my business:

• social media content planning

• marketing

• bookkeeping

Since most of my leads come from Instagram, not marketing my business on there as much was really impacting new leads coming in. At the time though, all I thought was that well I’m fully booked, so I don’t need to continue marketing my business.

What I Learned

I read somewhere that you have to treat your business like your most important client and this really changed my mindset. After some shifts in my business in the summer, I realized I had to dedicate time to growing my business and started incorporating blocks in my schedule for “CEO” time. Continuing to market my business, even with a decent client base is super important as I continue to grow, especially now that we’re a team of 3.

I also decided it was time to start investing in my business so hired a designer who could help me create social media templates. Outsourcing where you can to improve your business is so important!

Hello 2024.

2023 you really have been amazing- mistakes and all. Reflecting on these 3 mistakes have given me a reminder that I have come so far in just a short time.

Here’s to hopefully avoiding these same mistakes in 2024, but for continuing to learn and grow.