The 3 Things I Wish I Had Known Before Starting my Own Business
- Nov 16, 2020
- 7 min read
Written by: Samantha Touchais, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It is such an exciting moment the first time you think of a business idea and start mapping it out in your head. There’s a buzz that comes from all that possibility before your brain starts going over the details and some of the doubt sets in. While I have heard this from others, I am definitely speaking from my own experience.
For over twenty years, I had a successful international marketing career with some of the world’s largest companies and have traveled and lived worldwide thanks to this career. For various reasons, I decided one day to put it all behind me and start my own business. The idea I had was a strong one and I validated it with several rounds of market research. I felt confident, excited, and really happy with the decision to move forward, particularly when one of my best friends decided to join me in the business venture.
Fast forward eighteen months and we were feeling bitter, dejected and actually quite angry, as we had gone from the initial highs and elation of planning out a really exciting business to legal battles with a horrible supplier, fierce competition in the market that hadn’t existed when we started the idea [our business idea was stolen by somebody, but that is a whole other story!] and a high cost of delivery that couldn’t be circumnavigated and was pricing us out of the market.
We lost money, time and sleep, three things we will never get back, but we learned so much in the process and that experience truly is invaluable. A big plus is I never lost my friendship, and I have gained so much insight into running my own business, and from the three subsequent successful businesses I have run, that I am now able to share all my learnings with my coaching clients.
There are three key learnings I have taken from this experience and if I could go back in time this is what I would tell myself.
Lesson One - Launching and running your own business takes enormous amounts of patience.
I am a go-getter and like to get on with things almost before the idea is fully formed in my head. I want to take action and I want to see results and I want it now. I really was quite naïve when it came to how long it would take to see any form of success in my first business. This was partly from the fact that I had managed some of the world’s largest brands on a global level, which obviously meant I had a much bigger advertising budget than I did for my own personal business and a huge team behind me. While decisions would take longer, action could be faster, which meant results were often much quicker to achieve. It takes time, and sometimes a lot of time, to start to build a brand and get the awareness out there. While I am an optimistic person, this optimism is what led me to overestimate the forecasted sales and underestimate the reality of how long it would take to reach those sales. The market research had been so positive but setting up supplier agreements and sorting out logistics took a lot longer than I had anticipated.
So my advice here is to be patient. Take your time to plan your sales forecasts, particularly for the first twelve months, recognizing that it may take longer than you initially anticipated to reach your target. Be clear on your business goals and break them down into actionable steps with associated timings. If you have someone you can trust, ask them for feedback on the timings you have given yourself, as an outsider’s point of view can be quite insightful. There are many associations for entrepreneurs, so find out what local resources you have, or alternatively I suggest joining some online business support groups or networking groups. Getting advice from someone who is further along the path than you can be invaluable.
Lesson Two - Who you surround yourself with is crucial.
Running your own business can be a lonely affair. I was surprised at just how lonely I have felt along my path to entrepreneurship, particularly as I had gone from working in companies with upwards of 100,000 employees to me. Just me. But I realized early on that having a business partner, where appropriate, can make a huge difference to how you feel emotionally about the business, and I found having someone else in the trenches with me when things got tough was crucial.
If you are a solopreneur, then a business coach can be a great way to have someone on your side, supporting you and motivating you to stretch yourself and keep showing up. It is really helpful to have someone act as an accountability partner and a business coach can also fulfill this role.
Along with Covid-19 and home-working has come an abundance of online support groups for home workers and entrepreneurs, and co-working spaces have become all the rage over the last few years. In order to feel supported and keep yourself feeling fresh, it is really important to connect and engage with others outside your business whenever you can. Those initial days of setting up a business can be tough and lonely, and so I always recommend to my coaching clients to have an accountability partner, someone they can share their visions and goals with who can help keep them on target.
Business-focused Facebook groups are a great way to connect with others in the same boat as you, and you never know, you may even find some clients or customers in these groups. I don’t suggest you join them with the sole purpose of promoting your business but use these groups as a sounding board for ideas or to find support when you are finding things tough or need advice.
Lesson Three - Knowing your why is critical to business success.
For those stuck in corporate jobs that they do not enjoy, the life of an entrepreneur can seem very enticing. Social media presents us with stories of Lamborghini-driving 20 somethings who have made it rich running their own online businesses and what used to be the path chosen by few is now becoming much more mainstream. I have spoken to quite a few people over the years who have decided to launch their own business as a means of escape rather than basing the decision on an empowering dream of the future. They want to be their own boss; they don’t want to keep putting in long hours for someone else’s benefit, they no longer want a three-hour daily commute.
While I can totally see where these people are coming from, escapism is not a good reason to become an entrepreneur. If you are not truly clear on why you want to start your own business, apart from trying to get out of a situation you are not happy with, then as soon as the going gets tough, you will simply want to run away again. Without a positive view of the future and an associated goal, you can easily lose your way and walk away from the success that could have been yours.
One of the first questions I ask my new clients is why they want to start their own business. What are their dreams and aspirations for their life and how does this business help fulfill them? Your ‘why’ may be made up of one reason or several reasons. I find the most common ‘why’ is made up of a financial freedom goal as well as a lifestyle goal. Many of my clients have children and/or other life responsibilities and they want to free up their time to balance work with being with their children or fulfilling their other roles. It is very empowering to feel in charge of your time and your destiny and entrepreneurship is a great way to achieve this.
Having a clear goal in mind for your life and your business is what will pull you through the tough times. When I have had moments of doubt or feelings of overwhelm over the years, I have remembered how running my own business is helping me achieve the work-life balance I wanted, and I compare my life now to my corporate life and then I know I have made the right decision for my family and me. That is comforting and inspiring and is what urges me on even though the going may feel tough.
While the path to successful entrepreneurship can be difficult at times, the rewards are enormous, but you must set yourself up for that success in the first place. Anticipation and preparation are the name of the game, so I hope that these lessons have been useful to you. You may fail at times, but you will get back up, dust yourself off and keep going. Failure is part of learning, which allows us to grow and to ultimately succeed. Keeping an open mind, as well as your sense of humor, and your eye on the horizon where your goal is waiting for you, will help you navigate your way to the successful business and wonderful life you deserve.
You can find Samantha at her website, wellbeingseries and LinkedIn!
Samantha Touchais, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Samantha Touchais is a Business and Mindset Coach helping women create a safe and secure path to launching their dream business by providing them with the support and tools to make it a success. She has over 20 years of marketing and strategy experience working for large international companies around the world and it was her love of how the mind works and how to create the right mindset for success that led her into coaching. She lives and breathes marketing and mindset, and loves sharing her learnings with others. Author of four books and the creator of the Well Being Series (a collection of apps and books that provide meditations and affirmations for well-being based on the latest neuro-science), she loves exploring Europe, where she has been for the last 14 years, but misses the beaches of her native Australia.
