Grow With Soul Ep. 30: Starting and Running A Business Q&A with Kayte Ferris
Today is a Q&A episode where I'm going to be answering the questions you asked me on Instagram, all about starting and running a business. Thank you for sending in such a big variety of questions, this means that we're gong to be covering topics as widespread as money and Instagram, competition and motivation
HERE IS WHAT WE TALK ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE
How I decided on the name Simple & Season rather than using my own name
What I think is the biggest thing that holds back freshly started businesses
Is there a surge of entrepreneurs because of Instagram and how to deal with a saturated market
How to best spend your time when starting out
How to get the courage to talk about your idea
How to motivate yourself when you know what you need to do but you’re scared
How to maintain momentum in a new business
How to properly convey your why into your work
How to choose a business idea when you have two conflicting passions
What goals I have for my business this year
Tips for avoiding that bare look when first starting out on Instagram
Should you use your current Instagram and pivot the content, or start afresh, when just starting out in business
Have I always had as many likes and comments as I do now, on my Instagram since day one
The best way to build a mailing list for new businesses.
Is local marketing important for online businesses who don’t have a location open to the public
When customers have unrealistic expectations and complaints, how to handle the emotions that come with this
Where to start with Financial Planning and Business Models
How long it took me to match my earnings from my previous job
Spending before you have the income.
LINKS AND RESOURCES WE DISCUSS:
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Read the episode transcript:
Hello, and welcome to episode 30 of Grow with Soul. These round numbers always feel like a milestone, don’t they? So today is a Q&A episode where I’m going to be answering all the questions that you asked me on Instagram all about starting and running your own business. Thank-you so much for sending in such a big variety of questions because this means that today we’re going to be covering topics as widespread as money to Instagram, competition, motivation and lots of other nitty gritty things in between. So, let’s get started.
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE ON SIMPLE AND SEASON RATHER THAN USING YOUR OWN NAME?
Actually this is one that I’ve been asked a couple of times by clients and I guess the answer is that when I very first started out this wasn’t going to be a business, it wasn’t going to be anything to do with marketing or business or anything kind of like what it is now. I started it off just as a lifestyle blog, I say just, there’s nothing just about it. I started it off as a lifestyle blog and I’d wanted to start a blog for about 6 years by the time I actually did take the plunge and start Simple and Season and having tried to use my own name in the past I knew that was a barrier to me putting things out there, being seen, by putting my name to it it felt like people who I wouldn’t want to find it would be able to find it, so using Simple and Season was a bit of a safety blanket and something to hide behind.
The name came about because at the time I was inspired by, obviously, Me & Orla, Lobster & Swan, so that was definitely a trope that I wanted to pick up on, and that’s how Simple and Season came about. I guess if I was starting the business now, knowing what it was going to be, I might use my own name.
There is also the problem that my own name has a Y in it and everybody always gets it wrong, so that might be one reason why I wouldn’t use my own name, so yes, I do realise that it can be confusing for people to know me as Kayte Ferris but also as Simple and Season and know what my handles might be everywhere, so yeah, I get that it might be a little bit confusing, but I got so far as being Simple and Season that it didn’t make sense to change it all round and start again with it.
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BIGGEST THING THAT HOLDS BACK NEW, FRESHLY STARTED BUSINESSES?
What a juicy one this is! For me, it’s difficult to describe in words because it’s more of a feeling, that clenched-shoulder feeling of wanting to do everything right, feeling like there are certain hoops to jump through in order to get ‘the secret’ to what it means to be successful, and that feeling of ‘well, I can’t do that because…I’m not big enough/I don’t have enough followers/that’s not for people like me’. It’s all the stories that we tell ourselves that holds us back; it’s all in our mindset and a general lack of belief, but also not knowing where to channel that energy and having loads of different voices saying do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that and just not being really connected to their own intuition and trusting that they’re allowed to follow what feels right.
I guess that’s the thing that really sums it up; that it’s a lack of self trust around their business because they feel that there’s certain ways that they have to do it, certain things they’re not allowed to do. Actually, a lot of my work with clients in particular is helping them to trust themselves that all their ideas are good, they work for them; in giving them that permission to do those things that do feel right, rather than always thinking ‘oh, but I read this and it doesn’t feel like something I want to do but this person’s got 100k followers so I should listen to what they say’ rather than actually listening to what feels good for them.
And very often what happens with clients of mine is they say ‘oh I had this idea but I didn’t do it because I thought it’s probably not right’ and I will say ‘well, yeah, that’s exactly what I would do – why haven’t you done it?!’ and it’s just that lack of trust, that ‘oh an idea I’ve had can’t be good enough’. That’s the biggest thing that I see that holds people back is a lack of trust in themselves and a mindset that isn’t necessarily can do, it comes up with all the reasons why they can’t do, first of all. That’s a big shift that I would hope for people who are listening to this with their new freshly started business is to start listening to your self talk and try and see what those things are that keep coming up.
For me, it was ‘that’s not for people like me’ – that was my big one that would keep me back all the time and self sabotaging everything. It wasn’t until I noticed that and started to challenge that notion by asking ‘well, why not’? That was when things started to change for me.
IS THERE A SURGE OF ENTREPRENEURS BECAUSE OF INSTAGRAM? I REALLY FEEL LIKE I’M IN A SATURATED MARKET.
This is so interesting and I think it was on this week’s The Little Chapters podcast that Jess and I talked a bit about this in terms of self employment, because yes, it does feel like at the moment if you’re on Instagram and you don’t have a business, it’s kind of like…why are you there? It’s not what I believe, but there does seem to be this feeling that you have to have a business. I’m sure that there’s a lot of people who feel like ‘I don’t want one’ but kind of feel pushed into it, because it is a very entrepreneurial space, with people really encouraging you, including myself I guess, to see the possibilities that Instagram has. And yes, it’s also because it’s the place where people spend a lot of their time, a place where people go to say ‘this is how much I’m earning’ or ‘this is a success I’ve had’ because it’s their marketing channel, they want to talk about those successes in order for them to look good.
So yes, there’s been a surge of entrepreneurs because it’s also a very democratic space, you know, all you need is 4G, an internet connection, a camera phone, and yeah, you can set up a business, which I think is really great because for so long there have been so many barriers to getting into business. I talked about on that podcast about when I was growing up; the only people that had businesses were people’s Dad’s, and they had to have an office, and there were all these huge set up costs and now the fact that these set up costs are minimal, it means that anybody can do it. Obviously there’s time costs and things like that but if you’ve got a phone, you can start a business, which is quite amazing.
But that part of your question about how you feel you’re in a saturated market – I hear that quite a lot from people who feel like they’re being encroached upon, and I think particularly for people who have been on Instagram for a really long time, like, even pre-algorithm, they really struggle with the fact that now all these other accounts are growing and I guess there’s this feeling of ‘there’s all these other people and they’re all taking part of my pie’ and again this is a mindset thing, it’s shifting from that lack mindset of ‘I’m in a saturated market, there’s all these other people competing with me in my space for my stuff’; that’s a very lack mindset way of thinking. So I really try to be more abundant with it and use that JFK quote of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ and when somebody else starts a coaching business or talking about different ways of doing marketing, you know, I can’t lie and say that there’s not a little gut wrench there, but very quickly I turn it round to ‘well good, there’s going to be more people talking about it, therefore more people searching for this kind of content and my content will then come up’ and then that’s the only part of it that I can control.
So if somebody else is starting something similar, great, more people are going to know it’s a possible thing, they’re going to be searching for it, and when they search, they need to find mine, and mine needs to be amazing. So I guess taking what looks like a problem, i.e. that saturated market and turning it into an opportunity. So this is an opportunity to really raise your game, you can see what other people are doing so how can you be different?
In a lot of ways, being in a saturated market is good, because it’s way easier to find your niche. If you’re in a market where you’re the only one, that feeling of ‘well what do I have to offer that’s unique?’ and you have too many options there whereas actually there’s loads of people doing lots of similar things, it’s really easy to see where the gaps are and those are the gaps that you can fill.
So, yes, I do think there’s been a surge of entrepreneurs due to Instagram, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing as long as all those people are happy being entrepreneurs and I think if you’re worried about it being a saturated market, shift that mindset to being more of an abundant one and look at it as an opportunity and not a threat.
HOW DO I BEST SPEND MY TIME WHEN STARTING OUT? SHOULD I ONLY BE BLOGGING JUST TO GET CONTENT OUT THERE, OR…?
So yes, this is a question again that I have a few times when people say ‘what’s the thing I should be working on and focusing on?’ Obviously the answer that nobody wants to hear is that how marketing works is not having that one thing that works for you, it’s having lots of things that all work together to build a whole big brand story rather than just focusing on Instagram or just focusing on the blog. However, I know when you’re starting out that it’s not possible to do absolutely everything, and actually not even when you’re starting out, when you’re on your own it’s not possible to do absolutely everything.
In terms of how to best spend your time, it’s where you’re going to get the most effect from the work that you’re doing. For example, if you are somebody who really struggles with writing and getting the ideas and putting them into words and then putting them onto paper and then editing them takes ages and you’re not really confident about it, then blogging isn’t going to be the best use of your time, because if you’ve got three hours and you spend all of them writing a blog that you don’t even finish, that’s not efficient. Think about what you are best at, what your strengths are, and do those. Maybe it’s that you’re much more of a visual communicator and you’re amazing at photography or you are an illustrator and in those three hours you can bang out a whole load of illustrations that you can then put on Instagram or on Pinterest (and/or) or you could have a monthly newsletter that you host, where you send out a monthly illustration out for example. For those three hours that it might take you to not even finish a blog post, you could be on all those 3 other channels.
So that’s what I’d say is that there’s never just one thing, and to spend your time doing the things that you’re really strong at because not only are they the things that you’re going to do quicker and better, but they are the things that you’re going to enjoy more that it’s going to make it worth your time to spend your evenings and weekends doing this thing.
Generally what you want to be doing when you’re starting out is getting people to know who you are and establishing what you stand for and what makes you different and why people should care about you and what you do. If that’s the goal, then put that together with your strength in order to achieve that goal. Like I said, if it is blogging, it’s spending that time establishing that rapport, putting out what your expertise is, talking about what you do, being really valuable with it, making sure you’re promoting that blog on things like Pinterest and on Instagram and stuff, or, like I said, spend that time putting together an email list if blogging’s not your thing that you can then send illustrations, images, links, all that kind of thing too.
HOW DO YOU GET THE COURAGE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR IDEA? ESPECIALLY WITHOUT SAYING ‘JUST’.
I really love that caveat, because that’s something that we all do, is like ‘it’s just this, it’s not everything, it’s just me, don’t pay attention’. You’re very right to bring that up. And yeah, I get that this is really difficult, and it’s something that I find difficult; to talk about what I actually do for money. It’s something that people have said to me in the past and like ‘it would be great to hear more about what you offer’ so I guess that’s the first thing is that if people are following you, they’re on your list, they read your blog, they comment on your instagram, they’re there because they’re interested in you and they want to hear about what you do. Particularly for your mailing list and things like that then they’re there because they want to find out about this stuff, so that’s the first thing to remember; you’re not necessarily annoying people.
What I always find in these situations is to turn the frame of reference around and by that I mean when you come at it from a kind of place of ego where it’s about you, IE ‘this is what I’M doing, this is MY idea, this is what I want it to do for ME’, that is a very icky place to come from, but we don’t think to switch it around and be like ‘this is for you, this is how I want to help, this is what I’ve got of value, this is how I can serve’ that when you think about the person that you’re talking to and talk how you’re going to help them, it becomes a lot easier to talk about it. Rather than ‘oh, I’ve got this eBook and I really want it to help spread my message much further and make sure that people can know all about what I do’, yeah, that’s not a very nice way to be communicating it, but ‘I’ve got an eBook and its mission is to help people to come up with their perfect dinner party recipe’ (if you can’t tell, that was off the top of my head) but ‘it’s to help people eat the food they want to eat, to host the parties they want to host and to build their confidence hosting those things when they’ve got their mother in law coming over and she always has a snide comment, I want to help you have something that she can’t make a comment over’. Not the best example in the world there perhaps, but you kind of see the difference when you approach it from the point of view from your customer, it becomes a lot easier to not feel gross talking about your idea. Because you’re not even talking about yourself, or really even about the idea, you’re talking about the effect it has on your customer. That’s something I always say to people; there’s a difference between when you’re selling, and what people are buying. So you might be selling this eBook, but they’re buying the knowledge and confidence to host their perfect dinner party. If you think about what they’re buying, talking about what they’re buying rather than what you’re selling, that’s an easier way to talk about it, because it’s not about you, and very much about them, and at the end of the day that’s all people care about.
HOW DO YOU MOTIVATE YOURSELF WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO BUT YOU’RE SCARED?
Oh, I feel this one, I really feel it because yes, you can have the idea, you can have read all the blogs and listened to all the podcasts and know exactly, you can see it, you can see how you’re going to get there but there’s just that fear holding you back. So what I would do in this situation is to systematise it, and take yourself out of it more and take all the decisions out of it. What I mean by that is when you have to think about the things that you do, that’s when there’s space for that fear to come in. If you remove the levels of decision making, and what I mean by that is when you get up in the morning you have to think about what you should be doing, that’s when the doubts can creep in, so removing that and putting systems in place whereby you’re almost auto piloting your way through those things that you need to do, then you’re blocking out the space for that fear.
So that means to very objectively write out a plan, so go back to the previous episode with Josephine, there’s so much stuff in there, make your plan and write it out very specifically. ‘On this day, I’m doing these 3 tasks, an the next day I’m going to do those 3 tasks’, and just break it down really fundamentally, because yes, it’s easy to be scared of ‘the big picture’ but it’s much harder to be scared of ‘take a photo for Instagram’. So breaking those things down into steps means that you’re actually doing it without realising you’re doing it.
But also just be conscious about what you’re scared of and kind of look that in the eye, because you have to make it less of a monster, because it’s always going to be there, looming, that even when you’ve done all your different steps, there’s always going to be one step that’s like ‘step off the ledge’ (not literally, obviously), it’s going to be to put yourself out there, and if that fear hasn’t been dealt with then it’s still going to exist. Look that fear in the eye, get really objective and truthful with yourself as to what that fear is and what it’s actually of. Not just ‘oh I don’t want to put myself out there’ yeah but why not? We’ve got to get really specific about that and then you can start to deal with that fear. Once you do break it down to the specific thing you’re scared of, it does become less of a monster and once you know what that is you can do more research into what that is. Say it’s more failure, or thinking you’re not about to do it, then you can look at specifically how you can cope with that fear, and maybe submit another question to me.
HOW TO MAINTAIN MOMENTUM IN A NEW BUSINESS BUT NOT END UP WITH MORE WORK THAN YOU HAVE TIME?
Yes, this is such a big one because particularly as I said at the beginning, you kind of have to do a bit of everything. It’s difficult to know what to do to maintain that momentum. I say there are two different types of momentum; there’s internal momentum, which is the momentum that you feel moving forward. Then there’s the external momentum of it looking like you’re moving forward, and that when people look at your business, they can see that momentum.
They’re two very different things, because you can have a really good batch creation strategy, so where you are creating new blog posts, photography, scheduling pins, scheduling tweets, scheduling all the things, it looks like momentum from the outside because there’s always stuff going out, it was just created two months ago. So that’s a way to keep that momentum going there. It depends on how you are motivated, and how you keep that internal momentum going, because if you love a batch like I do, that is a really good way to feel like ‘yes, I’m on it, I’ve done so much and it’s going to really pay off over the next few months’. But if you’re motivated from a more little and often approach, then to plan your time so that you are doing that little and often, so that maybe you have themed days, so on a Monday I do this, on Tuesday I do that, so that you can be really getting straight to it when you sit down to work and keep going forward.
I’d also say not to do too much, kind of like I answered that previous question; pick a few things where you can really excel and that really play to your strengths and just focus on doing those and build momentum in those areas, rather than try to spread your finite energy across all the things because that’s not going to be momentum for you or for people on the outside when you’re just struggling to keep up. It’s a little bit of scheduling, batching, and again, playing to your strengths, doing the things that really fire you up so that you can maintain that momentum because it’s fun to do and you enjoy doing it, rather than ‘oh god, I’ve got to do that thing again’ because that’s not going to help you with your momentum.
HOW DO YOU PROPERLY CONVEY YOUR ‘WHY’ INTO YOUR WORK?
What I’d say is to not to overthink it too much; I think that, I mean, me especially, I’m talking about the why and the purpose all the time, that it can feel like, ‘yes, I‘ve got this statement, this why statement, but I can’t write that in all my blog posts and in all my Instagram captions’ and things so conveying your why can be very subtle, it doesn’t have to always be, you know, a punch in the face all the time, it’s just making sure that you don’t talk about anything that isn’t your why.
So the way that I always teach to do this is to break down the why into its constituent parts. If you think about your why as the umbrella, you want to create some pillars or content buckets as I’ve called them, that will be the spokes that hold up the umbrella. They are the things that make up your why, instead of being the entirety of the why, and those are the things that you talk about. For me, it’ll be things like mindset, it’ll be things like content marketing, things like planning and productivity; all those different things are the things that hold up my why. So while I’m not always going ‘why why why why why’, I am talking about that particular portion of my why and I’m talking about it in context. So I’m not saying ‘oh, to be productive you have to get up at 5AM and you have to work really hard all day long’ because that’s not what my why is, that isn’t what I believe, so I talk about that thing in the context of what I believe about it. That’s kind of the easiest way that I’ve come up with to convey that in your work.
It is also a little bit of practice. If I look back 18 months ago at my blog posts, it’s not going to be as refined as it is now, and how it is now isn’t going to be as refined now as it is in another 18 months, so it’s always a work in progress as to how you’re working to communicate that, and the more you try it and the more you try different things, the better that you become. Start with those spokes of the umbrella and talking about them in the context of what you believe about them, but also just know that you’ve got to keep doing it in order to refine it.
HOW DO YOU CHOOSE A BUSINESS IDEA WHEN YOU HAVE TWO SOMEWHAT CONFLICTING PASSIONS?
I guess the crux of this question is how conflicting the passions are. Because if it’s something like veganism and butchery, then yeah, they’re probably not going to go together, but I’d say that most things, unless they are literally the opposites of each other, will go together if you’ve got a strong enough central why or brand purpose.
You are a human being who has these two things, so your business can have those two things too, so think about why you have those two different passions, how they come together in your own life, and then see if that works for the business as well. With a why and with your marketing and communications, you can justify almost anything. That’s what I’d do, I’d think about that, and it’s not about the ‘what’ going together, it’s the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ they go together, because you believe in those two things, you’re passionate about them, so why can’t your business be? And if you come from that central place then communicating it will always make sense, rather than coming from a place of ‘I’ve got this product over here about this thing, and I’ve got this product over here about that thing’ but they kind of don’t really go together and they don’t make sense. Instead say ‘I believe this and that’s why I’ve got this product and that product’ then it makes sense a lot more.
WHAT GOALS DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUR BUSINESS THIS YEAR? BY WHICH THEY MEAN ME.
Actually this might be a good time to talk about how I plan my goals and things, so I have a central spreadsheet, so all my planning and things happen on one spreadsheet which has got like a million tabs, but I have a little goal progress sheet in there. I have a couple of different goals, so I’ve got basic stuff like the number of new clients I want to sign up, the number of brand collaborations I want to get, and I’m bringing out some new products in the spring and the summer so I’ve got numbers I want to hit with those. But I also have some goals which are about getting some writing published, I’ve got a tracker for how many books I’ve read this year, I’ve got a tracker about doing hobbies on there, which doesn’t necessarily have to be hobbies but it’s just reminding me to do stuff that’s not work. They’re my main goals, and I’ve got my basic income goals, if you like, of ‘I need to sell this to get that’, I’ve got things that I want to have for my life, and things that I want to have for my business. So it’s about launching those new products, shifting the business model slightly to have more of those accessible products than the more premium offerings that I have, and just kind of having a bit more space for life and creativity in there as well.
ANY TIPS FOR AVOIDING THAT BARE LOOK WHEN FIRST STARTING OUT ON INSTAGRAM?
It’s going to happen, just accept that beginner status, because it’s going to look weirder if you’ve got like 100’s of posts in there that you’ve stuck in and they’ve got absolutely no engagement whatsoever because you’ve put them in there at the same time. So embrace that organic process, the fact that you are setting up a new business and therefore there is a new channel. So do batch some photos so that you can be posting really frequently to start to build that following and build up the space within the feed, but yeah, don’t stuff it with stuff because that’s going to affect your engagement and affect you not only in the algorithm but also how it looks when people land on the feed. And make sure in your captions you’re demonstrating that it’s new, and you’re introducing the business to help people feel like they want to stick around.
I’M STARTING MY BUSINESS. DO I USE MY CURRENT INSTAGRAM AND PIVOT THE CONTENT, OR START AFRESH?
So I would say it depends on how personal your current Instagram is and how much you value it being a personal Instagram, so yes, what I’d almost always say is to use what you currently have. This is because you’ve got a certain way with it, you might have a couple of hundred followers; if you start afresh, that’s going to take you a long time to get you back up to that sort of number and overtake it. And also it’s just really depressing to try and start out with a second Instagram; that would be an almost full time job in itself. Talking about time efficiencies as we were earlier, it’s absolutely never going to be the best use of your time. That said, if you do have that account that’s maybe very personal or that you don’t want to have business stuff going into, then that’s something that you have to weigh up as to what’s more valuable to you; that time efficiency and emotional efficiency of not starting from scratch vs still having that Instagram. 9 times out of 10 I’d tell people to absolutely keep your current one, and if you do want to do that then you’ve got to know you’ve got a really good reason for that.
HAVE YOU BEEN GETTING THIS MANY LIKES AND COMMENTS ON MY INSTAGRAM SINCE DAY ONE?
What I’d like to say to that is: obviously not! In no way shape or form has this always been the way it’s been, and I still remember when I got my first post that got over 100 likes, and I thought ‘this is it, I’ve peaked, this is absolutely as good as I’ll ever be able to create’ and, like, obviously it’s grown since then. I guess what I’m saying is: please don’t think that when you look at an Instagram feed like mine, that that’s how it’s always been. Because, you know, I still had to start from zero. When I first started Instagram properly in terms of for the blog and for the business, I had 30 followers, which were friends and probably a lot of bots, so I had to start from there. Please don’t think that people who have large accounts and accounts with a lot of engagement have just always been like that and it’s not possible for you, because it is.
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO BUILD A MAILING LIST FOR NEW BUSINESSES? WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND MOST EFFECTIVE FOR GROWING A MAILING LIST?
It’s going to depend on the kind of business that you are. What I’ll always say is having some kind of freebie or incentive to sign up is always going to work. I know that not everybody loves this approach, and I know as well that a lot of people, including myself, have been burned by signing up for something for a freebie, the freebie’s been awful, and now we’ve got a million emails every day in your inbox. But you don’t have to do that, and I would probably say don’t do that, and I know that it can feel kind of icky to have that incentive but it’s one of my favourite things to do, to create a really good, useful opt in. I want people to receive it and think ‘oh my god, this is actually really useful and really good’ that’s the kind of brand that I want to build, where people feel that I’m useful to them, and that they’re getting some really good value from me, and it feels good for me to be able to put this stuff out there for free. And so that’s really the thing that’s grown my mailing list is having a selection of really high quality freebies there that people can download and use that helps people want to stick around on the mailing this as well.
I’d also say to market your list like you would a product. Having a little sign up box at the bottom of the page that says ‘sign up for our latest news’…like, nobody wants to do that. YOU don’t do that; you don’t go onto people’s websites for the first time and be like ‘oh, yeah, amazing, I want more emails in my inbox’. You’ve really got to sell what you’re going to be sending out and for that you’ve got to know what you’re going to be sending out, so again, having a page where you can really talk about the value they’re going to be getting, break down what they’re going to get every month or every week so that they can feel confident in what they’re going to be getting and trust you in what they’re going to be getting. Because that’s another barrier to them signing up taken out; it’s that not knowing what they’re going to get.
The third thing that has been effective for growing a mailing list is to be out in the world talking about it. One of the biggest spikes for my mailing list sign up was when I was on the Hashtag Authentic podcast. Being in places where your ideal sign ups already are and talking about the fact that you’ve got that list and those resources and they can sign up and they’re free is a signpost for people to go over. So make sure there’s a reason for them to sign up, that you are establishing the trust of what they’re going to get, and then go and talk about your list and those freebies in places where your customer already is.
IS LOCAL MARKETING IMPORTANT FOR ONLINE BUSINESSES WHO DON’T HAVE A LOCATION OPEN TO THE PUBLIC?
That’s a really interesting one because again, it depends on what you want to be doing. You can still have an online business, an online shop, but if you want to be a business who has maybe one of your values is community, or you want to be very visible in your brand, then doing some local stuff like fairs, or free workshops, or paid workshops, even, or collaborating with other local businesses, is a way that you can embody those values but in a way that’s kind of convenient because it’s local for you as well. If you’re doing that in your local area, you’re also establishing a sense of place for people as well.
The key with that is that you’re sharing that stuff, so that it’s not so much about doing the local marketing so you can build a local audience, it’s that you’re doing the local work to show to your wider audience that you are embodying those values and practising what you preach. Just also be very careful that you don’t want people turning up to your house when you are doing that local stuff! Be really clear about why you want to do that local stuff and also making sure those boundaries are clear as well.
WHEN CUSTOMERS HAVE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OR COMPLAINTS, HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE EMOTIONS THAT COME WITH THIS AND HOW DO YOU RESPOND GRACEFULLY WITH CLEAR BOUNDARIES, ENSURING YOU’RE NOT FEELING PRESSURED BY THESE FEW PEOPLE?
To put it nicely, there’s nowt as queer as folk. So you can’t expect for every single person that you come into contact with to be 100% happy. Whether that’s because you can’t be perfect 100% of the time and shouldn’t try to be, or whether it’s because they are just in that kind of mood!
There’s a two-fold thing to this; it’s making sure that you preempt this through all your copy so that you are able to set the expectation beforehand so that at least if somebody comes back with an unrealistic expectation or a complaint based on that realistic expectation that you can say ‘well, it does very clearly say on our website that that’s not what this is’. And hopefully by having it there on your website in the first place, that’s going to turn off those people, that they’re going to see that’s not what they want and so they’re not going to buy, which is what you want at the end of the day. Because otherwise you’re spending way more time and money sorting out a problem, than just not selling the thing in the first place. That’s the first thing: to preempt it.
The second thing is handling the emotions. There’s an analogy I read actually in one of Fearne Cotton’s columns for Red Magazine, she talked about not catching the ball. So people will throw the ball at you, so that’s their emotions, their problem, but it’s up to you whether you catch it or not. So just let that ball bounce off you, and know that that’s theirs. That’s not mine, that’s yours, I’m not taking this on. Have that boundary there of ‘this isn’t to do with me, this is coming from their place’, this is their stuff, it’s not actually do to with you, your product or your service is the way that they’re channelling their stuff, but it’s not to do with you and to be strict with that boundary with yourself.
Take your time over it, don’t rush or panic into sorting it out; if they’re on the phone or they’ve emailed or something, say ‘I’m going to take a bit of time to look into this properly for you, bear with me’, and then make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row so that you can go through their journey, go through all your copy, go through everything and know if you made a mistake or not. If you made a mistake, then that’s a different way to go about it and apologising and all that sort of thing, but if you know you didn’t, then you can at least then go back and say ‘well here are all the steps that happened, there was a miscommunication here, but I’m holding my ground on this one’. Then with that not catching the ball, you’ve got to then deal with it, get it out of your life. I’m very much someone who will just refund all your money just so I don’t have to have it hanging over me, I don’t want that in my life or my business, so if there’s anything that is making me feel heavy, then I deal with it, and get it out. That way I can go back to focusing on the people who are right and who do get it so I guess that’s the thing to do; if you’ve been dealing with these unrealistic people and who aren’t getting it is to then immediately submerge yourself in the voices that do. Deal with it, and then go and speak to a business pal or…I know Emma Gannon does this, she keeps an email folder of nice things that people have said, or go through your comments or go and post something on Instagram, do something productive and proactive for the people who get it so you can get those positive voices into your head.
WHERE DO I START WITH FINANCIAL PLANNING AND BUSINESS MODELS?
With this, I would start with your business model. Rather than using the term business model, this is just the way in which you make money. So it’s pretty much just your income streams and how they work together. Looking at all the different ways in which you can make money. So for me, that’s with 1-2-1 work, coaching, brand work, and with my workbooks, my kits which are coming out. They are my income streams, and with each one, I know which is my primary, my secondary, my tertiary, and my brand work just tops it up; and that’s my business model. Obviously if you want to be getting funding from a bank then you need to go into more detail than that, but for yourself, that’s all you need to know, there’s no need to over complicate that. Work out which of your income streams make the most and the least, so that you can prioritise your activity, so you can spend more time on marketing the one that makes the most money.
In terms of financial planning, you use that for your planning. I would recommend a blog post by Jen Carrington where she talks about planning your finances and things. She talks about setting up a baseline goal where you look at what it’s going to take to not get into debt basically, so all the things that cover your bills, food, all that sort of stuff, and start from there. I then have two goals which is a core goal which is more of a realistic goal, so that’s based on all my income streams. If I sell those at 50% capacity, that’s my core goal. Then my stretch goal is if I sell my income streams to 100%+. By plus I mean rather than if I have 40 spaces on a course but actually 50 people sign up, that would be stretching. Then I work it out for each individual income stream what that core and then stretch goal is and then add those up.
What you then are left with is a goal that feels realistic or one that feels like way less than you need it to be. And if it’s way less than you need it to be, then you need to either shift your business model in some way, which might mean upping your pricing or adding in a different income stream to match the gap that you’ve got, it might be changing your expectations, but that’s the thing when you’ve got that shortfall between what you need/want and what your income streams are giving you, then there just needs to be something else. Keep it really simple because this is one of those things that people think ‘it must be right’, but if the only person looking at it is you, it only needs to make sense to you.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO TO MATCH YOUR EARNINGS FROM YOUR PREVIOUS JOB?
In my previous job I made £30k, and I left that job in July 2017, and then between January 2018 and July 2018 I matched that salary. So by the end of July 2018 I’d made £30,000. I guess it was really, it was 12 calendar months that it took because in the five months from July 2017 to December 2017 I wasn’t making a lot of money, maybe a couple of thousand. I’d like to caveat it with saying that I did nothing else, so I had nothing else going on in my life. I worked all of the time, I did coaching, courses and workshops in that time, and actually that led to a lot of burnout. So I might have matched that salary, but at what cost?