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The Most Important Skill For Introverts In Business To Master

The Most Important Skill For Introverts In Business To Master

by | Mar 22, 2023 | Business foundations, Business Growth

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
~ Herman Melville

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Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Why I Don’t Recommend Starting A Business To Most People

Why I Don’t Recommend Starting A Business To Most People

by | Aug 17, 2022 | Business foundations

“If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.”
~ Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder of Ellevest

In this blog, I share with you why I don’t recommend starting a business to most people who ask me about it.

Given what I do — running my own business (from home) and coaching others on how to build and grow theirs — you can bet that I get a lot of people wanting to talk to me about how they might get started as a coach or other online business owner.

I’ve had it many times over the years, basically from people who are unhappy in their 9–5 job and searching for an alternative. Once they learn about what I do, the freedom it affords me and the success I’ve had with it, they are intrigued to explore if the online business world is something that they might also get into.

90% of the time, when I get approached in this way, my heart sinks.

Why?

Because usually, they are enquiring about starting their own business for all the wrong reasons.

The wrong reasons

The main reasons people are wanting to explore starting a business or becoming a coach include:

  • Hating their 9–5 job
  • Wanting to work from home so that they don’t have to deal with office politics (and can work in their pyjamas!)
  • Wanting more freedom to be able to work whenever and wherever they want
  • The ability to make more money than they can working for someone else.
  • Wanting to do work that they enjoy more than the work they currently do.
  • Loving the idea of being a coach and getting paid to talk to people.

Now while there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these reasons (I can totally relate personally to each and every one of these), if these are the only reasons a person has, I think building a successful and sustainable business is going to be an uphill struggle.

Let’s dive into the 6 reasons why I think this.

1. Running your own business is harder than working 9–5

A lot of people think that running an online business will be easier than working 9–5 and in many ways, it’s actually the opposite. For many people, 9–5 is a breeze compared to running their own business.

Why?

Because when you run your own business you have lots more to deal with than you do in a paid job. You have to be good at all of the things: admin, finance, planning, marketing, networking, systems and so much more.

It’s not enough to be good at the service you provide (such as coaching or healing), you absolutely need to be skilled in all of the areas it takes to run a successful business. Do you need to be an ace at these skills right off the bat? No, of course not, but you do need to be willing to learn and uplevel your skills in all of these areas and more.

Not only this but you have to deal with the stress of inconsistent income and sales, at least for the first few years. No longer do you have a steady paycheck that drops into your bank account on the same day each month, some months you’ll make nothing or barely scrape by. This can and does take its toll.

Unlike a 9–5, where you can take sick days, maternity leave and holidays without it impacting your pay (at least in the UK) or the overall success of the business, when you run your own business, every day off typically means closing down your business during that time. There are no colleagues to delegate to or to take up the slack while you’re not there. And when no one is working on the business for too many days in a row, this can have a negative impact on your bottom line. Inconsistent marketing inevitably leads to inconsistent income.

2. In the short term you’ll make far less money than working in a normal job

Especially in the online world, there is a huge misconception that it’s easy to get to a place of consistent and sustainable income relatively quickly. Allow me to burst that bubble for you right now.

In the offline world, it’s a given that if you want to start a new business, you’re going to need some investment to cover you for at least the first few years. That’s because it takes years to become profitable (if you even do — many business fail in their first year). Just take a quick look at the google search results I got when I asked: How long does it take a new business to become profitable?

If you’re interested in starting an online business, purely for the potential financial gains, you’re going to really struggle when you learn that it’s not an overnight thing (despite what many online marketers would have you believe). It’s much more realistic to expect it to take anywhere between 2–4 years to get to a place of profitability.

AND…

… ‘profitable’ only means you are making money after all expenses have been taken into account, how much money you are making is another story. It may not mean you are making the kind of money you were making or could make with a 9–5 job, that could in fact take even longer.

3. It’s not enough to love what you do

A lot of people are drawn to becoming business owners because they fall in love with a modality, (such as coaching, somatics, dance, therapy or healing) and want to build a business in which they can spend their days sharing their skills in that area, with the people they believe most need it.

Given what I mentioned above about all of the hats you’ll be required to wear as a solopreneur, if you don’t also love the actual business side of running a business, you’re going to struggle. I can’t tell you how often I talk to frustrated business owners who feel disillusioned with their business precisely because they don’t enjoy nor want to do the business building activities (such as marketing and outreach) that will help them get the growth they so desperately need to be sustainable.

If you hate marketing, planning, finances and systems your business will suffer. Most new business owners can’t afford to outsource these things in the early years and they are essential business survival activities that you’ll not only need to master but ideally learn to enjoy. If you don’t, growing your business will become a drudgery.

4. Running a successful business is a full time job

A lot of the people I talk to were drawn to entrepreneurship precisely because they thought they would have more free time. Now while this might be something you can achieve down the line, in the first few years of getting a business off the ground, the reality is that you’ll be working at least 9–5 on your business. I’ve always worked full-time on my business and it’s only in the last year or so (years 4–5 in business) that I’ve been able to scale back some of my hours to work less.

Caveat: If you can’t work full-time on your business, that’s okay but it will in all likelihood take you longer to achieve what someone working full-time could.

The 4-hour work week and other unhelpful noise online about making big money in your sleep is actually a rarity and even then tends to come after a lot of hours of work (and years) have been put in.

Let’s consider “passive” income for a moment. The idea that you can make money in your sleep, it’s possible for sure, I do it on the regular. It’s not uncommon for me to check my email in the morning and to see that I made sales of digital products overnight.

The work I had to do up front, however, to not only create those products but also to do the marketing and build the engaged audience I need to buy those products, took significant time.

I say it all the time, but if it were really that easy to make money in your sleep, working 4 hours a week, no one would work a 9–5 job. Ever.

5. The freedom of working for yourself isn’t the freedom you imagined it would be

The freedom to work whenever and wherever you want is a huge draw of being an online business owner for many people. But it’s not quite that simple. Whilst you may not have a boss to answer to, you do (and should want to) have clients and customers (or potential ones at least) to take into account.

During those years when I didn’t have a full client roster, if I had taken the day off every time I felt like it, then I wouldn’t be where I am today in business. Now with a full client roster, if I cancelled appointments every time I felt like doing something else, I would tank my reputation and the flow of new clients would quickly dry up.

Do I have more freedom than in my old 9–5 job? Absolutely, without a doubt. Do I have the freedom to work whenever or wherever I want, no, not by a long shot. So the reality is somewhere in between these two and it’s often a shock to people who decided to start their own business to have more freedom when they realise that this is not always possible.

As I started building my first business back in 2014, I was what some people call a “digital nomad”. I had left the UK (and my career in programme management) in 2012 and didn’t have a permanent residency anywhere. I had been living in Thailand for a few years and then, shortly after meeting Joan, we travelled to Colombia before settling down for a year in Mexico.

I used to get so wound up by the pictures I’d see online from business owners with their laptops out by the pool or on the beach. As a travelling business owner, I knew only too well how different the reality of running a business on the road is.

Allow me to dispel the myth — You can’t work outside in the sunshine because you can’t actually see your screen, also it’s far less likely that you’ll have a strong enough wifi connection to actually do anything productive online outdoors. Not to mention how uncomfortable it is to work in a hammock!!! These pictures were and are staged to present and sell a certain lifestyle and it works, we make 6-figure businesses buying into that BS.

If you talk to anyone running a successful business abroad, they’ll tell you that they spend more time at the local co-working place or cooped up in their room than they do relaxing by the pool.

6. Running your own business requires courage and resilience

Whilst you might have to step outside of your comfort zone in a 9–5 job (I certainly did in my former career), it’s a daily requirement when you run your own business.

There’s no place to hide when you’re the boss. If you don’t exercise courage on the regular, no one will know you even exist. To exercise courage on the regular, you need resilience. You’ve got to be able to face the critics (inner and possibly outer) and come out relatively unscathed.

Running your own business requires you to embrace failure rather than run from it. To get good at anything, you have to fail first, I know this from personal experience and I see it every day as I raise two young children.

Nobody steps out of the gate doing everything perfectly. When you see someone’s flawless and polished video or perfectly presented webinar, you can bet that they started out with a DIY version that was far more rough around the edges.

The thing is we rarely see most people’s practice runs or failed attempts, we see the end result of years of failing, improving and practising. If you’re not up for the experimentation (and possibly falling flat on your face) part, you’re unlikely to reach the successful, expertly executed part. Fact.

So there you have it 6 reasons I believe that running a business isn’t for everyone. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking that I don’t believe having more time, freedom and money is possible when you run your own business but nothing could be further from the truth. These absolutely are possible. But if you are going into business just for them and expecting that you’ll have them quickly and easily, it’s my belief that you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Given I’m sharing here the top reasons I don’t recommend most people start a business, you might be wondering when I would recommend it.

That’s easy.

When you can understand and appreciate all of the above and still know in your heart that it’s what you want to do 100%.

Even though I didn’t know all of these upfront, I soon learned. My passion to do work that has an impact as well as my desire to be my own boss (with all that that entails) has never wavered.

Is there anything you would add to this list? Or any of the above that you are struggling with? If so, let me know in the comments.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

How To Cover Your Vacations When You Are A Solopreneur

How To Cover Your Vacations When You Are A Solopreneur

by | Apr 6, 2022 | Sustainability

“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.”
― Alan Cohen

Something that I’ve had to work at over the years is how to keep my business ticking over whenever I do take a break from work. In the early days of my business, I either didn’t take a full break, making sure I always had my laptop with me, so that I could grab time to work whenever the opportunity arose or I did take a full break and consequently dropped the ball on my business as a result. 

Neither of these are options is advisable, especially the first. Having quality time away from your business that is fully focused on yourself and your loved ones is essential for your sanity, your relationships, your health and it also benefits your business too. When we’ve taken a proper break from work, we come back with our energy and creativity levels refreshed and restored. I honestly can’t recommend it enough. Simply dropping the ball on your business obviously isn’t ideal either so what’s the solution?

I have a few simple tips to cover your vacations as a solopreneur: 

1. Plan your holidays with your business in mind. For example, avoid those times when you know that business is generally busier for you. For example, for me, this tends to be in the New Year or around September/October time. Instead, choose your breaks at times when you either have less going on or that you predict will be less busy given your past experience. We often forget to do this for our own businesses even though if we worked for someone else we most certainly wouldn’t be able to book holiday during a particularly busy time. It would be expected that you would choose to take leave at a time that has as little impact on the team as possible or find ways to cover your role in your absence. Why should it be any different for your business? 

2. Once your holiday is planned, be sure to let all your existing clients know and, if appropriate, your audience in general. Letting people know that you’ll be away and potentially less responsive or (ideally for you) completely unresponsive during that time helps to manage people’s expectations. You’ll also want to set up an autoresponder through your email provider so that when people do get in touch, they get a message that lets them know that you are away and not actively managing your inbox at this time. Be sure to let them know when you’ll be back and when they can expect to get a response from you. Failure to communicate when we’re away and simply not responding to communication not only makes us look highly unprofessional but it can leave our people feeling ignored or neglected. Not what we want as the caring, conscious, business owners we strive to be. 

3. Think about a few key ways you usually show up for your audience and plan ahead to make sure that you can still be there for your people even while on holiday. For me, one key way is this letter to you. If I didn’t pre-write and schedule newsletters, you wouldn’t hear from me, and because I know the importance of consistency, that’s just not good enough for me. Spending a few hours crafting and scheduling a couple of newsletters to go out in my absence is a simple but effective way of keeping my business running smoothly without me. You can also do this with social media posts, blog posts, and all manner of content. If you feel too busy to create extra content for the time you are away, simply repurpose something you’ve already written, or re-share content that you haven’t shared in a while.

Covering your holidays when you’re a solopreneur doesn’t have to require a ton of extra effort or energy. Really all that it requires is some forethought and planning.

With this in mind, my challenge for you today is to open up your calendar and consider when you’ll next be away from your business for a considerable amount of time (I’d say anything from 3–4 days+ requires a bit of planning) and make a few notes of what you’ll put in place to keep your business ticking over in your absence. Be sure to schedule in the time you’ll need to put things in place ahead of your holiday so that it goes from being an intention to an action you actually take. 

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about how else I manage my business while I’m away.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

What I Do When I Don’t Feel Like Working On My Business

What I Do When I Don’t Feel Like Working On My Business

by | Mar 23, 2022 | Mindset

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’

~ Mary Anne Radmacherost

What I’m not talking about in this blog is not those days when you’re just feeling a bit demotivated, we all have days when we have less energy or feel less inclined to work. On those days, I do believe in picking myself up and doing what I can to get what needs to get done, done.

Instead, what I am talking about in this blog is those times when external circumstances are seriously challenging and impeding our ability to focus. Things like the threat of world war, humanitarian crises, a global pandemic, illness, bereavement, moving house and so on. Big things that affect us deeply and knock us off centre, making it feel extremely difficult to focus on work.

I’m also not talking about work that doesn’t matter, work that you don’t need or truly care about. I’m talking about your livelihood, the work that pays your bills and keeps a roof over your head, your purpose, the work in the world that is deeply important to you and to those you serve.

Navigating difficult times while maintaining your ability to focus on your business becomes crucial in this context. I personally don’t have the luxury of not showing up to work when I don’t feel like it. My business is my livelihood and I have a full roster of clients who are counting on me to be there.

So how have I got through these difficult times, without dropping all the balls, throwing the towel in or killing myself to carry on in the process? On the other side of it, I’m able to share what I’ve done to get through this challenging time.

1. I feel the feels

I allow myself to really feel what I am feeling. This one is easy for me because I’ve never been one to bury or hide my emotions. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve and been dubbed too sensitive by my family, ever since I can remember.

So in some ways, I don’t really feel I have a choice in this one but it bears mentioning anyway, because so many people feel like they have to hide what they are feeling from their friends and family and also from their clients and colleagues. I don’t do this, I tell my kids when Mama feels sad, I tell my partner when I feel like I’m struggling and I let my friends and clients know when I don’t have it all together.

For me, it would be exhausting to put a brave face on and pretend everything is okay and in not doing so, I believe I release a great deal of pressure on myself.

2. I do less

My typical day-to-day is very full. With my business, a household to run and two energetic little boys to parent, I have a fair amount of stuff to do on a day to day basis. A while ago, I hit a wall with this and just didn’t feel like I had the capacity to keep being as productive as my schedule demanded of me. So after a tearful conversation with my partner, I came to a place of acceptance with the fact that I needed to just do less for a while.

That meant cutting back on non-essential business activities, like this newsletter and the creation of my forthcoming short course and focusing solely on my 1:1 clients and group mastermind.

Instead of using the time between client calls to do admin, work on content or creating new products, I took a pause from work. Sometimes this meant sleeping and sometimes it meant watching the heartbreaking news (not always the best move, but in some ways related to point #1).

It also meant that I wasn’t as on top of other things like housework or doing my daily exercises.

3. I ditch the guilt

Like many people, I can be prone to feeling guilty when I feel like I’m not pulling my weight or doing what I said I was going to do. For example, I’m very aware of a dynamic between me and my partner where I can, if I let myself, start to believe that I am letting the side down when I’m not at my best.

Similarly, when I find myself not sticking to personal plans or goals I’ve set myself, the temptation to start beating myself up is very present. The thing is, I learned many years ago that all guilt does is keep us trapped in a negative loop.

I know that if I make myself feel bad for not feeling great, then I just feel worse than I otherwise would. Whilst I may still succumb to guilt momentarily, these days I’m much better at calling bullshit on it and stopping it in its tracks more quickly.

4. I get support

This one doesn’t come easily to me as I’ve always suffered under the illusion that I can do everything myself. In recent years, however, I’ve gotten much better at seeking out support, from my partner, from friends and even from other practitioners.

I had an incredible EFT session with the wonderful Liesel Teversham and felt so much lighter and even joyful as a result. Just sharing what was up for me and then using EFT to release what wasn’t serving created a powerful shift.

I also upped my virtual assistant’s hours so that she can do more of the busy work that inevitably piles up when I’m not on top of everything. Handing more things over to her over the last few weeks has brought with it a lot of relief.

I know how easy it is to retreat when I’m not feeling at my best and that still happens to a degree for sure, but recognising that there is support available to me and using that support is, and has been, a game changer for me.

5. I don’t let it run on indefinitely

When we cut back on our activities, it can sometimes feel hard to get back to doing them again. I don’t tend to have this problem and I believe it’s because I really allow myself to step back when I need to, in a way that allows me to recharge and come back stronger.

After I have really embraced my feelings, let go of the shoulds, reduced what’s on my plate (without the guilt), rested more, gotten support from others and in doing so, I was able to get myself back to a place where I felt good again fairly quickly.

Then at the beginning of a new week, I mentally prepared myself to start the week with a renewed commitment to my work and to feeling better. I completed my daily exercise, made all the beds and wrote a newsletter. I think it’s safe to say, I was feeling more like me again! 🙂

Is the world still messed up in many ways? Yes. Do I feel more resourced to deal with that? Yes.

So there you have it, five things that help me stay on track, even when I’d rather crawl under the duvet and sleep all day. I hope you find them useful and I would love to hear from you what you do to keep going during difficult times.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Selling With Soul + Integrity (An Interview with Heidi Taylor)

Selling With Soul + Integrity (An Interview with Heidi Taylor)

by | Jun 6, 2018 | Interview

“I believe that if you cannot have empathy for someone who is wanting to buy from you, then you’re not going to reach them.”

[02:08] The distinction between transactional and relational sales. 

[3:19] On energy management: “Where are you leaking energy in places that you don’t need to be leaking it?.”

[05:04] On deepening the relationship and getting clear on whether or not you want to work with someone.

[05:17] “Do I really want to have a 6 month coaching relationship with this client?”

[07:20] On getting into the friend zone with your clients.

[13:04] On finding your own unique sales style.

[19:15] On client avatars, why they don’t work and what to do instead.

“Unless they feel seen and heard where they are right now before any transformation happens, there’s no way they’re going to buy from you.”

[25:17] “Im such a fan of getting all the experience you can to make the best possible decision about direction.” 

[27:23] On finding your unique business perspective and why this is sometimes tricky for women.

 

“When something makes you angry, write it down. Take note.”

 

[37:00] What do you stand for and what do you stand against?

[38:00] Why your introversion is a gift when it comes to sales and marketing.

[44:00] On asking for permission to sell and the impact of personal outreach.

 

If you would prefer to listen to this interview rather than watch the video you can do so over on Soundcloud by clicking below. 

Resources mentioned:

  • To watch Susan Cain’s TED Talk on being an introvert head here.
  • To read Quiet: The Power of Introverts head here.

Want to know more about Heidi:

Heidi is a relational sales coach.

She helps crazy-talented, creative business owners to have natural, intuitive sales conversations to earn the money your business deserves.

  • Heidi can be usually found hanging out and sharing her wisdom on instagram head here to connect.
  • To check out Heidi’s website, head here.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.