Are you struggling as an entrepreneur? It doesn’t matter whether you are new to business or you’re old school. In fact, ironically, it can be hardest for old school entrepreneurs because, for many, their conventional mindset might result in HUGE career mistakes. Costing a freaking fortune. Costing lives, too. What I mean by that is…
- Money is left on the table
- Life is wasting away
- Business isn’t nearly as successful as it could be
I KNOW. From experience. See, I had that old school “I’m supposed to figure everything out myself” mentality. #NotSoMuch
And that brings me to:
The NUMBER 1 mistake of business owners / entrepreneurs:
Thinking they need to figure things – and all things! – out for themselves because that will save them money.
It goes something like…
I’m smart, I’m resourceful, I’m creative! How much does that cost? Really? I could build that. What are they charging to do that? But I could figure that out! I’ll watch some YouTube videos. I’m not paying for a course on that, I’m not paying for an expert on that, I can’t! I would, but I can’t because I don’t have any money, so I’ll find an app that does it.
Hello!? Hand up right here! Guilty as charged.
I was the queen of figuring everything out! You can’t even imagine the things I’ve wasted time on learning. From editing music to designing clothes. Literally things that I have no business doing. But that’s what we’ve been taught – that if you want to save time and money, then what you’ve got to do is, figure how to do it yourself. The thinking is that because you don’t have to be an expert, you can do it yourself. WRONG.
Do just enough research to find out what you need.
I’ll throw you a bone here… you can toy with something once. Once! You can edit a couple of podcasts, add fonts to a couple of photos, you know… play around with SOME things up till the point where you realize, “okay, I know enough now to know what I’m looking for!” And that’s all folks.
But you’re like,
Girl, I’m already with the program. I’m not about trying to figure this stuff out myself. I’m outsourcing projects!
And you’re outsourcing. Outsourcing some more. And more.
Which happens to lead me to…
The NUMBER 2 mistake that people make: outsourcing projects.
How is that working out for you, ladies and gentlemen? Not going so well?
But Chalene, you said, this would save me money, and I’ve heard from other experts that this would save me money! And time!
Let me tell you why it’s not working for you. Because this stuff (virtual assistant hiring websites) gets updated all the time. As soon as you and I figure it out, then the not so scrupulous types show up, and it turns into a nightmare.
Well I’m just here to caution you that those sites – where you just get massive amounts of variation and people from all over the world – are not my top choices. Are there good people there? Heck yes, there are always exceptions! I will never say anything definitively, but the bids are all over the place and that’s one of the reasons why we, my husband and I, struggled with this.
Outsourcing became a full-time nightmare for us until we figured that instead of outsourcing tons of single jobs to individuals, find permanent part-time team members who can do several and/or many jobs.
The NUMBER 3 mistake that business owners make is being very careless with their assets.
Y’all know I got hacked, yes? I got hacked majorly.
No one is protected from those who live in the dark web. That’s for real a place, my friends. Hence, it’s imperative to be careful with your assets. But how?
Set yourself up with a system that protects all of your information. A two/three factor authentic information setup for every single place you sign in. These days, if anyone other than myself signs in to any ANYTHING online (which they do because I have a team), I get a notification to my personal phone immediately. Everything! Every email, every social media platform, every account, every file in Dropbox, everything.
Then each and every assistant, personal assistant, virtual assistant (ALL the assistants!), has their own vault in an online super secure password manager. The whole team uses it! This sounds complicated to you, huh? I don’t blame you. It sounded complicated to me, too. But this is what people need to learn! You know what? Your smart phone seemed complicated too when you first got it.
The NUMBER 4 mistake entrepreneurs make is treating their digital business like it’s a messy closet.
You have a desktop that’s covered with files and things you’ve taken screenshots of, and things you want to look at later, and PDFs you want to read! Then you bought new phones and you’ve kept old phones and you bought new computers and kept old computers and you have hard drives and SD cards, and you got photos on some external hard drive somewhere and you have some stuff over here on this computer, and you’re not sure what file it’s in, and some stuff saved in documents but you haven’t really put them in file systems. What about what you have saved in the cloud? And what the heck and where the heck is this stupid cloud?!
Does this sounds like your digital business?
Digital overload is resulting in a digital mess. And that is costing you time, money, piece of mind, and the clarity that you need to take your business to the next level.
You have to accept that and you have got to get your digital life organized. I have my inbox at 0, thank you very much (and I get thousands of emails every day). It’s because I have a system now. It’s really, really simple, but it took me years and years and years to figure it out. It was like The Last Of The Mohicans, ha! If I can solve this, I thought, I’m quite sure I’m going to get a Nobel Peace Prize or something. Still waiting.
The secret is not so much a secret anymore. And it’s not about you having better habits. It’s about you having a SYSTEM. There’s a right time and a right way to do things. Getting your digital life in order, in this ever-changing world, is paramount. Trust me.
Did you find this helpful, lifers? Have you made and/or are you making any of the above mistakes in your business currently? Let me know in the comments! I hope you take the time to implement a system. It will override the chaos you might be experiencing and bring your life, as a whole, some needed structure and peace.
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