Earlier this year I celebrated 9 years of running my business (whaaaat?!). It’s kind of weird, because I never officially set out to “start a business” – I needed an income, I didn’t like any of the jobs on Seek, so I thought well maybe I can help people and they’ll pay me for it. I guess that vague inkling of an idea had more merit than I realised!
The other thing I never could have anticipated is just how much this endeavour would challenge, stretch, and teach me. I often say, running a business is one of the greatest personal development challenges you will ever face. The learnings have been massive, painful at times, and relentless. It’s hard.
And, running your own business is also empowering, confidence-building, and heart- and mind-opening. It’s not for everyone, but it can be a pretty incredible adventure!
Today I want to share with you some of the lessons that have stuck out to me over the past 9 years. Hopefully this means you don’t have to learn them the hard way like I have.
it gets easier (kind of)
Those early weeks in my business were completely overwhelming. I felt totally out of my depth, I felt like there was SO MUCH I didn’t know, and I spent a lot of time chasing my tail. And I’d be lying if I told you that goes away completely. But it does get easier.
With experience comes confidence. One of the fun (and unexpected) things I’ve noticed is that these days, even though I still have that moment of aaarrrrgghhhhh I’m out of my depth, it’s pretty quickly followed by but I can figure this out.
So yes, you will always be challenged and pushed to grow through your business. But it does get easier to move through that painful period and keep going forward. If you are open to learning, tenacious, and dedicated, and willing to give something a go – the rest will work itself out.
community is EVERYTHING
Running a business can feel pretty lonely sometimes. No matter how supportive your friends and loved ones want to be, there will be times they won’t really understand what you’re going through (or how truly exciting some of your wins are). And, unfortunately, sometimes they won’t be particularly supportive at all.
That’s why you need to find your people, as early as you can. Having some biz-buddies or a community you can go to when you need a quick vent, a pep talk, or some celebration vibes will help you stick with your business through all of the seasons you’ll face.
To help find your tribe, look around for industry memberships (like VYVA, if you’re a virtual assistant), local networking and business groups, and coworking spaces.
you will make mistakes (and some more than once)
No matter how prepared and careful you are – mistakes are going to happen! They’ll happen because you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re rushing, you’re over-stretched, or, well, because we’re humans!
And over the years, I’ve made some real doozies. The mistakes that impact my clients’ communities always hit hardest, and those ones you’re likely to only do once (urgh, that ‘oh fuuuuuuuck’ moment is really effective at teaching you not to do that again).
Then there’s some mistakes that’ll keep coming atcha until you really do learn. For me, these have been the lessons around pricing, value, and boundaries. If this is you too, don’t beat yourself up. A lot of the conditioning that leads to people-pleasing (for example) has been bedding in over your whole life, so it’s going to take awhile to undo that. All you need to do is aim to be a little better each time ❤
your work is what matters – but it’s not the ONLY thing that matters
When you’re in a service-based business, doing really good work is key. This is what clients will pay you for, and it’s what your reputation will be built on. So your instinct to pour everything into being a highly-skilled technician makes sense. And yes, this will keep the lights on if you do it well and price accordingly.
But honestly, if you just want to find somewhere you can be respected for doing good work… go get a job. Building a business requires much more than showing up and doing the thing. You’ll be asked to get good at marketing, sales, numbers, networking, business development. You need to learn the bigger picture of what makes business keep on going and you need to get good at investing time and energy into the things that might take quite awhile to pay off!
The good news is, when you work with a virtual assistant or OBM who’s running their own business, you can bet they’re bringing a whole host of skills and knowledge PLUS patience, tenacity, and optimism.
get professional advice early
This is probably the one regret I have in my business journey, and a drawback of my ‘let’s just have a crack’ mentality. I didn’t understand enough of the money side of things, which meant I priced WAY too low and didn’t pay enough attention to tax planning, emergency funds, and leave cashflow planning.
I’ve seen other people get caught out with a poor (or no) contract in place, or over-spending on things they don’t need, or simply following bad advice. So at any point, if in doubt – reach out to someone who knows. Those early mistakes cost me BIG TIME. Honestly (embarrassingly), it’s only fairly recently I’ve managed to get the financial side of my business humming properly, because that early lack of knowledge set a really crappy foundation it’s taken a long time to rebuild.
the more you try to do, the less well you’ll do it
Just about every business coach out there will tell you you need to niche hard when deciding on your service offering. I don’t entirely agree with this, but I now understand why that advice exists and where it’s useful to apply.
When I was starting out, I thought I needed to know all the software and all the systems and all the things, to provide the very best service.
In truth though, when you have a broad range of knowledge, it’s really hard to go deep in any area – because you simply don’t have the time and capacity to dig in and learn it well.
So, my advice? You don’t necessarily have to niche down your service offering. There’s nothing wrong with being a generalist. But if you take that path, make sure you niche down to a couple of platforms, tools, or systems that you know really well. For example, if you’re offering email marketing services, don’t feel like you have to be great at Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Flodesk, ConverKit, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo… (see where I’m going here?)
Focus on getting across one or two and get great at them! Then it’ll be easier for you and your potential clients to understand if you’re the best match for each other.
set boundaries early
Or, put another way: start as you mean to go on. Boundaries are essential in business, whether that’s client boundaries, or boundaries with your family around work time, or even boundaries with yourself about taking Instagram scroll breaks.
Good boundaries protect your time and mental space, which supports your wellbeing and resilience.
And, if we’re honest, as service-based business owners who love to support others, your boundaries are probably going to be or get wobbly as heck (oops). And it’s really hard to assert boundaries later. For example, if you’ve set the expectation with your clients that you’ll answer a message at 9pm and then you stop, they’re going to feel abandoned or ripped off.
Instead, be very clear from the outset (with everyone in your life) what your boundaries look like, and why they’re in place. This might include letting your clients know what your working hours are, or when and how they can communicate with you (and expect to hear back from you).
With your family, it’s probably going to be making sure everyone knows that while you set your own hours now, that doesn’t mean they can call you for a chat at 2pm on a weekday (I reckon we’ve ALL been there!)
clients don’t come from social media*
If you have a VA coach or business coach who tells you that you have to be active on socials to find clients – fire them. Not kidding.
I could rant for an hour about this, but I won’t. Here’s what’s important.
Social media has a purpose in helping prospective clients get a feel for who you are and what you can do, so having a presence there can certainly help you in building your know/like/trust factor. But I don’t know anyone who converted a client based on that one Reel or whatever, so don’t focus your efforts there if you don’t have clients yet.
Instead, it’s time to get networking! You need to get in front of prospective clients (or people who can connect you with the right clients) and have conversations. Aim to learn about them and their business, and what good support looks like to them. Focus on genuine connection and developing relationships – because that’s what will get you known and fast-track trust-building.
*The one exception to the social media rule, is networking and profile-building in Facebook groups (or other online communities) where your ideal client is likely to be. Spend time here with the genuine intention of supporting people and sharing knowledge. Answer questions, share tips, and give advice, and people will soon get to know you as the go-to on particular topics.
And don’t be that person who answers a question with “I can help, here’s my website”. That’s annoying. Actually answer the question so everyone can see! Then you can add ‘if you’d like to chat more, here’s how to get in touch.’
most of the time, you just need to get out of your own way
This is an annoying pill to swallow, and it’s probably going to make the most difference. (I know this because I’ve lived it, and still do fairly often 🫠)
The best thing you can do for your business is to work out where you’re likely to get in your own way, and learn strategies to get past it. It might be that you’re way too slow to make a decision because you overthink everything. Maybe you’re overcomplicating things because your brain tells you it’s supposed to be hard. Maybe you’re not letting go of that client who’s no longer serving your business goals. Maybe fear is keeping you playing small, when deep down you know if you just take the leap it really will work out.
There are countless traps and pitfalls that will come at you. Sometimes, all at once (those are fun times…!) In those moments, first, check in on your self care. Check in on the facts, and find the evidence you need to remind you that you’re actually great at this, or have overcome it before. Find an industry buddy to vent to. Seek advice from the right people. Then, dust yourself off and keep moving.
9 years and 83,000 mistakes later, I’m still here. There’s absolutely no reason you can’t do the same. We’ve got this!
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