First Anniversary : A Year in Review
It’s crazy to look back and think that one year ago, I left my corporate job with Etsy to be self employed. It’s certainly been a whirlwind of a year - I’ve learned a ton that I didn’t know before, and I’ve had a few moments where I needed to reminded myself of lessons that I’ve shared dozens of times.
When you’re working for yourself, it’s easy to forget that there’s natural ebbs and flows of business; that not all of your clients will be dream clients; that sometimes, it just really sucks to have to build your own systems, website, and branding. And man, can it be time consuming!
I’ll be honest - I’ve had moments where I wished for the stability of the paycheck and the corporate life again. And the snacks - oh my gosh, the snacks at Etsy were on point.
But for all the low points, I can’t help but look back and be incredibly proud of all that I’ve built. In the last year, I’ve had the privilege to work with some incredible (and inspiring!) people and businesses. I launched my first eCourse, have written six eBooks, developed 2 planners, hosted workshops and yoga classes beyond count, and crafted a maternity leave in a new business, plus launched a new creative enterprise with my husband.
And with all the ups and downs, I’m still all about that entrepreneur life. If you’re getting started on launching a new business this year, here are some of the harder lessons I’ve learned, and what my recommendations would be for you going in:
When I first launched, I thought I had signed my dream client. They were practically matching my Etsy salary, it was work I loved, and people I trusted.
Within about two weeks though, I noticed a few things that should have been red flags - the client was cagey about follow-up, non-committal about contracts, and I was waking up panicked about what needed to get accomplished while they were hesitate to even review the basics.
You’re probably thinking what I would immediately tell any client - girl, get out of there!!
But instead, I attributed my feelings to stress from leaving a great job, traveling the less-walked path, imposter syndrome — basically, I told my gut instinct that was screaming “BAD CALL” to shove it and did the work anyway.
It didn’t end well, as you likely guessed. I’ll spare you the details, but the lesson from this one is simple, friends - trust your gut. If you’re waking up panicked because you’re concerned the client relationship isn’t what it should be, there’s probably a reason. If your client isn’t willing to sign a contract, do NOTHING for them, even if they’re a friend you trust. And last but not least, learn to recognize that even if someone wants and needs your services, it doesn’t mean that they’re ready to work with you.
One of the first mistakes I made was in setting prices that were based on an hourly, contract rate as a consultant in businesses. As such, I gave clients the option to pay me a certain amount of money for consultation an hour.
Just typing that up now makes me feel silly - because I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that people would expect full time work from me at those rates. And yes, they absolutely did.
It didn’t matter what my working hours were set for, or the limits I tried to impose - clients felt that because they paid me per hour, they were my first and only priority.
Now - I wasn’t setting a valid expectation for my clients. They thought they had unlimited access to me, and enforcing boundaries in that condition was challenging because I wanted to deliver top-performance results to each client. After all, I was just get started and word of mouth marketing is a REAL THING.
I ended up burnt out, exhausted, and answering work emails on vacation within hours of finding out I was pregnant at one of my best friends weddings.
And friends? That was totally my fault. By setting an impossibly high standard for myself, I de-prioritized the most important thing in my business - myself. Sure, it’s important to me that I scale my business, grow, deliver top-notch service — but my absolute top priority is to walk my talk.
I can’t be a holistic health and business coach who doesn’t enforce their own boundaries. I can’t tell people to turn their phones off at night and connect with family if I’m not doing the same thing. I can’t preach setting business hours if I’m debating calling my mother to tell her about my positive pregnancy test or respond to that clients “urgent email” that got pushed through my vacation mode responder.
Knowing your priorities and always, ALWAYS honoring them is a huge lesson I learned this year.
Compare Energy Expenses to Income
Whether you’re in a service based industry or a product based industry, if doing your work is sucking out your soul - it’s probably not worth it.
After the aforementioned mistakes I made, I created a document that tracked how many hours a week I worked on particular projects or clients, and the financial investment I was getting from them. I ranked the clients and projects in terms of how much I enjoyed working with them, and how much of a percentage of my business they were.
Unsurprisingly, the clients and products that were the biggest drains of my energy and most challenging to work with also happened to be the clients that paid me the least.
Within a few months, I closed out all of those contracts and didn’t offer up the option to renew.
Did my business take a hit? Yes, frankly - but it pushed me to explore other options that were more aligned with my goals and where I wanted to be. It pushed me to launch the Etsy Success Course, build out more workshops and eBooks, and get back into selling more products.
Especially as I transition into being a mother and business owner, I want to set the model for my kid that working for yourself is the opposite of slogging away at work you hate - instead, it’s about finding the solutions that meet your skill set and getting paid to do it well.
If you’re just starting up, I recommend evaluating the work that you’re doing - make sure that the energy you’re putting into a client or a project is being appropriately compensated. I get that sometimes you have to work with tough clients or projects you don’t love - but don’t let that dominate the work you do.
Systems Are Worth The Investment
I launched my business as a side-hustle about a year before I left my corporate job. I advocate hard for bootstrapping your business, I recommend against going into debt to launch, and I’m a huge fan of investing your returns back into your own growth and business.
So when I came across a lot of systems that were expensive when I first started, I laughed. Why pay $400 a year for project management and CRM software? That’s totally within my skill set.
Let’s run through what a typical inquiry would look like when I first launched.
Client struggled to find “Contact” page
Client reached out and waited for my response (depending on the day of the week, maybe up to 4 days)
I set up time to chat with client, typically about a week or two after making contact with them, and pitched my services.
If they committed, I manually ran their cards/checks, handled all the paperwork as .pdfs or physical sheets, and had to run my books each month for a few hours.
Friends. That is a cumbersome process. Now I use Honeybook in my business, and as soon as someone reaches out that they’re interested in working with me, they immediately get:
Clear, outlined expectations of what’s a part of my coaching practice
Details about working with me one-on-one
The option to set up a consultation, which links them to my work calendar to schedule an appointment, and automatically sends them reminders after they’ve booked.
If they decide to move forward with me after a consultation, a full coaching contract gets sent out immediately - including payments, which were automatically taken and stored.
Seriously - the amount of time I spent working with clients halved in terms of paperwork - and I didn’t spend as much time on consulting calls where people were unclear about what the coaching process looked like, and what resources were available to them. Instead, I was getting on calls with people who were already clear on my offerings and committed to the outcome.
If I were to go back and relaunch, I’d start out by investing in either Honeybook or something like it purely because it’s saved me so much time. It’s like having a personal assistant in my business that just manages my paperwork and I absolutely love it.
If looking over this list makes you feel like there’s no way you can tackle your first year in business - you’re totally wrong. You’ve got this!
Every job is hard. Every job has tough days. You’ll have bad bosses, bad clients, and things will periodically blow up in your face.
But unlike a traditional job, when you work for yourself, you know that every single one of your wins is because you worked hard to achieve them. There’s seriously nothing as amazing and building up your work and watching it bloom.
Instead of looking over these hard lessons and thinking that it’s not worth starting, use them as a way to anticipate some trouble that you might run into. I never thought that a huge obstacle to growth for me would be as simple as software - but making small changes let me grow in a crazy positive way. Similarly, I never thought of clients in terms of the energy I was spending on them, and what it’s worth was to me.
What are you most excited about in the first year of your business? What hard lessons did you learn, and how did that change how you tackle things?
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