Do you ever think about why some entrepreneurs make it and others don’t?
Maybe you wonder why others have found success when you haven’t? You might put in the same amount of time and effort. Your products or services might even be better than your competitors, but somehow they’ve reached their business goals and you haven’t.
You feel like everybody else knows the secret handshake that lets them onto the gravy train and you’re stuck on the outside begging for a seat in the cattle car.
If you feel as if you’ve been trying to get to the next level in your business for a long time and it’s not working, please watch the video I created for you today.
Over the past six years, I’ve worked with thousands of creative entrepreneurs just like you through one-on-one consulting, group coaching, retreats and courses. While working with those creatives, one of the things I’ve tried to figure out is why some make it and others don’t. And, it’s not what you think it might be.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s mainly two things that separate the haves from the have-nots. I discuss them both in today’s video:
I’d love to know if there’s anything you’ve been ignoring because it’s hard to deal with and how you plan on changing it. Share in the comments below.
Have you been secretly spying on me?? 🙂 I’m definitely a planner. I’m also self aware enough to know that I plan but rarely follow through. Instead of doing the actionable items, I rewrite the plan…. because you know…. I’m more likely to do those actions if they are written in red, or maybe purple, or orange since it’s fall…… I’m so bad at not following through, I’m probably better off not planning at all because putting it in writing is almost a guarantee that I won’t do it. And yet, I LOVE to plan. It’s a terrible Catch-22. Got any suggestions for how to get past the ‘You can’t make me!” attitude I get when I look at my written plan?
And lets don’t even think about all the things I haven’t fixed/changed/done to help my business simply because I made a to-do list.
Hahahahahahaha! It sounds like you might fall into what Gretchen Rubin (writer of Better than Before which all about changing habits) calls ‘the rebel’ category. That means that once someone tells you to do something or you tell yourself to do something, it loses it’s appeal and you might even fight against doing it.
Since what you’re currently doing isn’t working, I would start experimenting with other tactics. I might start by blocking out a 90-minute block of time every day for taking action. Don’t plan anything for that time period. When it starts, just start working. Don’t allow yourself to plan at all during that time and see what happens. You might just need to work from the seat of your pants a bit more.
I almost felt guilty lol… but then I realized that we’ve ALREADY had this discussion, and I’ve been doing MUCH better this week. So I’m not going to wallow in what I could have done in the past, but focus on not doing this in the future. <3
You are figuring out what you need to do differently and that’s such a big step. Keep getting it girl!
I am soooo guilty of the exciting planning, planning, planning part and then getting meh when its time to execute.
I feel you. I like the planning part soooooooo much. That’s why I used it as an example. One of the ways I combat this is that I try to take action as soon as possible after planning–even that same day if I can. The longer the planning just sits there, the less likely I’ll follow through.
Website woes…… don’t even get me started. If I wasn’t such a hard head I would have quit this week. It takes major determination and commitment as well as a willingness to do some things you are uncomfortable doing. Or forget it. It’s not going to go. I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trudging forward. It may be a snail’s pace, but at least it’s moving forward.
One thing I will add regarding the website. The design, of course, is so important. And yes hiring a professional is necessary and yes, it’s a big investment. But also the functionality of the site is critically important. You can have the most beautiful site on the planet, but if the pages don’t load, people aren’t going to stick around. Trust me. I know about this and I’m attempting to fix it now. Developers and designers do different jobs and if you don’t understand it, you need to have both.
One of the things you might want to look into is your hosting. I had some issues with load times and things being really slow and it was all due to my hosting. I was on a shared server (which is pretty much the case for any hosting that’s less than $50/month) and someone on that server was taking up all of the space–leaving the rest of us with really slow load times. They moved me to another server but it ended up happening again after about six months. That’s when I upgraded to a dedicated server which means that I’m the only one on it. No one else is taking up my bandwidth. I would contact your hosting company and tell them that you’re experiencing slow load times. They might be able to change it by switching you to another server.
Dear April,
just what I needed. Thank you!
I really need to have my website redesigned, it’s quite old and I don’t like the colours anymore.
Tried to change them today, but I made it even worse and I can’t change them back. 🙁
Thank you for your ideas on how to raise money to be able to hire a professional web designer.
I’m looking forward to the great looking website I have always dreamt of… 😉
You’re so welcome, Liana! Love that I could inspire you.
I feel you with trying to change your website stuff yourself. The first year of my business, I did all of my own website design and half the time that I would make changes, it would look worse than it did. Ugh…
Hi April, I loved this post. You hit on something that was definitely relevant to me. I put off launching so much because I wanted something super professional from the get-go. The thing was, I wasn’t ready to set aside the money to have it. When I finally made this realization that I wasn’t putting in the effort where it needed to be (raising revenue), it was huge! I’ve picked up a second job and have really watched my spending on less important things. It has been really fufilling to see my personal growth and savings grow. When I reach my goal, it will taste so sweet to spend the well-earned cash on my business.
I bet that’s really fulfilling! I remember when I was saving money to leave my day job. My husband (who my fiancé at the time) and I scrimped on everything but it was totally worth it because we watched our savings grow and it allowed me to start my own business. Here’s to building the business of your dreams!
I have a business friend who is constantly adding new courses to her website when the first course isn’t making money. I love her enthusiasm and love for new ideas, but I can tell that the lack of focus is not going to get her far…a great lesson for me in saying “no” to a lot of things that will get in my way.
I’m very much a planner and I have a new brilliant idea everyday, lol, but I am slowly learning that I need to focus on the main one so this becomes real and starts making me money!
Absolutely. I’ve worked with so many creatives who make this same mistake. It’s really hard to say no to yourself when you have new ideas all the time. I’m having to do that pretty much every day. One of things I’ve done to stay focused on one project at a time while incorporating different elements of my creativity is to build certain things (like my photography or watercolors) into a current project. The more I can add to the project I’m already working on, the better it gets and it still allows me to feel like I’m working on different things regularly when I’m really focused on that one thing.
Thanks for the loving message, April!!! I knew this video was going to be meant for me as soon as I got your email 🙂 I launched a magazine last year and since the ads AND the magazine were free, I wasn’t making money off it it. That led me also start offering coaching, yoga classes, etc. all under the same umbrella of my name. I am currently working on the 3rd issue and realizing that I need to focus on this more if I truly want it to succeed. I have it merged under my name and am wondering if it would get more attention if it was at http://www.kerrymagazine.com and on IG as @kerrymagazine. Right now I am like come to my yoga class, read my magazine, check out my coaching services. Lol! Exhausting! You are the 3rd or 4th message about focusing on one thing that I have received this week. I hear you universe!
Luckily, I am starting to channel my other skills back into creating kits for creatives with a friend and successful Etsy seller over on Handmade Success. I see that as a way to help creative entrepreneurs like myself succeed and create regular income. Hopefully, as I learn to drop the fluff I will be sharing a post like this in the future about self-awareness and how it worked for me 🙂 I’ll give you a shout out. XO!
Hey Kerry! I here you. I have such a hard time not adding on more and more projects. I have ideas for so many things I want to do, but I’ve realized from past mistakes how this leaves me feeling exhausted (not energized like I’d think it would) and overwhelmed. The most important part is paying attention to this stuff so that we can do things differently moving forward. That’s what I’m trying to do! 🙂
Thanks for commenting and adding to this conversation!