The first time I read a real and vulnerable blog post from a fellow #smallbiz owner, I felt such a tremendous amount of validation and relief. Amid all the pretty Facebook ads of successful coaches and fitness mentors and marketing experts, there were some real down-to-earth people admitting that running a business is damn hard work, not that glamorous, and often filled with extreme highs and lows.
Let’s talk about those highs and lows, particularly for new business owners or bloggers that are just beginning. It may seem like scaling your business and growing an audience is going to be hard work {and it is} but as my husband says, “Your success and character is measured on the bad days, not the good ones.”
I’m going to talk a bit about my bad days. After all, my good ones are easy to talk about. You can read testimonials and see all the stuff I do and create – great, awesome, wonderful. But if that’s all we talk about online, we risk building a persona that only includes a highlight reel, and it’s not an accurate description.
So what were some of my bad days like?
I had a client who left halfway through a project – Lots of them actually. Before I had contracts in place, I would try to be flexible about timelines and then my projected income disappeared when clients all of sudden stopped responding to my emails. My first reaction was always to think, “It’s my fault!” but then I realized that some people just have life circumstances hit them, and it’s my job to protect my time, not theirs.
Lesson learned – Set boundaries, make timelines, and don’t feel like you have to chase people. Build the safeguard into your contracts and agreements.
A client who demands a refund months after working together – One client asked for a logo mockup and after sending one, she bailed before we had a chance to do the second round. She came back to me three to six months later and asked a refund for that first mockup. I’m pretty generous with refunds, but on this one, I stood my ground and had to accept that someone was going to be angry with me.
Lesson learned – Make sure your refund policies are clear from the beginning. Understand that you can’t make everyone happy (and you won’t). Your job is to find the people who are excited to work with you, not those who are trying to nickel and dime every penny.
The client who is certifiably crazy (for real) and deletes everything you’ve done and blacklists you – If I could build an app that would spot crazy people from across the ocean, I would make millions. This poor client – she was really not well. She had me build a website, then deleted the entire thing, asked me to rebuild it, I did, and then she went and deleted it again. Something about hackers. Come to find out (through her assistant), the woman had a history of doing this. Big heavy sigh.
Lesson learned – Thankfully in this situation, I bailed quickly before too much damage had been done. I had to fire my client, despite her begging for me to rebuild the site again. Sometimes, it’s best to cut your losses and move on.
The time when someone who you trusted turns around and tries to harvest your clients right from a Facebook group you built from scratch. – She was a trusted friend and we were going to collaborate together, but then she turned quickly, started the exact same business model, started going after clients in my Facebook group, copied my pricing sheet, and undercut me on everything. I was super annoyed, but I got some sage advice – don’t sweat it and move on.
Lesson learned – People will copy you. Don’t waste one minute trying to chase down the imitators!
That moment when you realize you should have been paying taxes quarterly and now owe thousands – This was such a fun moment, let me tell you. I had buried my head in the sand about my finances, and that is NO WAY to do business. A couple grand later, I realized how much I had to track everything.
Lesson learned – If numbers aren’t your thing, just suck it up and get an accountant and/or book keeper.
Stomaching double digits unsubscribes when you decide to change your business model – No one likes to see people unsubscribe from your list when you send an email out, and it started happening the more I grew. Instead of focusing on all the people who were sticking around, I was focused on the ones who weren’t and wondered, “What’s wrong with me?”
Lesson learned – Nothing is wrong. People unsubscribe for all sorts of reasons, and most of them have nothing to do with you…at all. So just keep going.
18 hour days trying to put together a sales funnel and then waiting a painstaking 72 hours before you get even one sale – Putting yourself out there is frightening. I doubted everything I had done the day after I set up my first sales page and course. I had a serious case of imposter syndrome.
Lesson learned – You never feel ready, you lie awake at night comparing yourself and your products to others. It’s normal. Even the people who are successful feel this way – I’m sure of it! But if you don’t try, you’ll never feel the amazing high when someone says, “OMG! Your __________ was just what I needed.”
Quitting my stable job to go full-time and losing a major client, all in the same day – I cried…a lot. To make matters worse, this client was not the nicest person on planet Earth. There were a lot of red flags throughout the interview process, but I ignored them because I felt like I couldn’t say no if I was going to risk my family’s financial wellbeing by quitting my job.
Lesson learned – Don’t take on everyone if you are in the service industry. It might be tempting to say yes, but you’ll end up resentful, exhausted, and burnt out…not to mention there’s a much higher risk that your client will not be happy with your style either.
The most important piece of advice I can give to someone just starting out?
Expect highs and lows. Like…really high…and really low.
The important thing to do is not make any critical business-changing decisions during those peaks and valleys. Find people in your niche who you can vent to. Tack up all the positive testimonials you’ve received all over your wall. Take each bad day or experience and see it as a lesson learned, a notch in your belt, an obstacle overcome. You never have to re-learn that exact lesson again.
Good days are part of the package too!
Karen Schifman says
Julie, I appreciate your honesty as I can see all of these things happening. We can all learn from our mistakes and it is kind of you to share them.
Nicole says
We all have days like the ones you mention above. I think what’s most important is how we deal with those issues. I try to face challenges head on and do the best I can (which is clearly what you’re doing as well 🙂
Marci says
Thank you so much for this post, Julie! As someone who is still working full time while trying to start my own business (have been for the past year), I’m exhausted, excited, overwhelmed, and excited (yes, again!) all the time. It helps to know that even the lows are part of the process.
Tina says
Julie~Not sure how I ended up on your email list but have to admit while I may never have a need for your business services I do love reading your posts. I love how honest and funny you are! The good, bad and ugly you have weathered with grace; its a breath of fresh air to see someone living such an authentic life and not afraid to share all of it. Keep up the good work! Your family is blessed to have you and I feel blessed to be reading your posts….no matter how small I always take something away from your insights.
Denis Lawlor says
Hi Julie,
Your naked life story and experiences are tough to write and brave to make known publicly. However they give great strength to those of us either in or contemplating going into biz for ourselves. On top of biz highs and lows there are also personal mental health highs and lows. This is most true for people such as me whom in early 50’s were made redundant. Still having to support a family, not knowing how your going to pay mortgage etc is jump off a bridge moment for many. Thankfully did not take that option but totally understand now those that do. Upskilling and doing something for yourself is the only game in town, so as to combat the inevitable depressing refusals from employers based on age and no relevant experience. Hence your course on blog to profit must be taken seriously by anyone in that situation, and create their own income with just the guy in the mirror in the morning to answer to.
Denis Lawlor.