Three things as a new business owner that you need to stop saying

I work with a lot of new business owners and talk to a lot of different groups. And there are three things that I hear over and over again that just want to make me tear my hair out.   And those three things are: but it needs to be perfect, or I don't have time,  or my favorite, I don't want to… and insert things. These are three things that a new business owner needs to stop saying.

We're going to break down each one of these. But the reason that these three things are harmful is that they put you in a mindset that just takes you down a really bad place. And then when that happens to you, the fear starts to set in.  One negative thought just steamrolls the rest of the day. 

And that's what these three thoughts do to you. They steamroll you down into a bad place. So let's talk about these. 

As a business owner stop saying, "It needs to be perfect."

So the first one: it needs to be perfect. I know that a lot of you are religious. And so if that's your belief then you know that the only one that's perfect is God. 

When you struggle with this perfection, you just drive yourself crazy. right? In our mastermind today, somebody said, “I don't know enough about "x" to be able to put myself out there.” 

The problem is, if you don't put yourself out there, you know how many people you help? Zero. Including your family.  Your family is the reason why you started your business. But if it needs to be perfect, it will never get done. 

You always have the opportunity to improve and get better. Things can always be fixed and they can always be changed.

So you go through and do the work. Do the best that you can. And then if you need to move or change something, you can. Because you know that you are not perfect. Give yourself some grace. Say to yourself: “You know what? I have to put my best self out there and I will always try to do a little bit better the next time.”

The wonderful thing about what you do is that you have the ability to learn. You have the ability to check out these new things.  You just have to stop for a second and give yourself some grace and say, “I'm going to put something out there because that something is going to help somebody.”

Anytime you think that it needs to be perfect, that is what is going to stop you completely.  Because you will never, ever, ever put anything out there if you do.  You just have to let go of perfectionism.  

As a business owner stop saying, "I don’t have time."

The second one is I don't have time.  Typically this is something that happens with new business owners.  The thing is if you don’t have time to market, to be on Pinterest or Facebook, or go to networking events, then you will not have time for clients.  If you do not have time to do things without having clients, then how are you going to have time for clients? 

Marketing may not seem like fun to you. Especially if you think of marketing in a sleazy way. In Bookkeeper Training School, we talk a lot about ways to give value. So you really feel like you're teaching more and you're sharing information more than you're really marketing.

That's how I've grown both of my businesses.  Marketing does not have to be sleazy or scummy.  But having the attitude that you don’t have time to market or build your business… that is not the right attitude.

With the right attitude, people can tell that you genuinely want to be there. That you are happy to interact. 

When you don’t have the right attitude people can tell that.  If you have this mentality that you don't have the time to do this, your responses are going to be short. You're not going to really be engaging with people the way that you should be. You will not be providing value. 

Block off time on your calendar

When you feel like you don’t have time, you need to block off a certain amount of time that you will go out and network. And what I recommend is let's say that you've got 10 hours a week to work on your business. I would probably allocate about 15% of that time to administrative stuff. 

In the beginning, you have a lot of administrative stuff you've got to do when you're first starting your business. However, 85% of that time that's leftover should be either client work or marketing. Now, if you don't have any clients yet then, guess what? You're spending eight and a half hours a week on marketing. 

Marketing can look like a lot of different things, but you have to go out and you have to interact with people.

As a business owner stop saying, "I don’t want to…"

The third one is I don't want to. When you're first starting a business from the ground up, there are lots of things that you don’t want to do.  It is so important for your business for you to understand how everything works. So that way, when you get to the point that you’re making “X” amount of money, you can do your first hire. Or you can outsource some things. You’ll know how everything works, and you’ll know what you want to outsource. 

There are things that you need to learn.  If you are going into your business thinking that here is only one thing you want to do, then you might as well be an employee because your business isn't going to make it. You know, part of being a business owner is doing all the things. until you make enough money to not have to do all the things. 

You need to have an exploratory and inquisitive mindset, and if you don’t, then owning your own business might not be right for you. Because it really takes a lot of different skills. These skills aren’t hard, but it takes a lot of different skills to run a business. 

In Bookkeeper Training School we talk about a lot of different things. We talk about:

• time and energy management
• when you need a website
• how to build a Facebook page
• marketing
• contracts 

You don’t need to know how to do any of those things perfectly. Because again, you're not trying to be perfect.

You do not have to be perfect, but you need to know a little bit about a lot of things to be a bookkeeper or to own any sort of business. 

Three things you need to stop saying as a business owner

If you hear yourself saying any of these three things:

• It needs to be perfect
• I don’t have time
• I don’t want to…

Or any variation of these things, you really need to think about how that's impacting your business.  Really watch for these three things.  Do a mental check when you start thinking about these thoughts.  

Join a group for community

Joining groups that can help you get out of these ways of thinking is very beneficial.  Find groups where people are helpful, positive, and help reinforce each other. I love our Empower Bookkeeper Network Facebook group because when someone shares something asking for opinions, they are so helpful and give genuine feedback.

So find a community for yourself, whether it's online or whether it's in-person or on zoom. Find some friends, where you can ask for feedback. This helps so much with perfectionism because you work on something a little bit and then you send it to somebody and they help you by giving you genuine and encouraging feedback..

It's really important to make sure that you understand everything that's going on in your business. And remember that this is not a permanent thing. So if you're doing all the things in your business and you identify those things that you don't want to do, keep track of it. That way when you can outsource you know exactly what you want to outsource.

You have valuable skills, so you can also barter with someone else to get something that you do not like to do off of your plate. That’s an option when you still don’t have the money to outsource.

Don’t forget that mindset does matter. Make sure that you're doing something to work on your mindset every single day because it is so important to your business it is so important to your growth.