Back in 2012, when I first started this little business of mine, I started on a wing and a prayer. I had absolutely no idea how to run a business, how to be profitable, how to market myself, etc. It took a lot of years, hard work, and learning to get to a place where I could look back and see how much I’ve changed and more importantly, what I would have done differently when I first started.
As I rebranded and relaunched my business last month, I thought a lot about where I started my business and how far it’s come. Some of the changes I am incredibly thankful for, they have shaped me into the business owner that I am today and taught me about so many life skills such as budgeting, setting boundaries, and being independent. However, there are always failures, things that I could have done differently to save myself from years of grinding and feeling like my business wasn’t growing.
Today I’m sharing the top 3 mistakes that I made when I first started my business. I thought long and hard about these, there were plenty of smaller failures and oopsie doodles along the way but these three were the things that I know greatly hindered and prevented me from growing and thriving as a business owner and as a person. So without further ado, let’s jump into my top 3 business mistakes!
Mistake #1
fear of the word “no”
Last year when I was in college for marketing, one of my weekly assignments was to watch this video on youtube and write about it. Out of all the videos and subjects that I had to write about, this video stuck with me the most because it hit so close to home. Brian Tracy explains in this video that the top qualities of successful businesses are that they don’t fear hearing the word no, in fact, they actually expect and plan for it!
If you know anything about me, you know I have always struggled with having high anxiety and depression. And if you find yourself struggling with them too, you know how hard it is to be a business owner and balance your mental health. When I look back at how I ran my business in it’s beginning stages I saw so many times when I allowed my fear of hearing no and my anxiety to get the better of me. When people did say no to me, I took it as a personal rejection and I allowed it to hold me back.
If I could go back and change one thing about how I behaved as a business owner, I would have put aside my fear and anxiety and took a perspective that when people say no to me, they are saying no to my services. It’s not a personal reflection on who I am as a person or how much I am worth. People may say no for a multitude of reasons and even one no may not be forever, that person who said no might change their mind in the future. Allowing myself to be afraid of hearing the word no kept me from so many opportunities to put myself out there and grow.
Mistake #2
self-criticism
Where are all my perfectionists at?! I’m already prone to having a pretty harsh inner critic but when you add that on top of already being a perfectionist, it’s a recipe for disaster. For the first few years of my business, I had such a difficult time between wanting to grow and being content with where I was at in my business journey.
I played the compare game, hardcore, my friends. And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. I spent hours browsing other people’s photography, website, and social media, wishing that I could be just like them. I wish I could have seen how awesome my work was at the time. It has definitely progressed naturally as I’ve learned and grown in my craft but when I look back at past images that I’ve taken of my children, I genuinely love my images from back when I first started my journey.
I sometimes miss the season where I was so busy trying to learn that I carried my camera everywhere that I went and took pictures of every tiny little thing. Instead of allowing self-doubt and criticism to weigh me down, I wish I had appreciated how great and simple those beginning stages were. They were beautiful in their own way and if I could go back I would have dealt myself a lot more grace and understanding.
Mistake #3
staying behind the scenes
This one was a HUGE mistake that I made and one that took me years to overcome. I’ve always struggled with self-esteem and it’s because I grew up in a home where I was never enough and a lot of my worthiness in the eyes of others came from my physical appearance. So when I gained a bunch of weight after my first pregnancy, I consistently hid behind the camera.
This also ties in with mistake #2, my self-criticism on myself was so strong that I didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror. This is a hard one to talk about because it’s something that I hid for years. Even when my artwork was at it’s absolute best and I was photographing gorgeous weddings, I never posted images of myself. I wouldn’t even do selfies!
But let me tell you, friends, your potential clients WANT to see you. They want to get to know you and see your face because it builds trust and loyalty. This was a lesson that I just recently learned and overcame in the past few weeks. I decided that I was ok with how I looked, I wasn’t going to allow myself to continue to stay behind the scenes just because my own perception of myself was skewed.
It’s been a long and hard journey but my self-love, respect, and care for myself is growing and I have successfully stepped in front of the camera and showed my face, multiple times in the past few weeks. Trust me, you’re amazing and beautiful just the way you are and showing your face is going to be the perfect way to build amazing relationships with your future and potential clients.
All of these are things that if I were to give into, my business would cease to thrive. But I am inevitably thankful for them because, without these failures and bumps in the road, I wouldn’t be able to continue to learn and more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to teach the other people who may be struggling with the same issues as me.
When this business of mine was created, I was all by myself. Other than my wonderful husband Andrew, I had no other people to help guide, mentor, or support me. And that is one of the biggest reasons I choose to share my triumphs and my failures, so others don’t feel alone and can grow alongside me. Being a business owner is scary, but it doesn’t have to be because we’re all in this together! *cue the High School Musical Singalong*
What are your biggest mistakes that you’ve made in your business? How have you continued to learn from them? Share them in the comments below and let’s support one another!
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