How I Got Through Year 1 as a New Business Owner: What They Don't Tell You

Hello everybody, I just survived my first year in business. Hurray!

In this special edition article I share my own personal experiences on this journey as well as my top 20 advice tips, recommendations and observations, on what to expect if you are planning on starting out on your own. The journey is a tumultuous one but rewarding beyond one's wildest dreams.

After spending 21 years in the financial centre of the City of London, many of the remarks below may also prove valuable to employees as they negotiate their careers. In today’s culture where well-being and mental health is so important, understanding the journey you may choose to embark on in real terms may inspire and encourage you to be bold whilst being prepared.

When I was younger, I dreamed of owning a business; of being an inventor. One of my very first million pound ideas was the ‘male sanitary towel’. I had it all planned out. The design. The colours. I was 13 years old and even at that age I considered selling licensing to Lynx or Brut (showing my age). The idea was to invent a towel to go under the armpits of men to prevent the pits on their shirts from staining yellow with antiperspirant. So, with that very bad idea in mind...

Observation Number 1: Lose EARLY.

In all walks of life, from relationships to employment, competition to sales, lose early. Lose early and move on to the next one. Lose when you have less to lose and move on.

Number 2: No matter what, never give up!

I love this image because many dreams are broken on the path to huge reward and success because the pioneer gave up. Conceded and gave in. Do not let doubt win. Through self-doubt, you will become your own worst enemy.

Number 3: Find your idea, research it and believe in it but validate the concept with a diversity of individuals.

You are about to have some very dark days filled with doubt and despair. You will need to believe in yourself and draw on your strength of tenacity, determination grit and a desire to win. Be original or work smart. Nothing wrong with launching a product or service already out there. Just do it better than everyone else. Learn their pitfalls and make your product or service better.

4: It’s ok to not be the right vendor/business for everyone.

In the early days you will be tempted to tell everyone ‘yes’ you can do this and 'yes' you do that. Do this and you will end up compromising the integrity of your business with constantly trying to please everyone.

My company performs anonymous employee engagement interviews and we were approached by a firm who asked if we could identify the interviewees thus lifting their anonymity. They wanted to know who said what. We walked away from discussions. Work on identifying the buyer who is right for you - a firm who believes in what you do and values your specialism.

Number 5. Find a Yin to your Yang.

I sat in the NED Hotel bar in London after a series of meetings. I got talking to a couple of guys when one enquired what I did. He too was a business owner with experience beyond my years.

He said: "Have you a Yin? Who is your Yin? Find a Yin to your Yang!"

Find someone you can speak with in confidence and someone who you respect but someone who can tell you the things you may not want to hear. Someone to challenge your decisions and approach. A well experienced mentor will save your time, cost and reputational risk.

Number 6: When you realise you are being unproductive, stop. Take a break.

If you are not working 12 hour days in the beginning, you will not make it. You will be working 12-16 hours per day every day, seven days a week in the beginning and when you're not sat at a desk working on product, content or service, ideas, topics, social media themes or graphical representation of your stories, you will be thinking about your business - visualising to-do lists, noting ideas and developing concepts. It will be relentless.

It is ok to take a day off. It is ok to stand up from your desk and take a walk. Realise when you’ve been sat at the screen for an hour and written nothing new and take that as the signal to go and clear some headspace. You will find all your best and new ideas come once your mind has had a break.

Number 7: Be open to learning new skills.

As you budget in year one, you may not be able to pay a third party for important services like logo design, building and maintaining a website; accounting or content writing.

Do it yourself. Watch training videos, practice over and over and learn new skills. But be aware: The more hats you wear the more stress you will experience. Every job you do requires 100% resource utilisation. Frustration will build. Spreading yourself thin will be frustrating and stressful when you spend 15 hours working across six different roles and realise you haven’t made a dent in any one task/responsibility.

Try not to take your stress out on loved ones or those close to you. Take on the challenge. Embrace the journey. No Pain No Gain.

Number 8: Financial security can be a big inhibitor to creativity, productivity and effectiveness.

Someone once said “hire lazy people because they find efficient ways to get results”. I say “A financially desperate wo/man is a desperate and hungry wo/man” and will demonstrate incredible work ethic, resourcefulness, commitment and tenacity to be successful.

Avoid going into mass debt taking out big business loans, trying to pay yourself a perm role salary and maintain the lifestyle you had before. Your desperation will fuel your fire and drive you toward a self-sufficient and spectacular success.

Number 9: You will experience a rollercoaster of emotions.

Expect to soar to amazing highs but also sink to the depths of deep dark lows. Even just knowing this will help prepare you. You’ll question your decision to launch a business a thousand times. Be bold. This is normal. Stay the path.

If you are working on your own, to survive, surround yourself with a number of support resources and outlets. My biggest challenge and ultimately the biggest discovery was to not confide in the same single resource all the time. Spread and offload your frustrations in multiple ways: Take up sport, talk to friends, write frustrations down and make a plan. Make time to release.

Jason Roberts - "I charted my emotional journey over the first 12 months. I couldn't believe the vast gulf in emotions between my elation and my despair. I had to dig deep."

Number 10: Adapt or Fold.

The business you start on day one, will not be the business you’ve built by day 365. Do not be afraid to adapt. Listen intently and purposefully to your customer. Ask questions. Their answers will guide your path and future direction.

You only have to look at firms like Blockbusters who did not pay attention to the change in market and needs of their customer. So learn the importance of business adoption and flexibility.

Number 11: You do not need to be perfect to go live.

There's a time to build and there's a time to launch and go live. Push the button. Get started, get out there begin speaking to prospect. Build a sales pipeline and you'll fix issues along the way. I tried initially to launch the perfect website. By week four I made changes. In week five, I made changes. It is ok to adapt as you grow.

Number 12: Watch your spend.

Create a financial forecast and stick to it. It is very easy to run up a monthly technology and subscription bill of ￡500-800/month. Many services provide free usage up until a particular banding. Work out where you can leverage freeness.

Number 13: Avoid too many trial subscriptions.

You’ll end up having to migrate data from one platform to another and that will cost you time. Research your vendors carefully, make a decision and stick with it. Constantly setting up new platforms will cost you time and losing time costs you money.

Number 14: You’ll wear many hats during the course of a day. Remember to wear the right hat according to the circumstance. Know your audience.

Once, whilst in the process of designing digital content, I made a scheduled call with a prospect to conduct a discovery call. During the call, I lacked the clarity and depth of thought that a consultant should have had. I was still wearing my creative artistic hat. A massive ‘slaps self on forehead moment’.

Number 15: Giveaways in the early days.

If you’re providing a service, offer pro-bono work in return for a reference. If you’re selling product, give product away and get feedback, or social media recognition.

Number 16: Automate, Automate, Automate.

Oh boy I wish I knew then what I know now regarding the capabilities of some very smart technology that is out there. As much as you can, automate manual processes like: Email distribution, CRM, appointment booking, auto replies to emails. The list goes on. If you are doing something over and over and it’s costing you time, you need to find a solution that will give you your time back and allow you to focus on other, valuable and revenue generating tasks.

Number 17: Celebrate your wins.

This is perhaps the single most important bit of advice I can give. No one else will know the amount of hours you put in. The level of stress you endured. The number of doors that were slammed firmly in your face. No one will know the amount of phone calls you made, the thousands of emails you sent that went ignored and the amount of hours sleep you've lost through stress and anxiety. So when you get a win, you celebrate that bad-boy!

Number 18: Be prepared to lose your shit.

It's ok to get angry once in a while. It's normal. I encourage composure but it's also very powerful to roar occasionally. Shout and have a scream and release some tension. You will get stuck on an idea; on image selection, on writing the appropriate message/phrase and even debate over hours on which right word to use. It's ok to let go once in a while.

Number 19: Go to bed with a pen and pad next to you.

There are not enough hours in the day for your mind to hypothesis all the good and bad ideas you’ll have. I continue to wake during the middle of the night with an idea that is stuck in my head which prevents me getting the necessary rest to recuperate. Write it down. The process of knowing that the idea is safely stored on paper brings a psychological relief which allows the brain to finally rest and switch off.

Number 20: Accept that if you do not do it, it will not get done.

Rely on you. Get your head down and get on with it. You cannot run away from tasks and responsibilities.

A fellow new business owner said she hated making phone calls to prospects to build her pipeline. No one else is going to make calls for you. We discussed building structure and breaking down responsibilities into manageable projects that once complete give the impression of achievement.

And There You Have It. It Will Get Better.

This was my account over the first year of running my business. I wish you every success in your future endeavours. Starting out on your own is daunting but you are brave and capable. The rewards will be beyond your wildest expectations.

You will experience financial pressures and increased stress around your personal life. Your mental resolve will be tested. You’ll have unnecessary arguments with loved ones and sometimes things will seem so bleak you will want to chuck it all in. But failure to prepare is to prepare to fail so plan, ask questions and execute. Measure twice and cut once. You will be amazed at the warmth of sun light casting silver linings beyond those dark grey clouds.

Go get’em tiger!

Human Capital Consultancy is a qualitative employee experience research partner. We know that transformation of your employee experience begins with capturing genuine, qualitative employee engagement data. To discuss your Employee Engagement programme or to focus on employee well-being, click HERE to schedule a free consultation or visit our website: www.humancapcon.co.uk for more information.