You don’t have to go it alone

Why is it so important to surround yourself with like-minded people when running a business?

It’s hard to be the only one in your business who can and has to deal with all the ups and downs, who needs to manage all the customer enquiries, do all the marketing and admin and mainly deliver all the work that is actually bringing money in.

And it’s hard when you don’t have a business partner to bounce ideas off of, to sanity check you at points or simply to rant when you need to get something off your chest.

For some people, family and friends can facilitate this role a little bit, but in most cases, you don’t want to be constantly talking about work or your partner/friend doesn’t know how to support you on your business journey properly. And that’s OK, our friends and family are not supposed to be able to do and be everything to us.

But that still leaves you hanging, without anyone to talk to and strategise.

How to get help along the way?

I’ve been trying different things on my business journey to find someone (or a few someones) to be this ‘business partner’ for me. Someone I can run to when I need advice or a shoulder to cry on - because sometimes you simply need to let go, feel your feelings and be open about all the fears and challenges standing in front of you.

I’ve tried mentoring and coaching, I’ve tried networking and masterminding, I’ve tried memberships and I’ve tried a lot of other things. And even though all of these helped me to move forward, in different ways they helped me with answering some of my specific questions, one thing I was still missing is this one person I can turn to without any shame or worries and chat about my business when needed. Someone who is emotionally invested at least a little bit and who wants to share the business journey with me.

So this year I decided to take a different approach. I’ve decided to take control back and figure out what I really need in terms of business support and who might be the right person/people.

Together with a friend and colleague, we came up with the idea of creating our own Peer Support Group. We’ve put the feelers out and ended up with a group of 6 incredible business ladies (it wasn’t on purpose ladies only, but that’s how it turned out) who were looking for something similar!

And it’s been a life-changer for me only a couple of weeks in already!

Find your Peer Support Squad

What’s so special about this group? It’s a carefully selected, small group of like-minded business owners who have similar goals to mine. We are at different stages of our journeys, but we all have very similar expectations on what we want to get from our business and what kind of work-life balance we’re striving for.

We all want to build a lifestyle business that works around our life, not the other way around. A business that supports our lives, dreams and interests and allows us to spend more time doing what we are really passionate about. For some, it might be niching down in a certain area, for others it might be building a passive income stream and for others simply getting a stable stream of leads and clients to live comfortably without feeling stressed and worried about where the next job will come from.

We’re also aligned with our personal goals! And that’s a big deal to me, as my main focus in 2021 is on self-improvement. So I’m really glad that there’s an agreement among our Peer Support Squad that we want to be able to live happier and healthier lives, feel less pressure and get to a point when our businesses work better for us! 

It’s all connected. Building a business isn’t just about the money, marketing, delivering on projects, admin and so on. Especially if you’re building a lifestyle business, it’s more about you, your needs, your life, your health, your happiness. But that’s something that we often don’t talk about!

More on this in one of my next posts as I don’t want to mix too much into one post.

Today’s writing is about the importance of social connections and having someone in your court who is interested in you and your success and who’s involved in making it happen.

We don’t have to chat every day, but knowing that someone out there cares and is happy to chat whenever I need to rant or bounce ideas off and who also keeps me accountable and on track with my goals is HUGE!

So, how about you? Do you have your Squad or a Business Buddy who you regularly chat with and who is there for you (and you are for them) when needed? How does your relationship work?

Let me know, I’d love to see how other people are solving this challenge!

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