For Resilience in Business, Invest in Your Attitude
March 19, 2012
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
I often see this Zig Ziglar quote on Twitter, on Facebook and on other people’s blogposts:
“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
By the way, I didn’t even know who Zig was until today – he is a champion salesperson and motivational teacher and trainer in the United States. He must have a successful attitude because he’s now over 85 years old and still working and publishing his ideas.
Quotes like this sometimes get me cranky – they seem so general, and often simplistic.
But every now and again, a quote ‘speaks’ to me and keeps me focused on my business goals.
Right now, my small business, the happychild website is achieving most of the things I wished – the brand is growing, thousands of parents across Australia read the articles on the website and I am proud of the information we share and the incredibly talented writers who contribute to its success. Having this small business has also given me travel and educational experiences and given me the opportunity to become a parenting commentator on national television – all sounds great doesn’t it?
It is.
But there are various challenges – similar to many small businesses, I have to build income streams, I have to wear many hats, sometimes I work long hours and there are times when I feel less optimistic. This week has been especially challenging because of the many hours I’ve had to invest to protect my happychild trade mark. And at these times, my aptitude for business and my expertise really has less to do with how successful I am. It’s my attitude. I have to remind myself that these are common experiences and challenges in business – I have to tell myself that although I am climbing a mountain that day, it will be all downhill tomorrow.
I’m guessing that plenty of entrepreneurs in their first few years of business have times when it’s only their attitude that gets them through a day or a week.
So it’s something worth working on.
To achieve the altitude you want, work on your attitude. Find a mentor, read a book, get some exercise, stay healthy, keep your eye on your goal and go for it. That’s what I am doing right now.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Focus on Your Competitive Advantage in 2012
- What is an Internship in Australia?
- What are Your Favourite Business Books?
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Focus on Your Competitive Advantage in 2012
December 2, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
A few weeks ago, I was trying to make choices about directions of my business and some decisions about dealing with a challenging issue – nothing new to most people in my position. In situations like this, I turn to trusted friends and mentors, and I always find this to be the most helpful action I can take. And during this period, I also happened to read one of Seth Godin’s blogposts called Your Competitive Advantage.
It reminded me to also look at a few of the business books I most admire and refocus myself on what’s important and refocus on the vision I have for my parenting website.
Seth’s post also reminded me that working faster, doing more and spending more and more time on ‘problems’ is not necessarily going to lead to success. An extract:
“When you increase your discernment, maximize your awareness of the available options and then go ahead and ship work that scares others… that’s when you succeed.
More time on the problem isn’t the way. More guts is. When you expose yourself to the opportunities that scare you, you create something scarce, something others won’t do.”
So if you are thinking about your own competitive advantage…
Ask yourself, are you spending enough time focusing on doing your very best work, work that is better than your competitors’, work that will differentiate you? Or are you obsessing about your challenges, your obstacles and your shortcomings? Seth Godin calls this our “Lizard Brain” – he says this is the kind of brain that does this:
“We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.”
The Lizard Brain creates resistance in us and that resistance gets in the way of our success:
“The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That’s because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.
As the year draws to a close, I challenge you to put your lizards out in the sunshine and leave them alone – use 2012 as the year that you put all your passion, energy, ideas and brilliance into being the best you can and doing the best you can – that will make your competitive advantage shine.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- What is an Internship in Australia?
- What are Your Favourite Business Books?
- Starting a Business – What Do You Want to Know?
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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What is an Internship in Australia?
November 3, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
In this last fortnight, I have been looking for one or two interns for the happychild website, which is nearly 18 months old now. And I had to do some thinking about why, and whether, an intern would be a good thing for both the business and for any prospective intern. I know, through my work as an executive coach, that mentoring others can be one of the most professionally rewarding exercises – so I have been thinking about how happychild could be involved in this.
Why offer an internship?
As the happychild website grows and blooms (it really does feel like blooming now), I have been able to offer more opportunities to writers and bloggers to showcase their fantastic writing and ideas on the website. And I am proud to say we even have one commissioned writer – it may not sound like much to you, but it’s a big deal for a micro-business!
But I’m always looking at opportunities to publish more writing and I cherish the chance to pass on ideas and skills to other people. So I started thinking about offering an internship. It seemed like the ideal opportunity to offer work experience to somebody in a flexible way that only an online business can offer. Sure, the work an intern may do is likely to be wonderful for the website also – but if you’re thinking of offering an internship (particularly unpaid), you need to be sure that you can offer more than you take.
In the case of the happychild internship, we have offered a flexible arrangement to suit an applicant’s parenting or work arrangements and that can even be worked off site. But this can be tricky of course – so it’s important to think carefully about how to give useful feedback, how to mentor your intern and how to create diverse opportunities for an intern that will deliver them the educational and work experience they are after. I’ll get back to you in a few months and let you know how that worked out!
Australian Employment Law and Internships
Before reading this, please take note that I have no expertise in employment law – although my former career was in law, this was not my specialisation. So before entering into any paid or unpaid arrangement with an employee, work experience placement or intern, you should consult an expert lawyer or at least talk to a relevant government department such as Fair Work Australia.
However, to get you started in thinking about what an internship means, I can give you the following tips:
- Employee: Just because you are not paying somebody to work for you, does not mean they are not an “employee” in Australian law. If the way someone is working for you is part of a legally binding contract for example, they are more likely to be considered an employee. However, you may choose to offer a contracted paid internship in which case you’d be obliged to pay that person the relevant minimum wage for the work they are required to do.
- Obligations to employees: If somebody is an employee, then you have all sorts of obligations towards them and they of course have rights – think about things like pay, leave and superannuation.
- Hours and length of time worked: If a person is working for you as an “intern” then they should not be working for you on a long-term (or possibly full time) basis. An example is given on the Fair Work website of ‘Stuart’ who works full time for three months at a newspaper and who is given specific tasks and deadlines to meet – in that example, Fair Work Australia said Stuart may be considered to have been engaged as an employee.
- Intern is there to learn: Your intern should not be a critical part of your business’ producitivity – they are with you to learn and get experience.
More information is available at the Fair Work website.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- What are Your Favourite Business Books?
- Starting a Business – What Do You Want to Know?
- Overwhelmed by Your Own Deadlines? Think Again.
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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What are Your Favourite Business Books?
August 11, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
About 11 years ago, I changed careers from lawyer to executive coach and now also publisher of a parenting site. I still have a deep interest in the law and social justice issues, but one of the benefits of the career change was that my reading became more diverse and interesting. Much of the reading material for lawyers is fairly dry and prescriptive – but when I moved into the area of personal and professional development, I found there were thousands of fascinating books to read – and of course, not enough time to read them all. To help me sift through the many books available, I’m always looking for other people’s recommendations for business development books that have helped their business or changed their point of view.
When I go to conferences and presentations, one of my favourite questions to ask successful business people is – what are your favourite business books? Then, I go online to find the best prices, order a few and stack them up beside the bed in the book avalanche to read in between novels and magazines.
I’m going to give you a one sentence description of five books that I have found useful or inspiring – I hope one of them does something special for you. They are not my top five books, but rather a diverse selection of interesting references. Importantly, I am asking you to please also share a book of your own with ABN blog readers, along with a one or two sentence description.
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Small Business, Big Brand by Carolyn Stafford
A small book packed with big practical ideas that anyone can implement straight away to build their brand presence without a large financial investment.
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YouTube for Business; Online Video Marketing for Any Business by Michael Miller
Ideal for anyone needing a comprehensive overview of the features of YouTube for marketing, including helpful screenshots and links and how to make YouTube work with your website.
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The Profit Principle by Peter Fritz and Jeanne-Vida Douglas
Reviewed before on this blog, this is an inspirational and mentoring-style read that gives entrepreneurs plenty of food for thought about how they are approaching their business development.
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I Want What She’s Having by Naomi Simson
Business biography by the highly successful founder of Red Balloon Days, recounting the inevitable ups and downs of starting an online business with a small investment and from a home office; a story of determination and never giving up.
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The Other 90%; How to Unlock Your Vast Potential for Leadership & Life by Robert Cooper
A book to go back to over and over again, totally inspirational stories and explanations about increasing our emotional energy, creativity and performance by tapping into our ‘hidden capacity’ – turning a vision into a reality.
Please share one of your recommendations with readers, and with me.
By the way, you may also like to read Suzi Dafnis’ post “My Top Five Books from 2009” for more recommendations.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Starting a Business – What Do You Want to Know?
- Overwhelmed by Your Own Deadlines? Think Again.
- Blogging for Startups – Do You Blog?
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Starting a Business – What Do You Want to Know?
June 16, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
It has been a few years now since I wrote my first business plan for the happychild website, registered trademarks and started to publish the happychild newsletter. It’s almost one year since the site launched on 1 July 2010. When I started to write these posts for the ABN, I wanted to share my “entrepreneur’s journey”; that phrase sounded like a cliché, but it has been an accurate description of several years of travelling towards many destinations, with some unexpected stops along the way. I’ve always known the direction I’m travelling in, but I have rarely predicted the detours and roadblocks; I’ve always had a plan but I have rarely anticipated the best parts of the journey.
Perhaps you’re at the start of your entrepreneur’s journey – writing the plan, saving the money and dreaming big. What do you want to know? Reflecting on what I wish I had known, I decided to share some things I have learned, before you pack your bags for your first business trip! Although these five tips are cautionary, my intention is to encourage and support your success.
Perfect is Too Late
You will never have your business plan, finances, technology, office layout or logo absolutely perfect – if you wait for perfection, someone else may take your seat on the journey. Once you have the basics in place, make a start and work hard to listen to feedback from your customers – that’s often where you’ll get the most valuable feedback. Strive for perfection after you launch your business.
Protect Your Idea
If you plan to build a sustainable, profitable and even saleable business, take steps to protect your intellectual property. Depending on your business, this could include patenting a design or registering trade marks for a business name. Information about this is available on the Australian government’s IP Australia website, but you should also seek legal advice in this area.
Invest in Quality
Whether your business is online, offline or both, make sure that the infrastructure of your business is the highest quality you can afford from the beginning. This means: choose a website developer that has plenty of experience in building what you need, take time to find a great location for your physical business and have a clear vision of the values that your business will stand for. This is not about being perfect (see above); it’s about having clarity about the essential elements of a successful business. Clarity and quality will help you make good decisions when you reach your first detour or roadblock.
Tomorrow Really is Another Day
Sometimes you’ll feel exhausted, worried about the direction you are going in, feel upset about a colleague; at other times you’ll doubt you have the vision and strength to execute your business plan. Believe me on this one – these are normal feelings and these inevitable times on your journey are when you’ll reflect on your itinerary and perhaps even make some small changes. But the next day or the next week, you will feel different again and as long as you have a great business idea and plan, tomorrow is another day when something great may happen.
Trust is Earned
One of the best books I have read on trust is by Maister, Green and Galford – The Trusted Advisor. There is an equation in that book that makes perfect sense to me:
T = (C + R + I) /S
T = trust
C = credibility (real expertise and experience)
R = reliability (established dependability and reputation)
I = intimacy (honesty and disclosure)
S = self-orientation (only in it for the money, the benefit to themselves or their own agenda)
Along your journey, you’ll meet competitors, engage consultants and network with colleagues. As a general rule, you should extend a degree of trust to everyone you meet, but when it comes to making decisions to spend money on a consultant or divulge confidential business information, you need to be more astute than you might be in social settings. In my experience, most people can be trusted, but in business, you need to spend more time getting to know your advisor, mentor, network and consultant before you place your business or business information in their hands. Use the formula above and it may help you make the right decisions.
Making this journey was the right decision for me – I’m loving it. Thank you for reading these posts along the way.
Can you share another tip with me here on the blog? Or do you have a question?
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Overwhelmed by Your Own Deadlines? Think Again.
- Blogging for Startups – Do You Blog?
- Begin it Now – a Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Procrastination
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Overwhelmed by Your Own Deadlines? Think Again.
April 21, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
One of my favourite magazines is Scientific American Mind. Not your typical business magazine. I read it because I am fascinated by how, why and what people think and I like to learn about the brain science behind it. I also read it because it sparks ideas for articles on the happychild website. But often the articles have a relevance to business development; this month my attention was caught by the article called “Looming Deadlines: How the pressure of a due date distorts our perception of time.”
Psychological scientists at Swansea University have found that the more complex a task, the closer the deadline ‘feels.’ The researchers conducted a variety of experiments all indicating that even when deadline dates are identical, a more complex task will always ‘feel’ like it is looming closer than a less complex task.
In small business, and especially in the start-up phase, the tasks are numerous; many of them are complex – and you are trying to complete most of them yourself. With nobody to delegate tasks to, it’s no wonder that entrepreneurs feel swamped. I have this feeling frequently. The Scientific American Mind article reports that there may be an upside to these feelings of being overwhelmed – if deadlines feel closer and more rigid for a complex task, we are more likely to pay attention to them; apparently this feeling makes us more conscientious and might help us respond better to the challenge.
So I have been thinking about how to use this information. It is definitely worth looking into systems, planning strategies and the expert advice available on how to better manage time and tasks. But it’s also important to manage the mental stress associated with the busy life of the entrepreneur. If you read Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It (which I love – and I wrote about it here ….) you could be forgiven for feeling inadequate for not staying up all night and beating those deadlines. But in fact most of us also need sleep, exercise and relaxation to keep happy and well. If you have those last three habits under your belt, then I’m going to suggest one more thing: Make the complex tasks less complex.
If you feel overwhelmed by a series of complex tasks and their deadlines, the best approach is to think about them differently. One complex task can be divided into a number of less complex tasks with a number of different deadlines. Using this process is more satisfying as you can check off parts of the larger task and feel a sense of accomplishment as you do this. Instead of focusing on the more complex task due next month (getting your tax return documents and records ready for your accountant), you could focus on a simpler task (collating all your charitable deduction receipts) with a shorter deadline. You have less stressful ‘distorted deadline’ pressure and you are still working towards the same task in the end.
Because the research indicates that task complexity distorts your sense of time and makes you ‘feel’ as if the deadline is looming, your new approach means you’ve used brain science to improve your business. I would be interested to know if you try this strategy.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Blogging for Startups – Do You Blog?
- Begin it Now – a Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Procrastination
- 5 Things I Did Not Know About Being an Entrepreneur
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Blogging for Startups – Do You Blog?
March 30, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
When I committed to writing a monthly post for the Australian Businesswomen’s Network, there were many good reasons to do it. I was about to launch the happychild website; I thought blogging about starting a business could be good for me. I also value the ABN and wanted to give something back to it. But the last couple of months, I’ve been late in submitting my post – partly because I’ve been so busy with the website that writing another blogpost seemed one too many. I even thought about pulling out of my ABN blog commitment. But two things stopped me. Since starting this ABN blog, I have had at least two people contact me to say that something I’d written made a difference to them. For me, that’s the best reason to keep going. And then I read a blogpost on the Tech Crunch site called “Why Startups Need to Blog” and I felt re-inspired.
So I’m going to urge you to start (or continue) blogging – on your site and maybe also on another site. This is what I get from my blogging experience:
- Time for reflection: the process of having to generate something worthwhile to say about what I am doing and why, is valuable in itself. I write a blog on the happychild website- it’s for parents and teachers to read. But each time I write a blogpost for the ABN it sharpens my focus on my business.
- Training my voice: all business owners need a ‘voice’ to talk about their business during PR opportunities, to explain their business to an investor and to communicate well with staff and contractors. Writing about my business and how and why I started it strengthens my message online and offline.
- Building my brand: one of the reasons I agreed to write for ABN is to build the happychild® brand; it’s something I’m proud of and passionate about. But at the same time, I am building my personal brand. That may sound conceited, but I think that startup business owners need to build their own brand alongside their business because, not only are we ambassadors for our fledgling brands, one day we may need to part company and launch our next successful enterprise.
They are my reasons, but the Tech Crunch blogpost which you must read adds these reasons:
- Accessing an audience
- Reaching customers
- Communicating your vision
- Reaching others in your industry
- Marketing your services
- Engaging in dialogue with others in your industry
Before you rush over and read the Tech Crunch article, please leave your footprint here in the way of a comment – the Tech Crunch article advises this: “you need to comment on other people’s blogs. First, it is a place where your comment will often link back to your blog where it can drive traffic. Occasionally, and not overtly, and only if relevant you can provide a comment with a link back to an article in your blog. Don’t do this often, don’t be blatant and make sure it’s relevant.”
If you are a member of the ABN, have started a business and you’re blogging, please do let me know where. I await your relevant, not blatant, comments and links.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Begin it Now – a Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Procrastination
- 5 Things I Did Not Know About Being an Entrepreneur
- Find a Mentor, Grow Your Business
- The Profit Principle: A New Book and a Great Resource
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Begin it Now – a Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Procrastination
February 24, 2011
By Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
Somewhere long ago I heard the saying “Don’t Put Off to Tomorrow What You Can Do Today”. The very successful Nike slogan “Just Do It” which really has little to do with sports gear, also comes to mind when I think about procrastination. Procrastination, the art of putting things off – it can be a big hurdle to overcome when you are running your own business. We put things off because they’ll take too long to complete, they’re too boring, we can’t face them, everything else seems more important or we simply don’t have time. Eventually the “things I put off” mountain becomes so physically or emotionally huge that it seems insurmountable.
Each of us has a list of typical things we’d rather put off for another time – for me, it includes the BAS statement and bookkeeping, filing, deleting emails, cleaning and clearing office clutter and composing follow up emails. On the other hand I am always happy to, for example, write an article, make a phone call, do some research, attend an event, read or creatively plan. And working for myself on a limited budget means I don’t have the luxury of delegating all the ‘things I put off’.
So, this month I am tackling that mountain with a series of simple steps designed to conquer my fear of procrastination heights.
Join me if you like.
- Set aside 20 minutes per day for a task I’m not interested in doing, and just do it
- Choose five of those ‘just do it’ tasks for each of the five working days
- Write the ‘just do it’ tasks down in my diary for the satisfaction of crossing them off
- Use a timer to make sure I use all of those 20 minutes to start scaling the mountain
- Create a system for tackling the ‘just do it’ tasks so that one day when I can delegate them, someone else will just do it.
Sounds simple enough, so I’m beginning it now.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- 5 Things I Did Not Know About Being an Entrepreneur
- Find a Mentor, Grow Your Business
- The Profit Principle: A New Book and a Great Resource
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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5 Things I Did Not Know About Being an Entrepreneur
January 29, 2011
By Yvette Vingando, www.happychild.com.au
I’ve seen a few interesting blogposts lately with titles like “10 things you don’t know about me” and “12 things I’ve learned in my first year of blogging”. They reminded me about all the things I didn’t really know, before I started the happychild website. These are 5 things I did not really know about being an entrepreneur until I took the plunge.
1. It’s All About You
Yes, even if you are sick or want to take a holiday – you are it – you are the one who needs to update the content, check the comments and answer the emails. So my suggestion is to find a friend or an assistant or a generous relative to help you out here from time to time, or you will start to resent your new baby business. You can also find ways to automate aspects of your business to take the pressure off you when you need a short break. Examples are scheduling tweets via Hootsuite or scheduling newsletter mailouts with newsletter programs such as MailChimp or aWeber.
2. You are Not Alone
Even though it’s all about you, there are thousands of men and women who have gone before you and made the same mistakes, you are not alone. So take advantage of this fact early on in your business development and seek out mentors and networking groups where you can find support, information and encouragement. Look at local chambers of commerce, explore your network on LinkedIn, ask other business owners and read magazines relevant to your industry. (See my recent post about the importance of finding a mentor.)
3. Intellectual Property is for Small Business Too
In my past life I was a lawyer. So I knew that registering a trade mark was an important part of building a successful brand, and protecting it. I spent the money to register my brand via ipaustralia but to be honest, I wondered how important this would be at the early stages of business. Last year I found out how important this was because no matter how small your business is, there is often someone else right behind you either claiming to coincidentally have the same ideas as you or even trying to emulate your brand. Please take my advice on this, see a trade mark lawyer and find out the best way to protect all of your intellectual property.
4. It Always Costs More than You Think
When you are preparing cash flow spread sheets and financial projections, you will be advised to over-estimate some of your expenses. This is sound advice and you should follow it. Even if your fixed expenses stay much the same you will find new software, new websites, new books and new services that your small business cannot do without; you will also be confronted with new opportunities and new problems that need to be solved for you to move ahead. You can’t necessarily anticipate what these new expenses might be but I suggest you allow for a few thousand dollars extra in the kitty for your first two years of business. For example, you may end up needing to take legal action to protect your brand (see my last point).
5. It’s Worth It
Being an entrepreneur is hard work and requires even more determination and energy than you might think. I kind of knew this but I’m just confirming this for you if you are wondering. What I did not know was whether it would be worth the struggle, the late hours, the self-doubts, the constant juggling and re-prioritising and the personal and financial risk. Well I am here to report that it’s worth it. I have not yet made my first million, or even close to it, but starting up my own business in an area I am passionate about has taught me so much about myself, my capacities and my vulnerabilities. I have met incredible people and become a more creative and resourceful person on my ‘entrepreneur’s journey’. If you are thinking of taking the trip, I say jump in with your eyes wide open, it’s worth it.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- Find a Mentor, Grow Your Business
- The Profit Principle: A New Book and a Great Resource
- Delegation for Small Business – A Necessary Investment
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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Find a Mentor. Grow Your Business.
December 13, 2010
by Yvette Vignando, www.happychild.com.au
There comes a time in every start-up business owner’s development when:
- relying on your own skills and knowledge is not enough
- bouncing ideas off your loyal friends and family has its limits,
- you crave the input of an expert and fresh pair of eyes for your now superseded business plan, and
- you know that with the injection of someone else’s intellectual capital, your business would get the boost it needs to the next level of operation.
This is one of the times in business growth when it is valuable to seek a mentor. I’m proud of the progress so far with growing my online business and I still have energy, ideas and plans. But I am ready to grow again so I want to find a mentor with the right mix of skills and interests to support and guide me through the next stage of business growth.
It was the Australian Businesswomen’s Network’s Mentornet program that actually gave me the framework I needed to plan and launch the happychild website, so I have first-hand experience of the value of mentoring.
I’ve been fortunate to have a colleague introduce me (via email) to a prospective mentor and I am now waiting with anticipation to meet him. Most business owners would benefit from the input of mentor or two, and as it’s on my mind, I thought I would share some tips about finding a mentor.
What Kind of Mentor Do I Need?
- Successful in having run, started up, sold and/or grown a business; it’s ideal if this was done in an industry with some similarities or connection to yours.
- Sufficient time available for the level of contact you may require.
- Skills, knowledge and experience different to yours in order to be a complementary support to your business growth.
- An interest in developing and mentoring others and possibly also growing businesses via seed-funders and investors.
- High level verbal and written communication skills and a high level of emotional intelligence.
How Do I Find a Mentor?
- Ask people in your business and social network for their ideas and suggestions.
- Read industry and business media online and offline to identify people who have succeeded in growing a business with similarities to yours, for example: online, retail, wholesale, media.
- Read blogs by business people and blogs and websites that cover entrepreneurialism, an example in Australia is Smart Company and the relatively new Startup Smart . Find people who have spoken about their interest in mentoring or growing businesses.
- Enrol in a formal mentoring program for a taste of the benefits. Examples are the ABN Mentornet, Small Business NSW Mentoring (and other state governments have similar), NSW Women in Business Mentor program (and similar in other states).
For another interesting article on mentoring, take a look at this article on mentoring and role-modelling by BRW’s Jeanne-Vida Douglas in which the ABN’s Mentornet program is mentioned.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY YVETTE VIGNANDO
- The Profit Principle: A New Book and a Great Resource
- Delegation for Small Business – A Necessary Investment
- Business Continuity Plan for Home Based Business
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Yvette Vignando - www.happychild.com.auYvette is pursuing her passion – to take action that helps children develop great social and emotional skills as a foundation for a happy and successful life. Formerly a lawyer and then successful executive coach specialising in Emotional Intelligence, Yvette was encouraged by her experience of MentorNet to launch her business – a website for parents that publishes practical and engaging information about raising children with emotional intelligence. Yvette looks forward to sharing the challenges and successes of her experience as she navigates her way through the adventures of launching a website, and tackles online sales and marketing, an evolving business plan, and the growing universe of social media. Yvette hopes that by following her personal and professional development as an entrepreneur you will also be inspired to follow your passions.
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