#34: How I’d Start My Business Again If I Could Go Back In Time.
Episode Shownotes
“What would you do if you lost it all? Would you do it differently?”
If I had to start it all over, there are three key pieces of advice I would give myself— in the hope that budding entrepreneurs and new freelancers learn from my lessons.
In this solo episode I share would do differently in my business and what is worth investing in—and whats not—while being mindful of cash flow and setting aside a budget. I wholeheartedly believe gaining access to other people's mistakes and lessons learned packaged up into a course or set of instructions is like a little cheat code, which can save you time and money in the long run.
It's important to continuously learn, strategically outsource, and automate, while also being mindful of cash flow and focusing on foundational skills such as cash flow management and SEO-rich content creation.
Starting a business from scratch can be an intimidating and overwhelming experience. I have had the opportunity to speak with successful entrepreneurs and business owners, and I have learned valuable insights that can help you succeed in your entrepreneurial journey. In this post, I share my thoughts on what I would do differently if I had to start my business all over again, and present three main tips for those looking to succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.
Invest in Education and Masterminds
Investing in your education and gaining access to other people's mistakes and lessons learned packaged up into a course or set of instructions is like a little cheat code, which can save you time and money in the long run. However, it is important to be mindful of cash flow and set aside a budget for education courses and masterminds instead of having it taken from your living expenses or other business expenses.
Invest in Outsourcing
Outsourcing can help you free up your time, but it is crucial to be selective about who you hire and to set them up for success. Take the time to onboard new hires and externalize your brain so that they can better understand your business. Pay based on deliverables or project bases rather than hourly or monthly rates, as it incentivizes quality and efficiency.
Invest in Tools, Software, and Automation
Investing in tools, software, and automation can help you save time and improve efficiency. However, it is important to review subscriptions regularly to ensure that the business is not paying for unnecessary tools and software.
Learn Cash Flow Management
Learning cash flow management and how to manage finances responsibly is crucial for the success of your business. Have a healthy buffer for yourself personally and for your business to have a healthy buffer. This will help you have consistent income during slow months and allow you to pay for expenses such as subscriptions and courses.
Invest in SEO-Rich Content and Blogging
Investing in SEO-rich content and blogging instead of focusing on vanity metrics on social media can help you gain more traffic to your website. This will help you rank higher on search engines and attract more potential customers to your business.
Work as a Full-Time VA or Junior Designer First
Working as a full-time VA or junior designer first can help you learn the necessary skills and systems. This will help you decrease the pressure on yourself and start building your business on the side. You can also start creating as much SEO-rich content as possible and networking with people in the industry.
Starting a business from scratch can be a daunting task, but with the right mindset and strategy, you can increase your chances of success. By following these tips and lessons learned from my mistakes, you can achieve your entrepreneurial goals and create a successful business.
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Episode Transcript
Emily Peilan: Are you ever scared that you might lose it all? I asked him. And if you had to start back from scratch, like, what would you do? He smiled, looked at me and said, I'm not afraid to lose at all. And proceeded to tell me his game plan. And then he asked me, what would you do if you lost it all? Would you do it differently?
And I had to take a moment and. And this episode was very much inspired by that conversation.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back. My loves. In this episode, I wanted to share with you some thoughts that was inspired by this intriguing question of if you lost at all, if you had to start again from scratch with nothing. What would you do and would you do certain things differently? Were there some things that you would do again and that you swear by?
And so I wrote down the three things that I would still do but with a small, some small tweaks as to how I would've gone about it. And then three things that I would have done very differe. From the beginning, and I hope that you find this helpful. These are basically an accumulation of like the six mistakes that I've made in my business.
And I hope that you take what resonates and discard what doesn't. But if you are, you know, getting into the world of freelancing or starting your own business, I hope that you will find a lot of value in me sharing my mistakes and what I would do differently. So let's get into. . So here are three things I would still invest in and still do, but with a slight improvement tweak to it.
So number one, I would still 100%, 10 out of 10 invest in my education and in masterminds because you are basically buying other pupil's mistakes, right? Because it would take you perhaps two years, three years to learn. Skills or these lessons that this person has learned and packaged them up until a course and is basically being like, Hey, don't make these mistakes.
I made them here's my manual or a set of instructions to succeed faster. And so why wouldn't you take that, right? It's basically like a little cheat code, which is fantastic. But what I would do differently is being more mindful. Of my cash flow and setting aside a budget for education courses and masterminds instead of having that taken from my, say, living expenses or from like paying my team or, you know, like there are so many different like ex.
Expenses when it comes to running a business. And I think there were times where I was like, so I really wanted to do the course and it was like, I dunno, 2000, 2,500 or as a mastermind, that's like 10 K Mastermind. It's like, I really want to do it. But I didn't necessarily have the cash flow for it. But it's also a bit of a catch 22, you know, because I invested in my, in these courses before I had, you know, the cash flow because I invested in this mastermind.
I had the cash flow to do so, I grew so much faster and then had more cash flow as a result of that. So like, I don't regret it. I, I don't regret how I did it. However, moving forward, you know, I think I would set aside a budget and that budget is for investing in my education. So for those of you who are stuck in that catch 22.
this is, yeah, I would recommend setting aside a budget for that. However, if you feel like this particular course is really going to make or break your business, then invest in it or sign up for the monthly plan or you know, get a short term loan. If you are so certain that you can make that back within, you know, a couple months or something, then I would say it's worth it.
Number two, invest. I would still invest a hundred percent in outsourcing. A S A P, so like I to, to free up my time, right? But what I would do differently is be more selective about who I hired and really setting them up for success. So not just bringing someone on and expecting them to know exactly what to do.
Because, and, and that's a mistake I made, is like, I just assumed. Read my mind, or I assume they would just know everything I know about my business. And I hadn't written anything down. I didn't have any processes, I didn't have any systems. And so, you know, I'd, even if you hire the best person, right, if they come into your, to, to your business and you've got no processes set up, no systems, then they're never gonna be the top that they can be for you, right?
So you really have to set them up for success. Take the time to onboard them, take the time. externalize your brain so that they can better understand your business. Right. And another mistake I made, which I would've done very differently from the get-go, is paying based on deliverables or on like project bases rather than paying people hourly or like monthly, if that makes sense.
Because I find that quality definitely increases when. , their time is on the line. And what I've found working with people hourly is that they would take longer to do certain tasks because they could get paid more. And if they finished something faster, then they would get paid less for it. And so I didn't want to incentivize that.
I want, I don't want people to waste their time just because they wanna make more. , right? I want them to really value their time. I want them to value efficiency. Like I highly value efficiency. So, in the end, I found the best model so far is to have a fixed project rate. And this is how, what I do with my clients as well.
But cool website X amount, right? Agreed amount time. If I spend more time on it, then that's on me. If I spend less time on it than like bonus for me, right? But just the quality of the work has to be there, right? There is a, a. Threshold of like quality. And then based on if you do it based on project deliverables, it could be like say social media manager could be, I don't know, three posts a week and three stories a week.
And also strategy call and . Yeah. Engagement and scheduling, things like that. So you are paying them based on what they're delivering rather than the per hour of their time spent in Canva. Making little tweaks, you know, you're like, oh, move this one inch over here and move that and change this color.
Like, you're not paying them for the hour, you're paying them for the work that they deliver. And on that note obviously you wanna be respectful of, you know, your contractor's time and usually. I cap re revisions kind of refinements at like two, so like, kind of two rounds of revisions is kind of enough more than that.
I feel like, okay, now I'm just being perfectionistic. Right? Usually first round it's like, oh, okay, maybe like Mr. Mark A. Little bit. Second one is like, okay, cool. We're like getting there. And then usually it's 80% if not more, good enough to post. And I would just say like, don't spend too, On the nitty gritty things when it comes to outsourcing, just 80% good enough, ship it, post it, right?
Number three, I would 100% still invest in tools, softwares anything that helps with like automation. And now ai, right? I pay for Chachi Tea. I pay for a couple of other AI tools I use for my business as well. And I would, however, upon reflection. Be more conscious about reviewing my subscriptions every half year and seeing which ones we don't actually need or which ones we'd been paying monthly up until that point.
But if you were to pay annually, you save 25%. And it's like, okay, if I, have I been using this for a year? Am I going to continue using this for a year? Does it make sense to actually pay for the year upfront because we. The money to do so. And yeah, just kind of which one makes more sense and just reviewing that and oftentimes I'll come across something that I don't really use anymore and I can just get rid of it.
So that is, The three things that I would still do, but with a slight tweak. Now, moving on to the three things I would do very, very differently, and these are the biggest mistakes I've made in my three years, years of being in business. So number. Learn cash flow management and how to manage my finances responsibly and have a healthy buffer, both for myself personally, but also for my business to have a healthy buffer.
So like in, you know, drought months, slow months, I can still pay my team or I can still pay for subscriptions and courses and things like that, right? So I think the reason why. Lesson took so long for me was I was still so scarred from my corporate job having like just looked at dreaded spreadsheets every day and numbers and analytics just really make me want to hide under a cave.
And so I avoided this for a really long time and it detonated in my face later on. So I learned how to be financially responsible. Do not avoid. Face it, head on. Learn from my mistakes, read books on finances that actually are interesting and make sense. I, yeah, I prefer learning from stories rather than, you know, dry, intellectual.
Books, I don't do well on textbooks and really reminds me of university. So, one book or two books I can recommend is like Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiosaki and also his second book I think is Cash Flow Quadrant. They were both really interesting. I really like how he infuses storytelling into it.
It just makes the lessons. So much more and there's just, you can see real life applications to it. So I really enjoyed those books and they really changed my perspective on cash flow cuz cash flow is king. Number two, I would have invested so much more time on creating SEO rich content and just my SEO strategy game plan in general.
And blogging, right instead of. Focusing on the vanity metrics on Instagram, like, how many followers do I get, how many likes do I get, and all that shit. Shit. Right. Because, and I really learned this the hard way. I invested so much money. I was, I was paying a social media manager and a, a Pinterest girl as well to help me with the marketing side of things.
And I was paying them about 500, 700. Sometimes 800 a month. And over the course of I'd say like a year, like it was fantastic at the start because I didn't have really like an Instagram presence and she really helped me go from like zero, zero to like 700, I think 800 followers or something. Right. And that was amazing.
That was like really valuable. But at a certain. . Especially with Pinterest, I just, I felt like I was just throwing money away at, and I didn't know what the strategy was like. I just felt like I was throwing spaghetti at the water. I was like throwing money at Pinterest and at Instagram, and if I'm being honest, like how many people actually found me through Instagram.
It's like not a lot of people, how many people found me through my seo, my blogs, and everyth. So many people, I was like, why was I not investing money into the strategy that was actually working for me, which was SEO and blogging. I was, yeah, I was just caught up in the Van TMX tricks of Instagram and thinking that, oh, because I'm a designer it's artistic and I have to have a gallery presence.
Right? But consequently, like, you know, I know designers. never had really an Instagram presence and they make like millions now. It's crazy. I know agencies who make millions and their Instagram is like just, I don't know, not that big. They've got like, what, 400 followers or something? Right? And so I think we get so carried away by these metrics and if you actually want to listen to.
Podcast episode down below the one with Paige Brunon. She grew her business from zero to like over 2.5 million. And she doesn't have Instagram, well, she has an Instagram, but she never uses it, right? So Instagram was not her was not her marketing platform. She used. She utilized and leveraged her email subscriber list and also seo.
So she, Queen of SEO and the queen of like email marketing strategies. She leveraged those and she offers courses and just scaled her business to like 2.5 million without Instagram. So if you are, check that out. Highly recommend so many gem bombs in there. Moving on to number three. So this was a difficult one for me to swallow and to admit.
Had my ego allowed me to, it would've been extremely helpful to have worked as a full-time VA or like a junior designer first. Mainly to have some consistent income while, you know, learning their processes, learning how they run their business and how they set up all their systems. Because you know, in the end, your business like, The most valuable part of your business is actually your systems.
It's not the work that you create necessarily. It really comes down to your systems. So I would've done that first just because starting out from scratch on your own, without any knowledge, like nothing at all, it takes a really long time. It took me about six months before I started getting my first client, and then like another couple months after that before.
Sort of consistent clients, right? But it's always up and down. And I hadn't learned a lot of the foundations of marketing or the foundations of business yet. And so I was kind of just l it was so overwhelming and I was learning so many things on the fly. And I had also this added pressure of like, I need to make money, otherwise I'm not gonna survive, otherwise I'm gonna have to go back to New Zealand.
Other. I don't get to live in Europe, right? I don't get to travel. And so there was just a lot of pressure for me, and if I would go back and do it again, I'd probably decrease that pressure on myself. And just. Spend a year or two learning from like a pro and then progress onto, you know, maybe after the first year I'd progress onto being a part-time project manager and already learning how to delegate to other people on the team.
Right. While starting to build my business on the side and. You know, I get to learn important leadership skills in that setting while getting paid and growing my business and just not having that like added stress. Right? And then during this time, I would also have invested all my free time to creating as much SEO rich content as possible, because SEO content texts, at least four to six months, right?
To start gaining traction. So the, the earlier you can start that process and get Google to, you know, call your site and whatnot, then the earlier you can start ranking for your content. And then I would also then after. After, like alongside that, create a digital product, which then I could sell and scale and start creating and nurturing relationships as well.
So like networking with people getting to know people in the industry and offering like value for free to build up my portfolio while hopefully landing a few clients on the side without that pressure of like, oh, I need to sell to you. I need to get this right. I think when you can come from a place of like, I don't need it, but it feels aligned to me, you can then create work, which is like a, just a more authentic expression of what you want to create.
Right. So landing a few clients and then, yeah. So kind of like. Actively would be a few client work. And then passively would be selling my digital products. Like it would still be semi war inconsistent up to this point. However, like. As your traffic starts growing, your digital products can like start becoming more consistent.
And then lastly, this last phase, I'd build out as many systems and processes as I can, like literally create an external brain so that anyone could come in and take over. And this is still while I would be working. You know, ideally part-time for you know, a designer or somebody, right? Then I would hire my own va virtual assistant and start outsourcing general admin and repetitive tasks right away, because like, I wanna be in my creative zone, I wanna be doing tasks that are high value, and then I would create high converting lead generating systems.
So, You know, think top or finals, how do people find you basically? And then make sure that my m r r, so like my monthly recurring revenue is more than my, so like my monthly recurring expenses on a consistent basis and growing month after month. So basically what you are left with is like your profit, right?
So it's like your revenue minus your expenses equals your profit, but it's like monthly. . And by that it's like, I mean, not your active income. So if you get a client here and there that does, wants to do a website with you, right? That's not recurring. That's like a one-off thing. So what do you have? What parts of your income is recurring?
So that could be a retainer client or that could be a subscription model. Our membership or. or like if you've got digital products that kind of sell quite consistently, like minimum you sell like a hundred a month or something, then that would be considered monthly recurring revenue as well. So only at this point would I then go full-time into my business.
Without the worry of cash flow being negative. So I want that to cover my living expenses. I want to be able to cover my operation. So basically all my operational costs, my va, the tools, the softwares, the subscriptions that I use, and also like my personal, like living expense, like once that would've been covered, then I think I would've.
gone into full-time into my business with a lot more like, ease and just less stress. And I think I would've grown a lot faster having had real live kind of experience working for someone else. Alongside that and also when it comes to then growing my team you know, if I was. The project manager and also delegating tasks to other team members in, in that company, then I would've learned the necessary skills then to grow and scale my own team without having to learn everything from scratch and make all the mistakes.
You know, myself and it costing me time and money, right? So those , that was my master game plan. , take it. So those are the the six things I would do slightly differently if I had to start all over again. I hope you found it useful or valuable in some way. If you are starting a business yourself, and if you are a fellow, Business owner, entrepreneur, I would love to hear from you.
What are some of the things that you would change if you had to go all the way back and start from scratch, or if you lost it all tomorrow, what would you do? What's your game plan? To build everything back up from scratch and better. So send me a DM over on Instagram at Emily Peilan, and I'd love to hear what your three points are.
I would also love to share them with, with other people because I just think that sharing wisdom and knowledge is so powerful and I am on a mission to share these golden insights and. With more humans who actually give a damn about the world, about our environment, and about humanity, so that you guys can make more of an impact in this world.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I love you all, and thank you so much for listening. See you in the next one…
