Are you looking for ways on how to become a successful entrepreneur? Speaking from experience, as a new entrepreneur, there are many lessons I’ve learned along the way. I always knew I wanted to follow my own path, being a creative and someone who has always had a lot of independence, I’ve always known I’d create the life of my dreams. But with freedom and crushing goals, there comes some stress and lessons that need to be learned.
To give you a back story on my journey, I come from a background in acting and film & television production. After many years working in a very stressful and gruelling industry, I transitioned into working for myself. I run a candle business; North Star Candle Co, I create content for brands as a UGC creator, I have a YouTube channel, I create content on Instagram, I launched an Airbnb this year and co-run this blog with Meg! And then I also work as a Producer & Creative Strategist for a digital marketing and advertising company. Which I really enjoy as it’s creative, incorporates my producing skills and helps support me financially! Needless to say, there’s a lot going on.
I’ve learned a lot in my time building these businesses. Especially in the last 6 months, as I see growth in my business, I have to learn hard and fast what’s going to get me to the place I want to be in my future.
Let’s dive into the 5 things I’ve learned this year, to become a successful entrepreneur:
Time can be easily wasted, be careful who you give your energy to.
I hate to say it, but people won’t always respect your time. Give people your trust, go into business with an open mind and open heart, let people show you who they are. But if they cross you once, keep strong boundaries moving forward. I’ve definitely had lots of time wasted over the years, I wish I had of been stricter with boundaries. This can apply to not only business, but in personal life as well. If you’re not looking out for yourself and protecting your energy, you will have a harder time growing your business and you won’t be able to show up fully for those people in your life you care about and even your community! In order to be the best version of yourself and support others, you need to keep the peace in your own life.
Things happen slower than you think they will.
I think the new way of thinking in our world, is that successful happens overnight. I know it can feel that way on social media. I see so many entrepreneurs talking about the thousands they are making every month and how they left their corporate jobs in 6 months time. And sure, maybe that happens. But I don’t believe that’s the norm. True, long lasting success when it comes to your career, TAKES TIME. I have to remind myself this on a weekly basis. Consistency, passion, vision and hard work is what will get you to where you want to be. Don’t get caught up in the noise.
Starting a business costs a lot of money, if you’re not ready to make the investment, be cautious.
Money can cause a lot of stress.
I wish I truly knew how much money I’d have to spend when starting my businesses. It doesn’t help that I have more than one. When it comes to my candles, the start up costs are actually quite high. You can check out a YouTube video I did on my finances, linked below.
When it comes to my digital creation business, the costs aren’t as high, but you do have to factor in the purchase of a camera, lights, tripod, editing program, subscriptions, etc. It adds up every month!
I’d say to comfortably cover my costs and not feel stretched too thin, I need to be bringing in at least $2,000 a month. If you don’t have an investor, either save up a cushion of money to fall back on, or take out a small loan and make a promise to yourself that you have a timeline you’d like to pay it back on.
You’ll get a lot of opportunities thrown at you, a lot of them won’t actually happen.
I think I took this one a lot easier than most people may because of my history as an actor. You have to do SO many auditions until you land one. It’s sort of like this in business. You’ll have lots of people coming to you with ideas, with proposals, with inquiries. A lot of these will not turn into paying business. Easier said than done, but don’t get too excited about each opportunity that comes your way. Just so you can avoid feeling disappoint. Lots will work out, but it’s good to be mindful of this tip for your own mental health.
Hire Help.
If you’re trying to scale a business and work a full-time job in order to continue bringing in an income, I’d suggest hiring help. Whether that be someone to do your marketing, your accounting, emails, even just organizational tasks, it helps. I personally have started working with Meg (the co-writer of this blog! I ) She started a VA business this year, check out her Instagram here! She has started helping me with scheduling content, accounting tasks, Notion organization and pitching, to name a few things. This allows me to free up some of my precious time so that I can focus on other things that need to get done in my businesses. Like writing this blog! Or editing a YouTube video.
It may be hard to swallow paying someone else to help you with tasks, maybe money is tight or you are protective of your business. But trust me, it really will help you grow faster and take stress off your shoulders. And we all need a bit of stress relief these days!
We hope these tips on how to become a successful entrepreneur are helpful for you. Don’t be too hard on yourself as you grow. Every experience and business deal will teach you something new. Many days, we feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and at a loss. But SO many other days we feel excited, hopeful, optimistic and excited for the future. The good most definitely out weighs any challenges.
If you’re looking for more content that will help set your business up for success, take a look at our goals and intentions post. Setting goals is HUGE when it comes to growing your business. Just keep going, you’ll get to where you want to be with consistency, passion, vision and hard work!
Cornelia & Meg.
