6 Lessons Learned from 6 Years of Business Ownership
Each year as my business turns another year older, I go into a hyper-reflective phase on the previous year. Knowing fatality rates of startups are extremely high in the first 10 years, I feel humbled and grateful, and celebrate each anniversary as a big win. My company, Mojo Marketing, turned six on October 15, 2016.
This last year in particular deserves even more celebration. I look at 2016 as the year we grew out of our “awkward phase.” No more braces or frizzy hair! It took us a while to figure out key pieces of our identity, and on that level, I’m proud to say we have arrived.
For example:
- Our profits, revenues and customer retention rates have never been higher
- We’re on pace to nearly double our growth this year
- We’ve transformed our team — they are all highly motivated, talented overachievers who are much smarter than me. :) Thanks for the tip, Henry Ford!
Most importantly, we are delivering a high quality service to our clients and we are having a blast doing it.
Yet, as I look back on the transformation, I can’t help but see some “mistakes” staring me squarely in the face. I put mistakes in quotation marks because I don’t really believe in mistakes, but take Robin S. Sharma’s approach: “There are no mistakes, only lessons.”
In that vein, I’d like to share those lessons to help you avoid some of the detours I’ve taken along the way.
Mistake #1: Outsourcing operations overseas
There was a period of time when the majority of our operations was based in the Philippines. Allured by the lower cost of labor, we had up to 12 overseas full-time workers at one point.
They were all smart and capable people, but the challenges of time zone, cultural differences, language barriers, and lack of team cohesiveness resulted in chaos — especially for me. I simply couldn’t sustain the hours, level of QA, and rounds of back-and-forth that were required to manage the overseas team.
The Fix: In January of 2015, I decided any future hires would be US-based, and that all key roles would be hired in San Diego, where I live. As I started moving operations back to the US, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the overseas-to-US-based-employee ratio was not 1:1. By hiring local top-quality talent, one US-based employee could accomplish the work of multiple overseas workers. So in the end, the cost savings were truly insignificant compared to the benefits of hiring locally.
Mistake #2: Onboarding high maintenance or difficult clients
When you’re staring potential revenue in the face, it’s hard to say “no thanks.” Yet it’s a mistake I’ve made repeatedly. It usually boils down to not being a good fit for the client in one way or another, and in our case, it typically falls into the category of Unrealistic Expectations.
For example, one potential client recently wanted to send a single postcard out to a cold list of 3,000 people and expected to get 100 attendees to an event. You don’t have to be a marketing expert to know that’s unrealistic.
Taking on projects and clients like these only sets us up for failure, which is costly in terms of time, resources, stress levels and team morale.
The Fix: Today, we take more time with potential clients before we bring them on board. In our intro presentation, we have a slide called “Are we a fit?” and we ask questions aimed at gauging qualities such as level of responsiveness and cooperativeness.
We also take a long time to properly set and explain expectations. When we get a strong sense that a potential customer isn’t a fit, we say so and politely opt out. Yes, it’s painful in the short term, but I know it’s a better decision in the long run.
Mistake #3: Not going deep into our financial data
Until this year, I had very little sense of what my business’s finances looked like. Sure, I had a bookkeeper and an accountant that were tracking the numbers and filing the taxes, but to me, having more income than expenses was all I really cared about. Money in the bank? Great, I’m set!
But as we started to grow quickly, I wondered things like:
- When can we make our next hire? At what salary?
- What is our most profitable service?
- Where should we put our focus from a sales and marketing perspective?
Not having good data was affecting me at a strategic level, rendering me paralyzed in making decisions that touched financials, which is most of them.
The Fix: I’ve worked with a business coach as well as my bookkeeper and accountant to create more meaningful reports. Now I can tell you what our profitability is month-over-month, our average spend on design, and many other financial details.
I’ve even worked out a sales forecast and I’m starting to predict our growth with a decent degree of accuracy. It’s pretty cool to watch actually, for someone who isn’t a numbers person. The best part is: I’m much more empowered to make better decisions for my business.
Mistake #4: Not getting a physical office sooner.
In the age of virtual teams and working from home, I know this one is controversial, but frankly, it just doesn’t work for my business or me.
I should have known sooner the work-from-home thing wasn’t good for me. The warning signs were clearly there. As a raging extrovert and someone who thrives on working in teams, I would frequently feel isolated and unmotivated. I also didn’t get a sense that our team was cohesive — we seemed to lack “culture” and collaboration was strained.
The Fix: In June of 2015, I rented some office space and have brought on new employees exclusively to work from the office. The benefits are far more than I could have imagined.
Here are a few:
- Better work-life balance. Having separate work and living spaces has done wonders for my productivity and focus. The lines are clearly drawn: I get to the office and crank out 8–10 hours of productive, distraction-free work every day. Then I go home and play guilt-free.
- Increased collaboration. Before the physical office, each worker was her own little island, so communication relied heavily on email. Today, when team members have questions, they talk to me or to each other. Our in-person strategy and brainstorming meetings result in better, more creative ideas in less time. We’ve realized there are some types of collaboration that just can’t happen over email or video conferencing, so we immerse ourselves in it each day.
- Better culture. We laugh together — a lot actually. (The team enjoys making fun of me. :) We go to lunches and happy hours and hold celebrations for birthdays, anniversaries and more. This makes the stressful days more bearable because we “get” each other on a level we haven’t before.
Mistake #5: Not taking good care of myself
This mostly relates to mistake #1, but can also creep up during extra busy times. While I was managing the overseas team, I was working an insane amount of hours. With many east coast clients, I would start my days at 7–8am PST, and the Philippines team would start its day at 5pm PST. As a result, 16–18 hour days became commonplace for me.
This lead to a massive deterioration in self-care. No workouts, no time off, no breaks, no life outside of work — all created an extremely dysfunctional me. I was hardly sleeping, constantly exhausted and stressed, and I pushed myself to the brink of hospitalization. But aside from just my physical health — I was miserable. And being miserable, stressed and sick doesn’t make for an effective leader (or an effective anything).
The Fix: Thankfully I had a friend who helped me see what I was doing to myself and encouraged me to turn it around. While overworking is still a challenge for me, I prioritize my health, nutrition, fitness and rest much better than before. I’m a much more balanced and happier person in general, and that trickles down into every aspect of my business.
Mistake #6: Not trusting my gut
As I look back over the last six years, this is probably my biggest mistake or lesson I’ve needed to learn. Luckily, I’ve been blessed with a pretty vocal “gut,” but I frequently dismiss it, to my later dismay.
Examples:
- Getting stiffed for the entire amount of a large project. My gut told me the client wasn’t trustworthy and to get an upfront payment. (Part of standard policy now.)
- Mistakes #1 and #3 above
The Fix: Although this is still something I’m working on, I’ve learned to pay more attention to my instincts. At the very least, I do more research and evaluation into what’s causing the alarms to go off, and that helps me make better decisions.
Overall, I wouldn’t trade these “mistakes” and experiences for anything. They are part of our company’s journey, and as a result, we are poised to have our best year on record by a long shot. I view entrepreneurship as a refiner’s fire, and I happily toss myself into the flames to see what boils to the surface.
As I look back over the last six years, the overwhelming feeling is gratitude — for our clients, partners, staff and anyone who has encouraged us along the way. If that’s you, I can’t say it sincerely or emphatically enough, “THANK YOU!”
We’re looking forward to another year of mistakes, lessons, discovery and growth!
