Rather than focusing on the big milestones, celebrate the many wins along way. When you first start your business it can be a very exciting time. As the days, weeks, months and years roll by, and you are slaving away to meet your big lofty goals and ultimately become successful, motivation can wain. Energy can drop. Morale can sink. In this post I’ll dig more into this topic and how strategically setting milestones can help you achieve the really big ones. Starting your own business requires a lot of all of these: motivation, energy, morale. And yes, at the beginning they seem abundant. It’s like starting out on a long voyage at sea. When you first leave the dock, you have everything you need. But the hard work along the way can tap your reserves and leave you wondering if you have enough to make it…
Every brand, every entrepreneur has a story. How do you tell it? First let’s dive into what a brand story or brand narrative means. While these words might inspire thoughts of fiction, yours should be anything but. Your brand, your products and/or services exist in our world, they interact with your customers’ lives in one way or another. Your narrative or story is the way that you capture those interactions, and explain them to new and future customers. Let’s look at an example – the ever recognizable brand CocaCola. Their legacy product coke is a refreshing carbonated beverage best served cold. Coke is also full of sugar and acidic enough to take the rust off of metal so I’m told. Is that what they tell us through their branding? Absolutely not. Their current marketing initiatives, which all stem from their overarching brand…
And trying to do everything entrepreneurial by yourself. It takes a lot to run a business, from actually marketing and selling your products services, to the accounting, the marketing, etc. Often I see entrepreneurs trying to accomplish every aspect of their business on their own. This is a slippery slope that bottoms out in burn out. Why do we think we must do it all? There are people who have come before us, having done it all, and managed to somehow do it all successfully. This proof that one can possibly do it all by themselves, has led to a false expectation that in order to be an entrepreneur, we must do everything our business requires by ourselves. This isn’t true and for many, it isn’t healthy. For other business owners, this might stem from the notion that the journey of an entrepreneur is a solitary…
What does it really take? Becoming an entrepreneur is a journey. It just doesn’t happen overnight. If anyone has lead you to believe that, I’m sorry – but its just not true. There is a lot of hard work and creative energy that goes into going into business for yourself and you cannot rely on someone else to invest it. Yes, you can get help, guidance, and even contract with different people along the way to help you, but at the end of the day, it comes down to you. So what does it really take to become an entrepreneur? It takes Passion: I’ve joined a couple of online groups for entrepreneurs, and have seen people reach out and ask how can I become one? Does anyone have any work from home business opportunities? Does anyone know of anything that I can do to…
While You Might Be on the Journey to Work for Yourself, You Don’t Have to Go It Alone. About five years ago, I started out on this crazy journey to become an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I couldn’t keep working for terrible bosses and giving of myself in situations that were not replenishing me. I tried becoming an influencer and did pretty well, garnering over $5,000 in books and another $5,000 in yoga clothing and gear, in exchange for positive reviews. But I wasn’t able to monetize it and I didn’t see a sustainable career in it because it wasn’t me. I’m not saying that you can’t make a living through becoming a social media influencer, it just wasn’t the…
On a Road to Self Discovery When starting a business, there are some things that you need to know, and a lot that you don’t need to know right now – but can learn along the way. One of the things that I learned when starting McKeating Solutions, and that I see with a lot of the entrepreneurs and business owners with whom I connect, is that you need to know yourself. I’m not talking about in a “Hi, I’m Maggie” kind of a way. When I say that you need to discover who you are, I mean at a very basic level. Starting a business is filled with emotions (the elation at the start, the fear and doubt that creep in along the way, the joys and everything in between), it takes a lot of hard work (energy, passion and dedication…
Learning to Say No to Yourself To stop creating stress and anxiety in your life A lot of different bloggers, lifestyle coaches, and popular influencers are chatting about learning to say no to other people in order to live a healthier, happier life. And that’s great. Many of us feel like we cannot say no. Somehow along the way we learned that saying no meant letting someone down, or hurting them in somewhere. But in a perverse reality not saying no actually hurst us far more. In my last post, I talked about When the Hustle Hurts, when I realized that in getting my hustle on (as many bloggers tout) actually hurt my chances of succeeding. This wasn’t because I think anything other than hard work brings success, but because, when emotions are involved, you can be hustling in vain. I’d like to follow…
When the Hustle Hurts Advice from a recovering hustler Some of us are not made to work for other people. Some of us are or would be better off being our own bosses. With the technology available to us today, this is becoming more possible than it might have ever been. But we still have to make that transition from working within a company, to finding success for ourselves. One of the popular ways that many are pursuing, myself included in this bunch, is to establish a blog or a website and hustle, hustle, hustle until you make it. When we start a project that might lead to what we perceive to be our happiness, it’s like catching a glimpse at the light at the end of the tunnel. Once you see that light, you’ll do anything to get there. I’ve mentioned before that…
Self Doubt, An Entrepreneur’s Constant Companion I know that as soon as I publish this post, there will be someone saying that this isn’t true for them. I maintain that you are either not being true to yourself, or you’re too fool hardy. Either way, if that’s what you believe, then this post is not for you. It’s for the rest of us, the dreamers. Starting a business has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life – it is quite literally, a dream come true. But that doesn’t mean that it’s been all sunshine and daisies. Everyone always talks about starting a business, but what about after the paperwork is filed? I’ve been up and running for about six months now and I’ve noticed a few things, about myself…
Tips for Making Sure You Bring Your Interview A Game From a Serial Interviewer Seriously, I’ve had six jobs in seven years, and a number of interviews in between. It’s what happens when you graduate during a recession like the muck and mire of 2010. I was lucky enough to have not only two parents in business, who had done quite a bit of interviewing candidates for positions, but my mom (gifter of my McKeating heritage and middle name) has mentored many in the art of the interview. Ahh if only her powers of interviewing could have helped find the right job….oh wait! They did! Every job that I’ve had has taught me something important and taken me one step closer to where I am today – the owner of my own business. Interviewing is important. I can’t stress it…