Business Lessons – 3 Best Lessons I’ve Learned In My Business
Want to know the 3 biggest business lessons I’ve learned over the last 5 years? Here they are – embrace them today.
Let’s chat about business lessons.
Today’s post is a follow up chat to my previous post where I shared with you the 3 biggest mistakes I’ve made in my biz so far.
Now I don’t often chat about business so I’m a little excited to share with you the flipside of this conversation – or more importantly the 3 best lessons I’ve learned in my biz over the last five years.
But first a recap. My three biggest mistakes that I thankfully eventually recovered from were:
MISTAKE NUMBER #1: NOT STICKING TO ONE THING
MISTAKE NUMBER #2: ACTIVELY AVOIDING SELLING
MISTAKE NUMBER #3: CONSTANTLY LOOKING SIDEWAYS
Now for the good stuff…if you’re wondering what have been the most important lessons I’ve learned over the last five years it’s these three things.
BUSINESS LESSONS
BEST LESSON NUMBER #1: THE IMPORTANCE OF SHOWING UP CONSISTENTLY, EXPERIMENTING AND BREAKING A FEW RULES
So I think I discovered very early on that I just naturally questioned all of the advice that so-called business experts offered us. Whenever someone would recommend: do this, post one blog post each week on the same day, I would wonder why?
Why not more? Why does it have to be a set day? What will happen if I decide to post twice a week instead or even three times a week or four, which is exactly what I ended up doing for the first 18 months of my business, consistently showing up and sharing 20 new articles on my website.
I really think that led to my rapid growth in that first year because I was willing to do things differently and the more I wrote the better I got at writing.
When I took the time to learn SEO and apply those optimisation strategies to my blog posts, I just had more traffic coming in both organically and via different platforms such as Pinterest.
BUSINESS LESSONS
I did my own thing and it worked in my favor, and in some cases led to me getting a lot more traction than the teachers who were trying to teach me the so-called right way to do things. Honestly the right way is whatever you feel like doing.
As for Pinterest, that’s another platform where I was willing to experiment like a mad scientist. I think I currently still get about 1.2 million monthly views on Pinterest with me spending next to zero time there.
But back in the heyday when I was actively focused on nurturing and growing a following there to over 20,000 followers my reach was more like 4 million monthly views every month.
That definitely didn’t happen from me following the so-called rules. I swear every time someone said “oh you should do this”, I would do the opposite or experiment by doubling or tripling my output or trying a completely different strategy just to see what would happen.
BUSINESS LESSONS
This willingness to break the rules and experiment definitely worked in my favor. I remember a few years ago there were a few very big names selling very expensive Pinterest courses.
It used to annoy me that I knew they must be recommending super basic strategies because I was getting double or triple or quadruple their traffic and so I decided to create my own course PINTEREST IS QUEEN and I shared my own way of doing things, which was completely different from everyone else.
In a nutshell, be willing to break some rules and experiment.
I want you to trust your instincts and do what you feel called to do. Look at me with this podcast – people recommend posting one episode on the same day every week. I record more often whenever I feel compelled to do so and guess what, that works well for me.
Obviously consistency is the key…you need to be regularly showing up in much the same way that you would show up if you had a shopfront in a shopping centre.
BUSINESS LESSONS
You wouldn’t leave your shop abandoned for months or weeks at a time. Which is not to say that you can’t ever go on holidays.
But you would of course make sure in advance that you have things like emails and blog posts or social posts automated to go out during your absence…
I actually had some of my best months in my biz when I was away for seven weeks in Europe because everything was automated and all my systems were set up to work well while I was away.
I promise you when you show up with faith and trust and confidence in yourself this is when amazing things start to happen as opposed to feeling constant doubt and fear that you are somehow doing things wrong.
The truth is the right way to run your business is whichever way you feel called to do it and when you show up eager to provide value and genuinely help and connect with the audience you serve. Which brings me to lesson number #2.
BUSINESS LESSONS
BEST LESSON NUMBER #2: DO THINGS BEFORE YOU FEEL READY
I swear if I waited until I felt ready I would still be waiting there, dreaming about creating my first course.
But I’ve always known the value of taking a leap before you feel ready and trusting that you will discover your wings on the way down or even if you don’t and you fall flat on the ground…there’s nothing really to worry about because you will just pick yourself back up and start again.
I’ve never been scared of doing things before I feel ready even though I have often felt scared the entire way throughout the process.
It’s because I know that everything you want is often on the other side of fear and fear is often a sign of exactly what you need to do next rather than avoiding it.
BUSINESS LESSONS
I didn’t feel ready or professional enough to create courses when I started but I did it anyway and improved over the years. I was as nervous as can be about starting this podcast three years ago…
I mean go back and listen to the early episodes of this podcast, even though the content is great I still cringe at my more robotic unnatural way of speaking.
BUSINESS LESSONS
All the courses I created, all the podcasts I’ve recorded, all the content I have written were done even though I didn’t necessarily feel ready to do it but I did it anyway.
Only by taking action even when I didn’t necessarily feel ready have I improved over the years and I’m the first to put up my hand and say I WILL FOREVER BE LEARNING NEW THINGS ABOUT MYSELF, ABOUT MY LIFE AND ABOUT MY BUSINESS.
This is an attitude I love because it keeps me open to learning, open to new ways of doing things, open to change, open to being patient, open to pivoting, open to just taking action and knowing I will find a way to land on my feet somehow.
It really always comes down to having your own back, believing in yourself, believing in your mission and trusting that if you have a goal you will eventually achieve it if you never, ever, ever give up. Which brings me to my third best lesson.
BUSINESS LESSONS
BEST LESSON NUMBER #3: THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING HOW TO MAKE QUICK DECISIONS
This is definitely one of my biggest strengths – my ability to make quick decisions. I often speak about how productive I am and how I am able to do things efficiently and effectively in a short period of time but it’s really because I don’t waste time making decisions.
In my first year of business when I was writing 20 articles every month I promise you I didn’t spend one hour choosing photos for my blog post. Whenever I would hear someone say it took them four or five hours to publish a new post I would be seriously confused.
BUSINESS LESSONS
Like all you need to do is write, make sure the blog post is good enough – it doesn’t need to be perfect, scroll through some images and quickly decide what looks best, select them, insert and then move on.
Same goes for whenever I would create pins for Pinterest in the past, which is something I don’t do anymore but when I was growing my traffic there to 20K+ followers, I would create quickly, decide it was good enough and move onto my next task.
No sitting there umming and ahhing about the fact that things aren’t perfect. I haven’t wasted a minute of my precious time expecting perfection from myself.
Of course I have high standards and I aim to produce great work but I just do the best I can with the tools and resources I currently have at my disposal and then move on. I have always been good at promptly actioning my ideas.
Whenever I have had a strong calling to create a course, I have gone ahead and created it.
BUSINESS LESSONS
Whenever I have felt called to record a podcast, I’ve gone ahead and recorded it. I decide this is the best right move for me to take and I just decide it is true. I mean, this is how you know you are making the right decisions in your business. You just decide they are the right decisions.
Of course you might experience failures, and do things that don’t work but big deal, so what? You just move on. This is just part of the experience of being a business owner.
Fail forward my friend, get comfortable with the idea of experiencing discomfort and pick yourself back up quickly every single time you fall.
Expect that there will constantly be obstacles and hurdles on your path because you are a human having a human experience and know that you are strong and smart enough to cope with everything that comes your way.
Those really are my best three lessons I’ve taken to heart over the last five years.
So just to recap:
LESSON NUMBER #1: SHOW UP CONSISTENTLY, EXPERIMENT AND BREAK A FEW RULES
LESSON NUMBER #2: DO THINGS BEFORE YOU FEEL READY
LESSON NUMBER #3: LEARN HOW TO MAKE QUICK DECISIONS
As always you know I love and appreciate you all so much.
If you’re looking for business support please know I have created for you some really amazing courses to fast-track your business success. You can find them HERE.
As always, much love from me and take care.
Much love,
Frances Vidakovic
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I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.