Business Mistakes – 3 Biggest Mistakes I Made In My Business
Want to know the 3 biggest business mistakes I’ve made in my business over the last 5 years? Here they are – now don’t repeat them.
Let’s chat about business mistakes.
In this post I’ll be pulling back the curtain and sharing with you the 3 biggest mistakes I’ve made in my biz over the last five years.
Now for those who aren’t familiar with my story, back in 2018 I started my website and blog InspiringMomLife.com which originally started out with the name InspiringLifeDreams.com.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
I set myself a goal that first year to get 1 MILLION PAGEVIEWS which lo and behold I discovered I had achieved during the afternoon of the last day of the year, New Years Eve while I was away camping with my family and friends, enjoying the sunset on a beach with zero Internet access.
Until I managed to get some access and realised that I had actually achieved my crazy, crazy goal that my kids told me would never happen. Like in what world would ONE MILLION PEOPLE want to read their mom’s writing…?
Well it turns out it was this world. Fast forward five years and here I am still doing what I absolutely love the most, writing, creating courses and recording for you this podcast, all from the comfort of my own home.
But I promise you, it hasn’t all been a bed of roses which is why I wanted to start by sharing with you all the hard lessons I’ve learned over the years first before I get to the good stuff in the next episode.
To be honest, I’ve actually been very open about my business journey and rapid growth in the past, because a lot of people would ask me: tell me exactly what you are doing…and so I would do just that.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
I created my BOOST YOUR TRAFFIC course after I got so many requests about how to generate high amounts of traffic to your website so I thought: okay I will tell them everything I know to be true and share with them the strategies that I know work.
I then created CONTENT IS KING that explained in great detail exactly how I was consistently publishing 20 articles a month without fail, and this is way before anything like AI existed so they were genuine traffic-generating blog posts created by a real human with the human touch.
I also created my WRITE YOUR BOOK IN 30 DAYS course after people wanted to know “exactly how did you publish over 20 books?”
And all my other many business courses that came afterwards like HOW TO LAUNCH YOUR PODCAST IN 10 DAYS and MY LET YOUR BIZ BE EASY BLUEPRINT were created to serve all my fellow blogging and business peers who were super curious about the specific ways I did things in my biz.
This is back when I was active in Facebook groups because I was just a newbie back then and in my early years I really thrived on having that connection with other business owners.
But as fantastic as I think all these courses are and I genuinely felt compelled to create them to help other business owners out, like they were literally inside of me BUSTING and BURSTING to be created, you will rarely hear me speak about them nowadays.
Because I’ve always been super clear that I’m here to help soul-led moms have a great family life while achieving their dreams. Which sort of leads me into the FIRST OF THE THREE BIGGEST MISTAKES I HAVE MADE IN MY BIZ OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS.
Now before I share these mistakes I should note these aren’t something I spend any time dwelling in regret over.
They happened because they were supposed to happen to me, they were a part of my growth, I definitely learned from these lessons but even still, despite the wisdom I gained, if I was to do things over I would most likely skip repeating these mistakes.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
SO MISTAKE NUMBER #1: NOT STICKING TO ONE THING
I guess I gave you a little hint before (when I was speaking about all the business courses I created) that it was pretty obvious that I was multi-passionate in the early years of my business.
After the success of my first website InspiringMomLife.com which won the best parenting blog award in 2019 I went on to create a whole bunch of other websites, including DreamBigMyFriend.com which was the original name of this podcast and which won the best personal development blog award in 2021.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
I also had a saving money | making money finance website for moms, another healthy living website for moms and another secret niche website that I created and haven’t yet sold because I keep thinking that maybe one of my kids will love to take it over in the future.
But pretty much by year 2 or 3 of my biz, I had five websites that I was actively writing for and growing at the same time and all on my lonesome, with zero outside help, which I definitely would never, ever recommend that you do and if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do over again.
Want to know why? Because it’s like that Confucius saying goes: ‘The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.’
That first year I was climbing up that mountain, going straight to the top and rather than continuing to build upon the success I had already achieved, I decided to take a few weird detours.
I’m still not sure why I did not other than the fact that I loved the excitement of building something new, I loved writing and generating traffic. But what ended up happening was that my efforts were diluted and became stretched across all these different ventures.
My mind became so scattered because I had so many different things and businesses to focus on that eventually I knew that something had to give and I had to make a decision to FOCUS ON ONE BUSINESS AND ONE BUSINESS ONLY.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
If you haven’t read the book The One Thing by Gary Keller I definitely recommend that you read it asap. Basically he argues that the key to extraordinary success is to focus daily on the “One Thing” that will make the biggest difference in achieving your goal.
To start understanding your purpose, ask yourself: “What’s the one thing I can do in my life that would mean the most to me and the world such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
Robert Brault so wisely said: “We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clearer path to a lesser goal.” – So make sure to work out what your real priorities are.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
Because when you know and focus exclusively on the most important thing every day, everything else falls into place. Incredible focus on One Thing each day is what leads to incredible success.
So last year I took his advice and slowly sold off and retired all of the other websites so that my one and only focus is INSPIRINGMOMLIFE.com.
My gosh since then the change has been incredible because my focus is now clear rather than scattered and I also make sure to focus on the needle-mover activities in my business, so that ultimately I work less but create more impact with the time I do devote to my work, which is usually around 25 hours per week, with no outside help.
SO NOW FOR MISTAKE NUMBER #2: ACTIVELY AVOIDING SELLING
So this mistake I can sort of understand me making because when I started my business I was really introverted (which I actually still am) and by nature I am absolutely not a pushy person (also still true!) so the idea of selling when I first started my business was something I actively avoided doing.
I know – it sounds just ridiculous to me now that I’m saying this out loud, it’s as if you were to enter a shop today and they not only actively hide all the stuff they have to sell you, the sales person doesn’t even come over to ask if you’d like some help.
I started creating courses in my second year of business but I was a little like Kevin Coster’s character in the movie FIELD OF DREAMS when he said “BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME”.
I had this impression that once a course was created I could just let everyone know “hey this is now available” and then that’s it – I never had to mention it again.
Of course whenever I did mention it, the sales would flow through but then I wouldn’t mention it again for ages and surprise, surprise, the moment I wasn’t sharing how a particular course could solve X problem for you, no one was rushing to click buy either. It took me a long time to really understand that selling doesn’t need to be pushy and in fact selling is a way of serving my audience.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
So it would be terrible for me to sit there and watch people struggling in life and KNOW I HAVE A SOLUTION THAT CAN TAKE THEIR PAIN AWAY OR SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM OR TRANSFORM THEIR LIFE and not say:
Here’s a way I can help you.
If you see someone drowning, you go out and save them right? And the same goes for people in your audience, if they need help, just offer to help.
I also remember once hearing some marketing guru say that it isn’t the best product or course or service that sells the most, but the one that is marketed the best and that sort of made me stop and think more about how I am conveying the value of my courses to my audience.
Because even though I know they are amazing and jam-packed with clear simple strategies that anyone can implement in their life and then there’s the fact that I over-deliver with everything I do but is this clear to others?
Do I need to do a better job at conveying the value or improving the sales page if something doesn’t sell as I expected it?
I swear little changes in a sales page or in your email marketing can make a massive difference so be prepared to experiment and tweak things in your business.
As solo entrepreneurs we often have to wear lots of different hats in our business: I’m personally the writer and course creator and SEO expert in my biz yet I can’t ignore that marketing and sales are also integral components of any successful business.
What I have discovered is the more offers I make, the more money I earn. And I’ve learned to make these offers out of a genuine desire to help others.
6500 students later I’m so glad I didn’t continue to keep my courses hidden in a back corner, waiting to be randomly discovered. Instead I brought all my offerings out into the open, switched on the light and showed people exactly where they need to go to get help.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
SO NOW FOR MISTAKE NUMBER #3: CONSTANTLY LOOKING SIDEWAYS
As if mistakes #1 and #2 weren’t big enough, I had to add one more to the mistake and I feel like this one caused me the most angst in the early years.
In fact, I feel like it was one random comment by a so-called business expert in my second year that actually led me to getting off track.
Back then I shared in a group that my long-term goal was to get ONE MILLION PAGEVIEWS each month to my website because that would equal a healthy five figure+ income each month from ad revenue and she said: “oh you shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
So I ditched that goal and instead started all those extra websites and created all those courses etc. Even though I do love that I added digital courses to my income stream the ironic thing is I know plenty of fellow bloggers that stuck to their one thing…Creating content and they now get over one million pageviews per month and earn incredible amounts of money from just ONE BASKET because they simply refused to look sideways and get distracted.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
What do I mean by looking sideways? It’s when you spend way too much time getting distracted by what other people are doing.
Oh someone is speaking about their success on TikTok so now you want to try TikTok, oh those people are creating Reels. So you think you should create reels too (which for the record I never succumbed to but I did spend way too much time thinking I needed to do reels them even though I had no desire to do them).
Someone else is doing YouTube videos so you think you should do that too and other people are selling this, that and everything so you feel like you have to sell this, that and everything too.
I swear this is enough to drive you crazy and I personally never, ever felt clearer in my biz than that first year when I had ONE GOAL – to get 1 MILLION PAGEVIEWS and I TUNED OUT EVERYTHING ELSE, EVERYONE ELSE and focused on that goal alone and nothing else.
Whenever I have since stopped to look sideways or paid attention to what other people are doing, I have stumbled and tripped on my path. It has led to unnecessary noise and chatter in my mind and it’s also drowned out my own original, creative ideas sitting inside my soul waiting to be let out.
Nowadays I honestly don’t care what other people are doing – I can of course appreciate great offers when I see them but I remind myself constantly of this mantra: STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR OWN PATH.
I do what I feel called to do and if I feel a strong resistance towards something, I trust that it is not for me.
I’m the only person I want to compare myself to and my goal is simply to keep on growing and evolving in both life and my business.
Not according to some expert’s set schedule but according to my own flexible timeline because I simply choose to have faith and trust that all things will always work out well for me and I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.
BUSINESS MISTAKES
So those are my three biggest mistakes in my business.
As always you know I love and appreciate you all so much and if you are 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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Before You Go…
– See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE
– Get instant access to EVERY COURSE I’ve ever created > HERE
– Listen to my INSPIRING LIFE PODCAST on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.
– Or for biz owners, listen to LIFE COACH FOR BIZ MOMS Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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.