financial struggles

What You Can Learn From My Biggest Online Business Mistake

 

Not-so-fun fact about me:

It took me 2 years to make more than £10K per year from my online business. (Fortunately I was able to live at home and that helped tremendously while I built the business..)

I went on to make six figures a year, but I was by FAR not an overnight success.

I’m glad now because as an online business coach and educator, I get to help my clients and students avoid all the common mistakes I made back then.

Hit “play” on the podcast player to learn the no.1 reason for my slow business growth, and the mindset that would have saved me tens of thousands of £££.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google or Spotify.



Article

Not-so-fun fact about me:

It took me 2 years to make more than £10K per year from my online business. (Fortunately I was able to live at home and that helped tremendously while I built the business.)

I went on to make six figures, but I was by FAR not an overnight success.

I’m glad now because as an online business coach and educator, I get to help my clients and students avoid all the common mistakes I made back then.

But if I could go back in time, I would jump on the opportunity to learn from someone who had already built the business I wanted; someone who could lay out all the steps for me. I 100% believe I would have started making a full-time income YEARS earlier if I had.

Instead, I taught myself everything. It saved me money but it cost me time. 2 years of it. If I had invested in business courses and learned from people who were ahead of me, I could have made a full time income in year 1, not year 3. That means I could have quit my job and left my toxic boss sooner. I could have saved myself a year of bad mental health. And I could have spent an extra year traveling.

This mindset of “I’ll teach myself” has raised its head here and there in different aspects of my life over the years.

First it was in starting my business.

Spending $500-$2K on learning HOW to run a business could have helped me stop charging pennies for my services. Imagine… if I’d charged $2500 for my web designs in those first years and booked 2 clients a month (I went on to charge $4K in the future btw so this isn’t crazy), I’d have made $60K those first two years, or at least in the second.

The mindset of “teaching myself will save me $2K” potentially cost me $50K- $100K.

The next time that mindset came up was 2 years ago when I bought a houseboat that needed a total restoration. As in, this boat was in SUCH awful condition that a production company asked to film the restoration for TV. Yes - it was that bad.

“I’ll do it myself, it’ll be fun to learn to renovate! Plus, it’ll save me so much money!”

… It’s been 2 years and I still haven’t finished renovations.

If I had hired help OR bought a more expensive boat that needed minimal restorations, I’d have enjoyed 1-2 years of boating by now.

The lesson here?

Sometimes you think you’re saving time and money, but in reality you’re costing yourself time and MUCH more money.

Don't reinvent the wheel when you can benefit from others' experiences.

6 more reasons my business growth was slow in year 1 & 2

  1. I rebranded a million times. But I didn’t need to keep updating my logo, colour palette or website. I was just delaying the real work of showing up & selling.

  2. I cobbled together bits and pieces of people’s free strategies and it slowed my growth. Why? Free content shows you the tip of the iceberg, not what’s below the surface.

  3. I created content that attracted my competitors, not my ideal clients. (I’ll show you what kind of content to create + how to batch 1 month of content in 1 day inside The Content Batching Blueprint >>)

  4. I made too much “how to” content and it attracted DIYers, not people who wanted to hire me.

  5. I focused too much on going viral when as a business owner, your no.1 priority should be sales and clients. If you can build a business that can convert sales even when you aren’t going viral, then virality becomes the icing on the cake 🧁

  6. Camera off on sales calls. I know faceless marketing is trendy right now but my sales calls went from around a 30% conversion rate to 80% when I showed my face. 🤷🏽‍♀️ The facts are the facts: people trust people more when they show their face.


About Nesha

Hey there! I’m Nesha, 11-year traveling entrepreneur and host of The Simple Business Show. I teach women how to build a $5-10K/month online service business working just 3 days a week, so they can have the financial and time freedom to live the life they dream of.

Looking for more ways I can help you? Here they are:

1:1 Coaching: Work with me on an intimate level to take your business from where it is to where you want it to go.

Group Coaching Program: The Simple Business Builder: Learn to build a $5-10K/month online business working 3 days a week.

Organize & Automate - Join 1200+ students and learn how to organize your entire online service-based business in just two weeks (on the side of your regular routine!) so you can stop stressing and fall back in love with your business.

Simple Sales School - Learn how to get a consistent flow of clients so you can build the income & financial freedom you desire.


Subscribe & Leave A Review! 

If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @neshawoolery so I can see it.

Here’s how to subscribe and review the show:

Subscribe on your favourite podcast platform: Apple Podcasts, Google or Spotify.

To leave a review on Spotify: Open my podcast and click the “rating” button under my podcast name.

To leave a review on Apple Podcasts: Open my podcast, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll find the rating/review button.


More Episodes