10 Things No One Tells You as a New Business Owner

This week has been a bad mental health week for a number of reasons. It’s not just because my husband and I waited 4 hours to vote on Tuesday, or because I’ve felt behind since Monday. It’s not even the fact that baby Maxwell has to have a second eye surgery next week (most likely because of his own shenanigans).

It’s one of those things that everything adds up little by little and all the sudden just hits you without any warning.

Mental health is something people don’t talk about enough in business, if at all, even though it’s an absolutely essential piece of the conversation.

I’m not sharing this to complain, but I think mental health is something people don’t talk about enough in business, if at all, even though it’s an absolutely essential piece of the conversation.

So, despite the fact that I’ve had a different piece of content planned for 6 weeks or more, I’m going to share some things no one tells you about being a business owner because if you or someone close to you is thinking about starting a business, you need to know.

1) You can’t just drop your personal life at the door.

My very first job out of grad school was the only time I ever got any type of negative review in the workplace. The comments were glowing all the way until the end when it said, “You need to check your personal life at the door when you come to work.”

The ironic thing was that during the review I asked if my personal life had ever been a barrier in providing excellent customer service and the answer was a resounding “no,” after which I listened to a somewhat lengthy monologue about how it wasn’t a professional thing to bring your personal life to work. Professionals, my manager said, were able to check their emotions and focus only on work while at work.

Here’s the deal: life happens. In the 3 months leading up to that review, we were buying a house, my husband got diagnosed with Diabetes, I got diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, I broke a tooth that needed an expensive dental repair, I lived an hour away from work, and it was my first time in the full time 9-5 workforce.

Whether or not you work in an office or for yourself, there’s not always an option to check your personal life at the door when you’re doing business.

Whether or not you work in an office or for yourself, there’s not always an option to check your personal life at the door when you’re doing business. Especially when you’re working from home.

If we’re on Zoom during the day, there’s a good chance you might see my dogs (or hear them). You might see a neat pile of sewing supplies in the background, or I may not have a full face of makeup on.

The fact of the matter is that you have a personal life. Everyone does! It doesn’t make you less professional that you have a hobby or pets in your house…that you live in. It doesn’t make you less professional to apologize for being a moment late to a meeting because your child is melting down from eLearning, or even because the last 30 minutes was your only break throughout the day and you just need a moment to stretch!

Ultimately, the best indicator of professionality is communication. Communicate often and clearly, and if that means sharing a little explanation for rescheduling a meeting than so be it. Of course, there is a time for ultra-formality, but it’s unlikely that this needs to be an everyday occurrence for most small business owners.

When you are the business owner, especially at the beginning when you’re the only one in your business, you have to be able to deal with life around you, and sometimes a little of that runs over into business life.  

2) What’s that thing you call work/life balance?

I am a huge advocate for balance in our lives. I firmly believe that making time for our own interests and our family and friends is critical to good mental health, and ultimately to living a fulfilling life.

But I’m gonna get real honest here for a moment: business ownership can be all-consuming. If you let it, it WILL be the only thing you think about days, nights, weekends, vacations – the whole shebang.

As my husband noted during the height of lockdown, I use work to process and deal with hardship and stress. I work harder instead of taking a break when I get worn out.

Business ownership can be all-consuming. If you let it, it WILL be the only thing you think about days, nights, weekends, vacations – the whole shebang.

I suspect many other business owners also face this conundrum. We feel like if we’re not constantly working our business will somehow collapse before our eyes. So, it’s really a fear mechanism that if we stop for a moment (which is healthy), everything we’ve worked so hard for will instantly vanish.

I’m not saying there’s not a chance of that happening. If 2020 has taught us anything it’s that nothing is guaranteed, and we should all be prepared to be flexible and pivot when we need to. What I am saying is that it’s possible to have a balance in your life without your business collapsing. It’s possible to go on vacation for a few days or a week and come back refreshed without thinking you’re going to come back to a pile of business rubble.

If you can’t take time away, you need to reconsider your business model.

3) Burnout is a SERIOUS issue that you HAVE TO deal with.

As you might suspect, working more and making more decisions is hard! Especially if you’ve never been in a leadership role.

When you begin to own your new leadership, it’s exhausting. There are some weeks you make more important decisions for your business than you might have made in a year in your personal life. Likewise, there may be many setbacks occurring all at once.

When you do this for long periods of time with inadequate relaxation and breaks, you get burnt out. Your business won’t seem nearly as fun, even if it’s what you love to do. Your motivation will slip, and you’ll find yourself making excuses to avoid work even when you know there are deadlines looming and your paycheck is on the line.

Burnout is a huge problem in the professional world, especially in a society that “hustles” so much. The reality is that you have to deal with this. You can’t just ignore it and keep working (or avoiding work).

Burnout is a huge problem in the professional world, especially in a society that “hustles” so much. The reality is that you have to deal with this. You can’t just ignore it and keep working (or avoiding work).

Let me share an instance of what happens when you ignore burnout. When we first got back from vacation in the beginning of September, I worked 7 days a week and literally made myself sick because I didn’t deal with the major burnout I had from jumping back in too fast.

Just yesterday morning I was doing my morning journaling and writing about how stressed I was because of X, Y, & Z and I found myself in tears but unable to just cry for a moment to let it out because I had an eminent video interview for a piece of content coming up in a few weeks. It’s time for a break, folks! Mental & emotional health absolutely effect your physical wellbeing and you have to take care of yourself first.

4) It’s overwhelming to learn how much you don’t know.

This might seem silly – after all, we don’t know what we don’t know, right?

 Wrong.

When you start a business there will almost certainly and immediately be a long list of things you know you don’t know. What’s overwhelming is the sheer amount and figuring out how the hell you’re going to learn it.

 A lot of it has to do with prioritization. Even if you have a list, priorities for a new business can shift every day. Some days you’ll need to know more about social media marketing, some days you’ll need to learn about bookkeeping, and some days you’ll just need to focus on how to plan for the learning you still need to do.

When you start a business there will almost certainly and immediately be a long list of things you know you don’t know.

 At some point, you’ll probably have the brilliant idea to hire people to help you, followed by a flurry of research and the realization that everything you need help with is expensive to hire out.

It’s okay that you don’t know all the things! And there are some things you probably will have very little interest in knowing much about – those are the things you will eventually hire out. Just remember that it takes time to be able to prioritize your time efficiently and effectively. It takes time to learn how all the pieces fit together, let alone how each one works on its own. It’s okay, just take one baby step at a time. It will start to come together.

5) There may not be anyone who you can ask for help.

I’m not sure if you have a network of entrepreneurs around you or not, but I certainly didn’t when I started my business. I didn’t know one person who owned a business, let alone an online business!

So, there was no one to ask for help when I was stuck.

Don’t underestimate the power of networking! I have found my new online peers to be extraordinarily helpful in growing my business.

It might be like that for you, or you might know some people who do something similar to what you want to do with your business. Either way, sometimes there’s just no one to ask – except maybe Facebook groups, most of which you don’t know everyone in the group very well.

Don’t underestimate the power of networking! I have found my new online peers to be extraordinarily helpful in growing my business. It might be uncomfortable at first, but fresh perspective is almost always helpful. Make it a priority early on to build a network of like-minded people who can help you when no one in your immediate personal circle has a clue what you’re doing, let alone how to help you.

6) People don’t always believe in or understand what you’re doing.

This might sound harsh, but it’s true. That doesn’t mean people don’t believe in you. Hopefully your inner circle of loved ones believes in you and your big dreams, even when they don’t understand how in the world you could make money at it.

My husband and I were talking about this recently because I met one of my major income goals for the year. I happened to say something about how I thought he felt like I was crazy for setting such a scary goal in January. To my surprise (and delight), he said something like, “Yeah, I did kind of think you were crazy.”

Sometimes you just have to be your own inspiration until others catch on.

Why would I delight in this?

Because the next thing out of his mouth was, “I didn’t really understand how you were going to do it, but I knew that if anyone could do it, it was you.”

Heart eyes, right?!

I, of course, laughed when he said he’d thought I was crazy. I knew it, just like I knew other people in my life had NO IDEA how I was going to make a living writing, let alone doing writing coaching. But I’m me, and that was enough knowledge for them to support me even when they didn’t understand. Sometimes you just have to be your own inspiration until others catch on.

7) Succeeding is scary.

I was making investments in myself and my business long before I was making profit.

And let me tell you, it’s SCARY.

Like, fingers shaking on the mouse before you click to pay. Like, wondering how in the world you were going to pay this back when you already have bills stacking up. Like, should I spend this money at all or should I keep hoarding it for a rainier day than today?

Unexpectedly, it’s also scary when you get your first client. And when you send the biggest invoice you’ve ever sent… and the client pays it without a question or second thought!

So weird, right?

It’s also a huge rush. I definitely wasn’t prepared to be nervous about billing for services I’d already completed.

8) Business requires infrastructure, even though you may not be in an office setting.

So, you know all those systems you used in your corporate job? The nice CRMs or the project management software? Maybe even the SOPs?

None of those are there in a brand new business.

Like, nothing.

You have to build all those things from the ground up, even if/when you know nothing about it.

Admin tasks are no joke! In the beginning, a ton of tasks you do will be administrative. It has to be that way because in order to really scale and grow you need those pieces in place.

Alternatively, you could pay someone to develop a system for you on top of whatever software you need. You can probably get by with free tools or ones you already have on your computer for a little while, but unless you designed all those beautiful spreadsheets and implemented bookkeeping at your old job it’s a lot of dang work! And even if you did those things, it still takes a long time and a lot of effort to build.  

And it has to be done. You can’t avoid it, just like you can’t avoid taking care of burnout. Admin tasks are no joke! In the beginning, a ton of tasks you do will be administrative. It has to be that way because in order to really scale and grow you need those pieces in place. You have to be able to tell where your money is going and where your projects are.

9) Providing services to others makes you question what your time is worth.

There’s nothing quite like a prospective client asking what your rate is for a service. There’s also nothing quite like having a client say that their budget is half your rate.

You immediately question whether your rate is appropriate and whether you could come down for this client only. You also feel like backtracking and saying, “Oh, did I say $40/hour? I meant for this other service. For what you want I’ll do $20/hour” even when you DON’T mean the other service.

The real question to ask yourself is what you bring to the table. What makes your service worth the money you charge for it?

When you offer services, realize that your ability to serve will be maxed out at some point. There are only so many hours in a day to do work, so in order to grow, you will eventually have to raise your rates and figure out how to diversify your income.

$20/hour seems like a lot – and it is a good amount! But when you’re a business owner you also have to think about how you’re going to grow.

You’re going to have to work a lot more of those $20/hour jobs than you would if you had a higher rate. The more jobs you take, the less time you’ll have to create a strong infrastructure and figure out how to do the business end of your business.

I will say that if you’re a complete beginner in your area, it’s not a bad idea to work for a lower rate at first to get some experience behind you. Get some social proof while you’re finding clients and building your business. But when you offer services, realize that your ability to serve will be maxed out at some point. There are only so many hours in a day to do work, so in order to grow, you will eventually have to raise your rates and figure out how to diversify your income.

10) If you love what you do in your business, it will probably be one of the best things you ever do.

I feel like the things I’ve talked about have been more on the negative side, but truly, being a business owner is incredibly rewarding!

It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever done, and probably unlike most things you’ve done, too.

It’s also the best thing I’ve done professionally, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

It’s also the best thing I’ve done professionally, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

You get to see your hard work get results, even if they’re slower than expected. You get to see progress and growth and opportunity. You get to experience the thrill of being the ultimate “boss” and make decisions that actually matter! You get to be you doing what you love, and what career offers that kind of opportunity better than your own business?

This week was a bad mental health week, and you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay that I’ve had to move a meeting here and there. It’s okay that I’m overwhelmed. I know it will pass.

But I didn’t feel that way when I first started my business. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s so important to talk about!

My challenge to you, especially if you’re thinking about starting a business, is to do one nice self-care thing for yourself this week and make it a habit!