Top 10 Myths About Starting a Business - 51

This is Creative Counsel Episode 51: The Top 10 Myths of Starting a Business. Welcome to Creative Counsel with Brittany Ratel. I'm your host Brittany, an attorney for creatives who believes in solid contracts and cute office supplies, and who wants to empower you to be a more confident business owner. Whether you're a creative, influencer, maker, artist, shop owner, or content creator, you are not just a blank.

You are a real bona fide business owner.

So let's help you own your business and get you legally legit with Brit. Thank you so much for being here. All right, let's talk about the elephant in the room, y'all. Change the name of the podcast. Nothing personal, uh, you will still expect to have law and wit here, I hope. But I think that the new name, Creative Counsel, will, uh, will just more readily identify what it is that I'm offering here and also explain to people that while we talk about legal stuff, and obviously that's my training and expertise and background, we also talk a lot about other counsel that will help you as you are building your business. Okay, we're talking about systems here, we're talking about foundations, processes. We're talking about those building blocks of your business and putting those things in place so that you can grow and scale and hire and have new product lines and licensing and offering and courses and live events and programs and all the things that you want to do.

We want to be able to do all of that.

And so that's why we want to make sure— let's, let's make sure we got all of our ducks in a row here so we can move forward with confidence. Okay, so that's what we're about here on Creative Council. I just want to welcome you back. If it's the new year, then awesome, awesome. If you're listening to this now at 2020, what an exciting time. And if it's not, well then I hope it's another new and exciting thing for you and your business. I want to encourage you that if you're not subscribed to the podcast and my newsletter, please do that. You can do that any podcast app that you listen to and you can get on my newsletter by going to BrittanyRattell.com/checklist. That is how you will get my free legal checklist, my one-page power handout that gives you the bird's-eye view of what the heck am I supposed to be doing in my business to get it legally legit. If you have felt overwhelmed, if you've been getting conflicted information on Google Legal University or from Facebook groups or from well-intentioned and meaning mentors and friends and colleagues, then you, my friend, are in need of getting some help and getting going and at least having some good questions to ask, because you don't know what you don't know. So that's what this legal sheet comes in, will try to help you out. And as you get subscribed on my email newsletter, you also get tidbits about upcoming podcast episodes, legal lives that I do, and other free resources that I am creating waiting for you to help you build a more confident business. So, all right, let's get to the episode and not waste and waste words because it's 2020, guys, and as Barbara Walters has all reminded us, we got to get going and we've got exciting things to do. So today we're going to talk about the top 10 myths that, uh, that I hear and that I've kind of surmised from all the behind the scenes, you know, business talk and, you know, pillow talk I get to do with people about starting a business. And I hope that these tips, um, in looking at these myths and busting through these myths will help you not feel alone if you harbored some of these and thought some of these. And we'll also give you kind of some strength and inspiration, hopefully a little kick in the pants as we like to do here, to move forward with your business and, and move forward with confidence knowing that you can figure all this stuff out, guys. All you need to know is the next best thing, the next step in the road, right? Let's get to it.

Okay, the first myth is something that I've posted up before on Instagram and it resonated with a lot of you, is the myth of I'm not planning on making money, or I, you know, I don't— I, I— this is just an accident, okay? Um, and this is like a little maybe cumbersome to get out, but the idea that I'm trying to hit at here is that it's perfectly okay for you to call the pocket, okay? What I mean by that is like, you know, when you're playing pool, um, and you get to the point in the game where you need to call which pocket the balls are going to go to, the billiards are going to go into, okay? That's part of the game. That's gutsy, okay? Because if you don't call the right pocket and you miss it, then you can lose the game at some points. When you're in a business, what happens is if you don't put yourself out there, if you stay safe, if you play it small, then you feel like you are saving yourself the risk of maybe embarrassment, of shame, of starting, launching that website, putting out that new Instagram, going live and saying, "Hey, I'm doing this," sending out postcards to your friends and family, or launching an event or whatever that looks like for you getting started, that's gutsy, okay? It is really gutsy. We all understand how gutsy that is. And sometimes some of us are just not telling ourselves the truth here, and we think that, well, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna experiment, or I'm just gonna see where this takes me, or this is just something I like to do for fun, maybe it'll make me money someday. And I'm not gonna say that there's not a place, and I haven't heard from some of my clients who Yes, they started out with a hobby or a passion, something that they like to do, and then it did evolve into a business. But at some point, some very important special inflection point on that curve, they decided that this was a business, okay? It was not on accident, and there was hustle involved, there was intentionality, and there was some sort of risk, okay? I do not believe that you can get a risk, you know, we can get a reward without a risk. Okay, that is one of those eternal laws that I'm certainly a believer in. I'm not saying it has to be a huge risk, but there's got to be some risk. There has to be some way that you are distinguishing yourself. You're putting yourself out there, you're making a real offer, you are putting your sign up saying, I do this service, or I sell this product, and you're making it very clear to people to get to some level of quote-unquote real business. Um, and that's what we're talking about here. Okay. So this phrase that I've loved and I've heard before is from Jodi Moore on her podcast, Better Than Happy, and she calls it a jobby. And I know I've talked about this before, but she says it's people who, they think they have a job, but it's more of like a hobby that maybe they make some money for, or maybe it just covers the cost of the hobby. And she says that's cute, but like, it's a jobby, it's not a real job. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you really want. But we're just asking for honesty and transparency and taking a good hard look in the mirror and asking, what is it you really want to do? Do you really just want to do your passion or your hobby and you enjoy that and that's part of what you do to showcase your talents, or that's how you like serving people, or that's how you enjoy, um, spending your time or self-care? All of those wonderful things, great. They don't need any more asterisks or disclaimers on them. Um, but if you want to make money and you want to solve problems, which is all completely and 100% fine for you to do that, and those for all to be together, then let's grow a business, okay? Let's grow a real business and let's call it that, okay? And not make it a jobby, okay? Myth number 2 is, I don't have the resources to start a business, okay? And by this, we're talking about you think you don't have the time, the money, the mentorship, the one-on-one examples, you don't have the clients, you don't have the customers. Particularly for people who think they don't have this where live. Look, guys, it's 2019, almost 2020. Have you heard of the internet? You know, like, it doesn't matter really geographically for most things unless you're an in-person service, and it does matter where you live. But most of my people listening here, that's not what they do. So, you know, they don't have— people are saying they don't have the office space, they don't have employees, yada yada yada. I can go on and on, okay? You don't need any of that stuff to start, okay? You don't. And you'd be surprised I think if you took a hard look at what access do you really have, um, just next to you, of what resources you did have, and if you play the glad game a little bit, you know, Pollyanna style, I think you'd be surprised at what you do have. Um, and you know, you can put some tally marks into things that you think are going to be important and move forward with them. And certainly, you know, let's put— we can put some accounting and legal in there because, um, not a lot of people have that in-house. That's not something they maybe have a natural skill set in. Obviously I'm a little biased thinking of how important that is, but at some point in your business startup process and getting legit and making sure you're protecting your revenue streams and/or your content, you're going to want to have some legal help there. Um, but I mean, as an example, look at what I offer to people who maybe are not in a price point where they can work with me one-on-one. I offer legal templates, guys, you know, and I'm not the only one in that game. Um, there's other people who offer— there's bookkeeping software that you can do now, really easy software. There's, you know, hundreds of tutorials online to teach you how to do this stuff if you don't want to leave it. I mean, There's the internet. Again, you have the access. Anything that you want to learn how to do, you can learn how to do. I know people who are now general contractors who learned everything they learned from on YouTube. OK, they are building houses and YouTube University taught them all of it. So let's, let's call a spade a spade. And if we are afraid of things, then that's, that's OK. And let's— but, you know, fear is never the root emotion. So we need to make sure we're, we're calling it for what it is. And You know, not masquerading other things when they really are fear in terms of I don't have, or focusing on the lack, you know, that scarcity mindset, when in fact we can focus on the abundance mindset. So, and making sure that, you know, we do invest a little bit here in things that are important but know they can make a big difference down the road. Okay. And certainly with the employees in the office space, like, guys, virtual businesses are abounding and there's no reason why you have to have a space for you all to congregate unless You're, you know, manufacturing and doing your own thing. In this case, yeah, you will need a space where it is created. But also, again, don't assume that you have to be the one created it. There's plenty of businesses that find someone else, another partner, to do the manufacturing who are better at manufacturing than maybe you are. That's their zone of genius. Maybe it's not yours. Maybe you're not great at making t-shirts. Maybe you're good at selling t-shirts. Okay, totally different business and skill sets. Then, um, and don't assume you also need employees either. Start out with independent contractors. Now again, make sure you treat them as independent contractors. Don't start bossing them around and mandating that they show up and that you control everything they do and that they use your equipment. You know, all, all different, all, you know, all stuff that we've talked about that may misclassify or lead to misclassification. But have them be true freelancers for you, then you can scale up a lot more reasonably without a huge overhead. Myth number 3: If I'm good at it, people will pay me for it. Okay, and this is where I highly, highly recommend that you read the book E-Myth Revisited. This is a book that I read in my entrepreneurship lecture series that I took in college, and it was an incredible book, and it's been printed and sold millions and millions of copies all the world over, and it's continuously mentioned by top business minds and whatnot and founders. But the premise of the book is that you really need to look at systematizing your business and to not fall prey to the myth that just because you are a gifted or a skilled technician in your business, um, that that's enough, that you don't need to be wearing other hats in your business. And it's— they use an analogy of a pie maker, someone who, they're wonderful at pies, everyone tells them they need to go sell pies, so they do, and they find out that, well, they're really good at making pies, but they're not great at teaching other people how to make pies. So what happens is they are a slave to their kitchen. All they do all day is they make pies. And then they tried to hire some people, but they didn't do it quite right. And some people got great pies and some people got really crummy pies. And then there was a backlash and then they had to get rid of them all. And they're back to them doing all the pies. And now they have not grown a business. They've given themselves a really crappy job. Okay. And that's what it looks like if you haven't done the work to figure out, just because I'm good at something, will people pay me for this? And is this a valid business model. Okay, um, when I'm telling people— when I have people who are interested in chatting with me who really were just like getting started, meaning they're not even sure what they want to do yet, they know they want to start a business, they're interested in doing something, and they're still in that exploratory phase, which is super fun, super cool and interesting. Um, I, I like to tell them and prompt them with kind of a triple Venn diagram, if you can imagine this. Um, I know it'd be easier if we had, you know, visuals, but Imagine that there's a big circle of what you're good at. Imagine there's another big circle of the problems that people want to pay you to solve. Okay, so imagine like you have those two overlapping, okay? And then the third one is the things that you like to do. And really, you want to get the sweet spot, which is right in the middle of all three of those Venn diagrams. 'Cause what I see a lot of people do is they maybe start out with something that they're good at doing, but they don't get the other two circles, which are really important. And that's what we talked about. That's a little bit like a hobby or a passion project or something, which is awesome. There's a place for that, but it's also not a business, okay? And it's probably not on track and it's not gonna turn into a business overnight, like without some fairy godmother intervention. So the other mistake that I see a lot from people is something that they like to do and/or even something that people have told them they're good at. You know, oh, you're a good public speaker, or you're really good at crocheting cute little things, or you are a great stylist, you put together the best outfits, or you're a wonderful photographer, we love having you take our pictures, they're so wonderful. But they do not move into the next step, which is a little— which is the uncomfortable step, which is why a lot of people don't do it, which is having to to talk to real people and do some market research, some surveys, some validation, some figuring out about the minimal viable product and if people will pay to have their problem solved. Okay, so note that I didn't say just buy your product because I'm skipping here to my another one, but that's not what's most important. But do they have a problem that they want solved? And is it going to be at a price point that you think that you're going to be able to fit in the middle of all three of those, that it's going to be worth your time and worth your talents for you to solve it at that price point? And do people want to have it solved at that price point? If you take amazing pictures but they're going to be $1,000 worth your time, um, that's awesome if people where you are or where you're able to access them are going to pay $1,000 for your pictures. And they might, but I don't know that, and you might not know that. And if you don't know that yet, you need to know that, okay? So that's a really important part of that process, okay? So remember, don't assume just because you're good at it, people will pay me for it or pay me to solve this problem, okay? And highly recommend the E-Myth. The next one, number 4, is I know what people want, okay? And this is kind of— I touched on the last myth. And so for this, I'll even, you know, be really vulnerable here. I, I've had a problem with this because I suffer from a little bit of a curse because I am an expert and I'm positioning myself as an expert. That's kind of what my content and what my platform is about. That's how I talk to people, is I kind of put myself and say, hey, I'm an expert in legal stuff, come to me and listen to me. And while it's true I have expertise and training and experience in this matter, there's— I don't, I don't know everything about everything. In fact, I probably don't know anything about lots of different stuff. And I'm still needing to humble myself and make sure that I'm listening to you guys in what are your problems, what are your needs, and how do you want them to be solved. And that I don't rely on traditional legal models or maybe the way that other lawyers are solving this problem or maybe the way other services solve these problems because that may or may not be what you are telling me that you need for the group that I'm chasing after in 2019. And on my recent podcast that I had with— that interview that I did with Allison's show, Allison Faulkner, one of my fabulous clients on her podcast Business Therapy, she called me to the carpet for a little bit of this and it was good. I needed to hear it. Because I was kind of telling her about my contract shop and, you know, I, I get some good, um, you know, I get some good mobility when I do sales, but otherwise, like, the sales aren't anything to write home about. And I'm just wondering, how can I improve that? How can I be a better, you know, e-commerce, you know, digital product provider? And she was like, well, do people even want templates? Or, you know, you say you want to work on this course, do people even want this course? Um, and those are all really good questions that I, I have not done enough research, um, and talking to you and listening to you to figure out if that's really how you guys want to be served in this way. So I assume that's what you wanted, um, and you know what happens when you assume stuff, okay? Um, hint, they're in Pinocchio, okay? It's, it's, it's not good. So make sure that you are teachable, you are listening, um, you're looking at Facebook groups and forums and discussions, you're having one-on-one in person. Yes, this means you might have to pick up a phone call. Yes, this means you have to introduce people at in-person things. Yes, that has— that means you have to tell them what your business is, or even what you're thinking about doing for your business, that you don't need to be scared, um, or worried about feedback, or too worried about someone stealing your idea. Okay, in air quotes. And we're going to talk about that also. That's another one of the myths. Um, but yeah, this is hard work, this is good work, but it's work that all the experts recommend. You know, if you read Pat Flynn's Will It Fly, which I did— I'm a huge Pat Flynn fan— um, he talks a lot. There's a huge section he has in this book, in this course, about this in terms of validation and what that looks like, and getting, you know, that minimal viable product just to test, is this really what people want and is this the delivery mechanism, the packaging that they want? And that's another great point that Allison had, is that it's not always that your thing is wrong, but it's how you're positioning it. How are you marketing it? Um, is this the format, the delivery? Is this— do people want it in a course, or do they want coaching, or do they want a physical product? And you need to keep an open— or do they want a service? You need to keep an open mind if you haven't yet discovered what exactly is the way that people want to be served. Okay? All right. Number 5. This myth is, "I don't know what I'm doing." Okay? Or like, "I'm a fraud." Basically, it's the imposter syndrome. And here's the thing, guys. We all have imposter syndrome. All of us. All of us, all of us, all of us.

Okay?

I cannot stress this enough. This is something that the social science research has showed, that this shows up at the highest level of expertise of professionals, of people who have reached the pinnacle in their profession, whatever their industry experience is. People still suffer from this. You know what that means? It means you're not a sociopath. It means that you have a healthy level of respect and fear for what you know and what you don't know, which is all a really good thing. So congratulations, you're not a sociopath. You're a human being with human feelings. You're not a robot. Okay, so what that means is that your brain is likely going to go— want to go into, you know, problem issue spotting mode, and it's going to look for evidence of why you can't do something. When you want to start something new, whether that's launch a new business or launch a new product or line or raise your prices or do something else scary, downright scary in your business, your brain is probably going to look for evidence as to why you can't do that, why it's going to go wrong, why they're all going to hate you, why they're all going to say terrible things, why people are going to say you're not worth it, you don't know what you're doing, this isn't worth it, this is too expensive, who do you think you are? Like, let's just say all these words out loud, guys, because I'm a big believer of the Harry Potter adage that, you know, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself, okay? Let's all channel a little Hermione in here. And that by not saying these words out loud or recognizing that these are thoughts that we have that we don't love, but they're here, we're not allowing them and processing them and then being able to change them and put them and replace them with better thoughts, thoughts that we are choosing that better reflect what our reality is. So if you find your brain wanting to tell you, "You've never done that," you can be like, "Yeah, darn right I've never done that." which is why we're going to do that. Okay, of course you can't look for evidence in the past of the success that you've already had, or else you'd already be there. What's, what's the point of that? You know, if, you know, if Edison had said, well, you know, never invented a light bulb yet, then you're not going to be able to invent a light bulb if you're looking for all the evidence of how he didn't do it. And in fact, all the, the research into his life and his process shows that there was, there was hundreds if not thousands of attempts of him where it did not work out. So if he had let his brain overrule him there to say that, "You don't know how to do this," he would have stopped and he would never have figured it out, okay? So you have to be controlling your brain here and get it in line. And I highly recommend, you know, a combination of affirmations, some life coaching, some meditation, writing down, you know, whatever you need to get your mindset right, some journaling, some reflective listening, talking to a trusted friend or counselor, a mentor, or something else to try to get this under control. Because if you think that the mindset here doesn't matter, then that's a mini myth here in this category, because it does. And it will happen that people will say things, and you have to be able to have a thick enough skin that it doesn't affect you, because their comments say so much more about them than they do about you. And you have to know to stand in your place and stand with courage and conviction that you offer a valuable thing, that you are solving people's problems, that you can offer this and you can offer it well. And you can't answer any of those questions with that kind of passion yet and confidence, then work on them until the point where you can, and then you can know that you're ready. And the other stuff doesn't make a bit of difference whether you've done it before or not. Of course you haven't, but doesn't mean that it can't happen. Doesn't mean this can't be fun and interesting and teach you so much about yourself and other people and about how incredible it is to be a human being and to conquer new things. Like, what a rush, what a great privilege we have. Okay, number 6, um, I can't talk about my business idea until it's all ready. My ideas are going to get stolen. Okay, um, now I know this is a little funny coming from an attorney where, you know, obviously if I was just here to be in fear-based tactic territory, I would say like, never say anything to anyone until you have of, you know, all the NDAs and all the things copyrighted and trademarks and make sure you buy all my things to make that happen. But, and there's certainly a place for legal tools and protection, and we've talked about that and there are other episodes about that. But what I'm talking about here is that, um, business ideas, just the idea of something, are vastly, uh, overrated, um, a lot of people feel. There's a great quote from Jamie Dimon, who's the president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, where he says, "I'd rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management." I love this thought because it's really speaking to— it's not just the idea in your head, which first of all, you can't protect ideas in your head, so that's not a great plan in terms of if you keep it safe in there. Okay, great, you kept it secret and safe. It also didn't make you any money or help anybody. Um, but that it's not necessarily just the idea, but it's the execution of the idea. It's how are you going to put that into a system? What is your spin on this idea? Okay, you want to make a t-shirt, great, lots of people make t-shirts, but how are you going to sell those t-shirts? What are those t-shirts going to do? What problem are those t-shirts going to solve? That's That, guys, that is the real heart of it. That is the real why. That is the real Golden Circle, Simon Sinek, you know, Allison Show, all, all the business entrepreneurs and mentors way, um, who are talking about it. That's when you need to get to, okay? Um, and yes, if you're going into a meeting with someone who's getting a look behind the scenes of your business, an NDA is a great idea. But if it means that you are not talking to people and getting feedback on what your idea is and where you want to go with it and you're too scared of because you think everyone's gonna steal it from you, guess what? That makes it really hard for you to solve for myth number 4, which is I know what people want, okay? Because you're not gonna get any feedback. If you don't tell people your idea, you're not gonna have someone here saying, huh, that's interesting, or, oh yeah, that's really great, but I would never pay that much for it. I would pay $50 for that solution. I wouldn't pay $500. That's really important information, guys, because that will tell you what your product needs to be priced at and what offerings and what the features need to be at so that you're not overshooting the mark. Okay, you're not going to get any of that useful information if you're not doing talking to people. Okay, just simply opening your mouth and talking to people about it. So make sure you're doing that. Okay, myth number 7 is you should always take investor money. Okay, you should always take investor money. What's hard and problematic about this one is that I understand that sometimes, like we said, we feel strapped for resources and capital, and we feel like we need help to expand. And it's true that outside investment, whether it's things, you know, like, you know, crowdfunding, which is, I think, in a totally separate category, or whether it's taking on a loan or equity, meaning someone investing in your company and they get a slice of it, there are places for each of them. But especially with the equity piece, with the investment, you need to remember that Once someone has that, they own that, and now they own part of your business and you own less in your business. And the more that you do that, um, then you eventually can get to the point where you're pushed out of your own business. I just listened to a great story about this, about how I built this, with, um, it was, uh, the founder of the, um, the Aiden and Inez, you know, those swaddle blankets, which I love. Those were just coming on the scene and it hit just a few years before I started having babies, so of course I remember those being all the hit at the baby showers and stuff, and they were just— they were such an incredible product. Everyone was so excited about it. Um, but the founder, you know, who's this, um, wonderful Australian woman who had moved to the U.S., which is why she knew and wanted to kind of bring her own version of the product here, talked about how, um, hard it was and what, you know, what a dark place that she was in for nigh on like a year because she got pushed out of her own company. Um, you know, she brought in venture capital funds. And of course, like happens in many instances, you know, they said that they trusted her and they liked her expertise and they were excited to work with her and all of that. And of course, that's what someone always says when they're trying to convince you to come into their company. But then afterwards, they thought that she was just not qualified, that she didn't have the skill set that they needed to go from B to C. You know, she took them A to B, but that was it. And so they fired her. And, you know, she is working on a new product now. And but she means— she was very honest about what a, what a loss that was and how devastating that was to see her company taken away from her. Which it's happened. If you haven't heard stories like that, they are abounding if you listen to founder stories and podcasts and whatnot like I do. I totally geek out on all of that. Um, and so it's just something to keep in mind. Um, and I would always say go, and if you need money, go to you know, go to friends and family first. Go and look at your immediate resources. What's the, you know, adjacent possible? What's the closest thing to you? Then maybe look at crowdfunding, which another thing that will do is it will help you validate your idea.

Because guess what?

If your consumers aren't interested in paying for this and pre-ordering it, then maybe there's not the interest that you thought that was. And that's a really incredible and useful thing to know. Um, and those kinds of people you don't have to worry about keeping on your cap table and then setting up all the, you know, complicated things that you would do for investment, you know, more in the more traditional sense in venture capital level. Kind of the last, and then you can even take on loans. Loans are awesome, okay? If you can qualify for them, go get a, you know, SBA loan or something. And again, you know, someone you have to pay them back, that's something over your head, but they don't own part of your company and they don't have a say in running your business. So I would say the last step to look at for money and financing is to look at venture capital, to look at equity, and with that, to be very, very careful before taking on a partner and understand that even if you do not intend to take on a partner, sometimes by using certain language, by paying people in certain ways, by setting up certain revenue sharing practices in your business or the way you're doing business, people can do this on accident. And this happens all the time. All the time. Business transaction law is rife with people who have accidental partnerships or who set up kind of a course of conduct where they brought someone on, they referred to them maybe as their partner or their team or their founder or whatnot. They didn't understand that that had legal language, and now the vision of the company has changed, or their workload has changed, or they're just not gelling anymore, and someone wants to leave. And now they have a huge business divorce, and it's ugly because it's the kind of business divorce where they didn't realize, or maybe one of the parties didn't realize, that they were ever really a business business married, and in the eyes of the law, it certainly looks like they are. So another reason why to remember to always set up— and please counsel with an attorney about this if you're bringing someone on in your business and you really see them, or they're kind of taking on a partnership or quasi-partner role— because you want to get this right. And it's definitely, definitely worth paying some money to help someone walk you through a good operating agreement, founders agreement in this space. Okay, please do not play with this. You play, you know, this kind of fire can get you burned. Okay, um, number 8 is that there's a white horse. Okay, um, and I love this thought. I totally, um, was taken from a talk given by Elle Rowley at Alt Summit. Let's see, it wasn't last year, so it was a year before, um, and she had a great little workshop that she was giving, and she talked about a stage in her business. And if you're not familiar with her, she's the founder and CEO of Solibaby, um, which we've had her here on the podcast before as well. And she talked about how there was a stage in her business where she was really hoping to elevate and kind of scale and get to the next level. And she was convinced that if she just could get— that there was, there was a white horse out there, there was someone, um, like who was gonna swoop in on the white horse, you know, the white knight, and save her business, you know, and take it and solve all of her problems. If she just got her product— there's these beautiful baby wraps that you wear for wearing your baby— into the right celebrity, that celebrity would change her business around. You know, if she just found the one hire, that would change everything. If she just had the one influencer that would post about it, things would change. And she said she had a really sobering moment where she spent hours driving up to LA and she dropped this wrap off at a celebrity's house and made this beautiful basket and had taken all this time and had this heartfelt note and made sure she looked cute and everything matched. And she got to the door and someone just like grabbed it, grabbed the basket and was like, is this it?

Great.

And like slammed it in her face. And there was no write-up, there was no mention, like there was no love. It was just purely for someone to get me to give them a freebie. So, um, and I know this hurts all your hearts, those of you who are influencers and who are like, well, you know, you have to understand that if you get product all the time, you can't always post it about that. And we're not slamming any of you, that because the reality is, because that's certainly a reality in your space. But it's just a reminder that nobody cares about your business as much as you do. Nobody, even your partner, even your parents, your siblings, your customers, those that you hire. And that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be. But it also means that you have a lot of power and that you don't have to wait for someone else to come in to fix your problems because there is no white horse. Okay? You can figure this stuff out. You can solve your problems. You don't have to wait for some other mythical knowledge or club or something else to happen to trigger change in your business of where you want to move forward. It means maybe that things move forward slowly, more slowly than you'd like, which is what happened with Elle as well. She was about ready to sell her company to a larger investment piece and she decided to back out at the last minute. And she says that, you know, they'd made her feel like you couldn't get to this level without us. And she's like, I'm like, that may be true, but she's like, but I, I think I can still get there. It just may not be on the timeline and in the way they were going to do it. And I really applaud her, you know, digging into herself and knowing and listening to her gut, knowing when it was a good choice to move forward with that and when it wasn't, even if it means a lot of hard work and messy middle and stuff in between. Okay, the number 9 is more is more. Okay, um, and this is the idea that especially for those of you who are creating a physical product, but this is true in a little bit of sense for digital products too, especially digital courses, um, that more options, more colors, more features, more modules, more hours on the clock if it's a course or a product or something, more pages, more is more and more is better. It's a myth, guys. It's a myth. Okay, more is not necessarily better. Better is better, okay? And again, this goes back to building off what we've already talked about, is that the better job that you've done into researching exactly what the problem is and who you're trying to serve, um, and if you're doing that in the correct way, will help you make sure that you have narrowed down and pinpointed exactly who you need to serve. And it will make sure that you are not offering a bunch of extra stuff that is confusing or diluting your place in the marketplace, that that it's overwhelming, it's creating decision fatigue for your customers or your clients, which isn't helpful, or that it's simply expensive. You know, if you're launching a product, guess what? Putting it in 10 colorways is a whole lot expensive and risky than putting it in 2, because if you launch with 10 and they hate one of the colors or half the colors, now you're stuck with a bunch of product that you can't move, and it's, you know, dead inventory that you've paid a lot of money for. So the same is if you've built a course, you know, that's advertising, I have 50-hour course on this, we have 50 amazing hours of work. Guess what? Nobody wants to take a 50-hour course. What they want is the end result. They want to get from A to B. So get them to B. What's the fastest way you can take them from A to B? Okay, what's the best way you can take from the A to B? How can you show that you've gotten someone from A to B? And then go home on that and get better at that and repeat that and again and again. Okay. Don't, don't think that you're impressing people with how much stuff you have of it if it's not stuff that they need. You know, maybe what they're paying for is that you have waded through all the stuff and giving them the best. That's why people like gift guides so much, okay, is because they don't want all the products, they want the best products. They want you to tell them, hey influencer, Miss Style Maven, I want you to tell me what the best deals are in this price point for this type of person this year. Because I don't want to have to spend all that time and it's not impressing me that there's 100 things on there. I want to wade through 10 things. So just keep that in mind that more is not always more. Sometimes again, we get in that scarcity mindset and that tends to think like it's safer and we can kind of flutter more and it gives us more breathing room if we just have more stuff going on and it's more impressive and really we can usually get better with less and more single-minded focus. And that's my— brings us to our last and final tip, which is that you do not want to be a wandering generality. You want to be a targeted— serving a targeted niche. And these are kind of paraphrased words that I got from the amazing Seth Godin, and I love his books and his podcasts and all of his resources. If you haven't dived into his stuff, he's an amazing think leader in the entrepreneurship space. But this is advice you can hear in a lot of different places, which is why it's probably so true, okay? When you've heard something 10 times or 100 times, then you should probably start listening to it. But it's that— make sure that you are not falling into the trap of weighting yourself down and trying to be everything to everyone, okay, is another way to put it. Because if you try to please everyone and make sure that you are the photographer for everybody, or you're the graphic designer for everybody, then you know what also sounds true? You're the graphic designer for no one, and you're the photographer for no one. And why should someone choose you versus the other dozens or hundreds or thousands of other people who are offering the same thing? Okay, instead what you want to be is, I'm a stop-motion photographer who serves food clients. Okay, guess what? Yeah, you, you have, you have staked your claim in the ground. Is that a little scary? Yeah, it is, because it means there's a whole lot of people that you're telling them that you don't serve them. That's scary because you've now just thrown a whole bunch of people off your table. Okay, this is your narrow pie. But guess what? If someone who's a food client who goes and sees your stop, you know, motion photography work, are they interested? Yes. Are you speaking probably directly to their pain points? Yes. Can you talk with great precision and energy and, you know, um, enthusiasm about what's bothering them and what their pain points are in the content creation? And do you know when they need content based on their holiday cycles and the way their seasonal businesses work? And do you know a lot about how to get steam and to get things to glisten right? And you know how you manage with sprinkles and all of that? Yeah, because you've perfected everything for that space. So, um, just an idea to take. And what's, what's funny about this, and I've seen it happen for lots of different clients and businesses, and that's what's so great is I get to have a behind-the-scenes glance about how people have migrated and evolved in the space is that even if you start out with a very targeted niche, you sometimes still find yourself doing work slightly outside of that or in these spaces in the pie slices that are right next to it over time. Because if you're good at doing stop-motion photography for food, then maybe you're really good— also good at doing stop-motion photography for jewelry, for example. I don't know because I don't do this. I'm just saying as an example, but you know what I'm saying. But when you start out with just doing food, you get really well known in that that space and you get a really good portfolio and you can charge the right amount and prices that you do to make your time worth your business and you get fully booked and then you can have the freedom to experiment and say, do I want to move over a little bit here? Do I want— do I like this space? Do I want to create services here? Do I want to pivot slightly, slight little pivots and turns in the roads to branch off and offer your services? And I know tons of people who've been able to successfully do that because they brave enough to say, I do this, I sell this, I serve this people, these kinds of people with this problem. I solve for that problem, okay? Because there is money in that. There is money in solving someone's problem and knowing their problem and saying, I can fix that, I can do that, okay? I can provide for that. Um, but when you say you can do everything, first of all, people don't believe you. You sound like, you know, um, Trouble in River City, uh, you know, used car sales guy. Um, and but also it makes it so your messaging is really vain and boring and it's not hitting anyone specifically. So, um, and for an example, this is something that I've done, you guys. You know, I as an attorney, um, I could say that I just serve small business owners. You know, I'm a small business startup attorney or something. I could say that. Um, and I would get probably— I would maybe get more people who maybe see or feel like they would fit into my category, but I'd also get lost with a lot of other business attorneys and then a lot of other places doing similar work to what I do. So I've made the conscious choice that I chase after creatives and creative entrepreneurs, and even in that, I kind of niche down and I talk about really specifically how I help people who have products, people who do like creative services, and then people who maybe are content creators. Creators. And no, even though some of those people, those 3 groups, have sometimes very similar needs depending on what kind of business they are— there are some things that are same, some things that are different— but I found a whole lot more success in being able to reach my people. Because when they see my content, when they listen to this podcast, when they see me on Instagram Lives, when they read my newsletter, when they connect with me on Instagram, they're like, oh, Brittany gets it. She gets me. She gets what's bothering me. She gets what we joke about at our team meetings and what keeps us up at night and what's a problem, or even the problem that I didn't even know I should be worrying about, but now I'm really grateful that I know about, that's on my radar. So, um, just, you know, from a little bit from my perspective as someone who— this was gutsy, and my natural tendency, and even when I talk to other attorneys, they're like, oh, I didn't even know that you could niche down like that and serve those people. And I tell them, yeah, it's awesome, not only because my clients are better than your clients, which I'm sure is is the honest truth because I have the best clients in the world, such creative, talented, amazing people who are doing such cool things. But also because I'm able to speak to my people and make sure I'm staying close to them and I'm going to the conferences where they're at and I'm going to the parties where they're going to be at and I'm making sure that I'm there for them and I'm listening to what is in their minds and in their hearts and what's going on in their businesses so that I can better serve them and I can help be a piece in their machine in moving forward, that I can help support their dreams as they move forward, and that legal doesn't become a stumbling block for them. It becomes a building block for them to move forward with really strong and confident businesses. So, okay guys, so that is the 10 tips. So let's go over them real quickly again. I'm not planning on making money.

Meh.

I don't have the resources to start a business. If I'm good at it, people will pay me for it. I know what people want. I don't know what I'm doing. I can't talk about my business ideas until it's all ready. You should always take investor money. There's a white horse waiting to come and save me. More is more. And I have to be everybody, everything to everyone. Okay, these are all myths. Throw them out, delete them. Deleted. Who can name that movie? Okay, so I hope that in going through these, these have helped you today. Kind of just think about how you can put these into place to better grow your business and to get yourself in a really healthy mindset and on track and on target to grow this next exciting decade. Guys, we're about to enter a new decade. I love that. I think that's amazing energy. Thank you so much for being a listener, for showing up. Thank you so much for leaving reviews, for sending me DMs. Thank you so much for sharing. When you're a content creator like me and when you're putting a resource like this out for free, It means the world, the world to me to share with other people, for you to give it a thumbs up and to say, hey, this is something that's worthwhile, that it's worth your time, that this will— can help you in your business. It's really, really meaningful to me and it really helps this resource get into more people's hands. So thank you so much for doing that, for being here. Thank you so much for supporting me on these past 50 episodes. This is special 51 and for this new rebranding change. So you're going to see a change in your podcast app and the logo. But it's still the same great resource and I hope that I can still continue to provide you the great help that you need in growing your creative business.

Remember that you are a real business owner, you are not just a blank, and that you can own your business in every sense of the word, the highs, the lows, even the legal stuff. As a reminder, I still have my survey open, which is my listener, my audience survey, and I would really, really love to have your feedback. It's It's not going to take more than 3 minutes of your time.

The link will be here in the show notes.

It's also on my Instagram profile and on my website. But I would love to have more feedback for you guys in terms of what can I do to really help you in your business and what's the best way that I can be serving you. What are the best content that you want? What are the best legal resources that I can put together? It'll really help me make sure that I'm dialing in and not wasting my time and certainly not wasting any of your time with the things that I can help you to get yourself legally legit. So thank you, thank you for taking that. I also have a chance of getting and scoring a Target gift card to sweeten the deal because I know that surveys are purely a favor to me. I know it gives you no benefit, but I really, really appreciate it. So thank you so much for being here and listening, and have a great day.