My Business Story and What YOU Can Learn From My Journey

In today's video, I've decided to do something a little different and share with you my business story. So everything that I've gone through in the past two years when I first started my business. So the ups, the downs, the mistakes, the wins, the ugly and the pretty, I'm gonna share it all with you today. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Just the Tips. My name is Trena. If you are new here and I help creative business owners like you get started on YouTube. Typically here on my channel, I'll go through tips, strategies, advice on how to use YouTube in your creative business. But I wanted to share with you my business story. I get asked this quite frequently and I feel it's so important for us to be transparent with our business journey because a lot of the times we see people being successful, right? They may have been in business five, six years, maybe they caught a great break, but we really don't get to hear what goes on behind scenes and how they got there. So just a brief recap of my education. I went to college straight out of high school. I got a Bachelor's of science in business with a concentration in marketing and a minor in public relations. I got my full time gig about six months after that. I did a few side jobs in radio and I forget where else I was, but I got started working for the Department of Defense doing some human resource stuff. It wasn't typical human resource stuff and just was not my thing. It was not a healthy environment. One good thing that came out of that job though is they paid for me to get my master's degree in business. So I also have that as well. In 2015, after working at my job for five years, I had my daughter in law and while I was off on maternity leave for four months, I started to realize how unhappy I really was at that job. I mean, I knew I was unhappy, but having that time off and dreading going back not only because you're leaving your baby at home or daycare, not home alone, but knowing you have to go back. I somehow fell into the online world of creating courses and this whole new world that I've never known. And I started to drink the kool aid. I watched a webinar, I convinced my husband and guess what? I'm going to make the same amount of money that I'm making in my current job by starting my own business online. I knew I could do it. Just follow the steps. In December of 2015, I quit my job, walked out the door and started treanalittle.com, january 1st, I instantly dug into creating a course, because that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to have a course. Create passive income. Followed all the steps. I did joint venture webinars. I did my own webinars. I did everything they say you should do. I released my first course in May of 2016. I think I had six people sign up, and one of them was a friend of mine. Instantly, I became crushed. I had spent five months up late working, creating this content, really following these steps, and it was a flop. Also during that time, I got my first client. She reached out to me on Facebook and she wanted to get started right away. We had our first call. She was excited and then dropped off the face of the earth. Not really. But she couldn't make the next call. She didn't want to reschedule. She had already paid. All of a sudden, she wanted her money back. I didn't have a contract in place. So one mistake that I want you to learn from, always have a contract in place. So after some dispute back and forth, we dealt through PayPal. That's how she paid. She ultimately got her money back. So that was really a learning experience for me. So within the first six months of my business, two major fails, right? Enough to make you question, what are you doing? So in June of that year, I took time off. We were going to the beach. It had been a dream of my husband's to go to the beach for two weeks, so. So we went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for two weeks. During that two weeks, I had another potential client reach out to me, talked on the phone. We thought about how we were going to work together. And she ended up being the lifesaver of trinalittle.com not only getting the chance to work with her, but learning from her, learning more about the online business world from her, and really getting in contact with a lot of connections that she had for me when I was. So one of my biggest takeaways for you during that time is connect with people. Whether it's coffee dates or whether it's through Facebook or any way you can connect with other business owners that are doing online stuff or doing things similar to you, because you're going to feel alone. You're going to have times where you feel like a failure. Trust me, there's times. Times every single day I feel like a failure. But having those people that I've connected with, having those people that I can reach out to, definitely helps keep me motivated. So after that Summer, I really spent time working with her. Like I said, she got me in contact with some other people as well to start working with. And I just kept pivoting my business. I knew my first course didn't work, so I decided to change it a little bit, try to launch it again at the end of the summer. So September, no biters, no bites at all. So I didn't even go forth with the complete launch. I just scrapped it instantly. The third launch they had, I was getting ready for Black Friday and I had a mini course that I just pulled out of the full course I created at the beginning of the year and pitched that with, I think it was a video idea package. And that got some traction, that got me some click clients as well, but nothing big. No big break. And then in December, it was time to have the baby. But what was really great is through the connections from that first client that I had, not the nightmare client, but the dream client, through her, the connections that I made, they made other connections. And those people were signing contracts to work with me as I was having a baby. So I started 2017 with clients excited for what was to come. But I had a newborn, right? The first three months of 2017 were tough. Figuring out this new life with a newborn and a 2 year old. Plus we were living in a tiny apartment since we had sold our house really fast. Unexpectedly, the beginning of 2017 was really tough. I had clients, but honestly, I probably wasn't working as hard as I should on those clients. Just having a baby doesn't mean, you know, they eat, sleep and poop. There's a lot going on. And in 2016, when it all broke down, I basically broke even with my business. Luckily, I wasn't in debt with my business, but I also didn't make much money. So I started to think a lot. Do I go back to work? Do I apply for jobs? What am I going to do? Where is this business going? But one thing that I did know is that I was willing to change. I was willing to evolve as you are working through your business. If something's not working, change it up a bit. Don't get stuck in one thing. Keep evolving your business. Keep pivoting. I love that scene from Friends where Ross is yelling Chandler to pivot. Here we go. Pivot, pivot, pivot. You just gotta keep pivoting. Keep seeing what works. Now here we are. At the end of 2017, I revamped my course that I created in 2016 that I thought I was going to make lots of money. On I released it to a select few beta people. I reached out to some people that I knew wanted to do YouTube that I thought would give me great feedback and asked them to take part in this course for free. As long as they gave me testimonials and feedbacks. I reached out to them. They really helped me craft my content, evolve my content. Then in the summer, I released that beta program as the first time, the introductory price of my new program, YouTube Bootcamp. And through that program, I had some amazing girls. I was able to really get great feedback from them. I was able to see some of them release YouTube channels. And they are doing so amazing. And I would not have gotten to this program idea had I not gone through all those failures in the beginning. And I would have not got there if I just quit, if I just went back to work. It takes a lot of persistence in this online world and it's tough. There are days where you are going to struggle. There are days where you're going to feel like you're not doing something right. And I still have those days. Right. But you need to have people to reach out to. You need to keep growing and keep learning. Then in October, I took everything that I learned from those two launches that I had, the beta and the introductory course, and had my best launch yet. I reached my goal number. It was a five figure launch and it really made me feel good. But with that, you also have that quick dip again and you think, okay, what could I have done better? How can I make more money? What's next on the list? What's next? What do I got to do? As I continue to evolve and grow my business, I just want you to understand that it's not always rainbows and butterflies and unicorns here. I have bad days. I have days where I don't want to get out of bed. I have days where I feel like, what am I doing? Scrap this whole thing. I'm going to go work at a coffee shop. So as you are growing your business, as you are figuring out your path in this entrepreneurial world, just understand you're not alone. That sense of failure or that feeling of failure that you're having is. It happens. The best way you can combat it is find some friends. I love doing my weekly accountability with my business friends. I have a mastermind that I talk to every month. Having those people that understand what you're going through and can give you that support and can give you that confidence to say, hey, here's maybe what you need to change. Here's what I think you're doing well, that is key. And succeeding here on business. And so I just want to share with you my journey. I want you to know that it's not an easy road. A lot of people you see being successful, you're seeing them at step 10 and 11, whereas you may be at step 2 and 3. So don't get discouraged. Don't think you're doing something wrong. If something's not working, change it up a bit. Pivot it. Pivot just a little bit to see if a slow tweak can change it. Because that's really been able to make changes in my business. And constantly educate yourself. You're never going to become an expert in something because it's constantly changing. How many times has Facebook changed? How Many times has YouTube changed? Find other experts to learn from. As they're learning, you can learn from them as well. Keep up to date on your field of expertise. You can't just say, hey, I learned everything there is about Pinterest and quit learning. Pinterest is always changing. This online world is always changing. So continue to educate yourself. My question of the day for you is where are you having a hard time with your business? Is it feeling like a failure? Feeling like an imposter? Let me know down in the comments section below. If you like this type of video, make sure you give it a thumbs up and you click that circle subscribe button because every week I'm posting new videos here to help you create a YouTube strategy for your business. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next week. Bye.