Love What You Do & Don’t Give Up: Encouragement for Entrepreneurs—Hope in the wake of COVID
Love What You Do & Don’t Give Up: Encouragement for Entrepreneurs—Hope in the wake of COVID
Many businesses don’t make it to year 2. In fact, about 20% of businesses fail in the first year reported Fundera. The numbers increase for years 2, 5, and 10 to 30%, 50%, and 70% respectively. Reports from Shopify show very similar numbers for e-commerce businesses started in 2016. I’m guessing the numbers will be even higher for the last two years, unfortunately.
There are many factors that contribute to business success and failure. Being an expert in your field, doing market research, having adequate cash flow to cover expenses, successful marketing efforts, and good partnerships will help you beat the odds.
According to Investopedia, the best ways to avoid failing in business include setting goals, accurate research, loving the work, and wait for it—not quitting.
Lucky for you, most of these are in your control!
When you set goals, you're much more likely to reach more of them than if you had not set them in the first place. Setting goals helps you to narrow down all the things you could do to focus on the things you will do. Learn more about goal setting here.
Starting to gather research is also something you can do. In the book, Designing Your Life, Bill Burnet & Dave Evans recommend trying things out. Then assess how engaging and energizing you find the tasks you're performing.
Do you like sitting in front of a computer and responding to emails? Your answer will give you a lot of insight into if you'd like to run an online business. If these things bring you joy and get you pumped up, this might be a perfect fit. If you feel drained and discouraged, starting an online business might not be the best fit for you.
The next thing I recommend is to talk to experts in the business area you're thinking of going into. Learning about what tasks you’ll actually spend your time doing as well as potential pitfalls is so important. You’ll have lots of advice to pick and choose from!
I can’t count how many times people have told me how lucky I am to be married to a chef! Well, yes I am lucky, he’s a great man and makes phenomenal food and unforgettable experiences. The problem is he’s almost always preparing food for guests and is rarely at home. It’s hard to imagine the downsides without living them.
Invest in a course, volunteer, and get some real-life experience. Try it out. When I thought I wanted to learn more about Website Design, I read some articles about it. Next, I started tinkering and helped Ben build our first restaurant website. After that, I decided to take a course in Website Design. After that, I assessed if I liked the tasks that I’d need to do to pursue it as a professional.
I determined the areas I enjoyed most. Making beautiful websites and teaching people how to update and manage it themselves. There are also aspects of running a website design business that I don’t like as much. Marketing, for one, and trying to get information from clients, is another. As I am able, I invest in courses and tools to strengthen my skills and increase my effectiveness in these areas. If or when I make my first hire, these might be the areas I hand off first.
To be successful you’ll also need to continue to gather information as your business grows. One way to do this is to survey your website visitors and your email list. You can also talk to your current and former clients to learn if and where they may need more help.
Having money to get started will increase the speed with which you may become profitable. Depending on the industry you are going into that number will be vastly different. Build a business plan and look at the numbers. Don't forget to include required business licenses, permits, legal, and contract fees. Annual and monthly subscriptions, plus payroll liabilities and taxes are other obligations that are easy to overlook.
For some, your business is still in the expensive hobby phase. You are still crafting and refining your services, this takes time. In the last two years, we've all faced many uncertainties and unfathomable realities.
Our world is different today, yet still much the same. Everyone’s journey through the pandemic differs so much. For some people, their families and business were lost. For others, Covid has been a minor inconvenience. Every family and entrepreneur has a unique story to tell.
Ours falls somewhere in the middle. We are still in the midst of this part of our journey. We experienced job and housing loss. We have relocated three times, so far. And yet, our COVID story is filled with hope, promises, healing, and provision. Amidst the turmoil, hurt, sickness, expense, headaches, and much brain fog.
I embarked on my business journey as COVID took everyone by surprise and all our dreams by storm.
In the beginning, my husband's employer was a Christian adventure camp. It was hit hard and fast. Mandatory shutdowns in New Mexico were swift and long-standing in an attempt to protect its most important assets, its people. There were so many unknowns and information changed daily.
We endured much angst as the leadership changed policies and promises as quickly as the CDC reports updated. Many lives including ours were placed on radically new trajectories in the early months of 2020.
We scrambled trying to secure housing in our near top-tier Santa Fe location with our low-tier non-profit salary. But God had other plans. While some people raced to get an extra month's supply of tp, my husband raced across the country. He went to rescue a former employee from the city to relocate and reunite him with family 2000 miles away.
In one of our more complicated moves so far, we relocated to southern Minnesota. The closest I’d ever been before was as a layover passenger at the airport. Restaurant jobs were hard to come by at this point in 2020. Most restaurants were facing not knowing how and if they’d be able to operate at all.
Once again God used this pit stop for Ben to encourage his struggling staff. He also provide my first paid website design opportunity.
While there, we contacted COVID. It’s quite scary to face a new illness in a location with no support system. Luckily, we pulled off our daughter's 11th birthday celebration. But the following day we retreated to the couches for our three-week battle/quarantine.
Next, God did something unprecedented in our journey thus far. He moved us back to someplace we’d been before. With big hopes, we returned to the smallest town I had ever lived in. I had made the most friends I’d ever made in my adult journey, but the winters there are cold and hard. Things were different this time, as they always are. Families grow. Homeschooling demands increase. Living gets more complicated.
Within a few short months of arriving and with summer coming to an end, staffing shortages loomed. I donned all black and went to work with my husband. It was not in the plans. One perk, it was lovely to have adult human interactions. I got to speak to adults after 7 pm for the first time in over a decade of being the primary baby whisper four times over.
While working part-time outside the home and homeschooling, I still made time to work on my business. I built two new websites. One for an artist and one for our local library and started a third for a poet.
My original goals for the year far surpassed three websites. But I am grateful for the continued opportunities to build beautiful Squarespace websites. I love showing people it is possible to manage and update their very own website.
It's interesting how God brings people into your lives. He brings unexpected people to the forefront while sending others to the background. Most of the people that I connected with this time were either only acquaintances previously or did not even live there.
My husband however was on mission there to help a handful of people he knew and worked with before. But he was also brought there to get help himself.
He dealt with months of overwork due to staffing shortages. We endured the hotel selling, falling through, and selling again. In the midst of all this turmoil, Ben was diagnosed with Long COVID and began treatment. A multidisciplinary team was in place in Great Falls to help him. The initial treatments were helpful. Though after a few months he started even more aggressive treatment.
I also struggled with several health scares. I had my second breast lump found in two years. Thankfully, both biopsies came back negative, as well as genetic testing.
I was also experiencing extreme and mysterious pain in my ribs. After six months of testing and searching for answers, I found out that hip and rib misalignment was the culprit. Years of baby-carrying and poor computer posture habits were the source.
I also had the realization of how sedimentary I’d become. I spent the majority of my time at the table facilitating learning for four young people. My spare time was spent at my computer learning, typing, and designing.
I noticed the difference when I started tracking my steps at work. I averaged 10,000+ while working, but 2,000 or less when not.
Medical issues take a lot of time. They also add so much extra stress. I started exercising more often and trying to strengthen my body. I restarted practicing yoga, went on walks along the river, and started lifting weights.
All these factors combined to not reaching my financial goals for my business, yet. But profit is not the only factor I use to value success. In other areas, I had a very profitable year. I increased my knowledge and skills in design. I gained clarity in the direction I will take in my business. I purchased many resources to help me grow and scale my business when the time is right.
God has us in transition again, another period of waiting and transforming. But this time in two locations. We needed to mitigate the increased costs of living. We needed to move to a not-as-intense restaurant lifestyle. We needed to heal from Long COVID and other ailments.
I love how God gives you glimpses of what’s to come for you while reading scripture. He taps you on the shoulder and says, "This is coming for you, but I want you to know it’s a part of my bigger plan.”
I don’t love that most often he only reveals only the next step. I'd rather know the lifetime, five-year, or even one-year plan. Or so I sometimes think. He is wiser though. He gifts us just enough hope to keep you in the light when you remember to look for it.
God provided me with a picture to help me understand the difference in perspectives. This happened years ago when I was a brand new mother attending my first wedding with an infant. He showed me my view and understanding is like that of my three-month-old daughter.
I look around but I can only see so far because my eyes are still developing and maturing. I look to my parents for help understanding and navigating the big world around me. I am oblivious to the greater picture of what’s going on a few seats down from me. I don’t even understand the main event we’re attending. That two people are committing their lives to one another. Let alone all the things going on in the next room, church, town, and country.
I begin to think of the difference between my perspective and hers. I look around trying to notice the little details occurring around me. I see a room full of people, friends, and loved ones of the bride and groom. I see families, widowers, and young people. I see the bride and groom themselves at the front. My view of them is not clear though as I have to look through the sea of heads in front of me.
When my daughter starts to fuss, I carry her upstairs to the balcony. I have a new perspective. I can see and understand more.
I can see the whole of the sanctuary and more accurately discern the details of the main event. I can see people smiling, crying, and parents attempting to keep their kids quiet. The bride and groom are the spotlight. Their union. It’s the celebration of their commitment to each other while stepping into the unknown future together.
God reminds me of how I don’t begin to tell my daughter every detail of our plans for the day let alone the next hour. I won’t narrate all the decisions I make throughout the day.
But I do whisper things to her to pay attention to. “Look at the bride and groom,” I say.
As she gets bigger, I’ll let her know when it’s time to eat but don’t tell her two hours before. When she is ready, I will teach her how to prepare her own food, and let her help provide for her younger sibling. But I won’t yet make her plan and prepare all the meals for the week.
God gives us the insights we need to take the next step.
He gives us increasing responsibilities as we mature and grow in our understanding. He shines the light for us and as long as we look in the right direction, we will find it. He wants us to lean on him when we reach the edge of our understanding. He wants to show us the next step.
I say I will never again question his motives and plans, but I am short-sighted. I am forgetful, I do not understand. Days and weeks pass. Then sometimes, I remember the difference. The difference between what I see versus what the babe sees while sitting in the balcony, and I am calm. I know I am loved.
Our story is not over, and neither is yours. I strive to calm the chaos around me and to create beauty in it, one website, brand, and business at a time. This is a season of life. it too shall pass, the winds will blow in change.
It already has. Last month I had a stroke in my eye. I've lost some of my vision. I have a lot of headaches again. I also have a greater understanding of what my husband has endured his whole life. He has lived with a degenerative eye disorder since his diagnosis at fifteen.
Losing some of my sight has further opened my eyes to the necessity of accessibility in my industry. Things are not as clear or as easy as they were a month ago. I don't yet know how this will shift in my business but I am sure accessibility will play a greater role.
As I move forward and consider my goals and dreams for the coming year I will reflect and remember the past few.
I will remember those who will not feel the sweet breeze coming after the storm. I will rejoice in the spring rain bringing new life after experiencing the storm surge of hurricane COVID.
For those of us who have survived this pandemic, I pray that we’ve become more compassionate, more loving people.
For those of us also trying to navigate a newish business, I pray for direction and discernment. I hope for the ability to pivot quickly. But mostly, to keep at it.
Remember two of the most important factors in staying in business.
Love what you do.
Don’t quit.
Take a step back.
Find more balance.
Work on your mindset and your health.
Make work fun.
Keep going. Just keep going.
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