Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, like something other people can do but impossible for you. It is possible, and these are three things I wish I knew before I started my business.

1. Grow your audience

2. Remove your limiting beliefs

3. Design the next level of you

So what do I mean by these, well lets dive into each one and I will explain.

Grow your audience

You may view this first item as something that is only useful if you are a YouTube star or an Instagram influencer, but no, it is also important if you are operating a brick and mortar store or like me, an intangible customer service based business. Building an audience means that you develop your support system. For a traditional brick and mortar store this may look like - getting friends and family to support you and your endeavour. Starting by sharing your location and store information with everyone they come in contact with, talking about what you are doing in their everyday conversations, just getting the word out there. This will result in the community as a whole coming together in a way to support you and your store. Grand Openings will then go over much better if more people are excited about it - and KNOW about it.

In my business it was launching with a media kit, getting the word out there by speaking about what I am doing, where I go, and sharing how passionate I am about my service. It takes time and commitment, however you will never grow a business if no one knows that you even exist. So make it part of your daily dialogue, post on social media daily, get out in your community and spread the word. Be okay with talking about yourself often, and most of all, tell your family and friends and ask them to also talk about you and your business. It may mean the difference between a successful enterprise and a flop!

Remove Limiting Beliefs

This one may be more difficult if you are anything like me. Forever I have always known that I love my home (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada) and I love sharing it with anyone that will spare me their time. I can talk about Cape Breton Island for hours and get so overwhelmed with passion that I can start tearing up or even full blown crying! But that isn't enough. I was also dealing with (and in some ways, still dealing with) limiting beliefs over being good enough. My limiting beliefs manifest into Imposter Syndrome (IS). If you are not familiar with IS, it is the feeling that you are a fraud, that you don't know anything and you can't possibly be the person to share that information with the world. Many, MANY people (especially women) suffer from IS. It is not reality however, you are good enough and you do know your Sh*t!

Limiting beliefs (and IS) come up in your everyday functions. This can be things like the way you speak to yourself, the thoughts you have and so on. Yes, I am talking about your mindset. This is a huge part of ensuring your success. You must adapt a positive mindset and remove your limiting beliefs. The work to do this may be in the form of meditation (or whatever moves your energy to a higher vibe state). For some of you this may seem too "Woo" and that it is not important, but I promise you it is vital to you being the best version of you and success will happen if you put this work in.

Designing the Next Level of YOU

Now that we have reached the third thing that I wish I knew before starting my business, you may be thinking that we have covered a real thing, a more 'woo' thing and now you are talking about designing yourself? Girl, you must be on something strange, right? No, I am totally serious. You need to understand and know that you are great, and if that is not the you that is currently in existence, then design the Next Level of YOU (NLY).

I am not the inventor of this, nor do I pretend to know all the ins and outs of it, what I do know is that in order to be successful in my business I must be the best version of myself and for that, I needed to map it out. Let's see what that looks like.

In your current YOU, you may be someone that wants to wake up early, be productive and succeed in all your business goals, yet you stay up late, procrastinate, and don't really have a set plan. The NLY is the person you 'want' to be. So how do you get there? There are multiple methods but I will stick to one for today's example. First you will write a list of your daily activities in detail (you can include time stamps if that helps). Next you will do the same thing for what you 'want' the NLY's life to ressemble (daily activities). Put them side by side and see if they match up. Do they? Probably not. So, in that case you need to bridge the gap between the two versions of your daily activities. An example of this would be:

Current Day Gap NLY Ideal Day

9 am - Wake up Go to bed earlier 6 am - Wake up

930 am - Feed the dogs Get dressed 630 am - Go outside and walk the dogs

945 am - Coffee/Social Media Enjoy Coffee 730 am - Coffee without distractions

10 am - YouTube/Run Errands Workout 8 am - Meditate/Yoga

12 pm - Lunch etc... 9 am - Breakfast

As you can see from this example, it is custom to you and what you want your NLY to look like, whether you enjoy sports, sleeping in, staying up really late, it is all relative to the life YOU want to live and how you operate your business. During tour season (2021 for us here will be the next tour season) my NLY will be a little different and I will have days that I am on the road at 6 or 7 a.m. and because I do all the necessary mindset and motivational work on myself, I can adjust my daily schedule to meet my business demands easily. This is not work that I can do for you, yet you can use my example to help guide you. If you want more details on where I learned this strategy and for more business mindset and resources you can visit https://www.thegamechangercompany.com/.

I hope this blog is useful to you as you start your own business and let me know all about it!!! I am a cheerleader for every woman in the business community and truly hope that you are successful. Cheers! Love Always xo