Life Admin

Last week my car broke down and it’s been quite an inconvenience, but I’ve been too busy to devote time to finding another one. That got me thinking about life admin – things that we need to do to keep our lives going e.g. research for a deal on a holiday or cleaning the house or in my case, looking for a new car. It’s one thing not to have time for socializing, it’s another thing entirely not to have time for life admin. I need to make time for it because if my personal life is in disarray it’ll start filtering into my business life as is the case with the car (or lack thereof). Without the car, I’ve added an hour to my daily travel time. So today I decided that work can wait, I need to find a new car.

Had any life admin issues?

Day 6 – Saying Goodbye to Work-Life Balance

I’d say over the last few years I’ve had a great work-life balance. I made time for friends and family and it was great. This year, hmm.. not so much. I can count on one hand the number of times I have left my house for non-work related activities. The tell-tail sign is usually how long my contact lens back last for. Last year I’d get through about one a month, this year I haven’t been able to finish even one box (that’s 3 months- Yikes).

Everyone goes on about how important it is to have a balance, but I’m starting to realise when you’re building a business, that’s a luxury that you have to be willing to let go of. I tried to have it all over the last few years and frankly I was miserable. Now that I am concentrating on one thing – business, I feel alive again.

This could also have something to do with the fact that I’m an introvert by nature, but the fact of the matter trying to have it all from the start might not be realistic. They say “an entrepreneur lives like most people won’t for a few years, so that they can live like most be can’t for the rest of their lives.” I’m finding that to be case at least in my situation. One day I’ll have the luxury of a work-life balance, or even better I might not even have to work if I do this right, but until then, I’m ok with not having it all right now.

What do you think? Is a work-life balance realistic when starting a business?

Day 5 – Feeling Like Myself Again

Over the last 3 years, I haven’t really felt like myself, and earlier this year I realised that may have something to so with the fact that I simply haven’t given 100% to my business. I have always been someone that works hard (well, works smart). I strategise, plan and execute. But I simply haven’t allowed myself to do that over the last 3 years. I’m not really sure why, perhaps it’s because of fear of failure, or lack of passion. Regardless, this year I decided I will put everything I have into my business.

This weekend, I was knackered, from working a 60 hour week, but I felt fulfilled and happy and that’s when it hit me, I’m back to myself again and it feels sooo good. Now I’m not recommending a 60 hour week, but I’m realising that in business, you must be true to yourself. We must not let fear hold me back.

Anyway welcome back Korede.

Have you ever felt like you’ve lost yourself for one reason or another?

Day 4 – April Goals

So it’s the beginning of a new month and it’s time to set new goals.

Goals:

•  15 new clients
• 4 new employees
• Complete a google adwords training (if you know of an online one I can sign up to please let me know
• Start advertising on google adwords
• Sort out employee lanyards

Let’s get to work.

What are your goals for this month?

 

 

Day 3 – March Target Update #WeMadeIt

I’m super excited to say I hit my March Target. Literally only made it yesterday. So so so so chuffed. I wanted to sign up 10 new customers and I’ve hit 10 right on the nose loool.

Targets are a beautiful thing, they give us something to work towards. Having said that, targets alone aren’t enough. I’ve had 10 as a magic number for almost a year and I have literally never hit it. Month in and month out, I’d set 10 as the target, although by the end of the last year I’d reduced it to 5, and I still wasn’t really hitting that regularly.

So what changed? In January, I stopped setting targets and started working on a sales funnel – a step by step guide on how to turn a potential customer/cold lead into a paying customer. With a little tweaking over the last few months, I now have a system that works. I just wish I’d put one together 2 years ago. Better late than never right?

Now if I could just come up with one for recruiting new employees….

Do you have a sales funnel? Does it work?

 

DAY 2 – Growing pains

Spent much of yesterday partly looking for new employees and partly freaking out about the fact that I need to hire more employees asap.

The great thing about growth is knowing that finally your hard work is paying off. You can finally see the picture taking shape and coming together. The problem however, is that more customers means more structural development within a business. In my case, more employees. More employees means more people to manage and thus more time spent on that.

I’m now learning to create systems that will ensure that very customer’s experience is great consistently. That means more time must be spent on my business, rather than in my business. (shout out to “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerver. It’s a must read!)

Slowly but surely (well, quickly but surely), I’m seeing my role change in my business and it’s exciting- scary, but exciting.

What are the business growing pains you’re experiencing?

Ok I’ve changed…I promise *covers face emoji*

To say it’s been a while is an understatement. It’s been 2 years since I last posted. I really wanted to blog my entire journey but that has been immense fail, so I’ve decided that blogging one paragraph a day is more doable for me.

What to expect:

• My weekly business goals
• My weekly business progress
• Lessons I’ve learnt
• Books I’m reading
• Stories about the journey so far.

I’m feeling super excited, because my business is in a completely different place since my last post today and we are growing quite quickly.

I can’t wait to take this journey with you guys. 2017 is the year I’ve been waiting for. eeeeks. Join me on this amazing journey to my ultimate goal.

 

I’m So Glad I Took A Leap Of Faith!

So I have been away for aaaages. Blogging id HARD! I have a new found respect for those who post regularly. Anyway, I want to do better this year. I’m going to put aside some time a week so I can sent out short, update posts.

So where am I now on my journey to the top? A lot has happened this year and business if FINALLY picking up. All it took was one leap of faith and everything began to change. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my line of work before, well I run a tuition centre, teaching maths, English and 11+. During February half term, a parent pleaded with me to run a “half term programme” because her child really needed the extra lessons. I thought about it and sent out a few emails to see if there would be any takers, well a week before the programme was to start no one had indicated an interest so I went to bed one night saying to myself that “tomorrow, I’m gonna cancel it” I made a memo reminding myself to email the venue I hire out, to cancel my booking.

The next morning I woke up to the most random text, a parent who had not shown any significant interest in my services in the past, asked “am I still going to run the programme I advertised?” I was so surprised. I told my parents what my initial plans were prior to the text and asked what they thought I should do now. They said just do it, run the programme. AAAHHHH!! This was going to be risky, OK, I just went for it! BOY am I glad I did, it ended up being a catalyst. One parent signed up for it after hearing about it and was so impressed that she told her friends about my services who told their friends and now here I am looking to hire more staff. All this in just 3 weeks. The turnaround has been truly phenomenal.

There’s still a long long way to go but the pace that I’m moving at is like 100 times the speed I was moving at before. I shared this to show that all it takes is one customer, one success story, one moment, to change it all around for you. So to my hustling entrepreneurs out there don’t give up, hang in there a little longer, oh and don’t forget to take a leap of faith when the opportunity presents itself, and you might just find that you can fly!

That’s it from me.

Peace out and Keep Gettin’ It!

When a Personal Spanner Gets Into Business Works

As much as I can, I try to keep my personal life and business life separate but I’m sure as many entrepreneurs can testify, this is much easier said than done, if you work from home, and don’t have strict work hours both personal and business just tend to merge into one big blob. When you’re working on your business lots of non-business related thoughts might crop up and vice versa. Keeping yourself focused on the task at hand can be a separate struggle in itself. I try to live by saying I heard ….. Say, “when you’re doing right now is the most important thing”. Which basically means focus!!! While it can be difficult I make a conscious effort to switch off one part of my life and focus on the other.

Now what happens when something happens in your personal life that is too big to shut off? Earlier this month my aunt passed away and it has been hard. Focusing on business has been difficult to say the least. I just feel deflated, unable to work, unable to do anything really. It’s like the wind has been knocked out of me. Now if I was an employee I could just take time off but when you’re a business owner things still have to get done. You can’t shut up shop and stay in bed all day. The bills will still be coming in and customers still require the service they’re paying for.

While it’s be very hard, I’ve found that seeing business as a welcome distraction rather than unwanted burden is helping. I immerse myself in all things business and for a moment I forget about what happened, and when I remember again I push myself to do more work. This has meant I’ve actually managed to get more done than I would usually get done. I know that this won’t necessarily work for everyone but it’s worth a try.

Have you had any experiences that have effected your business life or vice versa? How did you overcome it? Advice and suggestions are very welcome

If you want to find out what I’m getting up to in between posts follow me on Twitter @thisiskorede https://twitter.com/thisiskorede

Till next time. Keep Getting It!!

Getting a J.O.B!

Firstly, no I’m not quitting, I’m re-stratergising. At the end of June I went over the goals I wrote out for this year and was actually quite surprised that I had made some kind of dent in my plans (albeit a very small and possibly invisible to the human eye sized dent). In particular, I noticed that most of the goals I had achieved or was in the process of achieving were my personal development goals, but my financial, career and business goals were almost untouched. What was the problem? Why wasn’t I moving forward even though I was working hard? I spent a lot of time thinking over these questions and came to the conclusion that the reason I wasn’t getting anywhere was my lack of capital. I needed money to make money and my cash flow at this point is just not enough.

My options were:
1. Get a loan – That was out of the question, because I had promised myself after the almighty flop of my first venture (that I’m still paying off today) I wouldn’t take out another business loan until I had paid off the last one and was making enough money to need a loan to expand an already successful business.

2. Find an investor – firstly that could take a while and many of them want to invest in a business that has been around for 2+ years. So that was out of the question.

3. Get a job! – The issue here was could I juggle my business with working full time? I looked at my current schedule, did some shuffling around and decided that it was possible, I’d be knackered and have little to no time for any extra-curricular activities but it was possible.

So here I am spending my days doing applications and going to assessment days. This process is a full time job in itself so I suppose I’m already practicing. The aim is to start before the end of August. Wish me luck!

Does anyone else work full-time and run a business as well? How do you do it? Got any tips for me?

If you want to find out what I’m getting up to in between posts follow me on Twitter @thisiskorede https://twitter.com/thisiskorede

Till next time. Keep Getting It!