What We Wish We Knew Before Entrepreneurship

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development. To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

John: Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today, any of you that are thinking about leaving your nine to five or thinking about starting your dream business or just a business on the side, we wanted to come to you with everything that we wish we knew before going the entrepreneurship route. because there’s a lot of things that you learn in the first years of your business that it seems like no one will tell you it seems like no one really could tell you because every business is so unique and every person’s approach to it is so unique but We hope that today’s episode will help you avoid some of the things that we hit along the way in starting our businesses. So with that being said, Tony, I’ll let you kick it off. Like what’s the first thing that you want to tell our listeners about your journey and from the first thing for them to avoid or learn?

Tony: Yeah, I’d say the first thing is to know your why. I mean, that’s with anything. I’m sure we’ve talked about knowing your why plenty of times in other ways and other reasons, self-awareness, things like that. But knowing your why of why you want to start your business is extremely important. We really want to question everything. Like a lot of times people I’ve seen start passion projects or things they’re passionate about and turn them into businesses, which is great and definitely won’t say that that’s not a good idea. But when you do that, you definitely want to take a look at the market and have an understanding of the the potential financial gains that you could make or how much money you could earn when you are starting a passion project and turn into a business. You know, I think that that’s going to be critical for people who may just be at the beginning or even if you are still going with the business and maybe it’s not doing what you expected it to do. Knowing your why is extremely important. So ask yourself, do you want just additional income? Like, do you want it to be a side business? Or do you want to fully invest everything you have into a business and go full-time with it? Do you want to scale to that? Do you want to start with a small side business where it makes a few hundred bucks, maybe a few thousand dollars or whatever your goal is, and then replace your actual full-time income? So there’s a lot of different ways to look at your why and how you start. But I think knowing what you want to achieve is extremely important. from the beginning and then also set goals set high goals, but you know, don’t have them too lofty where you Where they’re not really attainable or achievable in the first year. You’ve got to give yourself some grace too and Hopefully you have some money saved too, so you can be okay with maybe even starting in the red, you know, as you’re getting started. So, I mean, there’s a lot of questions you should ask yourself when you first get started, but knowing your why is important because when it gets really, really, really hard… And you know your why, you’ll be able to have that grit to make it through those tough times.

John: Yeah, I agree. The expanding on that a little bit is just for some real exercises that I do all the time. I was actually just revisiting this yesterday. But I have vision statements for my life, for my business, like what do I want my life to look like in 10 years, in career area, in business area, in my health, in my personal life, like where do I see myself 10 years out, where do I need to be five years out to make that happen. And then what can I do this year to be where I’m at in five years? And then I even boil that down to what am I doing every day with a full year and view dry erase calendar on my wall to where if I’m making certain choices, if I’m doing certain things to grow towards that goal and in that day, I put a slash mark on it. And whenever you see all those slash marks start to add up, you just don’t want to break the streak. So if I’ll put the I’ll put a link to that calendar in the show notes if anyone’s interested and can taking up that habit it has been a one of the most transformative things for my life that I’ve done and I’ve done it every year since my senior year of college actually, so Almost everything that was on there came true Even even before I met you Tony I put on that calendar. I want to do at least one philanthropy event every quarter That ended up being every month or really bi-monthly, and then boom, Millennial Community came into the world, came into my reality. And then it was like, you know, it was a big part of my life. So I’d say, with your business, like really sit down and, you know, being with a coach can really help you do this in writing out a vision statement. So it’s understanding like what you want to be happening in the future like why that’s important to you So it’s like I want to be or I am doing because because of XYZ So that I can you know ABC. Mm-hmm, and it kind of gets down to those levels of why that you’re mentioning As you kind of write out your statement and you can tweak it along the way. As things change, as you change, as your priorities change, you know, stepping into a family, I’m sure you’re like, you know, your vision statements have kind of shifted around, right? Sure. Evolves, evolves with you with life. So I think that’s really critical. Like you mentioned, as things go up and down.

Tony: I want to ask a question on that. Would you say that your personal, I guess, philosophies have transitioned into your business model or how you look at your look and view your business? And would you say that people should adopt those kind of practices or should they operate within who they are if they are, you know, maybe not so organized? Do they need to adopt some organized principles before they start or should they just be who they are and get help?

John: I would say both because living in authenticity will give you your most natural source of energy. The more that we are being something that we’re not, and that doesn’t mean not growing in the area of organization though, right? Because acquiring new skills, new knowledge, new practices that can fit within your authentic self, because organization to me might not be the same as organization to you or any of our listeners, right? But there could be something that works well for them. And also, so asking for support is beautiful. So having, having the right systems in place, having a support system of other entrepreneurs, having a coach, having mentors are, you know, are huge for things that you should look out for and things that you can learn from. And at the same time, if you’re pretending to be someone that you’re not, and I think this even goes back to the why, is if you’re not living your why, you will burn out, especially in your business. I mean, if you’re going to compartmentalize a business just for the sake of money and let it be, if you can let that live on the side, right, without a lot of your energy, then beautiful, like you can do that, right? Have a side business that’s just taking advantage of part of the market that’s available at this moment, right? And maybe you’re not super passionate about it, but if you’re spending a lot of time building something that’s not aligned with who you are authentically, it will take a lot of energy. More than something that’s aligned with who you are authentically.

Tony: Man, I want to comment on that too, because that is very true. And I think that you hit on a few things, like the power of outsourcing, the power of, like you mentioned, having the coach. the power of being authentic because everybody is not good at everything. So you can be a really good baker, but you may not be good with books. So you need to know that you got to outsource that so that you can focus on being the best baker that you can be. And, you know, I love how you talked about passion and burning out, because if you are working your business right and you only focus on the financial parts of it, you won’t have the right focus. You won’t have the right energy to continue, because what will happen is you will equivalent your success with how much money you make versus how much passion that you are putting into your business and the success that you just get from the passion that you have. The customers that you make smile, the people that you’re helping, the people that you’re hiring, the impact that you’re making. Those things sometimes cannot be quantified in ways that reach your bottom line or reach your budget book. So especially when you starting off and especially if you’re if your business is maybe not going to automatically just make you millions of dollars and you’re looking on the Internet and you’re seeing all these people on Instagram looking like they’re making millions of dollars like that, the comparison trap can get you caught up to. So, you know, I just want to comment on that because I love, you know, keep like you said, keeping your head down and being focused on your why having your passion involved in your business is super important. And as you start to make that make those tracks toward success and you’re just in it and you’re in that flow, you will start to sustain yourself. You will start to expand. You will start to be able to hire people, you know. And when you talk about that flow, how how how do people find a flow in in being an entrepreneur or have you found your flow?

John: Man, I’d say it’s about finding the way that I work and This was a bumpy road for me. I’d say that it was moving from corporate America and moving from always working for someone else and even just through our school system. Growing up and then moving into the business world and corporate, you’re always meeting someone else’s expectation. And for me, that was my strong suit, is understanding what expectations were and then learning how to meet them in the most efficient way possible. So I could use my energy doing other things that I love, like being part of the millennial community, like doing 500 hours of yoga teacher training and teaching yoga, right? Like I was focusing on other things outside of work, yet using the energy that I had to meet the expectations of work at, you know, Not just the bare minimum, but like what would be enough to excel right? What would be enough to be at the you know, kind of at the top of the of the pool there and moving into entrepreneurship that all just that whole system is completely collapses and i was like dancing all over the place you know my mind would go in so many different directions because there’s so many things that i could do now there’s so many things that i’m curious about that i can follow like and having that floodlight and switching it to a spotlight on your own is critical. And so moving from that to setting my own expectations and meeting them was the most difficult thing for me. Because when it was me setting my own expectations, I was only accountable to myself. So it was easy to be like, Oh, well, you know, I can just pick that up tomorrow. Oh, you know, it’s, it was a, it was a long day. You know, I’m going to sleep a little bit longer today. It’s fine. It can do it tomorrow. And like the level of discipline and not strict discipline that makes it. Not fun, but making making a game out of it, you know, challenging yourself like I know you love sports and like looking at looking at the stats, right? When am when am I getting up every day like keeping your stats right in front of you? You know, what have I accomplished today? Looking back at my day, you know, even if it’s just one thing that I worked on and I spent like a solid amount of time dedicated to this one part of my business to create it, to build it, and most of all to bring value. I’d say that has been the biggest shift for me and the things that I do Or blocking out spaces on my calendar for things that I want to do. I’ve realized that having a lot of things to do like hour by hour for me isn’t really the best way for me to work. My best way to work is blocking, say, the entire morning to dedicate to one part of my business, one general part of what I’m creating. And that could be, for example, contract work, right? And it’s like, OK, that’s a pain, not the thing that I love the most. But if I feel like I’m fading a little bit, I go on a little walk. And I’m still kind of thinking about the way that process is going and what I’m creating there. And then I come back, work on it. But that morning is dedicated to that contract work. Right. And then maybe the afternoons dedicated to the blog or the podcast, but I keep it dedicated to that and try to not dance around to many different topics. And that’s how just personally I work better. Right. And so I’d say finding your flow is that is testing what works, what’s not working. tweaking day to day. But the one thing that I would say to focus on as a new entrepreneur is to focus on creating value. Whatever you write, whatever you post, whatever you sell, whatever service you provide, what is this doing for my customer? What problem is this solving? How is it making them feel? Is it making them live a better life, an easier life, a more efficient life? What is the value that you’re providing? And like think about that every part that you dedicate your day to everything is on your vision statement everything that’s on your mission statement for your business. everything you’re communicating, what value is this providing? Period. Period.

Tony: Wow. What do you think about that? Man, I think that’s exactly what people need to hear, especially to all the professionals out there who you may be an employee and you may also have a business on the side, but you still want to find value in what you’re doing. Because, you know, the sweet spot is when everything that you’re doing is aligned where you feel like every part of your being with the things that you work on, on the side, the things that you do for work, if you’re investing in things and whatever you may be doing, if they’re all kind of in the right flow, and everything is tied together. I’ll give you an example. For me, everything that I do currently is kind of attached to each other, where the things I do at work are the same things I do outside of work when it comes to business, when it comes to working with people. A lot of the things I do is external facing, where I do a lot of presenting, I do a lot of speaking, I do a lot of writing. I do a lot of consulting and even now coaching. And so it all kind of flows together very, very nicely. So now I’m able to compartmentalize my days and my nights and my weekends around the things that I love to do. And those all those things are tied to my income, thankfully, and meaning that they’re tied to businesses. So I want to touch on quickly the four quadrants of earned income. You probably heard this before. And if you haven’t. That’s not the sexiest way to say the various different ways you can make money, but there are four quadrants that I learned years ago. So you can be employed, which is a W-2 employee working for a company. You can be self-employed where you are an individual contributor and what you do is trade your time for money. That could be, for example, maybe a freelancer or maybe you have a business of some sort that allows you to go out, get booked, get contracted, and then you go and you perform the act and then you come back home. You can also invest, which is much more of a long-term process, of course, unless you, you know, invest in a lottery ticket or something, and then you hit the lotto. And the last one is passive income, where you may earn on a business, actually, where that means you can send people out to work for your company, and as you send those people out to work for your company, They get paid and you get paid. I consider that to be more passive I mean you do have to put your hands on it sometimes but you know That’s the four quadrants of earned income and you know back to the why in the very beginning of why you start a business you want to kind of think about those four quadrants when you’re starting because there you can do all of them if you want to or you can focus on one maybe two it’s really up to you, but the best thing you can do is what John said and that’s have the value add component to what you’re doing, meaning that you find a job that works for you, that you love to do. Maybe you find a freelance type of opportunity that fits within your character, fits within your attributes, your skills. Maybe you invest in things that you like to invest in, even if it’s investing in the stock market with certain companies or certain types of companies. And then also, of course, if you start a business, you want to really think about yourself as the CEO or at the top of that business and understand how you’re going to create the passiveness by you being a good leader. A lot of businesses fail when they start to grow because the CEO or the person at the top isn’t the best leader. And leadership is something that’s a skill that you have to develop over time and continue to work on. So that’s why it’s important, like John mentioned earlier, to find a coach if you don’t have one and you’re looking for one. Because if you are working on your leadership skills, you should invest in having someone else kind of give you a different viewpoint. of yourself as the CEO or as the leader so that you can really grow. Because if the only people that you rely on is the people within your company, that view can be skewed. Sometimes people aren’t going to tell you what you really need to hear because they work for you. And then sometimes you may view yourself in a different vantage point because you are the leader. So a coach can look at things and tell you whether you’re aligned or you’re not. They can tell you, hey, you are actually performing how you should. Let’s just tweak this. Or actually, have you thought about this? Because you’re actually hurting people when you say this or when you do this. That’s just the kind of things you learn over time. But I say all that to say that leadership is a skill that’s developed. If you can find that when you are building your company, you can find that value, that passion that meets in the middle. No day will feel like work. And that’s where you want to get to. No matter what you’re doing is you want to wake up in the morning and have every day not feel like work. It just feels like it’s just a part of your life. And that’s the beauty of business.

John: Yes, it is. It is. And when you first start out, there’s, you know, thinking about that level of support and, you know, having a coach that can hold you accountable during the process. When you first start out, you’re going to be wearing a lot of hats. You know, you’re the accountant, you’re the marketer. You’re the idea guy, you’re the producer, sometimes you’re even the service itself, right? Moving from a self-employed model and growing that. So the way to look at that is look at every position that you’re doing. You can still be authentically yourself in all of these different positions, yet look at them from an outside sense, from a third-party perspective, and say, what can, and almost write the job description. as you’re doing these different roles. Which is why it’s so important, we keep coming back to the why, because the sheer amount of workload and that your mind also uses from dancing between these different positions can be a lot of time. It can be a lot of time invested So if you’re connected with your why, and you have this viewpoint from a third party perspective, how can I one day outsource this? How can I one day hire someone to do this specific job description that I’m doing right now? So having that forward thinking mindset of everything that you’re working on will really set you up to start offloading some of that as you elevate, as your systems grow, as your business grows, as you’re creating more value. And I think about that meme. I’ve seen it on Instagram a bunch of times. I can’t think about it without laughing. But it starts off, it’s, I left my 9 to 5 to start my dream business. And now I work 24-7. It just drops the F-bomb. And at first, it can really feel like that. So that’s why it’s so important to really be connected to why you’re doing this. Like what is your mission? Why is it important to you? And if it’s deep in your soul like that, you can do the 24-7 because it’s not a job. It’s not a job, it’s creation. Like you’re creating something, which is beautiful and messy at the same time, right? Even the most beautiful canvas has paint all over the place. So I’d say as you get into that mess, the beautiful mess, be able to see it from that third party perspective and have a coach that can also see it from that perspective. Like Tony mentioned, a perspective outside with no vested interest. In that relationship with you and like for their career. So do that. And again, take a look at those little jobs. What can you what can you outsource? What can you hire someone for? What does their job description look like?

Tony: You know, let’s get into some fundamentals, man, when it comes to financials. So I just want to say that if you are just getting started and even wherever you are in the entrepreneurship journey, I want to reiterate a few things that you should definitely know and consider. So first is a budget. I want to scream in the mic, but I’m not going to scream. But I’m going to just say that you need to have a budget or a basic understanding of how to create a budget for your business. It’s not a super daunting, hard task because you can find something you can find a template online. But you just want to go have a Microsoft Excel old school budget to start. You can do other things. I’ll mention a few in a second. But you know, a budget is like a belt for your business. It’s just like your belt on your pants. If you don’t have a budget, your business is going to fall down. Just suck your pants. But seriously, you need to know where your money’s coming in and where it’s going out. It’s basic income and expenses. If you want to scale and grow, you got to you got to have a budget to know how you’re going to do that in real time. And one thing I’d also suggest, if you have the capability to use QuickBooks, that’s a resource that’s out there to help you from an accounting standpoint. And what QuickBooks does, for those who don’t know, is it will track all of your income and expenses for you. It’s about $30 a month. I don’t work for QuickBooks. I get no sponsorship from QuickBooks, but I’ve used QuickBooks for a long time, and I just recommend it because You don’t have to do anything once you set it up. It’ll kind of do everything for you. Then you can go in there and reconcile. Another thing with QuickBooks is if you have an accountant and you’re getting ready to file your taxes at the end of the year, that accountant can go into QuickBooks and pull everything for you. and organize your finances and make it super easy when it comes to tax time, super easy when it comes to closing out your books at the end of the quarter or the end of the year. So, you know, I just want to provide some real life fundamentals for you. And lastly is bank accounts, which. You can decide how to set up your bank accounts. That’s totally up to you. A few recommendations are you want to have a revenue account where your money comes in. You want to have an operating account where you spend your money. You want to have a savings account where you save. And if you do pay people, then you want to have a separate account for payroll. That’s if you pay people. That’s four accounts. That’s a lot for some people. Why would I have four accounts? But it’s because you want to really separate your money so you know where things are coming in, where you’re spending, how you can save. And it just makes it super clear. And most importantly, if you don’t set up your bank accounts that way, the number one thing you definitely want to do is not commingle your fund. So please separate. your personal funds and your business funds. So when it comes down to tax time, it’s very clear on which is which, because you don’t want to get audited or put yourself in a strain later where you have to go back years to fix things that you just could have simply fixed by having a separate bank account. So I hope that helps.

John: That’s great advice. Yeah. That’s great advice, man. Just to start off with that right away. Setting up your LLC or your C-corp, S-corp, whatever you are starting, getting those accounts set up right away, not waiting.

Tony: You want to set yourself up for success. If you plan to scale, get out there early and get it out of the way.

John: It just makes your life easier later and some other tools that have been really helpful for for me some project management tools like Trello or monday.com like something where you can organize project tasks and assign those tasks to different people on your team set calendar notices for that that’ll integrate so integrating a lot of these tools are huge especially if you’re starting off with an online business there’s going to be There’s going to be a lot of different programs that you’re using, and the more that you can keep those centralized and integrated, the better off that you’ll be. The more that you can automate, the better off that you’ll be. So Trello and Monday are some of those things that we use to track tasks. Like even, for example, with this podcast, Tony and I track all the episode production and everything in Trello. So it’s a one-stop shop so we can view where everything is. If it’s with the producer, an idea bank for episodes, which you guys can comment on and add to or send to us if you’d like as well. Always looking for new ideas from the listeners. And then one other thing is knowing you’re on your website side of things. Marketing is everything right now because you can have the best, most valuable service in the whole world, but if no one knows about it, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard to grow. It’s going to be hard to sell. But then also the best marketing that you can do is provide very solid value because word of mouth marketing. I mean, think about it. When are you most likely to follow up on something? Is it when you see an Instagram ad or is it when your boy or your girl comes up and says, man, you’ve got to try this. It was life changing. Then I would look them up. You know what I’m saying? So I’d say still focus on the value. That’s your best marketing. But then bringing in new customers and new worlds. So it’s like it opens up a whole new circle of that. Right? Because every customer, every new customer has their own circle. So whenever you get it right with your website, with your search engine optimization or SEO, with your social media marketing, there are whole different strategies for each platform. And we definitely don’t have time to go into all that in this episode, right? But it’s just starting off with getting the right advice from the experts in those field. like paying for it up front and getting the knowledge like from someone that has experience running social media across, you know, 10 different businesses like pay for that up front, get it, get the knowledge, the understanding, see how they run things. And then maybe you bring that into someone on your team later, you know, your web developers, right? You can outsource parts of that parts of that development, but learn the basics. You know, get an idea of what’s going on in the background. You know, you want to have somewhat of a base knowledge of the little things that are going on and on the marketing side and the system side of your business as well. So man, we could do a whole episode on systems and tools like that. I think we will.

Tony: Yeah, man, because you were getting my mind going when you talked about automation, because the power of automation can save you so much time. It can grow your business super fast, depending on what you’re doing. Setting up the right systems is going to help you. And I mean, there’s so many tools, like you’d be surprised how many But these tools that we’re talking about actually connect to each other. There’s a thing and I don’t know that. I don’t know what the acronym stands for, but APIs are these keys that can connect your different systems to each other. So if you have a mailing list, it can connect to your website. And that’s two totally different products. You can have that also connect to your PayPal, to your DocuSign where people sign agreements. It all can connect. from the back end but a lot of that stuff is self-taught or you have to, like John said, take some classes and learn from some people. I think one thing I definitely would recommend along with the financial fundamentals and the budget and the bank account and all that is you really want to be investing in your business all the time and the biggest investment is the one you make in yourself. You cannot be afraid to spend money on learning things, on knowledge, on books, on courses, even on people. If you have to pay people to help you with things, as long as they’re not taking advantage of you and they’re actually adding value to your business, it is worth it because You can spend countless amounts of dollars upfront on those things, on yourself, on knowledge, and then your business can skyrocket because of what you know and what you’ve learned and the investments that you’ve made in your business from the beginning, or even ongoing investments. And a lot of times I see people that are kind of afraid to spend money because they have different reasons. And I want to just challenge people and challenge the professionals listening out there. If you are considering entrepreneurship, do not be afraid to do that. And also don’t be afraid to partner up with people. There are sometimes the greatest opportunities lie in partnership. They lie in community. And people are so, people I’ve seen, I’m not just judging general people, but I’ve talked to people who are like, I don’t want to give up any stake of my business. I don’t want to help. I don’t want to work with anybody because I’m afraid they’ll steal my ideas. And it’s like, Have you been to the bread aisle in the grocery store? There’s so many bread loafs that there’s always room for people to share. Nobody’s going to steal your bread idea. Nobody’s going to steal your chicken place idea. You’ve been down the street and seen all the chicken places. I’m saying that to say, don’t be so caught up in worrying that someone’s going to steal your idea that now you don’t move forward or you don’t grow because you have this scarcity mindset. Like, you can work with someone and y’all can work on different parts of the same industry or the same business type and have two separate LLCs or two separate companies where y’all are both doing good work and you’re doing it differently and now you both grow and you both scale together. So, you know, that’s my soapbox on partnerships and just working with people and also learning and investing up front. Because you it’ll save you so much time. You will really grow. I guarantee you that if you look at the people who are succeeding and thriving, they had help. They had help in some type of way. They had help. And that’s what community that’s where community comes in. And that’s where this podcast comes in. If you need help, reach out to us. We happy to coach with you and work with you to help you scale to.

John: Exactly. Do not hesitate to get in touch with us at the website, email. whatever you got to do, it’s in the, it’ll be in the show notes. We’d be happy to help. And I guess one final thought here that, you know, I want to leave with you guys is, you know, take your time and don’t wait. If you’re waiting until you’re ready, you’ll never really be ready. Yeah. Like when you, when you want to do it, like just do it. Right. Our time, our time on this earth is limited, right? If you have the idea, just, just do it. You know, worst case scenario, you go get another job, you learn something else and you’ll learn so much from the experience. You’ll grow so much from even attempting to start your own business. And it’s a beautiful part of life. So if you’re interested in it, I’d say do it and. Take it one step at a time, you know Don’t beat yourself up if a goal gets pushed down the line just a little bit like it’s an objective It doesn’t mean anything, you know good or bad about you. It’s an objective that you have you’re striving towards and No matter where you end up you’re striving. It’s always going to help you grow and become more of the person that you’re meant to be and So give it a try, give it a go. What’s your last piece of advice for them or last words for them, Tony?

Tony: Man, that time is ticking either way. The time is ticking, the time is going to come. If you say, hey, I’m going to start my business in two years, three years, four years, whatever it may be, that time is coming. So either get ready and get the boots strapped up so that you can do the work now or plan ahead and plan with seriousness and plan with vigor. Kind of like John said about how he uses his calendar in ways that can actually be more sustainable for him. And that goes for everybody. It’s not about how many tasks, it’s not about the volume of tasks you get done, but it’s about the quality. of task and the things that you do with your time. So if you’re building a business, don’t be afraid to jump out there. If you are afraid to jump out there, then just start small and work towards it day by day, bit by bit, and promise you you’ll get there and you’ll be glad that you started.

John: Definitely, definitely. Thank you guys so much for being a listener. Please rate us, review us anywhere that you get your podcasts and look for more information on the presentprofessionalpodcast.com and any way that you’d like to connect to us, we’re here for you. Send us an email, connect with us at the website. You want some help with your business, just with coaching, with some more resources, we got you. So again, thank you so much for being a listener. Until next time.