15 Business Success Strategies - Be Profitable & Have a Life

Are you building a hobby or a legacy business for the long term?

This month I am celebrating 15 years as an entrepreneur!  In this episode I am sharing with you the business version of the good, the bad, and the ugly in building a multi-million dollar business!

My goal in sharing my story, is always to help you avoid as many pitfalls as possible and hopefully benefit from all the training, research, and investments I have made in my businesses so you can get better and faster results!

So today I am sharing with you 5 things I did well, 5 things I wish I had done and 5 Things I should never have done!  Grab a notebook because you don’t want to miss these!

Each week I empower you with training and a free resource, based on successful strategies that I have used in one of my businesses!  I share my journey with you to help you fast track your growth without all the headaches! This week I am sharing my brand new free guide, The Roadmap to Running a Business That Doesn’t Run You! - 3 Essential Steps I Missed (That You Don’t Want To Miss) in Building a Million Dollar Business! You can download this freebie below!

Building a business is like being on a roller coaster!  There are days where you are scared to even get in line and other days you are running to ride it all over again!  No matter where you are in your business, these 15 strategies are things every entrepreneur should listen to if you want to build a business meant for the long term!

Let’s start with the 5 things I did well:

1. I hired a team member before I could afford it! This was scary for someone who had no savings, no bank loan, and was making payroll through credit card cash advances!  I knew if I wanted to grow fast, I needed to open my doors in May 2007 with someone other than myself, so I convinced a friend to come along for the ride!  This allowed me to do the marketing on the road daily, while she handled things in the office.
2. I empowered my team with training to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible so they could find work life balance. This was important working in a 24/7 on-call industry!
3. I used every single tool I could find to make my business run on minimal manpower! We were using GoToMeeting before it was cool. We were logging remotely into computers before we were forced to. And we had the top in technology to keep us running as efficiently as possible!
4. I branded my company as THE #1 option in the area before we earned that title! I had a big mission that I wanted to accomplish, and I told everyone we were the best and they believed it because I was so confident in myself, my team and our services!
5. I stepped up as a leader and handled the great days of celebrations and the not-so-great days of firing! I was never afraid to make bold moves that would be best for the company as a whole!

Next up the 5 things I wish I had done:

1. I should have invested in myself and hired a coach. I have always had mentors in my life but never paid mentors. I know now after having experienced the power in paid coaching, that it is worth every penny!
2. I should have paid myself first! I just kept reinvesting the money back in the business instead of paying myself first.  This was a HUGE mental block that caused me to feel unworthy and even worse feel undervalued. Can you even imagine working 80+ hour weeks for 2 years without pay?  Oh, wait a minute I did pay myself $25/pay period to avoid the monthly bank charges lol
3. I should have started a retirement plan sooner! When you are building a business, you go into it thinking this is going to be your long-term financial success plan, right?  Well, that’s great and very smart, but if you are not putting a portion aside for your retirement, you are missing the boat. 
4. I should have crunched the numbers sooner in my business! I am not a numbers person at all even to this day BUT I have learned that most of the answers to my questions lie in the numbers.  I did not start doing this on a regular basis until 3-5 years into business.  I know I could have been more profitable if I had done this sooner!
5. I should have implemented systems wayyyyy sooner in my business! Because I was doing everything, I never thought I had to write it down but then I would hire someone, and they had no idea what they were doing.  Systems should be built from the first day they are needed!

Last but not least is the 5 juicy things I should never have done:

1. I should never have hired some of the doozies I did the first few years! I was being lazy and too busy to hire and delegate correctly! I should have listened to my mother who had worked in human resources for 30 years before she came to work with me.  If I could only share some of the stories, you would die laughing!
2. I should never have said yes to all the clients I was given in the first few years. When I hit my breaking point around year 3, I was working 14-hour days, had an hour commute each way, so that left me 8 hours to sleep and shower!  You must learn to say no to some things even though they sound good at the time!
3. I should never have tried to figure everything out through a Google search back in 2007! I should have invested in myself and my company by taking some paid courses so we could have grown faster.
4. I should never have agreed to so many volunteer things outside of my business. I was struggling to maintain my home life, business, and the volunteer roles and felt like I was failing at so many things.  In life we go through seasons, and its okay to step back from one thing to prioritize another for a season.
5. Finally, I should never have prioritized my business over my family and friends. Basically, I worked way too hard for the first 3 years, missed way too many events, and ignored some mental health signs that were glaringly in my face. When I finally came up for air around 3-5 years in, everyone had their own lives, had gotten over missing me, and basically had moved on.  I then had to work on rebuilding lost friendships!

In summary, building a business is a learning experience!  The key is to learn the fundamentals as soon as possible so you are starting with a solid business foundation.  You work so hard during the start up phase which is good and bad but never good if you don’t implement sustainable business strategies like I mentioned above!  The staggering statistics of the number of businesses that fail in the first 3, 5, and 10 years are so sad.  My biggest piece of advice for success is don’t rely only on manpower to succeed, you have invest in yourself and your business to have long term growth!

Again I have empowered you with my free guide The Roadmap to Running a Business That Doesn’t Run You! – These are the 3 Essential Steps I Missed in Building a Million Dollar Business and believe me, you do not want to miss these on your entrepreneurial journey! You can download this free resource below!

And that’s a wrap on this week’s episode, remember to live this one life you were given!

Life is a Journey and I am so glad you are on it with me!

xoxo Sailynn...

Let's Connect!!!

Every single week I get messages from friends who have found value in my videos, I would love to hear from you what you loved the best about this weeks video, so let's connect🙋‍

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sailynn.doyle/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sailynndoyle/

DM Me on Messenger - http://m.me/sailynn.doyle

Valuable Content Schedule

Every Tuesday morning, a new YouTube training video will be posted!  You can subscribe here to get notified: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailynnDoyle

Join me Live on Facebook for more training & tips, every Monday at 7pm eastern in my Facebook Group, so make sure you are a part of the Free Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/passionpurposeposture

If you want it delivered directly to your email inbox, you can subscribe below👇👇👇