5 Tips for Entrepreneurial Success
BY MELANIE BARR
I launched She Built It™ when our twins were born. I’d sit in the nursery for hours and think through all the ways I knew the She Built It™ community would support women and men around the world to achieve their highest goals. I didn't daydream for too long though. I knew I had to grow She Built It™ at a pace that I could handle while caring for two babies. I made small daily leaps that I knew would one day lead to a monumental one when I was ready. It hasn't been perfect. It's one hundred percent been hard raising twins, running a business, managing an entire home remodel, and now homeschooling but it's all so worth it.
If you're creating something, keep going at a pace that’s right for you, and let nothing stop you from living your dreams. Here are five things I’ve learned from running She Built It™ and my career in corporate, working for Marriott Hotels, AT&T, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1. You Set the Strategy
It is so easy to get caught up trying to stay on top of our daily routines, tasks, and taking care of unexpected things that come up in the day — both negative and positive — that we can start to let our strategy slip.
Our businesses start to run on autopilot, without anyone really steering or leading the way. Sometimes, we let others influence decisions and, even when this is done with the best of intentions, those individuals can start to take over.
No one or business is perfect. I’m guilty of letting this happen at times. We are human and it’s completely normal. Our lives can get in the way a bit, but what’s important is that we are cognizant of when this starts to happen so that we can work to get the strategy back on track.
When this happens, acknowledge that it’s happening, then find a few minutes to list a few ways to get your strategy back in order. Maybe you are not ready today, due to what is happening in life, but thinking about it and acknowledging it’s happening will help you to correct it more quickly, and get you and your company vision back leading the way.
2. Direct the Moving Parts
I don’t know any entrepreneurs that don’t feel like they have so many ideas and projects going that they are running to keep up.
For most entrepreneurs, we love and welcome this, the speed at which business and life happens, it invigorates us to continue learning and stretching towards what’s next. The ability to orchestrate the creation of ideas and turn them into revenue doing what we love to do every day. It’s the ultimate goal.
Most entrepreneurs are master multitaskers, but if we don’t direct the moving parts toward a well planned goal, we can get off course. Our equilibrium will start to feel off. If you are moving at full speed, in the direction you want to go, great. If you start to feel out of balance, or if one of the parts of your business is not operating the way it should, take a minute and figure out why.
The last thing we want to do is chase fires — continuing to put our effort only in areas that need improvement. Yes, we need to fix what is not working, but not at the expense of the other areas of our business that keep the wheels spinning.
3. Hire Someone or Find a Tech Innovation
This is one thing most entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning, find the most difficult to do. Their business is their baby. It’s hard to let go and when you’ve worked so incredibly hard to develop and create something it can be extremely difficult to trust others to have our best interests and help us lead the way.
Some things we have to do ourselves and some things we want to do. For the things that we don’t enjoy doing it is time to hire someone or find a tech innovation to help you. In college, I started out as an accounting major, and worked a full time job for Marriott Hotels. I liked that the numbers either added up, or they didn’t and needed a correction. Management told me they wanted to put me through a management training program and to do that, I would need to learn how to do the audit accounting.
For two nights I sat staring at the computer. I was good at it and could do it… but did I want to? I learned quickly the answer was no. I immediately switched my business degree to a major in marketing, which was the right move for me.
I love creating products and figuring out ways to promote them. The wonderful thing is that we all have different skills we are good at and like to do. My point is, if you don’t like doing something within your business, hire someone or find an app to help you. We can spend time learning to do the things that we don’t like to do but that’s usually not the best use of our time.
4. Focus on Gaining and Retaining Clients
We can get so caught up in the daily tasks of our businesses that we forget to focus on sales, the lifeline of our company. Whether we are working on large clients ourselves or managing others, it’s important to set aside a few hours in the week to focus on sales.
Where is most of our revenue coming from? How can we improve it? How are our sales teams doing? How can we better support them? And, what new clients do we want to add? When you work hard to get good clients, do all that you can in your professional power to keep them. It is easier to retain clients than to try to gain new ones.
I believe in under-promising and over-delivering. When we go above and beyond for our clients, with the products we provide and the service we offer, they remember and are more likely to tell others about you.
5. Close the Tabs & Celebrate
I am guilty of having more than 25 tabs open every day. Since COVID, I’ve put a She Built It™ sign on my office door. After a long day of juggling homeschooling for our 6-year-old twins, all that I do to grow She Built It™, juggling our home and personal lives, shutting off the lights and closing the door reminds me that I’m officially shutting down for the day. This is the time to relax, rest, and unwind.
Sometimes, I plug my phone into the charger and walk away for a bit. I know we can’t always do this. We might be “on-call” or trying to complete a project with our teams, but it’s also important to be able to walk away and reset.
If you're ever struggling, write down five things you’ve accomplished that day — whether it’s getting out of bed, working out, launching a new product, or gaining a new client, take the time to really feel, acknowledge, and celebrate it.
Until next time! Keep growing and building your business, making the small daily and quantum leaps, and let nothing stop you from living the life that you crave.
With gratitude,
Melanie Barr
Founder & CEO, She Built It™
