The biggest lessons I learned from my first 6 months growing a business
so here’s the tea.
Historically, starting in February of 2019, I have gotten all my web design and website maintenance work from freelancing platforms. So when I say this post will be a recap of my ‘first 6 months in business’, I’m referring to the point in time when I decided to build an audience and a platform for myself, here on this blog (welcome!).
Instead of making my living from a platform that takes a high percentage and I could theoretically get kicked off of at any point (yep, it’s happened to some), I want to be more in control of my income.
I also want more control over the types of projects I take on, and not have to bid against a bunch of other freelancers who work for very low rates.
I already had a photography side business for a few years under the brand name ‘by Emily Jane’, so in February of 2020, I decided to combine my offers and overhaul my brand concept. In March my focus was deciding my brand’s personality, mission, values, and ideal client. Once I had that figured out I got to work putting together the branding, the new website, and my first-ever email list.
On April 28th I posted my first blog post on the new site, and now, four months later, that brings us to today!
If you’re interested to hear more about the personal side of my business journey with chronic pain, read this post 🙂
Even though some of the numbers are slightly embarrassing, I wanted to honestly and publicly record as much as I feel comfortable with, so I can track my progress over time and hopefully inspire someone to go after their goals even though it’s not easy. 🙂
So let’s get into what’s working, what’s not, and some of my best advice for new business owners!
I’m going to go roughly in the order in which I started working on the different areas of success (Feel free to skip ahead to the topic you’re most interested in):
Mindfulness
Marketing
Creativity
Sales
Community
For each area I’ll touch on what education I benefited from, what I achieved, what lessons I learned, and what my goals are moving forward; where applicable.
And then I’ll get to the non-business related stuff I’ve enjoyed most so far this year!
Let’s get into it 😈
mindfulness
I knew from past experience that confidence and determination would be make-or-break factors in my success. This had also been reinforced by many of the entrepreneurs I follow. So I dove right in with an open mind when it came to personal development. And I’m sooo glad I did.
Education:
Book: The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs: Elevate Yourself to Elevate Your Business by Hal Elrod
Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill …I need to finish this one!
Podcast: Limitless Life with Melyssa Griffin
I tried really hard but apparently, as much as I want to, I can’t really get into books, but I can’t get enough of podcasts. Anyone else?!
Achievements:
I know exactly why I need to succeed and because of that there’s no going back or quitting, even when it gets hard. That’s super important!
I’ve gotten so much braver in terms of reaching out to people who intimidate me, taking on projects that used to freak me out, and having that ‘why not?’ mentality. Basically I stopped holding myself back for no good reason. A pretty awesome transformation to witness within myself!
I have grown so much through monitoring my limiting beliefs around money. I’ve managed to dramatically increase my rates and reduce my anxiety about it at the same time. Always a process though! I could talk about this in length (and I have over on Instagram), so maybe I’ll do a blog post on this topic one day.
Lesson Learned:
One way or another, it’s important to process your thoughts & feelings instead of just reacting to or avoiding them.
For example, when I’m not feeling good enough, when I find myself procrastinating, or when I’m nervous about what people will think: ask myself why that is, instead of just forcing my way through the situation. Discover what fear or belief is the root of the problem through journaling, meditating, or conversation. And then comfort myself with the understanding that there are actually more possibilities than the ones I’m afraid of, and that failing might actually not be so bad.
Goals:
I definitely want to get even more confident when it comes to earning more and believing in the value of what I create.
I want to create a more balanced routine when it comes to time spent on work vs. time spent on health and wellness.
marketing
The big boy.
The all-encompassing, never-ending, “I-wear-more-hats-than-a-church-lady-in-the-south” area of business.
I’ve had to be selective with where I want to put my time, cuz it can easily be sucked up by the multiple forms of social media. #not-ready-for-tiktok
But even in being selective, I’ve learned that this is where most of your time goes in business, especially if you are a content creator.
You thought you were gonna be working on client projects? HA!
So here’s where I am with aaaall a that.
Education:
Podcast: Goal Digger with Jenna Kutcher
Achievements:
Made my first ever lead magnets and I want to make SO MANY MORE
Started an email list & got my first subs! It’s not nearly as scary as I thought hahaha
Made my first YouTube videos with fancy thumbnails, too! I feel so profeshhh
I’m showing up on the first page of Google for these blog posts (Yesss I honestly can’t believe it!):
Got my first comment on the blog - woop!
I got the first 500 viewers to my site! Y a s
Website Metrics:
I started getting traffic 2 and a half weeks after publishing my first blog post. Here’s the breakdown:
Average session duration: 4 minutes 15 seconds
Bounce rate: 53.72%
Pages per session: 2.69
Subscribers: 1.4% of my site users are subbing to my email list. Apparently that’s up to par with the average in the online business world! And, according to sumo.com, even the best marketers out there don’t reach a 5% opt-in rate. Wow! I am feeling pret-ty good about those 7 people on my list now. 😆
PS. If you have a Squarespace Business plan or higher, you can view these analytics in your account! You can check out Squarespace here (affiliate link, yes ma’am!).
Now where is that traffic coming from? To go deeper into these metrics, I’ll need to investigate my Google Analytics account.
Traffic Sources:
Here is the list of marketing channels I’m currently utilizing, in the order of how much time I spend on them. I then looked at what percentage of my website traffic is coming from that source. Let’s compare:
Instagram: accounts for just 4% of my total website traffic (big bummer.)
Subs: 664
Google SEO by blogging: 57%! (wowza!)
Subs: 7
Facebook: 14% (very surprising actually)
Followers: 223
Pinterest: 5% (I don’t currently use any automated tools for Pinterest, so it’s not too surprising that this isn’t a huge contributing factor to my website traffic yet.)
Audience: 26,200
YouTube: 2% (I only have a few videos)
Subs: 0
LinkedIn: 0%
Connections: 289
Lessons Learned:
Two blog posts a week might be too tough to accomplish when you’re still setting EVERYTHING up. I found it was doable, but only at the expense of every other marketing task.
Getting clients is hard. And I’ve also learned that that’s okay, and it’s definitely not a reason to give up. Apparently it’s very normal when you’re just starting out, there is no quick solution, and it doesn’t mean I’m doomed just because it’s not at all happening as fast as I thought it would.
Goals:
From here on out, I’m going to try batching my content creation and social posts. One day a week I’ll create & schedule at least one post for each of the channels mentioned above.
I’m going to worry less about Instagram stories and see if I can increase my blogging frequency! I’ll also continue engaging in Facebook groups since that seems to be doing something for me.
I’m not going to stop until I’ve had one-on-one conversations with at least 5 of my ideal clients, and start building everything around their needs. 🙂
creativity
Did I mention I never did design before 2018? …Yeah. So as I started to take on the idea of doing this full time, I was very excited to up my game.
What’s awesome is, the biggest thing missing for me was being willing to grow. Once I made that decision, I uncovered the natural gifts I had for design all along 🥰
Education:
Skillshare courses to improve my design skills
Achievements:
Designed my first logo (see at the top of the page! 😁)
Created my first mood boards/design concepts
Explored many different aesthetics and excited to practice more
Lesson Learned:
I am capable of way more than I ever thought. And that’s true for all of us.
If you have a knack for something, even on the smallest level, you can probably become an expert in that thing.
When I stop closing myself off from going after things just because I’ve never done it before, I end up creating things that I never pictured myself doing.
Goals:
Create an absolutely dreamy website concept for a wedding vendor.
Try designing more logos.
Learn to create templates for Squarespace and see how I feel about it.
sales
When it comes to booking projects and earning more revenue, I’ll be honest: I’m not even close to where I ‘imagined’ I’d be at this point in the year.
But that’s probably a good thing. Because I also severely underestimated how split my time would be when setting everything up.
On the other hand, I’ve been really proud of how organized I am, how much I’ve pushed myself, and how happy my clients have been 🥰 Yaaasss!
Education:
Mini-Course: The Limitless Entrepreneur Online Digital Retreat from Melyssa Griffin
Podcast: Get Back to Design with Kory Woodard and Krista Rae
Achievements:
I reached an awesome milestone: My first 10k in total sales from freelancing websites 😮
I’ve more than doubled my rates since the start of the year, and I still get just as many inquiries!
All my reviews are 5 stars! That’s 35 client reviews across different platforms (and only one of them is my mom! 😆)
I’ve learned to properly track my income and estimate my taxes so I’m more prepared!
Lesson Learned:
Taxes and expenses take up so much of the revenue… Like way more than I expected for just starting out. Then if you want to take some out for retirement savings, health insurance, or hiring any help, you’re bringing home just a fraction of what you earn.
So when you work for yourself, you have to charge way more than what you’re used to earning, because there isn’t a corporation taking care of all these things for you. It’s quite jarring at first!
Goals:
I want to start earning enough that I can set the proportionate amounts aside for all the expenses listed above, and still be able to take home a good chunk.
Create a streamlined onboarding workflow in Dubsado.
community
I knew from the beginning that at some point I would need other business owners in my corner. Someone to relate to and cheer me on, to feel less alone and overwhelmed, and to just be there for each other either professionally or personally.
I just had no clue how to make that happen. (Especially during Rona times.)
But I did stumble across some online groups so I decided to join and I have really enjoyed them ever since.
I still can’t say I have any true new friends, but I have a lot more acquaintances than I used to and I truly believe we’ll get there.
Communities Joined:
Lesson Learned:
Apparently my superpowers are teaching and making connections 💖 (The teaching thing I pretty much knew about myself to some degree, but I wouldn’t have necessarily thought making connections was my thing at this stage of my life). I took this quiz on Melyssa Griffin’s [stunning] new website and learned so much about myself; I highly recommend it!
The super in-depth quiz results taught me that even though I don’t currently have many business friends or friends in general right now, good relationships are something that naturally bring me so much joy. AND I’ve always loved introducing other people to each other and watching the friendships form! Therefore I need to be working towards creating more community around me, as well as for others. I also should participate in collaborations when it comes to marketing my business! And that’s a new prospect that excites me.
Goals:
Actually attend the online socials! I hopped on one video chat meeting for one of the groups recently, immediately got super freaked out, and hopped right back out 🤣🤣 woopss…
Reach out to potential partners about referrals, bartering services, and content collaborations.
Start creating support groups or mastermind groups.
entertainment
What have I been enjoying outside of business, you ask?
I’ll list some of my highlights, and be sure to let me know in the comments if you too are a fan!
Podcasts:
Office Ladies
Astonishing Legends
TV Shows:
Anything Project Runway-related: old episodes, All-Stars, the international versions, Making the Cut on Amazon Prime, Next in Fashion on Netflix
Hellier
Queer Eye
Anything with New York / Tiffany Pollard… shamefully…
The Great British Baking Show
Movies:
Hamilton on Disney+
YouTube:
Mr. Kate
La Guardia Cross
Lone Fox Home
Maddie ASMR
What have you learned so far this year? What are you proud of that you’ve accomplished?
Be sure to let me know if you’re going to be trying any of those resources or tips 🥰
