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Episode Description:

On November 8, 2017, Beth's career trajectory was forever changed when she was unexpectedly laid off from a job she loved. To her surprise, her husband encouraged her to start her own business...and the rest, as they say, is history!

On this week's episode, Beth shares 5 Lessons she's learned in her first 5 years in business, and wherever you are on your journey, you won't want to miss number 3!

Links mentioned in the episode:

If you're interested in learning more about Beth's journey, her E-Book, Navigating Events, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation in A Global Pandemic is only $5 for a limited time. Download your copy here!

Podcast:

The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram

Host:

Beth Lawrence LinkedIn

Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram

Beth will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips (15 minute episodes or less) on how to optimize your life and work.

Episode Transcript can be found below:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Type A+ podcast. I'm so glad that last week's episode, breaking through procrastination resonated with so many of you. It was one of those things where I actually needed it for myself, last week. I had a lot to do and a lot to get done, and it helped me and I'm so glad to hear that it helped so many of you.

This week's episode is very special to me. Today is Monday, November 7th, and tomorrow November 8th, 2022 will be five years since I started my entrepreneurship journey. And I started this journey sort of unwillingly.

I always say I was lovingly kicked outta the nest. I was laid off from a startup that I loved after restructuring, and it was very sudden I did not expect it. It was, I remember it was a Wednesday. I had a call scheduled with my boss at noon. By 1230, I had been laid off and they let me know that it was effective the next day. And so for the first time in my life, I didn't have a plan and I broke down crying. Of course. I called my husband, he said he wasn't worried about me. My mom came over and supported me. All my friends supported me. I've learned so many lessons in these five years.

Obviously, being an event planner through a global pandemic is one thing. Being an entrepreneur during a global pandemic is another. And to combine both of those things, there were a lot of things that I learned and some lessons that I learned were really difficult. And so today we're talking about the top five lessons that I've learned in my five years of enterprise.

All right, so for lesson number one, the first thing is to niche down, focus, and specialize. Niche down, focus and specialize. It's so easy for us, especially Type A+ people who really like to learn. We really like to be good at a lot of things. It's really easy for us to be generalists and sometimes it's great to be a generalist, but when you're starting out on your entrepreneurship journey, especially as I was, I started out offering sales and marketing, and event planning and experiential and essentially anything that anyone needed because I was in a place.

Quite frankly, I needed work and I do think that my journey would've been more linear had I specialized in event planning from the start.

And so that's the first one, specialized niche down. And focus number two is to create goals based on your aspirations, not your current situation. And when I talk about goals here, I'm really talking about financial goals. It's so easy for a lot of us to get stuck where we are, whether that's emotionally, physically, or stuck in survival mode.

In my experience, I started out pricing myself in a way that I thought clients could afford me because I wanted to get the work, and that was absolutely not the way to do it, and some of, you're probably shaking your head going, Of course, that's not the way to do it. But that's my number two because pricing still, can be the most difficult thing.

And creating goals that are realistic and won't burn you out can be a very difficult thing as an entrepreneur as well, especially when we get excited about a project.

Number three, you are interviewing your clients just as much as they are interviewing you. That is something that I never even thought about because I was so concerned with getting inbound leads, getting more business, and making sure that I was steady in income, that I wasn't really looking at.

Are these clients, are these projects really aligned with what I want to do? Are they really aligned with the portfolio that I wanna build for myself? There are times that I look back and think, Yeah, right. In that first interview, I should have known that they were not aligned with me or that I wasn't aligned with them. So to review, again, number one special. Niche down. Number two, create goals based on your aspirations and not your current situation. Number three, you are interviewing your clients just as much as they are interviewing you.

Number four, sometimes it's just not a great fit. Along that same vein, I have had a lot of. Clients that were misaligned. And I think it was because of certain situations being in survival mode or being so excited about the project or the person or the friendship that it clouded my judgment from the reality of what I was really taking on.

And a lot of the time, especially when I was a little bit more immature, I would try to find reasons that that person or situation was a negative situation. But I was talking to a mentor one day and saying, You know, this is how this client is behaving and this is how it's going on, and I don't understand why they don't understand me.

And, they just said, Look, they don't have to be a bad person. You don't have to be a bad person. It just might not be a great fit. And when you find out that it's not a great fit, it's okay to bring that up and to say, Look, we really thought this was gonna work. It's not going to work, and here's why.

And you can even salvage a relationship that way, not necessarily still working with that client on that particular project, but if you can leave the situation in a place of mutual respect, it's better in my experience than letting it run its course and seeing how it plays out. The fifth one. The fifth and last one is you cannot do it alone.

There is such a tendency with. Type A+ people to take on everything. To do everything yourself. And especially when you're a business owner or a freelancer, you literally are doing everything yourself a lot of the time, from finances to website design, to pricing your packages, to marketing, to sales, to execution.

You're doing everything and it can be. Extremely difficult. It can be extremely isolating, and I'm so grateful that one of the first things that happened after I was laid off, no lie, was 1230, I hang up the phone, I'm crying, I'm calling my mom, I'm calling my friends. About 1245. I'm on Facebook and I see two workshops being offered in my local area.

Number one was how to Design Your Squarespace website, and number two was how to set up a legally legit. And I have to give credit where it's due. Melissa aam, she is a local entrepreneur in Philly. At least she was, I'm not sure where she is in the world now, but she offered those classes and it was because of the lessons that I learned in those first few classes and the connections that I made with people who were in a similar vein, in a similar stage in their life as me, that I was able to have that confidence. So you hear me talk about Wellstruck all the time, that was the second group that I found that really has helped me through my entrepreneurial journey.

And so just always remember as easy it is as it is to take everything on yourself. You can't do it.

So five lessons in the five years. We'll wrap it up. Number one specializes in a niche down and focus. Number two, create goals based on your aspirations, not your current situation. Number three, you are interviewing your clients just as much as they're interviewing you, number four.

And sometimes it's just not a great fit, right? And number five, you cannot do it alone.

I hope that if you are considering a side hustle, if you have a business already, if you have a side hustle already, or even if you just are in a place in your journey where you're feeling stuck and don't know where to go next, this can provide some inspiration for you and let you know.

It happens every day. People start businesses every single day, and businesses shut down every single day as well. There's a reality of a situation there too, but it all starts with believing in yourself and believing in your abilities and your value. And so I hope and wish and pray for you that if you have a dream in your heart that you wanna start, that you wanna get out into the world, now is the time.

Do it. Don't wait one more day! I hope you have a wonderful week, and we'll see you next time.