Episode 8: Top 3 Lessons in Building a Business

Building a business is tricky and even though I absolutely LOVE my job, I would hate for anyone to look in at Assembly and think that it magically and easily appeared. In that spirit, I thought that this week I would share three things that I’ve learned about building a business that I feel don’t get talked about enough in entrepreneurship.

It's true that the most amount of effort that I’ve had to put in in building my business is the effort of managing my own fears, insecurities and doubts. It’s really difficult to be brave and comfortable at the same time. But I know that taking action, practicing using my voice and getting some support in my business has made all the difference.

The Assembly Membership Community is now open for new members to join any time. You can find all the details here.

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hello hello. Thank you for tuning back into courage is calling and this podcast is what I like to think the go-to place for brilliant women. Like you who need a courage pep talk from time to time. Because we all do. Right. So today I thought I would share a little bit about my own experience in building a business.

And if you don't already know, I'm a coach. So I spend my days working with women who want to build more courage and their lives to pursue their ideas. So I run a thriving, monthly membership community. I run group coaching programs, and I have a small roster of one-to-one clients that I do deep work with.

And I flipping love my job. I really, really do, but I didn't actually set out to build the business. I was working happily in the charity sector for many, many years. Um, and then in 2016, I decided to create some events for women to just come together and eat really nice food and really nice settings and do creative things together.

I was just, I was missing some sort of creative female community in my life, and I branded these events under the name assembly, and we had these gatherings like a few times a year for a couple of years. I decided I wanted to do a little bit of coaching training. And then as I began that, uh, I started to offer some of those, what I've been learning to the women that were already coming to you and were already connected into assembly into the events.

And then from there I hosted some workshops. And then I created this membership to take those workshops into like monthly accountability and learning online, um, and then started to deepen my work to offer them some group coaching programs that I knew would serve women who wanted to build on their ideas, um, and who wanted to create thriving businesses themselves.

And I would really hate for anyone to look in at what assembly looks like now and think that it just magically or easily. And it appeared. So I thought today I would share three things that I've really learned about building a business that I actually don't feel get talked about enough in the whole business building female entrepreneurship world.

So let's dive in. So the first thing that I want to say is that you got to do the work. Right. So if you've been around for awhile, you know, that I actually really reject the idea of hustle, culture of having to be on all of the time of working yourself to exhaustion for the sake of arbitrary metrics or whatever, but what I would never want to diminish or dismiss.

Is that building the business actually really takes effort. And more than that, there isn't a secret formula to it. So if you want to build a business that allows you to thrive and to do the thing that you love to do without having to hustle all the time, eventually that actually really requires some leg work to get, go on.

And there all of these Facebook ads and they're all of these webinars that promise you. The six-figure months and these enormous client or customer bases or selling out in whatever shape or form that is in these short timeframes and with these magic formulas, but they are a fools errand, right. And there are there's, there's no real silver bullet to build in a thriving business without some cost to your time and energy for a period of time.

What this doesn't mean is that you should be a slave to your business or to your idea, or overwork yourself into the ground, to the detriment of your wellbeing or to the detriment of the health of your relationships. But what it might mean is that we have to adjust some expectations of what it might require of us for a period of time, as we build and connect and hone our offers and our beds.

And this is especially true. If you're building a business on the side of another job or role, just like I was, but what I often say in the coaching world, particularly the online business coaching world are these headlines and this clickbait that seems to disregard the real graft that often goes into the beginning. Developing stages of building a business, like when it's just you. Um, it's really just gonna take some time and energy and willingness to be on a bit of a learning curve. So like learning how to create systems behind the scenes and learning to get a little bit more salvage. Websites and social media and mailing lists and all that good stuff.

You know, building my business has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career so far, but it has also meant that for periods of time, I have worked late. I've had to really learn new skills. I've had to listen to my community and make decisions that feel hard. So to imply that building a business is as easy as some sort of four-step formula that you can sign up for.

It's just patronizing and it doesn't account for the real lives of the real people with all kinds of other stuff and all kinds of other responsibilities going on in the background of their lives. That just absolutely need to be accounted for it takes work, but it's worth it. Secondly, I think it's fair to say that when you're building a business, you won't feel a sense of ownership with it for awhile.

And what I find. That was for a while. It felt like I was always imitating someone else. Right. So it wasn't like it was anyone in particular, it wasn't ripping anybody off, but I just felt like the stuff that I was doing was a mashup of the stuff that I'd been observing or listening to him. From other people that I admire or people that I thought were doing things well, and it just takes time to find your own groove and building a business and really feel like you're making it your own.

Um, and in saying that I actually just really want to normalize that it's so normal that you might go about poking around other people's websites and socials. And it's really human to be curious about what other people are doing and how they're doing it. It's a given that you'll want to see or hear about the tactics or the ways that other people who are maybe in a similar field or industry to you or operating it's normal.

Right. But it can also be a really slippery slope. Um, paying too close attention to what other people are doing is likely going to have you spinning your wheels a bit about what you're doing. And the reality is is that what you can actually see of other people's work is a tiny little fraction of what that person and really allows to be visible.

So you don't get to see any of the dilemmas or any of the struggles or any of the winging it that they're doing. So don't get yourself wrapped up in someone else's story, have a look, have a poke around and then move on and start practicing using your own voice and doing your own thing. Even if it feels unnatural to begin with your own style will emerge.

It will come. Just keep going. And thirdly, I think there comes a time where the benefit of investing in your business is what is actually needed to move the needle and trying to build a business without support. Exponentially harder. Um, if you're doing it on your own, are you saying that you should be, you run the risk of thinking that you're the only one that finds things tough or you're the only one that's over-complicating are you the only one that's overthinking things and it's actually really overwhelming.

In the early stages to be able to, um, try and take care of every little aspect of our businesses ourselves. Right? So to think that we should be the strategist, the marketer, the copywriter, the deliverer, the creator, the analyst, the sales person, the social media manager, the troubleshooter, the designer, you know, all on our own.

So lonely to think about that. And so overwhelming. So making the move to start investing in your business might sign scary, but it doesn't have to be massive to start with. And when I say investing this could mean anything from, you know, hiring a virtual assistant for a few hours a month to help you create more streamlined processes.

Or hiring a designer to like properly create branding and content for you instead of you slaving over Canva for hours or bringing in the content that can make sense of your finances or a coach that can help you on muddle your brand and keep you accountable to a particular goal you might have in that season, whatever it is, you need to start creating some space for your best work in your best. I would say it because we all have limitations to our expertise and our capacity, and we need to know what part of our business is our sweetest spots. So the space that needs our expertise the most, um, and for me, it started with hiring a virtual assistant for a few hours a month. And then gradually I could say the benefits of this both in like time that I was saving.

Freeing me up to create more and creating more. I was able to show up for my community more and bring in more clients to work with. And gradually I've been able to work my way to be able to hire an operations coordinator that just handles all the behind the scenes of my business every week in the systems and the processes and hire.

The community and content coach to help me connect with and create support in my membership community and doing this gradually was honestly the best decision ever. Um, and it means that I can spend most of my time communicating my message through content like this and serving the higher level coaching clients that I work with in a deeper way.

And I really do understand that spend money in your business feels scary and risky. If you can budget for. And if you're willing to experiment with what it might feel like to have more help sooner than you think you need to. And with all these things, um, I find building the business to be super stretchy, uh, mostly on the inside.

Um, the amount of effort that I've had to put into my business is the effort of managing my own fears of managing my insecurities and my doubts. Uh, it's really difficult. It's really difficult to be brave. And to be comfortable at the same time. And I know that I, but I also know that taken action practicing using my voice and getting some support in my business has made all the difference. I hope me sharing some of that helps you if you're in the throws of building a business or maybe if you're further down the line and, um, you maybe you're really at, to some of that as well as always. I love hearing from you. So if you want to chat more, you can find me on Instagram @melwiggins, or you can email me at hello@melwiggins.com.

And before I go, I just want to give you a heads up that we have just changed our membership community model so that it is open all of the time. And it is such a really exciting development. As a team, because we want to be able to bring people into this community when they're ready and not have to wait it until some sort of big official launch time.

So the price is staying the same. It costs £97 to join the membership on £35 a month after that. And you get coaching, training, resources, accountability, and community, but this membership brings it all together for you. So if you're needing an extra dose of courage for your next steps, this could be the place for you and you can find.

All of the information on the sign details in the show notes as always. Thank you so, so much for listening and I will see you next time.