Status Report: Lessons from My Second Year in Business

The past week has been one of the busiest weeks on record. And I’m grateful because it means my business is working. But it didn’t happen overnight. 

For the past year, I was in the growth phase. After leaving my steady, full-time job in the fall of 2022, I was focused on just getting clients while, at the same time, honing in on my niche and what my offerings were. This was also the time I began working with a business coach to help guide me as I navigated the murky waters of entrepreneurship. I can still recall the feeling when I landed my first client. It was a mix of total shock and disbelief followed by panic and fear. In addition to navigating my new role as CEO, content creator, blogger, social media strategist, and publicist in those early days, I also was caregiving for my grandmother and I spent every night in the nursing home. So, needless to say, my first year was not about immediate growth. It was more about launching the business in a sustainable way that was also suitable for my lifestyle. 

Then, as my business coach always said would happen, clients found me. People started reaching out, I initiated discovery calls, and my roster began to resemble that of an actual working professional. The next hurdle became how to manage my clients and ensure that everyone could get enough of my time. Now, in year two of my business, I have a better grasp on the kind of projects I want to work on and the clients I want to work with (remember, your clients are like your co-workers, so choose wisely). 

Early on, one of the biggest challenges I faced in my business was feeling discouraged when things didn’t go as planned. I would spend time preparing proposals, hopping on discovery calls, writing contracts, and then, I wouldn’t land the client. While I knew this was a part of having my own business, it was hard not to take it as a failure and have it put me in a funk for a few days. But what I now know is that each time I went through that process, I wrote a better proposal, asked more probing questions during the discovery call, and wound up with a tighter scope of work in my contract. Without those experiences, I wouldn’t have been able to develop my niche and find ways to land clients in the fields that I wanted to work in. 

The other big lesson I learned was how much time (and money) it takes to build a business. After sitting with my accountant this year, I was surprised to learn that I made a (small) profit in 2023. Nevertheless, seeing how much money was coming out of my bank account every month to cover my overhead was eye-opening, and it encouraged me to go back to the drawing board to land more clients.

As year two of my business is underway, I feel more prepared, confident, and determined to build the business I want. I’m grateful for the clients who have come my way and the productive relationships we’ve been able to have, and I’m thankful that things that didn’t work out helped to redirect my path. When I look at my calendar today and see how far I’ve come from last year, it’s a reminder that things will work out, if you give it enough time. 

How often do you assess your progress?