Let’s go there… I want to tell you all about the 4 things that you should definitely consider in order to crush your entrepreneur goals! I will also talk a bit about what definitely did not work in my business this year.

What Worked for my entrepreneur business!

1. An online mastermind

Let’s start from the beginning. I was always told before I started my business that if I really wanted my business to succeed, I would need to invest. You know the saying, if you want to make more you need to spend more. I begrudgingly decided that this is true and started looking for opportunities to grow my business. As someone who over analyzes every single purchase and definitely has some heart issues with money, it was incredibly hard to decide.

After following Paige Marie Photography and seeing it evolve to The Legal Paige I decided her mastermind would be a good option. For me it came down to:

1. who I admire
2. who I thought was doing business effectively and
3. who had received good training from others I admired

Paige is a hard-ass worker and I desire to follow someone who had that type of personality! Beyond that, I knew my business needed more clarity, vision, and purpose and I knew a mastermind format would be great for uncovering that.

2. Defining my idea client/ direction of my business/ your “secret sauce” as Jenna Kutcher says

In a Mastermind, you are set up with many other individuals who are searching for progress in their business and it is a communal group that helps one another out (with a leader guiding it). The number one phrase I used to describe the Mastermind experience is game-changer. Paige helped me determine what exactly I want to do with my business – she told me my business was all over the place (which it definitely was) and helped me discover my ideal client and hone in on my vision as well as what my special sauce is which is website design!

I feared doing this would make me lose clients but it did quite the opposite; it helped me gain clients, make more money, and book a month out for my website projects!

Figuring out that social media and logo design are not my area of expertise, allowed me the creative freedom to do better in my website design and dedicate more to those clients and serve them better. It also gave me the time to start other things that can help scale my business like a YouTube channel (more on that in a second).

Now onto what semi-worked

3. Counseling

First up is counseling. I think counseling can be a great choice for anyone who needs to talk about anything and it really helped me grow my faith but also work through some personal issues with my business. I am (very much) someone who thrives on affirmation and needs approval and “good jobs” from others to feel accomplished in her work. By working through this with my counselor I was able to rediscover who my worth is found in and get freedom from my to-do list. 

What didn’t work super well with my counseling, was my counselor and the strategy and approach in which she approached counseling. I figured it must be on me and I just wasn’t doing the work right, but after talking with other counselors, they said in at least 3 sessions you should know if the counselor is a right fit for you…I had about 20 sessions before we parted ways. 

4. An online course

The next thing that kind of worked was my biggest investment of the year. Going back to having to spend more in order to make more, I decided I needed to take another opportunity of hiring a coach or doing a course. I did a thorough analysis for different courses and figured out the one which would help my business and serve me the best. The Brand Strategy School helped create a little bit more of systems in my business and it definitely helped me come up with a strategic approach to help my clients discover their ideal client as well as brand colors etc.

Since I started this course only two months ago, I can’t fully say if I have had a return on my investment, but I will be sure to let you know! I will say that I love the approach Bonnie has and how willing she is to serve me and answer my questions, kind of like a coach!

What DIDN’T Work

All right, now on to the fun stuff — what didn’t work. First off, my YouTube channel. When I look at the numbers I do not see a direct correlation between making a profit and creating YouTube videos. That being said, I still enjoy doing them on occasion and serving my clients in that way so I will probably continue them (just less often) in 2020.

I would have to say the biggest bust of the year was opening my online shop. If you would like to hear more about that, check out this IGTV video!

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Here’s a little hump day business talk for ya! I’m spilling all the deets on what worked and what certainly did NOT in 2019 (all in my cozy Costco sweater on the couch) so you can learn from my mishaps! Shout-out to my best investment @thelegalpaige mastermind!!

A post shared by Bekah Read (@rebekahreadcreative) on Jan 8, 2020 at 6:25pm PST