Getting Over the Fear of Starting a Business
Ep25
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Hey, thanks for being here, listening to a lot with Audra. You know what is not a lot. Summertime. I am loving summer this year, so, so much. And I am in, if you listen to our summer episode about how our team was handling work versus family obligations this summer, I am in my second week of work out of four for the summer.
So I, it's a Monday and I'm batch recording podcast episodes, which. It's something I [00:01:00] have not done a ton in the past, but I'm finding a lot of freedom and batching and just really diving all in on one thing for the day and getting it done. Last week, I batched our social media content for June. So if you are a person who markets your business in the same way I market my business.
I know batching is something that people have talked about for a long time, but I just have to tell you. It is really working for me now and it never has before, so I don't know what the switch is, but I'm here. I'm grateful you're here. I'm loving Summer. I hope you are too. What we're gonna talk about today is a conversation that comes up a lot.
So I have been an entrepreneur officially. This summer, it was August of 2020 when I pulled my LLC license and officially started the thread. Now, prior to that, I had [00:02:00] tried entrepreneurship before. That was probably 20 12, 20 13. I also had been a solopreneur for a few years, so I was used to the lifestyle in a way, but I really mark this like August 20, 25 years in the official start to my entrepreneurship journey because it's the time that I went really all in
after the failed business attempt, after the solo entrepreneurship. So I'll be in conversation often with women who are in this position who either have a great business idea or want to start a business or have a side hustle that they're wanting to make more public. Make into a full-time gig, make into something, quote, unquote more real.
And that's why I wanted to talk about this today, because I'm not that [00:03:00] far from being in that season where I had this idea and I was excited to bring it into the world. And I remember how scary it feels. Launching a business, the way I describe it is totally being naked, launching a business feels naked to me.
It's scary, it's vulnerable. It puts so much of who you are on the line in so many ways. Entrepreneurship is a beautiful, messy way to figure out who you really are. Lemme tell you that. But just recently in one of our thread cohorts, I was having this conversation with a member just about how. Scary and naked, it feels to put yourself out there when you've maybe had a little business and you've talked to your friends about it, and they might support you, but it's really more of like a hobby because you're not taking it super [00:04:00] seriously.
You're not really marketing it, you're not putting it out into the world. You're more just like, well, you know, if anyone asks, I will tell them. Like this is, you know what I do? You use language like this, right? My little business or my side project. You don't take yourself super seriously. And so this episode is gonna be a quick and dirty pep talk on
why you need to take yourself seriously. And my top three tips on how you can get over the fear of putting yourself out there when you are starting a business. Just know first and foremost, you are not alone. I remember in summer of 2020 when I decided, okay, I'm for sure gonna go for this. Like we had adjusted our whole life.
We had moved back to our hometown. That wasn't solely because of this business idea that I had, but that was a huge part of it. But still, for almost two months, six weeks or so, I sort of [00:05:00] toyed around and did all of these little things that weren't directly helping to build my business. It took me six weeks to say, okay, okay
I am not just gonna like, sit and do this in the background, like I'm gonna do this on the forefront. And I posted something on social media. I started a thread, social media channel, like I'm thinking Instagram was probably the first platform that I secured and was planning on building up. And I got the handle likely long before I made the post.
But that feels a little safe, right? Just getting the handles kind of, but that first post, I remember putting it out there. Pushing publish or whatever it is on Instagram, and feeling like I was totally gonna puke. I immediately had a vulnerability hangover. I was just so like, oh, chill, nonchalant. Like I don't really want anyone to see what I'm building and know how much it [00:06:00] means to me.
And so putting that Instagram post out into the world was just like, okay, here we go. And keep in mind, like I have a social media background. I did social media for all of my jobs. I started a social media company that was my first business venture back in 2012 and 2013. So like I am, no, I'm not shy of social media, right?
That's something that I'm just, I'm so used to, but even so, it was so, so scary to like go public digitally. Okay. So if you are there. I have three tips for you today, and I've shared these tips with anyone in my thread community who I've gotten the opportunity to mentor. Anyone in my thread community that wants to start a business or I am working with in a mastermind focus.
These are my top three tips. They're all doable right now. Right where you are. They're free. Number one, what I did, and I guess [00:07:00] I'm not saying this is best practice, but what I did that I know worked is I forced myself to talk about my business with everyone I came in contact with.
Literally everyone. I might have shared this on the podcast before, but that was just such a huge part of getting me comfortable with the identity of being an entrepreneur. It's sexy, yes, when you're successful, but it's risky. And again, so freaking vulnerable when you have not achieved a level of success that you're comfortable with yet.
So I forced myself to talk to everyone about what I was doing. My mom, my mom's coworkers my husband's friends, the barista at the coffee shop, my friends old contacts that I had not kept in touch with for the decade ish that I was gone. I [00:08:00] reached out every conversation I had with neighbors. I would just share what I was doing, the people I bought my house from, definitely my realtor.
And you know what it did. First of all, it forced me to embrace that identity of I am pursuing entrepreneurship. I am being an entrepreneur. It helped me actually spread the word about my business. It was a great marketing tool. People in my community, and I would venture to say in the Midwest in general, love to support someone who is putting an effort into bringing something unique and valuable and cool to their city.
I was so embraced and so grateful. That helped me make money to actually have a real business, not just an idea, not just an LLC, not just an Instagram account, but by talking to everyone I knew. it helped me actually become an entrepreneur because I [00:09:00] was sharing my idea. And then it helped me spread the word because I hope and think the people I told also told another person or two, and that actually helped me make money and go into business.
It also helped me do a couple things I wasn't quite expecting, and one is it helped me work on my pitch. You think you know what you're gonna say, you know, like this business that you have in your head or in your heart, or maybe it's a, in the form of like an 18 page business plan on a Google doc like I had.
You think you know what your business is gonna be about, but you get out into the market and you start using words and seeing what resonates and seeing what actually hits with people in a way that feels true to what you're bringing to the world through your business.
So that was the first thing that I'm surprised me. And then the second thing that surprised me was just me gaining understanding of my market, who my target [00:10:00] uh, members would be, who my clients would be, what their challenges were. I mean, I am in the demographic of my target market as a business owner, so I really thought I knew, and I did to a certain extent, but moving to a new market.
Just having the variety of conversations. It was super eye-opening and interesting to me to hear like who actually needed what I wanted to bring to the market. So that is tip number one. Force yourself to tell. Everyone about your business. Now, I'm not saying do this when it's truly in the ideation phase, right?
But I'm saying once you have made that commitment, filed that LLC given your job two weeks notice, I, I don't know what your commitments could be. I'm thinking with a super cool person who went from being a therapist and opened a franchise and she had signed the agreements, so therefore she [00:11:00] was on that path.
She was and has opened a successful franchise in our market. One thing that she did that I thought was really cool when I gave her this advice, she kept a list on her phone and tracked how many people she told. I think she had the goal of telling 10 people a day, five days a week, or something like that.
But I just thought, wow, that's a really great way to impress yourself to just build that self trust as an entrepreneur. So tip number one, force yourself. To talk about your business, own it, become that entrepreneur that you wanna be. Spread the word, solidify your pitch. Go for it. Number two. Commit to constant action versus having hard goals.
When I started the thread, I always had a vision of cohorts being the size of 30 [00:12:00] women per cohort, and I did research based on Priya Parker's work. She wrote a book called The Art of Gathering. She also has a course called the Same Thing, and she's on Instagram. She's got a great newsletter. So I did some research.
You know, honestly, in early 2020 before the pandemic hit, before I had this business, I read her book and it came in handy when I decided to build the particular business that I built. And so 30 women is what I had in mind per cohort, but I quickly realized, especially in the middle of a global pandemic, creating an in-person based business.
I might not hit that number, and in fact, I did not hit that number for our first cohort. We have evolved thoughts and practices since then. So instead of committing to like this hard and fast, like I have to make this much revenue by this date, or I have to get this many clients in [00:13:00] this amount of time, or even it did not work for me to like have a list of I need to make this many calls this week and every week to get the first members of my group together.
What helped me more than any of that stuff was committing to constant action. There are so many things we can choose to do as entrepreneurs, especially when we're starting our business, the best thing we can do is step by step, take action. Just do something. You don't have to do everything. Just do something.
Do the next right thing, the thing that you think will move the needle the most For me, that was having a ton of meetings, talking to a ton of people, catching up with them, hearing about their world, telling them about what I was doing. No strings attached. Just as an action of like, I need to spread the word about what I'm trying to bring to our community.
And so I was constantly in action. Now, I will say here is one trap that I think a lot [00:14:00] of us entrepreneurs get sucked into, and that is the over researching phase. Just a reminder or maybe like a hello if you don't think this way already, but researching is not action. And I say that so hesitantly because it feels good to research, to listen to a podcast and.
Okay, fine. There is a season for sure where you need that. When I was living in Honolulu and the pandemic hit and the next month I had the idea for this business, I spent April, may, and June putting together this business plan, doing research, talking to people I still had relationships with in the market.
I was moving to, looking at different models. I spent three months on that, but then when. I hit the ground. It was time to put all the research I had done aside and take action based off of it, but [00:15:00] I was no longer in research mode. So I just wanna like remind you of that little nugget of truth that helps me if I want to do something.
The best way to do it is just doing it. It might be messy, it might not be perfect. It might fail, but at least it's going to get me in motion. You know, we've all heard that quote, objects in motion, stay in motion, or maybe that's like an actual scientific thing. It probably is. You know, you come here for the science, so I'm sorry I don't have the references to back that up, but take action.
Real action. Okay. The third thing I wanna share with you is. When you are launching your business, find people who are going to encourage you. This could be in the form of mentors, people who have maybe been there before, friends and family who are rooting for you and will actively listen to you as you're on the ride, even though it might be redundant or you might just be bringing challenges.
They don't [00:16:00] even need to solve anything. Just get people in your corner who are for you. Maybe they can help you in no way, shape, or form besides offering a listening ear. I know people that I talk to a lot when I was building the thread. My husband, of course, he had a stake in it. My grandmother, I talked to her a ton about just this vision I had.
And we would sit on our porch in the evening and she has a sales background and we would just talk about the different ideas I had and it was just so lovely. Get people who are rooting for you because it is so easy to doubt yourself and just having that little bench, that cheerleading squad is extremely important to you.
Actually, another story there is a woman who has been through our thread community who left. A great corporate situation had worked for very several impressive companies [00:17:00] to launch her own business, and she and I had talked for years about her joining the thread and participating in one of our cohorts.
And once she became an entrepreneur, she decided to do that and invest in herself. And she had this great webinar that she was gonna put on. I remember her saying just how important it was for her to have women in her mastermind group at the thread cheering her on as she did that. I know several of us attended, and we may not be her target market, but she just knew that there was someone on that webinar for her.
She knew that she could come to the thread cohort every two weeks and get some encouragement, get some feedback, but have people who were cheering for her and her. Her ride. Okay. Quick and dirty podcast today. But I do just talk to so many people who are in this season that I just wanna encourage you, take your ideas seriously.
Take [00:18:00] yourself seriously. Take your efforts of entrepreneurship seriously. You are worth it. Your ideas are worth it. What you have inside of you that you want to bring out into the world is so worth it. You don't have a little business. Pursue entrepreneurship wholeheartedly. Even if it is a side hustle.
Tell people what you're doing. Commit to taking constant action and find people who will encourage you. I hope that's what this podcast did for you today. Hope you're having a great summer and I will talk to you next week.
