I didn’t always have the business, the community, sales and followers. When I started my first small business, I really struggled to get customers. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong, I tried everything, and nothing seemed to work.

That was until I understood that the problem wasn’t in my efforts. The problem was that I didn’t spend my efforts and time on the right things. And by “the rights things,” I mean taking time to understand how to get my small business noticed in today’s competitive market. Instead, I was spinning my wheels, trying to do random tips and tricks and paying for ads that didn’t bring me any customers anyways. It took me four years of hard-learned lessons before I was finally able to turn my one sale a month into more sales than I could handle. Literally. Looking back it’s so clear to me why no one was buying my products.

You might think you don’t have four years to waste before you actually start making money from your business. And you are right. It should not take this long, and it doesn’t have to if you have a plan and focus your time on deliberate action. That’s why today I am sharing with you the big three things I changed that helped me to go from one sale a month to more sales than I could handle. Ready? Buckle up, it’s one of those honest, funny stories, full of good lessons. 

1. Went back to my Small Business Foundations

It’s quite simple. Every successful business (big or small) knows their foundations: who exactly is their ideal customer, what they want, how to attract them and why they would shop from them instead of their competition. I have been trying to convince myself for four years that this doesn’t relate to me, because I “only have a small business”. Well, it would forever stay “small” if I never got over this mindset belief and started treating it as a real business instead. 

Trust me on this one; knowing your foundations brings you clarity. Without clarity, you are likely throwing a bunch of peas on a wall and hoping some of it will stick. While I believe that “hope” is an essential component of growing your business, it should not be the only one. 

If you don’t know your small business foundations and struggle to get sales, this should be your priority before you spend any more money on ads or time trying to post your products and hoping someone will buy it. You can’t effectively market your product if you don’t know who exactly you are marketing to and why they should buy it from you. 

2. Created a plan and deliberate action to follow

When I tell you that I tried it all, I really did. Paying for ads, going to local markets, joining local small business groups on Facebook, posting my products on social media, reaching out to influencers, doing giveaways, putting my product to consignment stores and even sticking my small business cards to the posted board in coffee shops! 

Except I never had a plan with deliberate action to follow. If one thing didn’t work, I googled the next trick, tried it, and if that didn’t work, I was onto something else. I was always busy doing something for my small business and “hoping” for sales to come. That was until the moment when I reached  the “enough is enough” stage. I was either going to make this happen or quit. And if you know me, you know that I am not a quitter, so the first choice had to happen.

I committed myself to figuring it out. There I was, sitting on my kitchen counter, writing notes and obsessing about studying successful small businesses online and on social media. They all had plans and didn’t seem to bother about things like algorithm changes, they focused on long-term deliberate action. The missing piece  was one word “deliberate”.

Until that point, my goals were more just dreams – bunch of numbers that looked good thrown together with my hands crossed, hoping it would happen.

For the first time, I created my small business plan (to the best of my abilities) and action plan to follow. Don’t think it was anything fancy, but it gave me the focus that I was missing that entire time. Instead of being scattered and constantly searching for the next trick, I narrowed down my action and focused on improving one thing at a time. I was running my small business full-time, before I was able to say “wow it worked”.

So, if you are here reading this, still trying random tips and tricks and not having goals supported by a deliberate action plan, I encourage you to read this blog post and set your goals now. 

3. Embodied Success mindset

As you can probably imagine, the results & experience I mentioned above got me to completely new mindset: “monkey see, monkey do”, or as Tony Robbins says “Success leave clues”.

I got hyperfocused on what successful businesses do and applied it to my business. Specifically: 

• I stopped focusing on things I could not affect, such as algotirthms & instead bet all my focus on things that were in my control – such as understanding my target market and creating my product offers strategically based on competition research. 

• I stopped looking for instant gratification, such as daily Instagram views or an increase in followers and started to focus on improving numbers that actually mattered for my business – such as conversion rate or customer retention. 

• I stopped wasting time hoping for random goals to happen and got busy doing deliberate action to make-it-happen.

• I started to trust in the process & progress over expecting my results to change overnight by applying random tricks once or twice.

• Most importantly, I practiced believing in myself that I am good enough to make it happen and showed up even if I didn’t feel like it

After 8 years in small business, I wish I could say I got lucky, but it wasn’t my case. I learned the hard way and I don’t want that to be you, because I know that it doesn’t have to be this hard if know what to do and have a plan to follow. If you want to learn more about growing your small business with strategy and without burnout, follow along on my Instagram, where I share daily small business lessons and inspiration. 

Thank you for being part of Small Biz Babes Community.

Until next time,

Michaela