I’m just going to be honest here. Running a business is way more work than I thought it would be. The whole foundation of why I opened my own business is because I thought it would be easier than being an employee to another (and, secretly, I really wanted to be able to take days off whenever the heck I wanted to). It hilariously wasn’t true even in the slightest!
Don’t get me wrong, owning my own business, and a successful one at that, has been the biggest blessing. It’s so wonderful to have the freedom, but before freedom came long, late nights and working on weekends. Funny enough, I majored in Business Administration and Marketing thinking it would prepare me to possibly run my own company. The thing is, though, while I gained valuable experience with other entrepreneurs, I wasn’t taught how to run my own business at all!
Anyways, jumping to my point here, school was valuable, yes. But there are SO many things it didn’t teach me about running a business that I wish I knew when I first started out. Here’s 10 things school didn’t teach me about running a business:
- What are red flags for clients
- How to do taxes
- How to set up my business legally
- How to truly understand what a client wants
- How to successfully grow my business’ social following
- How to balance my time
- Why it’s important to set clear expectations at the beginning of each project
- How to get raving reviews with every client
- How to properly say no to a project that isn’t the best fit
- How to brand yourself
The truth of the matter is that some of these are completely learned through simply running a business yourself. Getting raving reviews, growing my following, and avoiding red flag clients are all things that took some time to learn and get the hang of! Know that you’re not alone, though, and reaching out for advice from someone is always the best thing to do!
