Sunny Lenarduzzi: Hey boss, I know that sometimes, entrepreneurship can look like a total dream
come true.
Beautiful.
Let's be real.
Sometimes, you end up in the fetal position on the floor, crying because you can't figure
out what your next move is.
No?
Just me?
Okay.
Great.
Seriously, I have been at this entrepreneurship thing for almost 10 years, which is kind of
crazy.
My business model has changed quite a bit and in the last year, we caught our biggest
growth year ever in terms of team and revenue and let me tell you, growth comes with growing
pains and it also comes with a lot of lessons.
The reasons I wanted to make this video is to tell you and prepare you for some of the
challenges that came as a total fun surprise for me to make sure that you're ready for
it because you're going to grow but you also need to know what to expect along the way.
These are eight challenges that every entrepreneur should expect and how to deal with them.
Number one; the challenge is unpredictability.
It's just something that you need to think about when you're starting a business because
it is glorified to be an entrepreneur and live this laptop lifestyle and have that freedom
but the reality is, you can work from anywhere at any time, that's awesome and it sounds
super sexy and attractive but the bad news is, you can work from anywhere, all the time.
There is no predictability in your schedule and when you're just solo on your own, everything
is on your shoulders and it does get to be a lot so knowing that your schedule is unpredictable,
your pay is unpredictable and it's really cool and great to be your own boss but what
happens when you don't know where your next client is coming from or for me, one of my
biggest clients when bankrupt when I was first starting my consultancy and I didn't know
how I was going to pay rent that month so understand that unpredictability is a big
part of it.
What's the solution to this problem?
The solution for this is lead generation.
You have to have some way outside of word of mouth to generate leads.
For me, the first thing that really worked for me to generate leads every single day
without having to put in time and effort and trading time for dollars on a daily basis
was YouTube.
When I dove into YouTube and I started using it in a way to build my business, I was getting
email subscribers and customers all day, every single day.
You could also use things like Facebook Ad, Pinterest.
There's so many things you could do but you have to know how you're going to be generating
leads and clients for your business and sales for your business.
You have to figure that part out.
That is the solution.
Lead gen is so important.
You cannot rely on word of mouth for the rest of your life.
Number two is your dream team.
When I first started my business, I never wanted to have a team around me.
I thought I could do this by myself for the rest of my life and then you hit capacity
and then you max out because reality is, you can't grow as just one singular person.
You can't do everything in your business on your own.
You have to and you're forced to when you're first getting started and I totally get that
and I've been there and it's great to learn it all because then you can outsource it better
but if you want your business to grow, you're eventually going to outgrow it all by yourself.
What I did and one of the best solutions that I had, this is the solution to creating your
dream team, even if you don't have the resources right now, to create your dream team, what
I want you to do is create a graph that looks like this; what I want to do, what I can't
do and what I shouldn't be doing.
What I want to do is content creation.
What I want to do is build relationships.
What I can't do is finances and bookkeeping.
That is not my jam.
I did it in the beginning but it's not my jam.
What I shouldn't be doing are things like graphic design.
Although I did all of those things to start out, now I've hired people to do them for
me so now I can more so stay in my genius zone and believe me, this continues to happen
the more you grow, the more you realize, "Oh, I probably shouldn't be doing that," or "This
person in my team is maxed out in their capacity, they shouldn't be doing that."
That's really a solution, create that graph.
I would love for you to do it after you watch this video because it will immediately make
you feel less pressure and better about everything when you actually see it all mapped out and
then you realize what you probably should be hiring for first.
My first hiring was community management and really, social media management and that turned
into an intern position and now, as most of you know, Alex has been with me for the last
couple of years and grown into a much bigger role.
Step number three is sticking to a vision.
This is a major challenge, especially in this day and age, especially with something that's
an online business because shiny object syndrome is a very real thing.
It makes you feel like you could be doing this or you could be doing this or you should
be doing this or you should be doing that.
If you're not doing this, you're an idiot and if you're not doing this, your business
is never going to grow because that's what you're being fed on a daily basis.
Sticking to your vision means sticking to the thing that you're really good at and sticking
to one business model until succeeds.
The amount of people who plummet on their videos every single day and go, "I want to
start a business around this but I also want to start a business around this," but I'm
like, "Okay, wait.
Focus.
Every, just calm down and focus," because if you're trying to grow everything at once,
nothing's going to grow.
You got to start with one thing, one thing only and actually make it a success.
Once you built one successful business, it's a lot easier to build another successful business
because you know how to do it.
The solution to this problem and this challenge is to create a vision of where you want your
one company, your one business to be in a year and then create micro goals and also
milestones of what you need to hit in order to get it there because if you're waking up
each day without an exact game plan of what you're trying to achieve, it's really easy
to get taken off course and it's really easy to listen to the narrative that's coming at
you every single day that's saying you're not doing enough or you're not doing the right
things.
Knowing that you are sticking to it and aligned with your vision, will help you focus on how
you want to build your business.
Tip number four, most important thing I'm going to tell you today.
Systems, systems, systems.
The only way to grow your business is to have everything in a systemized fashion.
What you want to do is, you want to write everything down.
Do you have the process for how you upload and send out an email newsletter each week?
Do you have the process written down of how you write a caption on Instagram?
Those are little things but everything should be written down in a process.
What we did in my business, and this is the solution to this problem; if you don't have
systems or an infrastructure, the best place to start is just have everything documented
in a Google Drive folder.
We created an internal course actually, for anyone who comes onboard and for each role
so that everything that you need to do is documented and, as people come onboard, they
do the same thing.
Making sure that everything is broken down into an exact system that anybody could follow
because people leave, people get fired, people quit, people go on vacation and you want to
create a culture where that's possible and so, in order to do that, you have to have
some sort of system in place that people can easily follow and make up for if someone is
out of town.
Step number five.
I get asked about this all the time and I'm certainly not the expert but I've had to figure
this out so finances for me is always a struggle.
I literally, shutdown as soon as people show me a spreadsheet or numbers.
It's just not how my brain works so what I've done, I used to do all the financial part
of my business myself in the very beginning and then I hired someone to help me with it,
a bookkeeper and a very good accountant.
Basically what we do is we now have a weekly spend and sales report so we know exactly
how much we're spending and how much we're profiting and then we have our PNL every single
month so profit and loss sheet so we know broken down by each category what's bringing
in the most money, where are we losing the money or what are our expenses and we can
actually measure or manage and make sure each month, that we're on the right track and we
have enough profit to sustain the business.
The best book that I read on this topic and that really made finances click for me in
my business is called Profit First.
I cannot recommend it enough and I know it's a bit of a controversial method for some people
but for me it's worked really well in my business and it makes you also, realize that as the
founder of the business, I'm sure there's some of you watching this right now and thinking,
"I don't even pay myself."
You didn't get into being an entrepreneur to not make any sort of money.
The reality is, you did this so you could have your own freedom and create your own
lifestyle but so many times and myself included, you give yourself the peanuts and the leftovers
and you're not paying yourself anything so you have to switch your mindset on that and
realize that the business is based around you so you have to be paying yourself first
and then, if you can't pay the rest of your team or your expenses, you have to make cuts
and you have to be a little more frugal in how you're spending your money.
Number six ... hits the fan.
Sure does, all the time.
The more you grow the more ... will hit the fan so you have to be prepared for that and
understand that you're going to screw up, you're going to fail, you're going to have
issues that arise and from my experience, the only solution to this problem is to take
full accountability even if it's not your role.
If something happens within my team or something happens within company, the end of the day,
I took accountability for it because I'm the one who's at the top and I'm the leader of
it so I have to figure out what's not working and insure that it's going to be smoothed
out in the future but you as the owner and the founder of your business, the fastest
way to grow is fail fast, learn faster, take full accountability so you can actually remedy
the problem.
The biggest cancer to any company is people blaming everyone else so take accountability.
Number seven; you need mentors.
You really do.
You have to find people who are beyond you in your business experience and even in any
other industries it's really helpful to get a variety of business advice and mentorship
to know how to grow your business in a way that's proven and sustainable and successful
because if you're just surrounding yourself with people who have never done this before,
it's going to get really lonely and tuff for you because the more you grow, the more your
mind will mess with you so you have to have mentors around that you can lean on, rely
on and ask questions and get guidance from.
My solution here is source out reliable, trustworthy people and ask friends and ask people in your
industry; who do they talk to?
I've asked a lot of fellow entrepreneurs, "Who's your mentor?"
Also naturally built relationships through social media and found mentors that are virtual,
don't even know I exist but I read all of their books and I read all of their social
posts and I gain information from there as well but find people and surround yourself
with people who know more than you do.
You don't want to be the smartest person in the room.
Number eight; the biggest challenge is everything relies on you, until it doesn't.
For a very long time, everything was reliant on me in my business and one of the hardest
things I've gone through in the last year is letting go of control of a lot of different
aspects.
If you are going to grow your business, you have to understand that you can't control
every single little detail.
This is going to help you out so much; let go of the things that you're not the best
at and trust your team and build the right team and build the right people alongside
you and they create their own boss role within your business.
That's really how I've approached it is that everyone is their own boss within my business.
Number nine; competition and copycats.
Both things will come up.
I truly don't believe in competition because I think if you're doing everything your own
way, no one is your competition and if you're sticking to your own unique vision there's
a bunch of people who talk about YouTube, there's a bunch of people who teach it but,
I'm not them, they're not me so competition is a good thing and copycats is another thing
that will come up.
As you grow you will notice that people will bite your steez, people will do the same things
as you, people even will use the same branding as you.
All of those things will come up and you kind of just have to take it with a grain of salt
and for me at this point, I just take it as a huge compliment.
It's not something that needs to affect you and I would say that if you get to this place
in your business where you're noticing a lot of of these, it's really because your brain
has switched into this scarcity mindset of, "Oh my gosh, that person's going to be better
than me or outgrow me or that copycat is going to build a bigger business than me."
It's all just your mind playing tricks on you, especially when you get to a growth period
in your business.
It's easy when you get to a new level, to look backwards and think you're going to go
backwards, you're going to slip backwards because it feels like you've come so far.
Fully understand that.
Again, I can relate.
Let me know in the comments, or maybe I'm just crazy.
I don't know.
I think it's really important.
The biggest solution to this is something that I always say; stay in your own lane and
focus on your own business, your own brand, your products, your own services, your own
customers and build that squad that you have around you and build those relationships because
those people matter the most.
I really want to hear from you; what are some of the challenges that you face as an entrepreneur.
Let's get real honest here and in the comments below, I want you guys to talk back and forth
and be honest about this and if you want support from your fellow bosses and you want to speak
to different people from all over the world who are doing this entrepreneurial thing,
[inaudible 00:12:21] really be your own boss mastermind on Facebook.
It's my Facebook for entrepreneurial bosses all over the world and the reason I made it
was to take away that isolation factor of feeling like you're doing this all on your
own.
I never anticipated my business would be in the place that it's in today.
It can be scary.
It can be really stressful and I know from the outside in it looks like it may be is
perfect or easy all the time, it's not and anyone who tells you that this is easy all
the time is probably not telling the truth.
I hope this is really helpful for you.
Let me know what you think and if you liked it, hit the like button below.
Share it with a boss who needs to hear this today and be sure to subscribe.
I'll see you in the next video.