Linh: Hey guys, and welcome back to my channel.
It's Linh Podetti here, and I'm the founder of Outsourcing
Angel.
In this video, I want to answer something that I've always
reflected about,
which is, what are the lessons that I've learned and wish that
I knew
before starting my business.
In this video, I want to share with you 10 things I wish I knew
about business.
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Let's get straight to the content.
Number one.
When I was starting my business,
all I could think about was how to make the most money.
Every single year I was focusing on how am I going to make the
next amount of money.
If I could reverse back time, I would ask myself, how can I
improve my service?
Who can I serve better? How can I make or improve my service?
If I was just answering those questions,
then I would have the answers to actually make more money.
For many years, I was actually just so focused on how do I make
$500,000?
How do I make a million dollars, and I'll just think about the
money.
When you think about the money, you block yourself from thinking
of solutions,
because money is a byproduct of you helping people,
solving people's problems, and then people will pay you for
solving their problem.
I really wish that I was just not so naive back then
and just always thinking about money, money, money.
Only when I achieved money that I realised that money wasn't
even fulfilling.
When you wanted to achieve a certain weight on your scale,
you get there and you're like, "Oh, is that all it feels?"
It's exactly like money.
When you achieve the certain money goal, you feel like, "Oh,
is that all?"
but the best fulfilling moment is when you know that
you've made certain people happy.
When your clients are happy and when your staff are happy.
So I really wish that I didn't waste time thinking about money
and stressing out,
but really think about how do I serve,
because it helps me make money and it also helps me to feel
good.
Now the next thing that I wish I knew is that every single year
there are challenges.
You have a delusional expectation that once you hit a
certain milestone,
that life kind of just always comes easy.
What I realized after years of in business is that every single
year,
you're going to face challenges, because unless you go through
challenges,
and you go through kind of hard times, that's the only time that
you grow.
If I could tell myself, the old young self Linh to not stress
too much,
when there are problems, that is opportunity.
When I was going through challenges, almost kind of like
pulling my hair out going,
"Oh my god, how am I gonna get through this?"
After seeing years and years of the same pattern,
every single year going through challenges, but after every
challenge,
there was this breakthrough that of this growth.
I would always look back and go, "Oh my God. Now I've learned
this or now I've learned that."
There's a saying that goes, there is no rainbow without the
rain.
I wish that I wouldn't stress so much of the challenges,
because if I could just interpret the word challenge,
it actually means opportunity.
That is the lesson number two.
Okay, lesson number three is about finance.
So one of the limiting beliefs that I had early on was,
I'm not really good with numbers.
For a few years, I kind of just pushed it away.
I even hired an accountant and I just was like "you do your
thing",
I didn't really care about.
Nowadays, I actually really care about numbers,
I care about what I'm bringing in, how I'm allocating the money
and I reckon I've wasted so many years of really wasting money.
One of the books that I recommend reading is called
Profit First.
I wish I read it much earlier on,
because for once there's a book that actually gives you the
benchmark of the money you receive,
how much should you allocate to profit,
how much you actually allocate to paying yourself,
how much you actually allocate to expense and tax and things?
For many years, I was always chasing my tails,
I always felt like I would always stress out when it was
tax time,
when it was GST time.
GST is 10% that you have to pay for services in Australia.
I was always stressing out because I didn't allocate the
money in advance.
Profit First was something I read not long ago.
This is talking about nine years later.
I wish I read that early on, because it's all about managing
your money.
If you've heard of, in personal finance, where you have to
allocate,
for example, 10% to paying yourself, 10%, to tithing, 10%
to whatever else,
in business is the same thing, but I didn't know that lesson
early on.
I would say that all the money came in, it was sitting in one
bucket.
I didn't know how to save the amount that I needed to pay tax.
I didn't know the amount I need to pay expenses.
I was always stressing out.
I was just paying myself whatever and reinvesting into
the business.
Not long ago, it's really recent time that I read the book Profit
First,
because I realized after many years of making money,
I wasn't really keeping money.
I was always reinvesting in the money and so this book really
allowed me
to allocate the amount of money and I would always see the
profit in advance,
the tax that I need is always there,
and so that I'm not stressing out over money.
That is lesson number three, caring about your number,
caring about your profit and Profit First is the book you
should read.
Alright, so number four is similar to number three, meaning
it's about finance.
What it was, is very early on, in the first year of business,
after a year of making some money, the bank asked me
"Do you want to borrow some money."
I was like, Okay, "I'll take that money and I'll just spend
on the business."
I really regret it, because I was such an immature mind
of very lack of experience in business,
with the money that I got, I started splurging on, I don't
know,
I need to go on holidays and maybe I'll network on my
holidays.
I would just spend on things that I didn't need.
I think when you give money to people that are inexperienced
too early on,
you'll just end up wasting a lot of money.
I really believe now that I wish that I never got all that amount
of money,
I would actually just learn to work with the money I got,
or just learn to generate money and use that money to generate
more money.
Imagine if you just didn't have the skills and experience to
make money,
and if someone just gave you a million dollars,
you would just splurge it and spend it on things,
and you end up being in a million dollars debt.
I got myself in a $40,000 debt into my first or second year in
business.
The thing that I regret is that in the first year, I was just
making positive cash flow.
Whatever I make, I would pay myself or spend into the
business,
but when the bank gave me money, I somehow managed to spend more
than I got.
Then I was in debt and after the next few years, I was paying my
debt.
One thing that I wish I knew early on is just don't borrow
money,
don't use money that you don't have, because it's just going to
put you into debt.
Number five is about recurring services.
For a few years, early on in my career, I just thought about
different services
and I never realized the power of having a recurring service.
This is about thinking of whatever service or product
you're doing,
that people will need ongoing.
This is the only way that you could actually kind of feel at
peace,
you can sleep, because the hard part is getting clients.
When the client comes on board and buys something from you,
you don't want to have to stress about getting another client.
After many years of doing a lot of fixed price project services,
I realized that the beauty is in recurring.
My Outsourcing Angel business is a recurring business,
where people buy a VA and they pay it monthly service.
Whereas before I was selling website projects, SEO.
SEO was actually recurring, but there were some other services
like logo, design websites stuff that I was doing and it was just
oneself.
I would go out to do my best to try to get a client,
but they will only need one website or they would only need
one logo,
and then I would have to go out and get more clients.
Always think about how can you package your service, so it's
recurring,
that people will always need you.
How can you keep on adding value to your clients month on month,
because the hard part is in getting the client,
the easier part is trying to retain them.
I guess it's just easier to just have to focus on the client you
already got,
then trying to keep on running around trying to get clients
and it all starts with getting the right services,
the right packages in the first place.
Now, lesson number six is specializing or niching, in
something.
As I was mentioning in number five was that I was offering
website development,
I was offering a logo, I was offering a lot of different
services.
I wasn't a master of anything. I wasn't very unique.
I didn't have time to do well in one service.
One thing I wish I learned early on is to really find a service
and do so well in it that people just come back to you for that.
Then you will get well known for that and people refer you for
being so good at that.
When I was dabbling on so many things,
and kind of worrying that we're going to say yes to everything,
because I need the money.
I think that the bravest thing, and the long term benefit is
actually saying no
to a lot of things and sticking to the niche that you're good
at.
Let's just say I just fell in love with SEO, well stick with
SEO.
How can you make yourself better than other SEO companies.
Learn more about SEO, add more value around SEO,
even improve your customer experience in SEO,
and so that you could actually be better than other SEO company
because if other SEO companies are kind of mediocre in maybe
the customer service,
you can stand out in that area.
I was kind of offering everything. I can do website or
I can do this, I can do that.
I didn't have time to be a master of any services.
So eventually, when I got into Outsourcing Angel
and I niched in recruitment of marketing staff,
I was able to really continue to improve my service,
improve my customer experience, and just be known for that.
Anything else that the clients needs,
I just refer them on to someone else to do,
so that I got really well known for virtual staff and how to
hire virtual assistants.
I'm really proud of that, and saying no gives you a lot more
power
than saying yes to everything.
Now, number seven is that I didn't realize that business was
more
than just about making money.
It was opportunity for you to instead of learning the
theory of how to improve yourself or improve your
character.
It was a way for you to actually improve your character and
improve your personal development through practical
experience.
I wish that all those years of struggles and trying to figure
out
how to run businesses and whatever.
It wasn't just about money, it was really about a chance for
you
to just become a better person, to become a better contributor
to society and
to be a better leader to your team.
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't Kind of stress too
much,
because I think I was just stressing about money stressing
about the goals
that I was trying to get.
Forgetting that it's about the journey, forgetting that this
journey of business
is actually making me become a better person.
The only way to become a better person is going through
challenges,
going through uncertainty, going through things that you've never
gone t
hrough before and go, "how am I gonna do this?",
but just go, I guess look at it more with enthusiasm.
"Yeah, I can do this!", because this is gonna make me become a
better person,
or more enthusiastic, in a sense that I will build my character.
If I was to give myself a lesson back to business is,
take a chill pill, enjoy the journey and just know that
whatever you're going through,
is actually making you a better person.
It's not just about the money.
It's not just about whether you're succeeding with your
goals,
it's actually that you are becoming a better person.
Knowing what I know, now, I'm so grateful for the challenges,
as I want people to kind of open their mind up
and embrace challenges and see that this is part of it,
accept it and enjoy it.
Lesson number eight that I wish I learned early on,
and really spent more time with his reading books.
For the first few years, I think, even though I knew books
was powerful,
I got too caught up in the business trying to solve
problems,
and forgetting that there's a lot of secrets and a lot of
strategies,
the solutions is in books.
Whatever that you're struggling with, whether it's finance,
whether it's mindsets, whether it's marketing,
it's all written in books from experts who has done it.
Sometimes, you get so caught up in fighting the fire,
running your business that you forget to even have time to read
the books
that saves you so much time and so much energy.
Every time that I did read a book, I'm like, "Oh, my God, I
learned something."
Then I learned it and then started to get back into the
business.
Sometimes I would go for a year without reading a book,
but it wasn't until the last couple years that I spent more
time reading.
The more I read, the more I became smarter,
the more I can bring ideas into the business
and the more I work smarter, and the business grew without
having to work so hard.
Lesson number nine.
This is something that I only learned in the last two years
after
hiring someone smarter than me.
I have my Operation manager named Richard.
When I hired him, he was able to go, "Linh, I think that you need
to let go of control."
I'm like, "What do you mean? I already have all these different
staff VA's
and staff that work with me. What do you mean, I don't let go
control?
I already have these people."
I didn't realize what he meant was that I was still being the
bottleneck,
I couldn't really go away without kind of affecting the
business
because the decision making was up to me.
Although I had team members, I realized that for many, many
years,
I was still solving the problem, telling them what to do,
and then just waiting for them to execute.
Versus nowadays, it's all about them making decisions,
empowering them to take on responsibility, even if they're
not a manager,
they know what they need to do in their role.
When it comes to leadership now, I take a different approach.
When there's a problem, I say to them, here's the problem, what's
your suggestion?
They might go to me, "What would you like me to do?"
I'm like, "What would you do?"
It's being patient, to allow them time to decide and come up
with ideas
that makes them smarter and the smarter they get,
the more reliable they get, the more I am free.
I would say the last couple of years,
I have been able to really free myself from the business,
it means that I'm proud to say that if I did go on holidays for
a few months,
that the business will run without me.
That's because I have now learned to provide decision
process to them
versus giving them tasks.
The mistake I made was that hiring people meant that I was
offloading tasks.
What I'm trying to say here is that I wish I learned to pass
the decisions.
So meaning, let them come up with the ideas to solve a
problem,
let them pick that solution, and let them even make mistakes.
Once they learn all that, then they will be the decision maker
and they don't rely on you.
That is the only ultimate way to be a true business owner
and have that freedom that you need in your business.
Now finally, the last lesson that I would share is around
partnership,
it's so important to choose a partner that not only has a
skill set that you don't have,
but they share the same value as you.
It took me so many years to learn this lesson I kept on
making the same mistake,
looking for people that was excited for I guess the goal of
the business
or maybe we want to achieve a certain amount of money
or a certain amount of sales.
You have a different skill set than I do and let's get
together.
The biggest thing for me now is about finding someone that has
shared the same value.
It's not just about partners or JV partners.
It's even your own staff.
It's finding someone that understands your big vision,
your value,
because then they will grow and they will stick along with you,
because the saddest thing about partnership...
it's similar to marriage is that you don't have the same value,
so that you don't last through the journey together.
It's so sad.
I think that if you're looking for a partner,
you're looking for someone that is going to grow your business
with you,
look beyond skillset, look for someone that sees the same
purpose,
the same vision, they want to change the world in the same way
as you,
because that is the only way that will take you through that
challenge in that journey together.
When you're starting to hit hurdles and challenges, it's
when it could crumble.
If you don't see eye to eye with the values or the vision,
you'll end up getting annoyed with each other, and you just
don't see eye to eye.
That is my final lesson in the things I wish I knew when I was
starting my business.
That is it, guys!
I hope that I've given you some values and help you in your
journey
to starting a business or running your business.
The thing I want to also emphasize is that there's no
regret, don't beat yourself up.
I mean, I don't beat myself up.
I'm just sharing this because I want to save you time,
save you from making the same mistake as I do.
I don't regret in making mistakes or have learned through
this journey of business.
It's really, like I said, it's about building my character
building me as a leader.
If I didn't make those mistakes, I wouldn't become the person
that I am today.
I'm more humbled, I am more down to earth
because I've experienced a lot of challenges.
I didn't always get things going my way.
When you have everything going your way,
you might be the biggest arrogant prick, right?
I'm not that kind of person.
It's because I've gone through so many challenges that felt
like,
"Oh my God, why are things so hard? God helped me."
Those are the moments that just humble you as a human being.
I just wanna encourage you, you don't have to get everything
perfect.
There are times that I wish I beat myself.
I'm like, "Oh my god, I should have known that."
Then I quickly slap myself and go,
"No, you can't know that because you're not God, you don't know
everything."
It's only going through something that you know what not
to do.
The only thing I can do now is just share it with the next
people,
next person so that they don't make the same mistake,
but if they do, who cares is what I'm trying to say.
Now, thank you so much for watching!
If you have any questions for me, please leave the comment
below.
Follow me on social media.
I have a website LinhPodetti.com.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my video.
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If you have any topics that you want me to cover,
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because I want to make the videos for you.
I want to leave a legacy, share everything that I know,
so that it could change your life.
If I've done things that changed my life.
I want to make sure that I pass that on to help you with your
life.
Anyways, have a good one.
Bye.
By the way, you're probably wondering what the hell I am.
I'm actually in Bowral, so I'm actually going away with my
husband
to a kind of greenery place and just a nice weekend,
but I just thought I'll do a video while I'm here, because
it's just a different scenery.
Hope you enjoy, bye!