5 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STARTING MY SMALL ONLINE BUSINESS

running a small business can be daunting to so many of you that are trying to get into the small business world so I wanted to go ahead and let you guys in on a few secrets from someone who has ran many small businesses throughout my life there are five things that I want you all to know that I wish I knew before I got started so let's go ahead and jump right into it the first thing and I think this is going to resonate with a lot of you all is perfection so when I started I thought everything that I put into to my shop has to be perfect the products have to be perfect the listings have to be perfect the social media posts have to be perfect but y'all I learned through my journey in this small business you do not have to be perfect okay A little bit of imperfection just shows that you are a real person that you're human and really you just want to get started so if you haven't started and you're worried about perfection I want to encourage you all to get that listing posted get get that product created and just get started get it on your social media put yourself out there and do not be scared cuz I promise you all you may be surprised at what happens whenever you actually just start something else that I started particularly talking about an Etsy shop I thought whenever I got started that I need to have a hundred or more listings just to make sure that my shop looked established while that is very important particularly for Etsy shop tops just in general you don't have to have a hundred of anything you don't need a 100 t-shirts that you want to make you don't need 100 digital files if you're producing high quality products and high quality digital files and whatever you're making you do not need to have a high quantity so basically what I'm letting you guys in on is quality over quantity I know that this is like duh I already knew that but I think just hearing someone say it that has ran multiple small businesses just kind of validates that feeling that you already had I promise you if you were putting the quality work into your listings and your products then you're going to see a better return than if you were to list 20 poor quality products so just remember that whenever you're initially getting started if you've only got three or four things to post post it that's all you need to do you don't need to wait until you have a hundred to post to start sharing it on social media or anything like that so don't be scared to just get those first few high quality listings up and then you're going to be good to go speaking on posting a lot of people worry that if they start a small business they're not going to be able to sell anything because they have zero social media following maybe you don't even have a Facebook maybe you don't have an Instagram that's okay if you're particularly an Etsy seller you do not need a social media following to start start getting traffic to your shop you need to be posting the high quality things that we were talking about earlier whether that's products or files and just getting them on there and etsy's going to do the work for you now if you're selling physical product and you're like well what about if I sell sweatshirts and I have no friends on Facebook or I don't even have social media at all you can always approach the vendor Market aspect of selling physical products you can also start building your Instagram building your social media from the ground up people do it every single day and my theory is if somebody else can do it so can you so today's the day do not wait another day don't hesitate just because you feel like you do not have that thousand 10,000 100,000 following that you see other people having and that brings me straight to my next Point whenever you're running a small business comparison is the thief of joy that is the number one thing that I struggle with whenever I was starting out in the small business world I think it's easy for us to look at other people's business and say oh my gosh they're so successful they have so many followers they have so many favorites people are buying their stuff all the time and y'all they started from zero too so if you're just getting started and you see other people doing well and being successful and you're not there yet you can get there you've just got to be able to put in the work just the same way that they did they get up and put their pants on one leg in at a time just like the rest of us so I don't want that to be a reason that you feel discouraged from running your small business the last thing that I wish I knew before starting my small business was that everybody else is just trying to figure it out too like I said before if somebody else can do it so can you if you're trying to figure it out so is everybody else so I don't want you to think uh they just know what they're doing they've got all these things that make their shop so good we all start at the same spot everyone else is just trying to figure out how to run their business how to be successful how to know what's right what's wrong how do you refund I mean the list can go on and on and on and so I don't want you to be discouraged by this either because everybody out there is just learning as they go especially with small business owners if you're doing your due diligence and doing the best that you can then that's all you can ask from yourself I think sometimes especially as entrepreneurs that we do not give ourselves enough Grace and I want to encourage you all to start giving yourself a little bit more grace and compassion today because you're doing a great job with all that being said I want you all to leave a comment down below and let me know what you wish that you knew before you started your small business and let me know what your favorite thing that you took away from this video is I would love to hear it right if you've been feeling lost on your journey in your small business and you want a guide or something to kind of lead you on to where you want to get to I'm going to offer you all this passive earners road map this is going to be a great resource for you all who are wanting to either start a small business or you have one and you're wanting to really just get some good direction we're going to put the link in the description for you guys we would love for you to click on the link and get that today is totally free so make sure you hit subscribe to our Channel and hit the little bell so you're notified every single time that we post and we will see you all on the next video If you like this one make sure to watch this video up here y'all have a good day bye