5 Phases of Entrepreneurship Series: Phase 1, The Budding Entrepreneur

After working on my own business for 30 years and working with and coaching other creative entrepreneurs, I started to break down what really happens in the progression of the entrepreneurial journey in order to see success. I have become fascinated with each stage of the journey and the action steps that can best support us wherever we are at in our businesses.

What I have come to learn is that business is not as easy as just following a framework or a pattern. One of the reasons why I believe successful results come for some entrepreneurs is that they don't focus on, here's how to do it, or follow these exact steps, and you will be successful. Meaning that there's only one way to go on this journey, what I've realised is that it goes deeper, and there are many solutions. And it's a matter of finding the one that is most optimal for you.

So this is why I put together these five phases of entrepreneurship. These are the levels that people will go through as they're building their business and today we are going to be focusing on phase number one.

The Budding Entrepreneur

The budding entrepreneur phase, is generally making inconsistent revenue, perhaps zero to 5k a month. Primarily you're unseen and unknown in your specialty and in your location. Perhaps you're even still wondering what direction you're going to do within your specialty, because there's your overarching specialty and then there is the option to create a speciality within that speciality.

At this stage you're not getting eyes on you, because you haven't really established a brand. And you're just figuring it out.

This can be a frustrating phase, because you know you what you want to do, you know that you can actually help people and make some income. Maybe you're giving out your best creative designs for the next for next to nothing, and sometimes even free, just so people can get to know who you are hoping that they will like what you do and reciprocate.

What we have to remember about this approach is that just like the free samples they give out at Costco, people will often come and try with no intention of buying that product. So people don't always reciprocate, they will realise that you are The Giving Tree and just come back for more free or cheap business.

Often in this phase your marketing efforts are in place, and most likely, you're just posting randomly on social media hoping that your ideal audience will come and still no one sees it,  except for some friends and family.

How To Build Your Business

There are three key things we need to build our business:

1/ Eyes on us

2/ Keep the eyes on us 

3/ Create the demand for our solution

When we are posting content or creating our messaging, it's not just about whether our product or service is good. You have to create your content in a way that the audience is subconsciously saying, This is so good. I want to know more about you and what you do.

And just by posting, you're not doing that, you know what you do and offer is good. The audience doesn't know that it's good, different or unique yet. So how do we get them to know that you are unique and different? How do we meet our audience were they are at and be able to communicate our value so show them that it's different? 

Beware the social lurkers

Now, if you're able to get someone to like or watch what you're doing, and you're at the budding entrepreneur phase, it means that even when they're watching, they're definitely not saying anything. They're not commenting, right, which means that they're not taking in taking that next step with you.

Perhaps your follower count hasn't grown at all over the last few months despite you posting constantly. Or you're not saying an uptake in sales despite your posting. This can be disheartening because you know how much you are showing up and how high your desire level is to succeed.  

You're ready to serve, and often give away your best services BUT nothing is happening.

And you're just taking the orders as they come and not thinking about how to put yourself out there to market yourself to get that future revenue.

This can be a fatal mistake because often at this stage budding entrepreneurs are doing what they've seen or been told to do when it comes to marketing, essentially posting on social media since maybe that's the only marketing you know right now.

Many social media marketing courses teach the same things without taking into account how these tools have changed such as increase of competitors, and experts on these platforms and market saturation.

This is why if your content is focused on standard practices that already exist, and the expertise that already exists, and has existed for the last three to five years, and you haven't adapted to anything new or different than you're showing the same things that had been around for three to five years, so it becomes much harder to stand out and you will find yourself blending into the crowd even more. 

We can get fearful about creating something different because 1) we don't want to attract the haters or any negative comments  or 2) we are listening to much to our audience and just creating things that we think they will like rather than creating from a space of being authentically us.  

Yes we can't completely ignore our audience but we also don't want to have them control your whole message because if you have the wrong audience in the first place then that means you're going to continue attracting the wrong audience.

We don't see brands or companies like Sephora, JLo, Nike or Google, letting the client lead them completely on what they create and offer. They create the message that draws their ideal client to them. 

Stop being very generalised in your design or images, very generalised in your content and communication. It's time to step out and be polarising. 

In order to enter into the next phase and grow your business, you're going to have to be smart, and share what makes you different.

And don't let the idea that everything needs to be perfect first before you put it out there keep you stuck! You can test and tweak and get to what works for you so that as you go along the way you are constantly learning and evolving. 

Every single post doesn't need to be amazing. I think a lot of us get stuck in this idea of, I have to post this perfect photo, this one event or image that I will show will change everything, people are going to love it as much as I do.

What happens is, then we get stuck in creating more and more content, and it's not resonating with people. So you've got to sit down and work on a process of what you want. Now it's going to take more than one post. Yes. And it's going to take the right type of communication along with it.

We have to remember that we are attracted to businesses, people etc through our experience of them over time. I doubt anyone could remember all of your content exactly but over months of posting if you are consistent in your messaging and differentiating yourself then it's the overall feeling and perception that we are drawn to. So don't let perfectionism kill your message!

Perfectionism is one of the emotions and beliefs a lot of budding entrepreneurs get into - they think the photo needs to be perfect, the editing needs to be perfect, the background needs to be perfect. The caption needs to be perfect. The more experience or knowing that you have, the better you get.

There's no messing up when you're growing as an entrepreneur, your business has to be put out there and has to evolve. It has to be learned. It has to be felt, it has to be done. And it has to be executed again and again. That is the budding entrepreneur.

Moving To the Next Phase - Change how you're communicating to your audience.

Think about the problems and the mistakes your client is making. What is important to them, and how does it relate to your why? How can you make it unique? Change up what everyone else is doing and add phrases and words that are just a little different than what everyone else is saying.

For example, I am a creative person and an entrepreneur so I could put out messaging that says, Do creatives make the best entrepreneurs? That kind of messaging is going to grab the attention and eyes of other creative entrepreneurs. It's curiosity driven. Then from there I can talk about whatever I want to talk about.

The idea is just to simply start changing your communication, not to be so focused on basic content that just shows the latest design we've created. It's the time for testing.For getting out of our fear and understanding that perfectionism is just holding you back - there's no right or wrong here. 

And truth-bomb - Haters are necessary, they're a clear sign that what you're doing is working. Because your marketing and your communication shouldn't just attract the right people. It should repel the wrong people as well. So when you have those haters, that's actually a great sign that it's working. So you need to get out of that mindset. 

There are lots of other steps in business that we can evolve but I truly believe that in order to break through this first phase we need to focus on what is different about us and the way that we do things. All the other parts of business - the sales, operations, admin etc will follow once you have nailed this marketing element and really started to build your audience and your brand.

Not sure what phase of business you're in? Click here to take my FREE quiz and find out.