My 2 years in business - my biggest learnings & what's made the difference

In this episode get ready for an incredibly personal and insightful journey as I take you behind the scenes of my entrepreneurial ventures in this special reflective podcast episode. Over the past two years, I've immersed myself in the world of business, and today, I'm opening up and sharing the invaluable lessons I've learned along the way.

But this isn't your ordinary list of tips and tricks. I've divided my experiences into six distinct areas that have profoundly impacted me. Each segment is filled with captivating stories, secrets, and the very tools that have made my business thrive.

I hope to inspire you as I introduce the remarkable individuals who have left a mark on my entrepreneurial journey. From mentors who have guided me to collaborators, their influence has been immeasurable.

I'm also delving into the world of social connections and networks that have played a pivotal role in shaping my success. Discover how building meaningful relationships and harnessing the power of community can propel your own entrepreneurial dreams to new heights.

Find out what systems and tools I have used along the way to help my business grow and develop. These could help to streamline your processes and make your business flow more easily.

I share the invaluable support I've received from my family. Discover how balancing personal and professional life is not only possible but can fuel your ambition and drive you towards success.

Lastly, I'm turning the spotlight on myself. As a business coach and mentor, my passion lies in empowering others. Today, I'm paying it forward by turning my 15+ years of entrepreneurship and corporate expertise into one impactful episode. Whether you're just starting out or approaching your fifth year in business, the advice, insights, and hidden gems I'm about to reveal will undoubtedly transform your path to success.

So join me in this episode through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. It is brimming with wisdom, inspiration, and a lot of heart. Get ready to be enlightened, motivated, and empowered. This is the episode you've been waiting for.

Follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn.

My website is Jenlister.com

Click here to get my 7 mindset steps to starting or scaling your business

Music and production by the amazing Strike Productions

Podcast management by Dean at DBVirtual 

Transcript

One of the things I want you to take away is that you need to spend some time on your own in your business. You need to have a journal, you need to do lots of reflecting. You need to really dig deep on what you're passionate about what you want to represent, like what are you showing up as what's your unique self
Hello, and welcome to the Jen Lister podcast.
Here, I'll be chatting about life, business growth strategies and sharing my personal journeys along the way. I will also be interviewing some incredible guests who are experts in their field, see it as my little black book of business.
Hey, and welcome back to the Jen Lister podcast. I am so grateful to have you here today. And I'm sharing a really personal episode today. I've been in business in this business, actually for two years now. And I wanted to share with you what I learned. And I'm not just going to share with you a long list of things that I've learned along the way, I have separated this out into six different areas of the things that have really impacted me, I'm sharing with you my secrets, some of the tools that I use in my business to make things easier, I'm going to be talking to you about some of the people that have made a big impact in my business. And yeah, this is going to be this is going to be a really interesting one. Because as a business coach, obviously I love teaching people I love mentoring people, I love co creating with my clients and coming up with their own personalised strategy that they can move forward with in their business. And I always just want to pay it forward. So this is for you, it is relevant for you up until the first like three to five years of your business, you may be just starting out, or you may be in your first second or third year all the way up to year five, the advice, the learnings, the secrets that I'm going to share with you today will absolutely be valuable for you. So this is kind of the last few years as journalists are in my business, doing business strategy coaching with my clients, this is what I've learned. But not only that, I have got 10 years of corporate experience, and I had a previous business for four years as well. So like this is kind of a good 15 plus years of entrepreneurship and corporate stuff all melded into one. And I'm just trying to think where to start with each day. So I've got six things that I'm going to talk to you about. So they are
people,
socials,
networks,
tools,
family, and me, which is probably where I'm gonna start, actually. So let's start with me.
The first thing that I think I've learned, and that is probably the most important thing when it comes to business, is that you need to be really clear with yourself on what you want to represent what you believe in, and what's important to you. I do talk about this a lot. And I was literally at an event a couple of weeks ago that I hosted with my amazing networking group, the village, which I will talk about later, a lot of people were saying, Oh, my social media is full up with my competitors. Because it is natural, isn't it your interest in the same things you might have similar client bases, your social media might be when you scroll a lot of your competitors. But actually something that I believe is so important is ignoring your competitors. Absolutely taking inspiration from maybe the odd one or two. But you can have so much more inspiration from other areas in your life, from family, from other businesses in completely different sectors. So one of the things I want you to take away is that you need to spend some time on your own in your business, you need to have a journal, you need to do lots of reflecting, you need to really dig deep on what you're passionate about what you want to represent, like what are you showing up as what's your unique self. And this was really important for me at the start. So before I had my business, I had a blog, it's still my website. Now it's the same blog that I've got my website now. So if you're interested, you can scroll all the way back to my first blogs. And they are really random. Not quite so much business focused, you might have some fun looking at those. And that was me like discovering myself that was me, journaling and putting out there things that I believed in. So all that stuff culminated and helped me get to where I am now. So if you are at the start of your journey, which by the way is such a magical time, spend that time reflecting spend that time journaling, coming up with ideas, writing down blog ideas, writing down social media, post ideas, writing down service offerings or product offerings that you want to be developing all of these things
Songs are so so much fun. And we should be doing it constantly in our business as well. I had a funny conversation with a client this week where he was sharing with me something that he has created for his audience. And he's like, it's been sitting there for ages I wrote it ages ago. But it's still relevant. Now. It was something he really wants to put out there. And he's wanted to put it out there for ages. But it hasn't quite happened yet. And I had like a parallel experience where I've just been creating a new free resource for my newsletter subscribers. And I started to make it and I was like, What's this in the folder, I had like something else in my folder in my Google Drive. And it was literally the same thing. So I went to create something brand new, that I've actually already created about three or four months ago and had completely forgotten about. So I guess what I'm saying is, when you dig deep, there'll be stuff that you can create for your audience, whether it's your services, developing products, whether it's blogs that you've got inside you that you really want to write, when you dig deep, you will really, truly be able to represent yourself strongly in your business. And showing up authentically, which I know is a phrase that gets bandied around a lot. But all that means is just being intuitive with your marketing, being intuitive with what you want to put out there, what you want to represent what you're passionate about. So what I'm trying to say to you is when it comes to business, it absolutely starts with you, especially if like me, you are a small business, you're an entrepreneur, you've got to think really clearly about you and what you want to represent and not get blurred by all of the other noise that is out there. I am sure there is a way for you to be successful if you're staying true to what you believe in. Okay, so I'm going to leave nicely from the first point around me to the second point around people. So this is absolutely the most important topic as well. I mean, it's difficult. I've just said that about the last topic. But this is absolutely important. Because as you probably know, as an entrepreneur, it can get really lonely. And you need some stuff to be sorted in your business to be successful. You can try to wing it for a period of time, maybe with just a social media account, for example. But there is a point where there's some investment that needs to happen. So I'm going to talk to you about the people that I have used in my business, and I've financially invested in to move my business forward. Because I think that might be useful for you to know, it might be interesting for you to know. And I want to shout out to some brilliant ethics businesses as I do it. When I first started my business, I invested in a coach. And that was really, really scary. I was literally talking to a potential client this morning about it. Because it is scary. And I have this with my clients a lot like the investment when it comes to working with somebody can be scary. And in some ways, it's a good thing because it makes you go right I need to make this work, I need to be able to reap my investment back and some doesn't take away from it being scary. But I did that. So I invested in a business coach, a business mentor, back in 2021, I think it was to get my business started. And I am very glad that I did is not the right thing for everybody. I was toying whether I should do it a little bit further down the line. But it really helped me not only with my business planning, but also with my mindset, because at the time I had quite a young daughter, and my hormones were still all over the place, I'm sure. So that really did help me to navigate not only the business challenges, but the mindset challenges of starting a business and that imposter syndrome that inevitably comes up. But I'm not here to plug the fact that you should have a business coach, that is not what I'm here to do today. I'm here to talk about a lot more than that. So the next thing, I'm just looking at the order in which I invest in things, the next thing I wanted to have in my business. So after working with my coach, I stepped away from that. And I was like, Yeah, I've got this, I know what I'm doing, I just need to do more of the same I need to generate the leads, I need to bring in the clients, I need to make an impact with my clients. And I want to make a long term relationship with my clients and some of my clients I've worked with for 18 months plus, and that is just, yeah, that's just a great feeling. So the next thing I wanted to have was a VA. And I've actually spoke to a client recently about this about how everyone goes to a VA as their next role in their business. But is that the right role? And that's something for you to consider, like what is the right role for you to introduce in your business for me, it's worked really, really well and I love working with my VA who is, as most of you probably know, my brother, Dean Broderick. We actually started working together a lot earlier than I planned to. But the reason that we started working together was because first of all is going on a big break and I just wanted someone to be there just to kind of hold the full
I manage a little bit while I was away. And I just I used to help with the admin side of my business, I really didn't like doing certain admin tasks. I quite often refer to this. So I don't enjoy sending out client contracts, for example, because I just find it boring. I'd much rather be client facing, I'd much rather be laughing on a call with my clients, which is something I love doing than Yeah, behind the scenes doing that. And so that was one of the first things I kind of outsourced if you like, but that has really changed from there. Because he I'm very, very fortunate that he could help me with my website, he can help me with my branding. And now he also helps me and does some of my social stuff, which is really helpful. If any of you like me feel drained by social media at times. This is really great. Someone said to me the other day at an event, they were like, Why are you here because it was a social media event. Your socials are really great. And I'm like, it's so funny, isn't it, people have got a perception, and that perception isn't always true, or the case and how you feel about things. So I think out of all those things, one of the big things which I'm going to talk about, again, later on to talk about Google, but the development of my website was so important. And I would say investing in a website. And we can talk about tools a bit more later. But having a website is really important for your business. If you are wanting to show that level of professionalism, there's a period of time that you can get away with a social media page and nothing else. A website doesn't have to be flashy. I developed my website originally on Squarespace and Dean, my VA took it forward for me, and absolutely kind of made it what it is now. And which I'm really, really happy with. But there's always opportunity. I'm always thinking I could do this, I could do that. There's some stuff I'm looking to change and undo on the website in the future. So my point is just having somebody else in your business can be game changing, because it can get lonely and something that we do Dean and I, every month, we have a half an hour mostly sometimes it's an hour meeting, I call it strategy meeting because I love the word strategy. And it is that opportunity. Like let's set priorities for this mantra. What are the focuses? What are my goals? And what can he do to support me in those goals? So yeah, I love that. I love working with my brother. Yeah, he has a brilliant impact on what I do. And I'm very grateful. So after that, kind of going back to what I said earlier about me and linking marketing into the mix. I went to launch podcasts, that is probably not a surprise to you if you're listening because you're listening to the journalist podcast. And I wanted to make it my own and make it unique. And I'm very fortunate that I've got an awesome cousin called Tom strike. And he's a music producer. He's always been into music. He's extremely talented. And I was like, Oh, I wonder if he would be interested in talking to me about my podcast and helping me because I need some music for my podcast at a family gathering. We had a conversation about this. Now he produces every single episode. So when I make mistakes in these recordings, which I inevitably do, I shout Sorry, Tom, and he does some edits for me. I mean, I'm making it sound really simple. He does so much more than just some edits. He makes it sound better for you guys. And he does. He's developed on my brand sound he's done so much for me. And it's not just that that he does and again with all of these people in my business, there are people that are sometimes family but but definitely friends as well. And Dean, Tom and I, because Dean also helps me on our podcast, have chats, we message each other regularly. We share articles, we support each other. They give me feedback, like oh my goodness, that episode was not so good. Or like the quality of the audio was crap on that one, Jen, what the hell are you doing? And I miss that kind of those water cooler moments that you get in corporate those friendships that you make in the office, you work in London, you get to go out after work. So having these people involved in my business makes such a difference to my mental health at work. So yeah, that is going changing. The other thing that I invested in in my first couple of years in business, which I would highly recommend is photography. So having good photography for your website is so underrated is so important. And for your social media is also really important and I have used some awesome photographers, so shout out to Hiro jethwa photography and Kike Michel photography, and I can't not shout out to Benlysta photography, who is my husband and has done some of my brand shots as well. So I've got a mixture of shots from those three photographers that I use. I also do use my phone and take my own pictures and put those on do my own reels on socials now and again. So, but what does that give me like? I think it's really helped me bring out my brand personality, which sounds weird because in one photo, how can you do that? But I learned
so much from being on the shoe, I built confidence, I turned up with props and wearing clothes that I felt like I wanted to represent my brand. And showing my values off. There's something about it. And also, let's be honest, the other brilliant thing is I've got loads of assets use on social media, which just makes life so much easier, because I found that I could write copy for social media, no problem. But when it comes to like matching a photo or finding the right picture, I just really struggled. So this has been great. I'm very supportive, and positive about the importance of photography, in your business, it needs to be a certain standard, you go on some websites, and you can see that the photos are like outdated or they've been taken on not a very good camera. It will make you stand out, it will give you that level of professionalism, which I'm all about in business. Okay, so that's my second thing. I wanted to talk about the people, the people that make an impact in your business. Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about is socials. So I wanted to shout out to the people that have made an impact and made a difference in my business, and one of those groups of people or people that I've never even met, which sounds so weird. But I have genuinely made friends on Instagram. And I've still never met some of them. And it isn't that crazy. So when you go into Instagram, or you have new people follow you or you have new people message you. And this is when you get like genuine messages, not just blanket. DMS, don't kind of think that that's weird, or think that Oh, my goodness, they must be trying to sell me something or they must be I don't know, here for all, there must be a reason there must be something in it for them. I there's one person in particular that stands out to me, who is who probably knows who they are. But I will shout out is Paris from general to dreams. And we made friends on Instagram. Early 2021. I just had a social media account, I didn't even have a business. And she just she'd started her business. Actually, we might have met in the summer, maybe we met in the summer on Instagram. But either way, she had started her business early in 2021. And she is just incredible. I am so grateful that I've met her we've had very similar timings for when we started our business. And it's been wonderful to see her grow. I mean, she's at award ceremonies, she's making an impact with women and children and families with mindset. And just the work she does is just incredible. So inspiring. And I've been fortunate enough to host events with her. And I just want you to know that as draining as social media can be. There are beautiful moments within that. And it's about finding them and being grateful for them. And what I would say a big learning that I've had is not only the friends that you make through social media, but it comes back to that marketing point I said earlier, you can represent whatever you want on social media, you can build your personal brand, and you can create a platform for yourself and do the marketing in a way you like to do it. So for example, I love stories like that's my favourite part of Instagram. I love writing as well. So I love like writing blogs. And I love writing copy. So the way I do my socials and this might be useful for you is I write a load a copy. I send it to Dean and he does all of the posting of that copy. So is all from me. Absolutely. For me. The thing that I don't do is I don't pick out the photo necessarily. Sometimes I do but I don't necessarily pick out which photo goes with which bit of copy because that stuff takes ages for me and just gives me a headache. I do all of my stories myself apart from the odd thing that my my VA Dean supports me with and he might pop latest posts on my stories, those kind of bits and pieces. So I have created an approach to social media that feels good for me. I don't really do much posting on my on my grid. And that's great because that used to stress me out so much. So yeah, when it comes to socials, I want you to take those two things away. Like remember, there's so many people out there that can become your friends. They might be collaborators with you in the future. They might be clients of yours in the future. They might be friends of yours in the future. They might live near you, they might live far away from you, but there's so much opportunity there and make it what you what you want it to be so many people get drained by social media, but there are opportunities to create a routine that you love with it and not hate. The next area I want to talk to you about is networks. When I started this business and in fact before I started this business, I joined a group called the village
which you've probably heard me talk about now. I was one of the founding members. And I didn't even have a business. I just needed some support, I needed some mental health support. I had a young child at the time, and I was a little bit lost. And having that group being in that group of it was all females. Some of them parents, some of them weren't parents, but they all have businesses, so and everyone was so open and honest and vulnerable about their challenges, though, it wasn't the kind of group where you will pretend everything's great. And you'll pitch about your business and go, Oh, everything's brilliant. I didn't even have a business and I was still welcomed. If you follow me now on social media, I am actually one of the people that run the village alongside Linda, who founded it, alongside Linda McNeil, who is just an absolute force and an incredible human being. So that's an interesting story in itself that I went from just being a part of a networking group to actually being asked to be part of it in terms of running the group. It was absolutely privileged to do that. And we love, love, love running it together now. So my point is that that network to me was so valuable, because I didn't have many friends that had businesses, I didn't have many friends that were parents and had businesses. But there are a lot of people out there that are in that situation. And that group has just been so invaluable to me to navigate not only business, but juggling parenting and business and and all the challenges that that brings, which is, yeah, which is a whole nother story. So finding your tribe, I think this is something you might have heard before. But it is really important, because if you spend all your time, just with your family, or just with your friends, and they might all be doing completely different things to you. workwise is quite difficult for them to understand or support or give you advice. But actually, when you're surrounding yourself by other entrepreneurs, other business owners that just get it. And the reality is, we all feel like some days that we want to quit, we all feel like some days, we're just not doing our best or we've got impostor syndrome or wherever. And it's really nice to hear that from other people and normalise that and move forward and get that that kind of spark again and positivity and move forward. The other networking group that I'm a part of is six figure females, which again, I wanted to do a shout out to is run by Abby, Jade and Hiro and is just a wonderful group of women that are trying to do their best, make an impact on the world.
And support each other in the process. So again, it's not about pitching your business. But the reality is, when you join networking groups, if there are people in there that are a part of your target audience, this can be a great way of growing your business as well. And that group has just been incredible. And I've loved being a part of it. So my message to you and my big learning is figure out the network, or the networks that you can be part of, maybe try a few different ones out, go to different events. And remember, you can switch it up. Like you don't have to stay in the same group. But you can find new groups, try different things. And yeah, find your tribe ultimately. Okay, so the next one, which I feel like you may have been waiting for, I want to share with you about the tools that I use in my business. So I've already told you I use Squarespace for my website. There are lots of other websites out there, I am not in any way saying it's the best one to use. I really like it. It's a very much a templated site, and makes it quite easy for me to do stuff on there, which I like the other tool that I use. In fact, I don't use very much. But I know that Dean my VA uses a lot is Canva. And he absolutely loves it. I use it a little bit here and there. I've used it for presentations, but it's great for social media is great for a marketing flyers and all that kind of stuff. And I'm sure you've heard of it. The other one that I really hope you've heard of and you're using, but if you're not you need to look at this is Google My Business. So everyone is able to get a free Google My Business Profile. It is very simple. Just Google it, literally google it and you'll find it. They tend to you tend to register, then you get like a code sent to your address. And then you upload that code, and then it should all be live. I literally had a comment today from a potential client. And he said he couldn't believe how authentic my Google reviews where and how great they were. But also, he actually commented on my comments back to the Google reviews and how they were really personal. And he found that really impressive. So I'm just telling you that because not only getting Google reviews is a great thing, but actually responding to them in a way that is not just a blanket thanks can make an impact. And I've learned that today. Absolutely. I've learned that today. So when it comes to Google My Business what
This means as you will have a spot on Google Maps with your business listed, you will have an opportunity to receive public reviews from people which affects your star rating. You can post some articles on there, you can put a link to your calendar so people can book in an appointment, you can list like more about your business, you can include photos as well, which is really important. And again, somewhere else, you can use your brand photography if you get some. So your Google profile, you're probably wondering how much does this cost? It's free. So if you haven't got it, the best thing you can do, literally, if you do nothing else today, or this week, prioritise, getting yourself a Google profile. Once you've done that, prioritise, optimising it, Google's great. They've got you get little a profile, it will tell you what to do. And get yourself some reviews in from some clients. I know that's easier said than done. But please, please, please make sure you've got a Google profile. Send me a message, if you want any more advice on that. So the other couple of tools I wanted to share with you that I use, I use the arrow for my finances, I find it really useful because yes, you can just have a bank account. But zero is good, because it gives you more of a view and overall view, you can look at your year profit and loss really easily. It does cost I do pay for for zero. So I didn't get it until maybe like 10 months after I started my business. And you can just download your transactions from your bank. And you can just create your own spreadsheets if you want. But I went snazzy, I went with zero. The other couple of things I use are sort of for my podcast. So I use Buzzsprout for my podcast hosting. And that means like, that's where the show notes go. That's where the episodes get uploaded, and all that kind of techie stuff. And I also use something which I've talked about more and more with people at networking events, and as I've met them and with clients recently, so it might be useful for you I use otter AI is literally OTT our AI. And again, I'm going to link these things in my show notes for you. It's basically a tool that as I talk now, it will write up exactly what I'm saying, into written form. And you're thinking, Okay, how's that useful? So it's useful for me for my show notes on my podcast, which is really good and having a transcript on my podcast so that accessibility wise, it makes my podcast available to people that might need it in that format. The other thing I use it for is if I've got a really successful podcast, and I'm literally doing this at the moment, as we speak, I've had a recent episode called relationship marketing. And I've had loads of nice comments on it. It's one of my solo podcast episodes, which has done really well. And so I'm creating a blog from it. But I'm using that transcript from my podcast to write the blog because I want it to be consistent. So yeah, they're the tools that I use in my business. I'd love to hear if similar things to you. The other thing I will just drop in there is I use Google Drive. So I've got a Google workspace account, which I do pay for. And I love Google Drive, you can save things very secure. I've got different folders for different clients. It's very organised. It's all cloud based. So yeah, again, big shout out to Google. I really like that. Okay, so my last area to talk about and before I wrap up is family, what have I learned. So this is like a bit of reflection, and also learning. But I guess the biggest learning for me, when it comes to family, is how important it is to be open and honest, but also how important boundaries are. So just gonna rewind back to when I started my business. I had no business in the sense of I had no revenue coming in, I literally had just started my business, we've all got to start somewhere. I had zero clients, I had zero pounds to my name. And at that point, it's really tough to say to your family to your other half, right? We're going to let's put our daughter into nursery let's let's spend money on that every month. Let's like I need you to not work this day so that I can work. Oh, and by the way, I'm not making any money in this business. Yeah, that's a really difficult thing to say. And it's a really brave thing to say. But having boundaries is important. And those boundaries have to shift constantly. So my boundaries have had to change regularly in the last two years because things have changed. My career has changed. My partner's career has changed. My daughter's needs have changed, like so much has changed. We've had personal things happen that we've had to adapt to. So I just want to reflect on that and just to say to you, that I know how hard it is when you start a business how hard it is to figure it out for yourself, let alone get the buy in of your family to do the thing
You want to do, it isn't easy going out there on your own and being an entrepreneur, maybe you've got, maybe you've got a job at the moment, maybe you work a job, and you've got a business on the side. Or maybe you've always wanted to start a business on the side like that transition was hard, like the transition from leaving a corporate job. This was for me back in 2016. to becoming an entrepreneur, like that was such a hard shift, not only for me to make, but for the people around me, my family to be okay with and be like, what on earth you do, because that is genuinely what people were thinking. And they probably still think that sometimes now. So the biggest thing I learned is boundaries, and how important it is to have difficult conversations like literally, I think that it's all about, I'm going to call it re contracting. So you and your partner, whoever that may be, if you've got a family, if you haven't got a family, like there's constantly a need to have those difficult conversations about like, Okay, what's your what are your priorities? What are your goals? Where do you want to get to? How can I support you with this? And, you know, what does that mean for us as a family? What does that mean for our priorities? is our priority moving house is our priority, having a family is our priority, from getting promotions or getting growth in our business in our careers? Like, what are the priorities and how can you support each other? We've had a massive shift this year. As some of you know, my husband, he's now my husband. I still felt Phil really weird saying that. But he had a massive career change in January, he was a financial adviser mortgage advisor for 20 odd years. And now he's a photographer, like, I mean, talk about Yeah, massive career shift. That was huge. So for us, that's been a big thing. And it's kind of nice for me, because I feel like I had that when I started this business a couple of years ago. And I really needed him to be my biggest cheerleader. And he absolutely was, he got me my first client conversation that turned into my very first client. So I'm very grateful. And so now for me, it's all about being really supportive of him and cheering him on. And yeah, like trying not to coach him, because he's not my client. He's my husband. But yeah, I think that family are really important, whether that's family or friends to you, whoever it is in your life support you just making sure they get where you're going. They appreciate your goals. They appreciate your values. And they support you along the way.
So there you have it. This is my latest podcast episode where I talk about the last two years in business what I've done, and what I learned, I talked about six areas so talked about me. I talked about people talked about socials, networks, the tools that I use, and finally, family, I would really love to hear your feedback on the episode, if any of those in particular for you feel very important. And if you've got any learnings from your time in business so far, thank you so much for listening today. And I will speak to you on the next episode of The journalist podcast.
Thank you so much for listening to the Jen Lister Podcast. I truly appreciate every single one of you. If you'd like to leave me a review on your podcast app, I would love that. And if you'd like to follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn