Start-up advice to my younger self

Clare back in 2007

2022 marks the 15-year anniversary of Meta4 Business Coaching. Of course, I never believed I would fail (who goes into a start-up with that mindset!?) but I also didn’t predict it still being here 15 years later either. 

This wonderful and momentous milestone has got me thinking. What advice would you give to your younger self? Would they even listen? Not sure mine would! But this in itself is a great exercise in working out what’s been learned and what can be passed on to those who are following behind. 

30 was the grand old age when I decided to embark on setting up in business. Even though my husband had been running his small business for 10 years, I had very little comprehension of what was involved in creating and growing a business to be successful. 

I just thought I did…

Advice #1

Get yourself a business coach.

Easy advice from an actual business coach I know. That being said, I didn’t seek help from coaches the minute I set up in business. I thought I knew it all. I thought it was a sign of failure if I asked for help. Surely I should be able to find all the answers I needed from within? How naïve. 

You wouldn’t dream of starting a new job without any training or taking advice and support from the colleagues who are already doing that exact same job. 

Hiring a business coach to help you in your start up will enable you to achieve more efficiently and effectively. Helping you to get your start-up earning money more quickly. Let alone enabling you to work out the who, the what, the where and the how of attracting the right clients, delivering the best solution and so on.

They will ultimately save you thousands and thousands of pounds, years of stress and frustration, plus give you the gift of confidence, fulfilment, purpose, and time. Priceless. 

Speculate to accumulate has never been truer. 

Advice #2

If working with a particular client doesn’t feel good. Stop. Its your business, you can do what you want with it. Otherwise, you have gone and got yourself a job. With none of the perks! Have the difficult conversation and bring the relationship to an end. If its not working for you, its likely not working for the other person too. Put both of you out of your misery and release them. 

While you are working with people in your small business who you don’t connect with you are unable to attract those who you can really help. 

Advice #3

Chill out. Pushing so hard and feeling stressed most of the time, worrying about where the next client is coming from, the next pay check, is completely counterproductive. Its all working out in the right way. 

And as Marty McFly says in Back to the Future, ‘if you can put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything’.

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