Good morning and welcome to another episode of always up to date. I’m Denise and this is Yahweh and we are co-owners of um, always bookkeeping just about forgot what we were doing. Um, and so we are, um, talking today about how to grow your, your business. Uh, so we were at a business bootcamp and we talked about, um, entrepreneurial myths. Um, we have a boot camp every three months. I just wanna give a little plug for the bootcamp here. Um, if you weren’t able to make it in August, we’re going to have another one in November. We’ll keep you updated on the time and the place of that. Um, but if you have a chance to come to this bootcamp, it’s amazing how much information you’ll walk away with. Um, the boot camp is basically entrepreneurs like y’all way and myself, we both speak at it Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Uh, y’all way talks about building a business plan. Um, I talked about, um, group interviews and how to interview people. Um, but there’s more than just us. There’s, there’s a whole bunch of entrepreneurs there that are sharing their experiences, experiences and giving tips on how to, to grow your business and how to beat the odds of a failing at, at business. Um, and the best part of it, it’s free. You just come out. So you just need to register and, and come out to it Edmonton Bookkeeping. And, um, the information is just unbelievable. Uh, so one of the things that we talk about are the myths, the entrepreneurial myths. Um, and so we’re going to look at a few of those today. Um, the quote we have today is from Michael Gerber, who’s the author of the myth. And the quote is with no clear picture of how you wish your life to be, how on earth are you going to live it?

What is your primary aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? What is the first step to take? And how do you measure your progress? How far have you gone and how close are you to getting to your goals? Um, and the statistic that we have is from industry Canada. Uh, the largest age group for business owners is the age, um, group of 40 to 64 years. Uh, and that group accounts for 47% of all small businesses. Um, so yeah, we, we see a lot of small business owners who are trying to grow their business and they’ve just fallen into some of the traps of some of the entrepreneurial myths about how to grow your business Edmonton Bookkeeping. Uh, so we’re going to kind of look at some of those myths and, and um, just how to deal with those. Yeah, absolutely. So first, uh, the one that I have here is does my initial product or service have to be perfect before start selling it?

Yeah, so many people fall for the myth that their product has to be perfect before they can go out there and sell it. And, um, you know, especially, um, you know, your product has to work. It has to be sellable. Um, but especially in the service industry, um, you know, it might not be perfect. You might sell your product or your service to a few people and just realize, well, I can tweak it a little bit here. I can add this to it. I can make it better by doing this. Um, so if you wait for it to be perfect before you sell it, you’re probably never going to sell it. Um, you know, sometimes it’s good to just get it out there Edmonton Bookkeeping. You’ve got it at a position where you can actually sell it, but then you can tweak it a little bit to make it better as you sell. Yeah. And I mean, if it’s on it’s perfect condition to first time, then that’s this kind of ad for your business. [inaudible]

do you want to have people, uh, see the revised version of getting it better a year by year to just keeps them waiting? I mean, um, the cell phone companies do very well that they, that they do it, um, a revision every year and they add a value product to it or, um, a service to it that will increase the value of the product. And, yeah, like if, if you have the initial product, uh, perfect. Again, it’s, it might take you awhile before you started selling and by that time you might have already used up all your resources, not be able to make it to the finish line. Right. So, yeah. Um, that is a common myth. Yeah. Uh, can I grow my business forever based on where the mouth alone? Yeah. So, so many people think that word of mouth is the biggest way to sell your product or your service.

Um, not, not necessarily. True. Word of mouth is important. And, um, if your, your customer is happy, they’re going to share their experience. Um, but I think, um, the internet is a, is a big way to sell your product and, uh, getting Google reviews, which is, um, uh, you know, a little bit, kind of same as word of mouth, but it’s, it’s, um, updated for our, for our S our society. Right. Most people go on to Google and they’re going to look for a Google review to find out how the experience was for other people. And I mean, traditional word of mouth, even if you refer somebody, um, to the business, chances are you’re going to look you up first to see if, if it’s a good recommendation or not. And they might do a little bit of research on it. So, uh, where the mouth alone might not be sufficient to, um, generate leads.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Um, can I grow my business forever based on networking alone? Yeah. So I don’t think you can do it forever on networking and you’d have to do a lot of networking to continue your business. Um, I think the whole idea of networking too is when you reach out to people, then they reach out to people. Um, so again, word of mouth networking, um, getting your Google reviews, eventually getting your website up and running, things like that are gonna be more useful than just networking. Yeah. I mean, it’s a good tool to get your, um, your company out there and be recognized by, um, your colleagues. But most of the time your customers are not going to be in the networking group that you’re attending to. So it’s, it’s more important that you reach out to the customers that you like rather than, um, focusing on the help of other people to get the word out there.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Um, can I make any sort of progress without friction? Probably not. Um, I think it’s good to have some friction. You, you learn from those experiences. Um, it goes back to number one where your product doesn’t have to be perfect, and if it’s not perfect, you’re gonna get some friction Edmonton Bookkeeping. There’s going to be friction with your employees, or it’s going to be friction with your supplier. There’s gonna be friction with your customers. Those are all things that you can use to learn to make your product better, to see what works and what doesn’t work in your business. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re individuals, so you can’t be, you can’t have the exact same values exactly with your customers, your employees and your vendors. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, progress without friction is fiction. Yeah, that’s right. Somebody said that. [inaudible] will I ever be done learning?

Probably not. Um, if you’re done learning, then life is over. I think you learn always, and it might not always be in your business. Maybe it’s, um, you know, in your personal life or whatever. But it’s, it’s important to continue to learn. Again, that kinda goes with the friction as well. You’re learning from experiences that you have, you’re learning from other people. Um, you know, sometimes you get employees in that are gonna teach you something or, um, your customers can teach you something. I think you always need to be open to learn. Yeah. And I mean, I think sometimes that’s the, um, an important indication over where your business is. If you’re not learning as much anymore, then you might be reaching the maturity, um, stage of your business. And the only thing from there is to decline. So you, you have to, uh, look at other learning opportunities and see where you can improve on.

So you can, um, maybe start another initiative or improve your product or something like that to get your, uh, to keep your business going. Yeah. That’s great. Um, are ideas harder and more important than implementation? I don’t think they’re harder. I think you start a small business, you have an idea, you already have that ready. Usually people don’t start a business and then come up with an idea. Um, they’ve already got that idea in place. So that might be the easier part of it Edmonton Bookkeeping. It’s how you implement it. How do you go about, um, getting your business to grow and, um, what do you do to, um, hire employees? What do you do to get those customers? Um, you know, is there something that you can do that you have a little bit of an edge over your competitors? Um, those are the things that you need to, to focus on.

And those are the things that are probably a little bit harder than, than the actual idea. Yeah. And implementation is very hard. I mean that, I think that’s why that’s when people starts to, you know, spend so much of the time, just like looking at theories of how they can improve a, where you could have implemented it and tested it to see if it worked. Right. So, um, it’s very important to focus more on the implementation. And adjustments and you know, like improvements rather than, um, looking for ideas that may not be even, you know, be applied in the future. That’s right. Yeah. Um, is it okay to not pay people or pay my taxes? Absolutely not. Um, this is the best way to, to destroy your business rather than grow it. Um, people expect to get paid. Um, lots of the people you’re working with.

Um, the suppliers, there are also small businesses. They also have bills to pay. They’re expecting to get paid. Um, CRA, they want to be paid as well. Um, they are understanding to a degree, but it’s still their money and they expect to get it from you. And so, um, you need to know that when you’re starting a small business that, um, in order to grow your business, you’re going to need to pay people Edmonton Bookkeeping. Um, and I, it’s hard to, to accept this fact, but if you are short of funds, you’re going to have to not pay yourself before you don’t pay your employees or don’t pay ’em CRA or don’t pay your suppliers. It’s gonna haunt you at the end. It is. Yeah. And I mean, if you’re a, if your business was expecting to get clients to pay you, then why would you expect for any less on your other people that expects you to pay them?

That’s right. And especially with the CRA and paying your taxes, um, you may think that you’re saving money at that particular time, but again, in the long run you’re going to be paying more because you’re going to be paying kinda, um, penalties and interest on that. So, yeah. Um, well my personal life affect my business Edmonton Bookkeeping. Yeah, absolutely. If you have a family, if there’s things going on that, um, are affecting you, that’s gonna affect your business. Um, lots of people don’t think like they can or they think they can separate the two, but really it’s hand in hand. And if there’s things going on in your personal life, um, that may affect your business as well. Yeah, I mean, at the end they were all people. So if you’re, if you’re the only one where, again, you’re the business and your state of mind is what is, you know, like what’s running the business.

So if anything’s going on in your personal life, um, it’s impossible for people just shut that off and not be affected by it. Um, if you’re great at it, nice. But it, you know, it’s not the healthiest weight that’s right. You need yourself to be healthy, to be able to grow your business. Yeah. So, um, and it’s a common misconception that your personal life will ha, will not be affecting your business life at all. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the other way around as well. My busy business affect my personal life. Yeah, absolutely it will. And especially, um, you know, we talked in one of our other videos about how you’re gonna need to put in lots of hours when you first starting out your business and, um, you know, you’re the one that’s going to have to do all these things to get your business go growing. And, um, you know, sometimes your family might not like that.

They might not like the fact that you are away all the time and that you’re always doing business stuff. Um, again, we talked about having a schedule. Um, you know, it’s really important to have that schedule so you get your business stuff done so that you have free time to spend with your family or do the things that you want to do in your personal life. Absolutely. And um, I think this relates to the next question as well. Like, well, my family and friends be able to agree or even relate to the entrepreneur your life Edmonton Bookkeeping. Um, if you have a very supporting family, great. Um, but most of the time the fabric, the families and friends, they don’t necessarily have the same lifestyle that you chose. So it’s a little harder to understand when you make decisions to grow your business that might conflict with the, um, you know, their personal interest, um, to see you or spend time with you and stuff like that.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And sometimes when they don’t get it, they think you’re kind of, you know, crazy to, to try like to put so much effort into it. When you’re not seeing any results right away. Sometimes it’s really hard for them to, to understand what it is that you’re doing and to be patient and to know that eventually you’re going to grow and you’re going to succeed and you’re not going to be one of those statistics that fail, you know, and then, and then life is gonna look a lot better or you’re going to be able to spend more time with your family and stuff. But um, to begin with, for sure it’s going to be hard for them to, to understand. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, everything go according to plan.

That’s probably one of the biggest entrepreneur myths, right? You can plan all you want, but life is going to happen and not everything is going to go according to plan. The big thing is to know that and to be able to work around that, to, um, to deal with that and to move on to, to grow your business. That’s how you do it is, um, you understand that, you know, okay, this wasn’t my plan, but let’s work it around Edmonton Bookkeeping. Maybe we need to reorganize the plan. Maybe we need to do something to, to change our course so that we’re not gonna fail. Yeah, absolutely. And if first thing to do is have a plan, yeah. [inaudible] point. Have a plan. Once you have that in mind, I mean, you know which direction you were going to. It’s clearer. It’s a lot easier to adjust than just going off by, you know, just whatever happens and just like, it’s very tiring to just, um, put out fire every time in the top end.

So, um, so yeah, I think, uh, plans may not work according to what you expected it to be, but as long as you have a plan and you know how to mitigate, mitigate your risks, you should be able to, uh, you should be, you should be fine. Yeah. And again, I think the patients, right? And look at the big picture and see, you know, what does my business gonna look like in a couple of years? Like it’s exciting to, to think about, okay, yeah, there’s, um, things aren’t perfect and things are not going according to plan, but I can see in the future that, that it’s going to grow and that I’m not going to fail. I’m going to be one of those businesses that beats the odds. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Alright. Where I think that’s all the myths that we have for today. Um, if you like this video and find it informative, please like, and subscribe to our videos and, um, give us a thumbs up once in a while. Um, yeah. And we’ll see you guys next time when our next episode.