My first successful business was performance coaching, but I quickly jumped into social media marketing. I crushed it more in marketing but I knew my passion was coaching and I wanted to get back to that. I grew my clientele of recurring clients for social media and didn’t want to lose that recurring income that I had worked hard for. Yet running a business and starting a new one is HARD.
Pro tip from a 29 year old creative entrepreneur, I have both genes, as Tony Robbins says many artists are also entrepreneurs. Many days I am far from an artist, and am very entrepreneurial in the sense of “I’m here to create results, let’s get this done and get this out there for the people that need it”. Many other days I have so many ideas my brain is about to explode.
For that reason, I had success with my marketing agency. Social media, creative video messaging and beautiful funnels were the perfect blend of my strengths. We focused on creative content and had proven social growth tactics, but we also focused on video scripts and copy that converted into sales. Creative world + results world = my expertise.
I knew I needed systems to be able to leave the day to day of my marketing agency…
But I had a huge mental war to put systems into my business.
Putting creativity into systems is hard. Ask any artist, almost impossible. Casey Neistat (world renowned filmmaker and vlogger) says he just couldn’t use an editor to edit his vlogs, I get it, especially for how amazing his work is, I really don’t think anyone could edit his vlogs, it’s what makes his art his.
MY MIND WAS A MESS. I was proud of myself for what I had accomplished but I knew things had to change for this business to gain traction and help more people faster and better. More systems were required.
But, the answer to that headline: You have to create systems, if you want to scale, and if you know in your heart that you’re meant to create two businesses, then you have to keep pushing through the mental war and create the systems anyway.
Tip #1: Ignore what I said and believe that it’s easy to create systems. Now, true change in beliefs have to be made in the subconscious, but if you tell yourself a new story, find supporting facts that it’s easy to create systems. This is the simplest way to change this superficial belief, afterall JUST DO IT.
1a. It really is simple to create systems. I simply put screenshots of funnels I liked and that I knew converted into a google doc called “Funnel Systems” and shared them with my web developer and copy writer. Now this is a basic system, start with that, eventually you’ll need automated systems, in that case I recommend creating forms that clients need to fill out, lastly check out zapier to automate systems.
Tip #2: Hire someone who is a great artist, and hire someone who is great at getting things done. Make them collaborate, or better yet teach them that they have different skills and that they should keep that in mind when collaborating.
Tip #3: Let your team fail, that’s the only way they’ll truly learn. Ideally you have systems so that they don’t fail big time, but…think about how a baby learns how to walk, they don’t get it the first time, they take one step and then fall. They get back up and take another step. Then shortly after they’re walking! Trust. Trust in your team, let them fail, teach them, then let go and trust them all over again.
Tip 4#: Take the pressure off, focus on the positive and keep taking steps forward just like that baby 😉
Lastly, do you really need to start 2 businesses? Maybe you do. But you have to choose one first, and you definitely need to create systems if you want to create the 2nd business…create, did you notice that, “create systems”, after-all, creating systems is a creative job, so if you find that you’re a creative and an entrepreneur, you’ll be just fine if you follow these tips.