courageinstone

After 10 successful interviews, I have concluded this round of my Women In Business blog posts. It was a really satisfying and empowering exercise – it was interesting to discover that no matter what kind of business you are running, owners across the board share many of the same philosophies, pieces of advice and personality traits. I feel a kinship to all 10 of my interviewees and am grateful for the time and honesty they afforded me in this project.

Here are 10 things that I learned:

1. Do what you love. Find your passion, make a plan and be persistent.
2. When you discover what you love, figure out what you are good at within that arena and stick to that. Resist the temptation to branch out in a million directions simply because people ask you to. Find your niche and become an expert.
3. Don’t undersell or de-value yourself when setting your prices. You are the expert and you are worth it. Don’t give away your services.
4. Don’t give up.
5. Embrace the mistakes, learn from them, and move on.
6. When obstacles suddenly rear their ugly heads (Pandemic anyone?) you must be willing to think outside the box and re-direct your focus. Often times the best things come from the most difficult of circumstances.
7. Developing and maintaining relationships with your customers is very important. However, if a customer is not respectful or is taking advantage of you, it’s OK to say goodbye.
8. Don’t lose yourself in your business. Being the owner brings with it a lot of responsibilities, but it’s important to have a healthly life outside of work.
9. Pay yourself first.
10. Have fun.

A huge thank you to the 10 businesses that shared their insights, challenges and philosophies:

Building Better People Productions
Sandy Cleaning
Paws pet boutique
FIT4MOM Phoenix Scottsdale
Hawkins Landscape Architecture
ASMM Digital Marketing
Polite Pups Academy, LLC
Kaila’s Kandles
Santa Lucia Estate Coffee
The Joyful Food Co.