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4 Things That are Stopping People from Moving Forward in Business.

We have been in business for 11 years, well 10 years and 11 months ish, at the time of writing this. Over those 11 years we have helped literally thousands of people with their website or membership site and had lots of interactions with people considering using us to help them create their site as well. In doing so we have seen lots of people stumble in their business for different reasons.

Here are just some examples of the things that we have seen stopping people from moving forward in business.

1.     Worried about tech

We strongly advocate that all business owners build an email list through their website. Having an email list is a great way of nurturing potential clients and also providing added value to your existing clients. You can send out a weekly email sharing useful resources or top tips. It’s an easy way to reach people to market relevant offers to them and it’s also a great way to share news about other businesses that compliment yours so that the people on your list really are getting added value from you. You are also supporting another business owner by doing this and they are likely to repay the favour in some way.

Most of our Ready Steady Websites® members were on our email list for a while before they became members. They may have joined initially by signing up to one of our challenges, then they did a second challenge and then decided to use us to create their site. Or maybe they downloaded one of our free resources, read a few of our weekly blog posts and then when we had an offer on they joined up.

We get far more traction from our weekly emails than we do from our social media, which is why we concentrate much more on growing our email list than we do on building our social media following. But far too many people haven’t got an email list and we have heard from a lot of people it’s because they don’t know where to start with the tech, so they just haven’t done it.

Being worried about how something works shouldn’t be something that stops you in your business. In so many areas of business you have to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to do new things. Find the right people to support you, find the right places to learn what you need to learn, take action and get your landing page or website out there to start building that email list and your business!

2.     Not investing in their business

So, this leads on nicely from the last paragraph. When you are worried about doing something in your business or you don’t understand something, then that’s a sign that you need to invest in that area of your business. But far too many people resist doing this.

It may be that they are new to business and budgets are tight. It may be that they believe they should be able to work everything out themselves. It could be that they have previously parted with money to get someone to support them with something and they have had a poor experience and are worried that they will waste their money again.

I truly believe that if you take time researching the right people to work with or the right products to use and often getting recommendations from others is the best way to so this, then investing in your business will help your business grow more quickly than if you continue to muddle through and try and do everything yourself.

One of the reasons that investing leads to quicker business growth is because the professionals will do what they do better and more quickly than you. Another is because you will have the mindset that it’s even more important to make your business work now. You need to show that making that investment was a good idea, so you will have a more determined mindset and you will work harder to push your business forward. That has certainly been the case in our business.

3.     Not feeling good enough

We see people who go into business all excited about starting out and then they start comparing themselves to others in their industry who are seemingly doing better than them or are more successful than them and then two thoughts tend to enter their head. The first is, ‘I’ll never be as good as them so there’s no point in trying’. The second is, ‘They’re already doing what I want to do so there’s no point in me doing it too’.

So, to answer the first thought – don’t compare yourself to anyone else. You are different to them. You are also at a completely stage in your business to them. And you may go on to create a business that’s as ‘good’ as theirs but only if you actually focus and give it a go. In response to the second thought – there are literally millions of web developers in the world, 23 million in 2018 and there are forecast to be 27.7 million by 2023 (according to Hosting Tribunal), but yet we still manage to run a successful web business and have done for 11 years.

Just because someone else is doing something similar it doesn’t mean it’s the same. For a start you are different people and people will work with and buy from people they get a good feel for. Some people will prefer you and some will prefer them and that works well for both of you. You are right for the right people which means to them you are more than good enough.

4.     Worried they won’t earn enough money

In our years in business, we have also seen a lot of people dabbling in their business because they feel like they won’t make enough money if they commit to it and do it full time, so they keep doing their ‘proper job’ and try and grow their business as a side hustle. The problem is, if you are only working on it part time, as a side hustle, that is likely to be all it will ever be. If you want to grow your business and drive it forward, then you have to commit.

Firstly, you need to have a reason to grow your business and if the reason is you won’t be able to pay your bills if you don’t, then that’s a great incentive. Secondly, growing a business does need your full focus and more time than you can give it if you are working another job and dealing with everything life involves too such as family and running a house.

When we started Ready Steady Websites® it was as a side project to our more traditional web and design agency. But when we started to see it could really work, we had proof of concept through people using it and mentioning it to others then we knew we had to focus on it 100% so that it could grow to its full potential. As a business model it could bring us in a much more regular income than project work and also had much greater earning potential because we aren’t exchanging money for time.

To do this though we had to turn down project work and accept that our income would be lower for a year. But we also knew that it would be worth it in the long run if we worked hard and reached our goals and it has certainly been worth it.

Other reasons why people aren’t moving forward in business

There are many more reasons that stop people from moving forward but these are some of the key ones that we see over and over. We also see people just not knowing where to turn when they are new to business. They have a great idea or they are really good at what they do but they just don’t know where to start when it comes to starting and running a business. They need guidance and clarity.

It is because we see this a lot that we have created Your New Business Roadmap – an action focused online training event aimed at people within their first couple of years in business or people who may be changing direction in their business and still need that clarity and guidance. If this is you, take a look at the link to find out more details about the event, the amazing speakers that we have as part of it and what you will get out of it.

Also, if you are one of those business owners who is tech adverse and hasn’t moved forward with creating a website or even a landing page, then our free 12 Day Perfectly Planned Website Challenge is back, starting on Monday 26th April. It is a really supportive challenge which starts off looking at all the things you need to consider or plan before you even look at the tech and then at the end of the challenge we will show you how to choose the right platform for you to create your website.

If you have any questions about the online training even or the challenge, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

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