Face those Business Fears!

Fears are the little gremlins that creep in and create self doubt and worry in us. But don't worry, below, I've compiled some of the top fears that entrepreneurs go through AND methods to overcome them.

Not making enough money

This is really subjective as what is enough money for one, won’t be enough for another. The first step is to know what enough is for you, what you need to have in your pocket at the end of each month to make ends meet – this is the day to day living stuff, not the holidays you want to take etc but keeping it down to the basics you need.

Once you have this number you need to add on the costs in your business that you have to pay each month regardless of what income you have. This will be things like phone bill, software, apps, freelance support etc. This then gives you the minimum gross profit you need to have each month. If you are a serviced based business then this is also going to be your sales target for each month, if you are a product based business then you need to know what your margins are to get to the turnover for the month.

Now you have your targets you can make educated decisions about what you do, how you do it so that you can make that money.

Cash flow

That fear that you will see money coming in and go spend it .. forgetting that you should be looking at profit not the sales! Easily done and most business owners will do this at some point. Remember: turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality – you can only spend the cash you have and if you have done the exercise above you will know what you actually have to play with too.

Self doubt

This is a harder one. We all have days when we don’t think we are good enough to do what we are doing, when imposter syndrome kicks in. On days like these you need to have your cheerleading squad around you (pom poms are optional!), these are the people who will remind you that you are doing good, that you can achieve what you want to do. You also want to be able to look at the numbers and see the evidence that you are doing fab too – these are black and white and can’t be debated! If self doubt is there on a regular basis then it could be worth looking to work with a coach to unravel why you have these doubts and how you can reframe them so that you can move forward.

Systems or lack of!

That nagging feeling at 2am that you’ve missed a deadline, that your butt will be on the line and that you did all the admin and none of the work you should have been doing. The best way to tackle this is to get systems and procedures in place – there are lots available that have free versions (Asana, Trello, spreadsheets ..) so you don’t need to be splashing the cash on fancy CRM systems and project tracking tools. If you have the systems in place and then use them (they don’t work if you ignore them!) then this shouldn’t be a problem. And if you aren’t systems-inclined find a Virtual Assistant who can work with you to put them in place as a one-off project.

The unknown

All those things you don’t know about and didn’t know that you needed to know – business is a learning curve and asking for help is a good thing.

Comment and let me know what are your fears and what are some of the fears that you've overcome?