Debunking 5 unrealistic expectations of having an online business

Starting and growing an online business has many perks—but that doesn't mean it's going to be fun all the time... In the beginning, we often have unrealistic expectations built up by all of the external noise around us, and then feel flat and uncertain wondering if we're "doing it right" when it doesn't happen! In today's episode, I'm debunking 5 of these unrealistic expectations and revealing more realistic approaches instead.

- The benefits of organic growth and why online businesses don't grow overnight
- How dispelling the myth that social media is ALL you need to grow your audience will help you to explore other ways too.
- Why investing in your business is necessary to flourish and grow.
- The true non-linear growth of business and why taking a step back is sometimes necessary to move forward.
- The reality of operating an online business—it's not always going to be fun!


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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Building a business is also the reallyunsexy stuff, like learning how to manage
your cash flow and learning how tounderstand profit and loss. It's also making
investments that feel really scary. It'spitching for partnerships and collaborations and speaking at
events even though it feels terrifying,and learning to be comfortable with that discomfort,

(00:21):
because the things that feel the mostuncomfortable are usually the things that will
help you and your business grow.Almost Welcome to Imperfect Action. I'm Steph
Taylor. For years, I readall the books, downloaded all the freebies,
and did all the courses, butit wasn't until I started taking imperfect
action that my business had its firstmillion dollar year. Imperfect action is about

(00:45):
doing things before you're ready, prioritizingconsistent action over perfect action, and moving
forward even when you're not sure you'redoing it right. On this show,
you can expect mindset advice, actionablemarketing tips, and strategies to build a
business that brings you more profit,more freedom, and even more joy.

(01:06):
Are you on the list to getmy daily businesses? Every day, I'll
send you a bite sized prompt designedto help you grow your business in a
more intentional way sign up at StephTaylor dot co, forward slash DBB,
or at the link in the shownotes. Hey, welcome back to In
Perfect Action. This is episode eighthundred and thirty six. Today I'm talking

(01:27):
about debunking five unrealistic expectations of havingan online business. Now, this isn't
your fault having these expectations, becauseI think when we spend a lot of
time why or on social media orreading other people's stories about how they built
their business, and you know,the media loves to share stories about how

(01:48):
this person made a million dollars ina week. When you consume all of
that kind of content, you mightstart to form some expectations about how you're
business should be or what should happen. And when it doesn't happen that way,
then you might start to question whetheryou're doing it right, whether you're

(02:08):
making mistakes. And a lot ofthe time it's not that you're doing anything
wrong. It's just that you've readan example that was like the minority the
real exception, but the majority ofus have to go through the ups and
the downs and all of the differentthings. So here are the five unrealistic

(02:31):
expectations. Unrealistic expectation number one thatyour business will grow quickly. And this
is often followed by the assumption thatwhen it doesn't grow quickly, you're not
doing it right, or nobody wantswhat you're selling, or you need to
market your business more. You needto do that, or you need to
do this now. Unless you havea budget to really invest in all of

(02:55):
the different parts of your business.And I'll talk about this in a minute,
but unless do you have the budgetto invest in strategy, in sales,
in paid advertising, or working withthe publicist, or you're really just
investing so much of your own timeinto your own media and publicity, it's
going to be slow, right.Organic growth is slow, and that's okay.

(03:20):
You just need to be patient andnot give up. And then when
you do have more income coming in, reinvesting some of that maybe into getting
your sales strategy and your sales processesreally smooth, maybe reinvesting it into your
marketing strategy, or into your Facebookads, or into working with somebody who
can help you with ads or doyour pr for you. And like I

(03:43):
said, organic growth can be slow, but sometimes slow growth is good because
it helps you to figure out allof the bits and pieces first. It
helps you get everything really aligned andreally smooth and really streamlined before you go
and poor fuel on the fire andgrow quickly. Because growth like the little
pebbles in your shoe, the littletiny stones in your shoe when your business

(04:04):
is going slowly, as soon asyour business starts to grow really fast,
those little stones become massive rocks,and they cause you blisters, and they
become really, really, really painfulbecause you've scaled it all up. The
second unrealistic expectation in your business isthat posting on social media is all you
need to do to grow your audience. And you can thank all of the

(04:29):
social media success stories from twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, the
ones that made you believe that anyonecan grow their business for free, online
easily and quickly as long as theyare really good at social media. It's
pretty rare these days. Yes,there are still some exceptions and can still
grow your audience organically, but mostof the time you need to look beyond

(04:54):
social media for this because building anonline business isn't just starting an Instagram account
and trying to get clients. Infact, if I was starting from scratch,
I'm not even sure that I wouldinvest much time into Instagram, at
least not at the start. That'sprobably not where I would even focus my
time and energy, because that wouldtake a lot more time than it's worth

(05:16):
in terms of the results. Buildinga business is also really about creating sales
processes to convert people. So,yeah, you might have this Instagram audience,
you might be reaching these people,but how are you turning those people
into buyers? Building a business isalso the really un sexy stuff, like
learning how to manage your cash flowand learning how to understand profit and loss.

(05:42):
It's also making investments that feel reallyscary. It's pitching for partnerships and
collaborations and speaking at events even thoughit feels terrifying, and learning to be
comfortable with that discomfort, because thethings that feel the most uncomfortable are usually
the things that will help you andyour business grow the most. Okay,
unrealistic expectation number three that you canbuild a super successful online business from scratch

(06:09):
without investing assent. Now, thismight be controversial because I know there are
a lot of people like myself whohave built their businesses from scratch with like
basically no money in the bank accountat the start, and that's fine,
you can start from zero, butit will be slow, and at some
point you will need to start reinvestinginto your business if you want it to

(06:30):
keep growing beyond a certain point.Because if you're not an expert in all
of the different areas, if you'renot an expert in brand strategy, sales,
marketing, copyrighting, design, finances, all of the things, then
you either need to hire an expertfor each of these areas or you need
to learn how to diy each ofthese areas, and both of those options
cost money. Yes, you canpiece together all of the free content,

(06:54):
but like in my experience, thefree content that's out there, it's not
really showing you how to do it. It's not giving you a process.
It's actually adding more to your platebecause now you have all of the different
people telling you all of the differentthings you should do, but nobody's really
telling you, hey, here's oneprocess to follow and how to do it.
And that leads to you feeling somuch more overwhelmed. So, for

(07:16):
example, you might start without awebsite. You might not have a website
when you first start your business,and that's totally fine, but That also
means then you need to be reallyproactive with how you convert people into clients
via DMS or via phone calls,because your website isn't there to sell for
you. Or maybe you can startwithout really having much of a marketing strategy

(07:41):
if you already know you have anetwork of potential clients that you can tap
into, or if you're really goodat networking face to face and you know
you can convert clients that way,great, But at some point then you
might want to invest in learning howto do your marketing or hiring somebody to
market your business for you so thatyou can grow beyond that certain point.

(08:03):
Unrealistic expectation number four that your businessgrowth will be linear. It's not always
going to feel like you're moving forward. You're going to find yourself at times
having to take a step back beforeyour business can grow to the next level.
Twenty twenty two was that year forus, right Twenty twenty two was
the year where we took a stepback, tidied up after all of the

(08:26):
growth that happened in twenty twenty andtwenty twenty one, did some restrategizing,
lay some new foundations, and thentwenty twenty three is now the next year
of growth for us, and it'salready shaping up to be a great year.
And the same happens with your mindset, your personal mindset. At each
level. You might think that you'veovercome your fear of public speaking, and
then suddenly you're now on a stagewith a thousand people in the audience instead

(08:50):
of one hundred, and you're like, oh, I'm afraid of public speaking
again. And that's just because you'vemoved to that next level. As they
say, new lets, new devil, so something that you might be afraid
of, and then you overcome thatand you get comfortable with that. As
you grow, you're going to keepencountering things that feel really scary. Or
as you grow, you might alsouncover some new mindset hurdles that you didn't

(09:13):
even know you had. One ofthem that came up for me when my
business grew really quickly was this fearof responsibility. This fear that if I
had a really big business and ifI had a team, and if I
had a large audience, suddenly nowI was responsible for what I said,
I was responsible for how I managemy team. I couldn't just, you

(09:35):
know, throw it all in tomorrowif I decided I didn't want to have
a business and I wanted to goand travel the world instead, right,
And it took me a while towork through that. It was in a
way, it was the moment whereI was like, Okay, cool,
this is where I stopped being achild and I start being a grown up
and take responsibility and do you know, do that kind of work. And
I'm sure that will come up againat the next level of growth, that

(09:56):
next big step of growth, wheremy level of responsibility increases even more.
And for each of these, eachof these little growth moments in your business
or in your mindset, when thesehurdles come up, you'll need to slow
down and you'll need to work onit before you can keep charging ahead.
You can't just muscle your way throughit. You can't just hope it goes
away, because it won't. Allright. And then, lastly, unrealistic

(10:22):
expectation number five is that your businessis going to be fun all of the
time. Now, I find mybusiness fun most of the time, but
I still have things that I don'twant to do that I have to do.
I still have to do things thatfeel scary. I still have moments
where I'm like, what am Ieven doing? I don't want to do
this, But I know now thatthese moments will pass, and that for

(10:43):
the most part, I get todo what I love every single day,
and I get to have fun inthe process of it most of the time,
not all of the time. AndI think social media and all of
those glossy success stories and all ofthe behind the scenes content you see on
Instagram. You know, all ofthe people you follow who are like they're
living the the traveling NonStop. Thatmakes us think that it is fun all
of the time, and that ifwe're not having fun all the time,

(11:05):
then we're doing something wrong. Andthis isn't the case. Remember, people
aren't sharing the really boring behind thescenes stuff. They're not sharing the video
of them reconciling the bank account ona Monday morning or doing their cash flow
forecasting, or the really boring,un sexy things. And these are just

(11:26):
as much a part of your businessas the really fun, shiny things that
you love to do, and youjust unfortunately have to do the things that
you don't enjoy until you grow tothe point where you can hire someone else
to do those things for you.Because the things that you hate to do,
there will be somebody out there wholoves doing them. If you hate
spreadsheets, there are loads of peopleout there who love spreadsheets, So you

(11:48):
can delegate that to somebody who doeslove that. And you know, like
remembering every time you see yourself oryou catch yourself in that comparison itis,
remember you are not seeing the fullstart. For example, even when I'm
traveling and I'm having so much funtraveling, I'm not sharing that much about
like the jet lag, the layovers, all of the time zone calculations that

(12:11):
my team and I have to gothrough to make sure that I don't miss
any calls while I'm away. Youdon't see the amount of work that goes
into batching content before I go away, Like, you don't see all of
that stuff. You just see thefun parts. So remember that even though
traveling is one of the fun partsfor me, not all of the fun
parts are fun. Okay, Soyour business is not going to be fun

(12:33):
all of the time, but youwill get to a stage where it is
fun most of the time. Andif you're wondering how to get to that
stage, thinking about what do Iwant to do and what do I not
want to do, and with thethings that you don't want to do,
prioritizing getting those off your plate,delegating them to someone else, or asking

(12:54):
yourself, can I remove this?If it's a service you offer that you
hate doing, delete it right.Okay, So there you have it.
Five unrealistic expectations for your business.I wonder if you could relate to any
of those. If you can sendme a message on Instagram. I always
love to hear from you, loveto connect with you. You can find

(13:15):
me over there at Steph Taylor dotcom. And if you're not already following
this podcast or subscribe to it,hit the plus button. You'll get each
new episode straight to your podcast appevery Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
so you don't have to go lookingfor all of the new episodes. That
is it for today. Thank youso much for listening, and catch you
next time.