Guys, 2024 has been a hard year. So hard. Professionally it’s been crazy hard for small businesses across the country (mine included), and, personally, it’s been hard juggling all the things that come with being a wife, mom and business owner. However, with challenges comes opportunity, right? That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. My goal with this newsletter is to build a strong community of small businesses who support each other. So, in full transparency, here are 4 challenges I personally faced in business this year, and how I handled them.
Challenge 1: Lack of awareness for the services my business, NPatel Communications, offers. Sound familiar? Yeah. Ultimately, I was trying to be everything to everyone and as a result no one knew what I could do for them.
Approach: So, after lots of conversations with mentors, coaches and friends, I decided to narrow my business focus to two core offerings — social media strategy and public relations. From there I created a social media strategy for myself! 🤯 It’s so easy to forget to do these things for our own businesses because we’re so busy doing them for clients. But we have to do them for ourselves! The other thing I focused on was networking opportunities, mostly morning coffees because nights don’t work for me #MomLife.
Results: I haven’t totally turned the corner, but it’s happening slowly but surely.
Challenge 2: Lack of a steady client stream. We all go through these dry seasons and it can make you panic if we don’t feel like we have enough clients coming through the pipeline.
Approach: For a solid 8 months I lived the weight of this not-enough-clients panic. But, what I didn’t do is quit. Though… I ain’t gonna lie, I thought about it! Instead I focused on taking time to learn, and I invested some money in a couple sales webinars so I could up my sales strategy and focus my business coaching sessions on sales.
Results: I’ve onboarded 4 new clients and increased work with my retainer clients. All in Q4! Thank God!
Challenge 3: Lack of steady childcare. As y’all may know, I have a 9-year-old son and twin 2-year-old girls. The logistics of our daily life is not for the faint of heart ha! Luckily, we have an amazing nanny for the girls, but she was dealing with some personal challenges earlier this year, which meant she wasn’t able to work every day. Which in turn left me pivoting last minute and, honestly, just being home way more than I’d have preferred.
Approach: I am not a “work from home’ person. I’m just not, that’s why I rent an office in Greenville. This helps me focus. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I’m most productive in the morning, so I enlisted my husband to take care of the girls from 7-11 a.m. so I could get some work done. This worked for us only because my husband also owns his own business and works from home. It didn’t always work for us, and it wouldn’t work in every family situation, but we were able to make it happen. Somehow.
Results: We made it through.
Challenge 4: Time management. Specifically my time management skills. There are more days than I care to admit where I just could.not.focus and get my work done. Anyone else?
Approach: A couple months ago I decided (unrelated to this) that I needed to get my butt moving because I have a big wedding to go to this Spring. So I started doing (very) early morning walks in my neighborhood and weight training. The unexpected benefit was increased energy and — believe it or not — productivity. I’ve also learned I’m apparently a sucker for some productivity tools. Who knew?! I found a FOCUS station on Spotify and have been using the Full Focus Planner. It’s a perfect blend of being able to see what’s happening day-to-day AND what goals I want to accomplish. Seriously, check it out if you have been struggling.
To be fair, none of these approaches are a silver bullet to fix business problems. And I definitely floundered at the beginning of the year trying to figure it all out. BUT, we got there. I’m finishing 2024 on the upswing, and here’s hoping that continues in 2025. For me and for you!
I hope all of you take this time to recharge yourself and spend some downtime with your family and friends. Have an amazing holiday season and we will see you in 2025!
As always, I’d love to hear from you. What business challenges have you faced this year and how did you approach them? Just hit that reply button.
PS - I sent out a newsletter survey last week. Have you had a chance to take it? It’s just 9 questions and will take less than 10 minutes (I swear!). I’d seriously love to know what you think about this newsletter and what you’d like me to talk about in 2025. Your answers are fully anonymous. Click the link and let me know:
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