How did you learn how to run your business? I recall my mom telling me how I would always be an office worker. She never knew that I would be taught how to run my business from home or as a digital nomad.
I do not blame her. She could only give what she had.
My mom offered advice based on the mindset she had. Ultimately, she deeply feared being an entrepreneur for various limiting beliefs in her mind. She tried to open a small business based on her stellar baking but never saw the journey through.
Nobody taught me how to run a small business growing up. Everyone I knew worked a job for employers. Friends, family, and relatives worked for someone else.
Everyone knew how to take orders, show up on time and receive paychecks.
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Influences From Others
Making matters worse, some authority influences imprinted quite odd ideas about money and worldly success onto my mind. I recall a few choice words from nuns who taught me 40 years ago in all matters of money.
Money was dirty, filthy, and greedy according to these teachers.
Attempting to earn money through my small business while being programmed with these bizarre limiting beliefs at such a young age made for some rough cross-currents until I dug up the money-limiting beliefs.
Ditch those limiting beliefs before you began to learn how to run your business.
Baptism By Fire To Learn How To Run A Business
Beginning my small business through blogging 14 years ago proved to be a baptism by fire. I had no clue what I was doing because I thought, felt, and acted like an employee. Everyone I knew worked a job to get a paycheck and health benefits.
Not only did I receive no formal small business training as a new blogger, all people I trusted trained me to think, feel and act like an employee.
Ouch!
I struggled horrifically for years to build my blogging small business because I never asked myself the question posed to you via this blog post title. Who taught me how to run a small business?
No one taught me how to run a small business prior to beginning my blog.
How did learn how to run my small business? I winged it during those days. How did winging it work out? I made little to no money for years.
The Beginning
I only righted my sinking small business ship by beginning to follow advice from savvy small business owners like Lisa and Donna Merrill. Lisa taught me how to build a small business the right way before she retired from her 9-5 job to become a full-time entrepreneur.
She did it right for a while before going pro. Donna Merrill had run multiple successful small businesses over her career. She taught me how to build a venture the right way.
I left painful struggles in my rearview mirror only because I chose a few successful small business mentors to follow.
However, I finally decided to allow wise entrepreneurs like Lisa, Donna, and a few others to teach me how to build a venture, from afar. Blog content, videos and simply watching these dynamos in action goaded me to follow their lead.
Who Taught You To Run Your Business?
Who taught you how to successfully build your small business?
Or are you winging it as learned how to run your business like I used to wing it because you have no mentoring?
Successful entrepreneurs learn how to build businesses from successful entrepreneurs. Failing entrepreneurs resist learning from successful entrepreneurs.
Pay close attention to your business education. Honoring your intuition helps guide you but even gut hunches pull you toward professionals.
Pros lay out specific practical tips to follow in order to create a rock-solid foundation for your small business. Having a plan helps you to better run your business.
An Example
For example, even though my alleged blogging mentor was MIA during my newbie days at least he told me to invest in a domain and hosting. He goaded me to do the first thing all bloggers need to do to be taken seriously.
Buy your domain. Buy hosting. Invest in a bit of credibility to give readers the impression that you are a serious blogger.
However, after offering this talisman of wisdom in a few words he told me to buy solo ads. He then disappeared as quickly as a zebra stumbling into a lion’s pride. I learned nothing more from him.
Obviously, he gave me one good piece of advice but taught me nothing more about growing an entrepreneurial venture.
I slowly but surely pieced together my small business education from people who experienced success. But I eventually had to learn from the most important source: my own small business experience.
That is how you can learn best how to run your business, from your experiences.
Learn How To Run Your Business From Pros
Every lesson I learned from small business owners helped me along the way. But life-changing small business lessons met me through my own intimately personal experience.
Per usual, failure taught me the most crushing but freeing lessons because stumbling around for years woke me up in an eye-opening fashion. Small business failure never spares the rod. – Ryan Biddulph
I recently completely deleted all of my Kindle books on Amazon because I failed to gain traction from the platform over the prior 7 years of my life.
Don’t get me wrong; I experienced some success here and there. But gaining vivid personal experience gave me the clarity to trash 126 eBooks from Amazon and to upload only a select few to Gumroad and Selz to give each the attention it deserves.
Self-publishing over 100 eBooks was a big mistake. None gained traction because until you become a celebrity you simply cannot garner enough attention for 20 eBooks simultaneously, let alone 100, during the average human lifetime.
Learning this lesson through some painful blogging moments etched the experience indelibly onto my mind. I feel as if I became catapulted forward a few weeks ago as I completely let go of Amazon to move toward a freer, sunnier, more successful blogging climate.
That’s how I learned how to run a business from home and on the go. Now you can learn how to run your business from my mistakes.
Conclusion: How to Run Your Business From Home or Anywhere
Learn from successful small business owners.
Stop winging it.
Most importantly, put professional counsel into action through your own small business experience.
Seasoned pro advice combined with your intimately personal entrepreneurial experience makes for a powerful 1-2 combo guaranteed to precede increased small business success.
Who taught you to run your business from home or as a digital nomad?
Who Taught You How To Run Your Business? 3 Ways To Learn via @ryan-biddulph Share on X