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We have a fun little episode for you today! We asked ourselves “If we started our business over today, what would we do differently?” Everyone has business lessons they’ve learned since their first year of business, and these are the things we would tell our younger selves as we were starting Duo.
Start an Email List Right Away
Our email list is one of the biggest ways we book new clients. It gives us a chance to nurture people who are interested in our services first by proving we know our stuff. Then when they trust us, they feel more comfortable booking.
We should have Tuesday Tips and Sips and Sunday SEO Squeeze sooner. Growing an email list takes time, but once you get going and stay consistent, man, does it take off! The sooner you start, the sooner you reap the benefits of an engaged email list.
Brand Strategy Would be Priority #1
Instead of thinking about clients and making money, we should have prioritized our brand strategy. We talked A LOT about this in our 2024 annual meeting. We got so much clarity on our brand strategy and the goals we have for next year. And this is five years into Duo… We should have gotten that clarity on our brand strategy in year one instead of stressing about booking as many clients as we could. A solid brand strategy will do that for you.
Savor the Early Moments
Even though entrepreneurship can be stressful, we have so many fond memories from when we first started. We had this fun, excited energy about where our business could go, but we also had a lot of anxiety about making Duo work. Sometimes that overtook our fun moments so we wish we would have savored those early memories at the time.
Focus on a Financial Foundation
Unfortunately, financial coaching and training wasn’t one of the things we invested in during our first year of business, and we should have. Getting your business finances in order is CRUCIAL to run a successful business. You need to know how much you can spend on tools and outsourcing, how much you can pay yourself, save for tax season, and make sure you have a profitable business.
Luckily, we met our friend Val in year two. She taught us the Profit First method of managing our business finances. It changed the way we ran our business for the better and we highly recommend you look into this method! We also have Madison Dearly Bookkeeping to organize our books!
The point of a business is to make money. It’s important to be organized and fully understand your business finances, even if the thought of finances makes you cringe!
Have Hard Conversations
Hard conversations are especially important in a business partnership. We worked together in our agency days, so we already knew we worked well together. But managing a business is a whole other beast. We had to define our roles and responsibilities, as well as our expectations of one another and our business. We need to be on the same page with everything related to Duo.
And it’s not just having this conversation one time in your first year of business. As our business evolves, we need to continue talking about the future of Duo and our personal and professional goals.
Have a Website and Submit it to Google Search Console ASAP
We started with a one-page website with a blog and we’d do that again in a second. The most important thing is to have a website and submit your sitemap to Google Search Console when you hit publish on your website.
This ensures you get your website on Google’s radar as soon as possible. Once Google is aware of your website, it will start to rank it in search results. If you forget this step, you’ll be putting all this work into your website only for it to not show up in search results.
Do “Everything” for a Set Period of Time
Don’t worry about niching your business right away. Take time to figure out the direction of your business so you don’t niche too early into something you hate. Learn what you like doing, systems and processes, your ideal clients, how you want to market your business, etc. It’s okay to take time to figure it out.
We have learned a lot of business lessons since out first year of business in 2019 and we’re still learning as we go! No one has it completely figured out (even if it seems like they do!) We hope these little tips will help you in your business!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
To inquire about being a guest on Duo On Air, please fill out this application form.
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