10 TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR OWN SMALL BUSINESS ✿ things I wish I knew before starting mine!

and my heart literally sank I just was so like ashamed learn from my mistakes on that [Music] one hi guys welcome back to a brand new video I hope you're all doing really well today I'm coming at you with a slightly different video it's not my usual Studio Vlog but it's a video that I've been wanting to make for ages now so if this is the first time you've seen me I and Millie and I've been winning my small business called Prince by Millie for almost 4 years now I started it in the summer of 2020 so I'm going into my fourth year of business and in this video I'm going to kind of sum up everything I wish I knew before I started to hopefully help some of you guys out watching this who are hoping to start their small business or who have just started so essentially if I was going to start my small business now in 2024 I'm going to reel off 10 things that I wish I knew and that I'd want to know ready to start my small business so I really hope this video helped some of you guys out and let's get straight into it so obviously every small business is different and I've tried to create generic tips that I wish I knew that kind of would fit any small business but there will be some tailoring towards my small business which is stationery wallart prints apparel and Gifts I've been writing some tips down on my phone as they've CL into my head for the past few weeks so they're not in a specific order but I'm just going to re them off as I've written them down so my first tip and something that I wish I knew when I started is that you are never going to please everybody this really came to light for me with my greeting cards so I sell greeting cards on Etsy and on my website and I've been back and forth with making greeting cards myself and Outsourcing them so when I was making them myself I was printing them here in house on my printer cutting and scoring them all by hand and it took me so long to build up stock of greeting cards card that I ended up just printing them on demand and when it got to Christmas time I would be getting sometimes near a 100 orders on Etsy for greeting cards and it just wasn't manageable for me to be printing cutting scoring packing all those cards every day it was just not efficient at all and I was wasting so much time that it just wasn't worth it it was actually after last Christmas so not the one we've just had the one before Christmas of 2022 after that Christmas period I just thought it's really not worth it I'm going to Outsource my greeting cards and a few months later I started doing that it is more expensive but for me it's more worthwhile because it saves me so much time which sometimes is more valuable isn't it than money so yeah that's what I decided to do so when I was making my greeting cards in house they were printed on really thick card matte card but the printing quality wasn't amazing it was good enough obviously to sell I was happy enough with it but it wasn't really vibrant and when I started Outsourcing my cards they were so much more vibrant but the card stock is slightly thinner and it's on a satin finish still thick enough that they stand up and as fine as a greeting card but the quality is so much better the print quality is so much more vibrant so I was really happy with these and I had so much great feedback I used to get good feedback on my cards that I made and I got good feedback on these but when I was making them myself I would get comments saying the print quality wasn't as good as they expected and then when I started Outsourcing the cards people were saying the cards are a little on the thin side and I just thought to myself I don't know what to do here like overall the feedback on all of my greeting cards has been amazing but there's always one or two people that comment and they're the comments that stick in your head as bad as that sounds so yeah just know that you are not going to please everybody and as long as you are happy with the products that you are sending out to people then that is fine if you're generally getting really good feedback on something then you need to take that on board and don't let the one or two people who are making you doubt your business in entirely don't let them win so my second tip I've got for you is that it's okay to say no it took me so long to accept this I'm such a people pleaser and I would just say yes to everything when I first started my business I actually started as a pet portrait business I've kind of moved away from this now but I do often get the odd question asking if I do Pet Portraits now I will sometimes do them if I've got time but more often than not I don't have time to fit in pet port or custom orders so I have to say no as much as I want to say yes to the person I just have to say no I'll say end up just overwhelming myself with stuff that I need to do and yeah you just need to know that it's okay to say no and people aren't going to think you are a terrible person for doing that you need to make sure you look after yourself too the third tip that I've got written down here is to not get consumed by sales figures a successful business is not defined by how much money you make a month or how much profit you make at least I don't think that's what defines it it might do to some people but not to me obviously that is a factor especially if you want it to be a money-making business and you want it to be your full-time job then absolutely that is a factor of success for you if that's what you are aiming for but a successful business to me is not just defined by how much money you bring in each month it's defined by your happiness your quality of life your contentment your worthiness like do you feel worthy are you doing something with purpose to your life not just in a dead end job that you hate does it excite you do you have a really loving Community have you made friends through this like all those things to me make a successful business it's not just how much money you bring in each month for me obviously I need to bring in a certain amount of money to live so that is important but I just hate it when people have the mindset that if you're not making thousands and thousands of pounds a month mon a year then your business is not successful because a small business is so much more than that some people just do it on the side of their everyday job as a hobby that they make a little bit of money from small businesses are different for everybody and there's no kind of one shoe fits all if you like so yeah don't get too consumed by sales figures obviously make this a focus and have something to work towards but don't let your sales figures Define how successful your business is the next point that I've got written down kind of comes later on so although this is a video for tips when you're starting your business I've put this in here because it's something that I think people need to work towards especially if they want their small business to be their full-time job eventually so this tip is to try and build as many income streams as possible so I know this sounds a little bit contradictory to what I just said saying don't let sales figures consume your small business it kind of is contradicting that but it's not because I'm just saying that if if you want your small business to be your full-time job and you want to make a full-time income from your small business obviously you do need to factor in how much money you are going to make a month and this can be very unreliable so to have as many income streams as possible is just such a good thing because you have something to fall back on if something else doesn't quite go as well that month so for example I have income streams from my Etsy Shop my Shopify store which is my website my patreon YouTube ads YouTube sponsorships and craft markets I think that is all my income streams I really tried to think long and hard to make sure I hadn't missed anything but I'm pretty sure that is everything so what is that six different income streams now I've been winning my business for almost 4 years now that is just insane to think of anyway I've been winning it for almost 4 years so I kind of know roughly when the quieter months are going to be for my small business so in my I think it was either my second or third year I think when I was going into my third year of winning my business that's when I decided to do craft markets because I thought that's an extra bit of money I can pocket and put back into the business that I wouldn't have had in previous years so I can kind of use that to make up for the quieter months if that makes sense so yeah just have as many income streams as you can and you'll find it a lot easier to kind of navigate your finances well at least I do because it just means you have other things to fall back on like I said earlier rather than if you just have an Etsy Shop what would you do if your Etsy Shop got suspended which I know some shops have been getting suspended for absolutely no reason recently which is very worrying but that's just one example like you don't then have anything else to fall back on so yeah I would just make sure you have at least kind of two or three different income streams just so that you have one as a kind of backup for in case anything goes wrong my next tip kind of Falls nicely with that last one that I just spoke to you about so my next one is to start a YouTube channel so obviously this is not for everybody not everyone is going to want to put their themselves out there and make a YouTube channel but if you are somebody who would consider that then I say 100% go for it I am andard about it for ages and I only started my YouTube channel a year ago so I was already almost 3 years into my business before I started and I really wish that I started sooner YouTube is just such an amazing platform for small businesses because you really get that connection with your customers that I feel like you don't get from any of the social media I mean I love Instagram as well to bits I've never really gotten on with Tik Tok I just can't navigate it and work it out I don't personally use Tik Tok myself I just I'm not really a fan of the platform if I'm honest I think it's quite toxic I love Instagram but YouTube is like top tier for me I just love it I love watching other small businesses Studio Vlogs I love seeing their process their weeks I just love that connection that you build with people commenting on your YouTube videos you really get to know familiar faces and customers that pop up frequently and if it wasn't for YouTube I wouldn't have my patreon either because most of my patreons came from watching my studio Vlogs which is just incredible so yeah YouTube is definitely a huge hit I think for small businesses not just in terms of having it as another income source which obviously is great as well but for the community aspect and it just makes you feel less lonely you feel like you've got small business friends you make friends from your YouTube channel it's just really changed my small business for me and I wish I started it sooner so definitely if you've been contemplating starting a YouTube channel definitely start it as soon as you can quick sip of tea because my mouth is getting dry and I just spil it all over me which is great I love that for me so the next point that I've got written down is a really really important one and it's to not overwhelm yourself and your to-do list as small business owners we have so much to try and get done in a day a week a month a year now the Friends theme tune has just come into my head um so you just need to make sure you don't put too much pressure on yourself to get loads done in the day like obviously try and get as much done as you can but as small business owners we have to do all the things we have to be social media marketers we have to be product photographers order Packers we have to be designers illustrators all the things Tech Wizards which I am definitely not a tech wizard it's really hard and I used to when I first started make like ridiculous to-do lists of stuff that I wanted to get done in that day like yes I wanted to get all that that stuff done but I wasn't thinking realistically and I always forgot how long certain things took me to do which I still do now like packing orders always takes longer than I expected to so now I've learned to put a time restriction on it so I'll give myself like two hours in a day dedicated to packing orders and whatever I get packed in those two hours gets posted that day after 2 hours if there's still some orders that are left to pack I will leave those for either later on that day when I have cleared my to-do list or I'll do them the next morning you just have to find that balance and just know your limits basically don't put too much pressure on yourself because you are incredible and you're trying to do so much stuff and juggle so many things so yeah just keep that in mind the next Point I've got written down here is to do with finances have a separate bank account so when I first started Prince by Millie obviously it's slightly different when you first start because you don't really know whether it is going to be like successful for you or whether it's just a bit of a kind of trial to see if you like running a small business but if you're really set and you know that you want your small business to do well and you want to continue working on it then I definitely recommend opening a new bank account just for business expenses and income so when I first started I did not do this and it was really difficult to kind of figure out what my business expenses were because I had to go through all my bank transactions and obviously there was a mix of personal and business in there so after a few months I decided to open a different account just for business income and business expenses and this helped me so much it was just so much easier to do my self assessment every year and it just made my life so much easier so I definitely recommend getting a separate bank account for your business I then like 6 months ago made the change to an actual proper business account with monzo which has been an absolute game Cher for me it's an app owner bank account so you can only access it online which I was a bit skeptical about to be honest but honestly it's been fine they have support online like 24/7 they're amazing the one thing I really love about my monzel account is any income that comes into my business account I've set it so that 25% I think it is automatically goes into a tax pot which is linked to my account so that by the time it comes to paying my self assessment my tax return I should have enough money saved that tax part to pay my bill which is amazing you're not like scrambling around at the end of the tax thinking where do I find this money from if you make over the threshold so yeah I definitely recommend getting a separate bank account if you can and even better than that get a business account with monzo or I know Starling are another business bank account as well so yeah definitely consider that it makes a huge difference so my next tip is to research and test all the materials you are going to use to make your products if you're making them yourself s so relating this to my business type which is making stationary items when I first started my business I was using compatible inks for my printer so basically this means I wasn't using Canon inks this is a Canon printer I was using cheaper inks that I thought were the same quality and I thought I was being really business-minded by buying slightly cheaper inks for my printer I didn't realize that these inks fade if in sunlight direct sunlight and they fade over time as well like within 5 years and I only realized this when I got sent a picture from a customer on Etsy and my heart literally sank I just was so like ashamed that this had happened but I just had no idea I had not researched the ink that I was using so that was a big wakeup call for me and as soon as that message came through I started researching it and I realized what I was doing and what I was using and ever since then I've been using Canon Inc for my Canon printer so yeah learn from my experience do your research make sure you're not selling anything that's going to fade in direct sunlight learn from my mistakes on that one so my next point is related to the one that I just spoke about and it's to research your equipment that you're going to use as well so over on this channel a few months ago I did a video comparing my Cricket machine which is a cutting machine with a silhouette machine which is another cutting machine and I use them to make stickers for my shop and basically when I was like a couple of years into my business it might have been one just over a year into my business I invested into a Cricut cutting machine to make my stickers with because everyone seemed to have the cricket explore Air 2 which is the machine that I bought I'd seen it everywhere and I just thought yeah that will be the perfect machine for making stickers because everyone has it and I bought it and I was using it for a couple of years I'd always had a LoveHate relationship with my Cricket it was really really unreliable and just wouldn't cut my stickers half the time which was great for a sticker cutting machine and I then did some research and realized that silhouette was another brand who did these cutting machines and it seemed as though probably the same amount of people or more had silhouette for sticker making but because I'd seen so many people who I followed using the Cricut I just assumed that that was like the only one out there so I just went and bought that but I hadn't researched the different types of sticker machines or cutting machines and I really wish I did because I probably would have just gone for a silhouette in the first place because oh my gosh Silhouettes are so much better for sticker making if you want to watch that video I will leave it down below basically don't just go off what you see online and what you think everyone has because it's probably not the case do some research and you might find that there's equipment out there that's actually better than the one you were thinking of getting don't just just assume and do your research with equipment as well as materials and anything for your small business and the final point that I've got to share with you in this video is to make small business friends so I actually think this is one of the most important ones because having a small business can be really lonely sometimes at least I found that in the beginning you don't really have anyone to bounce off of like if you've not got anyone in your family who has a small business or any friends currently that have them they just don't really like get it as much as another small business business owner does if you're having any struggles with materials equipment anything at all having someone there that you can just talk to whenever you want about your struggles or about anything it just makes so much difference like recently I've become really good friends with someone who has a stationary business as well who lives near me she's called Chloe from hty designs who's probably watching this video so hello Chloe if you are I am talking about you in this video and I'm probably going to get a bit cringe so be prepared for that um but basically at one of the craft markets I was at she came up to my store and said that she watched my YouTube videos and she said where she lived and I was like oh my God I literally live like really close to you let's go for a coffee or something and ever since then we've been going to Coffee dates like at Starbucks working together and we literally message each other like every day about stuff not always business related but having someone there that you can just literally say right this is not working do you know why like we both have silhouette machines for example so if it's playing up we lit be like why is it doing this do you have any idea and yeah we're just always there for each other and I think having someone like that is just so valuable like having a friend a really good friend who is also kind of doing the same thing as you is just amazing so really try if you can to make as many small business friends as you can they obviously don't have to be in your Niche like stationary for example is mine Chloe also does stationary but it doesn't have to be like that just having people around you that you can contact and just get things off your chest with is so important so yeah definitely make sure you do that if you can so you are not alone and that is it for this video guys I really hope you have found it useful I feel like I've repeated myself a little bit but there was just so many points that I wanted to cover there was 10 in that whole video some of them kind of cross over a little bit but they're the ones that I wish I knew when I first started and if I was starting a business this business or any business in 2024 right now these are the tips that I would like to know to get started so if you are watching this and you are thinking about starting your small business or if you have just started out I really hope you found this helpful please let me know in the comments if you did because I'd love to know if it's impacted any of you if you are new around here like I said at the beginning of the video I usually post Studio Vlogs to this channel every week so if you like that kind of content please make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any more future videos and if you could also give this video a like so that I know you enjoyed it I can make more videos like these in the future and also it helps to push these videos out to other people who like this kind of content too thank you so so much for watching and hopefully I will see you very soon in my next video bye guys

Channel: Prints by Milly

Views: 22,439

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Id: mmsRc6cvz3I

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024