0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
Are you ready to build a profitable consulting or coaching business that is aligned to your purpose and strengths? Well, let me tell you, this path can be tricky and starting your business on the wrong foot is very easy to do. Been there, done that, and today I'm going to be sharing with you my top five mistakes to help you avoid them and set yourself up and your business correctly from day one. Welcome to the Enough Already podcast. This is the show for consultants and coaches who want to forge their own path to success in their businesses and their careers and their lives. I'm your host, betsy Jordan. I'm a business mentor and brand messaging strategist for remarkable consultants and coaches and their unique strengths. You can find out more about my personal branding services on my website at wwwbetsyjordancom.
So today we're wrapping up my career to calling series with a behind the scenes peek into what helped and hindered my own journey from my Disney career into my calling as a personal branding expert and messaging strategist. And let me tell you, it's been 15 years, but it feels like yesterday, when I finally made that big decision to leave Disney and to go out on my own. And you know, as soon as I submitted my resignation or just had the conversation. I had hopes like, oh yes, I'm going to arrive at my calling very quickly, but it didn't work out that way. And if you think that growing your own business that's aligned to your strengths and passions is tough for you, or just growing a business at all and getting it to be profitable, you're not alone at all. You know, if you sit up at night and saying, oh gosh, you know like I tried this and it just didn't pan out, or all this money I spent on this and it delivered nothing, or when you look around and you think, oh my gosh, everybody else is having more success, I have literally been in your shoes, and so I want you to look at me and say you know, if Betsy can do it, I can do it too. The only difference is that Betsy's been doing it longer.
And what I hope with this episode today is I want you to learn from my many mistakes. I'm only giving you my top five. I've got a whole lot more, but I'm just like really pulling out the five biggest mistakes that cost me the most money, the most agony, the most pain, and I'm getting real and I'm getting vulnerable because I don't want you to just get past any failures or mistakes. I want you to avoid the ones that I made that were most painful. Like I say this to my kids all the time like you know, you can make your own mistakes. Just don't make mine. But the thing is about some of mine is they cost me a lot, they cost me money, they cost me time.
But the worst part about mistakes sometimes is the impact on your self esteem, and so I want you to avoid all of that. And the other thing is, when you look at somebody who's been there just like been where you want to go, they're just a few steps ahead of you and you really detail out what they did. It will actually help you fast track your success. So behind every mistake is a best practice, and so I want to help you grow your business right. I want you to do it the first time. I want you to avoid false starts, but I want you to accelerate and sustain your success. So I want you to think for a second, you know, are you really really wanting your own business? Are you really wanting to be a consultant or coach? Do you want to do work with people that you know you can make a difference and you just are nervous about the mistakes. This is the episode for you, and real quick. You know, as part of my business and brand building approach, everything that I do with my clients one-on-one, is to leverage my best practices and avoid these mistakes. So if you want to see a more detailed roadmap around how do you go from a career and into a business and a brand that you love? How do you become, you know, a sought after expert? How do you get known in the industry for the consulting or coaching you want to do, definitely go, get my roadmap. It's an interactive workbook and guide. Go to wwwbetsydordancom. Forward slash roadmap and you will get the path of what you need to do to accelerate your success and save you lots of money and time.
So now let's get into my mistakes. So the first mistake and I'm kind of going a little bit in order of when I made those mistakes so when I was first starting my business, the first mistake I made is I let scarcity dictate my business model and brand, or the lack thereof of a clear brand. So one of the things I did when I first started my business is I interviewed a bunch of my favorite executives that I worked with when I was an internal consultant at Disney, so I got a lot of really great insight into you know what I do and some of the value what I did. But one of the things that I had access to that most people don't is the top one of the top branding experts in the world. She was the top of our branding at Disney. She went on to work at Universal and became the top branding person there, then went on to Royal Caribbean and became the top branding person there and she gave me some really great advice around how I should position myself in the marketplace.
And what she told me is that one of the things that I did as an OD consultant or organization development consultant at Disney is I work with large groups of organizations, like I worked with the different departments and I got them to partner effectively across organizational boundaries. And she said this is one of the biggest issues that large companies have is that when the right and left hand don't know what they're doing, and having somebody who teaches that horizontal leadership and does that horizontal integration would not only help me land more work but would make me very different right out of the bat, you know, like right out of the gate, like that would be something that would be really unique for me, and I did have a lot of really new unique experiences doing that and I love that work. But you know what I got afraid of and I know you know what I got afraid of is that scarcity. It's like if I just focus here large companies dealing with silos needing to connect the dots across organizational boundaries I kept thinking like, oh my gosh, I'm going to leave all kinds of money and opportunity on the table. I'm going to be so worried.
And you know what, I didn't listen to this really great advice. So I wound up with kind of a vague brand and I wound up getting a lot of work because I knew about org design, which is not my favorite out of all the things that I knew how to do as an organization development consultant and I wound up getting work with all kinds of companies that were not the right fit. I work really well with the large companies that are complex and I'm working with these small, like family owned businesses and they paid me well. But I got burnt out, you know. So shortly after I started my business and I started making a lot of money, I would completely burn out, and so that was one of my biggest mistakes is I had a really great branding expert give me really great advice and I let scarcity dictate my decisions rather than this expert.
So let me tell you the fix, what I would suggest you do instead of my mistake. Do this. Instead, take a beat up front and figure out the business that you really want and trust that the business that you truly want will make you money. The one that is most aligned with your unique skill sets, your unique passions, is the right one for you. So trust it. And if you are working with a branding person like me or like this individual that I'm mentioning, listen to their advice, pay attention to what is possible for you and don't let the scarcity fear keep you from the business that you really want. So that's the fix. If you're just starting a business right now, I would ask you to just take some time to really dial into your own heart and say who is it that I really want to help, what ignites my passion? You know what moves me to compassion and action. Or if you have a business right now and it's like it's the should to ought to business, but it's not really the one that you want. Take a beat and go backwards and try to figure out like, what is it that I really want? Trust that. So that's my mistake number one. Mistake number two you might think that this is a little nothing mistake, but it's a big mistake.
It cost me a lot of money and time and what I did is I wound up going with a fictitious business name. So my first business I called Accelera Consulting Group and my logic at the time was I was going through a divorce and I'm thinking like, well, nobody's gonna find me if I change my name, because I was changing my name from Betsy Kleinman to Betsy Jordan, nobody's gonna find me. And I thought like I'd have to do a lot of rebranding around my own name. But I had to do the rebranding anyway. And so then I created this business that was at Accelera Consulting Group, and the problem is not that it just didn't grow with me. It became a nightmare when I wanted to pivot. So I got known as a consultant and my business name was a consultant. But then when I wanted to do branding, when I wanted to do other mentoring, it didn't grow with me, it constrained me. But the reason also why it became a nightmare is when I wanted to pivot. I had all kinds of content I'm still dealing with this on the back end of my website. I had all this content with with URL, was attached to my old name, and so when I wanted to pivot, I have all of these backend things that are broken and so many challenges from that standpoint.
So the thing is is that it's better just to go with your own name, especially if you plan on being in business for a while, like if you know that you know. Like, all right, I want to be a consultant and that's the way I'm always going to be and I don't see myself going in any other direction. Fine, maybe, maybe do that. But if you are going to come up with a name, make sure that the name you come up with has a keyword in there. Like, one of my favorite partners is Carol Cox of Speaking your Brand, and what's so great about her fictitious business name is that she knows that she always wants to be in the world of speaking. That's something that she's passionate about. But Speaking your Brand has some keywords in there, and so Accelera Consulting Group has no keywords.
It's a fictitious name that somebody. I'd have to explain it to people. So if you're going to go with a fictitious name that somebody, I'd have to explain it to people. So if you're going to go with a fictitious business name, go with one that will at least has a keyword in it. But the thing is is that your name is your number one keyword. When somebody wants to look for someone, they're not going to look for your fictitious name, they're going to look for you. So when they go to Google, they're going to look for you and if your, your name isn't anywhere in there, you're not going to pop up. And the other thing is about your name again, is it just? It grows with you. If you know that, it's like okay, I'm going to do some consulting for a while, but I really want to go into coaching. But then you think you're going to do some coaching, but you think you might want to do something else. Maybe you want to become an author, maybe want to become a speaker. You know, don't pick a name. That will constrain.
My third mistake is I let way too many cooks into my website kitchen without having a clue on how it all worked. So the thing is is when I first started my business, I hired someone who really knew a lot about websites and he guided me through the process. I created a really great looking website. I had lots of content in there, and then I kept listening to what people said, you know. So I was told like, okay, so I was wearing like a green shirt and some pants and I because I really wanted to get out of that corporate, you know, overly corporate image I wanted to be more relaxed.
But then I hired the speaking coach and she was saying that what I look like on my website, because she says, oh, you look like a party girl. She had an English accent and I can't do English accents, but anyway, that's what she said to me. And she said it was like a disconnect because I don't look like somebody who could stand up with a group of executives and I actually could stand up with a group of executives wearing the exact outfit I was wearing. But I listened to her and you know what I wound up getting a new photo shoot. I got suits that I didn't want and I just didn't even look like myself, you know. And then other people were saying like, oh, get more aspirational. I had, like people who are wordy people, and they were like oh, add in, like I ignite leadership and organizational potential, and then it just confused people, you know, and I even called up Google and said what do I need to do? Because I wanted to get ads at that point and they said you know, clearly, with what you're saying is, you're using push words, not pull words. You're not doing, you're not having words that are going to attract people in here.
The other thing that I did this is the biggest problem, because I didn't understand the back end of how my website worked. I had all of these things that were actually in place, creating organic search, but I was sort of in this state where, oh, you put good juju out and you know clients are going to come. Well, what I really had was really good keywords that related to what people were looking for and what my content actually had. But because I didn't know about that, I broke all those things when I was making changes. So then, all of a sudden, my organic traffic completely dropped. And then, the worst thing, because I was so ignorant around how my website worked that I didn't even realize for a year that my contact me page wasn't even working. You know, luckily I had some people who wound up just emailing me. But that contact page contact me page wasn't even functioning because I didn't even know what my website was supposed to do for me or what created conversion. So not only did I have a website that didn't look like me, wasn't really attracting the same amount of clients before and didn't convert all because I really wasn't clear.
So the fix, please, like you can start to hear, like all the anxiety in my voice when you, when you hear me talk about this and all the things that I made mistakes on, is what I would. What I would say that's really important is don't pay attention to everybody. Hire the right website support that aligns with you and follow their advice. Be cautious about who you listen to, because everyone else has their agenda and, above all, just know what you need to do on your back end, like know how your website works. You have to know how all the pieces of your website, your marketing, how everything works. That's really important, because if you don't know how it all works, you don't even know how to outsource properly, because you're gonna just trust blindly. You know that somebody's telling you what they need to do.
You know, recently I wanted to do some up-leveling on my SEO. I hired a company and they had a lot of they were throwing a lot of jargon at me telling me that you know I needed to do this, this and this. It's like, okay, well, I knew enough that they I knew that they were, you know, throwing jargon at me, otherwise it might have created all this anxiety, like I think they wanted to charge me like three thousand dollars a month. I might have just handed it over, but because I knew now enough about how seo, which is search engine optimization, optimization I know how it works, so I did not, I did not invest to that money, you know. So when you have people like I have a podcast team and they tell me what needs to happen, so I listen to them, you know. So pay attention like hire the right support, follow their advice and be cautious around whose. So I listen to them, you know. So pay attention like hire the right support, follow their advice and be cautious around whose input you listen to. Everyone has an agenda. So that's mistake number three. Mistake number four so this one cost me a lot of money. It's this one's really hard for me to talk about, but I will have to talk to you about it, because I'm here to tell you about my mistakes so you could avoid them.
So when I was in the process of thinking, you know, I was a consultant for a long time. So not only was I a consultant in my own business for a long time, but I had spent years as an internal consultant and I kind of hit the top of that and I kept thinking like, well, you know, if I continued on at Disney, I would have moved up the ladder and I would have started leading other consultants and coaches. So I'm like, well, I want to replicate that in my business. So I want to pivot my business and really, you know, codify all of my OD knowledge into a course. And so I want to do this.
But what I didn't realize is that what I was doing is actually shifting my business. I was going from a B2B, which is a business, to business business, where I was focusing on working with organizations, to a B2C business where I was working with individuals. And so I just thought I'm like, oh, I'll get a course or maybe even a little website that goes along with it. But what I didn't realize is this shift to my business was a complete change and I needed to invest in the branding work and getting the strategy, skills and tools to monetize this type of business. So all the people I worked with, they were all happy to deliver a part of my project, but none of them stopped me to consider the big picture and I'm gonna be honest with you. I think I wasted over $100,000 in this venture until I did everything properly, and so it was a lot of money. I mean, I'm glad in some ways because I wouldn't be able to help you out right now with this particular, very expensive, expensive mistake.
And so what I would say is the fix is equip yourself with the strategy, skills and tools at each pivot point of your business and that when you're at a pivot point, it might shift things around. It might shift your. And that what? When you're at a pivot point, it might shift things around. It might shift your strategy, shift how you're operating. So if you're new to consulting, your coaching business ownership, hire someone to help you with your branding and the skills to get clients. If you're new to content creation and you're just building your content creation or content marketing foundation, hire someone who could help you build that solid foundation. If you want to become a speaker. You got to do that all over again. Write a book, do it again. Experts may seem like they cost you money, but the reality is they will save you a lot of money and time and make you more money in the long run if you invest in them properly and you really hire the right people. So five I guess this one's actually my costliest mistake. So okay, so I'm feeling a little bit embarrassed about this one, but I'm gonna tell you about it anyway.
The biggest mistake that I would say the most costly of my mistakes is how I chose to partner with people. Now, I'm not talking about you know, colleagues, that you're in a community with who you know you help each other out. You know I did just give myself away for free in way too many in-person and virtual coffees with people who just want to pick my brain about starting or consulting or coaching business. It's different than colleagues who are on the journey and you're helping yourself out. You know helping each other out along the way. You know. So just doing too many free stuff for people who want to just, you know, get free advice is different than colleagues.
Colleagues are really important, but the biggest, biggest, biggest problem I had is how I set up partnerships with people you know, who coveted people, who coveted my content creation or my ability to market and sell myself without offering equitable value to the table and without operating agreements. So it's very important that you're really careful about who you choose to partner with. You know pay attention to. Am I going to someone and I'm going to partner with them just because, like gosh, it's really hard to be on my own? Or does this person really create really incremental value? Like, when you're thinking about a partnership, it needs to be not one plus one equals two, it's one plus one equals 64. You need people who are going to if you're going to partner with them. Now, that's different than hiring somebody that you're personally subcontracting with, that you're paying to do something else. It's people who are partnering.
Like I've had some partners where we said, okay, I'll create a bunch of content and they're going to sell it. So I spent this year creating content and then they decided at the end of the year like, eh, I don't feel, feel like I don't feel like doing this anymore, I'm going to go in a different direction. But now I have this content and I didn't have the operating agreement, and now they take my content and then they repackage it, make it their own and make money, and they axed me out of it. Or I had other people who would say, hey, you're really good at landing work, you know, I like to deliver it. You land work for me, you know, and I'll just take a part. And then they kind of took over the second contract with the clients. Or I've had other people who say, hey, I'll work for you for free and we could become partners, and then they just dip out of the partnership all without operating agreements.
Operating agreements would have saved me from all of this, but also a lot of discernment on the front end, you know. So you really need to be clear on your value and be clear on what you're lacking. That's the fix here. Don't partner with anyone without a clear agreement. Above all, do not do any work on a formal partnership without an operating agreement, but be really cautious around who you partner with. You want to have people who are equally yoked you know where they are contributing as much as you are and that but you are personally protected in this whole process. So those are my mistakes, but I do want to end things on a positive note.
There's lots of things that I did wrong, but there are many things that I did right. I'm just going to quickly, you know, go through some of them. You know, one of the things that I did right is I committed to my business literally when I only had $200 in the bank. So when I started my business, I had gone through a divorce and it was not financially happy for me and I was a single mom. But I had a drive to never go back to corporate. And around that same time my grandmother had died and I got a little bit of inheritance and I decided to use that money to invest in my business. And then I hired Chad, who's been on my podcast, and he was amazing. He pushed me to write articles and include videos and do all kinds of things, which is why I have the business I have now. So I got in a habit of investing in my business, which helped me see myself as the CEO of my business. You know, I met so many people through the different communities that I've been a part of who get what I'm trying to do. I can call Dan Whedon. He's been on my podcast as well at any point in time and he's going to give me amazing advice.
One of the best things I ever did was got onto Kajabi as a platform. I'm not a techie person, so it's super weird that I would be excited and say, oh, some of my best practices are as I got Kajabi. You know, when I was on a WordPress website, I didn't even notice it, but Kajabi allowed me to have more control over my business because all the pieces and parts talk to one another and it's user friendly. So, as I was saying before, all the things that I was ignorant around, I was no longer ignorant. But the biggest thing I did right is make meaning out of my mistakes. You know, I truly embrace continuous improvement as a way of life and I no longer fear mistakes or feel shame over them. I pivot fast now. You know, anything I put out if it doesn't work, fine, you know, put a lead magnet out. It's not performing. Okay, no harm, no foul, I'll just move.
You know many of my videos that I mentioned in those early courses. They weren't working as courses, but I made them public on YouTube and it brought me many clients. So you know, the thing is is that when you are in business, you're going to make mistakes and you can make. You know those are the lemons, I guess, if you will describe it to anything and you can make lemonade out of them. So let's recap, and I want to flip everything that I said around the mistakes I made to best practices, because that's really what they are. Now All my mistakes became best practices.
So the first I would say is embrace abundance. You know that you are not in a scarce universe. You know that you are not in a scarce universe. There's people out there who need you, and so embrace that abundance mindset and choose a business model and brand that's aligned with your strengths and passions. That is how you fast track. Turning your career into a calling is that. You trust that and you go down that path.
Second, use your own name as your business name. It is the most flexible container that will grow with you. Three, know how your website works and everything that's behind the hood of your marketing system. If you hire out for some or all of those tasks, you'll know how to manage these people to create the results that you're looking for and not mess things up like I did. Four, take a look at your business and brand strategy whenever you want to add services or pivot and invest in people who will help you look at the big picture implications of what you want to do and why. And number five, protect your talents and your brand. Do not pursue partnerships that are unequally yoked, and never work with any partner without a signed and agreed upon operating agreement.
So let's get started. What can you do now? What are things that you can just take action on? I would say just be careful on who you ask advice from. Don't just pick anyone's brain who seems to be working for themselves, like pick people who just seem like they are achieving the same type of success that you are, and invest wisely in expert support. You know, one of the phrases that I go with now is I'm not rich enough to go cheap. Every time I try to go cheap, it costs me more money in the long run. So just invest wisely, invest in the best of what you can afford, not just the least, and then, if you think that I might be the person that could help you, you know, avoid any of these mistakes and accelerate your success, absolutely go to my website and book a free brand strategy.
Call at wwwbetsyjordancom. Forward slash schedule. So as we sign off, I just want you to think about something and what I would love want you to think about something and what I would love for you to walk away with. If anything in this, from this episode, is to ditch any fears and shames about mistakes, they will happen, and when you make mistakes, remember you are not alone. The only mistake that is not recoverable is not trying at all, and if you think anything that I've shared in this series might be helpful to anyone you know, please pass it on. And for more actionable inspiration about growing your own high impact and high income consulting or coaching business, please hit, subscribe to wherever you're listening and until next time, remember you have enough, you do enough and you are enough. I'll see you soon.
