How strong is your foundation?

Building a business is often said to be one of the most challenging yet liberating experiences.

I honestly didn’t really know who I was until I set out into life as an entrepreneur. Each day has taught me something new about the person I want to be and about the person I’m meant to be.

There’s a wise story about the Chinese bamboo tree that is much like the virtues we are taught as an entrepreneur. According to legend, the Chinese bamboo tree takes five years to grow. During the first four years, it barely grows at all, staying underground and seemingly doing nothing.

Can you imagine planting a bamboo tree, watering it every day for four years, ensuring it has the right soil, the right sunlight and taking care of it for four years to see nothing happen? 

But suddenly, in the fifth year, the bamboo tree suddenly shoots up, growing as much as 80 feet in just six weeks. 

Imagine how remarkable this really is. All that time, you didn’t see those roots growing, you couldn’t see all your hard work paying off, all you could see was the same outer image of no growth, but really, magic was happening underneath the soil all along. And in only six weeks, it grows 80 feet!

It is a remarkable feat of patience, perseverance, and trust. And this is exactly the message that most of us need to hear and understand in the beginning of any journey.

We must trust ourselves that in all our preparing, learning, creating, and building of the foundation in our lives and in our business that one day all our efforts will be rewarded. One day, you will see your business blossom overnight, much like the bamboo tree.

In fact, studies show it takes three years for businesses to be profitable. And for those overnight success stories, it actually takes 11 years.

So, what should you be doing in the beginning of building your business or breaking ground in your next chapter of life?

1. Start with a clear mindset about your expectations: You’re not going to harvest fruit immediately.

For those who are transitioning from employee to entrepreneur, this can feel like a tough concept to grasp.
As a natural born leader, you may be used to seeing results quickly. Your efforts seemed to pay off and you could use your success as a barometer of winning.

In the beginning stages of entrepreneurship, you may need a new barometer.

If it takes three years to be successful, you won’t be able to use profit as your litmus test for achievement.

You’ll need to measure something that’s absolute and unwavering.

For me in my first business , I did use the number of clients and sales as my measurement and it just left me defeated. It wasn’t in my control what anyone decided was right for them, yet, I used the sales figures to show me if I was on track, worthy of what I was doing and if I had a great business idea.

What I should have been using to test effectiveness was measuring my actions against the results from my actions.

When I did xyz, what happened? If I made 30 calls and nothing happened, was this me failing? No. It meant that I needed to either change my message, try to better understand the reason for the nos and do something different next time. Entrepreneurship is about testing, learning, pivoting when needed and growing from the experience.

In the beginning, I didn’t have the capacity to think like an entrepreneur. I had to grow my body into being an entrepreneur.

Today, my barometer for success looks very different.

I’ve learned to base my success in following my passion and mission for my business and see what’s working or not.

I don’t beat myself up if someone doesn’t understand or see the value in my service. I’m grounded in myself, my mission and belief in what I’m doing. And that’s all that matters to me right now.

2. Build your foundation your own way

90% of the “how to grow a 6-figure business” courses out there are built on a step by step how-to model that worked for the ultra-successful millionaire whose posting on social media from a private island and enjoying all their freedom and selling you what worked for them.

Yes, I fell for it too. I paid $18,000 for a program that promised a magical life if I just followed those steps. I didn’t know what I was doing so any step-by-step guide or checklist I could follow was exactly what I wanted and felt I needed.

After trying to follow someone else’s formula and getting so frustrated that it didn’t feel like it was working for me, I just gave up.

I now know I’m not alone.

After going through my experience and talking to many others who experienced the same thing as me, I’ve come to learn why.

First, this person was already at the peak of success and used the amount of money they’ve made as the barometer of success for others too (we just learned in #1 why this is a horrible mindset to have, especially in the beginning). But, they didn’t talk about the human experience, the real struggles in the beginning and taught or coached from the beginning. They were teaching at the later stages of business which was past the foundational stage. And in my experience and from what studies show, the foundational stage is when almost everyone gives up in the first three years.

Secondly, the formula they used was the recipe that worked for them. And since we are biologically all built differently, we all have our own strengths, our own style and ways we connect with our customers, it’s incredibly difficult to carbon copy someone else’s playbook.

This course was led by a man who did have great intentions, but I want to be very real. Men have a very different approach to sales and life in general.

Men have a different style, much like the beginning of time. They’ve learned how to go hunt and bring back food for the family. And this is a lot of the sales techniques they teach.

Women are much different. We are natural born nurturers, we are more emotional creatures and building a human connection is at the core of our existence.

So, learning from a male playbook from a sales perspective was really challenging for me. Women are different and that’s a beautiful thing.

Each and every woman is powerful in her own way and it’s important to discover how to connect authentically and build a relationship with your customers and clients and NOT make them feel you are just another sale.

And please don’t get me wrong, men are not doing anything wrong. Men understand one another. And I believe most men working with women understand a woman’s nature too. Again, it’s just different.

Women in leadership just need to learn how to “go out there” and tell the world about the great product or service they provide in an authentic and genuine way - and then you’ll find success your own way.

3. Lean into your why - your mission

Building a solid foundation, much like the bamboo tree, is about standing firm on the reason for your business. This reason or mission, is what you must focus on during those difficult days when you want to throw in the towel. There’s a reason bigger than you and that’s what will keep you standing strong. 

There’s a statistic that says 76% of women start a business because of the impact they want to make on this world. What a beautiful thing.

Think about this, you are a leader impacting more lives than you really realize because you’ve rooted your business in impact, not profit.

Guess who can feel this the most? Your customers.

Your customers expect greatness and deserve it too. And when a leader leads their operation with impact versus profit, every decision is to benefit the customer which ends up meaning more profits later.

Build it right. Think about your customers, their journey and experience with your business.

Think about their pain points and how you solve them. Show up for them in your emails, your posts on social media and when you want to create a new product or service, ask them what they really want and need. 

The only way to know is to care.

Ask them, talk to them, stay focused on them.

This is a customer-centric business model, and in all my experience working with brands across the globe, this is the model that works.

At the end of the day, it’s all about your customers. They are the center of your operation and without them, you don’t have a business.

So, I’ll gamble and say that the 76% of women who focus on the customer and the impact they’re making for them, they are the ones seeing the most success.

And the only way for your customers to know what your mission and impact is, is to tell them. Don’t be shy - spread the word.

Your customers only know it if you’re bold enough to say it. 

Much like the bamboo tree that takes four years to grow, the proper building and growing of the business's foundation actually starts with you. It’s you who needs to grow first.

Build your foundation from the inside out. You can have every single step laid out for you, you can have a checklist for how to build and grow a business, you can have every roadmap you'll ever need, but until you have the body for it, you’re never going to be ready.

Starting to build your foundation by looking inward and asking yourself who are you right now and who do you want to become? Then, the student is ready to learn.

Meet Coach Elisha

I am a certified Business and Life Coach supporting women-owned business owners and leaders. My mission is to support women on their road towards mastery. Why? Because strong women need support too, and I believe your influence and impact on this world is exactly what we need more of . I specialize in developing The Business Trifecta: The Leader, The Culture and The Customer you serve. Our coaching practice focuses on developing and improving this ecosystem from the inside out. Experience the Unleashed Life with Unleashed Life Coaching.