Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Kelly O’Neil

This is the final interview of the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Award winning Speaker, Author and Marketing to the Affluent Expert, Kelly O’Neil, is passionate about helping entrepreneurs think big and play bigger to build thriving six and seven figure businesses. Kelly O’Neil is no stranger to the good life. Having been raised in an affluent family in the Silicon Valley where private planes and luxury vacation homes were a way of life, she set out after college to create her own wealth…and succeeded.

In 2000, she left a thriving career in corporate public relations and founded UpLevel Strategies (now Kelly O’Neil International™) where she works exclusively with thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs as both a coach and consultant to help them design businesses where they earn more and work less through her Marketing to Millionaires™ programs.

While Kelly grew up in an affluent family, she did not always have the privileges associated with money. Listen to the interview to learn:

• The lesson she learned renting her first apartment after graduating from college
• How an unexpected reaction when she decided to quit her six-figure salary job made her even more determined to succeed as an entrepreneur
• Why she succeeded financially but failed miserably in other areas of her first business
• The one thing she would have done much sooner if she could start over again
• What an important mentor told her (this advice is invaluable, and one of the hardest lessons to learn)

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Heather Dominick

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Heather Dominick, founder of the EnergyRICH Success System for Entrepreneurs, a proven step-by-step system that allows you to bridge your passion to 6-figure profit  by partnering Universal Energetic Principles with practical step-by-step “How-To’s” to  joyfully make more money in your business so you can better serve the world. Through her EnergyRICH® Business Boot Camp, Private Mentor Coaching Programs and products, Heather shows her students how to transcend lower level energies like fear and doubt to be able to build their business from a place of serving, joy and abundance.

Heather was a high school drama teacher for eight years in the New York public school system, and although she loved her work, she felt there was something more that she was meant to do. After her own “dark night of the soul” she left her job to create a business around her passion for nutrition and wellness. She filled her business quickly, but when in the first summer her sales dropped and others in the industry told her that was to be expected, she set out to learn about alternate ways to generate revenue and build a business. Listen to the interview to learn:

• Why you should listen to the “nudge” and not others’ voices who tell you that you’re crazy for following your passions
• What happened to her revenue and how she realized she had a much larger role to play in her business
• The major mistake some entrepreneurs make that severely restricts their growth
• How she learned there is never just one way to market or build your business

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Lara Galloway

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Lara Galloway, The Mom Biz Coach is a sought-after business coach, speaker, writer and Blog Talk Radio show host in the mom entrepreneur world. Her work has helped countless mompreneurs define success on their own terms and achieve it. Her signature training program, The Mom Biz Makeover, teaches mompreneurs how to create a sustainable business that fits into their family life. Known for her pay-it-forward attitude and love of helping others, Lara uses her Engagement Marketing Strategy to take a passive approach to earning income and an aggressive approach to spending quality time with family.

Lara grew up in the Atlanta, Georgia and worked for IBM in the United States for several years before moving to Michigan, and then Canada, with her husband.  She quit her job to raise her children, and soon realized she missed working. Lara developed a coaching business that allowed her to work from home. Listen to the interview to learn:

• How growing up in Corporate America taught her the right way to do a lot of things
• How she reinvented herself as a stay at home mom, then an entrepreneur
• The difference between being an entrepreneur and someone who earns money from her own business
• The danger of being the Chief Everything Officer in your business

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Jennifer Bourn

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Jennifer Bourn specializes in working with leading entrepreneurs, speakers, authors, and information marketers to support them in achieving big business results. As founder of the web design and online marketing management agency Bourn Creative, Jennifer offers full service design, marketing strategy, and implementation services to emerging small businesses who desire big marketing results on a small business budget.

Jennifer founded Bourn Creative 2005 to give her the freedom to stay home with her children and continue to build a career doing what she loves. She immediately jumped into the branding, web design, and marketing arenas to fulfill her passion for helping smart, savvy business owners create powerful brands, attract more clients and get found more often online. Today she is a savvy mompreneur and Bourn Creative’s Marketing Manager, Art Director, and Chief Strategist, and is constantly reading, experimenting, and learning to expand her knowledge-base, keep informed of the latest trends and tools, and provide a high-level of service to Bourn Creative’s clients.

By the time Jennifer graduated from college, she already had five years of full-time graphic design experience at an advertising agency, moving from production grunt, to creative services director. And, she had completed internships at a printer, a newspaper, a magazine, and a marketing agency. So starting her own business was a natural step, although it was not a simple decision to make. Listen to the interview to learn:

• Why it took her six months to work up the courage to quit her agency job, and what the idiosyncracy was that set her off to resign
• The challenges of working at home with children, and how she used to try to hide this from her corporate clients
• How wearing jeans set her free and turbo-launched her business
• Why you shouldn’t cut costs on your accountant or your website
• How little she used to sleep and how different her life and business became once she allowed herself to hire help
• A simple SEO tip to get more traffic to your website

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Marie Guthrie

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Marie Guthrie is an Executive Career Strategist and CEO of The Legacy Track, a boutique consulting firm specializing in revitalizing the careers of Fortune 500 Senior Executives with the complexities, pace and pressures of operating in the global arena. The Legacy Career System and The New Rules for Executive Careers help top executives in their 40’s & 50’s find a purposeful career no matter what the business climate, to earn the income they are worth and to provide a good life for themselves and their loved ones. Marie offers Coach the Corner Office Training for coaches wanting to work with Fortune 500 executives and their very complex personal and professional worlds.

Marie labels herself a “recovering executive” who reinvented her career five times due to mergers, economic downturns, market shifts and new bosses before she established a thriving business.  

Listen to the interview to hear:

• How the early days being her own boss were spent more like an employee than the CEO of her own business
• The two people she would hire immediately to help her build her business if she could do it over again
• Her ABCD list and why “Don’t Like, Don’t Care” items are deadly for your business
• How she reinvented her business using the same methods she did in her career
• Why she doesn’t call herself a coach anymore

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Small Business Advice – Are You Tempted to Ride the Popular Wave?

Each and every day in the USA alone, more than 2,500 new businesses are started. Many of them are sole proprietorships created by people leaving careers behind and looking forward to a business that allows them flexibility and success on their own terms.

In 2007 I followed the same steps that many of you did. When I filed my business officially that year, I looked for knowledge and guidance to teach me what I needed to know to run a successful, home-based business. I went to the typical startup sources, like government agencies, local business development organizations, and the bookstore. I was disappointed to find that most of it really didn’t apply to me and was instead directed at a typical bricks and mortar or consulting businesses working in a typical office setting. On the internet, I found lots of information, almost too much, and it took me a lot of time to sort through it. I remember feeling overwhelmed and having to push down a rising sense of panic that I’d never master any of it, and would fail if I missed any important nugget.

It seemed like every second click led to “six figure secrets unveiled” and the “ten ways to make your fortune online.” As a business and marketing advisor, and someone who spent over 20 years in the marketing profession already, I remember thinking how fortunate I not having to learn it all from the beginning. But using the internet as a marketing tool to build a virtual business was new to me, so I signed up for more free classes, paid products and other offers than I could keep up with!

Since that time, I’ve worked with many entrepreneurs and I’ve heard a lot of discouraging stories of time, money and precious energy being wasted as a result of receiving overpromised, under delivered, inappropriate, ill timed or just plain bad advice. Here’s what can happen when you find yourself steered off your path:

• Your marketing can start to be really inauthentic, confusing your audience and making you feel like an impostor (or at the least, highly uncomfortable).
• You can develop a business that just doesn’t fit you, and feels like a chore instead of a joy.
• You can waste money on the latest hot ticket idea only to find it isn’t what your clients want, and it isn’t feeling good for you either.
• You create a business that sets you up to be your own employee, instead of your own boss.

So, here are some tips to help you stay focused and to navigate the choices wisely.

• Steer clear of anyone who tells you there’s only one way to do something. This is simply not true. It’s your business, and you have unlimited choice and possibility to create it the way that fits you.
• Watch out for the popular, hot ticket ideas. Like any other industry, there are trends and cycles. Evaluate these ideas carefully, and always measure them against what you want in your business, what your clients and market is asking for, and what they’re willing to pay for it. Riding the popular wave only works if you get on it before it peaks, and before it blends, indistinguishably, into the shore. If you’re not sure, invest in a second opinion before you go too far.
• Realize that throwing more and more money at a problem doesn’t mean you can fix it. If you don’t have a solid business idea, a clearly defined solution for a specific market, and a strong foundation for your business and marketing, no amount of window dressing is going to help.

And the most important of all? Entrepreneur, know thyself. Be clear about what you want, and when you seek advice or opinions, or learn from others, be sure you are “delegating” and not “abdicating.”

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System™  for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Gina Bell

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Gina Bell brings new meaning to the word multi-passionate entrepreneur. She is the founder and visionary of IAWBO, the International Association of Women in Business Online, host and producer of the Official Women in Business Online Podcast and creator of the Equity-Rich Women Online Blueprint, a step-by-step marketing and business-building system designed for multi-passionate internet-based women entrepreneurs. Gina teaches motivated women entrepreneurs how to create success online quickly with authenticity and confidence. Her equity-rich methods are a catalyst to the freedom-filled life and business her clients truly desire. A successful author, speaker, coach and teacher, Gina inspires women in business online around the globe through her electronic newsletters, teleclasses, in-person workshops and private coaching.

Gina is a former corporate employee from the media buying and advertising background who dipped her toes in the entrepreneurial waters first by purchasing a franchise.  After building up and then selling that business, Gina and her husband have created several successful enterprises. The common denominator is she is committed to helping women business owners succeed.

Gina recently established the International Association of Women in Business Online. Her work with the association and with clients through her coaching and consulting business brings together what she has learned and applied over the years. But this destination wasn’t always clear, nor was the journey free of obstacles.

Listen to the complete interview to learn:

• The early signs that she was destined to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur
• How choosing one path or the “niches to riches” model of business can either set you free or confine you
• The best advice she’s ever received to deal with rejection (and why you should trust Don too)
• Baby steps you can take to stretch your comfort zone

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Business Advice – Interview with Jeanna Gabellini

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Jeanna Gabellini is a Master Business Coach who assists high achieving entrepreneurs and their teams to leverage fun, systems and intentionality for high-octane results. Jeanna excels at modeling and teaching that business is meant to be passion filled, exhilarating and profitable. Jeanna´s coaching and seminars marry vision, divine guidance and proven strategies. She started MASTERPEACE Coaching and Training in 1996 after starting several other successful businesses and selling them. In 1998, she was one of the first coaches in the world — and the youngest — to receive the designation of Master Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation. Jeanna is the co-author of Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction with Eva Gregory, Mark Victor Hansen & Jack Canfield.

Jeanna is a high energy, accomplished coach who did not follow typical or traditional business and marketing advice to create her business (read her site, and listen to her speak to experience her refreshing, contagious style). In fact, before becoming a certified coach, she worked for a major seminar company, as a volunteer! Listen to the interview to find out:

• Why she feels being naïve about business was an asset that helped her get clients quickly
• How she built a successful coaching business in a natural and completely fun way
• When she found her “fun factor” and changed her business outlook forever
• What to do if you feel like something is not working or happening fast enough

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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Best Business Advice – Interview with Barbara Winter

Starting today and continuing through March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

Barbara Winter of Joyfully Jobless is the bestselling author of Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love and Jumpstart Your Entrepreneurial Spirit. For 25 years, she’s been writing and inspiring audiences to go after their dreams while showing  them how with practical, step-by-step advice.

What may surprise you is what this Las Vegas based author did before her writing and speaking career.  Growing up in Minnesota, Barbara tells me she always imagined herself having an exciting life. She found out that the early career she had chosen as a school teacher was not delivering the excitement she had first envisioned.

After a few twists and turns (her career path will surprise you) and time spent at home with young children, Barbara read a magazine article that literally changed her life. The moment she realized she could run a business from home, and still teach, was the moment her new path was set.

Barbara founded The Successful Woman, a pioneering training and development company which conducted programs on self-esteem and entrepreneurship for women. She went on to start several small businesses—all with the intention of passing  along to others the lessons she had learned.
Like many of us, the business she started was not the business she ultimately ended up in. Listen to the complete interview to find out:

• What she’s an absolute maniac about
• How to deal with the “downs” as well as the “ups” (and why you’ll get better at both)
• What piece of advice her first business mentor told her that she still follows today
• What comfy old husbands and exciting new lovers have in common with being an entrepreneur (I told you these interviews are full of surprises)
• The difference between an expense and an investment

To listen to the interview, register here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations).

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Why Typical Business Advice Doesn’t Work

One thing I know to be true from my experiences advising and coaching people making the shift from employee  to entrepreneur is that our entrepreneurial journey is different.

So I was delighted to read this Forbes article by executive coach Dr. Steven Berglas. His article was so spot-on that I had to get in touch with him and share my observations. We had a lovely email exchange and I expect we will cross paths in California someday. Here’s what he had to say:

“There is a swelling class of first-time entrepreneurs, and they need help…This new class–call them newpreneurs–are born of circumstance rather than ability, vision or just something to prove, and they tend to launch new ventures in a different way. That doesn’t mean they won’t succeed–it just means they need a different kind of guidance.”

Yes, Dr. Steve, they do!

Because we’re different. And the things we experience in our journey from employee to entrepreneur have nothing to do with the length of time you’ve been in business. I’ve noticed the same trends and patterns in entrepreneurs with ten years of self-employment or more, as the “newly hatched” entrepreneur.

This time last year, I launched the Entrepreneurs Unplugged Telesummit which featured interviews with small business mentors like Michael Gerber, Melanie Benson Strick, Kelly O’Neil and so many more who shared their experience and advice on leaving the corporate world.  At the beginning of that series we reviewed the most common mistakes made by corporate fugitives. One year and several more discussions later, these trends remain the same.

Here’s a recap of the most common mistakes:

Thinking that being good at what you do is the basis for a business. Some people quit, and some people turn to self employment for other reasons but many new or aspiring entrepreneurs think that their professional experience will translate to a thriving business. This is  the first big mistake alluded to by the world’s most recognizable small business guru, Michael Gerber in his classic book The E-Myth.  Second to that, being passionate and determined is a good start that will fuel you when you’re tempted to give up, but the bottom line is that you still need a foundation of marketing and commerce and a market that is looking for what you have to offer and will pay you enough for it.

Thinking you can do it all by yourself. Many of us go into business thinking we never want to have employees or have to manage anyone again. We plan on flying completely solo.  This is completely understandable – since years of bureaucracy and the ugly side of office politics is something we hope we never need to endure again. This might work for a while, but not for long – the reality of having to market yourself, do the work, fix the computer, do the bookkeeping and collecting the money… all comes into play. You quickly plateau in your income and energy. Entrepreneurs who achieve personal and financial freedom, don’t do it alone.

Thinking you can keep yourself on track. If you’re used to a structure and the workings of an organization it’s hard to cope with sudden freedom from routine and procedures. Beyond the ability to stay focused and disciplined, successful entrepreneurs build support systems around themselves to keep them accountable and on task.

Thinking you need to get people’s approval. There is a huge culture shock when you go from corporate life out on your own especially if you are working from home, by yourself. Suddenly that 20 or 30 year career as an expert can feel woefully inadequate when you’re responsible for selling yourself and running your business. There’s no one to tell you your idea is fabulous or completely sucks. There’s no one certifying you as an expert and telling you that you’re able to charge a certain amount. There is no one to approve your work before it goes to the client, and your name is on everything!  Many entrepreneurs allow this to limit their growth and feel the need to work their way up, not surprising really, when you look at our years of education and employment conditioning. However this leads to lack of boundaries with clients, and lower fees thanyou deserve, if you do not claim your expert status for yourself.

Not continuing to learn. When you’re an employee you can get by knowing just what is expected of you, or what you need to perform your job really well. The learning you need for your career is completely focused on your profession. Also, your company often pays for it. You just have to show up! In business you need to be a continuous learner – about your area of expertise, about aspects of business, about yourself. It’s very easy to get caught up working “in” your business instead of “on” your business. This is why many small business owners often fall into the isolation trap and just continue to do the same things year after year, never breaking out of their routines to learn something new. This leads to severely stunted and often under-earning businesses.

Not knowing what you really want. When you’ve spent years in a career and you now want to run your own business, it’s most common to create one around your career profession. Many new business owners slide into this without really taking the time to consider what they really want from their life, and how to design their business to get it. Often they realize later, that the business they built is not the one they really want. Wouldn’t it be easier to build a foundation based on a life plan, and  adjust it as you grow?

Waiting until it’s perfect. Corporate fugitives tend to suffer from this affliction more than any other type of business owner. They are less willing to take risks and fail, and often spend more time thinking about and crafting their perfect plan, than  getting started in the business of business. If this sounds like you, don’t wait until it’s perfect – waiting wastes time, and even makes you more fearful as your second thoughts nag at you. Spread your wings and fly – no one is there to push you forward, but you.

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success SystemTM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

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