Small Business Club members: If you had a chance to start over, what would you do differently in starting your company? For me, I think I would focus on doing one thing really well instead of running after too many tangents.

Kathy Bernard, Getajobtips.com

HI Kathy @kathybernard —

Here is the thing about doing one thing well – If you don’t expand as time goes on, you’ll find your online business in the dumpster.  I know people who thought building MySpace pages would be a great second job.  And look what happened to MySpace. If you depend only on Social Media websites, and those sites tank at some point, you need something to fall back on – thus ongoing education about business services in the online arena.

Since I’ve been doing business online for over 20 years I don’t see limiting my biz(s) to any one specific area.  I know my shortcomings and what I am really good at, even though it is a wide and varied set of skills. 

A DO OVER? 

01 –  I would not have taken a partner for the first 5 years.  I might have been a bit limited without him at first, but I’m a quick study and would have actually learned more faster without depending on him for some major items. It was hard when we split and then dumped the corp. – I had to learn a new programming language (right now!). 

02 – I also would never have ventured into online sales (household products, home decor, etc) , it was really good in the nineties (an actual living) and until about 2003 – then that went into the dumpster as the big box stores and department stores began to come online – because they were cheaper all around, especially with shipping rates. (I still have some inventory in my garage – yikes!)

Of course the experience I gained was invaluable but I would prefer to have bypassed the headaches that those two ventures brought to the table. 

Eileen

@kathybernard
That’s a great one! I just got a do-over (started a side project called The Marketing Agents). I can’t say that I focused on JUST one thing, but I did start with just a blog. (And Google+. And Pinterest.)
I’ll be rolling out more stuff soon, but the ONE (or three) thing is a great lesson.
One thing I’ve tried to do with this do-over is to be as clear as possible with my value statement to my ideal customers. 

The better you articulate this, the faster you’ll attract your ideal customers.

@kathybernard  Great topic!  The first thing that came to mind is that I would have, like Eileen, gone for it alone.  Of course it would have greatly added to the work load, but the company could have gone in the direction I chose from the beginning.

Since then, I have been solo since 2004 and it was the best decision I ever made.  There was a definite way I wanted to do business and now I have the freedom to make the decisions I choose without having to try and persuade anyone else.
I wrote a blog article on this topic.  Here is a link if you would like to check it out:http://www.accessprofilesblog.com/2012/09/what-i-have-learned-by-starting-my-own.html

Hi  @kimkline —  Nice article at your blog.  

@kathybernard — This IS a great topic.  Also hope you don’t have problems with your blog.  It’s hard to depend on platforms built by others. Knock on wood!

@rich-brooks — Folks – if you haven’t taken a look at the new venture Rich has jumped into, you should.  Some great info and with his ‘expert’ sources, I’d say it will fly high. Congratulations to you, Rich!
Eileen

I think looking back it would have been nice to have some extra cash in reserve. Most of the work was not that costly since I self taught myself most of it, but it would have been nice to have extra money in savings just in case. I had to find a part-time job but that is okay as it does not interfere with my business in actuality it has helped me grow my business.

I also wish I would have spent more money on advertising to get my name out there, I did a lot of cold calls to former clients and networking people that I know and helped them get something for their business or connect them to a resource that could help them.  Doing it on my own took a lot of time and energy and made many mistakes along the way – my auto-responder was set up incorrectly so each time a new person wanted my free gift, it would not only send it to him ( 5 of them in a 2 -3 week period) but it would send it to people who were already got the 5 messages.. Lost a ton of potential leads because I didn’t read the instruction manual.

@kathybernard @supereb @amyhallbiz @annfurnivall @ricoramiro @rich-brooks

Typed the wrong @ letters for Preston … here I go again … @prestonodenbrett — see my message on the discussion boar.