You've launched a 'successful' business that's not making enough money. What next?

Momentum...

I think most people that know me would say I’m a pretty calm, collected person (in the work place, let’s not ask my husband). But there’s always a telltale sign that I’m feeling stressed and it’s that my nails are bitten off. I’ve not prioritised getting my nails done and have left them all short and stumpy. Looking down at my fingers and this is me right now. I’m not sure if the post Dragons’ Den blues are a thing, but to break that down into more relatable terms, you know that feeling post-wedding or post-big holiday and you just feel a bit low, questioning your life choices and asking yourself, so what now? Well, that’s how it feels.

Don’t worry, this post isn’t all doom and gloom. I’m a positive person who recognises how lucky she is. Phew. I’m also the master of getting shizzle done. Which is why I’ve decided to take matters in my own hands and start a digital marketing course. When I say things aren’t working, they are in lots of ways. Dragons’ Den was absolutely mega (from Steven Bartlett sharing on Linked In to half page features in Hello Magazine, I mean you can even find me on Wikipedia). But, and this is a big but, I believe it is very challenging to make any product based business work if you can’t get your paid advertising working. I’ve worked with lots of agencies in the past, and whilst my company is great at creating content, we’ve never really demystified the mystery of paid marketing, and this is why we’ve decided to up-skill ourselves. Whilst this will be a time commitment, I’m not worried about being busy and ultimately what floats my boat is learning, growing and achieving, essentially a feeling of progress is what keeps me sane. Recognising this, the digital marketing course is the way to go. So I shall keep you posted on whether I unlock the secret of paid ads (I mean if I actually do that I’ll be minted). But seriously, it’s about just having a better understanding of something that’s not working well enough, so I can see if I can understand how to fix it. And then we go from there.

I’m seeing a lot of all or nothing scenarios at the moment. Businesses are ether flying or failing so badly they’re having to close their doors. And it’s upsetting. I welled up on a client call recently when they told me how well they were doing (it was on video call so hopefully went unnoticed). But I was genuinely so elated to hear about their success as it can be hard not to fixate on the failures, and finding out that someone else is doing well, can give you hope that it’s possible for you too.

It’s also impossible to not be impacted by the constant influx of ‘advice’ we’re seeing on social media (I recognise there’s an amount of irony here), but, everything is so conflicting and you can end up feeling really flat and lost. Whether that advice is ‘knowing when to quit’ or ‘never giving up on your dreams’ it’s like reading your horoscope or a fortune cookie, that in the moment, feels like “is that speaking to me”? We all know it’s not. But those micro sentiments can have an impact on how you’re feeling when they are cumulated, even if that feeling is just confusion. I think the important thing is to feel like there’s momentum. Well for me that’s important anyway. I can take the rough and smooth, but what makes me feel low is a lack of movement. When running a business so much is out of your control - is that retailer going to ever respond? Will that product ever be ready? If you can get back some control of your progress, then at least you (I) can take some comfort in that.