How to Avoid Making the Same Mistakes as 95% Of the Small Businesses, Chat With Tammy Johnston

Yasi: Hello, Tammy. Welcome to Fast Track podcast.

Tammy: Thank you for having me Yasi.

Yasi: Um, I prepared a lot of questions because I know you’re a business coach, especially for small businesses. And many of my audience might have the idea to start a side hustle or become entrepreneur themselves. So in today’s interview, I’d like to ask you from your personal experience, right.

How to create a successful, like mini business or baby business or side hustles and what are the mistakes people should avoid. But before I start with all this, I know that you have been an entrepreneur yourself for more than 20 years.

Tammy: 20 years.

Yasi: Yeah. So tell us the story, how you decide to become an entrepreneur yourself?

Tammy: Well at the moment, it was kind of a very spur of the moment decision because I was fired. I was working for somebody and, I absolutely hated it. It was all I could do to drag myself into the office every day. And I’d already put out my resume. I was going through interviews and in one more week, I would have been in another job with better pay all of that good stuff.

And I got called into my boss’s office, and I got fired and he was expecting me to be upset and all that. And I just had this feeling of relief and I’m going, I don’t ever have to work for another creepy and competent old mannequin. I’m free. I’m going to start my business. And that’s when I made the decision.

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and people have been pushing me to do it for, for quite a while cause they’ve been in my industry for almost 10 years that I’m and, uh, I started laughing and put a great, big, huge smile on my face, which totally and completely surprised him because that was not the reaction that he was wanting.

And then I had to come home and tell my husband, which was fun because he’s very much an employee mindset person, but I’ve never looked back. So I decided at that moment to start my business. And the first two years were very challenging. Cause I went from having a regular steady paycheck every two weeks to fully, you eat what you kill and.

I’m an introvert. So the idea of having to go out and do sales, and my background is financial services. So I was selling like things like life insurance and retirement investments and stuff like that, stuff that nobody wants to talk to you about. But I had to go out and start actively selling and doing all of those things.

And the first few years were very challenging. But after that things got a lot better. And the reason why I specialize in working with self-employed small business owners as early in their journey as possible, like idea, stage up to two years, cause I’m going, oh my, if I could go back now to a year before I was fired or decided to start my business or whatever and start teaching me the things that I needed to know then, and I went into starting my business in a much better position than most people, because I wasn’t just technically good, but I’ve been studying money, business and success since I was seven years old and I was helping other people put their business together and all those things.

But if I could go back one year, and start these are the things that you need to be doing, Tammy here’s what you can do to get yourself up and running a lot faster and an awful lot easier because I went from making like $55,000 a year to in my first two years, maybe 24,000. And that’s not a thousand dollars a month.

It’s feast and famine. So that’s why I focused on working with the baby business owners so we can see them survive because the failure rate within the first two years is horrifying.

Yasi: Yeah. The other day I was doing a research online that to see how many, um, most of the SMEs in Switzerland, how long total have they survived?

If I remember correctly, I think more than 90% of businesses, failed or stopped 50%, like one to two years and then another big chunk within five years. Yeah.

Tammy: Yeah, no, the failure rate is super, super high within the first two years. And even up to the five-year mark at the five-year mark, 90% of them are gone and it’s not, because they don’t have a good product or a service. They’re usually great stuff. It’s very rarely is that the issue, it’s not the issue that the business owner isn’t working hard enough. The number one issue is they just don’t have the basic foundational business skills that they need to build a business around their product or service.

And they’re running around, spinning all the plates and learning the hard way as they’re going. And most people, they don’t make it, but the positive stuff is you can learn all of these skills and the sooner you learn them, the better your chances are.

Yasi: And back then, when you decided to start your own business, what kind of business you’re running since you are from the financial industry?

Tammy: I went into,  I started my own financial planning business. So I was doing the life insurance and all that stuff, but I wanted to do it differently than what all the other people were doing because I’d been already in the industry for 10 years and I was going there’s so much in here that is just wrong, just wrong. So I’m in Canada and Canadians have the lowest rate of financial literacy in the westernized world. That means on the subject of money, we’re dumber than Americans. That’s terrifying. And I was seeing so much stuff crossing my desk when I was in an employee. Oh my God. How in the world are they getting away with this?

Because they’re selling products that are inappropriate. That’s not helping the people that it’s supposed to be helping, but it’s making money for the agents and stuff like that. And there’s things that are being missed. And how are they doing this? And I found out, Canadians know nothing about money.

Like we don’t talk about it. Are we have somewhat an education in school, but it’s useless and it’s wrong. Like flat out wrong in so many cases. So I’m going, one of the things that I did very differently was I created a personal financial course and I originally was doing it over a Friday night and a Saturday teaching people, all the basics of the finances and things like that.

And that was my front end to get people in to talk to me so that I could actually properly help them out with the products. Things like how do you set up a budget that actually works, understanding how credit works, mortgages? What are the different insurances and how do you ask the questions? What are the different investments and how do you ask the questions?

So I actually put my focus more on selling the class, which worked really, really well. And I did that up until COVID. I haven’t taught that class since COVID hit, but doing, focusing on the education and bringing in long-term clients, not just one time sales and it was way more rewarding and it took a bit longer to get going with it.

But after that two year mark, because if you build your foundation, then it just comes in. I don’t do any marketing whatsoever for my financial planning business. It all comes in. Um, for me either when I’m speaking or referrals, and referrals in my world means client’s phone or email me and ask me for an appointment.

I don’t contact anybody out.

Yasi: Yeah. And since when did you started the business coaching business line, or are you running two, three businesses?

Tammy: I’m running two. So when I started my business, I was attracting a lot of self-employed small business owners and that’s always been my passion.

And one of the things that I was seeing is, they were financially struggling and they were having problems in their business and different people would have different types of problems, but I’m going. So I’d help them fix the stuff in their business so they could make more money because I kind of have a great motivated self-interest because broke people can’t afford insurance or investments, but where I’m going, I can help you get your business up and running. Like I’ve helped people put together their marketing plans. I’ve hired and fired staff for them. I’ve helped them put together their systems. Regular thing that I get called in for is going over their financials. Like, okay, it’s Tuesday,

I have to make payroll on Friday and I have no money in the account. What do I do? So they’d call me in to help, but I go through and, and I always love doing that. So 18 years ago, I put together my small business class. Cause I’m going, yes I love helping you one-on-one but it takes a lot of time and you’re still not getting everything cause it’s just piecemeal.

So I put together my first small business class over 18 years ago. Doing that and doing a lot more of the one-on-one coaching and the consulting and stuff, and to be very honest, I love helping people with their personal finances, like the transformations of I’ve seen in marriages and, and people in general, because I always tell people my number one job is marriage accounting when I’m dealing with personal finances. But then I’d start seeing the stuff going on with the business, and business is so much fun. Business when it is done, right, honestly, ethically, and morally is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Because you look after your, your clients, you can look after your stealth and your family, you set your own hours.

You are an active part of the community, not some big multinational corporation that just wants you to give you their money. For you to give them your money. And that’s it. When you’re a small business, you build relationships with your clients. You get to know them. It is, it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing.

And we need, the world needs more small businesses and they need them to survive. When a small business fails, everyone loses.

Yasi: Yeah. And from your coaching experiences with individual clients and that you’re helping baby business owners, what are the common reasons why people start their own business?

Tammy: Common reasons?

So with a lot of people, it’s a situation like me. Some people have been fired or not so much fired, but they’d been pink-slipped, they’ve been laid off. They’ve been downsized even right-sized. So for example, so where I am in Canada, I’m in Calgary. My province is an oil province. I apologize. My province is run by idiots most of the time.

So I have a lot of clients that are in the oil and gas industry, especially a lot of engineers. And they’ve been through so many layoffs and downsizes and all this stuff, and they’ll be laid off for a while and then they get hired back and after like two or three or four times, they’re going, you know what, I’m tired of this.

I don’t want to be doing it. I don’t want to have to be commuting into the downtown core. I don’t want this stuff anymore. So while they’re laid off, a lot of them, especially in the last round of layoffs because, um, 2016 hits our province pretty damn hard. And I have quite a few clients that started their business during that time.

Other people are, they’re wanting to spend more time at home cause here’s another bit of fun. So my husband and I were talking about starting our family. And all of this stuff. And then I got fired and I decided to start my business. And then a few months later I got pregnant. So that was one of the reasons why I was thinking about starting my business, because I’m going, I don’t want to be having to get up at like 5:30 in the morning, get my child ready, take them to a daycare, they are in daycare all day, because I’m at work and my husband’s at work.

Come home, pick them up, barely see them, missed their first steps. Do all of this stuff. I’m going, if I set up my own business, I can make it work. And I did, I took 30 hours of mat leave. I worked up until noon the day. I had my daughter, I missed teaching one class because that’s literally the day I gave birth.

My daughter was seeing clients with me before she was two days old. She was teaching a class with me when she was literally one week old. And she did her first trade show when she was two weeks old. But that’s one of the reasons why I started my business it is because I could do that. I had clients went through my pregnancy with me and they rubbed my Buddha belly for, for luck.

And then I show up for my appointment with them and I’d have my purse and my briefcase and my baby. And oh, can we cuddle the baby? Oh, here you go. My daughter would just be, get cuddled and she’s getting all the intention of the world and she’s just, she’s happy. And we just went through doing that. So up until she was six months, she would just come to appointments with me. When she got to the six-month stage, she wasn’t quite so happy to sit still cause she’s crawling and doing all these things. I would literally time my appointments where, okay, I’ve got an hour and a half and then I have to get home or to where I was, um, where my daughter was feed and then I could go out to the next appointment and things.

So I just went all the ways do it. I was always able to be the pizza mom or go on the field trips and things like that because my own business. And I set it up because I’m the one. When am I setting my appointments? When am I doing

Yasi: You manage your own time.

Tammy: Manage my own time and what am I working on?

And what’s been really important, who am I working with? I’m very picky about the clients I take on.

Yasi: Yeah. I think it’s the most beautiful thing about entrepreneurship. If you’re your own boss is you got to decide how you use your time. You got to decide with whom you want to work with. And on top of that, maybe you can decide where you want to work from.

If you can work remotely, right? There’s so much freedom comes with it. And if you’re running your own business.

Tammy: So much has changed in 20 years. So much has changed because when I first started, I worked from home and people were starting to do that, but they would take a look at you, like, are you a real business?

If you don’t have a location? I did have, I did get an office space for three years. Never, ever again, but over the last. So I’ve been home now. For almost 12 years since I had my office. And then when I left my office and was working from home again, people were, how are you doing that? Like, how does that work?

And then when COVID hit in 2020, it wasn’t even a hiccup because we’ve got zoom and all the connections trough internet, and I’m going, I can run my entire business from the comfort of my own home and just meet my clients via zoom. And I miss getting my hugs and stuff like that, but it’s worked for me very well because I literally have clients all over the country now because they’ve been with me for like 20 years and they’ve moved and we still work.

And now nobody has to worry about driving or traffic or any of this stuff.

Yasi: Yeah, it’s really gives us much more flexibility to arrange your own meetings and meeting with your clients. And also being an entrepreneur, right? You can also decide to meet your clients if you wish to do so offline, according to your schedule, then let’s say if some audience they have the full full-time job, right.

They wish to live this kind of career lifestyle to manage their own time, have this flexibility. How would you advise someone to start a side hustle from scratch?

Tammy: Oh, I’m a huge fan of starting it as a side hustle, because life is so much easier and there’s a lot less stress when you’ve got that steady, that steady paycheck.

That’s why, like I said, if I could go back and talk to me one year and going, okay, here’s what you need to be doing. Here’s what you need to be putting together in. So things that I had to be figuring out, a big one for me, I would have put together my marketing plan right off, like, and put it together. Social media did not exist when I started my business.

And there’s 29 different ways that you can market your business. One of those is social media. Um, But I would’ve started putting together my marketing plan and figuring out, okay, where do I want to be going? So if you’re doing, if I was starting my business right now, I’d be taking a look and going through, okay, which social media, what do I want to be doing?

I would be paying attention to what are the things from the businesses that I like and what are the things that I don’t and irritate me. And I’d be figuring that stuff out. I would have designed my course right off the bat so that I would have, I was up and running. Ready to market it rather than figuring it out.

After I started my business two, like two months after I started my business going, oh, I should probably put together a course and put that together I would have put my personal finances in a better position, a more flexible position. And I there’s, there’s definitely some very good books that I would have started reading.

And another thing when I started my business, business coaching, there was very, very few business coaches and they were typically only for people that were already very well established, making really good money, but they now want to move it from like, okay, we’re, I’m making a hundred thousand dollars a year in profit to, I want to make a million dollars a year in profit.

That’s wonderful. But you need to be finding yourself a really good basic foundational business coach or at least start taking some, um, entrepreneurial courses. And I’m not talking entrepreneurial courses from like your universities and college, because while they mean, well, they usually aren’t that useful for people that are just starting out. Because they don’t get into the nitty-gritty. I’ve been saying, take from like, if they have adult education courses, because those are usually taught by people who actually do the job. So they get entrepreneurs in that have the ability to teach. So you can get much more of the real picture. I have been putting together my marketing plan and, you need to be working on, like reading or audio books to be building up your skillset, marketing financials systems. And I will be found,  a really good networking group for business owners. One that, you feel comfortable in because there’s tons of different networking groups and they all have their pros and cons.

You need to find one where you’re comfortable. Because one of the biggest things that helped me in the beginning and still helps me are the people, the other business people I met in my networking groups that we would share information and have ideas and stuff. Yeah. Have your emergency business, nine, one, one number I call it. Because no matter what, you’re going to have days that am I out of my mind?

And it’s it’s, this is too tough. And, and the stress and all of this stuff, when you have your business, 9 1 1, when you’re having those days, you can call that person up and okay. Do you have a moment to talk because you have to be respectful. If they say yes, can I went for a moment so that you can have somebody that is in the arena playing the game, knows what you’re trying to accomplish.

That you can safely let it all out too. And they love you and they support you and they give you a pat on the back and possibly some good advice. Give you a SWAT on the bottom and say, remember, this is why you’re doing it. And all that get back out there.

Yasi: And do you think is easy for people  to like a build of business from scratch, or would you recommend do the foundations work first?

Like build the networks, find like supporting groups, educate themselves and then they start building something. How would people find the balance?

Tammy: It’s it’s not an either-or thing you do both at the same time. If you’re building a side hustle, to begin with, you’re going to be working a lot more.

Cause you still have your day job, you need to start building on your business. And a lot of people go, well, I can’t have two full-time jobs. No, you don’t have to do it as two full-time jobs. Like, but if you’re putting it, I typically say, if people are going, I want to be out of my job in a year. I’m going, you need to be putting in eight hours a week.

Eight hours a week. Doesn’t have to be 20. It doesn’t have to be definitely doesn’t have to be 40, but if you’re putting in eight hours a week, so that’s like one hour a night and one day on one day on the weekend where you’re putting in a three-hour chunk because then it’s doable and you can be working on things.

As humans, we rarely very, very rarely have the ability to truly concentrate on anything really longer than an hour. And there’s a lot of people that going, okay, I do need to work really, really hard on building my business, my side hustle. So they’ll go and I’m like, I need to be putting in four or five hours a night.

And then they wonder why they’re not getting anywhere because they’re not really accomplishing anything. And the more time you give yourself, you will find ways of the tasks. Well, just expand where if you’re going okay, I’m going to do eight hours a week and okay. I’m working with like a good business coach.

I’m taking some business courses and you start putting together. Okay, what do I need to be working on? So if you’re doing eight hours a week, you’re going to, I suggest you put two hours into like, just building your knowledge, like building a really good, reading a really good book. So one book that I call the business Bible.

And I recommend it to everyone. If you looking at starting a business, you need to read this book because it gives you some really good ideas, but it really opens up your mind. It’s called the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. And, there’s been a few different versions. Like you want the revisited one where it’s a little bit more updated, but that’s one of the first ones that I read and it’s blown my mind and has set me up for success for over 20 years now. But two hours to like education. So if you’re taking a course, that could be like your, your Wednesday night course at the community college or adult education or something online, I’m reading a really good book. So then it gives you ideas.

Now, what do I need to be working on in my business? And it helps open up too because everybody goes into their own business with some strengths. Everybody has some strengths. Then most people know that they have some weaknesses that need to work on, but the stuff that’s really important is the stuff you didn’t even know.

You didn’t know. So if you’re putting the two hours into the education, like I said, course, audio books, reading, um, online courses, things like that, then you’re going to. Oh, I’ve got that. So that’s, that’s not something that need to be putting all my, okay. I didn’t know. I need to be working on that. And that’s an idea.

Then you put together the list for what am I going to be doing with the other six hours so that I am actually making progress and creating something rather than sitting at my desk and bullshitting myself into thinking I’m doing something when I’m pretty much-doomed scrolling on Facebook.

Yasi: Yeah. Well, I like what you talk about before is a technique. What is the phrase it’s like, if you are giving yourself two hours to accomplish a task, then you need two hours. If you give yourself one hour to accomplish the same task. Yes. You need one hour. So literally if you give yourself more hours yeah.

Tammy: Yeah. There’s tactical expansion to fulfill, to fill the time allotted.

And there are some times when yes, you do need actually more time and things like that. There’s, it’s blown my mind from personal experience things that, okay, I’m thinking this is going to take hours and I’m dreading it. So I’m putting it off and I’m putting it off because we all procrastinate. I’m going to admit that I do, and I’m getting better.

When I sit down and do it, it’s like, it’s like literally 15 minutes. And then I kicked myself going, what the hell is wrong with me? I could have just gotten those done where there’s ones where I’m like, oh, okay, I’ll sit down and do this for, for half an hour and three hours later, I’m still working on it.

But it’s like, you get into it and you get the flow. If that happens, it doesn’t mean you have to shut down after the hour. If you’ve got the time in the space and you don’t have other demands and you’re into something and you’ve got that energetic flow going go with it, but anybody can be blocking it out.

And here’s another thing that I found from being a mom to a newborn and still having to run and especially grow my business. A lot of people go, I can’t do it unless I’ve got chunks of hours at a time. No, I would literally do things. Okay. I’ve got 45 minutes while she’s down for a nap or her dad can look after her for this.

Cause my daughter was exclusively breastfed for 10 months because she wouldn’t even take a bottle. So I would have to learn to do things in tiny little chunks. So I would still work like a six-hour day with a newborn, but there was no such thing as a six-hour chunk that did not exist. I’m going, I’ve got 15 minutes here.

I’ve got 45 minutes here. I’ve got an hour tops and I would be even more productive than most people that have that six-hour chunks. I’ve only got 15 minutes, I’m concentrated and I’ve already figured out, okay, this is what I need to get done. And then when that, that window of opportunity comes, you get it done.

Yasi: Yeah.

Talking about productivity. I realized that, you know, being an entrepreneur, you are actually way more productive than being an employee, right. Because if you need to stay at the office and work eight hours, you have to work eight hours, but if you can finish something within six hours, even five hours, there, there’s no intrinsic motivation for an entrepreneur to drag it to eight hours.

If you get the same thing down, right?

Tammy: Any office worker or most employees like retail and restaurants and stuff are different because you’ve got people coming in with all the time. Most office work crews, you say, okay, they have to be there for eight hours. They have to work for eight hours.

And it just makes me chuckle. I going to find anybody who actually works for eight hours. If they’re getting like four productive hours at an office, that’s a pretty big deal because there are so many interruptions and distractions. And, and when you’re, when you’re working for someone else, you don’t have the same motivation when it’s your own business and it’s sink or swim, you find a way to swim.

Yeah. So…

Yasi: Let’s talk about the, find a way to swim, right. What would be the common mistakes, young entrepreneurs or people who have baby businesses that are making and that they need to learn how to swim, you know, what are the typical mistakes?

Tammy: Well, at times it depends on the type of person.

So what I found from doing this for, as you said, two decades is there are two main types of people that start businesses. So the main type I call the bunny rabbits, um, their idea people. They are usually very good at marketing. They love things like networking and selling and talking to people. They’re usually very energetic.

They’re the faster talkers than, and also could be referred to as crows because they’re usually just easily distracted by shiny things. They want to be doing the new and exciting stuff. Their problems are when they actually have to go back to the office or the shop or the store. And get something done, be able to deliver a finished product.

They’re usually disorganized. Tthey’re the ones that are losing stuff. Not because they don’t care, but because they’re just disorganized, their problem is delivering. They can make the sale, but because that’s fun, I’m talking to people. This is great, but it’s delivering the finished product. So they need to be working.

They have different issues in the backend. And I found that to be 60 to 70% of the people that I work with, or that typically that’s their primary skillset. And then there’s 30 to 40%, which we refer to as owls. And this is definitely much more my side. We are organized. We have our systems in place. Our spaces all looked after you give us a job, or an order for a product or whatever it is, we will knock your socks off. It’s like, you know, like, wow, that’s amazing where you have a problem with them. They have to go out and market. They have to talk to real-life human beings and they would rather do anything else than that. So they need to be finding ways to be, hey, how do I effectively market and getting out there and, and things like that.

So it depends. I said where you strong, and where were you weak? But one thing that I would say is common across the board for pretty much every business owner I’ve come across, they avoid their financials. They don’t want to look at it. If the phone isn’t ringing because the collection agencies are calling, or there’s not huge amounts of money coming into the bank account, which is always exciting and fun they going, I just, I want to delegate this as quickly as possible. I will do the bare minimum and hand the stuff over to the accountant to do the taxes and stuff. And that’s the biggest thing because you need to be friendly and familiar with your financials. I always want my clients to do their own bookkeeping for six months to a year. After that, you can hand it off and now you will actually understand things. But when, when you’re just handing it off, you’ll get these lovely reports, profit and loss statements and balance sheets and things like that, which give you the big picture. But they don’t tell you a lot of the story that’s going in, going on in your business.

And when you’re friendly and familiar with your financials, and a lot of people go, I don’t have time to do it myself. For most businesses, you’re only looking at 15 minutes to 30 minutes a week. And I want them to put it in that chunk of time, not just doing okay. I just did an invoice pay. It took 30 seconds,

I’m doing my own bookkeeping. But spending that time and taking a look, because then you get to see things like patterns and you get to start asking yourself question and what can I be doing here? And different things like that. Like one of the biggest things that I would get called into for helping a business, because I work with some accountants and stuff and they’d have clients and they go, Tammy, we need you to come in and help them.

And the biggest one would be okay, it’s Tuesday. I have bills coming out or payroll or whatever on Friday. And there’s no money in the account. And so I start asking you a couple of quick classes usually. So tell me about how do you do your invoicing? And then their head would go down and they’d go pink.

And I go,  we’ve been so busy working that I haven’t sent an invoice in three months and I’m going, well, no wonder you’re broke. I said, do you pay a bill? You haven’t received it? He says, no. Well then nobody else does either. Or I’ve even been into spaces where the office space was such a paper disaster.

Then we start going through and cleaning things out. I have one person in my world, home office, an absolute paper nightmare. Start cleaning it out. Found $15,000 worth of stale dated checks because they get the mail, their clients had paid them, and the envelope just goes onto the pile and the mess.

And I think the oldest check that was found in there was eight years old. Oh my God. They’ve been paid, but because they haven’t been looked after, it’s an absolute disaster. There the money isn’t hitting the bank account. Oh my God. Oh, dear. As I said, you can’t even break me, raise my eyebrows. Now there are like the stories I could tell you.

So get down, like I’ve gone into retail spaces after hours to help my clients go. I’ve got the big rubber gloves and we just start piling shit up and start sorting through. And I had one client, and he was running,  like a company that did like printing and stuff like that. And he was getting ready to sell his business because he wanted to go start another business.

So I was helping him with all this and we found two print jobs he had done for clients that he had to redo because he’d lost the completed job. Because he had all sorts of crap in there that he didn’t need and he get all stressed out. He was, oh, we’ll just put it there and all this stuff. And it was just, it was an absolute mess.

Yasi: For, example, for solopreneurs, right, like one-person business, someone just started as a side hustle. What do they need to pay, a lot of attention on creating the revenue or how they balance the investment to put into the business and the revenues that are going to make, why I ask this question is because I realized that there are different types of entrepreneurs?

For example, me, myself, I’m always the type of okay: if this I can do it myself, I do it myself. If this I can choose, you know, free plan, I try the free plan first. But I know there are other types of entrepreneurs, they think, oh, I have to invest money into my business, then my business can grow. So how would you suggest all that?

Tammy: That’s a beautiful, wonderful question because I’m a lot like you. Because, especially when I started my business, because like I said, it was in a lot of ways, it was a spur of the moment decision, but it also wasn’t, like you said, we’ve been talking about it, and as I said, I had people pushing me for years, but when I got fired it was like, literally right then, because if he hadn’t fired me, it might’ve been another two years.

It might’ve been another five years before I got fed up enough on my own to start. Do you always need to be thinking about how are you going to be in the revenue? And I’m a big fan of doing things as cheaply as possible, to begin with, because there’s a lot of people that go, yeah, I need you to invest in this and I need to… You too, don’t even know if you need to invest in something.

When you, when you’re working on a very, very little budget. You have to think a lot more creatively. And that actually helped me a lot because believe it or not, I’ve seen a few businesses that were destroyed because they started with too much money, because their answer to every problem or every challenge or every opportunity was throw money at it until they ran out of money.

Where when you start over okay, I have very little, you have to be stinking and being a lot more creative. And if you’re looking at different programs and stuff like that, I always try with the free one too, because there are ones that I’ve thought, okay, I ain’t going, no, this is not what I want. This is not going to be good.

And then there’s been some like, oh yeah, no, this is totally and completely worth it. Now that I’ve tried it and played with it now it’s worth playing, paying for it. But I always say, figure out where your strengths are because we always want to be working on our strengths. If you’re an extrovert and you like talking to people and the sales and stuff like that, if you’re putting all of your time and effort into, oh, how can I do more marketing and stuff?

And you’re neglecting, how do I set up my systems and what is going to be the flow on how this is going to be done and, and figuring out the financials. And who’s going to be on my advisory team and stuff like that. You’re just going to crash faster. If you’re more of a system. Said what I started out, the idea of marketing was the last thing I wanted to do.

I needed, I needed to be figuring out, okay. I can put together a fantastic personal financial plan, but if I can’t find the people that want the help, to begin with, there’s no point in anything else. So I needed to learn how to market more effectively and consistently that’s another really big one. So people will try

okay, I’ll try this marketing thing. Oh, well it didn’t bring me in 50 clients right away. So it obviously didn’t work. So then they’re trying the next day and then there’s no consistency and people think they’re flaky where if you pick, okay, these are the three different types of marketing that work really well for me.

And then I’m comfortable with it. And allows me, to highlight myself in a positive way where I don’t feel creepy. And you work on those things. Well, that’s a million times better than taking a shot. Okay. I’m going to do, I’m going to do a paid ad on Facebook. Oh no, that didn’t work. I’m going to do one paid ad on Instagram.

Nope. That didn’t work. Oh, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. And then they wonder why nothing happens. So this is why it’s important to know. Like I said, where are you strong? Where are you weak and where are you clueless? Because we will automatically work on the things we like and that we’re strong in, and we will avoid the stuff that we’re not.

So you need to be working on the stuff that you’re not, and I’m always a big fan, and this is why it’s so important to have really good, competent, qualified dividend advisors to help you to see through your own crap. Going okay, hold on. I want to be working on marketing. Well, that’s great. That’s not going to really be an issue.

How are you going to deliver this? How are you pricing your other one? How are you pricing yourself? Because that’s another one that a lot of people have no clue on they’re going. So I work with a lot of tradespeople. And they’re going, my boss bills me out at 200 bucks an hour, but I’m only getting paid 60.

If I start my own business and I bill out at a hundred bucks an hour, that’s all mine. And I’ll take all his business, Cause it’s, I’m so much cheaper and all this stuff. But they don’t realize what all the costs of the business are that were formerly being looked after by their employer. And it’s not that they don’t have their, they’re doing the job, and they’re bringing in lots of clients because oh yeah, a hundred bucks an hour, it’s way cheaper than the 200 bucks. But then they figured out. After a year or two, that they haven’t made a drop of profit because after they have to pay for their insurances and their licenses and, and the marketing costs and all of this other stuff out, um, it’s actually costing them a minimum on the cheap to run their business at one 20.

So they’re donating 20 bucks for every hour that they’re working.

Yasi: So in the end, it’s also a very interesting journey because if someone got a business coach, so this person would be able to identify his strengths and weakness, and as you said, people, tend to work on something they feel comfortable with right and ignore the weakness. And that you need to balance everything to make a successful business. And can you let us know how what’s the method or how you work with your clients when you help them with business coaching?

Tammy: Hmm. So how do I work with my clients. So I have a weekend, small business course.

It’s for 20 hours. It’s a Friday, Saturday, Sunday night in Canada, it’s all done online and we go over all the foundational pieces. So mindset, habits, goal, setting, marketing, advise your team, financial systems, cash flow, profit, everything. It’s the overview. It gets you so that you can have a good idea. Okay. Here’s I’m strong, here I am weak,

didn’t even know about that and we get them launched. And then what I do is I have a year-long group coaching program that we start right after like a week after the small business class, where we continue to every week build on their knowledge. But more importantly, you get the accountability and the support of the other people in the group, because the reason why I do it that way is I first started just doing the small business class.

And then the small business class is amazing. Like, yes, I know I’m saying that but I’ve been doing, I’ve been teaching it for over 18 years and I’ve seen the results that people get. I’ve actually had a couple of people after small business class going. Now that I know everything that’s involved, this is not for me and I’m going wonderful.

I am so glad you found this out now before you’ve wasted two to three years of your life and your life savings and all of this stuff to be an employee. Be happy. Now that I have a much better idea of what to do now I can do it, but the problem is I’ve taken tons of courses, I know people have taken tons of courses.

They’re gone for the weekend or a few days, and they’re going, oh my God, this was amazing. I love this. I cannot wait to get back. And I’m going to be doing this with my business and this or your family or whatever in the world it is. [00:42:00] And then what happens? You get home and, you need to be looking after the kids, the dogs barking, the cats threw up.

Um, my boss is calling me. I got it, my friend needs me for this. And you get sucked into the day to day life. And three days after you’ve been home, you, you forgot everything you learned in the class, and nothing changes. So I do the small business class to get people launched, and then we spend the year actually working.

On making the changes, getting stuff done. And I’ve had people go, I’ve been doing the group coaching for about six years now. And I have people that just every, they finished the year, they sign up for the next one because they liked the accountability. They liked the habits and. I’ve got a set time that I need to be on this call.

So they block it off, on their calendar. They’re looking forward to seeing the other people in the zoom meeting, because, well, why don’t you just do, an online course? Well, online courses are wonderful. I’ve taken them. I’m working on one right now, but the problem with the online is you don’t have anything external

working to get it done. Because it’s always there. I can come back to it. I started taking this amazing Instagram course, um, with cat Corey, and it’s an evergreen, so I have full, full-time, lifetime access. It’s an amazing course. And it’s supposed to be six weeks, six weeks.

That’s it. I started it two years ago. I’ve been through the four. And it’s not because there’s anything wrong with the course and I will be finishing it. It’s absolutely amazing, but I’ve gotten so busy and working on other things that I just haven’t and there’s nothing forcing me to. So that’s why I do it.

As I said, it’s live, it’s online. It’s interactive. So you are committed to being there for the time and it builds the habit so that you actually make the changes. If you’re going to be working on building your side hustle for there for six months, a year, or two years, while you’re transitioning out of your job, you need to be working on stuff on a weekly basis.

Yasi: Exactly. And it’s so funny because if you want to become an entrepreneur, right, and you, you keep yourself deadlines, right. If you don’t give yourself deadlines, then nothing can be done at the end of the day. As you said, maybe at the beginning, people need this accountability partner. They need to be part of this group.

Tammy:  I have been runningmy business for 20 years, I still need it.

’cause, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not so much about, the knowledge or, or things like that in a lot of cases. It is, but it’s, having that set time on the calendar that can’t be, I have to either show up or not show up where it’s in there and it gets done.

Yasi: Yeah.

It’s the habit. And, yeah, I agree. It was, it was very difficult because sometimes even for me, if I say, oh, I need to write five articles for my business, but I give myself deadlines, right? If I don’t write it this week, it’s still okay. I’m not going to be paralyzed or something. Cause it’s my own business.

But then I can delay for one week or second week, the third week. And at the end of the day, it’s not written. But if there’s someone that is watching me, it’s easier for me to get it down. Like you said, either you need it.

Tammy: And when we say watching, it’s not like, no, we’re coming down on you, but it’s, it’s positive.

So when I went through my group coaching program, so one of the, so we start the year, we set your top 10 goals for the year, not just business its life. So I’ve had people with family goals and relationship goals and health goals and stuff like that. And they send them to me, and then we spend the year working on them.

And then, I teach them to start putting together a [00:46:00] weekly planner and they send it to me. And it’s not because I’m going through, but if I see something that’s hitting, you’re hitting your planner every week and I’m not seeing a check mark beside it. Okay. Let’s have a little chat. What’s going on? Like, is it, uh, are you, are you procrastinating and avoiding it?

Are you biting off more than you can chew or are you putting it down because you think it should be there, but you’re not ready to do it yet? It’s the support. It’s the friendliness. It’s also I’ve had a lot of people like you said, they get, they get a lot from interacting with me, but because we do it in the group.

They get to know one another and somebody will come up with a challenge and nobody has to say anything if they don’t want to. I’ve got a lot of introverts like me, but people say, I’m having this challenge with this part of the subject that we’re going over. And then we’ll have the group discussion and we’ll share ideas and things like that.

So that you are learning, not just for me, but somebody who could be a potential client for you, even if they’re in a different part of the world. Well, they need plumbing stuff too. Over, they need plumbing stuff in Australia, they need plumbing stuff in India. They need plumbing stuff in Australia and Switzerland and Canada.

Those are potential clients. What are their things? What are they thinking about it so that you can get feedback that you don’t get from an online course?

Yasi: Yeah. Or just, or seeking there along with your home office and try to work on it. On your own. I like this idea a lot. Um, because in 2021, in my last episode, I talk about three lessons I’ve learned.

I think one of them I repeat this year as well is to find your tribe. If you find a group of people who are on the same mission, then you can be each other’s accountable, the partner helps each other. Right. Do you have any? Uh, like free resources or online links website that you can share with us, but people can, you know, get in touch with you, follow you.

Tammy: Yes. So you can always check out my website. So that’s ksabusiness.ca. And if you don’t know what KSA stands, where it’s kicked some ass, and one of the things that I offer to people to help them figure it out. I’d say where they’re strong, where they’re weak and where they don’t even know. I created a solo preneur self-assessment and it’s just a questionnaire that you can spend a couple of minutes going through.

And like you said, you figure out, oh, I’ve got that. I totally get that one. I understand. Oh, I’m definitely going to need some help here. And I didn’t even know. I needed to think about that so that you can figure out where do you need to start getting the help and the building. You can get that at ksabusiness.ca/gift.

And then if you wanted to book a free 15-minute introduction call with me, you can, I don’t do high-pressure sales. If you’re not going to like me, don’t worry about it. Even if all you do is the questionnaire you figure, oh, okay. I need to be learning this stuff. This is where I’m weak, or didn’t have a clue.

Then you can start asking for at least book recommendations or podcasts. I’ve been doing a lot of podcasts over the last few months and meeting incredible people. And what’s blowing my mind is the level of expertise and even focus that you can get. There’s some, I was talking with one lady and her podcast is all about customer service.

If you want to learn more about customer service, Oh, man, you need to be there because that is her whole subject. I’ve been on ones where it’s this business, like, what was it? Two or three days ago? I was on a podcast and her audience is photographers that are wanting to start their business. Or you could be there are people that are all about systems and there’s tons of different marketing.

You want to talk about a social media marketing or speaking or podcast. You can find the resources to help you where you’re weak and where you are interested. And start going.

Yasi: Amazing. As usual, I will leave all the links in the show notes. So for the audience, if you’re interested, check out the self-assessment go to the show notes, and,  follow Tammy, ksabusiness.ca.

So kick some ass. I love that name. Thank you so much for being here, Tammy.

Tammy: It was a pleasure. Have an awesome day.